The Silent Warriors: How False Accusations Destroy Military Careers | Darin Lopez - S.O.S. #209

What happens when political pressure infiltrates military justice? Navy veteran Darren Lopez and retired Navy SEAL Keith Barry pull back the curtain on one of the most troubling chapters in modern military history - a period when false accusations could destroy careers without meaningful due process.

Lopez, who held high-level intelligence positions requiring FBI clearance, found himself convicted of sexual assault despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence. The shocking details of his case reveal a system where truth became irrelevant - military prosecutors were explicitly instructed to pursue charges "even if the elements cannot be proven" merely to demonstrate being "tough on sexual assault." Berry, whose conviction was eventually overturned, shares how a Rear Admiral later admitted in writing that he believed in Berry's innocence but approved the conviction anyway due to political pressure.

Together, these veterans expose the devastating human cost of unlawful command influence (UCI) that corrupted military courts between 2012-2014. Their stories highlight a disturbing reality: in a rush to correct legitimate problems with sexual assault reporting, the military created a different injustice that continues to affect thousands of service members today.

This powerful conversation isn't about diminishing genuine sexual assault cases - both men emphasize their support for legitimate victims. Rather, it illuminates how abandoning due process harms everyone. The military's 2023 creation of an Independent Office to reduce UCI represents a tacit admission of past wrongs, but does nothing for those still carrying convictions or serving sentences.

For anyone concerned about military justice, veteran welfare, or the intersection of politics and law, this episode provides rare insight into a largely hidden injustice. If you've faced false accusations or know someone who has, you'll find valuable resources and a supportive community ready to help.

How the Largest Case of UCI in Military History Unfolded:  https://tinyurl.com/bdf63v5d

Buy Darin’s book: https://a.co/d/062h77N 

False Accusations: https://www.theresatapestries.com/false-accusations

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to False Accusations
• 14:03 Understanding UCI and Systemic Issues
• 31:12 The Night That Changed Everything
• 54:07 When Evidence Doesn't Matter
• 1:08:36 Life in the Brig
• 1:24:34 Fighting for Justice and Reform
• 1:35:23 Resources and Support for Victims
• 1:44:43 Call to Action and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello everybody and welcome to the Stories of Service podcast. I'm once again on full screen, and I do this sometimes when I need to frame an episode. That is a difficult subject, and today I'm tackling once again another very, very difficult subject, and we already have quite a few number of people on this call because we're going to be talking about false accusations. Now, if you guys know me, you know that I have covered gosh knows how many episodes about sexual assault, and I am just as passionate about the due process system when it goes both ways. So, for as many people I know who have been harmed by sexual assault with little to no consequences, there have now been as many, if not more, people that unfortunately, were politically caught up in a movement that unjustly punished warriors, and today I'm going to talk to one of those who was very scared about speaking up, and it's an incredible act of bravery that he's doing so, but he's doing so on this World Day for International Justice, which I couldn't think of a better day to do this, and I'll be talking today to Darren Lopez, but before I even go into that, I also want to emphasize that I'm also bringing somebody else on that you guys didn't know about and he agreed to come on at the last minute and he's here in a position of support and his name is Keith Berry, and if you've been following this issue with false accusations, you will know exactly who Keith Berry is.

Speaker 1: 1:28

But what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring all three of them I mean, I'm sorry, three, meaning me too on full screen, and then I'm going to read you a little bit about the both of them, and then we're going to dive right into Darren's story and I'm going to tell you a little bit about Keith. So, for those of you who don't know who Keith is, it's very important that you listen to this first as we go into this story, so that you understand why this cause means so much to all of us. So with that, darren, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 1:55

Good Pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:57

And Keith, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3: 2:00

Glad to be here, guys.

Speaker 1: 2:03

Awesome. So first off I'm going to tell you guys a little bit about Darren. Darren Lopez is a US Navy veteran with over 12 years of military intelligence experience, having undergone rigorous FBI background checks and held roles across multiple branches, including support for Navy, army, marine Corps, air Force, coast Guard and Special Forces Unit. Academically, he held multiple degrees two associate degrees in social science and applied sciences, with a focus on intelligence operations, a bachelor's in business administration technology management and an MBA in marketing. His education reflects a multidisciplinary foundation in psychology, communication and operational strategy and despite this distinguished service, he became the target of a wrongful sexual assault conviction among the largest documented cases involving undue command influence, resulting in three years of confinement and a lifetime labeling as a sex offender, but undeterred. While in the brig, he studied case law and advocated as a brig lawyer for fellow detainees. After release, he authored the Sailor vs UCI a detailed expose calling for military justice reform and has since become a leading advocate for constitutional protections for service members falsely accused of crimes.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Keith Berry is a retired US Navy Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator, navy SEAL Go Navy SEALs. As you guys know, I have a huge soft spot for the Navy SEALs, especially most recently as I've become friends with quite a few of them because of my support for Pete Hagseth and the Hagseth confirmation. He has over 25 years of honorable service and, despite a distinguished record and multiple combat deployments, he was falsely accused in 2013 following the end of a relationship, and wrongfully convicted in 2014 of sexual assault, a case deeply compromised by unlawful command influence. And what made this case even more shocking was that there was an affidavit at his second appeal from a rear admiral rear admiral Patrick Lord, who had a guilty conscience, and I have the affidavit here and probably during the call, I'll be reading some portions of it. I'm sure it will come up during the call. I'll be reading some portions of it.

Speaker 1: 4:07

I'm sure it will come up where he determined, as the convening authority, that keith berry was innocent.

Speaker 1: 4:10

But instead of doing the right thing at that time, he unfortunately fell victim to unlawful command influence. But, thank god, at a later time he made the right decision and in his it is what I would call the smoking gun of this issue. So I'll read a little bit about that. In 2018, the U S court of appeals for the armed forces overturned his conviction and dismissed the case with prejudice, citing prosecutorial misconduct, fully restoring his rank yes, still to this day, ignoring the C, c, c, a, f orders to fully restore all rights, pays and privileges and Keith is a future guest, so we will talk more about this on a future show. Since its exoneration, barry has become an advocate for military justice reform and that's why he's here today in a support capacity, exposing how external pressures from political agendas to command influence continue to erode the integrity of court martial proceedings. Welcome again and I almost forgot to do this, but I always do this before every show for an introduction from my father, charlie Pitt.

Speaker 4: 5:17

From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents. We are inspiring others by showing up as a vessel of service. We not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS. Stories of Service hosted by Teresa Carpenter. Hear from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.

Speaker 1: 5:42

All right. So, darren, I'm going to start with you. Work All right. So, darren, I'm going to start with you. Tell me a little bit about where you were born and raised, and what made you decide to join the Navy?

Speaker 2: 5:53

Well, I'm from a place called Beaumont, texas. It's probably the oil capital of the United States and is a very great place to be from. I'm proud, I'm a proud, I'm very proud Texan. Just say that. You know there's tears of proudness of. You know, safe America, texas family, all that stuff. You know faith. Very proud Texan.

Speaker 2: 6:16

I grew up here just like every other Texan, playing out in the woods, playing sports, and you could probably put those two together and it would take up 99% of my youth. You know working out, doing all those things and you know, did the whole school thing, did good, had good grades, never was a problem. Left for college. You know, I went to college locally here and it was somewhere around my first year of college that I realized that there was just a huge void and I didn't know what that void was. I had to do some soul searching and figure out what that was and, as you'll read in the book, once again, sailor Spy vs UCI, written by me, you'll learn a lot about me and the the whole story.

Speaker 2: 7:30

But the reason I joined is because of a void. I wanted to do something. I felt like I was wasting my time, and at that time it was. You know we're post nine, 11. We don't know what's going on. At that time it was. You know we're post 9-11. Um, we don't know what's going on. At that time, um, I did reach out to mentors, you know. They gave me great advice, um, and ultimately ended up making that decision. You know, going up swearing. You know raising my right hand, swearing in to support and defend the Constitution and enter the unknown, just like everybody else that does it, and to this day I don't regret it.

Speaker 1: 8:14

And you had a very successful Navy career. I mean, when I read a little bit about it in your book, I mean you were an IS and tell me a little bit about sort of those early years. I mean were you enjoying the Navy and did you think that you were going to stay in for a long time?

Speaker 2: 8:32

Well, when I joined, like I said, you join the unknown. In this field, you're never going to know everything, and so those unknowns are always kind of you're uncertain about. You know you don't really know, you know what's next, you know what else, what other you know. You go down that rabbit hole and you continue to go down rabbit holes. Unfortunately, that rabbit hole and you continue to go down rabbit holes. Unfortunately, but fortunately, because we have these capabilities and it does, um, you know, it does help keep the homeland safe. And so, um, originally, like I said, uh, you'll read in the book I did, I did prepare and join to be a SEAL, and that's why I have so much respect for SEALs.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Uh, my first contact with a SEAL was, uh, with, uh, I have. I had a cousin who was my age, we were 14. He had, um, he had cancer and uh, it was brain cancer. And um, they said there's Navy SEALs coming up. I was like, well, what's a Navy SE, navy seal? And they came up and the guy was just so, um, I don't even know the right word like he just seemed so genuine and so influential. And so I just saw that and I was like, man, I hope I can be like that one day. I mean, and that's why I was always in sports, running, I mean, I played every sport, I was athlete of the year, got trophies, you know all the typical young man, alpha male type stuff or whatever but also had good grades. So I won't say just complete alpha male, so I am an academic as well.

