Ariana
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Hey, guys. Yes, I can hear you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
2003. Yes. I thought it'd be a nice little homage to you because it kind of reminded me a little bit about the story I'm going to share today. Oh, wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I would like to use a fake name, but I am in the PNW. We're going to go with Ariana for this story. Ariana Grande?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Kind of a little bit of a VPR connection because I'm going to call the criminal boyfriend Tom here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
So I'm up here now, but the story actually takes place down in your region, San Fernando Valley. I'm a SoCal native, but I've been up here since a little bit after this story. This story takes place between 2012 and 2013. I was about 22 at the time. I'd been in a really serious relationship. It ended after six years and I was single for the first time. And it'd been a tumultuous year for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
My mom was really sick with cancer. I'd been taking care of my grandpa that passed away. And I just was kind of deep in the trenches of life and just trying to figure out what adulthood was going to look like for me. I was single, living alone. And I had also, right after that long relationship ended, transitioned into a new job where I was an apartment manager.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And I was managing a pretty large multifamily low-income complex in the valley. I was in way over my head. I had a A manager's unit that came with my salary. And so I had a detached little four bedroom townhouse unit in the complex. And I had gotten two roommates at the time. And so the three of us were living there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And what do you do when you're single and young in the valley and you don't know how to date? I started a couple online dating profiles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
2012, not a really familiar thing. I guess I should have known more about the red flags at many points in the story, but I didn't. And so that's what led me to meet Tom. So he invited me and one of my roommates over one night, just come over and hang out. We'll have some drinks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
He definitely had like a bit of a bad boy element and like the pictures and his correspondence.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
He was the opposite. So we went over there, had a little night of fun, just hanging out pretty casual. I do remember like his house was really gross and... He was also living with his grandpa, which I just remember catching the grandpa in a hospital bed in one of the rooms of the house. We kept it casual for a few months. I was still dating around. It wasn't like anything exclusive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
But then one weekend he called me and said, hey, I need a favor. My grandpa wrote me this check and I lost my wallet and I need your help. Can I sign it over to you? And you just put it in your bank account like when the money comes. clears, I'll give you a little bit as a kickback, a thank you for helping me out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I was really young and naive and didn't realize that I was clearly about to commit some check fraud and I did it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I think it was for $800 somewhere in that range. Maybe he told me he'd give me like $200 out of it or something. But of course, my bank account ended up overdrawn. My account was flagged for fraud. And I remember sorting through it and just letting it go and feeling this is like a bad guy in my life. But I just continue to talk to him for no really great reason at this point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I just kind of kept getting sucked in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
That's impossible to resist in a moment like that. Yeah, thanks, guys. It's a big part of my life that I'm not super proud of, but kind of put a pin in that situation of the check. And fast forward, the next probably six months are just utter chaos with this guy. He weasels his way into living in my apartment, says, oh, I could be another roommate. You have a third room still available.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
He just takes over every facet of my life. destroys the apartment, ultimately chases my roommates out. You know, I was doing a lot of shady stuff, but I also am not fully aware of what's going on and still kind of having like a blind eye to some of it. There was a lot of introduction to some recreational harder drugs at the time and everything was just kind of a big messy blur.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And I was going down the road of fuck around and find out, but just was enjoying the ride, I guess, as I was going a along with it. So fast forward again to close to my birthday later the next year in 2013, we had gone out to dinner to go visit my parents and we're driving home and the apartment complex is gated. And I go through the gate and my unit is attached to the left.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And as I'm pulling in, it's nighttime and it's dark, but there's streetlights in the parking lot. I can see what looks like people going in and out of my apartment, not roommates. And I get a little bit closer and I can see what's going on is my apartment is being robbed all out in the open. Oh, my God. I see a couple of pickup trucks and a handful of guys carrying lamps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I see like an end table being brought out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
They were not all that valuable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Exactly. As I'm looking at the situation unfold, I can see these guys are not strangers. I recognize them as a trio of kind of motorcycle gang slash Russian mobster vibe folks that my ex-boyfriend Tom at the time had introduced to me as friends a few weeks earlier. When I met them, it was a very uncomfortable vibe, as most of the company that he was keeping were. But they were friendly enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
