The Trial and Final Reflections

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First it was just, you know, there's something weird going on in my family. But also of insane ways that my family talks about these crazy event s. And and is this story a story that when you would tell it to to friends and loved ones, was it a funny stor y? I hesitate to say that it was a funny story, but yes. Yes, I heard it was a funny story. Um and I mean maybe that's also just the only way that we can deal with things that are unbelievable . It wasn't until I started reporting it that I realized how horrible the story actually was. And when you started to report it, this was years ago. Originally this was going to be a story for this American life. And then at some point it just got too big. Like it just it was like we cannot contain this in one episode of our show. And uh and it you turned it into this podcast with serial. Yes. And it's now a five part series with serial that was released this week. And um and you've been doing read throughs of drafts of you've been writing drafts that have set in on. And I I just want to say, like I just I love this show and feel like this show is so different from other podcast And what we're gonna do today on our program is we're gonna walk through enough of the story so that listeners here can hear what I'm hearing in it. I and then uh if they want, they can go listen to the whole thing. From WB Easy Chicago, it's this American Life, I'm Ira Glass, that's gonna be our show today. And we're gonna begin by playing the first episode of the series, which is almost like a prologue and sets the whole thing up. Is there anything else that we should say before we play that? No, I think I think we can jump in. Okay. Let's just jump right in with that. My family, if I had to give it an adjective is elasti c. Forty-five years ago, my parents, my little brother, and I came over to this country from the Soviet Un ion, extending the family across contin ents. Over the decades, the family, my father really, stretched to absorb spouses, in laws even though they spoke a different language, children both biological and adopted, ex spouses who chose to stick around, and eventually grandch ildren. As in any family, people made bad decisions, said things they hoped no one would remember, got mad at each other, held grudges, came around, and the family stretched as need ed. And then it snapp ed. Someone did something that bad, that shock ing. That person was my cousin Al an. He and his mother, my father's sister Lena, came to the US from Moscow in 1990 when Alan was 1 5. They stayed with my parents and brother for almost a year. By the time they arrived, I no longer lived at home, so I didn't have much of a relationship with them. Never really wanted to, because I didn't like my a unt. And as Alan grew up, I realized even, from a distance, that I didn't particularly like him e ither. Alan is a clown, a blowhard, a pompous ass. He would call himself an entreprene ur. He started his first business in col lege. He hired students to ghostwrit papers for other wealthier students. He went to law school and got fired from his first job. He later told me this was because his fine legal mind made the other lawyers insecure . Then he lived in Russia, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, working a series of increasingly shady jobs. In Africa he was involved with diamonds and worked with an Israeli company that provided security for min ing. If someone had set out to write an unlikable international huckster character, they couldn't have laid it on any thick er. Alan married a Zimbabwean woman. Ward in the family was that she had been that country's beauty queen. They had two k ids. Last I knew, all of them, including my Aunt Lena, were living in Mosc ow. And then, in the summer of 2019, everyone on the American side of the family got a Facebook message from Alan, informing us that he had arrived in the US with his five-year-old son, who I'm going to call O. Allen wrote they'd come for O to quote, commence his studies. I repeat, O was f ive. His wife heroed was still in Russia, with their baby daug hter. They had separ ated. Alan added ominously, qu ote Things are less than amicable. She might make attempts to contact you, with a request detrimental to mine and O's interests. Unqu ote. I immediately texted my brother Keith, who was closer to Al an. So our cousin has kidnapped his son and abandoned his daug hter? The answer would appear to be maybe, my brother respond ed. Just a note, this isn't the big shocking thing I was talking about earlier, but we're still a few years away from that. I called my dad. He told me that Alan had just shown up at his house on Cape Cod without war ning. I asked my dad if we should do something about the maybe kidnapping, like, I don't know, contact the FB I. This was the wrong thing to say to a guy who grew up in the Soviet Union. He would never call the authorities on his sister and nephe w. What he did do was post a picture of O on Facebook. Perhaps a message in a bottle for O's mom? Sure enough, my father immediately heard from her. Priscilla. Priscilla wrote to my dad describing the ordeal she was end uring. She said she had gone on a short business trip to Zimbabwe, and when she returned, she discovered that Alan had left with her son. It had been about a week, and only now, from seeing my father's Facebook post, was she learning anything more. Priscilla wrote, I beg you please to help me get my son back, or to at least speak to him. Please do not tell them I have written to you. If you are unable to help me, then just ignore my mem I received a long, long letter from Priscilla, but I just ignored it. My father can be quite liter al. So what did you think was going on then? Was she did you think she was lying or I honestly I didn't pay much attention. I don't know, no. I I I understood that uh something was wrong with their marriage, but beyond that no. Like I said, my family's elasti c. To keep it that way, my father preferred