Show Announcement + Mini Episode

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0:36Need a fast and secure way to take payments in person? We've got you covered. How about card readers you can rely on anywhere you sell? Thanks. Have a good one. Yep, that too. Want one place to manage all your online and in-person sales? That's kind of our thing. Wherever you sell, businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for your$1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash listen. Shopify.com slash listen. You may have heard of the sex cult NXIVM and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story, until now. People assume that I'm like this pervert.

1:13My name is Natalie Rubamed, and in my new podcast, I talk to Alison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member, and what she thinks of it all now. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma to other people? I mean, I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after NXIVM from CBC's Uncover is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. This is Hannah. I have a mini episode for you today, and I'm so excited about it. But first, an announcement slash request. We have two episodes left this year. We have an episode next week.

1:48It's a standalone episode. It's about an MLM that is really wild. So make sure to tune into that. But then we have another episode coming in a few weeks. And for that final episode for the year, I would love to hear from you. I want to do follow-ups on some of our past episodes, which I'm working on currently. But if you have any questions about your favorite opportunist episode, send it in to me because I would love to answer it. Additionally, if you have a story of your own, an opportunist in your life, I would love to hear it and play it on the episode. You can send me a voice note. Or if you don't want your voice to be on the show, you can send it to me in an email or on social media.

2:33I'll put all of that in the show notes, but you can send it to me on social media at Hannah Podcasts on Instagram or Twitter. Yes, I still say Twitter. It can be short. It can be long. It can be whatever you want it to be. It can be a question. It can be a story. I can't wait to hear from you. So please send in your stories and do it sooner than later because I'm trying to get this episode out in the next couple of weeks. Okay. I already have a listener who has sent in her story. I actually hopped on a quick phone call with her because she emailed in and I was really intrigued by her story. And so I'm going to play that for you today.

3:07And hopefully it's inspiration for you to send in your own story. Okay, here we go. Her name is Lindsay Dominguez. And to set up the story a little bit, when Lindsay was in her early 20s after college, she got a job in Albuquerque at this nonprofit called Ayudondo Guardians. This nonprofit provided guardianship, conservatorship, and financial management to hundreds of people who were wards of the state. So, you know, whenever Lindsay was explaining it to me, she said, kind of like Britney Spears. I think a lot of people are familiar with Britney Spears' situation with the conservatorship. But the people that this nonprofit served were actually wards of the state.

3:49So the nonprofit provided guardians, kind of like case managers, to come in and help them with their finances, pay their bills, get them groceries, things like that. And it was run by this woman, Susan Harris, who ended up becoming Lindsay's boss. Lindsay started at a super entry level, but quickly got promoted. So here we go. And so I took over for the previous guardian because she had to leave. So I took on this caseload of clients. And like I said, a lot of them had different needs. Some of them had dementia. Some of them were in nursing homes. Some of them just had family that couldn't or didn't want to be responsible for them.

4:31So I had a bunch of people all over the board, really. And so with being a guardian, a lot of the responsibility falls on managing their money. But I just noticed some things were off. And I couldn't really put my finger on what those things kind of added up to at the time. But, you know, I'd go and I'd look for, you know, a client needed, you know, something like, you know, some groceries. And I'd go to their account and the money wouldn't be there. And I'm thinking, okay, well, that's really strange. You know, it's the state. It's the government. The money comes in on time every month. It should be there.

5:06And so I would ask Susan about it. You know, hey, this person is short or this person's check doesn't look like it's been deposited. it, you know, I'm kind of wondering why, because I'm the only one that should have access to this money to take care of these things. And there would always be a reason, you know, oh, sometimes the state runs behind. Sometimes they get these things confused. Oh, maybe it got lost in the mail. That was a big one, you know, and so then it's like a couple of days later, oh, magically the money would be there, you know, and then, but it was always like that. There was always these clients where, you know, you'd look for something and it just magically wouldn't be there.