There was a leader of the pack. We'll call him Mishka. And Mishka, at one point when I had met him, had told me how he had a deep passion for martial arts. He was wondering if he could teach class to the underprivileged children in my community that I was managing. Oh, boy. It was a really oddly specific request that stuck out a lot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And, you know, I thought, OK, well, maybe these guys aren't so bad, but also maybe they're not great. And also within that time frame after meeting him, my ex-boyfriend had cancer. brought home like a felony amount of weed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
There was at least a few big bags that I had seen and feeling way in over my head, but not realizing the level of criminal activity of the partner that I was in the trenches with. You know, I saw the weed, and then a couple days later, I didn't see it, and I just didn't really ask any questions. I knew that he had sourced it from these guys, and that's kind of where I left it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
So I assumed that whatever was going on had something to do with drug deal gone bad, some retaliation here of robbing my apartment. Although he was living there, it was filled with my stuff, of course, because he was not contributing a lot to the situation. And so I see these guys and I'm like, what in the world is going on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And he tells me, go over to your manager's office unit, which was on the other side of the parking lot, like lock the doors, close the windows. I'll take care of it. Just don't call the police. I go over there and I also have security cameras in there so I can see everything that's going on in the unit. And it was close enough that I could also kind of see through the window a little bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I'm just watching for what feels like probably like a half an hour or so. Wow. And I'm just seeing Tom just flailing his arms, yelling, trying to slow them down. And they're not trying to like attack him or take him out or anything, but they're just continuing to one by one attack. take everything out into a handful of pickup trucks that they had brought and their motorcycles.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And then the strangest thing occurred. And I'm watching. And all of a sudden, Tom and Mishka just embrace in this like big bear hug. I'm looking at the camera and it looks like there could be tears falling. I am not sure what's going on. And then all of a sudden, like it's a flip of the switch. These guys just start systematically unloading everything back into my apartment. Oh, wow. What?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Tom is helping them unload everything. I saw them embracing like another hug at the end. And that was it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Check for something. Maybe they were looking for the weed. Who knows? Tom just said it was a misunderstanding and kind of swept it under the rug. And of course, I knew that this was a building block to something not good brewing. And these guys are in my home, in my place of work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Absolutely. I narrowed this down for kind of a more humorous and entertaining aspect, but it was a pretty bad and dark period of time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yes. Things didn't end so well for him either, which also circles back to those feelings of A lot of guilt and shame, but I'll loop back to where this all ties together. So I swept it under the rug, wanted to believe that was it. Spoiler, it wasn't. So about another month passed by, and at this point, our relationship is really falling apart, which is good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
He was not staying in the apartment with me anymore. It was a Saturday night, and I'm just... blowing off some steam, partying a bit with some friends and another kind of romantic partner that I had who was a close friend, kind of the person I really wanted to be without the time. But I was hindered by this leash from the villain in the story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And in any case, we're partying, we're doing a little Molly. I haven't talked to the other guy friend in the story since then. And I called him last night in preparation and I said, hey, do you remember this crazy night 12 years ago? And he was like, oh my God, you know, I got a bad memory, but I remember that like it was yesterday. Like, let me tell you, it was not cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
So he helped me find the details. And there was him and two friends and we're rolling balls in the trenches at this point. He reminded me we were doing like a little massage train on the ground. We have the lights, the music, and then all of a sudden the front door swings open. And in comes this Mishka mobster. Oh, my God. He prances right in and is like, hey, what are you guys doing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
You having a party? Where's Tom? And we're obviously deep in an altered state, hence why my door wasn't locked. And I was just... incoherent to the situation, but also trying to figure out, is this guy going to shoot us? What is going on here? What is he looking for? Two others at the pact were just hanging out by the door outside. So it was not a great setup, quite uncomfortable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I'm sure it would have been a lot worse if I was in a sober mind state. But my friend recalled that he came and just like sat at the table, was like, we've been looking for Tom for quite a while. I know he's got to be here. I mean, I see his dog here. We had a dog at the time that we had got during our relationship and he had left the dog with me and fled to San Diego. And so I had the dog and.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It's like, I don't know where he is. Look around. He's not here. I don't have anything to do with whatever is going on with you guys, but you need to go. And he really was hung up on the dog aspect. Like, there's no way this guy's going to leave his dog behind. He loves his dog.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
