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Service Dog Fraud · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 2: The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
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Speaker 2: the speaker and do not necessarily represent the Knife or
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Speaker 2: exactly right media.
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Speaker 1: And reached out to news stations all over the country.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes I did eighty and nine, and I did this
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Speaker 1: usually every two to three days, even if I was
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Speaker 1: pestering the same news station, because like somebody's going to
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Speaker 1: grab the story, somebody's going to put the pressure on
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Speaker 1: the ad to do something. Welcome to the Knife. I'm
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Speaker 1: Hannah Smith, I'm patient Eton. Today we're speaking with Rebecca Paluso.
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Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Rebecca set out to find a service
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Speaker 1: dog for her young daughter, who has a high needs autism.
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Speaker 1: And when Rebecca came across a nonpromit called rykon service Dogs,
1:01
Speaker 1: it seemed like the perfect fit. So she and her
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Speaker 1: daughters made the thirteen hour trip to North Carolina to
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Speaker 1: see for themselves. What unraveled was one of the largest
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Speaker 1: scale service dog frauds to be prosecuted in US history.
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Speaker 1: And we do want to say that since we are
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Speaker 1: discussing a fraud involving animals, there is brief mention of
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Speaker 1: animal mistreatment.
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Speaker 2: Let's get into the interview. Thanks for being here today.
1:26
Speaker 2: Would you mind just introducing yourself.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I'm Rebecca Puliso and where
1:32
Speaker 1: are you located. I'm in Florida, North Florida. I'm a
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Speaker 1: single pair of three children. The oldest is Kristen, she
1:40
Speaker 1: is now out of the house. She's in her twenties.
1:44
Speaker 1: And then Ella and Emma, they're now thirteen. They're twins,
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Speaker 1: and Ella is the one with autism.
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Speaker 2: When was Ella diagnosed, she's about two and a half
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Speaker 2: three years old.
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Speaker 1: We did on our own go find functional medicine doctor
2:00
Speaker 1: and psychologists us up and ended up getting that diagnosis
2:03
Speaker 1: for her. She's somewhere medium to lower range of it.
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Speaker 1: She will always need somebody looking out for her.
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Speaker 2: And what does a typical day look like for you
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Speaker 2: and Ella?
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Speaker 1: Well, now we've got her sleep regimented, we can get
2:18
Speaker 1: up in the morning. We have to immediately take some
2:21
Speaker 1: of her supplements and thanks she does to help vitamin
2:24
Speaker 1: b's and DS she doesn't absorb as well as other things,
2:27
Speaker 1: so we have to supplement that sheets about two or
2:31
Speaker 1: three things, which unfortunately caused an issue for us this
2:34
Speaker 1: past summer. We noticed she was walking funny, and I
2:39
Speaker 1: noticed that one eye was going to one side, and
2:41
Speaker 1: we had to the eye doctor. They sent us to
2:43
Speaker 1: themologist who sent us to the emergency room. And it
2:46
Speaker 1: turns out one eye is now completely blind and that's
2:51
Speaker 1: from probably malnutrition. They're saying because she doesn't one doesn't
2:55
Speaker 1: absorb certain vitamins and two doesn't eat a very diet
2:58
Speaker 1: like most people.
3:00
Speaker 2: I see, Wow, yeah, I mean that's devastating.
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Speaker 1: She does tend to get frustrated, bang her head on
3:06
Speaker 1: the wall. I've prepared many holes in the wall. That's
3:11
Speaker 1: an issue when she'll behave herself in the head too.
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Speaker 1: She is frustrated because she doesn't how to explain that she's
3:17
Speaker 1: upset or frustrated or things are going her way.
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Speaker 2: Rebecca said that Ella is also the happiest, sweetest kid.
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Speaker 2: She has a big heart, she's extroverted, and she's nurturing,
3:29
Speaker 2: but he needs. Autism also brings difficulty. Rebecca told us
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Speaker 2: that as a toddler, Ella was minimally verbal. She used
3:37
Speaker 2: only two words. Rebecca took her to a speech therapist
3:40
Speaker 2: and together they worked tirelessly to help Ella learn to communicate,
3:45
Speaker 2: and Ella has made progress but as a single mom,
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Speaker 2: Rebecca has said to navigate these challenges all on her own,
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Speaker 2: and as Ella has grown and gotten older, some of
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Speaker 2: those challenges have also grown her.
3:59
Speaker 1: Eloping got worse. Meaning I woke up one time at
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Speaker 1: two thirty in the morning. My back door was opened.
4:06
Speaker 1: I was an full paddock my looking for and cheese. Yeah,
4:09
Speaker 1: several lots down. The whole neighborhood hadn't been built up yet.
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Speaker 1: Thank god I found her.
4:15
Speaker 2: How old was she when that happened, that you woke
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Speaker 2: up and she had run down the street.
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Speaker 1: She was just under four? Oh wow, so very young. Yeah?
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Speaker 1: What is you said? Eloping? Is that the term used
4:29
Speaker 1: they called a loping. I hate that term because it
4:31
Speaker 1: sounds very romantic, right, It's not romantic to find your
4:34
Speaker 1: child missing I caught running? Yeah, okay, that just means
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Speaker 1: that she'll get up and run.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: They get kind of a overwhelmed with everything that's going
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Speaker 1: on or a sense of panic and they run. Okay.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's really scary. You're waking up in
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Speaker 2: the middle of the night and your doors open. I
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Speaker 2: can imagine if that had not happened before, wondering like,
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Speaker 2: had my child been taken right then to find her
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Speaker 2: down the street. It can be so dangerous.
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Speaker 1: We've gotten a point. Even if we have workers in
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Speaker 1: the house, I have to make sure you shut the door. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I have a sign on my door not to ring
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Speaker 1: the doorbell. Because she hears the doorbell, she'll open the door,
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Speaker 1: but then she's going to keep going.
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Speaker 2: Ella started running at around four years old. According to
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Speaker 2: the National Autism Association, forty nine percent of children with
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Speaker 2: autism are affected by elopement or wandering, or, as Rebecca
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Speaker 2: calls it, running. There's a few reasons why this happens.
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Speaker 2: It could be curiosity or feeling overwhelmed by their surroundings,
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Speaker 2: and it can make everyday errands like going to the
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Speaker 2: grocery store or a doctor's appointment a real danger. But
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Speaker 2: it's around this time, back in twenty eighteen, when Ella
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Speaker 2: was about four years old, that Rebecca became aware of
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Speaker 2: service dogs specifically trained to help children with autism.
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Speaker 1: So I knew if somebody from one of my groups
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Speaker 1: with autism, who's got a sun a Mississippi and they
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Speaker 1: got him a service dog and instead has been a
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Speaker 1: life changing thing for them.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think most of us are familiar
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Speaker 2: with sort of guide dogs or that kind of service dog,
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Speaker 2: But in cases where the service dog is there to
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Speaker 2: support behavioral challenges, what does that support from the dog
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Speaker 2: look like?
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Speaker 1: With her with balance and so forth, the dog will
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Speaker 1: break against them to keep them from falling or tripping,
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Speaker 1: which she does have that issue even more so since
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Speaker 1: her eyesight had come messed up. At when they're in
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Speaker 1: a meltdown or a panicand the dog does what they
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Speaker 1: call deep pressure, and that's laying across the lap and
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Speaker 1: giving them pressure to help them relax. Know they're there
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Speaker 1: for running. They can curb them, which is kind of
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Speaker 1: come in front of them, kind of like her dog
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Speaker 1: would come in front the sheep to keep them from
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Speaker 1: going a certain direction.
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Speaker 2: When did you decide this is something I'm going to pursue.
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Speaker 1: I guess she was about five. I think I went online.
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Speaker 1: I spoke to different people. Some of them had many
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Speaker 1: years out before they could go get a dog. You know,
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Speaker 1: most of them are nonprofits and they're overloaded, so they
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Speaker 1: have long waiting lists.
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Speaker 2: The American Disabilities Act does not require any set amount
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Speaker 2: of hours for a service dogs training to be complete,
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Speaker 2: but most service dog training organizations say the process takes
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Speaker 2: at least two years training begins in puppyhood. Service dog
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Speaker 2: providers have long wait lists, sometimes three to five years long,
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Speaker 2: but Rebecca would do anything to help her daughter move
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Speaker 2: through the world more safely, so when she came across
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Speaker 2: an organization called Reikon Service Dogs in North Carolina, she
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Speaker 2: reached out. Rebecca had first heard of Raikon in one
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Speaker 2: of her Facebook groups, a community of parents whose children
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Speaker 2: have autism.
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Speaker 1: Came across them online, saw nothing negative, went over to
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Speaker 1: the BBB nothing negative.
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Speaker 2: And how did Raikon describe itself in the messaging online?
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Speaker 2: Where you want a website?
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Speaker 1: Well, for our website, the owner had a child that
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Speaker 1: also had autism, which he promoted heavily and really helped
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Speaker 1: his child, Captain brom running. He even had down that
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Speaker 1: areas we now certified through the State for Autism Service Dogs.
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Speaker 1: Went to the website and I looked at their Facebook page.
