Lie Detector (Part One)

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With Kamala Harris being effectively appointed the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, we've received overwhelming requests to rebroadcast our four-part series entitled Lie Detector. It delves into the criminal justice record of Harris by reviewing a case she oversaw as California Attorney General. Advertising alone does not cover the cost of doing this kind of investigative storytelling. To support the show, please consider becoming a backstage subscriber. You'll get ad-free access to our entire back catalog of episodes and our behind-the-scenes podcast.

Just visit redpilledamerica.com and click join in the top menu. That's redpilledamerica.com and click join in the top menu. This series was initially broadcast in November 2019, and we've included a new update at the end. Now, enjoy the show.

For the past six months, we've been trying to figure out who lied in a trial. that happened roughly two decades ago. Without question, one of two people peddled an almost unthinkable lie, either the 61-year-old man who was on trial or his 18-year-old former stepdaughter. Working on this story has, frankly, been tough. We've had to delve into an uncomfortable topic, one that most people here then reflexively believe the accuser, just to err on the side of caution.

Honestly, at times we wanted to do the same thing, just walk away, move on to another story. But for reasons we'll explain in a moment, we kept venturing past our comfort zone to try and figure out who was lying in a trial that dates back to at least 1999.. Before we get to the nuts and bolts of the case we've been working on and why you should care, we first want to share something that we learned along the way. Something unexpected. While working on this story, we've had several, let's call them awakening moments, where we began to see the world in a whole new light.

That's unusual for us. If we're lucky, that'll happen once over the course of research for a potential show. But for this story, it happened multiple times. One of those moments was the realization that almost everyone thinks that they can tell when someone is lying. And I mean nearly everyone.

There's something about us human beings that almost universally believes that we can spot a fibber. It's a belief that lies at the center of this story. We thought we saw this trend early on in our research, so we decided to ask a few people to see if we were right. Do you think that you can tell when someone is lying?

I don't know if it's whether I'm empathetic or not. I mean, I have been fooled like anybody else, but I do think I can.

We didn't get this response from just one kind of person. We talked to males and females. We asked a preteen, a young man in his early 20s, a few middle-aged folks, and a grandma—basically people from all walks of life. And out of everyone asked if they could spot a liar, only one said,

What would you say? are the signs of it?

I'm Patrick Kuraltschi.

The truth.

Welcome to Red-Pilled America.

Can we tell when someone is lying?

I'm going to say this right off the bat. That some of this is not going to be easy to hear. At some point you may want to stop and move on. But if you stay with us on this journey, as we peel back the onion, searching for the truth, in the end I think you'll see the world in a whole new light. I know I do.

So before we go any further, here's the case we've been working on. Adriana will give the details.

The physician concluded that the results of Mirian's medical exam were not inconsistent with her claims. So Texas law enforcement informed California authorities about the accusation. A few weeks later, Mirian's former stepfather, George Gage, was arrested. He's been behind bars ever since.

One ambitious lawyer and another on the verge of being disbarred, an emotional witness, a feisty judge, unexpected outbursts, a lover's quarrel, suicide attempts, revenge, betrayal, and disgusting accusations of sexual assault of a minor. Mirian accused her stepfather, George, of raping her over a long period of time, at one point, twice a day. The courtroom drama also had a major plot twist, the kind that blows your mind. We also learned that the case was connected to Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris. That was one of the first moments that made us think about walking away.

The last thing we wanted to do was politicize a molestation case. As frequent listeners of Red Pilled America know, this is not a subject we take lightly. Politicizing this topic is a hard pass. But something about this particular story made us press on. So we reached out to one of George Gage's lawyers, a guy named Tony Farmani.

And I can guarantee you that he didn't commit the crime. He did not commit the crime. That's Tony. He's an American of Iranian descent and practices law out of the San Diego area. A lot of civil rights and habeas corpus cases.

He's a fit-looking guy of average height but presents tall. And, like me, Tony shaves his head. After seeing him in action, you get the feeling that he's the kind of public defender that you pray the court appoints to you when you get in trouble. A lot of people view a court-appointed attorney as a lawyer. that's there out of obligation.

And that may often be the case. But that's not the impression you get from Tony. You can tell he cares. He was appointed as George Gage's lawyer in 2013..

We started digging into some of the documents, and we began to get a picture of the backstory of this case.