not to know too much. And it wasn't just him. My three younger brothers, their partners, my own grown sons Hey, sometimes men and their mothers just change continents with a five year old and to w. And here's the thing. They were fun . My father loves having family around. The whole reason he lives in a big house on Cape Cod is so that his four kids and five grandkids gather aro und him. But the house has seen better days, and all the kids and some of the grandkids have busy liv es. Alan and Lena and O's arrival on the scene breathed new life into the house and the famil y. Lena would come up with ridiculous activities like let's write the guests and family anthem and was always taking black and white pictures that made us all look like more stylish versions of ourselves. Alan was always driving up in his Tesla with new gadgets and tales of new business vent ures. I found him ridiculous. But my youngest brothers and my oldest son hung on every word . Alan would sit on the couch with these very young men and scroll through pictures of women on Tinder. They all looked like models . Alan was bald as a billiard ball and had a giant protruding bell y. He claimed that he had matched with all of those w omen. After a while, Alan was eager to talk about why he had taken O . He claimed that Priscilla was a bad mother. She partied all the time. She did drugs. She cheated on Al an. To me, these sounded like good reasons to get a divorce, not to take your child from his mot her. Lena had her own complaints. She said Priscilla didn't read to her child, and perhaps even worse, didn't read books herself. The only book she kept in the house, Lena claimed, was the B ible. I thought, wait, this was why Lena and Alan took Priscilla's son a way? There are a few things that I think justify separating a kid from his parent, but Lena and Alan didn't seem to think that much justification was re quired. I couldn't stop thinking about what Priscilla must be going thro ugh. Without telling anyone in the family, I decided to reach out to her . I wasn't sure she'd resp ond. I texted her that I knew only Lena and Alan's side of the stor y. Priscilla wrote back right a way. She was stuck in Russia. Her daughter, whom I'll call Elle, had been born via surrogacy because Priscilla was unable to carry a pregnancy to term. The baby was eight months old, but Priscilla still didn't have a birth certificate for her, which meant that they couldn't leave the coun try. We traded short messages back and forth . Our exchange was friendly, but guarded. I didn't want to overstep, and I think Priscilla tried to say only what needed to be said. It was enough for me to sense that she was in anguish, and I was horrif ied. How could this woman's child just be taken away from her? How could my family just sit by? And what was going to happen to O na? Priscilla told me that the Russian police would not help her. The Zimbabwean embassy said that she could file a petition under the Hague Convention, a treaty that specifically addresses situations when one parent abducts a child and takes them to another coun try. But Priscilla needed legal help in the US . I could be useful here. I called a friend who connected Priscilla with a person in the Justice Department who specializes in these kinds of cases . Priscilla also needed Lena Allen and O's physical address in the States, so she could begin the hate pro cess. This I could definitely help with. I knew that they'd left Cape Cod for New York, which is where I live. I invited my aunt, cousin, and nephew over for dinner. Alan was away on business, so Lena arrived with O, who got conscripted into a human pyramid by the young people of my househ old. As I slid turkey steaks into the oven, I asked Lena the question all New York City parents asked all other New York City parents Where will O go to school? He was about to turn si x. Lena said that she had no idea how schools even functioned in the city. Do let me explain this to you, I said, and took out my phone. What is your address? Let's see what district that is. Bingo. I had their address. I sent it to Prisc illa. Some weeks later apparently on a lark they moved I figured out that address to o. I was a double agent now. I tracked Lana, Alan, and O through their Facebook posts, messages to the family chat, and occasional weekends at my father's house on Cape C od. When they moved to a new house, I let Priscilla know. If I had news about O, I texted Prisc illa. Sometimes she just asked for reassurance that he was al right. From all the men in my family, my father, my three brothers, and my son , I hid the fact that I was in touch with Prisc illa. I thought they'd see what I was doing as disloyal and might rap me out to Alan. My daughter k new. It was a little bit exciting, but it also gave me an excuse for maintaining peace with my newly enlarged famil y. But the more I hung out with them, the more I just hung out with them. O was growing. Alan and Denna were building a life. I watched . Sometimes I caught myself thinking that it was a pretty good life. Alan, Lena, and O moved into a farmhouse in Concord, Massachusetts. Lena furnished us stylish ly. They seemed to spend most of their timeing actively rais O. They enrolled him in Joe School, violin lessons, fencing, horseback riding, and I'm sure I'm still forgetting somet hing. They dressed O like a tiny little gentleman, complete with brogues and fedora hats, and by some sort of miracle the result wasn't annoy ing. But was a delight, curious, entertaining without being overbearing, and unfailingly polite. He seemed happ y. Whatever damage being separated from his mother had done, I couldn't see it. What I could see was that he was doted on and thriv ing. To put it another way, and it wasn't easy for me to admit that I was seeing this , Alan seemed like a great dad. Kind, attentive, devoted, and fun. Two years passed like this. Eventually, Priscilla and L, who was now a toddler, made it to the United St ates. I hadn't messaged with Priscilla in over a year, but I heard from my father