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Speaker 2: Also, Raikon Service Dogs was a nonprofit and it was
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Speaker 2: owned and operated by Mark Mathis. Mark Mathis was a
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Speaker 2: member of the autism community. He had said his own
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Speaker 2: son was diagnosed with autism. This really resonated with Rebecca.
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Speaker 2: Maybe this was someone who truly understands what a child
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Speaker 2: with autism would need out of a service dog. It
8:55
Speaker 2: made Raykon stand out to her.
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Speaker 1: Most places were using labs or Golden Retrievers. Some places
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Speaker 1: have poodles, standard poodles. I should qualify that he had
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Speaker 1: briards because this child had gotten a breard for somebody
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Speaker 1: else for a service doug.
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Speaker 2: And you know I'm a certified dog nerd. I was
9:16
Speaker 2: a dog for a cher, grew up breading dog encyclopedias.
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Speaker 2: But I actually am not familiar with a briard. I
9:22
Speaker 2: think most of us know what a lab and a
9:24
Speaker 2: poodle and a Golden Retriever look like, but describe briards.
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Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I had not heard of one before.
9:32
Speaker 1: Then they are from Europe. They're hurting dogs. They are
9:38
Speaker 1: big bit, bigger than a Golden Retriever, fluffy, moppy dogs.
9:45
Speaker 1: I mean they're adorable. Give them that. They are absolutely adorable.
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Speaker 1: What he had was they're herding dogs, which makes them
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Speaker 1: great for curbing children. He called them hearts, wrapped them
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Speaker 1: fur so. Raycon service dogs offered briards specifically correct and
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Speaker 1: only briards would not train any other dog, wouldn't train
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Speaker 1: your dog. His service dogs ranged from some people had
10:10
Speaker 1: eleven thousand all the way up to sixteen seventeen thousand.
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Speaker 1: You get a fully trained service dog, supposedly as passed
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Speaker 1: their Canaine Good Citizen, which is the test showing that
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Speaker 1: they can be out in public and not be reactive
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Speaker 1: to people humans drawn they know their commands, you'd get
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Speaker 1: the service dog. Bass I reached out to them by phone,
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Speaker 1: spoke with them quite a bit, but I know for
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Speaker 1: over an hour, and he's like, you really should come
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Speaker 1: up and see them. I'll show you what they can do.
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Speaker 2: In May of twenty eighteen, Rebecca Ella and her twin
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Speaker 2: sister all made the drive up to Wake County, North
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Speaker 2: Carolina to visit Rykon and meet one of their trained
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Speaker 2: service dogs, and according to Rebecca, the trip went great.
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Speaker 1: She loved that she walked right by the dog. I
10:57
Speaker 1: mean she loved animals. Anyway, this is the child go
11:00
Speaker 1: pick up a chicken. I don't nowhere and go look God,
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Speaker 1: I'm like no, put the chicken down. So yeah, she
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Speaker 1: was thrilled. She did very well with the dog. She
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Speaker 1: didn't try to run even though we were in an
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Speaker 1: open space. So thoughtout, I think this might be a
11:15
Speaker 1: good bet we contracted by I think it was in
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Speaker 1: the May to go ahead with the service dog. When
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Speaker 1: you had that first initial meeting in person with Mark,
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Speaker 1: was there a conversation about what the timeline might be
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Speaker 1: for a dog? I did, and he said it could
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Speaker 1: take anywhere ten months to fourteen months. I was like, okay,
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Speaker 1: well that's yeah, on the lower but average, because some
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Speaker 1: places were a year summer, two year. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So and is that way the product of like there
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Speaker 2: being many families in line before you, or is it
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Speaker 2: puppies being bred or purchased?
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Speaker 1: Read it? He said it was getting the puppies.
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Speaker 2: Where was he getting the puppies?
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Speaker 1: He was getting puppies in the US? Okay, but something
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Speaker 1: became an issue with the US breeders and none of
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Speaker 1: them would sell to him. He started going overseas. Did
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Speaker 1: you know that at the time, I did not go
12:16
Speaker 1: that right. I kind of want to ask to pause
12:19
Speaker 1: for a second, and maybe you can tell us about
12:21
Speaker 1: like what this purchase meant to you and your family.
12:27
Speaker 1: You know, this is a lot of money, and what
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Speaker 1: did that look like for you in your life? At
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Speaker 1: that time? It was relief to find a place to
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Speaker 1: do a dog for her, because I felt that was
12:37
Speaker 1: going to give us a chance to go out and
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Speaker 1: be part of the world and part of the community.
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Speaker 1: Is that a hold up in a house that feeling
12:45
Speaker 1: like your hostage to autism? And what did that look
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Speaker 1: like financially for you? As far as being able to
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Speaker 1: pay for this dog? It was going to be a bird.
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Speaker 1: But if you have a child, you'll do anything for
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Speaker 1: your child. Sold my bad, my dining room, I mean,
13:05
Speaker 1: sold whatever I could to raise some money.
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Speaker 2: Well, you sold your bed?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I just supped on the floor and standsa wow.
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Speaker 2: And what did your dog end up costing?
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Speaker 1: It was supposed to cost fifteen thousand.
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Speaker 2: Fifteen thousand dollars, a lot of money, and for Rebecca,
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Speaker 2: a single mother, the cost was astronomical, but she was determined.
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Speaker 2: Rebecca sold her belongings. She reached out to her community
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Speaker 2: to help raise the money because the promise of this
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Speaker 2: dog was the promise of a life outside their home,
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Speaker 2: allowing them to do simple things like go for a
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Speaker 2: walk or stop by the grocery store everyday, activities that
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Speaker 2: most of us take for granted, but for Rebecca they
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Speaker 2: had become impossibly stressful. There was always the fear that
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Speaker 2: Ella might run off, get lost or hurt. A well
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Speaker 2: trained service dog, she was told could change their lives.
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Speaker 1: She and her twim were really excited. They got bast
14:02
Speaker 1: to see pictures. I wouldn't email and say have you
14:05
Speaker 1: picked out the dog yet. Somewhere around July, he thoughts
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Speaker 1: he had found a dog for us, was being trained
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Speaker 1: for somebody else, but they had a funeral and couldn't
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Speaker 1: afford the dog anymore. So the dog was going to
14:19
Speaker 1: be ours. He said it had already been partially trained
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Speaker 1: because it was going to go to that other family.
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Speaker 1: That he would now continue the training and work on
14:26
Speaker 1: what we needed.
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Speaker 2: And how long was that training process supposed to take?
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Speaker 1: Wellton said already had some training. He said it was
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Speaker 1: supposed to take till the end of February twenty nineteen.
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Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, So I mean to me, if I were
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Speaker 2: in your position at that time, you know, it's a
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Speaker 2: long wait for a dog, especially if you're a kid
14:47
Speaker 2: anticipating a dog. But to think of the kind of
14:50
Speaker 2: specialty training the dog needs it, I mean, at least
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Speaker 2: from my perspective, feels like reassuring that that much time
14:58
Speaker 2: is going into it.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, especially I was like and with it already having
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Speaker 1: some of the training, so supposed to be the intender
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Speaker 1: for another family. We're going to get to that point sooner, hopefully.
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Speaker 2: Rebecca and her daughters were already excited to hear that
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Speaker 2: a dog would be ready for them, even sooner than anticipated.
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Speaker 2: It felt like a lucky break. This dog was for Ella,
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Speaker 2: but opening up Ella's world that meant something to the
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Speaker 2: whole family. Mark Mathis seemed to truly understand the load
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Speaker 2: that a parent of a child with hein Need's autism
15:33
Speaker 2: is carrying. He seemed to truly want to help, but
15:37
Speaker 2: when it came to Rycon, very little was as it seemed.
15:49
Speaker 2: Rebecca was thrilled to learn that her daughter Ella, who
15:52
Speaker 2: has autism, would meet her new service dog, even sooner
15:55
Speaker 2: than expected. The dog's name was Puzzle, and Puzzle just
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Speaker 2: needed a bit more training. Rebecca was eager for updates.
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Speaker 1: Why kind of pest him a little bit, saying do
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Speaker 1: you have any updates? How the training is going? What's
16:08
Speaker 1: the dog going? Yeah, and we finally got our one
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Speaker 1: and only update October twenty eighteen.
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Speaker 2: What was the update?
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Speaker 1: Dog's doing great, knows when the vest is on, that's working.
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Speaker 1: Nos up nose to set doing so good, and I
16:24
Speaker 1: was like, okay, well good, we're promising here.
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Speaker 2: So and so you're you're told about your dog in July,
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Speaker 2: you get a training update in October, and you anticipate
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Speaker 2: receiving the dog in February. But what happens after that
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Speaker 2: update in October?
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Speaker 1: I started hearing a little bit about a lawsuit happening
16:43
Speaker 1: somewhere around September October.
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Speaker 2: Where do you hear about it?
16:47
Speaker 1: I joined a group of people who were either getting
16:50
Speaker 1: a Rikon dog or had one. I was like, what lawsuit?