As a young man, he lined up a job in construction on an oil refinery. He worked for a while in the British territory of Montserrat, a small island about 10 miles long and 7 miles wide in the Caribbean. He met a girl there and at age 21 had a child with her, a daughter named Delmaude. In 1963, he made the jump to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

His daughter lived with him there for three years to attend U.S. high school. When work dried up in 1976, he left the islands and ventured to Texas to find work. as an electrician. He was looking for a better life.

After some time, he made enough to buy a house in Baytown, Texas, but hadn't yet settled down with anyone. George dated a few women, one with kids, but around the mid-80s he met a woman named Wanda. That's Marion's mother and the third person you need to remember in this story. Wanda was a teacher and a struggling single mom with three kids. One, a high schooler named Melanie, Marion, who was four at the time, and Marion's brother, who was close to three years old.

Within a few years of dating, Wanda and her two youngest children moved into George's Baytown house, and her oldest daughter went off to college. George eventually added a room to accommodate his new housemates, and by all accounts, the young kids saw George as their dad. In 1990, George and Wanda were married. Then, during the summer of 1993,, the company George worked for transferred him to California. The family followed him there a few months later, but the move only lasted a year and a half.

After Wanda learned that George was unfaithful, the two abruptly split in May 1995, and the next time they would meet was in a Southern California courthouse.

But in my spare time, I kept poking my head back in. It started off as a hobby, but then began consuming all my free time. Adriana didn't like the story. She wanted me to drop it. But I kept quietly digging anyway.

For some reason I was compelled to keep pulling the thread to find out who was lying, George or Marian and Wanda. I asked myself several times, why continue looking into this story? And the answer that kept coming back was a jarring moment in the case, one that I couldn't get out of my head.

In April 2015,, Tony Farmani represented George Gage in a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing, asking the three-judge panel for a retrial. Good morning, Your Honor. Tony Farmani, on behalf of Mr. Gage. Your Honor, it's hard to imagine a case more troubling and deserving of this court's intervention than Mr.

Gage's case.

Your Honor, I'm not here to question, or I'm not here being asked to. But on some level you are, because the State of California, I mean, there are classic quotations about the prosecutor's job is not simply to obtain convictions, it's to do justice. And I've had other cases where, to its credit, the State Attorney General's Office and the local prosecutors, after they've successfully convicted and incarcerated somebody, have decided, you know, there's something wrong here, and wound up undoing what was done.

So I hear what you're saying. Your job today is to advocate for a position which isn't the position that I'm talking about. But in the big picture, I have some concerns about this conviction. I would hope the State of California would have some concerns as well.

The California State Prosecutor was David Cook, and he worked under the then Attorney General, Kamala Harris. At one point, Cook promised to take the case back to his superiors.

But the Ninth Circuit panel of judges did take an extraordinary action. They ordered a mediation between George Gage's lawyer and Kamala Harris's team. But the Attorney General's office knew, because of a technicality, that they had the law on their side and simply refused to give George Gage the evidence the prosecutor withheld during his trial. The judge's words stayed with me. I found it hard to believe that the entire panel of judges, and even the state prosecutor, appeared to believe that something was wrong with George Gage's conviction, but were not going to do anything about it.

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Prosecutor Estes argued that these were all telltale signs of a child that was being sexually abused. But it was George himself that gave the prosecution the rope to hang him as a liar. George had an extramarital affair one night. About a year later, he found out that his indiscretion produced a daughter, and he kept it from Wanda. When she learned about it in May 1995, Wanda packed up the kids and left the house in a matter of days.

Prosecutor Estes juxtaposed this against Marion's emotional testimony to paint Marion as a truth-teller and George as an obvious liar capable of molestation. Adultery was a sign that the man was a pedophile.

Laura has been a vocal critic of George Gage's case and was also troubled by how Marion's story grew over time.

When asked to describe an assault, she gave one account alleging George raped her while her mother and brother were downstairs in their Palmdale home. The picture she painted of George was of a sick predator, a sadistic pedophile, tormenting an innocent child. Marion was just 11 when they moved to California and was 13 when her mom packed them up and left. By the time the case was handed over to the jury, only one of two things could be true. Either George was a monster or Marion was a diabolical liar.

And we wanted to try and figure out which was the truth. As far as physical evidence went, there was nothing, zero. Marion's physical examination at the time that she went to the Texas law enforcement showed no signs of trauma, and that perhaps was to be expected. Marion hadn't seen George in three and a half years, but the lack of physical evidence troubled a government-appointed medical expert. In a report Marion provided to Texas authorities, she claimed George was assaulting her at the age of eight.