Speaker 1: 10:21

So yeah, Well, I think that that speaks for itself. I mean everything that you tell us about in the book and everything I've known about you and you know you and I have been in very close contact for the past several months.

Speaker 2: 10:36

Oh yeah, You've done me hard, I did.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Because, for those of you who don't know, darren was the first person to approach me about this issue. I always had heard that this happened and, in fact, sarah Carroll told me about Keith, and so that, keith, you were the first person I've heard about who had talked to the media, that I knew had talked to me. But I know that for a number of years and I'll just go to you very quickly for a number of years, years, you didn't talk about this.

Speaker 3: 11:05

And tell me a little bit about why you didn't certainly I don't want to take much time from darren, um, but let me begin by applauding darren for for the courage to speak up. I didn't have the courage. This is an injury. This is a moral wound, much like we would encounter in combat. But we got done with one war and we got thrown into another, and the enemy is far greater than we'd ever experienced. We're fighting the US government, darren, and I spoke about it. You're playing chess against chess masters in the dark and they can just change the rules as they deem fit. Um, so I didn't want to speak about my experiences until I had reached a point of healing that I. I wasn't going to be speaking out of anger, so I am impressed in how Darren has handled this. I know the weight that he's carrying on his shoulders. I know how exhausting this is to go through, not just for him but for so many others, and I applaud him. And he is the epitome of not leaving anybody behind.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Keith. That's so well said and that's exactly what I thought as I looked at your website and as I read your book. I knew that you had covered this case in a way that nobody else had, and I knew that I wanted to bring your story forward because of that. I wanted to show this larger issue. So we're going to go into your story and we're going to talk about what happened, because I think that we need to share that, and people need to understand where this begins.

Speaker 1: 13:02

So take me back to where you were when this incident first occurred oh, okay, so there.

Speaker 2: 13:13

so there's some, a lot of things that, like we spoke about before, a lot of things I'm gonna have to talk around, uh, and if they don't make sense, go to the website. There's documentation with receipts. Like I said, read the book and you know I'll do what I can to my best of my ability here. So where would you like for me to start?

Speaker 1: 13:35

That's good, yeah, and before we get started, I do apologize for not putting out my disclaimer as an active duty member. I always have to remember that my podcasts are in my unofficial off-duty capacity and anything I say or anything that my guests say are not on behalf of any organization and are their own personal views, so definitely want to get that out of the way. I think where I want to start is how did you this? This is obviously, obviously a a sexual assault allegation, so tell me a little bit about what led up to you having this allegation like how, how did this come about that? That's where we want to start okay, uh.

Speaker 1: 14:17

So I guess where we would start is um, I'm gonna put you, I'm gonna put you in the, in the, in the backstage from this point, just because I think I, you and I can just go over this.

Speaker 2: 14:29

All right, go ahead um, yeah, so, uh, you know I'm doing, uh, I'm in a high speed command, we're doing training all the time, um, I get sent off to another place. Then you know we're working, you know, 14, 16 hour days really tiring, but it's around the holiday and we were fortunate enough to have like a break. Most time when you go to places like this, you don't get a break. Now we actually got a break and so I drive around town and I see it's like a ghost town because most people took that opportunity to go home for the holidays, because a lot of them were from, you know, in that general area.

Speaker 2: 15:21

And for me, like I told Keith, I said I have bills to pay. So, you know, there's, I couldn't, I didn't really take that. I have bills to pay, so you know, there's, I couldn't, I didn't really take that, I couldn't go home. And so I was like, okay, well, I'll just make the best of it. So I drove around and, you know, navigated that area that I was at. I ended up going to I was like, okay, well, I'll go see a movie Because the new 007 had just came out that year. And I was like, okay, well, I'll go see a movie because the new, the new 007, it just came out that year and I was like, okay, well, I'll go see that.

Speaker 2: 15:47

So I get to the movie theater and it's closed, because it's part of the mall and everything was closed for the holiday and the stand down and because it was a ghost town at the time. Well, there's this young lady sitting on a bench and I was like, hey, you know what is there to do around here? Uh, it looks like a ghost town, you know. She kind of explained to me like a couple things and I was like, Okay, you know, I have some information, I'll act on that and I'll come back to the movies later on. You know when it's when it's available for me to watch.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Sure.

Speaker 2: 16:18

Um, but I did do a little bit more walking around because the for some reason reason the door is open, maybe it's just for whatever reason, so people could go walk like they do in the mall on the weekends or in the morning, and so I kind of did that to see what stores they had there, just exploring. I was exploring new territory. And so I come back out and as I'm going back to my uh, my condo, um, I see her walking on the side of the road and I was like hey, do you need a ride or something? And you know, her response was pretty much, I mean, it was yeah, I could use a ride and she gets. So she gets into the vehicle and we start conversations, right, and I was like you know, it comes about, it just pops up. I'm like Okay, nobody's around. She was sitting on a bench and then she's walking this very long distance.

Speaker 2: 17:19

You know, I was like I had to ask her. I was like you know, where are you coming from? Why are you you walking down the street? And she told me some of her personal business, which happens to be the same exact thing. That happened, you know, with me, minus I don't know if there was an accusation against that person or not, but she basically was just part of the culture of the time. Just, you know, jersey Shore came out in 2009 and it kind of sparked this new. Like you know, jersey shore came out in 2009 and it kind of sparked this new like you know hookup lifestyle, where people hookup culture yeah, hookup culture where people were more um, you know, they were more willing to talk about it, like just openly like whatever they did.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Yeah, so when a person you don't know very well starts talking about.

Speaker 1: 18:04

I just want to say this and kind of contextualize this for the audience, as a woman myself who sadly used to be very promiscuous. When a woman does that, she's basically saying this is what I'm down for, and so she indicated immediately that this was the kind of person, and not to to say that's bad, because I'm not trying to judge her, I'm just saying that that that sends a message.

Speaker 2: 18:30

Right, yeah, at some point, and we did, and it did lead to jokes and us joking about you know, those types of things During that time period.

Speaker 2: 18:42

So she tells me where I need to bring her, I bring her, I go home, and then you know, I'm back to work, basically, and I go back to work. She texted me, you know many times actually, and my response was I was like, hey, I'm, I'm really busy, like I I cannot, you know, I don't have the time to to hang out and um, there were a couple times where I did, where I just I had other plans with people from where I, you know where I was at, but we're going, we went exploring, like we went, we drove up a mountain, uh, we went to the cool, the cool places that you can go and go see in that town and um, uh, eventually it took to go out, like for us to go out and do something. And I mean, if she hadn't texted me at that time, we would never actually like met in person again, because I was just so busy and it just wasn't.

Speaker 2: 20:03

You know, it wasn't on my radar, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 20:06

So what you're saying is, at that point she was offering a friends with benefits kind of situation.

Speaker 2: 20:13

Well, I don't know that to be true. I don't know that to be true At this point.

Speaker 1: 20:17

It's still platonic. It's just, you guys are hanging out platonically.

Speaker 2: 20:22

Over text messages. We're not hanging out Like the first time I was just to drive home. We never hung out at any time whatsoever, except for that night and that morning uh, before she left oh, okay, I didn't catch that, so you and you doubt that night was the first time you hung out with her.

Speaker 1: 20:40

Yes, okay right all right.

Speaker 2: 20:45

I want to and just to put this a little bit, a couple of things in context. There's something that I put together I wanted to so people can understand about this before they go diving in to the book or to the, you know, to the resources I have on the website to really learn about what's going on and what can happen to you or your family or anybody you care about. Is that some of the noteworthy things were that you know my case is very interesting in the fact that I pled the Fifth right. I exercised my Fifth Amendment right, and so the record of trial is completely one-sided. My attorney did do a good job, but the courts were just not going to favor me whatsoever.

Speaker 2: 21:38

It didn't matter how good or bad he did, and I didn't have a real voice, like I had a voice and which will later lead into the debate hearing and why my attorney had to go back and explain like, hey, well, why, why are these things so? How did these things end up so terrible? Essentially is what they were saying, and I mean he. He said I gave him a great defense because y'all had no evidence of wrongdoing, little to no evidence, and I was completely meeting the standard that would that a case like this would have. And given that you're only seeing one side of it, you really get to see what the government was offering at the time for people, which goes back into the UCI, which we'll get, you know, we'll go back to that?

Speaker 1: 22:36

Yeah, we'll get into that.

Speaker 2: 22:38

Because the UCI. I believe I may be mistaken, but I've made, I believe, you know, once, once I, once this happened to me. It sent me down a rabbit hole for discovery, and so I just did all the research you could possibly do.

Speaker 1: 22:55

And uh, Is it okay if I go back to the actual event, or are you comfortable with that? If you're not, that's okay. Um, or would you rather? Be just going to it's okay. Well, you tell me what you want me to do.

Speaker 2: 23:16

Oh, the other part is this is it, you know, the hard part and of of of this right here is that you take the entire record of trial and you, I was there the whole time. I know the whole truth. I was there, you know, and she was there the whole time too, but protected like Fort Knox, and I'm just me with my truth Right. And given that it's a one-sided trial and all the boundaries that were overstepped, uh, so it just shows. It just shows so much from one perspective and that's why the book, that's why I knew I had to write the book and the book describes it.

Speaker 1: 24:02

The book goes into what happened. For one, you didn't think that you would have to hire an attorney. You thought you had a good military lawyer that would defend you, and that's not how things happened. I want to point out for the audience because, darren, if you're not comfortable talking about the incident, because, darren, if you're not comfortable talking about the incident, I just want to say one thing, which is the fact that there was no proof of anything other than a consensual encounter. That's what I got from reading it. Is that a fair assessment?

