Latest / True Crime and Wine Time / Anthony Christopher Speaks Out on His Experience with LaDonna Humphrey

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Anthony Christopher Speaks Out on His Experience with LaDonna Humphrey · True Crime and Wine Time

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Speaker 1: M h yeah, h.
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Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and I just realized it kind of it
1:07
Speaker 2: says your host, It is just me tonight. JT is
1:11
Speaker 2: not feeling well, so I told him I could man
1:15
Speaker 2: the court myself as long as Tara, our producer, jumped
1:20
Speaker 2: on to help with the behind the scenes. Because if
1:23
Speaker 2: you have followed us or been here before, you know
1:26
Speaker 2: Terry is not the technology person of this. I like
1:30
Speaker 2: to say I'm the cute one of the group, but
1:34
Speaker 2: I appreciate you all being here. We have a fun
1:40
Speaker 2: time ahead, and I know we normally pair our episodes
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Speaker 2: with some yummy wine, beer, or cocktails. I am doing
1:50
Speaker 2: sparkling water tonight because I overindulge this weekend and I'm
1:56
Speaker 2: going to stick to the water. So I'm being irresponsible
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Speaker 2: adult tonight. And I have to tell you guys before
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Speaker 2: I bring Anthony on that I'm going to tell you
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Speaker 2: you need the buckle up. This is going to be
2:12
Speaker 2: a wild ride and a wild interview. So we've been
2:19
Speaker 2: talking about this, letting y'all know that it was going
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Speaker 2: to happen. So I am excited to bring Anthony to
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Speaker 2: the stage. Hey Anthony, how are you?
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Speaker 3: Hey? I'm well, how are you?
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Speaker 2: I am good. I just heard the wind blow a
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Speaker 2: little bit and the rain. I'm hoping our weather doesn't
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Speaker 2: get as crazy as the weather you've had, or this
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Speaker 2: could be a really interesting live stream tonight.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's definitely setting the mood. Nothing like
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Speaker 3: a little bit of spookiness and heavy rain to talk
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Speaker 3: about some serious topics here, that's right.
2:57
Speaker 2: And JT and I had the pleasure of meeting you
3:00
Speaker 2: at the True Crime and Paranormal Festival in Denver this year,
3:04
Speaker 2: And I've said this, when I first heard the story,
3:08
Speaker 2: I was like, Yeah, I'm not so sure about this
3:10
Speaker 2: because this could not be true. Hurt a little bit more,
3:14
Speaker 2: you know, the next day, and then on that Saturday night,
3:17
Speaker 2: I decided to go dig down the rabbit hole and
3:20
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, hell, he is so truthful about
3:26
Speaker 2: this and this is bunny boiler crazy. So I want
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Speaker 2: to say thank you. I know that this cannot have
3:34
Speaker 2: been easy for you to go through in life. Just
3:37
Speaker 2: listening to it has given me heart palpitations.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it. It truly has been a traumatizing
3:45
Speaker 3: experience all the way around. And I'll tell you I
3:48
Speaker 3: feel thankful to be on this side of it. Well,
3:50
Speaker 3: there's still still a long way to go, you know.
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Speaker 3: I mean, it's definitely nicer to be further along in
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Speaker 3: this nightmare.
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Speaker 2: No, I mean I can only imagine in So, can
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Speaker 2: you tell us a little bit about yourself first? Then
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Speaker 2: you could tell us how you first encountered Landana Humphries.
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Speaker 3: Sure. So my name is Anthony Christopher. Obviously, I am
4:13
Speaker 3: from northwest Arkansas. So for many years I worked in
4:17
Speaker 3: the nonprofit world where I really served to help as
4:21
Speaker 3: an advocate for those in need. Primarily, for many years
4:25
Speaker 3: I worked in foster care. So I helped to start
4:28
Speaker 3: an organization that worked to reunite sibling groups that had
4:33
Speaker 3: been separated throughout the foster care system. We had helped
4:37
Speaker 3: so it had helped to develop this ten and a
4:40
Speaker 3: half acre plot of land where we built six beautiful,
4:45
Speaker 3: six bedroom homes that would house nine children each. And
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Speaker 3: the goal was to have this campus where we would
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Speaker 3: help to reunite children that had been separated through the
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Speaker 3: foster care system. It's where at least while they're navigating
5:00
Speaker 3: what their life is going to look like next, they
5:01
Speaker 3: would be able to do that with their siblings. So
5:04
Speaker 3: I did that for many years, and yeah, got my
5:08
Speaker 3: master's degree in clinical mental health counseling, and then decided
5:13
Speaker 3: afterward that the children in the system were oftentimes the
5:18
Speaker 3: ones that were the first to be forgotten about or
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Speaker 3: maybe the first to receive subparse services along the way,
5:25
Speaker 3: And so I said, you know, after knocking on doors
5:29
Speaker 3: and partnering with agencies along the way, I realized that
5:33
Speaker 3: the services that these children needed didn't exist. So that
5:37
Speaker 3: was really where absolute Pediatric Therapy was developed, which was
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Speaker 3: the first in my area, all encompassing, one stop shop
5:45
Speaker 3: therapeutic needs for children birth all the way through twenty one.
5:50
Speaker 3: So if you could think that therapy, we did it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, I knew you worked with foster children.
5:56
Speaker 2: I didn't know you had gone that far. Wanting to
6:01
Speaker 2: help children is what led me down. I became a
6:03
Speaker 2: costa advocate for a while, but I got out because
6:08
Speaker 2: of the county where I live. In the court system,
6:11
Speaker 2: I literally, you know, was there to do what was
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Speaker 2: in the best interress of the child. And I got
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Speaker 2: told Ralph, really, you don't have any say. So I
6:20
Speaker 2: love that you did that.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I really felt like I was doing
6:26
Speaker 3: really powerful work. I felt like we were able to
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Speaker 3: affect change, and ultimately I think that we were able
6:31
Speaker 3: to be with some of these families and these children
6:34
Speaker 3: and some of the hardest portions of their life. So
6:38
Speaker 3: you know, it was it was also unfortunately it was
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Speaker 3: through the clinic that I that I met le Donna
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Speaker 3: Humphrey and that's that's how she came about being a
6:46
Speaker 3: part of my life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so can you share with us an abbreviated version
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Speaker 2: of what and what happened with LaDonna to kick off
6:59
Speaker 2: there easiness that ensued.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you know, absolute pediatric therapy. We were so
7:07
Speaker 3: so blessed in such a short amount of time, the
7:09
Speaker 3: clinic really grew. We were able to add therapists and
7:13
Speaker 3: clinicians from from all over and all types of different specialties.
7:17
Speaker 3: So you know, like I said, if you if you
7:18
Speaker 3: could think the therapy, we provided it anywhere from speech therapy,
7:22
Speaker 3: occupational therapy, physical therapy, developmental We were we were also
7:29
Speaker 3: employing psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners under the guidance of
7:33
Speaker 3: psychiatrists that were doing med management autism testing in addition
7:39
Speaker 3: to the mental health services that they were receiving. So
7:43
Speaker 3: in that time, as the clinic was growing, we really
7:46
Speaker 3: excuse me. We really felt a need to immerse ourselves
7:51
Speaker 3: in the community, to be there, to offer our support,
7:54
Speaker 3: to let people know what we were doing. And it
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Speaker 3: was along that process that Lead Humpher walked in. So
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Speaker 3: La Donna came in very quickly began to immerse herself
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Speaker 3: in the clinics as just a mother bring in her
8:08
Speaker 3: children to receive therapeutic services. And so what I found
8:13
Speaker 3: is that in that time, I look back now and
8:17
Speaker 3: I and I feel like it was in that portion
8:20
Speaker 3: that LaDonna really started to groom me. And so in
8:25
Speaker 3: that time she would make statements like, you know, my
8:29
Speaker 3: boss really doesn't like me, or you know, people are
8:35
Speaker 3: coming on to me there and it's it's not accepted,
8:38
Speaker 3: and I feel like it's a matter of time before
8:40
Speaker 3: I lose my job and my career. And within a
8:44
Speaker 3: week she called me and she said, my nonprofit has
8:49
Speaker 3: let me go and I'm the executive director. And if
8:53
Speaker 3: the adoption care worker finds out that I've lost my career,
8:57
Speaker 3: being that she was in the fifth and final adoption
8:59
Speaker 3: of her fifth child from foster care, she said, they
9:03
Speaker 3: will halt the adoption in its tracks. Well, little did
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Speaker 3: I know, you know, LaDonna was really pulling on my
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Speaker 3: heartstrings and my passion for those in foster care, and
9:12
Speaker 3: I said, absolutely not. There's no way we're not going
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Speaker 3: to allow you to not be able to adopt this
9:17
Speaker 3: child because of losing your job, in my mind, to
9:21
Speaker 3: no fault of your own. And so that Friday, I
9:26
Speaker 3: was notified that she had lost her job. I told
9:29
Speaker 3: her that we would be bringing her on in that Monday,
9:31
Speaker 3: Ladna Humphrey started as my community outreach director and so
9:36
Speaker 3: she began to work with the clinic full time.
