*Content Warning: false reporting, sexual assault, rape, sex trafficking, fraud, suicidal ideation, scams, disability abuse, false reporting, harassment, financial abuse, suicidal ideation. Sources: MyCase Indiana: https://public.courts.in.gov/Elwood woman faces multiple felonies in connection with ongoing rental scheme, by Logan Gay, WTHR.com staff, WTHR News: https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime/elwood-woman-arrested-for-ongoing-rental-scheme-megan-stoner-fishers-indiana/531-2d3b11fa-5c70-4f05-8ea4-0be0c37cf852 Fishers woman charged in rental fraud; 3 scammed in signing lease for same Home by: Izzy Karpinski, Fox59: https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/fishers-woman-charged-in-rental-fraud-3-scammed-in-signing-lease-for-same-home/ Hamilton County Inmate Records - Stoner, Megan Elizabeth: https://secure2.hamiltoncounty.in.gov/inmates2/Jail/Inmate/Detail/-1282383 Protect the community from ongoing criminal activity by revoking the bond of Megan Stoner, Change.Org Petition: https://www.change.org/p/protect-the-community-from-ongoing-criminal-activity-by-revoking-the-bond-of-megan-stoner Justin Sexton on X: @JustinSextonIN https://x.com/JustinSextonIN Megan Stoner Chronicles, X @ChroniclesMegan: https://x.com/ChroniclesMegan Chloe Anagnos on X: @ChloeAnagnos https://x.com/ChloeAnagnos/status/1651260809362784261 Don't Waste This F*cking Podcast: The Story of Megan Stoner, by Amanda Peterson, Excelsior Studios: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dont-waste-this-f-cking-podcast-the-story-of-megan-stoner/id1757463535 Resources:Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources Theme Song & Artwork: Thank you to NeonHoney and GIBBANEZ for covering our theme song, Glad Rags’s original song U Think U this season. NeonHoney’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/neonhoneymusic/ NeonHoney’s Website: https://neonhoneymusic.comGibbanez IG: https://www.instagram.com/@gibbanezmusic/ Gibbanez Linktree: https://linktr.ee/gibbanezmusicGlad Rags: https://www.gladragsmusic.com/ The S22 cover art is by the Amazing Sara StewartFollow Something Was Wrong:Website: somethingwaswrong.com IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcastTikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast Follow Tiffany Reese:Website: tiffanyreese.me IG: instagram.com/lookieboo
Chapter 1: What is the content warning for this episode?
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Something Was Wrong early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This podcast is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. For a full content warning, sources, and resources, please visit the episode notes.
Chapter 2: Who is Megan Stoner and what are the allegations against her?
Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, or Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Megan Stoner's responses to these allegations are addressed within this season. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong.
Last episode, we heard from Indianapolis community member Alyssa, who acted as a journalist wanting to buy Stoner's life rights in hopes of gaining her trust to ultimately get her arrested. On August 12th, 2023, Stoner agreed to meet fake journalist Alyssa and her fake sister Vero, who is actually the founder of the Megan Stoner Scam Awareness Facebook group.
Vero called the cops while Alyssa kept Stoner busy, pretending to be waiting on Vero to bring her cash. The police arrived and the community members finally thought Stoner had been arrested on her pending warrant. But because at the time the warrant was a bench warrant and not an arrest warrant, and they were in a different county, the police let Megan Stoner go.
Chapter 3: What was the fake journalist sting involving Megan Stoner?
Then, after Stoner failed to attend multiple court hearings the following week, an additional arrest warrant was issued. Stoner continued laying low, renting Airbnbs with what was assumed to be the money of her alleged scam victims.
As their frustration and the fear of what Stoner could be capable of next continued to grow, and they continued to learn of more vulnerable populations being impacted by Stoner's alleged crimes and cons, members of the Facebook scam awareness group continued to brainstorm how they could find out where Stoner was hiding to have her arrested.
After the fake journalist sting, Justin and Amanda, who knew Megan through the young Republican's political scene, who you heard from last episode, began devising a plan of their own to catch Stoner. Justin and Amanda believed that Stoner would do just about anything to receive her beloved yoni massages.