that Priscilla's claim, filed under the Hague Convention, was going to be heard in federal court in Bost on. The case would probably drag on for a wh ile. But I assumed that Priscilla would now be able to see her son. And then there it was on social med ia. Priscilla posted a picture of herself, embracing O. I liked the picture . I figured my job was done. My time as a double agent. Long over. About four months later, Alan was arrested for kidnapping O. Not for the time he took O from Russ ia. This was ne w. That incident, which I need to say is still not the big shocking thing that Rakmasha's family that's coming up. Stay with us . Support for this American life comes from Squarespace. Build a fully custom website in just a few steps using Squarespace's AI enhanced website builder, Blueprint AI. Simply provide basic details about your industry, goals, and personality, and Blueprint AI will generate high quality content, along with personalized design suggestions. Highlight your offerings with a website tailored to help your business grow. Visit Squarespace.com slash American to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or doma in. This American life. Taking O a second time. Alan was arrested in Montreal at the airport when he, Lena, and O were waiting to board a flight to London, without apparently Brasil's know ledge. This time Alan went to jail. But no, this arrest and what Alan did to get himself arrested weren't the things that shocked my famil y. We didn't exactly act like Alan's arrest was normal. We acted like it was abs urd. I entertained my friends with stories of my serial kidnapper co usin. Lena kept the family updated with over-dramatic notes on the Facebook family chat, and at least one video, from Canada, in which Alan, wearing a striped uniform, sings her Russian prison s.ong Similar to the Gosh, yeah. It looked like a cartoon. Upstate New York, and was finally released on his own recognizance to await trial in Massachuset ts. Oh was now living with Prisc illa. Allen got out of jail in February 2022. A couple of months after that, he sent out a missive in the family chat, as self-important as the one that began this whole stor y. This time he was telling us that he and Priscilla had resolved their batt le. Which actually turned out to be tru e. They would now have shared custody of both k ids. Alan said he was very pleas ed. I thought, my god, did you have to go through all this? Absconding with your son twice, keeping him separated from his mother for more than two years, just to arrive at a standard 50-50 custody agreement? This? Child support and shared custody? Is the boring end of this crazy stor y? I felt a little relieved and a little d umb. Like maybe I'd bought too fully into other people's dra ma. Kidnapping charges against Alan were pending, they would later be dropped. And still, Priscilla was able to reach a peace agreement with Al an. After all he'd apparently put her and their son through . Well, maybe this was just the way they did things. With extreme fl air. Then yeah k kind of exotic part started . Then it happen ed. The th ing. The bomb that went off in the middle of my famil y. So the day before Ellen called me and said that he July 202 2. Under the new custody arrangement, it was Alan's weekend with the k ids He asked my dad, Hey, do you mind if me, my mom, and the kids camp out in your backyard on Cape Cod? I said, Of course. So they came. U h they brought some huge, huge tent. I never saw such a tent before with a lot of furniture and lights and devices. Solar charges, rugs, two full mattresses, a treasure trunk with uh treasures, I guess. It was very Alan. Awesome, spectacular, ridiculous . Though later it occurred to me that this time at least, there may have been a point to this. He wanted everyone to remember his camping trip to my father's backy ard. Because it was summer, my father's house was full. Two of my younger brothers, one of them with his girlfriend, were there. Everyone had a nice dinner together and then went to bed. Some people in the house, and Alan, Lena, and the kids in the t ent. And then around six the next morning, the dog, Altin, started going nuts. Someone was banging on the front door. So I opened the door a bit because not to let uh Altin out. Also, I didn't put my trousers on yet. And uh and the guy, the policeman said, We are state police, uh, could you uh step out with your phone? My dad is surprised, but he's not panicking. He goes to get his pants and his phone. But by that by the by that time, because of all this uh noise and commotion and Alton's barking. Allosha woke up. Allosha is my cousin's Russian diminutive. Alan. And he came to the house to see what is going on. And police figured out that they are looking for him and not for me. No one understands what's going on. But soon, through the picture windows that look out on the backyard, they see two male FBI agents take Alan away in handcuff s. Then a female agent escorts the kids to another car . And did you know what uh once everybody left, did you have any idea what he had been arrested for. Not immediately, but then I learned uh from Lena about that. She was she was totally lost, but uh the only thing she knew that uh what was in this paper they gave here. What what was in the pap er? Oh that he is arrested for I don't uh I didn''tt I don remember but murder for hire was there, y es. And did you have any idea who he might have hired somebody to mur der ? You uh no it didn't take long. It was Priscilla . Alan it seemed had hired someone to kill Priscilla . Some of us took the news in faster than others. The day after Alan's arrest, my brother Keith and I had a fight over the Justice Department press release, which identified the target only as P.C . I was saying that it was obviously Priscilla, whose last name begins with a C. He was saying that it was obviously not Priscilla . Lena kept telling everyone that Alan had been set up by business rivals or Russian Asians or the FBI or some one. But over the course of a few days it sank in. My cousin had been caught hiring someone to murder his ex wife, the mother of his ch ildren. This was when it felt like we sna pped. I certainly snapp ed. I was shocked at how shocked I was. It's not that I felt bad for Alan or Lena, it's just how does something like this hap pen? How had it happened right here in my family, in between our silly dinners and chess games and kids' birthday par ties? In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family. Anyone's first cousin could be plotting murder. Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals. And I wouldn't even call Alan an upstanding citiz en. But it's one thing to know and another thing to under stand. I'm a reporter. At some of the hardest times of my life, like when I faced a dire medical diagnosis, I put on my reporter's hat and ask everyone a lot of questions. It has allowed me to wrap my mind around unthinkable things befor e. Alan was in jail, awaiting tri al, so my project had to begin with Prisc illa, who was, thankfully, ali ve. What she told me was so much worse than what I thought I knew. That's next time. From Serial Productions and the New York Times, I'm M. Gesson, and this is the idi ot. Okay, so that is the first episode of your new podcast, The Idi ot. Does Alan know the name of the show yet? You know, um , I mean obviously uh there there are some parts of that title that might be appealing to Alan. It's reference to a classic work of Russian literature, the Dostoevsky novel The Idiot. So um and I think there's um there's a little bit of kindness in that tit le. I think that I'm giving him the grace of of perceiving what he did as just an incredibly dumb thing and not only a very scary, mean and evil thing. And also he was very lucky that he was bad en ough at trying to hire a k iller that everyone in the end is alive and he's serving only a ten-year sentence. Ye ah. So so after that you begin reporting and as you say at the end of episode one, you start with Priscilla . What happ ens in my life. I didn't know her. I just knew she was this sort of beautiful poised woman who'd been through hell at this point and had come to the US to to try to get custody back of of of her child. Um but I didn't know how the story had unfolded for her. So let me play an excerpt from that conversation. I started with something that had mystified me for a long time. So can you tell me what you saw in Alan when you first met him? Wow. I think like most people that meet him, the first time you meet him, he's very charismatic. This was twenty eleven. At a party in Harari, the capital of Zimbabwe. Alan was there in business, scoping out investment opportunities for Ukrainian oligarchs, which means that once he was an egg who knows how to talk to people. And did that seem appealing? It did. I'll be honest. I was 30 when I met him. It seemed very appealing and it was like very different from anybody that I had met. So different was interesting. He came from a very different part of the world, which I knew nothing about, which was also exciting and it's It wasn't just exciting. It was convenient in a way. Alan wasn't readable to Priscilla the way someone from Zimbabwe might be. She could project her desires onto him, including her desire for success . She wanted a life that was big and fast, like Alan' s. Fast money and spend it. It's like, oh, let's go to Joeberg. I'm like, okay. You get up and you go. Just like at the drop of a hat. And then we would go here and there and here and there. So it was very excit ing. The only strange thing that happened at the beginning of our relationship when his mom c ame. R ight. One of those hiccups that happened early on in a romance and should raise a giant red flag, but somehow never do. My Aunt Laylay came to visit a few months into their relationship. She joined Alan and Priscilla on a trip to the countrys ide. We went on a trip to um Kariba, it's a big lake in Zimbabwe. And I think it was like on the second day or something, we had a disagreement, like a fight. And um he left uh our room, and I didn't know that he had done this, but he went to his mom's room. And I found him later. I I was walking past her room and she had like these doors that opened out. So I just looked in and I saw him like lying on her bed and she was like lying there like stroking his hair I found that well his head I found that so weird I was like wow this is a grown man and like it seemed a little too intimate for me, like in my culture, I guess maybe because we're very distant, you don't even hug like you wouldn't hug your father because that's it's a little too intimate. So for an adult to be lying on his mother's bed and for her to actually be it just seemed very peculiar. I saw that and I was like, o kay. And as the series unfolds, Lena and Alan's relationship is one of the things that you talk about more. Did you talk to Lena for the story? I didn't. She she she didn't want to talk to me. And so and so you're interviewing Priscilla. And and the stories that she's telling you, you knew kind of the basic plot points of uh the first time they took O, the second time they took O. What did you learn that you hadn't k nown? So, you know, n now I realize that knowing those two plot points, which were two and a half years apart, is a little bit like knowing the date the war began and the date the war ended. And like I didn't know about all the carn age that had happened in between. At first she was stranded in Mosc ow. She didn't really have any way to support herself in Moscow. She's a Zimbabwean woman who doesn't speak Russian. And that dragged on for months, and then she got back to Zimbabwe. She thought she was getting back to her regular life from which she was going to try to make it to the US to get O back. And then things just start happening to her in Zababis. She gets beaten up by thugs, she gets picked up on drug charges, she gets picked up again and thrown to prison for two weeks. And she thinks that Alan is behind all of this. Alan denies that he had any involvement. And then eventually like