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Speaker 2: You so literally thought you were helping her in a
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Speaker 2: dark situation.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I didn't want this child, this child
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Speaker 3: that was just a toddler, to have to be put
9:52
Speaker 3: back into foster here because at the time I felt
9:54
Speaker 3: like what she was doing was great work, and I
9:56
Speaker 3: felt like I needed to support that. Who am I
9:59
Speaker 3: to be a community at advocate if I'm not in
10:01
Speaker 3: that moment advocating when she needed it the most. So
10:06
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, I mean, in that time, very quickly,
10:11
Speaker 3: things went from from very good to very odd and
10:14
Speaker 3: then to very bad very quickly. And so what happened
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Speaker 3: was Lodonna was only employed with me for just over
10:21
Speaker 3: ninety days, So all of these years of heartache and
10:26
Speaker 3: things that have happened are really from only like ninety
10:28
Speaker 3: four days of employment. So yeah, so things started happening
10:34
Speaker 3: very very quickly and oddly. So you know, when I
10:38
Speaker 3: look back now, so Lodonna would come into work and
10:41
Speaker 3: you know, and she'd kind of be out of breath
10:42
Speaker 3: and she'd be really frazzled, and the staff are just
10:45
Speaker 3: kind of getting ready for a busy day at the clinic,
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Speaker 3: and she's making statements like, look at this Manila envelope.
10:51
Speaker 3: This was on my windshield. It was my ex husband.
10:53
Speaker 3: He put one thousand dollars in cash on my windshield,
10:56
Speaker 3: so I don't take them to court, or you know,
10:59
Speaker 3: we'd be the copy machine and she'd combine. She'd say,
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Speaker 3: oh my gosh, you know, I was gassing up, and
11:06
Speaker 3: when I was gassing up, this man like reached in
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Speaker 3: my window and he grabbed this case of CDs and
11:12
Speaker 3: he started running down the street and I had to
11:14
Speaker 3: chase him for half a mile and tackle him to
11:16
Speaker 3: get my CDs back. And so it was just always
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Speaker 3: really odd, like things just didn't didn't really add up,
11:23
Speaker 3: and it was just it felt like there was always
11:25
Speaker 3: chaos in Lnana's life, and so I would say, looking back,
11:30
Speaker 3: you know that that was really the moment that I
11:32
Speaker 3: started realizing maybe that I didn't really understand what I
11:36
Speaker 3: had gotten myself into. And so, you know, being that
11:41
Speaker 3: Thedonna came on as my community outreach director, she was
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Speaker 3: included in all my director's meetings. So we were in
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Speaker 3: the process of creating new programs, and you know, we'd
11:51
Speaker 3: be in a meeting and we'd be talking about this
11:52
Speaker 3: whole brand new program and I'd say, Hey, this program.
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Speaker 3: You know, we've got to keep confidential until we finalize this,
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Speaker 3: until this is out here, and lo and behold. I'd
12:02
Speaker 3: go back to my office and there would be an
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Speaker 3: anonymous email in my email box from what would maybe
12:09
Speaker 3: be perceived as a competitor program in the community, saying
12:13
Speaker 3: things like, oh, I know about your new program. All
12:17
Speaker 3: to later realized it was Lodonna that was sending those emails.
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Speaker 2: Okay, that is some red flags, I.
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Speaker 3: Mean, yeah, yeah, And so you know, I feel like
12:30
Speaker 3: through that process also, things just started getting more strange.
12:34
Speaker 3: So she immediately has to be hospitalized. She's out for
12:38
Speaker 3: like a week or two. You know, she just started
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Speaker 3: and in that time she would have had any leaves.
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Speaker 3: So during that time, what do I do. I pay
12:46
Speaker 3: all of her her salary while she's gone to make
12:48
Speaker 3: sure that she can put food on the table for
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Speaker 3: her family.
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Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, that just made my heart well because when
12:57
Speaker 2: I owned my own business, I would have done the
13:00
Speaker 2: that thing thing because it's just I think the right
13:03
Speaker 2: thing to do.
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Speaker 3: So, yeah, we were a family. We're a family at
13:07
Speaker 3: the end of the day, you know. And I believed
13:10
Speaker 3: in leading that way as well. And I would hope
13:12
Speaker 3: that an employee would have done that for me, you know.
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Speaker 3: The So really I mean to kind of summarize what
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Speaker 3: really happened was again just over ninety days. It was
13:23
Speaker 3: September twenty eighteen. August September twenty eighteen, I'm notified that
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Speaker 3: Loadonna runs in a legal background check on one of
13:32
Speaker 3: our psychologists that worked for us, ironically enough to find
13:38
Speaker 3: out what his first name was because the man did
13:41
Speaker 3: not like his legal first name and would only use
13:44
Speaker 3: the acronym C period and then would go by his
13:46
Speaker 3: middle name Lo. Donna ran an the legal background check
13:51
Speaker 3: and began to circulate that background check throughout the clinic
13:55
Speaker 3: and somebody came into my office very concerned and said,
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Speaker 3: this concerns me. You need to see this. And it
14:04
Speaker 3: was almost a thirty page report on some of the
14:07
Speaker 3: scariest things about this individual, not that were scary because
14:11
Speaker 3: it was him, but because it was scary because it
14:13
Speaker 3: was personal. I'm talking then numbers of his children, you know,
14:18
Speaker 3: bank account members, I mean, things that are very personal.
14:23
Speaker 3: And so I quickly realized that I had a liability
14:25
Speaker 3: on my hands. We sent her home for two days,
14:30
Speaker 3: and then two days later HR came in, terminated our
14:34
Speaker 3: partnership with her, let her go, and that's when the
14:37
Speaker 3: nightmare started.
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Speaker 2: Well, my day job is HR, and I have to
14:44
Speaker 2: tell you, I mean, you absolutely did the right thing
14:47
Speaker 2: because the liability you were looking at for her doing
14:51
Speaker 2: that is I mean, it's huge, and a lot of
14:55
Speaker 2: people wouldn't never realize that. So good job, know for
15:00
Speaker 2: you doing that. So you said, that's where things kind
15:03
Speaker 2: of got crazy. What happened after y'all let her go?
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Speaker 3: So we let her go, and within truly a short
15:12
Speaker 3: as short few weeks, my life just starts to turn
15:15
Speaker 3: upside down. So doctors' offices are no longer signing or
15:20
Speaker 3: sending over referrals for evaluations or treatment. We're finding that
15:25
Speaker 3: preschools and daycares that we were actively working within, we're
15:30
Speaker 3: no longer letting our clinicians go inside of the preschool
15:33
Speaker 3: or daycare schools are not honoring partnerships. And so I
15:39
Speaker 3: knew something was happening, but I didn't really know the
15:41
Speaker 3: extent at the time. And so a few weeks later
15:45
Speaker 3: that September, I end up going to a conference in
15:48
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, and a colleague of mine pulled me aside
15:51
Speaker 3: and he said, Anthony, I really don't want to be
15:55
Speaker 3: the one to show this to you, but I think
15:57
Speaker 3: you need to know what's happening. And there were all
16:01
Speaker 3: of these emails that came forward, and it was this
16:04
Speaker 3: person that was expressing all of these concerns about my clinic,
16:10
Speaker 3: anything from we did not pay our employees to the
16:15
Speaker 3: fact that because I am a gay male that there
16:18
Speaker 3: are concerns that maybe I'm a pedophile, to you name it,
16:24
Speaker 3: I mean, she did it, and so I knew very
16:27
Speaker 3: quickly that she was behind that. I started to put
16:30
Speaker 3: everything together in the timeline of my ninety something days
16:34
Speaker 3: with her and realized, you know, none of these strange emails.
16:37
Speaker 3: None of these strange alerts, none of these crazy stories
16:41
Speaker 3: were ever happening before LaDonna Humphrey was in my life.
16:44
Speaker 3: And this seems very LaDonna Humphrey. So I immediately contacted
16:50
Speaker 3: an attorney. Well after I went to Bettonville Police. I
16:53
Speaker 3: went and I reported this, passed over, this, this almost
16:57
Speaker 3: thirty page background check in ther estmate kept coming, so
17:01
Speaker 3: that the emails went from harassing my referral partners and
17:05
Speaker 3: my partnerships to now messaging my loved ones and my
17:10
Speaker 3: family members from fake spoof phone numbers and emails, and
17:14
Speaker 3: so really kind of the tipping point was when I
17:18
Speaker 3: was at I was at a show one night, a musical,
17:21
Speaker 3: and my mother starts calling me back to back to back,
17:25
Speaker 3: and she knew I was in this show, right, so
17:27
Speaker 3: I'm thinking something's going on and she she called me
17:34
Speaker 3: again and I said, what what's going on? And she's
17:37
Speaker 3: just crying. Sorry. She she says, are you okay? And
17:44
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, what are you talking about? You know?
17:46
Speaker 3: And she said, well, I got this this message and
17:51
Speaker 3: I'm really I'm really scared for your safety, and you know,
17:55
Speaker 3: and what I can remember is that the message was
17:57
Speaker 3: so large that it had lapsed the message into the
18:01
Speaker 3: note section on your iPhone when you would click it,
18:06
Speaker 3: and in this message it again, we're just heinous, nasty
18:10
Speaker 3: things to scare my mother, and then went on to
18:13
Speaker 3: say that like thirty something people had all just met
18:16
Speaker 3: and and those people were going to take down, take
18:21
Speaker 3: me down, and ruin me. I mean, so alarming that
18:25
Speaker 3: my mother felt the need to call me out of
18:27
Speaker 3: fear for my safety.
