In this audio recording, secretly taped by his aide Ben Graham on May 19 2015, Republican senator Todd Courser is a desperate man, rapidly drowning but still fighting for air. Courser admits he’s been having an extramarital affair with Republican senator Cindy Gamrat (at the time, both politicians were married with children). The affair has been discovered by an anonymous blackmailer (later revealed to be Gamrat’s husband), and Courser outlines to his dumbfounded aide a harebrained scheme to detract attention from the scandal. He plans to send out a “false flag e-mail” from a fake address alleging that he is a drug user, child molester, “bi-sexual porn addicted sex deviant”, and “gun-toting, Bible-thumping, cock-sucking freak” who has been caught having “male on male paid sex behind a Lansing nightclub”. Courser agrees that the e-mail is “over-the-top”, but tells his doubtful aide that it will “inoculate the herd” because the “real” scandal will be hidden in the ramblings of the anonymous message.

Courser is clearly at the end of his tether, but his refusal to resign makes it difficult to sympathize with him: the man’s egotism is obviously about to take him down. And it did. Both Michigan lawmakers resigned after it was revealed they had been cheating on their spouses and then using taxpayer-funded offices and staff to cover it up.

Listen to the episode here.

On the evening of April 14, 2014, Richard Kirk, 48, purchased and consumed an unknown amount of “Karma Kandy Orange Ginger” (marijuana-infused candy), began to hallucinate, became delusional, then turned violent. His wife Kristine called 911 and pleaded for help, telling the operator that her husband was ranting about the end of the world and […]

This episode presents the testimony of Gypsy Blanchard in the trial of her former boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, for the murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. In June 2016, Gypsy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for her own part in the crime, and was given a 10-year sentence. As Gypsy explains, she met Godejohn […]

On Dec 11 1991, William Kennedy Smith was acquitted of rape after a trial in Palm Beach, Florida. Smith was represented by defense attorney Roy Black, who pulled no punches in his questioning of the accuser, Patricia Bowman, and her friend Ann Mercer.

The incident began on the evening of March 29, 1991, when Smith, 30 years old, went to the Au Bar in Palm Beach, Florida, with his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, and his cousin Patrick J. Kennedy. Smith met Patricia Bowman, a 29, and her friend Anne Mercer at the bar. The five then went to a nearby house owned by the Kennedy family. When Smith and Bowman went outside for a walk along the beach, Bowman alleged that Smith raped her; Smith testified that they had consensual sex.

In the first excerpt, prosecutor Moira Lasch asks Patricia Bowman to describe the alleged rape. Bowman is then cross-examined by Roy Black. The second excerpt is from Black’s  cross-examination of Anne Mercer. In the third clip, Black questions Senator Ted Kennedy. The final clip is Moira Lasch cross-examining William Kennedy Smith.

Listen to the episode here.