she goes through all of this and she eventually gets to the United States, right? She eventually gets to the United States. She um it doesn't mean that she's going to get custody even visits with her son, because at this point it's been two and a half years, but but she does get to see him for the first time since he was taken from her. Wait, and so now he's how ol d? So now he is like eight years old. Oh my god. So sh from five to eight she hadn't seen him. And also So this is uh Priscilla explaining about seeing her son for the first time after that two-year absen ce. When did you see him for the first time? I saw him that weekend on the Sunday for the first time . It was. It's so strange . I almost can't remember how I felt. I know I didn't cry. I couldn't cry. I think I just looked at him. I just stared at him for a wh ile. Can you describe that meeting? I mean, you had to meet outside, I think, right? Yeah. We met at a little tea house in the town where Alan was living. Uh Con cord. It's called uh Concord Tea Cakes, actually. So he was sitting outside. I saw him sitting there and he was sitting by himself. Uh Alan was inside the shop . When I c when I approached him, I could actually see that he was shaking? He just seemed so small and so scar ed. What had her little boy been thinking for the past two years? Why did he think his mother wasn't with him? What had Alan told him? Ow knew that Priscilla had been in prison. What other stories about her had taken hold in his mind? And I kind of felt I felt helpless in a way, you know. I just said hi . I didn't try to touch him because I could tell that he was scar ed. So I just said hi . And then I just sat next to him and I let him kind of come to me. Do you remember anything he said to you? He asked me for this porridge that he used to like. Like it kind of he had loved it since he was a baby and he called it blue porridge. He just said to me, Did you bring blue porridge? I said, Ye ah. They make it in Zimbab we. And I had carried it with me. He asked me to make it for him, like immediately and I did like in a little cup with warm w ater I made it for him and he ate it and yeah I knew that he would slowly remember me and things would get back to where they were if you could remember simple things like that. Ye ah. You know that was just so heartbreaking to listen to and and to imagine . Ye ah. And then you also talked about uh the second time Alan and Lonna take O, the one for which he was charged with kidnapping. Yeah. So this is this is this um scene at the Montreal airport where they think they're going to board a flight to London and instead Alan gets arrested. And um it had been reduced to this ridiculous story that Lena told in this over-the-top way. And I would quote from her wacky um Facebook messages, um to close friends. Yeah. And hearing this story from Priscilla's perspective, which is really O's perspective, just how absolutely terrifying it was for him. He's a little boy. That's that's his dad who gets tackled by several armed uniformed men and thrown to the ground. He gets dragged off. O gets taken into foster care for two days before Priscilla can come and pick him up. And you know and again she's separated from him. Like it's this it's it's it's the distance, it's the international border. Um Ye ah. And so then another thing uh that you did in your reporting is that you went to Allen's trial for attempted mur der. So the trial didn't happen for another was it ten months, which was pretty normal. Uh it's in federal court in San Francisco. So I went to the trial, and by that point I think I fully believed that Alan had taken out a hit on Priscilla. I'd sort of tried and convicted him in my mind. But I think most other members of my family, including Prisc illa, were kind of waiting for something to emerge during the trial that would make it easier to take. Something that would make it seem like not such a horrible thing. Like maybe it wasn't true or maybe it was true in some way that wasn't quite so bad. Which I can't imagine what it would be, and I'm not sure that they could either, but they were sort of holding out hope that something would explain it a way. Did you go to Alan's trial partly to convince your family of his guilt? Absolutely. I have to say that makes this podcast so different from any podcast I've ever heard that it has this second mission. In addition to the mission of like let's find out the truth of what happened, it's it's so directed at your at your family to like nail this down so everybody can agree on the tr uth. Well it's important in a family to have a common truth, especially about your relatives. But you know, it got weirder as it went on. Okay, so let's just take a break. And when we come back, we'll go to the trial, uh which includes recordings of Alan arranging for the hit, which feel, I have to say, way less like the Sopranos and way more like Parks and Rack. All of that'll be in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continu es Support for this American life comes from Squarespace. Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid, all in one place. From consultations to events and experiences, showcase your offerings with a customizable Visit squarespace.com slash It's this American Life, I'm Ericlass. Today's program, The Idiot, we're playing excerpts from M. Gesson's new podcast, new serial podcast called The Idiot. And M is here with me. And uh and so now we get to an incredible part of the story, which is the trial, because for the first time, uh Masha, you get to hear the details of how Alan arranged for the hit on his own wife, and you actually get to hear the undercover recordings of Alan meeting with the supposed hitman, who's actually an FBI agent, and um um just explain why was this FBI man meeting with Alan in the first place. So this is something that began as a money eat laundering investigation into this guy named Alex Kisilov who, was one of Alan's business partn ers. And then this business partner asks one of these agents who he thinks is a