Who's Afraid of LaDonna Humphrey part 4

Speaker: audioAnthonyChristoph21235166149: imagine this, I. You know, I go through this year long battle. I win this huge multimillion dollar lawsuit, 3. 57 million permanent restraining orders. She's sentenced to jail. I finally feel like, okay, the word's out there. Everybody is now aware of the predator that I have been dealing with the last year, Anthony Christopher, LaDonna's former employer, felt vindicated. He won audioAnthonyChristoph21235166149: six months go by rebuilding my company. Have my reputation back. I've cleared my name. I get a call from my attorney. Glenn Ritter calls me, says to me, Anthony, what are you doing? Where are you at? I tell him I'm, I'm working. I'm at the clinic. What's wrong? You're scaring me. Is everything okay? He says to me, you to get in your car. I need you to come here. Uh, you need to drive safe. You need to follow the speed limits. Uh, obey the traffic signals because if you get pulled over, you're going to be arrested. There's been a felony warrant issued for your arrest by the Arkansas Attorney General Office for Medicaid fraud. and create space with a serious music shift Let's back up for a second. Anthony Christopher fired LaDonna and almost immediately sues her for allegedly sending spoof messages and trying to discredit his business. While all this is happening, LaDonna says that she was just acting as a whistleblower, telling everyone that Anthony Christopher was operating a fraudulent audioAnthonyChristoph21235166149: So early October of 2018, LaDonna starts calling. Anybody and everybody, Department of Labor, HIPAA compliance, Arkansas Attorney General Office, um, local prosecutors, police, mayor's offices, anybody she can, you know, and in the words of LaDonna Humphrey, she's casting out a wide net. She's throwing anything out there to see what she can stick, and that complaint with the Arkansas Attorney General's office stuck and set in motion felony charges that were delivered right after the civil suit was adjudicated. Because LaDonna contacted the Attorney General's office and filed that complaint, Anthony Christopher was eventually arrested and later charged with four felonies, including Medicaid billing. Leading Anthony Christopher pleaded not guilty and vowed to fight the criminal charges, maintaining that he had done nothing wrong. audioAnthonyChristoph21235166149: to realize through fighting the charges was that LaDonna really was the sole reason behind the Arkansas Attorney General office coming after me, you know, inflating these stories or making up, um, absolute 100 percent false allegations about my business, about my character attacking my sexuality. In October, 2023, his attorney discovered that the emails sent by LaDonna Humphrey to the Attorney General's office had been deleted and the paper printouts hadn't been turned over to the defense audioAnthonyChristoph21235166149: I think for her, she thought she would win. In October, 2023, his attorney discovered that the emails sent by LaDonna Humphrey to the Attorney General's office had been deleted and the paper printouts hadn't been turned over to the defense. On October 13th, just days before Anthony Christopher was set to go to trial, the Attorney General's office announced that it was dropping the case. The office cited that the investigators and the Assistant Attorney General assigned to the case were no longer employed there and that the key witness had become unavailable. In the court filings, the office stated, quote, At this point, the state cannot go forward because it is not possible to meet the burden of proof on the charges filed. audioAnthonyChristoph21235166149: What all ends up coming out in the discovery process is that the Arkansas Attorney General Office has nothing. They don't have any, anything of any wrongdoing that myself or my clinic had done. What they had were false inflated statements from LaDonna Humphrey attempting to not only ruin my character, but to take down my company. And ultimately she did. She succeeded. You know, LaDonna plays this, this victim, every role, every instance, every time she goes to attack or ruin the next life or reputation. What we see in police interrogation videos, in the transcripts from the Arkansas Attorney General's office, like what we see in this is that it's always the same character. She plays this foster to adopt mother, five kids she's adopted, seven kids total. She's this humble, meek, Christian housewife. That just wants to lead a career helping people. But what we see is that all of that facade comes down very quickly. When you break the barrier of just the initial interview, the problem is is the woman is so believable in her deception that very few people go beyond that facade of what you see and actually diligently look into her. The Arkansas attorney general's office had no idea that she was That I had just won a landmark lawsuit against her. They had no idea that she was forced to spend 10 days in jail for contempt of court and destruction of evidence They don't look at any of these things and ultimately what we see when they dropped all the charges is that they say in there that they, they had no intention of using LaDonna as a witness because her character was so flawed. You have to remember, Anthony Christopher thought he was fighting this alone. He had no idea that there were others out there claiming to have had similar experiences. That is, until he got this voicemail my name is Colin Allen.The quality of the message is not very good, But its impact is huge. In fact, this podcast series wouldn't exist without it.