16:55
Speaker 1: And then I see him pop up on his rite
16:57
Speaker 1: compage asking people to give him positive reviews, and I
17:01
Speaker 1: was like, I can't give you a review. I have
17:03
Speaker 1: nothing to give. I don't have anything how to arge
17:05
Speaker 1: you nothing.
17:07
Speaker 2: Soon rumors were swirling about what was really going on
17:10
Speaker 2: at Rycon. The same Facebook groups where Rebecca had been
17:14
Speaker 2: introduced to the idea of a service dog and to Rykon,
17:17
Speaker 2: we're now percolating with posts from people who received dogs
17:21
Speaker 2: that were not properly trained, that were aggressive, and there
17:25
Speaker 2: were lawsuits. Rebecca was deeply concerned. She'd already sent Riikon
17:30
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars but before she could really dig into it,
17:33
Speaker 2: more bad news arrived. Riikon was closing its doors.
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Speaker 1: Then getting November, we get our next invoice for payment
17:44
Speaker 1: and I start hearing remnants off he's closing. I was
17:48
Speaker 1: like what. Then shortly thereafter, I think it was around
17:51
Speaker 1: the twelfth November, we get emails that he's closing. Come
17:55
Speaker 1: get your dog from Riikon. Yes, he said he thought
17:59
Speaker 1: he could do a affordable dogs for people, and you
18:01
Speaker 1: just realized it's just not able to do it. And
18:05
Speaker 1: I think it was more about the lawsuit because I
18:07
Speaker 1: heard there was a second lawsuit in there.
18:10
Speaker 2: But he wasn't addressing that in these emails. No, And
18:14
Speaker 2: you just you're seeing people talking about it on a
18:17
Speaker 2: Facebook page and simultaneously you're getting emails from Raikon saying, hey,
18:23
Speaker 2: this just isn't sustainable because we've been, you know, offering
18:27
Speaker 2: the dogs at such a low cost, and so we're
18:29
Speaker 2: going to shut down. Did you have any concerns then
18:32
Speaker 2: about where things stood with your dog or what was
18:35
Speaker 2: the communication there?
18:37
Speaker 1: Well, he offered out a surrender the dog to him,
18:40
Speaker 1: or we can come back up our dog. I said,
18:43
Speaker 1: I've paid more enough for this dog I'm coming to
18:45
Speaker 1: get it. Was he offering you a refund on your money? No,
18:49
Speaker 1: and how much money had you paid him at that point.
18:53
Speaker 1: At that point he'd gotten ten thousand, six hundred dollars
18:56
Speaker 1: from me, so you had paid ten thy six hundred
19:00
Speaker 1: dollars to him. He's not offering a refund, but he's saying,
19:03
Speaker 1: either you can just give me the dog and not
19:06
Speaker 1: get your money back, or you can come get the dog.
19:08
Speaker 1: Is that the situation correct? Okay, So then walk us
19:12
Speaker 1: through what you did next. Well. I reached out to
19:15
Speaker 1: my brother and said, will you drive with me up
19:17
Speaker 1: there to get the dog? So I says, I'm traveling
19:20
Speaker 1: with two little girls. He said sure. We immediately went
19:24
Speaker 1: up there. We were up there in a couple of days.
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Speaker 1: Even once I got there, Mark was sure you want
19:31
Speaker 1: the dog, Sure you want the dog. I was like, well,
19:33
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have driven this far if I didn't want
19:35
Speaker 1: the dog. I'm not surrounding them the dog. So wh
19:38
Speaker 1: I do have people who would take the dog. I
19:40
Speaker 1: was like, that's fine, but I've paid for the dog. Well,
19:43
Speaker 1: when we got up there, there were no dogs and
19:46
Speaker 1: the kennels outside, and one of the workers was out there,
19:51
Speaker 1: and she said like, are you here to pick up
19:53
Speaker 1: a breeder. I was like, yes, puzzle, And she took
19:56
Speaker 1: me to Mark Mathew's office and get in there and
19:59
Speaker 1: another worker goes, this is the dog you're here for,
20:01
Speaker 1: and Mark goes, no, I know what she's here for.
20:04
Speaker 1: That's when he starts to go poor me. I'm being vilified.
20:08
Speaker 1: I tried to do the best, and I'm biting my
20:10
Speaker 1: tongue because I'm thinking, poor you. I don't feel sorry
20:13
Speaker 1: for you. I'm yeah, and uh. He brings out the dog,
20:17
Speaker 1: shows me you can sit. But he's a little more
20:20
Speaker 1: aggressive with sitting, I've noticed, because he would grab the
20:23
Speaker 1: dog by the muzzle and pull it up, because that's
20:26
Speaker 1: what you have to do to make sure she sits.
20:28
Speaker 1: I was like, I guess I could make anything sit
20:30
Speaker 1: if I did that, but I won't. In the meantime,
20:33
Speaker 1: while I was inside, I didn't know one of the
20:35
Speaker 1: girls in the office brought some dog food out to
20:38
Speaker 1: the band instead of and she says, that's the only
20:40
Speaker 1: food that dog will eat. That's what she told my brother.
20:43
Speaker 1: At least when we walk out to the band, Mark's
20:45
Speaker 1: wan who's that who's with you? I was like, that's
20:48
Speaker 1: my brother. He wrote up with me. I guess he
20:51
Speaker 1: didn't want strangers on the property or I don't know
20:53
Speaker 1: what his issue was. And then they made the girl
20:57
Speaker 1: get the dog food out. He goes, I know what
20:59
Speaker 1: you're doing, made her get the dog food out and
21:03
Speaker 1: had her put it up, and I was like, I
21:04
Speaker 1: don't know what that meant. What do you mean get
21:06
Speaker 1: the dog food out of your car? Out of my
21:08
Speaker 1: bad that she put in the car. Oh, so she
21:11
Speaker 1: was going to give you a bag of dog food, like,
21:13
Speaker 1: here's some food with the dog. Yeah, the only one
21:15
Speaker 1: she knew he would eat, supposedly. And then Mark was like,
21:18
Speaker 1: don't give them the dog food.
21:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, no dog food with a ten thousand dollars dog.
21:25
Speaker 2: And also I'm curious about the moment that he is
21:29
Speaker 2: demonstrating how to make the dog sit, because you know,
21:34
Speaker 2: I would never claim to have had a well trained dog,
21:37
Speaker 2: but we all knew how to sit.
21:40
Speaker 1: Right without grabbing them at all? Like that, right?
21:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what was your sort of reaction?
21:47
Speaker 1: I was actually horrified. I mean, I can't imagine grabbing
21:50
Speaker 1: a dog under their muzzle and yanking them up. That
21:53
Speaker 1: has to hurt, Like I said, I suppose you could
21:55
Speaker 1: make anything sit if you were rough with them like that.
21:59
Speaker 2: I mean, we have a gap now because you're picking
22:01
Speaker 2: up the dog in November. But this dog, according to
22:05
Speaker 2: rite Coon Service Dogs, needed training that would take through February.
22:09
Speaker 2: So did Mark or anyone at rite Coon Service Dogs
22:12
Speaker 2: express concern for you taking the dog before its training
22:17
Speaker 2: was completed despite the circumstances.
22:20
Speaker 1: Not at all. I mean the only thing he had
22:23
Speaker 1: to say really was, people are abilifying me. I'm not
22:27
Speaker 1: a bad guy. I tried to do the right thing,
22:28
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, I just want the dog. I don't
22:31
Speaker 1: want out of here.
22:32
Speaker 2: Okay, what were you told about where Puzzle was at
22:36
Speaker 2: in her training?
22:38
Speaker 1: He just assars on the right track, and that's why
22:40
Speaker 1: I said, I want her training lots so I know
22:43
Speaker 1: where she's at. Of course he had the excuse he
22:46
Speaker 1: was very busy the office, though. I don't wonder he
22:48
Speaker 1: will get them to me. Yeah, did he ever get
22:51
Speaker 1: them to you? After months of kind of emailing, I'm
22:55
Speaker 1: constantly Okay, he finally did send them to me and
22:57
Speaker 1: I got well. I think it was one with really
23:03
Speaker 1: not much on there. It looked like it was the
23:05
Speaker 1: dog was trained a handful of times maybe, and would
23:09
Speaker 1: go weeks some months without training, and dogs need that
23:13
Speaker 1: repetition all the time. You can't just skip a month
23:16
Speaker 1: and go back.
23:18
Speaker 2: I couldn't help but recall earlier in our conversation with
23:21
Speaker 2: Rebecca where she remembered visiting Raikon's website during her initial
23:26
Speaker 2: search for a service dog and reading that they were
23:28
Speaker 2: certified by the State of North Carolina. And I thought,
23:31
Speaker 2: how could North Carolina certify an organization that operates this way? Well,
23:36
Speaker 2: they didn't. The State of North Carolina doesn't offer certification
23:41
Speaker 2: or licensing to service dog providers or trainers. They're not involved. Rebecca,
23:46
Speaker 2: her daughters, and her brother they'd driven thirteen hours to
23:50
Speaker 2: North Carolina to pick up their new dog, Puzzle, and
23:53
Speaker 2: according to Rebecca, the whole visit lasted maybe fifteen minutes.