mobster, but also maybe connected to the government somehow. It's not clear what he thinks the guy is. So the business partner asks them to help Alan out because Alan has a problem with his ex-wi fe. And that's how we get to this meeting between Alan and the undercover, who is going by the name David. And so Alan thinks that he is meeting with David to arrange to bribe a government official to get Priscilla depor ted This is UCE 4735 and today is Thursday, June 2nd, 2022. It's approximately 11:55 a.m. and this is a recording with Alan Gesson the meetings taking place at the boca ratan resort boca ratan flor ida david had told alan to meet him at the boca rat You know those places that added the to the name of the actual place to indicate that it's everything you ever imagined, but so much more? This resort has 19 bars and restaurants and four beach options. The Bokur itan. Alan drives up in a white rental car, an Audi sedan. The jury was shown surveillance phot os. He meets David in the lobby, which is like an Italian castle Florida version. David is wearing a wire. Which as you're about to hear is not great for field recording. Yeah, Alan. Sorry, how are you? So are you? How are you doing? Doing me. Dave Fist Bump. Alan is wearing what looks like a black cashmere sweater. David is dressed in all black. Polish shirt, shiny pointy black shoes. They're not dressed for Florida. Everyone around them is wearing light colors, but they're dressed to perform their roles. Alan is being international man of mystery. David is going full mafiosa. They're macho. They're gangst ers. They're the Alan and the Dave at the Bocharaton. Yeah, how are you? Excellent. Thanks for coming up, I appreciate it. No, a hundred percent. Yeah, yeah. They take a shuttle to one of the Bokoroton's restaurants, the Marisol, where the seating is couches in Earth Towns and the views, beach umbrellas as far as the eye can see. On the way, Alan summarizes his very impressive career. In 2010, I started a massive diamond mining project in uh South Africa. Millions of dollars, some misadventures, then a triumph or two later. Alan gets to the story of his marriage. But I get uh but I went to Zimbabwe once to explore some opportunities there and uh met this incredibly beautiful woman, which was the end of me. Miss Priscilla? Yeah. Listen, I'll always say it's the bitches that'll get you. It sounds like your problem yeah. David testified on court that the character he was playing was crass. He seemed to have that part down. I don't do. At the restaurant, it's David's turn to talk about how impressive and real he is. So we have a lot obviously business in South America, I'm sure Alex has told you. So you know my clients are in Cartagena. They're all I'm gonna tell you right now, they're all cartel level guys, they're all badasses. They're they they they I don't touch the product side. I don't wanna I don't want any fucking do with with the fucking coke. I don't want to do anything with any of that shit. But I just do the money stuff. I set up companies and we launder money and that's it. And it's been great. I've been doing it for 15, 20 years. Having established their gangster bona fides, Alan and the undercover talk business . There are two items on the agenda. The bulletproof vest factory, Alan wants to build , and Priscilla. Look, I I understand, you know, through Alex that you have some problems you know I get it um you know we have a solution for you but I guess the question is like in a perfect world tell me what you want. Tell me what you like and there's a blank slave. Just tell me what you want. Alan says he wants Priscilla deported. He needs this for peace of mind. And nobody has a common He doesn't want her to quote be able to come and harass us ever again. He then explains what he means by harass . A few months earlier, Priscilla had the nerve to tell the police that he had kidnapped O . Okay. But he had in fact been arrested for taking O across the border to Canada and spent five weeks in jail and was now awaiting trial on kidnapping charges. He tells David, Let's just say that I'm a little bit pissed off. But it's a woman who will go the length of the world to make my life miserable, Alan sa ys. Women, am I right? Yeah, I'm telling you, man. Uh yeah, like I said, you know, historically over time, men have made the worst decisions, you know, when it comes to women, eh? You know, it's uh I don't know what it is. They're uh that aphrodisiac, you know, they it's that weakness or Achilles heel. But uh yeah I understand that I wish I had known you earlier 'cause you know a lot of that shit we could have cleaned up . Amid all this broy, gangstery hot air, the vaguest outlines of a plan appear. A bribe will be paid. Some government officials will pull some strings, and Priscilla will be ordered to leave the country . And it will cost $100,000 . At first Alan seems taken aback by the price tag . Okay. Um now um I'll need to chat to Alan because uh handled the material side of things. Okay. Oh because he never mentioned me any like he didn't mean the inside. Kisilov didn't discuss the money with Alan, he explains. But he quickly recovers from the sticker shock. The price is eminently reasonable for what it's worth, you know, so there's no question that it's it's uh it's a good investment. Right. Um a good investment. Alan's done the math. Uh I'll pay more in child support. Oh yeah, you would. Yeah, I can guarantee me. After everything Priscilla had gone through to get to the US to see her son again, Alan was going to send her back to Zimbab we. After everything O had gone through, being separated from his mother for two and a half years, meeting her again, watching his father get arrested, going to live with his mother and a sister he barely kne w. Alan was going to yank him away from Priscilla aga in. And he was going to deprive Elle, who was three, of the only parents she had ever k nown, all for the eminently reasonable price of a hundred thousand doll ars. And we hadn't even gotten to the murder for higher plot y