Collin Allen: I know LaDonna Humphreys very well. And she has screwed over five or six different businesses in the last 20 years. Uh, I've got a lot of stories for you that would help your case

Speaker: All of a sudden, Anthony Christopher wasn't alone. There were others who claimed that they, too, were harassed by LaDonna Humphrey. I'm Javier Leyva, and this is Pretend, stories about real people pretending to be someone else. ////Intro////Collin Allen teaseAnthony Christopher: So I win the lawsuit, September 2019, it's only two days after I win, uh, attorney calls me. He said, Hey, you, you want to, you want to go check your email and listen to a voicemail I just forwarded you. And I think I still have that voicemaiL. And uh, I listened to the voicemail and the individual says they called my attorney. They say, hi, my name's Colin Allen.

Collin Allen: she used to work for my father. but she stole like 30, 000 from our church and did all kinds of malicious things to my parents.

Anthony Christopher: My father John Allen and my family have been victims of LaDonna for years and we just found out about your lawsuit and think we may have information that can help you

Speaker: All of a sudden, the floodgates busted open.

Anthony Christopher: Hey, have you met this victim? Let me introduce you to this victim and they all just started coming out of the woodwork

Javier: Wow.

Anthony Christopher: Not only did Anthony Christopher discover that he wasn't alone, there were others who say they were victimized by LaDonna Humphrey too. And he discovered that this pattern of harassment spans the last 30 years. Let's go back to the year 1993. That's when LaDonna first met Pastor John Allen. She was only 19 years old

Speaker: ladonna starts working for the allensLaDonna Humphrey: my parents were attending his church and they asked. me to come visit church there. And I did. And so, it just so happened that he was having a job opening for a church assistant to him. John Allen, the pastor of Lake Hills Baptist John Allen, the pastor of Lake Hills Baptist Church, offered LaDonna a job to be his assistant.

Ladonna Humphrey: And I said, yes, it was more money than I'd ever made before. It was like, I think 9 an hour. It's kind of funny now

Speaker: John is very likable when you first meet him, and I was very excited about the job opportunity. I was newly married, and, very shortly into that position, I was very welcomed into their family like, like a daughter. That's how they treated me. And I was very close to the Allen. Here's Anthony Christopher

Anthony Christopher: She worked for this church when she was, uh, 19 and they had a preschool and she began,she, what she does is she gets close to the financials of every company and then just starts robbing them blind. And then when they find out she attacks them, profusely ruins their lives and then scares them into hiding

Speaker: Let me explain. LaDonna Humphrey is accused of being embroiled in a serious financial scheme. Pastor John Allen said that LaDonna was in charge of payroll and was deducting income tax from their employees paychecks, But instead of remitting these taxes to the state, she's accused of embezzling the money. The state discovered the discrepancy and filed a lien against the church. This ultimately caused the church to go bankrupt in 2009. By the way, LaDonna was never charged with this crime.

Anthony Christopher: what she did was she, uh, was stealing the tax money from the preschool that was being withheld from the employee checks and pocketing it. One day the IRS an IRS agent shows up asked to speak with the pastor asked him why he's not paying taxes He says, you know, I think it's just a mistake Let me call LaDonna.

Speaker: We'll we'll get this squared up in the morning and he said, okay The guy stays overnight and he calls LaDonna and said hey, you know, the IRS is here. I'm sure it's a simple mistake But we got to meet at 9 a. m. With him to clear up any confusion She says, okay, never shows up the next day, but finally the agent gets tired of waiting and says, you know, Hey, we got to get started on this. goes in, they go into her office, open the file cabinet. She had gone into night before and shredded all the financial documents. Weeks later, she sends an anonymous postcard to, um, the entire congregation calling the pastor a rapist and saying that she had to remain anonymous out of fear for her safety. Well, those are the accusations. There's no hard evidence other than the Allen's testimonies. And by the way, the Allen family did not want to take part in this podcast. However, I have a stack of DVDs containing all the case files. I have hours and hours of recorded interviews and court records. But why are we talking about this? What does any of this have to do with the central theme in my investigation into LaDonna Humphrey And her history of alleged harassment. Diane Allen 911 callCentral 9 1 1, what is your emergency? Uh, my emergency is my husband just called me and said the house is on fire and he was crying. I don't know the situation. That's Diane Allen, the pastor's wife calling 9 1 1 because their two story home is fully engulfed in flames. At first, they didn't really consider John Allen a suspect. But eventually, an insurance investigator says that he found evidence of arson. He said there was an accelerant that was used to start the fire. But eventually, a fire marshal says that he found evidence of arson. He said there was an accelerant that was used to start the fire. He believed that John Allen used an accelerant to start the fire in order to collect money from his home insurance policy. Here's John Allen speaking in a sworn statement. John Allen didn't start the fireJohn Allen: well see. I know I didn't set my house on fire. He said, it just doesn't make sense Detailed Account of the Fire IncidentJohn Allen: First of all, we'll never recover from this. In fact, we were driving along the other day, just Diana and me, and all of a sudden she said, That's stupid. I said, What? And she said, It's stupid that you would do this out of some kind of financial gain motive. Because we'll never recover from this