My friend also recalled that he definitely saw they were armed and that he had a gun on him. I blocked out a lot of elements of this, but I'm sure that had something to do with the level of interrogation. It was such a creepy demeanor. Like he was friendly, but obviously he was not there to hang out. And he ultimately was like, all right, well, make sure you let him know we're looking for him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
He did ask on the way out, like, and remember, I'm really serious about that martial arts class for the kids in the community. Oh my God. Please give me a call to talk about this. So weird.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Yeah, he was not letting that part go. So he left. We were okay. And shortly after, things were quickly unraveling. And obviously, I was trying to desperately get out of this relationship. And I was lamenting to a mutual friend. I just feel so stupid. I shouldn't know. Not that first red flag of the check fraud incident when we were first dating. to kick this guy to the curb.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And she laughed and said, you know, he's done this before. Don't you know his Judge Judy story?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And I said, no. I got on the computer that night, did a little Google search, and there he was as a defendant on Judge Judy for scamming a very innocent foreign exchange student that he had met at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It was not great. So it was a pretty full circle moment and pretty embarrassing, but also like, well, this is what it is. But I was ultimately able to break free from him after a couple more months of turmoil. And I decided pretty quickly after the second interrogation incident in my apartment that I just needed to get away. I was in way over my head with a very active criminal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
So I ended up moving up here to the PNW and it was the best decision of my life. I met my husband a year or so after I moved up here and we have a great blended family and a beautiful family. five-year-old daughter. She just celebrated her fifth birthday, actually, two days after your big birthday, Dax. You guys are almost birthday twins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I did. After we split up and I came up here, he moved, I think, to live with family in Indiana, presumably on the run. God only knows how many other activities were going on and people were looking for him. But I did learn from a mutual friend a few years after he'd been here that he ultimately committed suicide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Even though he brought so much misery and chaos and just destruction to my life and to his, there were obviously parts of him that were redeeming. And it's hard when you go through such a dark period of time with somebody and have a lot of remorse and resentment. But
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I felt like when that happened, it helped me understand that a lot of his actions towards me were coming from something that I could not comprehend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
That's very good insight. It's been a long time. I really put a lot of this behind me and I'm really happy and have made a lot of good choices since then. But it's a tough part of my story overall. But it was also the defining moment and action that really changed everything. And, you know, I fantasized about telling you guys some portion of this story for a long time. It's a real dream come true.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
Well, we're really grateful you shared it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
I remember hearing in an episode a couple weeks ago, you guys were like, oh, we need to do like a time you were dating a drug dealer or dating a criminal. And then here it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
It's going to be my time to shine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
A lot of crazy things that I told in just this little part. But it was a doozy. It branched out into a lot of other crazy shit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Dated a Criminal
And it made you who you are. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
All right, take care. Bye. Hi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
It is. This is a big year for my name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
No, my parents picked it out of a book they got at a garage sale.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes, definitely. I've seen the book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Northern New Jersey. I'm in upstate New York now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
It's hard. Better bagels in New Jersey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
New York City bagels are better, but upstate bagels don't really exist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I live about 25 minutes south of Saratoga Springs, if you've ever been.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Actually, the Gilded Age is filmed near me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes. So I should start by saying I am like a type A kind of mom. My friends are always like, why do you go so hard? You're making us look bad. So I always have made my kids birthday invitations. I have two daughters, eight and five. And I'll put a silly little photo of them with some graphic. So last year was my daughter's eighth birthday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
And eight, I'm sure you know, Dax, they're starting to get a little sassy and have their own personality. And she wanted her party at the bowling alley. We're big kids now. No parents to hang out by us. So I made the invitation. And I'm also a little, at this point, exhausted from RSVP etiquette not existing anymore. Oh.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