23:57
Speaker 2: Mark Mathis was kurt rushed and seen far more concerned
24:01
Speaker 2: with protecting his reputation than ensuring that Puzzle was ready
24:05
Speaker 2: for her new home and her new role as a
24:07
Speaker 2: service dog. To Ella, Puzzle seemed scared and confused. She
24:11
Speaker 2: was dirty and refused food and water. It was unsettling.
24:16
Speaker 1: The dog didn't work with the kids. She was afraid
24:20
Speaker 1: of even ceiling fans. There was one hallway in the
24:22
Speaker 1: house for some reason she was afraid of. I still
24:25
Speaker 1: don't understand that was not housebroken, chased stray cats in
24:30
Speaker 1: the backyard. It had knocked down Ella a few times,
24:33
Speaker 1: just jumping on her, and once she was on the
24:35
Speaker 1: ground clawing at her. Wow, and then I'd separate him.
24:39
Speaker 1: She'd go upstairs, and the dog would chased upstairs. She
24:42
Speaker 1: became very fearful of the dog, which she'd never been
24:44
Speaker 1: afraid of any animal. She caught the big bad wolf.
24:50
Speaker 1: What were you thinking in those first couple of days
24:53
Speaker 1: as you witnessed this behavior from the dog. All I
24:56
Speaker 1: could think of I was like, did he give me
24:59
Speaker 1: the wrong dog? We're more likely the wing saka you
25:02
Speaker 1: fell in the rest. Yeah, because there's no way this
25:06
Speaker 1: dog is as trained as he says, and it's acting
25:10
Speaker 1: like this, not even like trained, just like a house pet.
25:15
Speaker 1: I mean I was ready for Okay, I might have
25:16
Speaker 1: an actient or two in the house because suggesting to
25:19
Speaker 1: our house, but not constantly. There was no house breaking.
25:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it sounds like the dog just sat
25:26
Speaker 2: in a kennel at rycon and then got sent home.
25:31
Speaker 1: Right, we had a Corgi. I put her in boarding
25:35
Speaker 1: while we were gone, but we had about two days
25:38
Speaker 1: before I picked up the corgi, so that the Corgi
25:40
Speaker 1: could have a well puzzle, the ringer could have time
25:44
Speaker 1: to kind of get settled before we introduced a dog
25:47
Speaker 1: door to get the Corgi bring her home. Puzzle charges
25:51
Speaker 1: at the Corky did not like the dog, very aggressive
25:55
Speaker 1: towards the dog. I had to separate constantly. Got to
26:00
Speaker 1: the point where I was like, Okay, I don't want
26:03
Speaker 1: to do this because we've had this Corky so long,
26:05
Speaker 1: but we may have to find her a home the
26:07
Speaker 1: Corgi because I don't want the Corgi to get hurt.
26:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. And were you at that point then still hopeful
26:14
Speaker 2: that Puzzle would be able to help Ella with more
26:18
Speaker 2: time and training, or why did you decide to think
26:22
Speaker 2: about rehoming the Corgi and not rehoming Puzzle.
26:25
Speaker 1: I was sixty to seventy percent now thinking that I
26:29
Speaker 1: can get a trainer logo to work with us. Yeah,
26:33
Speaker 1: And I was like, but in the meantime, I don't
26:35
Speaker 1: want the Corki hurt, so it's better off to find
26:37
Speaker 1: the korki at home at least she's safe well.
26:40
Speaker 2: And also, you're ten thousand dollars into this other dog.
26:43
Speaker 2: You know, you're a single parent, you have multiple children,
26:47
Speaker 2: and Ella has you know, higher needs. Adding this layer
26:51
Speaker 2: of an aggressive, untrained, large dog to the household. You
26:58
Speaker 2: know what was that like for you?
27:02
Speaker 1: It's extremely stressful. But really, wanting to find the service
27:08
Speaker 1: dog that would work for my daughter was so important.
27:12
Speaker 1: They got the point. I told to Tom and said
27:13
Speaker 1: only I opened that crate. I don't want this dog loose.
27:18
Speaker 2: Extremely stressful barely scratches the surface of this experience, The
27:22
Speaker 2: built up hope and excitement that Ella's world was about
27:26
Speaker 2: to get a whole lot bigger with the support of
27:28
Speaker 2: a highly trained service dog, only to bring the dog
27:31
Speaker 2: home and have it be aggressive and untrained. Financially and emotionally.
27:36
Speaker 2: Rebecca had gone all in to provide this opportunity for
27:40
Speaker 2: her daughter.
27:42
Speaker 1: I think as an autism family, a lot of us
27:45
Speaker 1: become very ingrained with trying to stay home, near home base,
27:49
Speaker 1: where we're safe, our child is safe. So thinking about
27:52
Speaker 1: the opportunity now we can go out in the world.
27:54
Speaker 1: How our child been part of the world, part of
27:57
Speaker 1: the community, and experience things. But then I always get
28:01
Speaker 1: to experience and they're excited. You are excited to only
28:05
Speaker 1: find out that, under my daughter's words, you brought home
28:09
Speaker 1: the big bad wolf that you can't take it anywhere.
28:12
Speaker 1: You can't even take it a walk in your neighborhood
28:14
Speaker 1: because it might hurt one of the other dogs on
28:15
Speaker 1: a leash. Yeah. Yeah, now you're making yourself even more
28:20
Speaker 1: stuck in the house because you got to worry about
28:22
Speaker 1: that dog.
28:23
Speaker 2: Right. You had mentioned your world, you know, felt pretty small,
28:27
Speaker 2: and that was a hope in bringing the dog home,
28:30
Speaker 2: and then you were right back where you started with
28:32
Speaker 2: the added stress of an aggressive dog. The dog that
28:37
Speaker 2: was supposed to help Ella and make the world more
28:40
Speaker 2: approachable safer, was only adding stress and disappointment. Ella was
28:46
Speaker 2: afraid of Puzzle, and Rebecca, on top of that, had
28:49
Speaker 2: to make the difficult decision to rehome their Corgie in
28:53
Speaker 2: order to keep it safe. Rebecca was sleeping on the
28:56
Speaker 2: floor because she'd sold her bed to help pay for
28:59
Speaker 2: this service. She also told us that she'd reached out
29:03
Speaker 2: to Rykon multiple times after bringing Puzzle home and never
29:06
Speaker 2: heard back. That's when Rebecca began to realize maybe Raikon's
29:12
Speaker 2: haphazard way of operating wasn't just bad business, maybe it
29:16
Speaker 2: was fraud, and Rebecca was ready to fight back. Rebecca
29:28
Speaker 2: knew there was power in numbers and that her family
29:30
Speaker 2: wasn't alone in receiving an untrained service dog from Mark Mathis.
29:35
Speaker 2: So she started a new Facebook group and she called
29:39
Speaker 2: it riyconed.
29:42
Speaker 1: Well after I started the group and we ended up
29:45
Speaker 1: with a there was a propbly fifty families that were
29:47
Speaker 1: affected by this. We started digging into who do we
29:51
Speaker 1: contact and so forth, so it was okay, everybody needs
29:55
Speaker 1: to contact North Carolina a g which we all did.
29:59
Speaker 1: Nothing is really being done and that's kind of typical.
30:03
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Rebecca couldn't stand by and watch nothing be done.
30:07
Speaker 2: After connecting with so many families who'd found themselves in
30:11
Speaker 2: the same position after paying thousands for a service dog
30:14
Speaker 2: from Raycon, she didn't want Mark Mathis to get away
30:18
Speaker 2: with it, so she came up with a new plan.
30:22
Speaker 1: So somewhere in December, I started where I wrote a
30:25
Speaker 1: whole proposal thing email of the story for not just myself,
30:30
Speaker 1: but I wrote the other people and reached out to
30:33
Speaker 1: news stations all over the country and sometimes I did
30:37
Speaker 1: eighty to nine, and I did this usually every two
30:40
Speaker 1: to three days, even if I was pestering the same
30:43
Speaker 1: news station, because like, somebody's going to grab the story,
30:46
Speaker 1: somebody's going to put the pressure on the AG to
30:48
Speaker 1: do something. And we finally did get somebody, and then
30:52
Speaker 1: we got other news stations, and then AG decide we're
30:55
Speaker 1: going to look into this and we're gonna press charges.
30:58
Speaker 2: And so it sounds like in October when Mark and
31:02
Speaker 2: Mathis and rykon Service Dogs files for bankruptcy. He's also
31:08
Speaker 2: being sued by two different families, correct, but there's civil suits, yes,
31:14
Speaker 2: And so then you when this happens with Puzzle, gather
31:19
Speaker 2: everyone who's been wronged by him or feels that they've
31:22
Speaker 2: been wronged by him on a Facebook page, and you
31:25
Speaker 2: start pushing to local news stations to put pressure on
31:28
Speaker 2: the North Carolina Attorney General's Office. Right what month do
31:34
Speaker 2: the news stories start coming out? And when do you
31:37
Speaker 2: hear from the Attorney General.