5:38And then And when you called it out, then all of a sudden, oh, hey, the money showed up. There it is, you know. And then there was these little things that kept coming up that just sort of kept nagging at me and made me realize, like, maybe, you know, maybe there's more going on than I'm totally aware of, or maybe there's more under the surface that I'm not seeing. She would go and have meetings a lot of the time in the afternoons. And then the receptionist, we were really good friends. So she would come in and say, well, Susan's in a meeting and you know what that means. And I'm like, I don't know what that means.

6:13You know, please tell me. And she'd say, oh, well, she's going to get Botox. And it's funny because at the time, again, this is, you know, early 2000s, Botox was still something that was sort of expensive for people. So it wasn't something people just did all the time. You know, it wasn't like a common procedure. It was like, if you have the money, then you do that. It wasn't just Botox. There were also times when Susan wouldn't come back to work and Lindsay would hear that she had spent the afternoon at the casino. And then there were the luxury vacations and the nice cars. And then Susan started hiring her family members.

6:46And Lindsay noticed that they were all driving nice new cars and living in really nice houses. And Lindsay just said all of this was a little surprising because they all worked at a nonprofit and it wasn't like they were making loads of money. It's not the kind of career where you're going to make a lot of money or you're going to have all this extra income to put towards living like a really lavish lifestyle, which is what she was doing. You know, there was box tickets, I think, to the final four even is something that she had paid for at one point. Finally, you know, because I kind of started to keep track on my own.

7:27She had asked me one day, hey, I need you to sign these case notes. And I went back and I was looking at them and I was like, these aren't my notes. I didn't write this. And she was like, well, I know, I know. But just in case we get audited, just sign them. And I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. But it was really odd because even the dates on the case notes that she wanted me to sign were dates that I hadn't even worked there yet. Like they weren't even my clients yet. And so she got a little flustered with me and then she said, fine, fine, I'll just take care of it. And I remember thinking that was really odd that she would ask me to do that, but then that she would get upset that I wouldn't because I feel like, you know, ethically, like, why would you ask that of somebody?

8:13Lindsay told me Susan had a way of making you feel like she was smarter than you while simultaneously trusting you with great responsibility, bringing you in on something. She made you feel small, but at the same time, like you were special. And Susan always had an excuse or an explanation. when things went wrong. But after being there about a year, Lindsay says, she was reaching her breaking point. She started to just feel sick to her stomach with some of the things that had happened. And then there were two instances that were basically the final straw for her, and she decided to walk away. The first one was when one of her clients, an elderly woman in a nursing home, passed away.

8:56I still remember this. It's like it was kind of traumatic. she had passed away and the nursing home called me and they said um we need you to send us some money because we can't get you know her account cleared out and I was like well there should be money in her account you know last time I checked there was enough and they said well there's not there's nothing in here and it was very odd because I had been over to see her maybe a week prior and her account was fine. And then this, like this Saturday, not even a week later, everything was cleaned out, which I thought was really strange because she's, you know, she's an elderly woman in a nursing home.

9:33She's not spending money. It should, there's no reason for it to be gone. And so I had called Susan about that. And I said, Hey, you know, this person passed away. The nursing home is calling me and they're telling me we need to finish paying out her bill. And they're really upset. And she kind of just shoved me off like, Oh, well, we'll just deal with it on Monday. And I'm like, no, I don't think you understand. Like they're calling me. And because I'm her guardian, they're wanting, they want their money. And she just kept giving me, you know, excuses. We'll deal with it on Monday. It must be a mistake.

10:03Oh, you know, maybe they had an error in their accounting. I mean, every excuse. Right. And I just remember thinking, no, that's, that's not right. And I know that's not right. And so do you. And then this happened again with another client who had passed away. And the really sad thing is this woman was an incredible woman. She was a Holocaust survivor. And she was in a nursing home and she was elderly and she passed away. And again, I had to deal with some things. I was trying to put together a memorial service for her. And the nursing home said, well, there's no money. And I was like, what do you mean there's no money?