18:30
Speaker 2: As a mother, I would have done the same.
18:33
Speaker 3: I mean, you know it, when I look back now,
18:43
Speaker 3: it was hurtful to watch my mom hurt because of
18:46
Speaker 3: what was happening. So anyway, so I finally said, you know,
18:51
Speaker 3: enough's enough. I went back to the police. The police
18:55
Speaker 3: came in, interviewed her. There was a whole you'll hear
18:59
Speaker 3: that throughout the party and podcasts, some of those recordings
19:02
Speaker 3: where LaDonna admits to being behind these text messages. She
19:08
Speaker 3: later goes on, you can hear in these audio calls
19:11
Speaker 3: the officer ask her no less than five, six, seven,
19:14
Speaker 3: eight times if she's behind this, and she continues just
19:17
Speaker 3: to redirect and take the attention off of her. Ultimately,
19:22
Speaker 3: I knew that it was not going to stop, and
19:26
Speaker 3: I knew I needed to explore what was going to
19:28
Speaker 3: happen legally, and so I met with an attorney. The
19:32
Speaker 3: attorney came to me and said, you know, look, you know,
19:39
Speaker 3: if you're doing this for money, you're never going to
19:42
Speaker 3: see a dime. If you're doing this to put a
19:44
Speaker 3: stop to this woman, then you're doing the right thing.
19:48
Speaker 3: And he said, it's going to be expensive because this
19:50
Speaker 3: seems like a woman who is going to run up
19:52
Speaker 3: your legal bills. And so we served her with a
19:56
Speaker 3: cease and assist at the beginning of October. That off,
20:01
Speaker 3: I continue to work with Bettonville PD, and actually Bettonville
20:05
Speaker 3: PD had decided that they were going to submit the
20:07
Speaker 3: case for harassment to the prosecutor's office. Unfortunately, my wrong
20:15
Speaker 3: step was that I filed the civil lawsuit before the
20:19
Speaker 3: prosecutor decided to charge her, and as a result, the
20:24
Speaker 3: Benton County I'm sorry, the Bentonville Police Department abandoned the
20:28
Speaker 3: case and decided to allow the civil court to handle it.
20:35
Speaker 2: So it because that got filed first, it best up
20:41
Speaker 2: the other side. Okay, yeah, got triggered catch.
20:45
Speaker 3: That, yeah, so it triggered the halt to the criminal side.
20:49
Speaker 3: I think they looked at it and thought, you know what,
20:50
Speaker 3: this is a misdemeanor. They didn't want to. They didn't
20:53
Speaker 3: want to. Often, sadly, sometimes when things are not to
20:55
Speaker 3: the felony level, investigators and officers don't want to do
20:58
Speaker 3: the paperwork. Yeah, and so, I mean, it even got
21:03
Speaker 3: to a point where you can hear in the calls
21:05
Speaker 3: that the officer was clearly ready to close the case.
21:08
Speaker 3: And at one point I kept calling and emailing this
21:11
Speaker 3: officer to say, look, I need to know if she's
21:14
Speaker 3: behind these emails. She's admitted to being behind the phone call,
21:17
Speaker 3: and at one point on the recording you hear the
21:19
Speaker 3: officer tell the donna on the phone. He first says
21:25
Speaker 3: Anthony Christopher keeps calling me. He's asking me, I need
21:28
Speaker 3: you to tell me are you behind these emails? And
21:31
Speaker 3: then before she can answer, he says, it's probably best
21:34
Speaker 3: if you tell me you don't recall, and she says,
21:39
Speaker 3: I don't recall in the case was closed.
21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, he helped her out there, in my opinion, but
21:48
Speaker 2: I'll be nice not say thing, because the thing I
21:51
Speaker 2: had the problem with is you don't go have people's family.
21:55
Speaker 2: You just don't. And that is something that is why
21:59
Speaker 2: I all no harm calling her a bunny boiler, because
22:02
Speaker 2: you do not go after family. Even with things that
22:06
Speaker 2: you know we do here at the podcast and the
22:08
Speaker 2: special investigation, you still don't go after family.
22:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I mean she definitely took no or
22:15
Speaker 3: left no prisoners. You know, she took everybody. And so
22:19
Speaker 3: you know that that really kind of started the next
22:22
Speaker 3: the next segment of what was going to be the
22:25
Speaker 3: next year of my life ensuing her. And so that year,
22:28
Speaker 3: you know, October I'm sorry, November of that year, I
22:31
Speaker 3: was granted an emergency preservation and restraining order. By utilizing
22:36
Speaker 3: the calls with the police, the judge realized that this
22:39
Speaker 3: woman was capable of these things granted me that order,
22:43
Speaker 3: and then a month later we moved for expert out
22:48
Speaker 3: of discovery, and we asked that the court allow us
22:50
Speaker 3: to have third party access to her cell phone in
22:53
Speaker 3: order to mirror image the device and to get these
22:57
Speaker 3: other spoof messages that were contained on there. That ended
23:01
Speaker 3: up being another whole ordeal in.
23:03
Speaker 2: Itself, that story about the whole cell phone from her.
23:08
Speaker 2: I mean I was just sitting there going the lie, lie, lie,
23:11
Speaker 2: I mean she just now, look, did you have any
23:16
Speaker 2: reservations about taking her to court or did you feel
23:21
Speaker 2: you had no choice? She wasn't going to go away.
23:24
Speaker 3: You know, when I really looked at it and I
23:26
Speaker 3: spoke with my family and I spoke with legal I
23:29
Speaker 3: realized that things had escalated to a point that there
23:32
Speaker 3: was something not right mentally with this woman, and that
23:36
Speaker 3: I needed to have the support of a judge. I
23:41
Speaker 3: needed to have the support of a legal case to
23:43
Speaker 3: prove that what this woman was doing is very harmful
23:46
Speaker 3: and dangerous. And so I knew at that moment my
23:49
Speaker 3: only option was to pursue civil action in that yarn court.
23:56
Speaker 2: Now, did things get worse after you moved forward in
24:01
Speaker 2: that civil court or did she settle down any for
24:04
Speaker 2: those Because I know not everybody's listened to the pretend podcast,
24:07
Speaker 2: so I'll ask.
24:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it absolutely got worse. And I'll tell you in
24:15
Speaker 3: that time, Leadonna did everything that she could to cause
24:21
Speaker 3: chaos in my life. So every regulatory body she could
24:26
Speaker 3: call to make a complaint to, she would. I'm talking
24:28
Speaker 3: anywhere from IRS, the Labor Board, Arkansas Attorney General, Medicaid,
24:36
Speaker 3: head start programs, anywhere she could think to try to
24:40
Speaker 3: cause issues in my life. She was doing, and so
24:43
Speaker 3: you know, throughout the process she spent the majority of
24:47
Speaker 3: her efforts trying to set me up for crimes that
24:50
Speaker 3: had never been committed, in an attempt to somehow justify
24:54
Speaker 3: her rebuttal her rebuttal encounter lawsuit in this was that
24:59
Speaker 3: she was a whistleblow and that all of these things
25:01
Speaker 3: were happening was because she had identified fraud within the company,
25:05
Speaker 3: which could not have been further from the truth. And
25:07
Speaker 3: so you know, I mean with the cell phone, and
25:10
Speaker 3: you know, not to to rehash for those that have
25:14
Speaker 3: listened or are planning to listen, but you know that
25:18
Speaker 3: in that time, I mean, she went and refused to
25:21
Speaker 3: turn over herself one at the eleventh hour. Instead, she
25:25
Speaker 3: her and her husband devised a plan, and they picked
25:27
Speaker 3: up the phone and they called nine to one one.
25:30
Speaker 3: They stated to nine to one one that her car
25:32
Speaker 3: had been broken into, and inside of her vehicle was
25:35
Speaker 3: her purse, and inside of the purse was her cell
25:37
Speaker 3: phone and that conveniently, my suv is seen leaving the
25:41
Speaker 3: scene of the crime. And so guess where I was
25:44
Speaker 3: two weeks later being interrogated by Benton County Sheriff's office.
25:50
Speaker 3: And so you know, Ultimately that decision was really her
25:54
Speaker 3: undoing in my civil case, because once we were able
25:58
Speaker 3: to get electronic discovery, we hired the best e discovery
26:02
Speaker 3: team that money could buy. We brought in the team
26:05
Speaker 3: that worked with Brendan Dacy and the making of the
26:07
Speaker 3: murderer case that had that had him exonerated the first time.
26:11
Speaker 3: So you know, I was flying these people in from
26:14
Speaker 3: Boston and Chicago to work on this case. And it
26:17
Speaker 3: was ultimately we were able to find in her AT
26:21
Speaker 3: and T phone records that the phone shocker had never
26:25
Speaker 3: been stolen, and her fate, her faithful move was that
26:30
Speaker 3: after the phone was stolen, she took the SIM card
26:33
Speaker 3: out of the cell phone and put it into her
26:36
Speaker 3: brand new phone registering the stolen cell phone.