31:39
Speaker 1: Around the end of January, I had a new station
31:42
Speaker 1: reached back to me. I said, okay, where are you
31:46
Speaker 1: and they told me what you know? State?
31:48
Speaker 2: What town?
31:49
Speaker 1: I said, okay, here's the members I have in your
31:51
Speaker 1: area who are willing to talk to media, and then
31:54
Speaker 1: i'd reach out to those people, say you're all willing
31:57
Speaker 1: to talk to news news, this is who wants to
31:58
Speaker 1: talk to you. Get them together. What did you see
32:02
Speaker 1: come from those stories coming out? I think the best
32:06
Speaker 1: report we had was actually Kelly Kennedy in North Carolina
32:08
Speaker 1: because she went in depth with what he was doing.
32:12
Speaker 1: But I really think that helped put the pressure because
32:14
Speaker 1: they also reached out to the AG about it because
32:16
Speaker 1: we all said we had filed with AG. So yeah,
32:19
Speaker 1: I see, so the news stories are reaching up to
32:22
Speaker 1: the AG like, hey, these families filed, what have you
32:25
Speaker 1: done about it? Yeah, what's your comment on this?
32:27
Speaker 2: And wow, that's great?
32:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, what did you see happen from there? I saw
32:32
Speaker 1: AG pick it up and start really digging into his
32:34
Speaker 1: finances and everything. That's when we found out. Yeah, first
32:38
Speaker 1: of all, I felt Chapter seven bankruptcy, which is personal,
32:42
Speaker 1: so that actually got dismissed because this is a business,
32:46
Speaker 1: not personal. So then they filed under thirteen that did
32:50
Speaker 1: get thrown out because they said they looked at and said, no,
32:53
Speaker 1: you can't, we're not letting you do this. We fot
32:55
Speaker 1: out that he spent a lot of money transferred into
32:58
Speaker 1: his account for you know, club those trips, Amazon websites.
33:05
Speaker 1: He spent the money on other things for his own
33:08
Speaker 1: personal Was there an information that came out about you
33:11
Speaker 1: know how much training? Because you're saying he spent a
33:13
Speaker 1: lot of this money. So what was going on with
33:16
Speaker 1: the dogs, Like, did you learn was their training? What
33:19
Speaker 1: all was uncovered with what he was actually doing in
33:21
Speaker 1: this operation? Well, there was some training, but it was
33:27
Speaker 1: by anybody he hired off a street. They weren't think
33:30
Speaker 1: I think I did hear of one person who was
33:32
Speaker 1: truly a trainer who went to work there, and I
33:35
Speaker 1: think they quit within a couple of days because I
33:37
Speaker 1: know and we found that trainer through my Facebook group ricond.
33:43
Speaker 1: It seemed like most of the trainers were really there
33:45
Speaker 1: to clean throw food at him, So I don't think
33:49
Speaker 1: the trainers were hired to actually train.
33:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and did you learn anything about the trainer's sort
33:56
Speaker 2: of qualifications to train service?
34:01
Speaker 1: I think he had no one really except for that
34:05
Speaker 1: one that I heard about who was a trainer, because
34:08
Speaker 1: another person who joined the Right Conquery who had worked there,
34:12
Speaker 1: said she had no training, but Mark said he would teacher.
34:16
Speaker 2: I see, did he teacher no. Yeah, And I'm doing
34:22
Speaker 2: like the quick math on it. I mean, there are
34:25
Speaker 2: over fifty families in this Facebook group that feel like
34:28
Speaker 2: they were wronged by ry Con service dogs. The dogs
34:32
Speaker 2: are costing about fifteen thousand dollars at least, like that's
34:37
Speaker 2: a lot of money.
34:39
Speaker 1: I would say on average people were charged around the
34:42
Speaker 1: thirteen to fifteen. He was so bad that the breeders
34:45
Speaker 1: here knew it, the brear breers and wouldn't sell Tooma.
34:49
Speaker 1: But didn't They should have caused an uprising. Yeah, the
34:52
Speaker 1: poor breaders overseas did not know. They just knew this
34:56
Speaker 1: guy's coming over and buying all of my puppies, which
35:00
Speaker 1: is ridiculous for even the best breeder. I mean, he
35:04
Speaker 1: probably did not tell him they're gonna be sarsdogs. But
35:07
Speaker 1: you're lucky if one dog out of the litter can
35:10
Speaker 1: be a service dog, and that's even out of Golden
35:12
Speaker 1: retrieversion laps. But he would buy all their puppies and
35:17
Speaker 1: bring them back. Do you know how much he was
35:20
Speaker 1: paying for dogs? He told us thirty seven hundred what
35:25
Speaker 1: he actually paid the breeders. Because I read out some
35:27
Speaker 1: of the breeders was two thousand. So he's like, let's
35:30
Speaker 1: say for one dog, he's paying two thousand dollars, he
35:33
Speaker 1: has to go to Europe or whatever. Eventually in the
35:35
Speaker 1: cost of that, he's paying whatever he's paying to the
35:38
Speaker 1: people off the street to supposedly be trainers. But that's
35:42
Speaker 1: still a huge profit margin that he's bringing in. Oh yeah.
35:48
Speaker 2: The Working Dog Registry describes Briard's as independent and says
35:52
Speaker 2: that that independence can require a lengthier training process. It
35:57
Speaker 2: also says that socialization plays a pivotal role in developing
36:00
Speaker 2: a Briard's effectiveness as a service dog. They can be protective,
36:04
Speaker 2: but if that protectiveness is not met with proper training
36:07
Speaker 2: from a young age, it can develop into over protectiveness.
36:12
Speaker 2: We looked into this because aggression seemed to be a
36:15
Speaker 2: common trait among the dogs that families took home from Rykon.
36:19
Speaker 2: But this isn't necessarily because of the breed. It could
36:22
Speaker 2: be a lack of training a lack of socialization, which
36:26
Speaker 2: are arguably two of the most important qualities in a
36:29
Speaker 2: service dog that they are well trained and well socialized.
36:33
Speaker 2: I'm curious in this group of people that had gathered
36:37
Speaker 2: online to discuss their experiences having a dog with behavioral
36:41
Speaker 2: challenges like aggression or extreme fear of people or whatever
36:46
Speaker 2: it is. That's really difficult. You know what were people
36:50
Speaker 2: then doing with these problematic dogs.
36:54
Speaker 1: We had a person who was a Briar breader here
36:58
Speaker 1: the actually prid rest here in the States, who was
37:02
Speaker 1: helping people rehome their dogs.
37:04
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
37:05
Speaker 1: Most people realized their dog was not going to ever
37:08
Speaker 1: be a service dog. Some people still thought so. At
37:11
Speaker 1: my point in January, I thought so. I actually hired
37:15
Speaker 1: a trainer here to come out and kind of evaluate
37:18
Speaker 1: the dog. All right, this dog though.
37:21
Speaker 2: And what did that cost you to hire this trainer?
37:25
Speaker 1: That was six hundred dollars to get an evaluation. And
37:28
Speaker 1: then when they said, no, this dog can't be a
37:30
Speaker 1: service dog, it's not going to make acceptable service dog.
37:34
Speaker 1: I reached out to this Briard rescue lady and she
37:39
Speaker 1: helped me find somebody who's in Daytona and she had
37:43
Speaker 1: had Briards. She made sure all these dogs went to
37:46
Speaker 1: experience Briard owners.
37:49
Speaker 2: So you were able to successfully rehome Puzzle to someone
37:52
Speaker 2: who was knowledgeable about the breed.
37:55
Speaker 1: Yes, did you learn anything about Puzzle's history, what her
38:01
Speaker 1: life had been like, before she came to your house.
38:04
Speaker 1: I know she originated from Czech Republic because I did
38:08
Speaker 1: track down who the breeder was. I found that out,
38:11
Speaker 1: and she was really to know where puppy was because
38:13
Speaker 1: we had breeders who were please help me find my puppies.
38:16
Speaker 1: I want of my puppies are Okay, I did have
38:19
Speaker 1: one trainer told me, I think that's the dog that
38:22
Speaker 1: went out with Mark and he's not nice to these dogs.
38:27
Speaker 1: I said, well, that could be part of the reason
38:28
Speaker 1: they're aggressive too.
38:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:31
Speaker 1: I know they used shock collars a lot. I know
38:35
Speaker 1: he yelled at them. There's no doubt part of the
38:40
Speaker 1: dog's aggression and timidness is from the way it was handled.
38:44
Speaker 1: I mean just from seeing how he made her sit
38:46
Speaker 1: when I picked her up. I'm not grabbing any dog
38:49
Speaker 1: by their muzzle that fur u in her mouth and
38:52
Speaker 1: pulling them up to make them set. Yeah, but she
38:56
Speaker 1: hadn't been sent to a different family before you. I
39:00
Speaker 1: think she was sent to two before me, to be
39:02
Speaker 1: honest with you, because she had the names Frida on
39:06
Speaker 1: her VET records were Freda, Zoe and then Puzzle too, okay,
39:12
Speaker 1: because he had another dog named Puzzle, so they named
39:16
Speaker 1: it puzzle too for the VET records.