Diane Allen: there's no way John would set fire to our house. It would be of no advantage at all.

Speaker: Any money that they would get from this insurance policy could never replace Everything they've lost. But we're not here to solve an arson investigation. Our interest here is focused solely on LaDonna Humphrey. Right around the time investigators started questioning the Allen story, police got a mysterious tip. This caller told the authorities to look into John Allen for arson, claiming that he wanted to collect a million dollar policy. The mystery caller also spilled the tea on gossip relating to the Allen's marriage. This took Diane Allen by surprise.

Investigator: How's your marriage?

Diane Allen: It's fine. It's fine. I mean, things are tough. This isn't a bad thing. My marriage hasn't been perfect either.

Investigator: I'm going to just tell you, okay?

Speaker: Somebody called us and told you guys you're having marital problems and a good chance you get fixed and get divorced.

Diane Allen: I don't know. who it is.

Investigator: You will find out eventually, but I can't tell you right now.

Speaker: you will eventually find out but I can't tell you who is this mysterious caller. Investigators asked Pastor John Allen if he has any enemies. He said no Investigator: why would they do that to you unless they're really mad at you or somebody else? You have no enemies except for the one lady that torments Rachel, from the daycare. The lady from the daycare, by the way, is LaDonna Humphrey.

Investigator: So there's no enemies, really, to you. So why would they come back and do this to you now?

John Allen: Well, I don't know why someone would call and say that Diane and I were going to get a divorce over this. You talk about enemies. Have you heard that tape?

Speaker: John Allen wants to know who this mysterious tipster is.

John Allen: Spoke to the person. Huh? I spoke to him. You did? Mm hmm. And they said they were a member of my family. Oh, yeah. And that they were going to get a divorce. Do you have their name and address? I mean, you know who they are. I do. Are they a member of my family? Mm hmm. They are.

Speaker: By the way, a lot of people don't know this, but law enforcement investigators are legally allowed to use deception during interrogations. Yeah, they don't have to tell you the truth. Was this mysterious caller really a family member or could it have been somebody else?

Investigator: John, they should be married. They should be. You know, I mean, but we had to tell you what we have. And when somebody's sextant like that, we've got to run with it and check it out.

John Allen: You say they remember my family. They said they remember my family. But, I mean, have you verified that? Yes, I have. They

Investigator: remember my family?

Speaker: Yes. They're married into your family. It could be somebody pissed at you. You know, I don't know. I don't know the person. I don't know them. but if that's the only thing that we've got to go with, If that's what I'm basing this on, I'm wrong. now here is where things get interesting. The Allens say that they don't have any enemies. The only person they've really had trouble with was that secretary who worked for them almost 13 years prior. why would she have anything to do with their house fire or this investigation. After the break, LaDonna Humphrey finds herself in the middle of the Allen arson investigation. ////AD BREAK/// now here is where things get interesting. The Allens say that they don't have any enemies. The only person they've really had trouble with was that secretary who worked for them almost 13 years prior. why would she have anything to do with their house fire or this investigation. After the break, LaDonna Humphrey finds herself in the middle of the Allen arson investigation. Jim Drake and the Billy Joel SongLaDonna Humphrey: when I found out, that John's house burned down. I looked at my husband, I'm remarried, and I said, oh my gosh, he burned it down. And he said, what? I said, he had to have. So I started telling him the story because he doesn't know John, And he was like, that's crazy. And then we see it again. And my phone starts ringing. LaDonna Humphrey was excited.