26:39
Speaker 2: Or the stolen sim card, which you can't do with
26:43
Speaker 2: the SIM card. Is stolen? People what to say?
26:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so you know, as Javier said that, the
26:52
Speaker 3: only irrational thought would be that whoever this this phone
26:57
Speaker 3: thief was, they were so kind and so nice to
27:01
Speaker 3: steal everything, but to leave Leadana her SIM card inside
27:04
Speaker 3: of the.
27:04
Speaker 2: Vehicle, which is very thoughtful of them, right, very thoughtful
27:08
Speaker 2: of them.
27:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, ultimately you know there were other
27:13
Speaker 3: things through the case, I mean, deleting her apple iCloud
27:16
Speaker 3: account saying not that could be backed up, going even
27:21
Speaker 3: on the stand to say that mysteriously all of her
27:24
Speaker 3: accounts had been hacked, and I was this mysterious hacker
27:27
Speaker 3: behind all of these things, even after the court had
27:30
Speaker 3: granted us access. Just absolutely ridiculous things. And I think
27:35
Speaker 3: at the end the way it played out, the judge
27:36
Speaker 3: realized very quickly that she was harmful and that she
27:40
Speaker 3: had been behind these things that destroyed my life and
27:42
Speaker 3: my reputation. And really, I mean, what we later find
27:47
Speaker 3: what would cause me another four years of heartache.
27:52
Speaker 2: And that's what I was going to ask about. What
27:54
Speaker 2: is this battle this? I mean, I want to call
27:57
Speaker 2: it a legal battle, but it's more to me it's
28:00
Speaker 2: an attack by somebody. I mean it's a legal battle
28:03
Speaker 2: because they've attacked you. How was that impacted your daily
28:08
Speaker 2: life from that point because it's still going on now,
28:13
Speaker 2: you know.
28:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean one hundred percent. You know, the thing
28:16
Speaker 3: that I've realized with Lodonna is that Lodonna will never stop.
28:22
Speaker 3: You know, we've got we've been able to date her
28:24
Speaker 3: first public victim back thirty one years oh, and those
28:31
Speaker 3: individuals that were victimized thirty one years ago are still
28:35
Speaker 3: actively being victimized by her today in twenty twenty four.
28:40
Speaker 2: Where does she have the time to do all of that?
28:43
Speaker 2: I mean, is she taking care of those five kids?
28:46
Speaker 2: I mean that is my first thought. I mean I
28:48
Speaker 2: only had two kids, and it takes a lot of
28:52
Speaker 2: work to do this stuff. Where in the heck does
28:56
Speaker 2: she have the time?
28:58
Speaker 3: You know, I wish I could answer that question, because
29:01
Speaker 3: you know, the thing is if she was using this
29:02
Speaker 3: time to be a great mother, or a better humanitarian,
29:06
Speaker 3: or a philanthropist, or whoever she wanted to be in life,
29:09
Speaker 3: she would be highly successful.
29:11
Speaker 2: She would I don't get now, has there been any
29:16
Speaker 2: significant sacrifices that you've had to make personally or professionally
29:22
Speaker 2: because of her in this attack on you?
29:24
Speaker 3: You know, when I won the lawsuit, I thought to myself,
29:30
Speaker 3: you know I was awarded the case. In September twenty nineteen,
29:36
Speaker 3: the judge awarded me the case. The judge issued what
29:40
Speaker 3: my attorneys have called one of the most damning legal
29:42
Speaker 3: judgments they had ever seen in their career, sentenced her
29:48
Speaker 3: to ten days in jail for violation of the restraining
29:50
Speaker 3: and preservation order and contempt of court. She received two
29:53
Speaker 3: days for each contempt an issue or destruction or whatever
30:00
Speaker 3: they were defining each issue as so she basically received
30:03
Speaker 3: five counts of violations. Who was sentenced to ten days
30:06
Speaker 3: in jail and then I was awarded three point five
30:10
Speaker 3: seven million dollars and a permanent restraining order against Leadonna.
30:14
Speaker 3: I can tell you one of the most common questions
30:17
Speaker 3: is how much have I received? And the answer is
30:19
Speaker 3: not one penny.
30:21
Speaker 2: I sixty.
30:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. And so you know, during that time, I thought
30:25
Speaker 3: to myself, you know, I've won this case. Let's let's
30:29
Speaker 3: call it what it is. What what white male is
30:33
Speaker 3: awarded a permanent restraining order and a multi million dollar
30:36
Speaker 3: judgment against a white woman. I mean, let's just call
30:40
Speaker 3: it what it is.
30:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't happen.
30:44
Speaker 3: And so, you know, I thought to myself in that time,
30:46
Speaker 3: this is going to be my time to now rebuild
30:49
Speaker 3: these relationships, to show these people in the community or
30:53
Speaker 3: maybe these doctor's offices, that I wasn't this person that
30:57
Speaker 3: she tried to make me out to be. And you know,
31:01
Speaker 3: really it's when my nightmare really started. And so six
31:05
Speaker 3: months go by Things are great. You know, the clinic
31:09
Speaker 3: is doing well. We're bouncing back. The truth is out there.
31:14
Speaker 3: And my phone rings March twenty twenty, March fifth, my
31:19
Speaker 3: attorney calls me and he said, what are you doing?
31:22
Speaker 3: And I said, I'm at the office, and he said,
31:25
Speaker 3: I need you to get into your vehicle. I need
31:28
Speaker 3: you to come to my office, and I need you
31:29
Speaker 3: to obey every traffic signal along the way because if
31:32
Speaker 3: you get pulled over, you're going to jail. There's four
31:34
Speaker 3: felony warrants out for your arrest right now. And I
31:40
Speaker 3: just remember thinking that day, I was like, what has happened?
31:44
Speaker 3: And so I went to my attorney's office and I
31:50
Speaker 3: found out that the Arkansas Attorney General's office had filed
31:53
Speaker 3: four felony accounts against me for medicaid fraud in the
31:57
Speaker 3: amount of around twelve or thirteen thousand dollars. The crazy
32:02
Speaker 3: thing is is that I was never investigated. These claims
32:07
Speaker 3: were never looked into, that my billers were never met with,
32:10
Speaker 3: my therapist, were never interviewed. What we later find out
32:14
Speaker 3: through this process is not only were these statements completely
32:21
Speaker 3: false and could easily be proved had they just asked
32:24
Speaker 3: the questions when provided any bit of information that they needed.
32:29
Speaker 3: But in addition to that, you know that the Arkansas
32:33
Speaker 3: Attorney General's Office, they don't ask those questions when they
32:36
Speaker 3: charge you. What people don't realize is like that your
32:40
Speaker 3: Medicaid billing number is shut off my ability. That was
32:44
Speaker 3: a dagger to the heart for the clinic. You know,
32:48
Speaker 3: I sat there having two days later to look at
32:51
Speaker 3: my staff and tell them that no, these things were
32:54
Speaker 3: not true, that I don't know what's going to happen
32:57
Speaker 3: to the clinic. I don't know if they're going to
33:00
Speaker 3: be able to stay on. I don't know we were
33:02
Speaker 3: to be able to afford them. And guess what that Friday,
33:05
Speaker 3: my check was never deposited from Medicaid. So not only
33:09
Speaker 3: was my number shut off, we were owed tens of
33:13
Speaker 3: thousands of dollars. Between thirty and forty thousand dollars was
33:16
Speaker 3: not deposited.
33:18
Speaker 2: Shut it all down, Shut it down, you.
33:21
Speaker 3: Know, fifteen hundred therapy hours a week that were being
33:25
Speaker 3: given to the community gone gone. And ultimately what happened
33:30
Speaker 3: was it showed, you know, three and a half years later,
33:35
Speaker 3: October Friday, October thirteenth, twenty twenty three, I received notification
33:42
Speaker 3: that the Arkansas Attorney General had abandoned their case and
33:45
Speaker 3: had dropped all.
33:46
Speaker 2: Charges after putting you through hell for three years. Yeah yeah,
33:56
Speaker 2: did they ever share with you who made that claim
34:00
Speaker 2: or hold the attorney general Loddonna hum for you?
34:05
Speaker 3: And you know, we even the corruption goes as far
34:08
Speaker 3: as I mean, when we pointed out things in the case.
34:12
Speaker 3: They even at one point ended up responding right before
34:15
Speaker 3: they abandoned the case, said in one of their last
34:18
Speaker 3: briefs that they recognized that Lodonna was not a credible
34:22
Speaker 3: source and had zero intention of moving forward to try
34:26
Speaker 3: to use her as a witness. And three days later
34:28
Speaker 3: they abandoned the case. You know, we were able to
34:32
Speaker 3: prove through this process through discovery. You know, when you
34:35
Speaker 3: have discovery, especially in a criminal case, everything.
34:39
Speaker 2: Has to be kepped, everything, everything.
34:42
Speaker 3: And so one of the things that I was provided
34:44
Speaker 3: was this investigation log. And in this log, the Arkansas
34:48
Speaker 3: Attorney General investigator would bullet by date things that were
34:53
Speaker 3: happening in the case. So it might be on this
34:55
Speaker 3: date Terry called me to ask about whatever, you know,
35:00
Speaker 3: So so that would log everything that happened. Well, what it
35:04
Speaker 3: also logged in there was the conversations that LaDonna was having.