39:18
Speaker 2: So you're sort of thinking is that she was sold,
39:22
Speaker 2: returned because of these problems, and then sold again.
39:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think we were her third home, which then
39:30
Speaker 1: takes it one dog that he paid two grand for
39:33
Speaker 1: instead of selling it once for fifteen thousand. That turns
39:37
Speaker 1: into forty five thousand dollars for him if he's selling
39:39
Speaker 1: it three times, right, Well, that was just like the
39:43
Speaker 1: one I told you, Oh came in North Carolina. That
39:45
Speaker 1: dog was sold to them, they returned it. There there
39:48
Speaker 1: were the ones who had the second lawsuit and then
39:50
Speaker 1: he resold it to somebody I think of South Carolina
39:55
Speaker 1: or Virginia one of those. But that dog was sold
39:58
Speaker 1: several times and then that family rehomed it. And with
40:03
Speaker 1: most of these people, like the fifty people that were
40:06
Speaker 1: in the group with you that you found, were they
40:08
Speaker 1: families that were looking for service dogs for their children
40:12
Speaker 1: with autism? Or were there different types of people that
40:15
Speaker 1: needed service dogs? Among them? Most of them were awsism.
40:20
Speaker 1: You had others that had, you know, other medical issues,
40:24
Speaker 1: but would fall you know, along the same kind of
40:26
Speaker 1: lines of what they would need. And were most of
40:28
Speaker 1: them children? I think they were all children. I think
40:31
Speaker 1: there might have been one who was not a child.
40:33
Speaker 2: Fifty families, that's a lot. Ye.
40:36
Speaker 1: It was considered one of the largest survice dog scams
40:39
Speaker 1: in the country. What were the other stories? I mean,
40:42
Speaker 1: you know, obviously there's fifty families, so there's a lot
40:44
Speaker 1: of them. But can you kind of give us an
40:46
Speaker 1: idea of some of the other people that you spoke
40:49
Speaker 1: with and what they were experiencing in their homes with
40:52
Speaker 1: these dogs. Probably the worst one was person in Canada.
40:57
Speaker 1: She gotten a dog for her daughter who was to
41:00
Speaker 1: go to college, brought the dog home. The dog was
41:04
Speaker 1: extremely fearful of men and aggressive towards men, which she
41:07
Speaker 1: had a brother, so the brother couldn't even leave us room.
41:11
Speaker 1: The child realized this dog would never be her service dog,
41:15
Speaker 1: and in January she committed suicide.
41:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the parents of this child, who was about
41:22
Speaker 2: to go to college when this all happened, believed that
41:26
Speaker 2: her dying by suicide was a result of heartbreak from
41:32
Speaker 2: the dog situation.
41:35
Speaker 1: Realizing that that dog would never be our service dog.
41:38
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it was heartbreaking. When her mother reached out
41:42
Speaker 1: and told us that, I was like.
41:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, there are words for that. The
41:49
Speaker 2: woman Rebecca is referring to here as Nancy Evans. In
41:53
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, Nancy's daughter Katie had been eagerly awaiting the
41:57
Speaker 2: arrival of a service dog from Raikon. I reached out
42:01
Speaker 2: to Nancy for this episode, and we had a brief
42:03
Speaker 2: email exchange, but unfortunately, Hannah and I were unable to
42:06
Speaker 2: interview her. But Nancy had spoken publicly about her daughter,
42:10
Speaker 2: Katie and how their experience with Rykon unfolded. Katie struggled socially.
42:15
Speaker 2: She was diagnosed with ADHD and a learning disorder. She
42:18
Speaker 2: suffered from extreme anxiety. Katie felt a service dog could
42:22
Speaker 2: help give her confidence to meet new people and make
42:25
Speaker 2: new friends. She was over the moon with excitement, but
42:28
Speaker 2: when the dog arrived in November of twenty eighteen, it
42:32
Speaker 2: wasn't house trained, it wasn't socialized, and it didn't even
42:35
Speaker 2: have basic obedience training. It was also reactionary toward men.
42:40
Speaker 2: For Katie, this was devastating. She'd hoped that with the
42:43
Speaker 2: service dog she might be able to go to college
42:45
Speaker 2: and live more independently. Her dream was crushed. On January two,
42:51
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, Katie Evans died by suicide. She was nineteen
42:56
Speaker 2: years old. Her mother, Nancy, spoke to CT News Canada,
43:01
Speaker 2: who published an article on January tenth, twenty nineteen, quoting
43:05
Speaker 2: Nancy Is saying, for my daughter, everything in her life
43:09
Speaker 2: was going to change and going to be better as
43:12
Speaker 2: soon as Bailey was her service dog. I really believe
43:15
Speaker 2: if we had gotten what we paid for and what
43:17
Speaker 2: we were promised by Mark Mathis at Rycon, my daughter
43:21
Speaker 2: would still be alive today.
43:24
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask a follow up question about
43:27
Speaker 1: the family who had the terrible tragedy of their daughter
43:30
Speaker 1: dying by suicide. And I'm sure there's a lot of
43:34
Speaker 1: reasons for that, you know, that go into that that
43:36
Speaker 1: led them to believe that the dog was the maybe
43:39
Speaker 1: the factor that led their daughter to do this. But
43:42
Speaker 1: you had said she was about to go to college.
43:44
Speaker 1: Was the dog supposed to like help her get to
43:46
Speaker 1: college and be independent? Yes? And then was she looking
43:50
Speaker 1: at not going to college now because the dog was
43:53
Speaker 1: so ill behaved? I don't know about that. I know
43:56
Speaker 1: that she became very depressed because her brother didn't even
44:00
Speaker 1: come out of room because the dog was a gress
44:01
Speaker 1: of and didn't like men, and she realized she couldn't
44:05
Speaker 1: go out and do things because this dog, and I
44:09
Speaker 1: think at that point she just felt like, I'm not
44:11
Speaker 1: going to get to go anywhere. It's horrible.
44:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so much more that's tied in with these dogs.
44:18
Speaker 1: As you've explained, it's about being able to have freedom,
44:21
Speaker 1: an agency, and be part of the world, and that's
44:24
Speaker 1: a huge deal. And having the promise of that and
44:26
Speaker 1: then that taken away from you would be incredibly difficult.
44:30
Speaker 2: Were the majority of other families their stories, you know,
44:36
Speaker 2: were they similar to yours?
44:40
Speaker 1: Most of them are very similar with aggression. There was
44:43
Speaker 1: one who he never even got his dog, and Mark
44:47
Speaker 1: still kept us money.
44:49
Speaker 2: Rebecca's plan to raise awareness through the media worked. In
44:53
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, the North Carolina Attorney General's Office opened an
44:57
Speaker 2: investigation into rykon service dogs, and in February of twenty twenty,
45:02
Speaker 2: Mark Mathis was indicted on forty two counts. He reportedly
45:06
Speaker 2: provided sixty six dogs to families over the span of
45:09
Speaker 2: a decade. The Age alleged that Mathis sold service dogs
45:13
Speaker 2: that he said could help children with developmental or medical needs,
45:17
Speaker 2: but that Mathis knew his dogs were not trained to
45:19
Speaker 2: service dogs. There were over fifty complaints from families about Rycon.
45:24
Speaker 2: One family returned to their dog after he attacked two
45:27
Speaker 2: other dogs and asked for their fourteen thousand dollars back.
45:31
Speaker 2: According to ABC eleven, Mark Mathis refused to give them
45:35
Speaker 2: a refund and blamed the family for a lack of
45:37
Speaker 2: experience in dog handling and told them that they would
45:40
Speaker 2: not be getting their money back because they had surrendered
45:42
Speaker 2: the animal. Yeah, and then in twenty twenty five, so
45:47
Speaker 2: you know, last winter there's an update, he pleaded guilty.
45:53
Speaker 2: What do you think sort of changed?
45:55
Speaker 1: He changed lawyers a couple of times. I think his
45:57
Speaker 1: lawyers kind of told him you don'top, you know, and
46:01
Speaker 1: I think the ag was pushing to do the right
46:06
Speaker 1: thing too.
46:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. So in December of twenty twenty five, he pleaded
46:11
Speaker 2: guilty to fifty counts of obtaining property by false pretenses.
46:15
Speaker 2: But you know, it took over six years since the
46:19
Speaker 2: first complaints came into the Attorney General's office.
46:22
Speaker 1: I was like, what seven years? And what was happening
46:25
Speaker 1: during that six or seven years? Was he just delaying
46:29
Speaker 1: the process or how did it? What was going on?
46:32
Speaker 1: I think he was stalling a lot of it in
46:34
Speaker 1: a way. I guess it was good. We all kept
46:36
Speaker 1: contact with AG and I think it gave the AG
46:39
Speaker 1: more time to dig deeper into finances and what he
46:42
Speaker 1: has done to make it a harder case for him.
46:45
Speaker 1: So in a way, his stalling may have been a
46:46
Speaker 1: good thing, even though justice is extremely slow.
46:51
Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about his sentence.