Speaker 2: 24:47

And that's actually what my appellate attorney realized more recently was that because I never had a voice, I never got to speak, I never got to tell anybody what happened. And whenever he rewrote my pardon letter, he he looked back at it and he was like that's, that's a sexual contact. Why we live, we've been calling in a sexual assault because it it was based on consent, right. And so he actually changed it to say you know a sexual contact, because I will talk about it, I will tell you, I'll tell you exactly what happened, like for the sake of everyone and the future of our service members and veterans. You know, I don't I have enough humility to say you know what? Here's my story. Like, this is what happened and, uh, I'm okay with that.

Speaker 1: 25:38

Okay, so let's go back to it then. So she before we before we.

Speaker 2: 25:43

But before we go there, I would like a couple of things before we go down that road, okay, so I just want to say this. I know this from experience. There's a legal maxim that says that benjamin franklin's quote it was saying at one time too is that it's better than a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer, and it's called blackstone's ratio. It's a 10 to 1 thing. It's called Blackstone's Ratio. It's a 10 to 1 thing. It's been accepted by the legal community for a very, very long time. And that's why you have like on the civilian side. That's why you have things that will say you know they don't have the budget for, or they'll say, like, in the interest of justice, we're not going to pursue this because there's not enough, or they might just drop it, like the state did in my case. So it reflects a principle that presumed innocence and protects individual rights for the justice system, and that's it. And I know from experience. If I had read this and not experienced it, I'd like, well, that sounds, you know, criminals should go to jail. But then you're like, okay, well, when you're not a criminal and they make you a criminal and you go to jail. That's way worse than anything else you can imagine, because it's a it's not true, and you're suffering and there's nothing going to take away that suffering from you, and there was no real rationale for it. It was just, however, this process carried out, and so there's a couple of key quotes that came out of this that helped frame like helped the framework of how to understand what really happened. So we have the legal maxim they're prosecuting a case that has little to no evidence whatsoever.

Speaker 2: 27:33

They offered me a five-month plea deal so I never had to register, I wouldn't have to do anything. They offered me a five-month plea deal and I was like, who takes a plea deal when they're innocent, like completely innocent? And so he offers me a plea deal and I said absolutely not. I looked him in dead his eyes with absolutely not. I said yeah, we went, and then we go from there, you know, obviously. Then he's like, okay, well, you know, well, let's get phone records. They won't give phone records. They hit her. You know that she was so protected by all of these, all these uh ndas that were coming out from you know, 2000, mostly, 2012 to 2014, um, that just basically by 2014, you had no rights and I would find out that that's why I was actually out of the navy, like my eos was why I was actually out of the Navy.

Speaker 2: 28:32

Like my EOS was done and I was out of the Navy and they still for like a week or so and then they shoved me back in, gave me administrative paperwork, kept extending it until the NDAA took effect and so whoever was that legal that gave me a charge sheet. They knew what they were doing, they were waiting on that. They were like, because a lot of times they'll put you know 20 things on a page and hope something sticks. This is a very targeted, very, very targeted charge sheet and improvable. Which goes back to Lieutenant Colonel Palmer's statements where he's telling people like, put anything on paper, even if it's improvable. Which goes back to lieutenant colonel palmer's statements where he's telling people like, put anything on paper, even it's improvable, you know, if it's improved, not provable, he said we'll, we'll take care of it, and so he had already influenced everybody.

Speaker 2: 29:18

Uh, lieutenant colonel palmer for the audience who hasn't read the book uh, in the jack corps he was the one who taught all the jags. Uh, he was like their instructor. Um, so, essentially, what, if you talk specifically about him and what was going on for for the whole uci thing? And this is the like I said, this is the most robust part of the UCI agenda. You know, it kind of starts off with the Obama administration in 2008,. April, immediately, sexual assault awareness month, with good intent. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what we want. If there's a problem, we want to be able to fix it. 2000,. Let's see 2012, the movie that came out that had such an influence invisible war invisible the invisible war I was basically about.

Speaker 2: 30:21

You know it's hot in a little bit of everything. It had a Coast Guard, marines, navy, army and the Air Force. And you know it was kind of weird that the Army and the Air Force, their incidents were from like 96 for the Army and 2003 for the Air Force Academy problem that they had, which seemed like so far removed. But that's why the Navy and the Marine Corps took the brunt of what was going on. And then it wasn't until like 2019, 2020 that the Army was in the hot seat and then by 2021 that's whenever I go up and I do my presentation at the advisory committee and I want to at the advisory committee.

Speaker 1: 31:07

And I want to because now we're kind of talking policy and, if it's okay with you, I do want to bring in Keith just for a second, because I want to talk about where this was systemic.

Speaker 3: 31:25

And so, keith, did you know as you were going through your case that this was a systemic issue or did you think that this was an isolated case with you? At the time I was accused, I had no idea that it was systemic. Once you start pulling the string and you realize what was going on as he mentioned the, the documentary and the complete denial of all due diligence you start hearing of other cases and other courts, other judges, that it didn't matter. The facts of the case didn't matter. Truth was a terrible defense and you're guilty until proven innocent if you were in that timeframe.

Speaker 2: 32:18

Right and I think that that's the big thing is that they bring you to court martial, they get you past court martial so that the burden shifts. Once the burden shifts, it's you're not coming back. I mean it takes half a million dollars. You know we've. I know of some people have spent half a million dollars to fight their case, some less. You know hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, um, but anybody, most people who tried to just fight their case with out outside influence, they didn't have a chance we didn't have a chance, I didn't have a chance.

Speaker 2: 33:00

Which goes which brings me back to the framework I was talking about is that there's some key quotes that I wanna talk about, and this is to the convening authority. So I had already been, so my trial lasted half a day. These cases go on for weeks. My trial lasted half a day not even a full work day and I was sentenced by the next afternoon. No coverage, no anything.

Speaker 2: 33:34

So at that point then I'm like okay, I understand this, I need oversight, I need somebody from the outside, and so the only person that I knew from home like from home was an attorney named Carl Parker. He was a senator during the JFK era and you know he had 60 years of legal experience, and he wrote a letter to the convening authority on my behalf calling out all of the things that were wrong. For you know and this is during the dispute, where they were trying to take the ability from the convening authority away, which had been instilled in like the 60s and the 80s, like there are 70s and 80s, and so they so finally, eventually, they started attacking that, saying like we don't need that, no more convening authorities don't need, they don't need, uh, to have that power. And so the convening authorities were more inclined to just rubber stamp things to send them through, because they're going to go to court, right?

Speaker 1: 34:34

so and I want to. I want to clarify that, because my understanding and you can tell me if I'm wrong was that as a convening authority, you had to show that you were tough on sexual assault, and if you didn't send every case to court-martial, even if it lacked evidence, then you risked being called out by either your higher headquarters or by Congress. And that was one of the reasons why many convening authorities, even when cases lacked sufficient evidence, went automatically to court-martial. Is that correct, darren?

Speaker 2: 35:17

That's correct, and I'll tell you why. Because here is the famous words from the briefing where all Jags got all their information from. I call it a prescription because I see it for what it is and I do have, you know, I have a. You know I describe them as lenses. I have these broad lenses that see, they call them polymaths, like when you're like multidisciplinary across the board and you can, you know, put things together. So it's a polymathic type thing, and so I read it like a script, I read it like a prescription. So this is what he says.

Speaker 2: 36:00

Judge advocate Lieutenant Colonel Palmer says you must have a willing suspension of disbelief of the victim once the convening authority has decided to proceed with the charges. I don't really know where he was going with that, but here's the important ones. He says straight up the defendant is guilty. We wouldn't be at this stage if he wasn't guilty. But the NDAA forced the judge's hands at Article 32, and I believe that was either 2012 or 2013, where they had no choice but to push into regardless of if there was evidence or not. At article 32 they'd have a hearing and I have documentation that says that my article 32 judge, who was a female and uh, she actually explicitly says on there, even though there's a lot here and that does you know? That would we essentially saying they're not inclined to think that anything happened, it has to go forward.

Speaker 2: 37:11

I mean essentially in a nutshell.

Speaker 1: 37:13

And the state declined to prosecute your case. I think that's also something that needs to be brought out here is that?

Speaker 2: 37:20

And that was their biggest ask. That was their biggest ask Take it away from the chain of command. So the first thing they did was took it, and this is before they even actually started take it away from the chain of command. So the first thing they did was took it. This is before they even actually started taking it away from the chain of command. They took it away from the chain of command and brought it to the state. The state investigated me. I had no idea. No, I didn't know. I was under investigation for you for years, until I got a actual charge sheet, um, and my command was like, hey, we don't know what this is all about. I had no idea. It was an investigation for all those years. I'm sorry, there's so much information. Are you comfortable?

Speaker 1: 37:59

going back to the night, Because I think that's really important. But if you're not, just tell me and we'll move past it. So you tell me what you want me to want to do.

Speaker 2: 38:10

Okay, yeah, well, okay, so we can touch on this when we get to court martial. But just let me finish this, saying it real quick so so he says defendants guilty.