35:08
Speaker 3: La Donna was emailing them, calling them relentlessly daily, several
35:14
Speaker 3: times a day, doing everything she could to try to
35:17
Speaker 3: get me charged. And so the wild part of it
35:21
Speaker 3: is what really also hindered the case was that in
35:24
Speaker 3: that log they document that LaDonna calls in her attorney
35:30
Speaker 3: that they were afraid that through my civil case, I
35:34
Speaker 3: was going to get my hands on their internal correspondence
35:38
Speaker 3: with LaDonna, and as a result, an assistant Attorney General
35:43
Speaker 3: working for the ag office deleted every bit of email
35:49
Speaker 3: correspondence with La Donna.
35:51
Speaker 2: Humphrey, I have to tell you I am speechless at that.
35:58
Speaker 2: I mean, that is you would think is unheard of
36:02
Speaker 2: and that there would be systems in place to make
36:04
Speaker 2: sure it doesn't ever happen.
36:06
Speaker 3: You know. The scary thing is this, This assistant Attorney
36:09
Speaker 3: general is now a seated judge in a rural county
36:12
Speaker 3: in South Arkansas. I mean, this is the woman deciding
36:18
Speaker 3: people's fate. It's wild, but it also is it's also
36:21
Speaker 3: a testament of how, you know, LaDonna is able to
36:24
Speaker 3: manipulate these situations and people in order to further her
36:28
Speaker 3: agenda or further victimization on the people that she is ruining,
36:33
Speaker 3: because at some point they have caught on to the
36:36
Speaker 3: things that she is doing, you know, And that's truly
36:39
Speaker 3: been one of the most remarkable things through this process.
36:43
Speaker 3: You know, when I when I sued her, I knew
36:45
Speaker 3: that she was good at the game, and I couldn't
36:48
Speaker 3: have been the only one, right, But I'll tell you
36:52
Speaker 3: I didn't ever think I'd be sitting here today saying
36:56
Speaker 3: that I represent one of over forty three survivors of
37:00
Speaker 3: this woman.
37:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is shocking because that tells you there's
37:05
Speaker 2: even more out there who don't want to come forward. Now.
37:11
Speaker 2: I know she sent a text to your mom with
37:13
Speaker 2: some threats. Has there been additional threats to you?
37:19
Speaker 3: You know? Yes? So you know, after the lawsuit was
37:24
Speaker 3: won and I was awarded the case, Madonna kind of
37:28
Speaker 3: went into hiding for about six months. Clearly we now
37:31
Speaker 3: know she was framing me for crimes. But in that
37:35
Speaker 3: time she behaved for the most part on the spoofing
37:40
Speaker 3: and the harassment. But after I was charged, there was
37:45
Speaker 3: a series of twenty two articles that and it's now
37:50
Speaker 3: nearing thirty. She was utilizing a tabloid blog, Ragpost I
37:56
Speaker 3: can't even call it a publication where she uses this
38:00
Speaker 3: source to further victimize her victims that have now started
38:04
Speaker 3: to come forward and speak out. So she goes through,
38:06
Speaker 3: you know, several several articles about me in an attempt
38:13
Speaker 3: to embarrass me, humiliate me, attacked my sexuality, found out
38:17
Speaker 3: that I had moved and became affiliated with with my
38:22
Speaker 3: bar Eureka Live. She started to then include my business
38:25
Speaker 3: in an attempt to affect my reputation in the small
38:28
Speaker 3: town I was living in and effectively ruined my reputation
38:32
Speaker 3: in a brand new town that I moved to to
38:34
Speaker 3: get away from her. During all of this, and I
38:38
Speaker 3: spent three years, three years in my community of people
38:41
Speaker 3: looking at me as if I was going to prison
38:44
Speaker 3: because they were believing her heinous articles about me.
38:50
Speaker 2: How did you not just greater and crush from all
38:55
Speaker 2: of that? Yeh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, but
39:07
Speaker 2: I the strength that you're still here and she hasn't
39:13
Speaker 2: won is just all amazing to me.
39:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, uh, I remember there was a moment
39:26
Speaker 3: that I was I was a lady in bed, and
39:28
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, you know, maybe, uh maybe things
39:36
Speaker 3: would be better if I was just not here anymore.
39:41
Speaker 3: And it was the first time in my life that
39:43
Speaker 3: I had ever thought about ending my life. And I
39:49
Speaker 3: remember my my best friend Nae, who has also been
39:53
Speaker 3: victimized by by LaDonna h came in and she's like,
40:00
Speaker 3: it up, get out of bed. You haven't been out
40:02
Speaker 3: of bed in three days. Let's get you some food,
40:05
Speaker 3: like you need to shower. You know you can do this. Wow.
40:14
Speaker 2: So very glad you have those friends and those people
40:17
Speaker 2: around you.
40:18
Speaker 3: Thank you. So it was in that moment that I
40:22
Speaker 3: knew that someday, somehow my story was going to be
40:29
Speaker 3: a story of hope for people that had either been
40:33
Speaker 3: victimized or people that maybe were going through similar situations
40:37
Speaker 3: with a different individual. So I was praying, it.
40:43
Speaker 2: Is sad to think this. I mean, you've already found
40:46
Speaker 2: so many that have already been victimized by her, but
40:50
Speaker 2: there's other people out there like her. In fact, I
40:54
Speaker 2: said today on our midday messing series that I think
40:59
Speaker 2: it's day Line did a show about what about pam
41:02
Speaker 2: or something about Pamela Hub. I said, somebody needs to
41:07
Speaker 2: do a story on La Donna Humphreys and all of
41:10
Speaker 2: this stuff, because same as Pamela Hub she was able
41:15
Speaker 2: to bamboozle people. I don't know how this woman did it.
41:19
Speaker 2: But the same thing with Lodonna. She she, I mean
41:25
Speaker 2: she's good at manipulating and doing this stuff.
41:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's funny. I just just recently, in
41:33
Speaker 3: the last few months, it was another one of the
41:34
Speaker 3: survivors that said, oh my gosh, you know, Anthony, you
41:37
Speaker 3: have to look up pam Hup and I watched there's
41:40
Speaker 3: I guess a little limited series about it, and yeah,
41:43
Speaker 3: it's right on par with Ladnna Humphrey. Yeah.
41:46
Speaker 2: I mean, the minute I'm listening to Javier's saying, all
41:50
Speaker 2: I get to hear in my head was Pamela Hub
41:51
Speaker 2: Pamela Hub because Loadonna in her. They might be relative somewhere,
41:56
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know, but because they are
41:58
Speaker 2: a lot alike. So I know, you know, you consider
42:03
Speaker 2: give it up. You didn't do you think you are
42:08
Speaker 2: much better today than you were just three years ago.
42:14
Speaker 3: You know, I can tell you I'm a different person
42:19
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways going through the trauma that
42:26
Speaker 3: my last several years were very difficult, not only for myself,
42:32
Speaker 3: but for my family, for my loved ones, for my employees.
42:37
Speaker 3: That would have to hear about it, you know, And
42:41
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, I mean, I I feel like through
42:45
Speaker 3: this process, I am stronger. I can tell you that
42:50
Speaker 3: I am a lot more discerning of the people that
42:53
Speaker 3: I allow into my life. And you know, and I
42:57
Speaker 3: can tell you that if I wasn't an advocate it before,
43:01
Speaker 3: I sure as heck am Now.
43:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think she realized that she kind of
43:06
Speaker 2: set up what I would call a superhero advocate, because
43:10
Speaker 2: I think you earned kind of some superhero skills and
43:14
Speaker 2: power through everything you have gone through. Now, I wanted
43:19
Speaker 2: to talk to you about the Pretend podcast because I
43:21
Speaker 2: want to know how did you first meet Havier and
43:25
Speaker 2: how did that amazing series come about.
43:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, so really it's been a whirlwind. I'll tell you.
43:33
Speaker 3: Pretend has been an amazing, amazing experience. Difficult but amazing,
43:41
Speaker 3: and so, like I said earlier, I was cleared of
43:44
Speaker 3: all charges in October of twenty twenty three, and in
43:49
Speaker 3: February I'm sorry. January of twenty twenty four, I began
43:54
Speaker 3: speaking with a journalist with Arkansas Business, which is one
43:59
Speaker 3: of the leading business journals in Arkansas. And so we
44:03
Speaker 3: began to speak and they said, look, we want to
44:05
Speaker 3: do a story. We want to feature what's happened on
44:09
Speaker 3: your case, and we feel like, you know, you deserve
44:11
Speaker 3: a little bit, a little bit of justice and people
44:15
Speaker 3: hopefully being given the opportunity to hear what actually happened.