Chapter 4: What are yoni massages and why are they significant in this context?
As a reminder, a yoni massage is, by definition, an erotic or sensual massage that is a tantric practice. It aims to create an intimate connection with one's body. A yoni massage is primarily focused on massaging the clitoris, labia, G-spot, breasts, and anus, and many other erogenous zones.
While there are many people who believe that yoni massages can have all sorts of health benefits, at the end of the day, there's no scientific research to support this. Also, from a legality standpoint, erotic massages given by another in exchange for money is illegal in every state but Nevada. Megan started posting about these yoni massages from a guy named Haribo, real name Harry Friedman.
He lives in New Jersey. Later, it would be alleged by Megan herself that she had spent over $17,000 with Haribo for these yoni massages. I'm told that when Haribo started to learn more about the allegations against Megan online and was more focused on his upcoming wedding and honeymoon, Stoner started speaking to a new Yoni practitioner named Leo from California.
Chapter 5: How did the team create a fake Yoni practice to catch Megan?
Stoner connected with Leo because Haribo is out of town for his honeymoon the summer of 2023. According to Stoner, she never actually met up in person with Leo.
Between Stoner's avid social media posts, spending allegedly thousands of dollars on her yoni massages, and seeking out multiple practitioners, it was clear to Amanda and Justin the lengths she was willing to go in order to receive these massages.
So with Amanda's graphic design background and Justin's deep knowledge of all things Megan Stoner, they created a fake Yoni practice called True Renewal Bloomington and connected with Stoner on Instagram through its fake account. Stoner took the bait. She accepted and DMed the account asking for an appointment.
From that point on, Justin took care of messaging Stoner pretending to be a Yoni practitioner named Xavier St. Clair. Here's Justin.
Amanda made all the branding and stuff for the business, but she was like, you know, Megan, you've watched her closer than I have. You've talked to her a few times in person. You go ahead and you take the lead on messaging her. And so I messaged with her a few times and she was very instantly rude with me, like very demanding. She wanted us to message through a specific app.
I think it was Telegram. We were chatting through Instagram DMs. She very quickly was like, I feel like my boundaries aren't being respected because I've asked you to move to this other platform and you won't do it. My character is like, well, Megan, I'm not familiar with this app. Give me a couple of days to feel comfortable with it. And then I would be happy to try to meet you where you're at.
But she's very difficult to deal with, like in that professional setting.
Here's Amanda, who you met last episode. She's a friend of Justin's who originally connected with Stoner through mutual friends online.
Megan would have recognized Justin's voice. So our friend logged into the account and did a call with her for like 10 minutes.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did the team face while communicating with Megan?
Well, yeah. You know, one thing that, you know, stuck out to me, too, is I'm I'm, you know, more surprised that there's people in India that are looking for this work and are aware of it, too. You know, most people that I'm familiar with are on the coast. There's not too many people kind of in the heartland that are interested in this.
So I was glad that when you messaged me and figure out that there are people that are interested in this sacred space, too.
Yeah. Have you had a lot of people reach out?
Not not really. I mean, maybe maybe two. And so I was really thankful to see that you reached out just to see if we could explore this together. And, you know, I was really just surprised it happened kind of so quick as well. You know, it's really exciting to see somebody that cares about this, you know, as much as I am, you know, believes in the healing that can result from it, too.
Oh, without a doubt. Um, I am definitely a big, big, big, big, big fan of this work. Um, if you can't tell first, when I first did it in February of this year, I thought it was a little, I was like, Oh, this sounds a little woo woo. Like, I don't think this is going to work, but you know what? I was open-minded.
I tried it and I was like, holy fuck, this stuff moves mountains quicker than anything I've ever done in my healing journey. My first relationship in this work, my first practitioner, definitely could not hold the complex trauma that I bring. Um, and so our work ended, um, abruptly.