Speaker 2: 38:18

You know, as a trial counsel, your job is to prove the the fullest veracity. Don't hold back once convicted. We need to crush these. Well, he said marines at the time, and get them out. And then he called all defendants scumbags, like so if you're defending yourself, so one, you're automatically getting pushed forward. You know, we call it being pushed to the rear. You get pushed to the rear and then you're a scumbag because they had no choice but to push you forward. So you get, you're in a trap. Essentially that's a trap and uh, let's see the uh, yeah, so and so this is what he told him about the charge sheet and that's why my charge sheet's so important court documentation, said the jag also stated that trial counsel needs to list any charges on the charge sheet just to get the charges before members. That's all they wanted. He wanted stuff on papers, to get charges before members, even if the elements of the charges cannot be proven. He said that, even if they cannot be proven why would you do that?

Speaker 2: 39:23

Just ask yourself why.

Speaker 1: 39:26

Because they were under pressure, they were under the gun to get under under pressure because, and this is leadership, that's leadership so sad because there were legitimate cases that were swept under the rug, and so, instead of using a root cause analysis and saying, okay, well, we need to work on due, we need to work on the rules of evidence. We need to take an ethical approach. Instead, let's over, swing to the other side. I mean, that's what.

Speaker 1: 39:57

I see has happened here and now. We have people to this day who don't have the benefits and the rights restored. We have people to this day, as arvis owen said in our last podcast about this issue that you can find on my false accusations page on the theresa's tapestries website we have people to this day that are still in the brig because of this issue, and that's what really breaks my heart.

Speaker 2: 40:30

And we need to get them out of there by any means possible.

Speaker 1: 40:33

And this is where I do believe that the DOD needs to address this issue and not just address it going forward. That's great. We want to address it going forward. It's positive sign to see the Army have some guidance put out. I saw that that's not UCMJ reform, but okay, and I get it. All the TJAGs are not confirmed yet. There's a lot of things this administration has to do sequentially, but it doesn't excuse what has happened here. It doesn't excuse the fact and I'm going to get mad for a second because this pisses me off this doesn't freaking excuse the exposes that we need to have cbs have. I don't care that they're left-leaning. This is doesn't excuse the expose that I want to see fox news have. Like, where are they in all this? And and and? Where's megan kelly? Where's candace owen? Where's sean ryan? Where are all these people when this issue needs to be talked about? And that's what I want to see happen.

Speaker 2: 41:32

Well, they were being censored. They were being censored and free speech was a myth at the time and a lot of people didn't know that. And we've reached that era where now you can speak openly and you know there's a platform. Just like I said, x, you can go to that one, and there's nobody going to tell you what you can and can't say on there.

Speaker 1: 41:53

Well, I want to bring Keith back in here for a second though, too, because I want to know. I mean, keith's a Navy SEAL and there had to have been so much publicity around his case because of the fact that he's a Navy SEAL, and Navy SEALs get a lot more publicity than the rest of us rightly so. So tell me a little bit about when your case was going on.

Speaker 3: 42:17

Did you sense that the mainstream media was inclined to take it on and talk about it? So, teresa, as you said, yeah, being a SEAL is a double-edged. There's two sides to that coin, obviously, and I don't think that helped me at all. In fact, I became the feather in the cap for the military to say that we're we're going to prosecute everybody, and they just left. Now, whether or not there's actually valid um any validity to the accusations, that's regardless. We're just going to prosecute everyone and convict everyone. Um to prosecute everyone and convict everyone. What was your last question? I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 43:12

Well, I'm just yeah, I mean, that was kind of what I was saying is that did you sense that the? You know, these days we have podcasts. Back then, I don't think, when you were convicted, these kinds of shows were not as prolific, like it wasn't just like everybody had military people had podcasts, like myself, even smaller shows like mine. But my question is where are the? Where's the investigative journalism? Where's the 2020s? Where's the Dateline? Where's the Politico I'm just trying to think of?

Speaker 1: 43:44

I don't care if they're left again, I don't care if they're right, it doesn't matter to me, but where are those shows that would really dig into this issue and say is this systemic? What has happened? I mean, even to this day, like, why am I the and I'm not the only one. Tell it Like it Is, does it too, and a couple other really small military podcasters are taking this on, and Andy Stump took yours on a few years back and I think you had a few other shows that you did. So I definitely want to give credit where credit's due, but why isn't there a bigger outcry over this?

Speaker 3: 44:17

I think that's a question we've all been asking and I don't have the answer to that. I will say it's absolutely necessary. I'm not going to make accusations. I didn't like it when it was done to me, so I'm not going to accuse others of why they're not doing it or what they're lacking. However, I want to echo your point about not having justice on either side. Some of my greatest supporters have been true victims of sexual assault. Most of my supporters have been women. Now, whether that's because men are fearful of speaking out loud on the subject and women subject and women get angry just because, if they've actually been true victims of sexual assault themselves, they can see the writing on the walls and they know exactly what's going on. So I know you've spoken of some people and I'd be more than willing to happy to work with them and we'll do it. If nobody else is doing it, then we do it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:30

And and and. They're wonderful broadcasters. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Sean Ryan, I'm a huge fan of Joe Rogan, I'm a huge fan of Megan Kelly, I'm a huge fan of Candace Owen. I just hope that somebody shows them this podcast or shows them another podcast that one of you guys have done, because I really want to see that and I can think of nothing better for them to take on, because this is an issue that is impacting the people who stand up to fight and die and bleed for our country. And now we're going to hold them accountable in a kangaroo court where they're not given the rights to fully investigate the issue.

Speaker 1: 46:17

And that's where, darren, I really want to circle back now to going into your case, because I really want people to see what happened. I, I, I know it's in the book, and and again, if, if you can summarize it, that's great. If you aren't comfortable talking about and let me just say, and caveat this this is an incredibly hard thing to for people to talk about, talking about this live even, but it's what needs to be done, because I don't know where else these conversations are happening, and so I'm going to go back to you. You tell me what you can and we'll go from there.

Speaker 2: 46:59

All right, I got off track just a little bit. Like I said, said this topic it's a traumatic stress thing. It you get stuck in in the moments and so, um, if I could just finish, I just there's a couple key quotes from highly influential people that I wanted to read before we get to that part. And uh, so I just want to say he said so. This is from the senator, former JAG lawyer, 60 years. I'm frankly surprised, having 55 years of legal experience at the time and trying hundreds, if not thousands of criminal matters, that the result of the conviction and sentence came about. That was from at the end of his arguments to the convening authority In a letter to POTUS from Mr Cacera.

Speaker 2: 47:55

Mr Darren Lopez was wrongly convicted of sexual assault while serving in the United States Navy. This case is one in the troubling trend of service members convicted of sexual assaults based on evidence that would never have led to a conviction in any other forum. Mr Lopez is innocent and then that's when he later realized it was a sexual contact and not sexual assault. That would happen, not, you know, good or bad, but just the occurrence of what happened. It was more of a sexual contact than sexual, you know, than sex or sexual assault.

Speaker 2: 48:33

And then, in a communication to me, I have lead trial counselors from washington yard quote I fully believe the politics, I fully believe the politics of the time had a major impact on your case and many others at the time, and I even went into asking him questions. I said are there hundreds? He said yes. I said are there many hundreds? He said yes. I said what about a thousand? He said yes. I said what about a couple thousand? He said that's where I would start getting you know, I would. It would you know, I would start, you know, pulling chalks on it, so to speak, because I mean looking from their perspective, think about it. There's a couple thousand that they have to go back and review. They're not going to do it and you know he, he's the, he was the lead trial counsel, lead prosecutor, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 49:31

and that's what shocks me, darren is that there's people I mean thank god for admiral lorge, retired, who did this amazing uh affidavit which I, like I said, I have on my website if anybody wants to go and read it, and I think this is just the part that really just gets me is right here.

Speaker 1: 49:54

I perceived number seven. I perceived that if I were to disapprove the findings in this case, it would adversely affect the Navy. Everyone, from the president down the chain in Congress would fail to look at its merit and only view it from the prism of opinion. Even though I was convinced then and am convinced now, that I should have disapproved the findings, my consideration of the Navy's interest in avoiding the perception that military leaders were sweeping sexual assaults under the rug outweighed that conviction at this time. And it's just shocking. And then number 12 on a personal note, I would ask you to forgive my failure in leadership and right the wrong that I committed in this case against senior chief barry. Ensure justice prevails and, when doubt exists, allow a man to remain innocent, right and and that just tells you.

Speaker 2: 50:47

Yeah, it tells you. But here's the biggest part In 2021, I took a giant leap of faith. It was by pure happenstance. I told you I'm a religious person and I believe God's hand is all in this, and I'll always say that he is the number one that has brought me this far, because I wouldn't be here without putting my trust in him. And so you take that information that we just spoke about and you fast forward to 2023, where they enable the independent office and special trial council to reduce UCI in sexual assault cases. That's what it was created for to take UCI out of it.

Speaker 2: 51:34

So I discovered the problem with UCI. So in 2023, they enact something, a whole orchestration. You know it takes budgets. You know how these things go. You know upper echelons. There's tons of meetings, there's tons of logistics, there's tons of everything. But the fact in 2023, that they actually listened to what we were saying and created it, that's it right there. They admit it. That's their admission of guilt. That's it right there, they admit it. That's their admission of guilt. And now they really need to go back and fix it, because it was prevalent enough to warrant a systemic reform. So we had a systemic problem and now, in 2023, we have systemic reform.

Speaker 2: 52:21

So you know the UCI case read. You know she's going to. I believe you posted the most robust version of the UCI chain from, you know, 2006 all the way to 2025. Yeah, it'll be in the show notes right after the show. Yeah, and so you're going to see the writing on the wall. You're going to see the writing on the wall and it was all done in such a way, like I said, they shaped the environment, they made people believe things.