No one wants to chase down the parents in the classroom that you don't actually know. Like, are you coming or are you not? So I decided to do an Evite, which I've never used Evite before this time, but I had received them. So I sign up for Evite. I upload the invitation that I made. And I'm also weird about importing contacts. I have old bosses in my phone, like people I don't want to text.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So here I am manually uploading each number. And I put them in. I send the invite out. I start getting some RSVPs. I'm like, OK, that went great. The next day, I at the time was working in corporate radio. My life, though, because I was corporate, was all day on camera in meetings. Can't pick up my phone. And I see someone's calling me a number I don't know. So definitely not picking up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I ignore it. Then they call again. I ignore it. I'm in a meeting at the time. So I've ignored two calls. I see they left a voicemail. Then I see I get a text, the same number. And I can't look at my phone, but I can glance. And all I see is officer da-da-da. Oh, so at this point, I tell the people in my meeting, I'm so sorry. I just have to pick this up quick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Some officer keeps calling me, but I made the mistake of just muting my sound and not my camera. Oh, I pick up and he says, this is parole officer such and such. I'm calling because I need you to confirm that you intended to send an invitation to one of my parolees.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
That's where my head went first, like one of the moms or dads.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah, what'd they do? So I'm still on camera, but I turn to go to my other screen, and I pop open Evite, and I ask him for the number he thinks I texted. And then I see it. I put a six instead of a seven on the end. So then I ask, who did I text? Are they coming to my party? And the officer tells me that I texted one of the most violent, vicious child sex offenders. Oh my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yeah. So at this point, I start crying. I am a mess. And I just race to hang up my meeting. And I just figured I'd tell them later what happened. I go into a panic asking all the questions, saying all the things you just said. First of all, the number that called is my area code.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So this officer was in my area code, which means that this person lives about two hours drive away, which is drivable to come to my party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
The next place my mind went was the invitation, which I did send you a copy of My Gorgeous Daughter's Honor. Oh, no.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I'm worried about her picture mostly. I didn't send you the town we live in, but it was on it. And when you open the e-vite, it has date, time, address, like my phone number, my email.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Thank God, though, it wasn't a party you were throwing at your house. That's true. Where your mind went, Dax, though, is actually what happened. So the officer told me that the reason he even found out about this is that the parolee did believe it was a sting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
So I did get some more details on the man because at this point I'm spinning out of control. The officer's trying to calm me down, but also he's an officer, so he can't just be like, nah, everything's fine. He tells me that truly he committed so many crimes in four or five states to the point where he's about an 80-something-year-old man. He has lived most of his life in prison.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I've never heard an officer talk this way, but he started saying, I don't believe in punishment, but I believe this man deserves punishment. Like, it's disgusting what he's done. And then he gave me his name and a photo. He encouraged me to look up what he had done. Oh, my God. It was bad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes. And this officer was a little funny. He said to me, I don't think you have to worry because of his age. He can't really drive. He can't really see that well. He does have an ankle monitor. He's not allowed to leave his house. But make no mistake, if you do find yourself in a room with him, you are engraved in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Apparently, he doesn't even really understand phones because he was in prison so long. So he actually never saw the photo of my daughter, but he did see the words, you're invited. And so he's eighth birthday party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
This really is. The officer offered, because he could sense he was not going to put me at ease, to geolocate the person the day of the party. I was like, can you just send a whole troop here to the bowling alley? But then realized that might be much. I hang up with him. That's the plan. Text him day of.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
But then I face this super serious moral dilemma of do I tell the parents who are coming to the party...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Did you? For the most part, no. So they'll hear it on this podcast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
No, it's going to ruin my daughter's party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Yes, but I would have had a lot of questions. And again, RSVPs were already hard to get. I did tell the friend of mine whose number I messed up. I was like, this is how important it is to be careful when you write your phone number. And she laughed. But day of the party came and I woke up and I said, officer, blah, blah, blah. I texted. I would like you to geolocate. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
And about 25 minutes later, he wrote back and said, I have located him. He is at his residence. Have a great party! Exclamation point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
You know, I wasn't allowed to really talk to her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
I think she had a good time this year. Even she's turning nine next month and she just said she doesn't want to party. She just wants to chill with three friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you so much. I've been listening since the first episode. This is the most exciting thing that ever happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: Children's Party
Thank you for sticking with us. Yes, of course.