44:17
Speaker 3: And so I was so fortunate. In March of twenty
44:21
Speaker 3: twenty four, Arkansas Business released a four page spread on
44:24
Speaker 3: my story, and almost immediately, another handful of survivors come
44:31
Speaker 3: forward that didn't realize that there were other people that
44:34
Speaker 3: had been victimized by her, that had been living in hiding. Right,
44:38
Speaker 3: So these people start coming forward and they're saying, I've
44:41
Speaker 3: been victimized as well, and oh my gosh, I didn't
44:43
Speaker 3: know that there were other people and this woman took
44:45
Speaker 3: this in my life and or did this and so anyway,
44:49
Speaker 3: one of those individuals that had been victimized is also
44:54
Speaker 3: a fellow podcaster in the true crime space, and so
44:59
Speaker 3: you know, she's said to me, She's like, look, you know,
45:02
Speaker 3: I would be happy to feature this, but my podcast
45:06
Speaker 3: is not really set up for a story like yours.
45:10
Speaker 3: She said, you know, but I'm sure there's somebody out there.
45:14
Speaker 3: And within probably twenty four hours, I get a message
45:18
Speaker 3: from that individual, and she says, Oh my gosh, it
45:21
Speaker 3: just came to me. But you know, you have got
45:23
Speaker 3: to look up this man, Javier Leva. He's got this
45:25
Speaker 3: podcast called The Pretend Podcast, and all he does is
45:29
Speaker 3: expose these people that pretend to be somebody they're not
45:34
Speaker 3: so sure enough. I reached out to Javier, shot him
45:38
Speaker 3: a message and sent him the article and he said,
45:42
Speaker 3: you know, I He's like, look, I'm happy to look
45:45
Speaker 3: into this. He said, you know, but it may be
45:47
Speaker 3: a couple of months. I've got a lot of things
45:48
Speaker 3: I'm working on. And within a short couple of days,
45:52
Speaker 3: Javiers you know, set up a phone call and he's like,
45:54
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, this is so unbelievable. I need to
45:57
Speaker 3: take this on immediately. So he did. So. We started
46:02
Speaker 3: in March of this year recording connecting Javier with other
46:08
Speaker 3: survivors of Ladana Humphrey, and we chose to really band together,
46:12
Speaker 3: not as victims, but as survivors to tell the story
46:16
Speaker 3: and hopefully hopefully warn somebody else that may be grooming
46:22
Speaker 3: or in the process of being groomed to be her
46:25
Speaker 3: next victim.
46:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to know what I mean. It was
46:30
Speaker 2: already so public there in Arkansas. But what were your
46:33
Speaker 2: thoughts about sharing your story with the general public. I mean,
46:39
Speaker 2: this is left Arkansas, has gone all across you know,
46:43
Speaker 2: what were your initial thoughts on that?
46:46
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I was. I was so scared. You know,
46:49
Speaker 3: you never know when when you put your story out there,
46:52
Speaker 3: or really, I mean you put yourself out there, you know,
46:55
Speaker 3: nonetheless your story, it's scary because you know, you really
47:00
Speaker 3: leave that story into the court of the public opinion,
47:04
Speaker 3: which sometimes you know, are some of the harshest critics
47:06
Speaker 3: of all. And so, you know, I knew I felt
47:10
Speaker 3: confident that Javier was the right journalist to pick this
47:15
Speaker 3: up because he handled himself with such high integrity. I
47:18
Speaker 3: had begun listening to some of his other stuff, and
47:21
Speaker 3: you know, you could tell he really cared about not
47:24
Speaker 3: only people that have been victimized, but really moving forward
47:30
Speaker 3: with integrity in the stories that he was sharing. And
47:33
Speaker 3: so I was scared. I mean, I thought to myself,
47:36
Speaker 3: my gosh, like, what if these people hear this, and
47:38
Speaker 3: you know, it's so wildly unbelievable, even though I've got
47:41
Speaker 3: this whole court case, you know, what if they don't
47:44
Speaker 3: believe me? And I have been so overwhelmed by the
47:50
Speaker 3: amount of emails and the messages and people that reach
47:54
Speaker 3: out on social media. It has been such a whirlwind
47:58
Speaker 3: of love and support. So yeah, it's it's been a
48:04
Speaker 3: journey for sure.
48:07
Speaker 2: I mean, he has done a I mean, Javier is amazing.
48:12
Speaker 2: I won't go off fangirl on him, but I mean
48:15
Speaker 2: he I love the way he dives in, he records
48:18
Speaker 2: the calls, and like you said, he does it with
48:20
Speaker 2: integatory because there there's a lot of people in podcasting
48:24
Speaker 2: that are not doing it with integrity, you know, but
48:27
Speaker 2: you're always going to have that. Now, has this impacted
48:32
Speaker 2: you personally, professionally or with your legal case moving it forward?
48:39
Speaker 2: Because if I remember correctly, she then came out of
48:44
Speaker 2: the woodwork and then started going after Javier.
48:49
Speaker 3: Absolutely she has. She has. We know she's running a
48:52
Speaker 3: legal background check on him, attempting to find anything she
48:56
Speaker 3: could to discredit or embarrass him. You know, she's we
49:01
Speaker 3: know that she's run background checks on others, and so yeah,
49:06
Speaker 3: she started to use this tabloid blog to ghost write
49:08
Speaker 3: stories about Javier, about other survivors that have come forward.
49:14
Speaker 3: That family I told you about that they were of
49:16
Speaker 3: the first victims thirty one years ago that we know
49:18
Speaker 3: about articles randomly start being written about this family. There's
49:24
Speaker 3: been there's been some about me as well, which are
49:27
Speaker 3: in very clear violation of the permanent restraining order I
49:30
Speaker 3: have against her. So I will tell you that the
49:34
Speaker 3: thing that I continue to say about Loadna Humphrey that
49:38
Speaker 3: I have found in my experience in battling her for
49:40
Speaker 3: the last six years is this, everything LaDonna does is
49:44
Speaker 3: a facade. And so at the face value of what
49:48
Speaker 3: you're dealing with, yeah, it's scary, right, and you think, wow,
49:52
Speaker 3: she's really good. But really, when you when you lift
49:56
Speaker 3: the veil, you find that she's very sloppy and what
50:00
Speaker 3: she does, and so ultimately she really kind of tells
50:04
Speaker 3: on herself. And so for me in this process, it
50:09
Speaker 3: has been it's been good because she's made a lot
50:12
Speaker 3: more mistakes. I've got everything I need to prove that
50:15
Speaker 3: she has violated this restraining order. So we're getting ready
50:17
Speaker 3: to go back to court to hopefully have something done
50:21
Speaker 3: about this. I can tell you that there are other
50:27
Speaker 3: things in motion about this story that I can't talk
50:31
Speaker 3: about yet, but that wider audiences and people are going
50:38
Speaker 3: to be hearing about the story. And others that have
50:42
Speaker 3: been affected by her in the very near future.
50:47
Speaker 2: Now also, and if you can't because another's things you
50:49
Speaker 2: can share in things you can't share. If I remember correctly,
50:53
Speaker 2: on one of the more recent episodes, she's now working
50:58
Speaker 2: at a facility and like charging these people. I was
51:05
Speaker 2: just flabbergasted, which I know is an odd word, but
51:09
Speaker 2: I was just flabbergasted to hear one of the interviews
51:12
Speaker 2: that Javier did with another victim.
51:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, so's she's working for a sober living home as
51:19
Speaker 3: their executive director. One by one, she has pieced off
51:23
Speaker 3: the board members and filled them with her cronies that
51:26
Speaker 3: are not going to ask any questions. We have strong
51:28
Speaker 3: reason to believe that she is stealing from the organization
51:34
Speaker 3: in large amounts of money. We found out that for
51:38
Speaker 3: eight years, this nonprofit that she's now been running for
51:41
Speaker 3: the last several years did not even have its tax
51:44
Speaker 3: exemption current. And so all of these businesses and people
51:47
Speaker 3: are donating. But then, yeah, most importantly, you know, these
51:51
Speaker 3: women are coming out of jail, you know, sometimes with
51:55
Speaker 3: their children, and they're staying in this halfway house. You
52:00
Speaker 3: got to think in order for them to be released
52:03
Speaker 3: and be back into the community. They have to complete
52:07
Speaker 3: this program. And I can only imagine that if the
52:11
Speaker 3: one thing that stood between myself and the free world,
52:15
Speaker 3: or myself and my children in the free world was
52:18
Speaker 3: LaDonna Humphrey, you might as well put me back in
52:21
Speaker 3: jail because I'm set up for failure. And so these
52:26
Speaker 3: women have come forward, These women have started to come
52:30
Speaker 3: forward and share their stories about being victimized while they're
52:33
Speaker 3: residents of this sober living home.
52:36
Speaker 2: I mean, I cried when I was in the car
52:38
Speaker 2: listening to one of the ladies. I wish and I
52:41
Speaker 2: have goosebumps again because that is horrific that anybody would
52:45
Speaker 2: take advantage of people in that situation. Yeah, I mean
52:51
Speaker 2: that puts you at the bottom of the scum barrel.
52:54
Speaker 3: I mean, these these women are the true, the true
52:58
Speaker 3: victims at this point all of this, and they, you know,
53:01
Speaker 3: they're they're left without any meanings to fight her to.
53:05
Speaker 3: You know, they if they go and they complain to
53:07
Speaker 3: the Bent County Drug Court or Washington County Drug Court,
53:10
Speaker 3: they're now being seen as addicts in recovery that are
53:12
Speaker 3: trying to manipulate a program or to get out of
53:14
Speaker 3: things right.