Her lawyer suggested it began as early as six years old. California authorities appointed a medical expert to evaluate George Gage. after his arrest. He concluded that George showed no signs of being a pedophile. That same expert also reviewed Marion's medical exam and concluded that it was inconsistent with Marion's assault claims.

The expert stated in the course of the trial, quote,

end. quote. Her hymen appeared basically intact, with no scarring or signs of trauma. Given Marion's various recorded assault claims, the age she claimed it started, eight years old, how often she stated George was assaulting her, twice a day, the nature of the assault, and the claims of bleeding after every incident, the medical examiner thought some signs of physical abuse would have been seen in the medical exam, even three and a half years after the alleged molestation ended. But there was no signs of physical abuse, none.

until three and a half years after moving away from George. When she got her checkups for menstrual cramps as a child, the doctor she visited never reported a problem. Ultimately, there was just Marion's words to go by. The jury had to decide who was telling the truth and who was lying. The trial was entirely about the credibility of Marion and her mother, Wanda on one side and George on the other.

In the end, the jury found George guilty. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison. He was 63 at the time.

George has always maintained his innocence. He was convicted after a second trial. The first ended in a hung jury. Minutes before the second trial was to begin, a plea deal that was offered to George was still on the table. Prosecutor Estes offered George three years if he pleaded guilty.

So, as the second trial was about to start, Judge Carol S. Koppel, the judge overseeing the trial, asked George, quote, Mr. Gage, we're about to go into the phase of choosing a jury in this case. And the court just wants to be very sure that you understand that the maximum exposure for you is somewhere way over 50 years in jail and state prison. Do you understand that?

End quote. George responded, yes, ma'am. The judge continued again, quote, Okay, you understand that if you are convicted, this court will have no choice with respect to this sentencing, because there are certain minimum sentences that are mandated by the state. Do you understand that? George responded again, yes, ma'am.

To be clear that George understood the offer, Judge Koppel asked George, quote, Do you understand what the offer is, sir? George responded, three years. George had already spent a little over a year in custody. So the judge continued, quote, So we're talking about 85% of the two years remaining. Do you understand that that would be all you have to serve?

Of course you have to register. George responded, yes, ma'am. But what about the time that comes behind that? for the rest of my life? I would be standing outside.

The judge told George that he'd have to register, but at least he wouldn't be in prison. George responded, of course. That means prison outside, just as good. Judge Koppel tried to convince George to take the deal, saying, quote, Well, you would just be registered as a sex offender. That's all.

He responded, I'm not a sex offender. George rejected the three-year offer. In total, he was facing a 160-year sentence.

When we made the decision to work on this story, I decided I wanted to talk to George, so I began my search for how to do that. Speaking to a state prisoner is no easy task. First, you have to locate where they're being held. Then you have to set up an account with a company that provides phone services for inmates. I found out George was being held at the Folsom State Prison, so I wrote him a letter.

When I didn't receive a response, I wrote again. I'd gotten word from George's appeal attorney that George was still in communication with his oldest daughter, DelMaud. So I began a search for her to see if she could help me contact him. Weeks and weeks went by, and I still hadn't heard from George. I began to get frustrated.

Maybe this guy did it, and he just doesn't want to speak to a reporter, I thought. But I kept working on the story, looking for George's daughter, DelMaud. I also searched for Marion and her family, some of the witnesses in the trial, anyone I could speak to about what happened. Adriana, and I would convene every few days to discuss where I was at with the story. She was the litmus test of whether I was on the right path or not.

Weeks had gone by, and I still hadn't heard from George. Then I spoke to Tony again, and he informed me that George had actually moved to another prison, so he probably never received any of our letters. Now I had to start the process all over again. I found out George was moved to a prison in Corcoran, California, but that facility had four separate inmate mailing addresses, and there was no listing of which building George was in, so he sent letters to all of them. Weeks went by again, and I was about to throw in the towel when I noticed a voicemail on my cell phone.

We'd finally connected. I was ready to learn about the case directly from the horse's mouth.

once they solve a few problems. How do you build a drone delivery business from scratch? Our customers, they want us to do this unbelievably reliably, in the storms, no matter what, hundreds of times a day. How do you turn a wild dream about a new kind of biology into a $10 billion company?