46:54
Speaker 1: He had to that day pay one hundred thousand to
46:58
Speaker 1: the court so that there could be some remittance back
47:01
Speaker 1: to these families.
47:04
Speaker 2: But he was never taken to jail. Who's never taken
47:08
Speaker 2: to prison?
47:08
Speaker 1: He got the self put himself in when he was charged.
47:11
Speaker 2: Right when he was charged. But when he was sentenced,
47:14
Speaker 2: he received twelve separate sentences of probation.
47:20
Speaker 1: Yes, he got probation. All the reasons I did that
47:24
Speaker 1: is because he has a good paying job. He is
47:27
Speaker 1: an engineer, so he makes good mine. So they wanted
47:30
Speaker 1: to let him keep working so he could afford to
47:34
Speaker 1: get some of his money back to those people. Nobody's
47:36
Speaker 1: gonna be made whole, sadly, so that was the agreement.
47:40
Speaker 1: But if he doesn't do what he's supposed to do,
47:43
Speaker 1: he can find himself in jail.
47:45
Speaker 2: Right, are you going to receive anything back from him
47:48
Speaker 2: as part of the restitution.
47:50
Speaker 1: Yes, that's good. Like I said, nobody's getting made whole
47:54
Speaker 1: sadly now, which everybody was because I know, not just
47:58
Speaker 1: for myself but a lot of families. It's a hardship well.
48:01
Speaker 2: And even if everyone was made whole for what they
48:04
Speaker 2: spent on the dog, you know, the hours put in
48:07
Speaker 2: and the stress and the disappointment for them and their children.
48:10
Speaker 1: Now, I wish we'd never gone through it, to be
48:12
Speaker 1: honest with.
48:12
Speaker 2: You, Yeah, and you know, given that you only interacted
48:16
Speaker 2: with him in person a couple of times, what do
48:20
Speaker 2: you think was driving him to do this? You know,
48:25
Speaker 2: he is a parent to a child with autism, so
48:28
Speaker 2: I think it would be reasonable to assume he understands
48:32
Speaker 2: a lot of the challenges that parents in that position
48:35
Speaker 2: might be facing. What do you think was his driving force?
48:39
Speaker 1: That was the worst part about it is that he
48:41
Speaker 1: was He was a member of our community, and to
48:44
Speaker 1: do that to other members of community is unforgivable. But
48:47
Speaker 1: I think it was too bald narcissism because he does
48:52
Speaker 1: think he's smarter, and everybody, even a judge, said that
48:56
Speaker 1: in the courtroom, you are narcissistic. And I think the
48:59
Speaker 1: other part of money. He wanted money because he wasn't
49:02
Speaker 1: working as an engineer when he was doing his service
49:05
Speaker 1: dog industry.
49:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, Attorney General Jeff Jackson said there are a few
49:11
Speaker 2: things more cruel than exploiting families who are trying to
49:14
Speaker 2: help their children live safeer, more independent lives. Selling fake
49:18
Speaker 2: service dogs isn't just fraud. It robs children with disabilities
49:21
Speaker 2: of support they rely on and puts them at risk.
49:24
Speaker 1: Did Mark say anything? Did he make a statement? At
49:26
Speaker 1: the sentence and hearing? He gave a I'm sorry, which
49:31
Speaker 1: is basically what he said was I'm sorry, but there
49:34
Speaker 1: was no emotion behind it. I was pretty robotic. It's
49:37
Speaker 1: kind of like say you're sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, it
49:41
Speaker 1: wasn't heartbelt. Didn't feel genuine to you. Correct. Did you
49:47
Speaker 1: ever get any like not that there would be a
49:51
Speaker 1: logical explanation from this man, But I'm so curious. Do
49:54
Speaker 1: you know why he chose Free Arts? I think he
49:58
Speaker 1: just fell in love with the breed. It was unique
50:00
Speaker 1: and different, and you know, when you're a narcissist, you
50:03
Speaker 1: want something unique and different. I think that's what it
50:05
Speaker 1: was for him.
50:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like maybe it gave off some sort of like
50:10
Speaker 2: I'm specialized because I'm using this lesser known breed elitism. Yeah,
50:16
Speaker 2: because I spoke to another family that we didn't end
50:20
Speaker 2: up interviewing, who still owns their dog but has to
50:25
Speaker 2: keep her separate from anyone who comes over to the
50:28
Speaker 2: house and it is a full time job to manage
50:32
Speaker 2: the dog because of its aggression. Yeah, it's certainly not
50:35
Speaker 2: helpful to their child with autism.
50:38
Speaker 1: Wow.
50:39
Speaker 2: Having been through this experience with Raycon, it seems like
50:43
Speaker 2: there are other service dog providers that are trying to
50:47
Speaker 2: do the right thing and maybe having very real success
50:51
Speaker 2: training dogs to help children like Ella. Is it something
50:54
Speaker 2: you would ever consider doing again.
50:57
Speaker 1: With a ton of background research on whoever they are.
51:01
Speaker 1: We do have their little Christmas present they got last year,
51:05
Speaker 1: which is an English Cream Golden Retriever and he seems
51:09
Speaker 1: to thinkfully know when she needs help, which is very
51:14
Speaker 1: adorable to say, because I was like, I don't know,
51:18
Speaker 1: maybe he could be what you need. We'll see now
51:21
Speaker 1: as he grows, we'll see if he can become a
51:24
Speaker 1: service dog for her. But he knows when she's not
51:26
Speaker 1: feeling well. He'll immediately go lay on her. He knows
51:31
Speaker 1: if she's getting stressed, out, he'll start whinting and if
51:35
Speaker 1: he can't get to her. So that dog seems to
51:38
Speaker 1: us thankfully know what she needs and they've got a
51:41
Speaker 1: cute bond. That's really sweet. Sweet. Yeah, good to hear.
51:46
Speaker 1: Pom will tell maybe one day he will be a
51:48
Speaker 1: service dog for her, but right now he's picking up
51:52
Speaker 1: on what she needs.
51:53
Speaker 2: What's his name, Blizzard, Blizzard. That's cute.
52:02
Speaker 1: Before we get into talking about our interview, which I'm
52:06
Speaker 1: sure we have a lot to say about, congratulations on
52:10
Speaker 1: episode forty eight. Thanks you too.
52:13
Speaker 2: One year of the Knife.
52:14
Speaker 1: One year of doing the Knife, and thank you so
52:16
Speaker 1: much to all of our listeners for sticking with us,
52:19
Speaker 1: for listening, for commenting, and for supporting us. Yeah, it
52:24
Speaker 1: really means so much. Hannah and I had an idea
52:27
Speaker 1: for this show and exactly right believed and here we are.
52:31
Speaker 1: So we really appreciate your support. And people like Rebecca
52:35
Speaker 1: are what make the show so interesting to produce. That
52:38
Speaker 1: they're willing to share about these incredible experiences that.
52:41
Speaker 2: They go through. And you know, Rebecca, despite everything that
52:48
Speaker 2: she did to obtain the service dog for her daughter
52:52
Speaker 2: and then all of the disappointment that followed, she expressed
52:56
Speaker 2: frustration and anger with rykon service dogs, but she never
53:00
Speaker 2: complained about the hardships that she faced. They were just
53:04
Speaker 2: part of motherhood for her, to the point.
53:07
Speaker 1: Where in the interview we had to ask her, like, Rebecca,
53:10
Speaker 1: tell us what this means to you, because we know
53:14
Speaker 1: and we could tell from talking to her that this
53:16
Speaker 1: was much more than a losing some money and getting
53:20
Speaker 1: a dog that you don't like. The repercussions of this
53:22
Speaker 1: in her life were so massive, but she's such a
53:25
Speaker 1: positive person that she just kept bringing it back to
53:30
Speaker 1: I'll do anything to support my daughter.
53:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she was sleeping on the floor to
53:34
Speaker 2: afford the service dog that actually ended up having no training.
53:37
Speaker 2: And that was sort of a passing moment that we
53:40
Speaker 2: had to come back to because it's like, Wow, these
53:43
Speaker 2: are the sacrifices that parents like Rebecca are making, and
53:47
Speaker 2: she's just incredible for what she's been through and the
53:51
Speaker 2: way that she looks after her children. You know, it's
53:54
Speaker 2: interesting too, this whole idea of service dogs and what
53:59
Speaker 2: are the rules because Raikon was a nonprofit that was true.
54:04
Speaker 2: The American Disabilities Act has a written standard for service dogs,
54:08
Speaker 2: which is service animals are defined as dogs that are
54:10
Speaker 2: individually trained to work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.
54:16
Speaker 2: And this is sort of vague by design because all
54:19
Speaker 2: manner of people exist in the world and might have
54:22
Speaker 2: different needs out of a service dog. So it would
54:25
Speaker 2: be maybe damaging to say this is exactly what service
54:29
Speaker 2: dogs have to be able to do to qualify, because.
54:33
Speaker 1: Right, that makes sense. So there's maybe a resistance to
54:36
Speaker 1: making the definition too strict because then people might be excluded.