Speaker 2: 52:56

General Amos went around telling, giving these heritage. You know these briefings about hey, if you do this, you do this, you do this because Marines were on the hot seat. Well, if you're in the Navy Navy and my accuser was a Marine, I didn't have a chance. I didn't have a chance at all, especially with the NDAAs and everything that came past. That, and you know it just solidifies my plight. It solidifies all the people who did claim UCI and received their justice. But there's still so many people that don't, like you said, don't don't have justice, are still sitting behind bars. I mean, just like I said, I turned down five months to face life because I wasn't having it. I mean that speaks for itself. Nobody takes this much time and years out of their life to put a case study together and put all these things together, unless you are damaged severely and you want to leave no stone unturned until you figure out what exactly happened.

Speaker 1: 54:06

That's why I was so convinced of your innocence, darren, after I read your book and I did have a lot of questions, because this was just the part that was really hard for me to understand is how someone could get convinced that something happened. And then, after I started to understand this issue a little bit better, with false accusations, I understood that there's really three camps of people, and I'll just say this and, like I said, this isn't specific to you there are the people who knowingly lie because they can benefit from it, unfortunately, because there are MST claims. There are sometimes people who are in custody battles, who right are getting a favorable advantage by doing this.

Speaker 1: 54:55

There are people who are getting paid by some power that be to make these claims and that was the worst part. That was the worst part, absolutely, and I've heard those cases. And then there's the number two, one where somebody doesn't remember what happened, yeah, where somebody was passed out strategic?

Speaker 2: 55:13

I don't knows. So whenever this? So, if you follow the ndas, another thing that you'll realize and I want everybody to go back and look at their case and see that's one of the biggest things the message this is all about. The message. This is not about me. I, I don't have my. The best thing I have is the chance of the pardon and the chance of me getting a pardon. It's one in a million, but so I'm here for you and to tell everybody about these resources, because it will get you to where you need to be. If all you have to do is read my resources, and it will you will start putting the pieces to be. If all you have to do is read my resources, and it will you will start putting the pieces together and you'll understand how what happened to you happened to you and then from there, you know you'll have more peace and you can move forward, and you can move forward even more and you can bring it to you know, whoever it may be.

Speaker 1: 56:01

You know the advisory committee is unfortunately been shut down as of now, and so there was a defense advisory committee that was meeting at the Pentagon and was going over these issues and it was on both sides, it is from my understanding.

Speaker 2: 56:16

It was people who had been victims of false accusations and there were people who didn't feel that they received justice and they were victims and so they were listening to these cases go ahead yeah, well, they were listening to the cases and I overheard, um, somebody speaking about it one day and I reached out and I said, hey, these are only and I kind of looked investigated a little bit. I said these are only accusers or the people who were victims of you know, of an assault, or you know an alleged assault, I don't know. But they were going and they were, you know, fueling the fire and I was like, well, why, I'm a victim too. I went through the whole, I went through every single possible course of action to get it fixed and all I got was nothing in return. So, like, when you read my record of trial, it's not going to make any sense. When you read any of the appellate briefs, it's not going to make any sense. And whenever you get to the calf, the calf denied my review because we submitted phone records and evidence to show, like to support, hey, this person was actively like doing things. Like they were calling me at the same time where they're saying they don't remember anything and they they wouldn't accept it. And the reason, the rationale was he says he, he says he has these things, but he didn't submit them. We absolutely submitted them, so that the calf just shot me down because they were probably you're overwhelmed. They were swamped when I went, when I went in 2021 to speak at the advisory committee. That's that's essentially what they were talking about, was them? At one point they were overwhelmed, and then now they have time to do more and that's why they were able to get the integrity unit developed so that you know, and manning and stuff like that, so they had enough people to do it because they had.

Speaker 2: 58:14

If you, if you look back to for recruiting, the jag core got super bumped up in the years where me and keith were tried. And me and keith, I'll say this me and keith were tried in the same in the worst possible years. And me and Keith, I'll say this, me and Keith were tried in the same in the worst possible years. In the first worst possible time frame ever. You had the highest, very large command cases you had. There's just so many things to list that, like I said, the website and the book will tell you at all, but um well, like I said, I know this is so hard and yeah what I want us to do is I want this to be a productive conversation, and I know how incredibly hard this is to share.

Speaker 1: 59:03

Yeah, um, we don't have to go back to the story of what happened it's in your.

Speaker 2: 59:08

Are you sure we can? Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1: 59:10

Okay, let's do it okay, so I'm gonna go back. There was an evening that you met this person, the accuser, at a bar. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 59:23

no, actually what happened was that I she invited me out to a. She said that she wanted to meet me at some club or something like that. And I said, what kind of place is it? And she says a strip club. And I was like that's not really my thing. And she was like, well, there's another, uh that a lot of people go. And I said, well, what is that like? She's like it's more of like a dance place, dance hall type. I was like that's my style, let's go there. And so I have. She calls me to come pick her up. So I go pick her up from, uh, where I dropped her off that one when we met, and I bring her and drive her to the place, so I don't know where that.

Speaker 2: 1:00:09

See, this is the, this is the difficulty. You're going to redirect the trial and I can tell you the story of what actually happened. And they don't really mesh very well and it doesn't. And it doesn't make sense. The camera, the base has cameras. They saw me coming and pick her up. They didn't anything that would benefit me was destroyed, anything, any camera evidence, phone records, uh, she, she magically lost her phone whenever it was questioned like, hey, can I see your phone records. It just magically just disappears, breaks or something like, are dropped and broken and destroyed. There was just everything that would benefit me was completely just thrown out.

Speaker 2: 1:00:57

And the first thing you do in any investigation is phone records. I mean, that's literally like just to give some veracity to a claim like, okay, let's see your phone records All right. To a claim like, ok, let's see your phone records All right. Here you go. You know, you show me phone records. That's, that's step number one. And that never happened.

Speaker 2: 1:01:16

I actually was not able to get my phone records because a judge wouldn't. Judge has to ask for him and request for him. He has to give a subpoena, ask for him and request for him. He has to, you know, give a subpoena. And um, I was able to get mine because while I was in the brig my account went to default and was turned over to third party collections. Third party collections fortunately had my entire phone record so I could see her calling me. I could see exactly when she called me, at what time. I could see her transitioning from phone towers, like from leaving where we were at while we were there to going somewhere I don't know where, and then coming back and none of these things were discussed because, like I said, the lieutenant who was representing me, all of these were valid points, but he thought he had a beat.

Speaker 1: 1:02:03

I mean he had, he literally had her impeached at one point and she's the only witness and the judge is like no, no yeah, in the record of trial I felt like he did a great job yeah of disproving her allegations by showing things that you should remember, like right, not being able to remember where you went the next morning, the errands that you ran that day, that next morning with the cab driver, just things like that.

Speaker 2: 1:02:34

Yeah, you go from standing there. This is the story. You go from standing there and whatever that means. No, I still don't know.

Speaker 2: 1:02:44

Um to her running back and forth trying to get me to stay with her friend at the motel next door, I said, no, I have a villa, I'm going home. And I guess maybe in her head I'm not going to assume anything, but if it was anybody else they'd be like ooh, villa, hey, can I come stay with you? And I was, you know, at the time I was like sure, why not? I told her, I said I have an extra bed and this is all in the. If you go back through the regular trial and you find the investigator notes and stuff. This is why that bed was messed up, like they could tell that the sheets and stuff were all like messed up or whatever. Because I assume originally she went in there and was going to go to sleep. But then she comes into my room. So you know she, there's two room, two rooms and and, and that's what happened while we were there and that's what. And led into the engagement of you know something happening her coming from the other room and coming into my room but going back. So she said she was staying there. I don't, we don't know what that means.

Speaker 2: 1:03:54

She's going back and forth talking to her friend and we end up at a point where I'm like, hey, I'm going home, I'm tired, like I've been dancing my butt off Like I didn't see her. I saw her for, you know, some time. But I'm a social, I used to be handsome and I used to be a social butterfly. And the thing is is that, you know, I danced around that place until I was just ready for bed, like I was just exhausted and I had a good time. And you know, around that place until I was just ready for bed, like I was just exhausted and uh, and I had a good time.

Speaker 2: 1:04:29

And you know, like I said, I told her, I said I do have another place, I said I'm not staying at this motel, whatever this is. I got something better than this, I'm not going over there. And uh, you know, so we get back and I'm on the jeep wrangler, right, so she's jumping out in and out of my jeep wrangler, she's texting people on her phone, you know, and so they're in the whole time. The prosecution is saying that she's incapacitated at this time, like that she doesn't have, she doesn't remember that she's incapacitated. That's what. That's what the prosecution is saying, and I mean it leans more towards a memory blackout, which is pretty common, like, actually, there's this one person I used to work with that had a rare disease, that didn't know that every time they consumed any alcohol they actually blacked out, even like just a sip. They had a disease, though you know.

Speaker 1: 1:05:25

But that wasn't the case. Yeah, and I mean, that is one of the problems with alcohol. Even like just a sip. They had a disease, though, but that wasn't the case. Yeah, and I mean that is one of the problems with alcohol. Yeah, is that it does on.