53:17
Speaker 2: Nobody believes them, you know.
53:19
Speaker 3: So there are other right, there are other women that
53:22
Speaker 3: have lived there that have given testimony that they have
53:26
Speaker 3: an issue with Lodonna. And then hours later, there's a
53:31
Speaker 3: massive spoof email that goes out to all the residents
53:35
Speaker 3: living in that place, calling these women whorrors or skanks
53:39
Speaker 3: or trying to embarrass them. You know, imagine that that's
53:42
Speaker 3: your executive director of the organization that's providing your oversized Yeah.
53:48
Speaker 2: I mean, how she has a job I do not know.
53:55
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just gonna say that being an HR,
53:58
Speaker 2: she would not make it through my check and balances,
54:01
Speaker 2: and she would not get a job offer. I would
54:03
Speaker 2: not let her anywhere near my facility. But I mean
54:08
Speaker 2: that truly broke my heart to hear some of those
54:10
Speaker 2: women talk it. It was heartbreaking that on top of
54:16
Speaker 2: everything else, because think about it, if you didn't have
54:20
Speaker 2: the means and the strength to go up against her,
54:24
Speaker 2: just think of what could have happened.
54:27
Speaker 3: You know. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, hopefully if
54:31
Speaker 3: nothing else, you know, through this process that we have,
54:34
Speaker 3: if she is not removed from her organization, hopefully she
54:38
Speaker 3: now knows it is so public that what she has
54:40
Speaker 3: done not only to my self and other survivors. But
54:42
Speaker 3: what she has done to these women in recovery hopefully
54:47
Speaker 3: will at least lead her to make some changes in
54:49
Speaker 3: how she is running that organization and treating these women.
54:52
Speaker 3: But Uh, in my experience, it doesn't change.
54:56
Speaker 2: I was like, I think there's a saying something like
54:59
Speaker 2: she doesn't ever change spots.
55:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
55:04
Speaker 2: Now with doing the Pretend podcast, I know that came
55:08
Speaker 2: out of your experience with Ladana in court, But how
55:12
Speaker 2: has working with Javier in doing that podcast, how has
55:17
Speaker 2: it shaped who you are today? Because I have to
55:19
Speaker 2: imagine that was another different kind of journey.
55:24
Speaker 3: You know, Javier, I got to tell you, Javier has
55:29
Speaker 3: to be one of the most amazing people that I
55:31
Speaker 3: have met. You know, Javier is compassionate. Javier is very
55:38
Speaker 3: sensitive to what has happened to these people along the way.
55:43
Speaker 3: Javier is also honest. I mean, he is going to
55:49
Speaker 3: do his research, He's going to do his fact checking.
55:52
Speaker 3: He's going to make sure that before he hits published,
55:56
Speaker 3: he can post with all confidence that everything he's posting
55:59
Speaker 3: is true, accurate. And guess what if he says something
56:02
Speaker 3: that's a little off or maybe confusing, maybe he quoted
56:05
Speaker 3: a law and the laws off. Guess what on that
56:07
Speaker 3: next episode or a bonus episode he's going to retract.
56:10
Speaker 2: I know he that's I said, it's just amazing the
56:13
Speaker 2: amount of detail and make sure that he does.
56:18
Speaker 3: And I can tell you, you know, as somebody that's worked
56:20
Speaker 3: through this process with him and with the other survivors,
56:26
Speaker 3: there have been days, I mean when when these attacks
56:28
Speaker 3: have come to some of these other survivors that have
56:31
Speaker 3: been difficult. And you know, you've got Javier who works
56:33
Speaker 3: a full time career outside of podcasting. You know, he's
56:37
Speaker 3: he's picking up the phone and he's calling these survivors,
56:39
Speaker 3: He's checking on them, He's making sure that they're doing okay.
56:43
Speaker 3: You know, Javier, truly I feel like my gut what
56:47
Speaker 3: instinct was correct on this that he was the perfect
56:51
Speaker 3: journalist to pick this story up and to tell it,
56:54
Speaker 3: and he did so with such integrity and such honesty.
56:57
Speaker 3: I could not be more thankful of hop year.
57:02
Speaker 2: Now, are there any positives that have come out of
57:07
Speaker 2: this very difficult time in your life?
57:11
Speaker 3: You know? I think so. You know, sometimes they say
57:13
Speaker 3: you got to you got to look at the silver lining,
57:16
Speaker 3: you know, of what's happened, And I can tell you
57:19
Speaker 3: that the career space that I work in now I
57:25
Speaker 3: absolutely love. I don't know that I would have been
57:29
Speaker 3: drawn to what I'm doing now had this not happened.
57:32
Speaker 3: You know, I'm in a resort town of twenty one
57:36
Speaker 3: hundred people, but Garner's, you know, a couple of million
57:40
Speaker 3: tourists a year, and so through this process, I was
57:45
Speaker 3: able to find Eureka alive. I fell in love. And
57:49
Speaker 3: you know, one of the things I always say about
57:51
Speaker 3: that place is it's a legacy bar. It's been there
57:53
Speaker 3: forty one years and we've got an award winning drag
57:56
Speaker 3: show we put on every week that I co host,
57:58
Speaker 3: and I always tell people, you know that in life,
58:01
Speaker 3: you never know what's going to happen. You never know
58:05
Speaker 3: the people you're going to meet, and you never really
58:07
Speaker 3: know what people are going through when you meet them.
58:10
Speaker 3: And so you know, one thing that we say during
58:12
Speaker 3: that show is you look around that bar. And for
58:15
Speaker 3: the last forty one years I've bar opened its doors
58:18
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty three, they have sold love, acceptance and
58:22
Speaker 3: really serve as a melting pot for the tourist community
58:26
Speaker 3: that comes in there into the resort town. So I
58:29
Speaker 3: would say part of the silver lining is I have
58:32
Speaker 3: met some of the most amazing people, most amazing entertainers,
58:37
Speaker 3: the staff, the people that I get to work with
58:40
Speaker 3: every weekend have really become my family. They've become a
58:44
Speaker 3: support system and they have been through this wild journey
58:49
Speaker 3: with me, and so that was great. You know, I
58:52
Speaker 3: was so fortunate. I don't talk about it a lot,
58:55
Speaker 3: but I was able to find love again, and so
58:58
Speaker 3: that's been absolutely amazing, and so so yeah, there's definitely
59:03
Speaker 3: a lot of positives. And you know, through through the
59:05
Speaker 3: process and meeting a lot of these other survivors, I
59:09
Speaker 3: can tell you that I've been able to heal. I've
59:13
Speaker 3: been for the first time in many years. As weird
59:17
Speaker 3: as it is to say, being with the jury of
59:21
Speaker 3: a bunch of others who have been through similar situations
59:24
Speaker 3: by the same aggressor have a way of bringing about
59:28
Speaker 3: some healing and understanding to realize, hey, you know, this
59:33
Speaker 3: can happen to anybody, but you can also work through
59:36
Speaker 3: it as a family and as a as a core group.
59:38
Speaker 3: And that's what we've done now.
59:41
Speaker 2: Captain said in the comments, oh we love a drag show.
59:44
Speaker 2: We're actually working with a wine bar winery here in Austin,
59:49
Speaker 2: and we're trying to do a live show for the
59:51
Speaker 2: podcast that's also at a drag show.
59:53
Speaker 3: Oh fun, We a.
59:57
Speaker 2: Lot of us. We love the drag shows. So in fact,
1:00:01
Speaker 2: JT we will soon have a special episode because we
1:00:04
Speaker 2: hit a thousand subscribers today, we're a party where I
1:00:07
Speaker 2: will be instructing JT to do his makeup all why,
1:00:12
Speaker 2: oh my.
1:00:12
Speaker 3: Gosh, I'm gonna have to tune him and see that
1:00:14
Speaker 3: for sure.
1:00:16
Speaker 2: So yes, Kat, did we do love that? And I
1:00:19
Speaker 2: will say I do love that you found love going
1:00:22
Speaker 2: through a difficult time because I think that tells you
1:00:27
Speaker 2: a lot about that person that you're with.
1:00:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, truly a remarkable human and I'm so fortunate, you know,
1:00:33
Speaker 3: and he's been here through it all, and I'm thankful,
1:00:38
Speaker 3: truly very thankful.
1:00:41
Speaker 2: Now, do you feel that the issues with Lodonna are
1:00:45
Speaker 2: ever truly going to be behind you? Or is she
1:00:48
Speaker 2: just never going to go away?
1:00:51
Speaker 3: You know, I don't think that Loadonna will stop until
1:00:55
Speaker 3: she is put behind bars. I think Lodonna cannot help herself. Sadly.
1:01:02
Speaker 3: It's it's my opinion that Lodonna suffers from very, very
1:01:07
Speaker 3: extreme mental health issues. You know, I one of the
1:01:12
Speaker 3: things that listeners will find through the Pretend podcast is
1:01:16
Speaker 3: Madonna's own biological family are victims. You know, She's She's
1:01:21
Speaker 3: not had contact with her family in over a decade,
1:01:24
Speaker 3: and that's because the family decided that they could no
1:01:27
Speaker 3: longer allow this to be a part of their life.