10:39Like, there should be money in the account. I'm the only person managing that account and I haven't taken it out. So like, what do you mean? lindsey told me they were finally able to get money for this woman's memorial service but it was the last straw for her she put in her notice and walked away then a few years later she was watching the news and she saw her old boss susan harris i was watching the news and i saw her face pop up and i was like oh my god that's susan like that's my old boss and my husband was like oh wow um what's she doing on the news and i was like hold on like let me just listen i can't and so So I was listening and they were saying, you know, that she had been arrested for money laundering and fraud and stealing like$11 million from victims.

11:26And it was her and her husband who also worked at the guardianship firm and then her partner as well and her son who actually I did work with. He was a guardian as well when I was and he was arrested for some fraudulent activity, too. So it was really interesting because I saw it on the news. Wow. It's a good thing you didn't sign those forms that she wanted to sign. I think about that all the time, actually. I'm like, I mean, I would never do that. But I just think about like, what if my name was on that? Or, you know, like, no, thanks. In 2017, all of this came crashing down for Susan Harris, who was running this fraud.

12:03It turns out that she and her husband, William Harris, were doing this along with another woman, Sharon Moore. They were embezzling money through Ayudondo guardians, and they had taken more than$11 million of their clients' money over a 10-year period. An indictment was filed in December of 2017. It charged Susan and William and Sharon, along with Susan's son, Craig Young, with various financial crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering. Susan pleaded guilty in 2019, but then in 2020, she and her husband did not show up to their sentencing hearing.

12:47And it turns out they were on the run. They left New Mexico and they were hiding out in my home state of Oklahoma. They were in Shawnee, Oklahoma, but they were found and arrested in April of 2020. It basically came out that Susan was the brains behind this whole operation. She was CEO and she came up with this whole plan. She was 95 % owner of Ayudondo. And then Sharon Moore was the chief financial officer and a 5 % owner. And, you know, evidence showed that they engaged in a pattern of criminal conduct. They, you know, they commingled client money with their money. They were just taking money out of clients' accounts willy-nilly.

13:33They were writing bad checks. They were fabricating forms. And they were living extravagant lifestyles. You know, a lot of this money was going toward the purchase of homes, vehicles, luxury RVs, and cruises, as well as they had a private box at the pit at the University of New Mexico. And they were racking up bills there. The stolen funds were also used to pay for more than$4.4 million in American Express charges incurred by the defendants and their families. This is from Justice.gov. And then finally, in July of 2021, Susan, who was 74 at the time, was sentenced to 47 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

14:17and her husband, William Harris, who was also charged, not as steeply because he wasn't as involved with the scheme, although he knew about it and he did help. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. They're supposed to pay the entire amount of stolen funds as restitution to the victims, but that has not happened. After we spoke, Lindsay sent me a follow-up voice note, which I want to play part of because she said the reason that she wanted to tell the story and thinks it's important for people to hear it is that it's not an isolated incident that people who are under guardianship or conservatorship get taken advantage of and they're a vulnerable population.

15:05And so we all need to be aware. And if you think something's wrong, report it. You know, even when these clients do come forward and they say something like, you know, I think I'm being taken advantage of or something doesn't make sense. Society is not likely to believe them because, oh, they have a mental illness. Oh, they have a guardian. Oh, you know, they can't take care of themselves. You know, so why would we believe them? So we automatically assume that these people are either making it up or they're not sure or maybe they're mistaken. But the reality in this situation is that they were being taken advantage of and And people didn't listen.

15:41Thank you so much, Lindsay, for sending in this story. It was a really interesting one. If you want to check out Lindsay's podcast, it's called What's Up ABQ. And it's a podcast all about Albuquerque. I hope you enjoyed this mini episode. And I hope that you will write to me. Send me your voice notes. Let me know if you want your voice to be on the podcast or not. And if you want your name included at Hannah podcast on Instagram or Twitter. Thank you so much. And keep an ear out for two more episodes coming your way this year.

16:42Thank you.

17:05Thank you.