et On the tape, Alan and David move on to the details of the bulletproof vest factory scheme. This part of the conversation goes a little less smoothly . Alan had it all figured out. They'd get US government funding and build a factory, and he thought David was in a position to get him that money . In court he testified that he went to the meeting expecting to talk about the deportation scheme, not the factory. But he's nim ble. He tells Alan that he could bring in money from the Colombian drug cartels to invest in the factor y. Remember, the FBI has been trying for years to get Kisilov and now Alan on money laund ering. But Alan isn't really incriminating himself. He actually expresses some concerns about the drug m oney. After an hour or so, the conversation turns back to Prisc illa. Alan says quote, the first order of business is to get her the fuck out of here, end qu ote. To get Priscilla depor ted. Or and this is where he has suddenly offhandedly turns the conversation in a different dire ction. This is the heart of the prosecution's case. Let's listen carefully. Yeah. If there's a cheaper way to get rid of her. I mean, I ha listen, I have family in the in your area. Remember, David is supposed to be a mafioso. That's the kind of family he's talking about . A minute later he will refer to Friends in the North End, historically an Italian neighborhood in Boston . He's opening for Alan a door to the underwor ld. So I I don't know how to say this but like there is a there is a cheaper way and probably a a more permanent way to do it, but a more permanent way. In case Alan didn't understand what David was getting out. Agent saying that's up to you. And Alan's agreement to proceed with the more permanent option is a fraction of a second . He doesn't take a breath, he doesn't pretend to consider the decision, he doesn't double check that he understood the agent correctly. He doesn't even ask how much money he'll save by going for the cheaper option. He jumps right in with both feet. And then it gets wor se. Alan says that he had looked into this more permanent option before. The prosecutor stopped the tape and repeated what Alan had said. I researched my sources, the lowest price was two hundred and twenty, and then that is run through the Israelis and Eastern Europe and Ital y. She asked the undercover agent what he had understood Alan to be saying . The agent answer ed Israelis or Eastern Europe for the price of $220,00 0. The agent who had worked on murder for higher cases before testified in court that it hit us che ap. Someone for as little as $200 . On the tape, David assures Alan that his friends in the North End are more dependable and affordable than those other guys, the Israelis or the Eastern Europeans, and asks that they can get the job done quickly. Can I get back to the case? Alan likes this . And he clarifies more definite. Perman ent. The prosecutor asked, when you heard Mr. Guesson say and more definite, what was your understanding of that? The agent answer ed more definite is permanent. De ad. I'd seen FBI agents testify in court before. Often I've been skeptic al. Their interpretations of what people say to them can be far-fetch ed. Their entrapment techniques are often crude and mendacious . I've seen cases where the undercover agent talks a person into a crime they had no intention of committing. But this was differ ent. I couldn't imagine any alternative interpretation of the tape I'd just he ard. Alan wanted Priscilla killed, and he wanted David to know that he wanted Priscilla k ill He said that with the bribery scheme he was worried that Priscilla could fight her deportation in court and maybe even win. Murder is better than deportation that way . You know, of course. That's that's we could we could handle that. I just didn't know what your appetite for that was. But if if you feel that way and we can make that happen, it will be very clean, it'll be quick, and it would be final. But you gotta tell me if like that's the route that you want to My my single concern is uh I need to be sure that we can knock off the room for the kids. No. This is the only thing that gives Alan pause. He doesn't want the kids to see their mother getting killed. No, no, no. God God does the please. Yeah, no, no, no. You know, we're all family men. Like this is strictly business. Okay, no, because like because that was my one concern that that's the that's me is the you know I was then I want to make sure that like forever No, no, no, no, no, no. No, this would be this would be very clean professional job . Reassured, Ellen asks about the cost. I I think it's probably half the cost, to tell you the truth. Yeah. Okay. Very happy to proceed with it. What a productive meeting for their undercover agent. He came for bribery and was leaving with murder for h ire. Now he just needed Alan to confirm that he intended to go through with it, so that when Alan eventually went to trial, he couldn't say that he was misundersto od. And now here we were, at that trial, listening to and looking at all the times and all the ways. Alan said that yes, he really meant it. He wanted Priscilla k illed. But you have to be sure that this is what you're okay. This is the first time. The agent asks Alan if he's sure, and Alan says, I'm sure. And he adds I'm sure. And this was more like for the moment for reaction. This sounds like it's been well thought out. Listen, yeah, I I I s I I didn't I'm glad we have talked about it 'cause that's honestly that's the way I would have handled it. But that's the g you gotta be comfortable. I'm comfortable. Okay, good. All right. Alan says that this is not an emotional decision. Not spur of the moment. He's comfortable with it. Right, yeah. Don't fuck with me . There's a bit more back and fort h. David will need pictures of Priscilla, location, everything for the people who'll do the job . And then, just like that, Alan is showing David pictures of the kids. This is my son. Ah, what's his name? His name's Paul . This is my daughter. Beautiful. Gorgeous. We just