We talk writing leads. We talk Barbie. We talk Doctor Who.

I asked him, why was he running for president? And he answered, without missing a beat, because I want to be the most famous man in the world. Since then, I've become a go-to person when Trump and those around him want to talk. And now, every week, I'm going to share those insider stories with you. Listen to Fire and Fury, the podcast, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If he didn't assault Marion, how did he get into this mess, I asked. I had to record this over my cell phone, so sorry for the poor quality.

According to George, and this came out during the trial as well, Wanda began to charge up his credit cards.

George said he couldn't afford to pay the credit card debt and the house mortgage and the car loan on his truck all at once.

In May 1998, three years after Wanda left him in California, the divorce was finalized. A judge in the trial surmised that once the divorce cleared, that debt from the credit cards was passed on to Wanda. Four months later was the first time Marion accused George of raping her.

But, unbeknownst to anyone else in the trial, something began brewing in Judge Koppel's mind. She began forming a theory on the prosecution and his key witnesses, and suspected that they weren't being entirely honest. After the jury found George guilty, Marion and her family were each asked to submit something that's called a victim's impact statement. This is where the victims explain in writing how the newly convicted criminal negatively impacted their lives. The judge is supposed to take that statement into consideration in sentencing.

Prosecutor Estes was shooting for the maximum sentence, so Marion and others submitted scathing letters about how George nearly destroyed their lives. But when Judge Koppel read Marion's statement, she was stunned that there were new allegations not presented during the trial. Allegations that, in the eyes of the judge, seemed to validate her suspicions that Marion and her mother lacked credibility.

So she demanded to review Marion's medical records before sentencing George Gage. In a special hearing, Judge Koppel expressed her concern about Marion to Prosecutor Estes, saying, quote,

So Judge Koppel demanded Prosecutor Estes turn over all of Marion's psychiatric and hospital admission records. Again, Laura Bazelon.

And then ultimately, he turned it over in camera, which means hidden from view, ultimately just to her. And so not to George Gage and not to his lawyers. And to this day, they have never seen it. They have never seen the evidence. But the trial judge, seeing the evidence, reacted viscerally to it, felt that it was not simply concerning but a basis to grant a new trial.

But Prosecutor Estes wasn't going to let her get away with that. He successfully appealed Judge Koppel's decision, which reinstated the verdict and forced the lower court to sentence George Gage. Judge Koppel was barred from any further involvement in the case. So a new judge was appointed in 2002 to sentence George. But in another insane twist, the new judge recused himself.

Again, Tony.

Interesting.

So then they brought in another judge?

Interesting. And have you ever seen... Is that a normal process?

That judge had spoken to Judge Koppel and was aware of the psychiatric records and the conduct of Prosecutor Estes. So he recused himself. And a third judge was appointed who sentenced George to 70 years. And all of this led up to 2015,, when the 9th Circuit ordered mediation between George Gage's lawyer, Tony Farmani, and the California Attorney General's office. Tony just wanted a retrial with the evidence that was withheld by Prosecutor Estes.

If what the trial judge saw was compelling enough for her to throw out the jury decision and order a retrial, and now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was also expressing concern, something of major importance was in those records. Again, Laura.

And there's no stronger signal of a court saying, we want you to make this case go away than directing the parties to mediation. So at that point, it really was in the Attorney General's court to do the right thing. And not only did they not do the right thing, it was worse than that. As I said, the psychological and medical records had never been turned over to George Gage or to George Gage's lawyers. When Tony, George Gage's attorney, tried to get them, Kamala Harris's office, and David Cook in particular, blocked that and prevented it from happening.

So the records were never disclosed to any federal court. And that was because the Attorney General was determined to make sure they never saw the light of day.

Could these records really have changed the outcome of George's conviction? And, most importantly, who lied, George or Marion? We aim to find the answer to all of these questions and more.

Next time on Red Pill of America. If you really believe somebody did the heinous acts that he said that he did,

Thanks for listening.

once they solve a few problems. I'm talking to people trying to figure out how to do things that no one on the planet knows how to do, from creating a drone delivery business to building a car that can truly drive itself. Listen to What's Your Problem on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Michael Wolff. Each week on Fire & Fury, the podcast, I take you deeper into the mind of Donald Trump and his campaign than any other journalist ever goes.

I've written three books on Trump, but for some reason, the people around him, they keep on talking to me. To find out what they tell me, listen to Fire & Fury, the podcast, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.