Um, we were in a three month container and then, um, it ended up, uh, we had continued on for about two or three more weeks and it ended up abruptly and it was just, he couldn't hold me and that was fine. And, um, he was great at what he does, but you know, like you said, this work can really take a toll on someone. And, um, I've been doing some coaching virtual work with, um,
someone now from la and you know he only takes on two to three clients at a time because this work can really take a toll on a practitioner so i'm glad you recognize that because you know some clients i think that that's a challenge that i've seen in just in this field and something that i've heard from other practitioners as well as about a fear that they have you know when working with new clients because it takes a you know while to build up the trust and rapport as well
Yeah. And so I was really excited because, like I said, there's something about the in-person aspect of this work. And it's really hard to coordinate when you're dealing with someone that's out of state that also has a schedule. It's just it's really hard. And I can't travel to the East Coast. We went out, my significant other and I, my partner, we went out over Memorial Day weekend and
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Chapter 7: How did the group plan the Yoni sting operation?
Okay. All right. Let me know when you can come up to Indy and I will be glad to meet you.
Okay. Fantastic. Well, Hey, I really enjoy this Megan. Um, and I know we'll probably talk on Instagram, uh, well before then.
So, okay. All right. Thanks. Have a good night.
Take care. Yeah. Bye-bye.
Thanks.
Once we started messaging, it didn't take long for her to just start trauma dumping in a way that you would not believe. I'm talking 30 to 40 messages to every reply she would get. And the thing that stands out to me the most now is it was immediately back to the same lies she had told. She starts alluding to Brian Bosman. I don't think we got to her using that name, but
The same story was started to be told. She started telling me about how Haribo, her previous practitioner, had assaulted her. The same story that she had threatened to accuse him of. Again, she doesn't know she's talking to Justin here. I've already heard all these stories. Outwardly, she's presenting as though she's trying to turn her life around.
But then to someone new she's latched onto on the internet, she went immediately back to all her old lives. We play along for about two weeks. This goes back and forth, messaging. It was really taking a toll on me to just sit and have conversations about sexual assaults that didn't happen all day.
I sort of reached a point where I was like, listen, we either need to get her to agree to meet up somewhere and try this, or we need to punt the football and I can't talk to her for a few weeks. I can't do this.
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Chapter 8: What were the outcomes of the Yoni sting operation?
He had a dog show or something that weekend and I don't live in Indiana. And we were thinking like they would have to meet up in person. And so we'd have to have somebody who could be sitting in a coffee shop who could call the police when she got there. We're thinking she wants to do it now. So we were like, we need to loop someone in on this to get help.
So we knew Alex would be more open to us telling her this. So we text Alex. We're like, we are very ashamed of something, but we have something to tell you. She was laughing. She's like, this is hilarious. She's an Oregon liberal. And she's like, okay, the two young conservatives have come up with this. She knew how like out of character it was for us.
We knew that she was one of the admins, but we didn't know she was in this other group of people who were like trying to get Megan. We were telling her like, what do you think we should do if Justin's out of town and Megan wants to meet up this weekend? And she's like, I can loop you in with some of these guys and we can figure it out.
So she made a Facebook chat with Kyle, Mike, herself, me and Justin.
I was at work and I get a text message from Justin, Amanda in a group chat.
That's Alex, whom we heard from in episode three. She met Stoner in the Facebook group called the Spice Girls back in 2017. After learning of Stoner's crimes years later, Alex joined the Scam Awareness Facebook group. She later became an admin to the group and got more involved with the efforts to hold Stoner accountable.
You'll hear Amanda, Justin, and Alex mentioning Mike, Kyle, Chloe, and Alyssa, some of whom you've already heard from this season. These local politicos and community members were involved in the efforts towards accountability as well.
And they said, Alex, we have to tell you something. We've done something really bad. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, okay, there's a scale of bad for me. And there's a scale of bad for them. What version am I going to get? I was like, okay, what's going on? And Amanda's texting me. She's like, I'm so embarrassed. I cannot believe I've done this. And I'm like, girl, it's okay.
Tell me what's going on. I'm not a judgmental person. You know this. And they said, we created a fake Yoni account. And Megan has messaged us. I needed to get up from my desk and go into a conference room to bust out laughing. I mean, that was the funniest, most out of left field thing I'd ever heard in my life. I know their hearts and I know their values.
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