Speaker 2: 1:05:42

Both sides it makes it hard for people to definitively say what happened. Yeah, and then so, getting back to the story, so I'm assuming she was just like she had something on her mind and so she came in, she comes at me. You know, we're kind of just laying there just at first, and then one thing leads to another. You know, I get up out of bed, I go get protection and I'm trying to put it on and I have either adrenal fatigue or I was just exhausted, I don't know. I mean, the place where I was at will wear you out. It's sink or swim, and so I was already exhausted from that. But then I was exhausted from dancing, uh, for probably about three or four hours straight just around the place. Uh, not to make you know, make light of it, but that's me and my character, like I've always been. I've always been like that and I've never had a problem with it before. So, um, so it's a fail. So that becomes a failure, so much so that that's why the two condoms were found. We tried twice, it didn't happen. But if you actually look back into the record, into the evidence, there's a photo and there's actually three condoms because of the next morning. So we wake up.

Speaker 2: 1:07:03

And I wake up and then I don't know what she had been doing, but it looked like she had already been up doing something like in the bathroom. And then she comes back and I noticed like she's kind of wet and I'm like I was like hey, I was like what, what is that? She was like, oh, I'm going to take, I'm taking a shower. And I said so I wake up and I go into the living room and I sit on the couch and I turn TV on, get on you know phone flip, you know flip through whatever kind of Facebook or something that's going on. And she comes out and she says, hey, will you wash and dry my dress for me while I take a shower and get ready and stuff. And I said Okay. I said hey, I already called a cab for you Because she had a predetermined, pre scheduled medical appointment and she said she had to be there. I said Okay, I was like I'll get you there, you know. So I called the cab, I paid for it.

Speaker 2: 1:08:03

She comes out. So I didn't see anything wrong with the dress, like, I looked at it and you know not to give away her too much information, but that was all she was wearing, and so I didn't wash it, I just dried it, because it just looked like it was wet, I mean. So I threw it in the dryer. By the time she gets out, you know, she comes out in a towel and she sits by me and, um, you know, I'm just sitting there watching TV and we weren't really talking much, but she just kind of like we were kind of leaning on each other and then she just kind of drops her towel and one thing leads to another. We've kind of foreplay again, and I'm still having performance issues. I, I get up, I go get protection again, um, and I'm trying, uh, you know, but it's just not happening. And in hindsight, you know, like I said, it could have been adrenal fatigue, it could have been just that I was so exhausted from the night before.

Speaker 2: 1:09:08

I was exhausted, I mean, and mentally for sure. I mean you're, you're, you're among the best of the best whenever you are where I was at, and so, um, there's a high standard and a high bar. You know, competitively speaking, like you have to be on harvard and brown and columbia's level and I'm just a guy that went to, you know, whatever college was available to me wherever I was at, you know. So, uh, it was a challenge, but you know also, you know I did very, very well. By the way, they actually recommended me for all the next things. You were on the promotion track.

Speaker 1: 1:09:51

That's what also is a really important part of this story is that you were on this track to keep going and go very far in the Navy, and that's where the shame is in my book is that they lost one hell of a terrific warfighter when this happened. I feel the same way about keith, about so many of the people who who this has happened to. So next morning nothing happens and you call her a cab because she's leaving called, yeah, and so we try again.

Speaker 2: 1:10:25

It doesn't. It doesn't work out my phone. And I'm like, oh, I need to take that call. And I check it and it's the cab driver. And I said, oh, that's the cab. And she's like, oh, you know, we're in a rush. So she runs back into the bathroom, does whatever she needs to do in there.

Speaker 2: 1:10:41

I go up to the front door and I'm like, hey, she'll be out in a second. You know, I don't know if it's going to be no offense. I don't know how long it takes women to get ready and I've been dating women my whole life. I didn't know what to expect. I just had a minute just to keep the cabbie there because I was paying for it. I didn't want to once again, I had bills to pay, I wasn't trying to let the meter run and um.

Speaker 2: 1:11:07

So everything seemed okay until this very weird she. So she walked into the front door. She's walking to the front door and you know I'm helping her grab her things out, you know, walk her on her way and then I sit on the couch instead of bringing her to the door because she, she on her. You know, it looked like she was just on her own, like trying to hurry up and get out, and she opens the door, stops and then she shuts the door back and she said are we going to see each other again? I said, you know, I leave in like a week or two. I said, um, most likely not. And there was kind of like an expression, but I didn't really know how to take it at the time. I didn't know if it was positive, negative or what. I just didn't really know what the expression meant. And then she goes out the door and that's the last I know of her. I don't know anything that happened, but according to the record of trial, she gets out, goes into the taxi For some reason. The taxi driver says she looks like she's upset.

Speaker 2: 1:12:18

Yeah, possible, it's possible. I don't know what, for it could have been my non-performance, because I was embarrassed. I was extremely embarrassed. I'm very embarrassed to say this in front of this crowd. But the truth has to be told. You have to tell your truth. You have to speak your truth to get to a point where you're so humble that they there's no way for them to come back at you. You have to give them complete transparency and that's why I wrote the book and that's why I'm talking about this. You know, no guy wants to talk about his shortcomings, you know. But I mean even in the beginning, when they're talking about a sex life. Nobody wants to talk about their sex life that's what I said to harvest.

Speaker 1: 1:13:10

That day I said I just can't fathom how this happens. But then I can in terms of like men are just trained to not talk about feelings, to not talk about any kind of failures or shortcomings or vulnerabilities.

Speaker 2: 1:13:27

And so these kinds of issues really do live in silence because nobody's willing to talk about them, and that's one of the reasons I took it up was because I just didn't see that there were, there were places where men could talk about this, and this does happen, and this is such a private matter and to think that, yeah, and nobody wants to talk about their, their exploits or you know their intimacies or anything you know of that nature. And uh, so allegedly what happens after that is that cab driver says she looked upset. She was like, well, why did she look upset? Well, she had like eye stuff running in her eye. Well, she just got out of the shower and had no purse or anything with her and I mean, I would assume that's just like eye makeup, you know. I mean, I kind of noticed a little bit that was kind of messed up when she was walking out, but I didn't say that I wasn't going to be, like you know, insulting somebody before they leave my place, but so so she asked the girl if she wants to go to the police station and she's like, well, why, why do you do you? You know, why did that question come up? That is, is the thing like, why does this cab driver become so invested in something that wasn't anything? And so that was a big question that I still have to this day, like why was this cab driver so invested in doing what she did? And so, and then this whole time she's saying the person, the accuser, the person is saying that she doesn't remember anything from the night before and she also doesn't remember the morning and she doesn't remember going with the taxi driver.

Speaker 2: 1:15:17

The taxi driver gives this long story about how they left there, went to a gas station, bought cigarettes and sodas. And they're hanging out to a gas station, bought cigarettes and sodas and they're hanging out for a couple hours and they're doing stuff and she allegedly got this appointment that she goes to. But she doesn't remember any of that. She only remembers once she gets to the doctor and then she tells the doctor that she's not feeling well and will you run some tests. So they run, fortunately for me, which in the per, in a regular justice system, this would have like solidified it. Um, they run all the tests.

Speaker 2: 1:15:52

You know the prosecution makes up a story about scratches, about bites, bite marks and stuff. You can ask any woman I've ever been encountered with my entire life I have not once, ever bit anybody, not one time period, never, never has happened. But allegedly she's got all these bite marks on her which she doesn't show to medical but she testifies and says that she had bite marks on her and stuff like and all these scratches and all this stuff which nobody sees ever it but it's a, it's in the record of trellis truth, but nobody ever sees it. So they do a drug panel, they do all this stuff, run full, talks, everything. No alcohol at that point in her inner system. I mean she said she, you know we'll get back to that Three drinks of alcohol in four to five hours.

Speaker 2: 1:16:48

There's barely any in your body. I mean we were dancing and stuff you know it was, there was no alcohol. It was not as big of a deal as anybody. She could have drove my Jeep around and not got in trouble if she got pulled over. I mean, that's, that's the truth of the matter. Not got in trouble if she got pulled over. I mean that's the truth of the matter. And then you have the toxicology absolutely nothing in her whatsoever. So then that's whenever they have to like shift gears and pivot and say, okay, well, how do we get a conviction now? And then that's when they move on to just doing the prescription, like the prescription. You know, I went judge alone. The judge could have said whatever he wanted to and it was going to stick and you thought, by having a judge that it would be more legit.

Speaker 1: 1:17:34

You thought, maybe okay this person knows the law and can I also ask why you chose not to testify?

Speaker 2: 1:17:43

The testifying was my attorney was very well aware of all the stuff that was going on with UCI, and actually we developed a course on building psychological operations into the Navy information operations and shaping battle environments and stuff like that. I was a one-of-one guy and so my lenses were. You know, I have these very special lenses that can see things that other people don't notice, so to speak. I'm sorry, here goes that. No, no, it's okay, it's okay. So I'm going to go back to why you, so to speak, I'm sorry. Here goes that.

Speaker 1: 1:18:24

No, no, it's okay, it's okay. So I'm going to go back to why you chose not to testify.

Speaker 2: 1:18:29

Okay, so we talked about it, so I wasn't testifying from the beginning and he was like, hey, I'm thinking about putting you on the stand.

Speaker 1: 1:18:36

And I said Because I just think you would have come across so credible.

Speaker 2: 1:18:41

I don't cross so credible, I don't, you know it. It was one of those things where I knew my rights and I knew what was going on, but I knew that I was innocent and I knew that there was no amount of evidence that they could ever produce that could find me guilty.

Speaker 1: 1:18:59

You were just so sure you were so positive and and again as I read the transcript, your lawyer put on a great defense like right, I said I was the next day.

Speaker 2: 1:19:09

There wasn't anything.

Speaker 1: 1:19:10

I saw in that that I would go. I would have done differently, as I was reading.