54:41
Speaker 2: Right, It's like, we don't want to have this narrow
54:44
Speaker 2: frame of mind when it comes to what a service
54:46
Speaker 2: dog looks like, because it could be for someone who
54:49
Speaker 2: experiences seizures, or it could be someone who's visually impaired,
54:54
Speaker 2: and those dogs might have different training.
54:57
Speaker 1: Right.
54:58
Speaker 2: And still any public estable plishment like a grocery store
55:01
Speaker 2: is because of the ADA has to let that dog in,
55:05
Speaker 2: and so it's important, but it also leaves room for
55:09
Speaker 2: people like Mark Mathis and Ricon.
55:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so obviously in the episode we get into
55:15
Speaker 1: reasons why you know, he was not doing what he
55:19
Speaker 1: was supposed to be doing, and part of that is
55:21
Speaker 1: that he wasn't actually really training these dogs. He wasn't
55:25
Speaker 1: hiring trainers he was clearly not investing the hours into
55:30
Speaker 1: training these dogs that need a lot of training that
55:33
Speaker 1: he was telling people. But I don't know if you
55:35
Speaker 1: found anything about like are there requirements for things like that?
55:39
Speaker 1: Like if he had done a little more training, would
55:42
Speaker 1: that have put him legally like in a better place,
55:46
Speaker 1: Like is there a specific amount of training that has
55:48
Speaker 1: to be done in order for a dog to like
55:51
Speaker 1: be qualified as a service dog.
55:54
Speaker 2: So there is no required training standard, no federal certification
55:58
Speaker 2: or license, no service dog database and mark mathis. Although
56:03
Speaker 2: Riikon employed trainers, it wasn't clear that there was a
56:06
Speaker 2: lot of training being put into the dogs, you know,
56:09
Speaker 2: or maybe it was like rapid fire training before someone
56:12
Speaker 2: took a dog home. Whatever he was doing, or the
56:15
Speaker 2: trainers he was hiring, maybe by no fault of their own,
56:18
Speaker 2: it was ineffective and seemed very sort of not regulated,
56:24
Speaker 2: even by Riikon. I also wanted to mention that there's
56:27
Speaker 2: a big difference between a service dog and an emotional
56:31
Speaker 2: support animal, and the ADA also distinguishes between the two.
56:35
Speaker 2: The ADA distinguishes that animals that are a source of
56:39
Speaker 2: emotional support are not service animals that would fall under
56:42
Speaker 2: the ADA, which of course, ensures protections to people who
56:45
Speaker 2: are renting or make sure people can you know, go
56:48
Speaker 2: into grocery stores with their service dogs or enter other businesses.
56:52
Speaker 2: They are legally protected because of the ADA. And I
56:56
Speaker 2: just wanted to note that we're not talking about emotional
57:00
Speaker 2: support animals here, We're talking about true service.
57:02
Speaker 1: Dogs, right.
57:04
Speaker 2: Rebecca talked a lot about how Mark mathis being a
57:07
Speaker 2: member of the autism community. He said that his own
57:09
Speaker 2: son was diagnosed with autism and that really meant something
57:13
Speaker 2: to her because he would understand the unique training a
57:16
Speaker 2: dog like that would need. And that was really surprising
57:19
Speaker 2: to me because you would think someone in that position
57:22
Speaker 2: would be even more.
57:24
Speaker 1: Careful and respectful. Really shocking. Yeah, like, how could you
57:28
Speaker 1: do this to other parents when you know how hard
57:31
Speaker 1: this is?
57:32
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. And an aggressive dog in any household
57:36
Speaker 2: is so stressful. Yes, I mean unfortunately we can keep
57:41
Speaker 2: attest to that. Yeah, we have some bad dogs, rip Bunker,
57:46
Speaker 2: But like when I had Bunker anyone coming over, I
57:51
Speaker 2: had to put him in a different room, I had
57:52
Speaker 2: to walk him like you described it once perfectly and
57:56
Speaker 2: it stuck with me as pac Man just always like
57:59
Speaker 2: crossing the street when you see someone and yeah, it
58:02
Speaker 2: is like very stressful.
58:04
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. Yeah, I had a dog like that
58:06
Speaker 1: as well. It was always really stressful and he loo
58:08
Speaker 1: came over. I mean, his whole thing is that he
58:10
Speaker 1: would lunge at people's crotches. Oh my god. So obviously
58:14
Speaker 1: that creates a lot of awkward situations. And then you're
58:17
Speaker 1: just like, sorry, you can't meet my dog. He's really sweet,
58:19
Speaker 1: believe me, and I'm failing as a dog. You just
58:22
Speaker 1: can't go near him as well. But it is like
58:25
Speaker 1: it adds a level of stress, and when you already
58:28
Speaker 1: have so much on your plate, like Rebecca did, it's
58:30
Speaker 1: heartbreaking to think that this thing that was supposed to
58:33
Speaker 1: be this promise and solution ended up just making her
58:36
Speaker 1: life harder.
58:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she had to rehome their beloved pet,
58:41
Speaker 2: and she did that out of safety. And then to
58:43
Speaker 2: think about, Okay, if you send a service dog out
58:47
Speaker 2: into the world with a child who is relying on
58:50
Speaker 2: that service dog, that dog better be unflappable, because even
58:54
Speaker 2: people or children with good intentions may not respect the
58:58
Speaker 2: space of a service dog, may question why it's there,
59:02
Speaker 2: may not take you seriously when you say, oh, this
59:05
Speaker 2: is a service dog. Please don't put the service dog
59:07
Speaker 2: or they may let their dog wen up to it.
59:10
Speaker 2: I mean that dog needs to be like bomb proof,
59:12
Speaker 2: like a police horse, you know, and these dogs they
59:15
Speaker 2: were not that way.
59:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is too bad. And it's not the dog's fault, obviously.
59:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were really hopeful we're not going to upset
59:24
Speaker 2: the Briard community. But you know, it was an unusual
59:28
Speaker 2: choice of breed given the strong hurting instincts, and there's
59:33
Speaker 2: breeds that are decidedly very good at this and popular
59:37
Speaker 2: for a reason. So yeah, that's why we looked into
59:40
Speaker 2: it further. But just really appreciate Rebecca and I just
59:45
Speaker 2: think she's so cool for spearheading this movement that ended
59:48
Speaker 2: up with the Attorney General's office actually prosecuting.
59:52
Speaker 1: Where she found the time. I don't know how many
59:54
Speaker 1: hours are in this woman's day, because she was already
59:58
Speaker 1: so busy, and then she's contacted eighty different outlets pushing
1:00:02
Speaker 1: this story, determined to get justice. It's like, Okay, this
1:00:05
Speaker 1: is amazing. I'm so impressed.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: A mother's love truly. Yeah, Wow, that's softer Rebecca for that.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Yes, and you know, obviously this is a story about
1:00:16
Speaker 1: service dog fraud and so it's not representative of service
1:00:19
Speaker 1: dogs in general. We love service dogs. They're so helpful,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: you know, they do change lives, and so it's just
1:00:26
Speaker 1: important to find a place that is legitimate. Yeah.
1:00:29
Speaker 2: Absolutely, service dogs play such an important role. And you know,
1:00:33
Speaker 2: Rebecca said she was open to finding one again in
1:00:37
Speaker 2: the future, and if that happens for her, I hope
1:00:40
Speaker 2: that it's everything they had hoped it would be the
1:00:42
Speaker 2: first time.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you know, this year of the Knife
1:00:47
Speaker 1: has been such a joy for patient I a learning experience.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: We have gotten more comfortable with what the show is
1:00:54
Speaker 1: and what kind of stories we want to tell. And
1:00:56
Speaker 1: it's really people like Rebecca, you know, being willing to
1:00:59
Speaker 1: open up and tell her story that allows us to
1:01:03
Speaker 1: continue with the show and make content that feels important
1:01:06
Speaker 1: and valuable to us. And so, you know, if you
1:01:09
Speaker 1: have a story that you want to share, or you
1:01:11
Speaker 1: know of one that you think would be a good
1:01:14
Speaker 1: fit for The Knife, please reach out and pitch us
1:01:17
Speaker 1: the story, even if you're on the fence, just send
1:01:19
Speaker 1: it to us. You can reach us at the Knife
1:01:21
Speaker 1: at exactlyrightmedia dot com. Yeah.
1:01:23
Speaker 2: And also I want to say when we do get emails.
1:01:25
Speaker 2: People are I don't know why, but surprised when we
1:01:29
Speaker 2: respond and I have to say, like we get maybe
1:01:32
Speaker 2: one a week.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: We always respond. You can email us and we will
1:01:36
Speaker 1: email you back. It's a guarantee. Well that's it for episode.
1:01:40
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. If you
1:01:43
Speaker 2: have a story for us, we would love to hear it.
1:01:45
Speaker 2: Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com, or
1:01:49
Speaker 2: you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife Podcast
1:01:51
Speaker 2: or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
1:01:54
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
1:01:57
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and me Patia Eting.
1:02:00
Speaker 2: Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
1:02:03
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
1:02:05
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
1:02:07
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport Artwork.
1:02:10
Speaker 2: Five Vanessa Lilac.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.