Ladonna Humphrey: Have you ever heard the song? You're probably going to think I'm terrible. Billy Joel's song, um, We Didn't Start the Fire. And I sent the lyrics to him. He goes, Why are you sending me these lyrics? And I said, Well, because I want you to check out this link.

Speaker: And he looked at it and he called me and he goes, He was arrested Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire? Right. Much like the mysterious tipster. LaDonna Humphrey had a lot to say about the Allens, and almost none of it had to do with arson

Ladonna Humphrey: He's not a good person.

Speaker: I mean, that was ten years of my life. And I'd always hoped that he would turn out to be a good guy. You know, that he would make it right. And he just never did. He just got worse. He was in charge of everything. He controlled everything. Everything. Diane is not mentally strong enough to get away from him. I don't think she ever will. But she's not a fool either. She's very aware of Do you think she was involved with that fire? No. You don't? No. You'd have to I think she's been involved with a lot of things. But I think she's emotionally and mentally abused by that Man, I think she knows that he cheats on her and she knows that he's in horrible things and she knows that he could, I'm sure he's threatened her just like he's threatened the rest of us. And she is a very sweet, good hearted, meek person. And I think she's terrified of him. at one point LaDonna casually suggests that John Allen is a sexual predator

Ladonna Humphrey: Has he hurt anybody though? Like, sex crimes, can you tell me that?

Investigator: No.

Ladonna Humphrey: Okay.

Investigator: Not that we know of.

Ladonna Humphrey: Okay.

Investigator: Then she tells police that she believes John Allen. Her pastor broke into her house to sniff her panties.

Ladonna Humphrey: we have. I've had break ins at my old house, and we had our storage unit broken into. I know that he probably got into my old house on Kansas Street. We could never prove it. And here's something that happened. About two years after I was, this was before I even left.

Speaker: But when you came around the corner to my bedroom, my lingerie drawer had been rifled through. And there was lingerie I never did get back. Ever. And looking back, I always thought, he's a weirdo. he's a weirdo Then she talked about the pastor's fascination with pornography

Ladonna Humphrey: found porn on his computer at work. he had forgot to erase his cookies, and I was looking for something, and I just happened to find it.

Speaker: Like I would think he would be embarrassed because it was like bondage and there was lesbian stuff. There was

Investigator: You name it, it was there.

Speaker: investigators ask LH about embezzlementthen they talk about LaDonna's time working for John Allen and the accusations that she embezzled money from the church.What do you know about IRS liens? I know they have them, but I wasn't there at the time. why don't you take it out of their payroll like you're supposed to have? And submit it or you did take it out, but you didn't submit it. Why did you do that? I did everything he told me to did. Who did that then? She said she did everything he told her to do. Pastor John Allen ultimately took responsibility for the liens filed against the church because he said He had no other choice. He claimed that he had an incompetent employee who did not know how to do her job. Part of the, this is why RS leans on John, that he took responsibility because all his employees were incompetent and did not do their job properly, and that he entrusted them and, you know, that's not his part to watch over them, but that's just totally absent when you're telling me, and, That person that left that didn't file their IRS information that he took responsibility for supposed to go somewhere else and did it too. Whoever she worked for called Diane to say, Hey, she's doing it again here If he's saying it's me, if that's what he means, no. I don't do anything with taxes, so that doesn't make sense LaDonna quitsHe's blaming he's saying that he's secretary which is not saying who it is, but it's you stuck in took all her stuff and left the keys said I quit. No, I did not see the keys. You can ask any of the elders they gave me a going away present at church. Everybody knew I was leaving. There was no sneaking and leaving the keys. That never happened. Did anybody ever leave keys? A disgruntled secretary? No, I would have been the only secretary. LaDonna Humphrey also claims that John Allen threatened to kill her on her way LaDonna Jim JonesHe wrote a card to me as I was leaving and he put a package of Kool Aid in it and told me to drink the Kool Aid. And that's like a Jim Jones reference, like the poison to Kool Aid. And I kept it because to me that was a threat. I should have called the police. I just wanted to be away from him. He's threatened to kill me. He's threatened to kill a lot of people. So, um

Investigator: So how did he threaten to kill you? He just

Ladonna Humphrey: said he would kill me.