Speaker 2: 1:19:15

Right, but yeah, they still made them do a debate, hearing and explain themselves and say, hey, you gave, there was no evidence against this man, somebody you know, and he's not going to call people out, but, like Arvind said, arbitrary decision-making when you go judge alone. And this is what, exactly what he told me. He said you know, the prescription from Lieutenant Colonel Palmer was get him on a. You know, the panel is, the panels are knuckle-draggers implying hey, ensure they don't have a panel because the panel can get them out of it. So he's demeaning having people have a panel. And so when you go judge a loan, he basically took me on the UCI track. Like I said, if you follow each individual step that he made, now his performance was, like I said, I have no issue with performance, but the things that happened along the way reeked of UCI so much that I was at a medical appointment.

Speaker 2: 1:20:23

So I found out I didn't know I was being investigated. I did get a phone call and there was this random, there was this one thing that the instructors put out that while we were in this area they said hey, there's a, there's a woman scorned here, she's married and she goes out and she sleeps with everybody she can to make her husband mad because they're not divorced, and so and so, and so I get this random phone call and I think I'm like it's put tests in the waters, because, you know, this is this is where it gets very tricky for me. I'm under ndas and all this other stuff and I don't know, whenever real life intervenes with what's going on, what I'm supposed to be doing. And so I was under the impression that that was the husband and he was trying to find out if I was the guy that she's, you know, attempted to sleep with. And so I'm like hey, man, like I, I'm not answering any questions about this.

Speaker 2: 1:21:22

I do know who you're talking about, but you need to ask her any. You need to ask her the hard questions and come and find out it was a detective. And in our world, hey, detective, so-and-so, that's this that you know. Everybody has credentials. It's just another person, you know. It's another person calling you.

Speaker 2: 1:21:40

You don't look at it.

Speaker 1: 1:21:42

You don't just give away everything you know. I've had people call me and say I had an FBI call me just about eight months ago and tell me that there was a picture of me sent to somebody getting my head chopped off by the Taliban and asking me if I was legit and if I was okay. And they said they were from the FBI. And then someone else called me and said they were from NCIS and I didn't believe a word of it.

Speaker 1: 1:22:07

I thought it was somebody who bugged my phone and I was on Kiesler and I wouldn't. I wouldn't leave the base until I called my jag at work and verify that. No shit, this really was some. You know, it was a romance scam. It was like some old guy that got. It was like some old guy that got like an image and was being told if he didn't send money to this person I was going to get hurt because I've been kidnapped. But point being, is that yeah, I don't believe crap when people call me and what?

Speaker 2: 1:22:33

they say no.

Speaker 2: 1:22:41

Oh, you were smart not to say anything because you don't know who they are and what their agenda is, and that's why I don't know if there's a what's going on and and that's why I didn't think there was an investigation going on until it's dropped. I get a letter in the mail and says hey, your investigation has been dropped due to lack of evidence. Uh, and he actually left a note in there which kind of was interesting, because he said for some reason the Navy has an invested interest in this case. And that came after they dismissed it, I mean, and that's literally saying UCI, that's saying they're coming after me, even though the state has a right of first refusal. He's like the Navy is not gonna. The Navy is gonna pick this up, and you know they're gonna handle it and they're not gonna let it go.

Speaker 2: 1:23:25

Essentially, yeah and uh, you know. So there's a lot of stuff going on at the time. Um, in the court marshal, the guy said you know, my, my attorney asked her. He said did you tell anybody to make this accusation? She said no. He asked her straight, direct question Well then, why are we here? She says I don't know. So she doesn't even know why we're in the courtroom, so she doesn't even know why we're in the courtroom.

Speaker 2: 1:24:12

But she was, you know, and this is just professional, you know, knowing just things that SAPR program that came out. You could tell the difference between somebody who was initially a victim or an alleged victim, and then, when they had their SAFR attorney coaching them, there was a big difference. And I read tons and tons of case files while I was in the brig and I can tell you the exact moment when the SAFR started doing the writing for them and all they had to do was remember it. And that's why there's so many inconsistencies in the in her. In her testifying uh, like the first at first, she says she called the cab. That's absolutely not true. The cab, you know, that's the one thing the cab driver couldn't deny, because it's on the phone record. You know, um, all of the things, that there's not one thing that they can. Just there's not one element that they can dispute or bring up. That I can't, that can't be disputed at this point in time, now that people are more knowledgeable of all the things that were going on at that at that time the why, the how, the who. Once you figure those things out, it makes all of the sense. But there is no avenue at this time and that's why I go to DACA pad and I say, hey, I'm a victim, but I'm a different type of victim than y'all have ever seen. I have exhausted all things and I have no avenue for recourse or relief. And that's what I'm here for.

Speaker 2: 1:25:42

Here for you know, to promote this thing I call the fair act. I read it and it's like it was actually originated in british law, but it's called a falsely accused. Individual review. Case-by-case basis makes sense. If somebody believes that they were falsely accused, present that and if they, whenever they present that, look at it from the in. The only real way for it to be fair is to look at it before the burden flip, not in the appeal process, not in the convening authorities, you know wheelhouse, but as it's in trial, you have to look at it like you're the judge for that trial, looking at all the facts and evidence presented and see if you can still say, yeah, without a doubt, this person is guilty or innocent. And that, and that's the only way that the people like me who were left behind are going to have a chance period there's.

Speaker 2: 1:26:41

There is nothing else. A pardon is an admission of guilt, people who are not guilty. You know a pardon would be relief and it would help life, but it's still wrong Because if you're truly innocent you know it is it does hurt. That. You know it stings a lot and you know I just really, at the end of the day, there's so many. I mean we could go on for hours and hours about this stuff, but I want to stay on track with you on where we're at. So can you refresh me on where? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:27:19

And I think that we're in a good place to kind of bring Keith back on here and say and I just want to ask you, keith, as you're listening to the story, does this sound familiar with what you experienced or with what you've heard from other people who've experienced something similar?

Speaker 3: 1:27:38

Oh, it's very familiar. I will go into it at this because, as he said, we'll be here another hour. But much of what he has just talked about, I'm just nodding my head, just remembering. And the cases are very similar when the actions were, when it's by design, it makes sense that this is all going to sound the same, right. So if you bring back God, I would say, conservatively, probably when I was in the brig, 40% did not deserve to be there there, myself included. As he had mentioned the state, the law enforcement agencies, local law enforcement agencies, the city, the state nobody was going to prosecute, nobody was going to take my case to trial, nobody was going to entertain it. But once my accuser brought that to NCIS without any evidence, there still was no evidence. There never was. It was her accusation. Ncis investigated me for 18 months, as they should, and during my trial they were never called to testify during my court martial because there was nothing to testify to. They were never called to testify during a court martial because there was nothing to testify to.

Speaker 3: 1:29:30

I was convicted after 20 years in the military. I had a top secret clearance at the time. The government knew what I was doing. Everywhere I went. The government knew what I was doing. I was reinvestigated for that clearance every five years and a woman who they'd never known who makes an accusation that's all they needed for my conviction. I also did not have a jury. I went with judge alone. I also never took the stand. I requested it several times to my attorneys and they informed me that you don't take the stand and you don't speak unless we think we're losing and we need you to take the stand. So at no time in my case did they ever in my court martial. Did they ever think we were losing a court-martial? Did they ever think we were losing? To the day where they read the verdict both of my attorneys the government-appointed attorney and the attorney I hired they assumed we were. I believe the prosecutor believed that we were going to that I was going to be, not guilty, so it was a huge. He said that.

Speaker 3: 1:30:49

Yeah, it was going to be not guilty. So it was a huge. Yeah it was. The room went incredibly silent when they read the guilty verdict. But I want to go back to what you mentioned before. The responsibility that this lies in is the leadership, or the lack thereof, of people who didn't do the right thing earlier on, when things were swept under, when there was MST and people were harmed, right, and it was swept under the rug, and it was swept under the rug. And so therefore, just like everything else in our society, let's swing that pendulum to the far extreme. And they still are not doing their jobs. No, so we're not going to be able to rely on these people doing their jobs. It's never going to happen, right, so we've got to do something else.

Speaker 1: 1:31:43

Right going to happen, right, so. So we got to do something else, right? And that's why we're here, because I'm convinced that they will not do their jobs until enough people get mad about it and start talking all over social media about it and then and it's not, they realize that people are dying still.

Speaker 2: 1:32:00

People are still dying because of this, like they're either taking their own life or there's other things that happen. People tend to deal with things differently. They start abusing drugs and alcohol. There's so many different elements that an individual can resort to for self-infliction because they don't know what to do in such a situation. And, like you said, there's still people in there right now who we can get out. So if there's anybody we can get out, right, you know, that's what we need to start with. And then the people from behind. You know hey, we can, as long as we get to them. You know my prayers will be answered.

Speaker 1: 1:32:45

Essentially, Right, and someone had a question on here and I really don't know how to answer it and I don't know if either one of you gentlemen can, but he just said by the way, we have had so many comments and I do apologize that I haven't been bringing in all the comments in here. Lauren Palladini has been on the show. She has been watching. She was my guest who had the medical malpractice case. Highly recommend you guys watch that podcast. She's been commenting throughout.

Speaker 1: 1:33:11

A bunch of people have been commenting, so I'll definitely go back through YouTube, facebook and LinkedIn and make sure that I'm getting all these comments on here. So thank you so much for all of you who have stayed with us. I know this show did go way over the hour, but I believe that it was important to show this story and, darren, we're not going to probably have time to get into it, but there's a whole nother story and a chapter in your book that I found very insightful about life in the brig and we really didn't get into that. But that is a whole nother animal about the way that service members are treated while they're in the brig.