1:01:29
Speaker 3: I mean, when your family is receiving spoof and harassing messages,
1:01:33
Speaker 3: When when Donna's own sister is receiving spoof messages relentlessly
1:01:40
Speaker 3: telling her to kill herself, I mean, the woman's the
1:01:45
Speaker 3: woman needs help, and the woman is not going to
1:01:47
Speaker 3: stop until she is forced to be in a cold,
1:01:50
Speaker 3: dark cell without any access to a cell phone or internet.
1:01:56
Speaker 2: I mean, the first thing that pops in my head
1:02:00
Speaker 2: what about those children she's adopted, I know, and I
1:02:07
Speaker 2: just keep telling myself, don't let your brain go there, Terry,
1:02:10
Speaker 2: do not let your brain go there.
1:02:12
Speaker 3: You know. I think that those poor kids, you know,
1:02:15
Speaker 3: and I knew them personally, you know, came from very
1:02:18
Speaker 3: traumatic situations. And I think, as somebody that worked for
1:02:25
Speaker 3: years in foster care, it's hard to say this, but
1:02:29
Speaker 3: I truly believe that those kids may have been better
1:02:33
Speaker 3: off in foster care.
1:02:36
Speaker 2: And that says a lot, you know, for somebody who
1:02:41
Speaker 2: knows what the foster care system is, like I don't
1:02:45
Speaker 2: know this, and maybe you can educate me and others
1:02:49
Speaker 2: on this. Once they're adopted, there's nothing they can do
1:02:53
Speaker 2: right to undo it.
1:02:55
Speaker 3: No, it's done. And you know, I think that part
1:02:58
Speaker 3: of why Laddan adopted these children she specifically adopted a
1:03:01
Speaker 3: sibling group or or that they were related biologically somehow.
1:03:08
Speaker 3: And in Arkansas, the state of Arkansas, you're given a
1:03:11
Speaker 3: board payment of it's either like four hundred and twenty
1:03:15
Speaker 3: or four hundred and forty dollars a month per child
1:03:18
Speaker 3: when you're fostering them, and the moment you adopt them,
1:03:22
Speaker 3: that stipend goes away unless you adopt a sibling group.
1:03:29
Speaker 3: And so so I know for a fact that when
1:03:34
Speaker 3: Donna adopted those children, the board payments continued. I also
1:03:38
Speaker 3: know that at one time LaDonna asked me or my
1:03:45
Speaker 3: clinic to write letters of support to ask for a
1:03:50
Speaker 3: specialized increased board payment on her child that was being
1:03:54
Speaker 3: adopted adopted because they had other delays. And so she
1:04:01
Speaker 3: had confirmed at that time that those other children were
1:04:03
Speaker 3: also receiving a specialized board payment. So you know, one
1:04:07
Speaker 3: could assume she's getting probably five hundred or six hundred
1:04:10
Speaker 3: per child per month that are living there tax free.
1:04:19
Speaker 2: I am going to do something that I don't do
1:04:21
Speaker 2: very often or very well. I am going to withhold
1:04:24
Speaker 2: my comments because I'm going to just withhold my comments there,
1:04:33
Speaker 2: you know, and not the same thing else. So as
1:04:37
Speaker 2: we get ready to wrap up, if you could say
1:04:41
Speaker 2: something Toldonna that you thought would get through to her,
1:04:47
Speaker 2: what would you say to her? If anything?
1:04:55
Speaker 3: The first thing I would say is you tried to
1:04:59
Speaker 3: ruin my life and you didn't succeed. You created a survivor.
1:05:06
Speaker 3: You created an army of survivors that will not allow
1:05:10
Speaker 3: you to continue to victimize us or anybody else that
1:05:16
Speaker 3: you're currently victimizing, and that after thirty one years, the
1:05:23
Speaker 3: gig is up. People know, people know what you're doing,
1:05:27
Speaker 3: They know what you've done. The continued harassment is only
1:05:31
Speaker 3: further reaffirming to these people what you've done. And ultimately
1:05:39
Speaker 3: you'll pay the price for what you've done legally and
1:05:44
Speaker 3: accountability what will be coming in the very new future.
1:05:47
Speaker 3: I firmly believe that.
1:05:50
Speaker 2: Little did she know when she tangled with you, that
1:05:53
Speaker 2: a whole army would get together.
1:05:56
Speaker 3: It's wild, absolutely wild.
1:05:59
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure that's not what you thought when
1:06:01
Speaker 2: it all started. You you know, probably thought you were
1:06:03
Speaker 2: the only one. And I'm sure the feeling to know
1:06:07
Speaker 2: you weren't the only one, you know, but that you
1:06:11
Speaker 2: can help this and y'all can help each other and
1:06:14
Speaker 2: you can stop her. Sometimes justice is delayed, but justice
1:06:19
Speaker 2: does happen, especially if somebody keeps doing what they're doing
1:06:25
Speaker 2: and they don't even do it well, do it well.
1:06:29
Speaker 2: And I kind of appreciate that. Like I say about
1:06:31
Speaker 2: people who kill people, I'm glad you screw up because
1:06:34
Speaker 2: you get caught. So I hope she keeps screwing up.
1:06:40
Speaker 2: So if she's listening or if she's on here, I mean,
1:06:44
Speaker 2: I hope she keeps screwing up because that will be
1:06:48
Speaker 2: her downfall. So and I want to say to anyone
1:06:54
Speaker 2: who is listening or watches this later, if you haven't
1:06:58
Speaker 2: listened to the pretend podcast on this, you need to.
1:07:03
Speaker 2: You need to hear the stories from other individuals, not
1:07:07
Speaker 2: just Anthony. It truly will make you sit there and think,
1:07:11
Speaker 2: am I in Hollywood? Is this a script somebody has written?
1:07:16
Speaker 2: Because narcissism on steroids? And I do agree there's got
1:07:22
Speaker 2: to be some mental health issues, but that's still not
1:07:26
Speaker 2: an excuse. Yeah, still not an excuse. Well, I want
1:07:32
Speaker 2: to thank you for coming on. I know this can't
1:07:35
Speaker 2: be easy to continue talking about this and getting the
1:07:39
Speaker 2: word out there, but I appreciate it because I think
1:07:44
Speaker 2: I even learn things about situations that I've been in
1:07:48
Speaker 2: where people do some of these interesting things and kind
1:07:52
Speaker 2: of helps you think about people who are trying to
1:07:55
Speaker 2: groom you and what they're trying to do.
1:07:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Terry, I'm so thankful to have met you
1:08:04
Speaker 3: all at the Podcast Festival in Denver, and I'm so
1:08:09
Speaker 3: thankful that you all have given us an opportunity to
1:08:13
Speaker 3: share my story and begin to introduce those of others.
1:08:18
Speaker 3: You know, truly, it is people like you, people in
1:08:21
Speaker 3: the true crime podcast space that are also stepping up
1:08:25
Speaker 3: and saying, look, this is happening in our community as well,
1:08:28
Speaker 3: and we have an obligation to not allow this. And
1:08:31
Speaker 3: so truly, for you, I'm so thankful.
1:08:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I know JT's already said, he goes, we
1:08:38
Speaker 2: also need to look at where we're going to do
1:08:40
Speaker 2: a show in New Yreka Spring, because he's like, we
1:08:43
Speaker 2: need to come and hang out. And I was like, Okay, JT, We're.
1:08:46
Speaker 3: Going to do that any time. You're welcome.
1:08:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do know we have a picture because
1:08:52
Speaker 2: I think we need to show a picture of this
1:08:54
Speaker 2: person that we have just been a lot of time
1:08:56
Speaker 2: talking about. So anybody is wondering what LaDonna Humphries looks like,
1:09:03
Speaker 2: I'm going to guess this was not her best day.
1:09:06
Speaker 3: Yeah. That was definitely one of the mugshots from the
1:09:08
Speaker 3: civil case when she had entered. So yeah, it looked
1:09:12
Speaker 3: like a rough day to me too.
1:09:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, and something we didn't talk about, but I want
1:09:18
Speaker 2: to tell people also, La Donna got involved in a
1:09:21
Speaker 2: true crime case and I'm not going to go into
1:09:24
Speaker 2: details listen to the Pretend podcast, but she's one of
1:09:28
Speaker 2: those individuals, like I said, who is not in the
1:09:31
Speaker 2: true crime space to share stories, to get the word
1:09:36
Speaker 2: out and be an advocate for others. She truly victimized
1:09:41
Speaker 2: so many and I just muted myself. So I really
1:09:50
Speaker 2: hope people go and listen to the Pretend Podcast do
1:09:53
Speaker 2: some more research on her. And like I said, once again,
1:09:57
Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on. And we always
1:10:01
Speaker 2: end our show normally JT gives you his pitch. Since
1:10:05
Speaker 2: he's not here, I will not steal his thunder, but
1:10:08
Speaker 2: I will tell you guys as always, please stay safe,
1:10:12
Speaker 2: watch out for crime, and watch out for bunny boilers
1:10:16
Speaker 2: because they're out there everywhere. And enjoy your wine time
1:10:21
Speaker 2: and we will see you next time