Speaker: He didn't give me anything special.She said their relationship wasn't always this volatile.And I was very close to the Allen. Control and AbuseLaDonna Humphrey: About a year into the position, it became very clear to me that, that John was very controlling, and he controlled every aspect of his family's life, and he was controlling mine. What I did, who I talked to, who I could be nice to, who I should not be nice to at church And after leaving the church, all those years later, I found out about something called spiritual abuse. He's a con artist. I was terrified. He began to yell and curse at me like I have never been treated in my life. And he told me I would not leave. If I left, and I quote, I will kill you. Financial Mismanagement and IRS IssuesKnowing what we know now about Anthony Christopher's case, this smear campaign seems awfully familiar. It's clear who's driving this interview, and it's not the arson investigators. LH is going to cry but doesn'tOh, that makes me so mad I'm going to cry. I'm sorry. now, I know what you're probably thinking. Did LaDonna start the fire? That's exactly what LaDonna thought investigators called her in about. did ladonna start the fire?LaDonna

Humphrey: Well, when you called today, I thought, I drive a red Suburban. And I'd seen, I thought, he's telling them I burned his house down. That's exactly what I said. Is

Investigator: that why you asked, am I in trouble?

Speaker: Yes.

Ladonna Humphrey: Did you hear that? LaDonna thought that she was being blamed for the house fire. I'm not even going to go there because I have no evidence to support her involvement.

Speaker: whether John Allen started the fire or not, it's not important Because what I want you to focus on is the fact that this disgruntled employee has so much to say about her former boss. Yet, she's contributing nothing to the actual arson investigation. Even after all this, the Allens can't bring themselves to point the finger at LaDonna grudgedo you know, or does anyone pop into your mind, do you have any reason to suspect any person that you, that would have a grudge against either of you and would just set your house on fire because they were mad at you or anything? No, I, I think the deputy yesterday asked me and I said we've been in the ministry for 30 years and we've known a lot of screwed up crazy people. But lately, uh, uh, things have been Seems quiet and smooth. I, I don't, I don't know if anybody would be upset. Okay They ask Diane Allen over and over again. If your husband didn't do this, then who did?

Diane Allen: I mean, the IRS lien, like I say, I don't really know much about it, but it happened because of that person at work. She was shredding all sorts of stuff and stealing things and embezzling money.

Speaker: She doesn't say LaDonna's name, but we all know who she's talking about. Even still, Diane Allen just can't get herself to believe that someone could hold a grudge for that long and is capable of burning down their house. At the end of the day, the investigators didn't have much

Investigator: all I have is speculations. We have a very good circumstantial case against you

John Allen: My one son, he said, Dad, he said, they're not going to prove that you set your house on fire. But he said, it's going to be death by a thousand cuts. That's what he said. And he said, they're going to have so many questions and eventually it's going to look like you're just going to be overwhelmed.

Speaker: Death by a thousand paper cuts. After the arson investigation concluded, John Allen was charged with one count of felony arson

Anthony Christopher: laDonna, goes to the police department, tells them all of these lies about John Allen, that he's a rapist, he's a bad person, that he burned his home down for insurance money, that he had a million dollar policy, they never vetted any of the information, never looked at it.

Speaker: She's so believable, they believed her, charged him with felony arson. She humiliates him all over the internet, and then one year later, they're forced to drop all charges at the 11th hour because the only proof they had were her statements and no evidence that he ever did anything wrong. J Just like in Anthony's case, prosecutors just didn't have enough evidence to build a case

Anthony Christopher: And within a year of being cleared, he died of a massive heart attack, and his family will tell you that, um, it was due to all the stress that, that, she put him under.

Speaker: somber musicMUSICTEASELaDonna is going on her podcast, she's writing in her books that she knows who killed Missy Witt. I called him up to see what he thinks of her accusing him of murder. That's next time on Pretend SHOW NOTESthis episode was written by me, Javier Leyva. It was produced by Alison Byrne and edited by the talented Puneeth Shanoi with the podcast Pundance. Of course, many of you have already joined Patreon and Apple Podcasts, and I thank you so much for your support. I'm going to try to write each and every one of you a thank you note, but just know that my Patreon supporters and my PretendPlus Apple Podcast subscribers will always get the episodes before anyone else. They're also going to get bonus content that just didn't make it into the episode. And, of course, everything is ad free. and you're helping support this itty bitty podcast. That's it for this week. We'll be back soon with another episode of Who's Afraid of LaDonna Humphrey. Make sure to follow us on social, at PretendPod, on your social media platform of choice. Take care.