Speaker 2: 1:33:49

And it is your shaking your head study. It's the Stanford study. Like in real life, you would never. You would never expect it as disciplined people who have been trained in the military. You would never expect it until you see it. It was just it would blow your mind.

Speaker 1: 1:34:08

I didn't know that you experienced the same thing, cause we haven't I haven't had you on my show yet Um, but it sounds like your experience, uh, at the brig was was not so great either.

Speaker 3: 1:34:18

No, and of course it's not meant to be, but, uh, and of course it's not meant to be, but there was no follow of any type of law there. So I understand that when we took an oath, that we gave up certain rights, but, uh, human rights are are not negotiable and um, I I'm aware of many cases, uh, including myself, that uh, it's, there was criminal activity involved and um, it's not okay. It's's not okay for us to do it to anyone else and it's not okay for them to do it to us. If the same actions were being done in a federal penitentiary, these people would have had relief. Attorneys would absolutely love to work with people in that manner, uh, with that type of uh evidence to to show what uh there'd be, what's happening to them when they're being incarcerated, and uh, we don't have that right. We don't have that ability.

Speaker 1: 1:35:33

No, the problem is is that the military is a secret society for some reason, where certain things aren't discussed, so they get discussed. On the stories of service podcast and Darren, I think one of the things that really shocked me. I want to just leave the audience at least with one detail of what happened at the brig, and I believe that's that story that you shared about how, if you were a sex offender, they would do certain things to try to see if they could discover who the people were, who were convicted, who were guilty and who were not guilty. Is that correct? Am I remembering that right from the book?

Speaker 2: 1:36:10

That is correct and they'll come at you. I mean, their goal is to get you to confess that you did something, that you broke the law, but it seemed like it was by all means necessary and it was so ridiculous that the psychiatrist that I initially was working with left because she could see in between the lines and she was like I don't want a part of this. So she left.

Speaker 2: 1:36:39

She didn't want a part of what was going on, and she was the only psychiatrist there, and everybody else for social workers right and so she, you know, she bolted and uh well you know, everybody knows on who was, everybody on the inside knows what happened on the inside and, oh, there's a lot of people that know what's going on with this.

Speaker 1: 1:37:00

There's a lot of jags.

Speaker 2: 1:37:01

There's a lot of investigators.

Speaker 1: 1:37:02

There's a lot of judges. There's a lot of media. There's a lot of people that know what's going on with this. There's a lot of jags.

Speaker 1: 1:37:06

There's a lot of investigators, there's a lot of judges, there's a lot of media, there's a lot of people who, I would think, know this is happening and it's on their conscious and there are opportunities and there are ways to share those stories. And I always say too sometimes the win isn't in getting justice, because sadly, like you said, ke, there is no justice Sometimes. Sometimes the win is just knowing you're not alone and knowing there's no shame in it. This happened and you got. You can't be bitter, like Keith says, can't be angry. You've got to move on, but there's other people that have experienced it and their support If you need it. Right, darren, right.

Speaker 2: 1:37:43

Absolutely, we're always here. You know the networks that we had when I first got out I was helping with Save Our Heroes because they were more geared towards following the sexual assault stuff. In your exploration, you're going to find all types of people who who will help advocate, but anybody that I, I think I believe, um, that you can reach out to, for sure. Uh, you can absolutely reach out to Arvis. Arvis will point you in the right direction. You can absolutely reach out to me. You, I'm more, like I said, I'm an information guy. I can give you all the information. Like I said, we can go for eight hours and I can tell you the whole story and not bounce around and be nonlinear. But you know we had an hour and you know we went over that and so so it's very difficult and it's been a while since I've been a public speaker. So it's an emotional topic for me and so I wish I could have gave you a better presentation tonight. And because we barely scratched the surface of this, I just hope that people go to the website. You know, if you have time, read the book. If you don't care about who I was before any of this, go straight to chapter four or five and then read what happened after that. You know. So you'll learn about all these things and you know the big part is that there's resources.

Speaker 2: 1:39:15

You know Keith, for example, I reached out to Keith and at one point and it's not Keith particularly, but other people too we flip-flop like it sometimes, like you'll call, you'll talk to that person and like there was something, there was somebody very influential that they had their case overturned at some point, where I I remember talking to him off a ledge plenty of times, like he, like he was, was just like you could hear it in his voice. His wife couldn't reach him, like nobody could speak to him, but he would talk to me and I was like, hey, man, I'm here, I understand, like I'm just as confused as you are, but now that we have all the facts, learning about the facts can help you have some peace. Reaching out to people like Keith. I was very I wasn't going to, I was so close to not coming forward and just in doing this, because I used to be a public speaker, you know, I used to give presentations all the time and I haven't done that in a very long time at this point. So I've been in research mode and all that.

Speaker 2: 1:40:24

When I reached out to keep the other day surprisingly I was I was not expecting to get more relief out of what keith had to say, and I know that keith is now in a very good position to be helpful as an advocate, because he already advocated and was able to help me in my dire, you know, in my time of need, and it happened so quick and it was just. I was just very thankful. And once again, keith, I want to say thank you, because there's not a lot of people out there Arvis, like I can call Arvis, there's a handful of people out there. You can still call A lot of people who want their cases. They get NDAs. They don't talk about nothing anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:41:11

So there are resources out there and if you want to know who those resources are, if you have questions about them, you can reach out to me. I'll vet them. I'll do whatever I can. You can reach out. I'm sure you would vet them just as well if they reached out to you. But there's resources out there, so don't ever think you're alone. And the other thing is this If it happens to you and this comes your direction, just remember we live in the age of ai. We have so many resources and tools to use. So if somebody's coming against you and you're confused, you have all the tools you need. You have the organizations, you have us advocates all over the place, you have podcasters who will send you to the right advocates. I believe, and you know you have. Like I said, my website and my book will equip you with all the stuff and all the tricks they have. So you know better, walking into any situation that they don't. They don't stand a chance. You know that's ultimately.

Speaker 1: 1:42:24

That's ultimately what the goal thank you, darren, and before we close out the call, did you have anything else you wanted to add, keith? I know, like I said, I know we have been so long and the audience has been amazing like the numbers have stayed the same throughout the call, which tells me that this is a very much a very high public interest item. And and I definitely think somebody even said no, I am angry. I haven't seen my kids in nine years because of this. I've been angry for the last decade and I'm angry too, and I want nothing more than us to be doing something about this today, and I want nothing more than to see justice, but I also want people to be healed. So over to you, keith, for any closing thoughts.

Speaker 3: 1:43:06

Yes, thank you. I offer that. Do something with that anger, don't let it just seed. If you can share this story, do due diligence that we didn't receive ourselves. Don't take our words for it. Do due diligence that we didn't receive ourselves. Don't take our words for it. Do the investigation. Just read, just look it up there's plenty of information out there and share it just with one other person. Put it on your threads, get the information out there. Get the information out there.

Speaker 3: 1:43:42

This affects everyone. People want to ask why does it bother me? What's the point? This affects the entire nation, the entire way of life.

Speaker 3: 1:44:03

I can't look at a young person, male or female, and in good grace suggest that they join the military right now, because of what I've seen behind that curtain, there's just no justice for either side, for either side. So until they get their act together which you know, there's nothing new under the sun. This has been going on since the beginning of time. But it's not just one person to be able to speak up and change things. It's a group of people organized that can change it. And if you rely on the military or the government to do that, I'm sorry. It's just not going to happen. So if you're angry, good. If you're upset, good. Do something with that and I promise that you'll be a better person for you. Come on out the other side.

Speaker 3: 1:45:14

I keep thinking of President Calvin Coolidge's quote the nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten. It's not going to happen. It's happening. We see it. We see it in media and school and television. If you think the nation is better off than it was 20 years ago or 25 years ago when I joined and I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, if it's better off today than it was, then then ignore everything I'm saying. But if you think it needs an azimuth check to change course drastically, then I invite you to join the team and do something Absolutely, absolutely All right.

Speaker 1: 1:46:10

Absolutely Well thank you so much to both of you. I'm going to go full screen and just say goodbye to the audience and I will meet you backstage just to say goodbye very quickly.

Speaker 2: 1:46:18

But I want to say, Teresa, remember this Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Speaker 1: 1:46:27

Yeah, it's so true, it's so true, and I thank you, darren, for having the courage to share your story tonight. I thank you, Keith, for helping Darren share his story.

Speaker 2: 1:46:45

Yeah, thanks, Keith.

Speaker 1: 1:46:47

I think my camera's going out a little. That is also the sign that it's time to go, but thank you to both of you guys and I'll meet you backstage. I'm going to go full screen. Thank you all. I know this was an almost two-hour-long podcast, but I believe it was worth it to get out this important information and it to get out this important information and, just like they both said, if this cause is important to you, if you want more information, you can reach out to me.

Speaker 1: 1:47:08

I have a whole page dedicated to my website on Teresa's tapestries. You can look that up and it's called false accusations. There's a lot of resources on there. Arvis Owens is another person to reach out to. He was on my first podcast and he has been instrumental in bringing a lot of the advocates together. So there are resources to learn more. Don't just take our word for it. Read the court transcripts, read Darren's book. This is a systemic issue that must be fixed and with your help, I think we can fix it. So with that, as I always say, take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Bye-bye now.