give you know each other. Yeah. Gorgeous. Oh there. Beautiful kids. Beautiful poodle. Beautiful life. The only problem is Priscilla. Surely after seeing these photos, David would see what a great father Surely he would feel even better about helping Alan get rid of the fly and the ointment . But David has a question . What is this going to do to the kids? Emotion ally. How do we protect the kids? Like I guess they're too young too. They're young too, but how do we how do we protect the kids? Look, they're gonna lose their mother, right? She's fucking gone. How do we protect the kids? As long as they're not witness to violence. That's the word he used. Violence. No, they're not. They won't be that. I mean she'll be she'll be taken out without them present. And I guess you can explain how you explain it. But just know that, you know, like I I now that I'm seeing pictures of that I I just want to make sure that they're okay. I got a heart too, you know, like I fucking you know. Don't get me wrong I'll I'll put The undercover agent is methodical. He keeps coming closer to saying she will be killed, and he keeps pushing Alan to consider the hypothetical stak es. The children will lose their mother for ever. Alan blithely keeps incriminating hims elf. As long as the kids wouldn't see the murder happen, he didn't have other concern s. They wrap up their meeting. Alan has a plane to catch. The undercover agent has a lot to work with. This is UC for sep four seven three five and today is Thursday, June sec ond, two thousand twenty two. And this is the conclusion of the recorded conversation with Alan Gess on. So that all sounds very damning and very conclusive . Yeah. And then a few other people testified against Alan, including Priscilla. And then Alan took the stand, which is also very unusual for a criminal trial. Usually people don't testify in their own defense. And he tried to convince the jury that he had only wanted Priscilla deported and that he did not want her killed. And so he went through with his attorney all the those exchanges on tape and on text, trying to argue that all of them were just sort of vocabulary misunderstandings. And that they were just misunderstanding each other somehow. They were just talking at cross purposes. And so how's it go over with the j ury? The jury doesn't buy it. The jury convicted him pretty fast of murder for hire. And then almost a whole year later, he was finally sentenced. And at the sentencing hearing he um his lawyer again tried to say that he was only trying to get Priscilla deported, at which point the judge said, you know, that crime that you're describing is actually called kidnapping and it's punishable by up to twenty years in prison, so maybe just stop. Um and then she sentenced him to the maximum, which is 10 years of pris on. And there's this whole other chapter to the story because once he was incarcerated, you started talking to Alan. You finally talked to Alan. Which I feel like when we started on the story, like we didn't know if that would ever happen. We assumed he probably would never talk to you. Yeah, I can't even describe how excited I I was when got an email from him saying that he was happy to talk. And it was interesting because once you started talking, I remember this so vividly, you were genuinely surprised where the conversations went and how they nudged your own So at first it didn't. At first he was just trying to sell me what the jury didn't buy, which was that he was framed, uh he was only trying to get Priscilla deported. But then I think we both proved to be very stubborn and I and I was like, okay, well, you know, maybe his job is to try to bullshit me and and my job is to try to cut through the bullshit. And thirty-five hours of conversations l ater, I genuin compassion for him. And then you ran by Alan and you add for the audience to your own theory of the case . Which is not Alan's theory. And not exactly the undercover Agent David's theory either. And we will leave it at that. If people want to hear what that theory is, then they need to listen to the show. The show again is called The Idiot. It's from Serial Productions in the New York Times. And you can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Masha, thank you so much for doing those. Thank you, Ever . I'll just say before we go to all of you who are listening, you may remember how um serial productions basically invented and launched the true crime podcast genre back in 2014 uh with its first season and the story of Agnan Sayyed, which was kind of a global phenomenon, 20 million people downloaded every episode. This new show, The Idiot, takes cereal back to their true crime roots, but with this very uh personal story from M Gesson added to it, which adds so much. All the episodes are out right now. Acabou na segunda restaurante como ti I can't have the shoes and luxury The Idiot was produced by Daniel Guy Met with Fia Benin and Andre Borzenko and Lika Kramer of Libo Libo Studios. The series was edited by Julie Snyder, research and fact-checked by Ben Phelan and Marisa Robertson Texter. Scorings by Allison Leighton Brown, with additional music from Dan Powell and Marion Lozano. Phoebe Wang and Catherine Anderson mix the show. The people who helped put together this episode of our program today include Cassie Howley, Seth Lind, Tobin Glow, Stone Nelson, and Alyssa Ship, our managing editor, Sarah Abduramman, our senior editor, David Kestenbaum, our executive editor, Emmanuel Barry. Our website, this AmericanLife.org, where you can stream our archive of over 800 fifty episodes for absolutely free. Have you visited again this AmericanLife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia. You know, he's telling me this week about this time. Long ago. His dad took him to see the circus in Queens in New York. As they left the venue, he overheard another kid. This kid with a puff of blonde hair. Just amazed. They brought some huge, huge tent. I never saw such a tent. I'm Harry Glass. Back next week with more stories of this American Live.