The Other Shoe | EP 2 | Season 3

Cindy and Kenny’s romance blossomed despite Cindy’s turbulent battle with her ex-husband. Five days after Cindy and Kenny got engaged, Kenny was arrested and charged with abusing one of Cindy’s boys. Cindy stood by Kenny. She believed someone from her past was to blame…not Kenny. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. For more Burden of Guilt, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts https://www.instagram.com/glasspodcasts/. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 1:12Speaker 02

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• 1:42Nancy Glass?

  Join me, Cyndi Lauper, with chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Panico to talk about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage.

• 1:57Speaker 04

  Cosentyx secukinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis 300-milligram dose and adults with active psoriatic arthritis 150-milligram dose. Don't use if you're allergic to Cosentyx. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. Some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough. Had a vaccine or plan to. Or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTIX or consentix.com/cindy.

• 2:42Speaker 02

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• 3:23Nancy Glass?

  In the months leading up to Cyndi and Kenny's engagement, the topic of marriage was a sensitive subject.

• 3:30Speaker 05

  When Kenny first brought it up, I almost bit his head up. I'm like, hell no, never again, never doing that.

• 3:36Nancy Glass?

  After Cindy's marriage to Steve ended, she never imagined a second walk down the aisle. But Kenny wasn't like her first husband. He was the polar opposite.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  The more I thought about it, I was like, you know, maybe I'm just having this really negative view of marriage because of the person I was married to.

• 3:56Speaker 05

  And maybe I need to start rethinking that. Because I've already created this bias in my head. And that's not fair. That's not fair to him.

• 4:04Nancy Glass?

  The closer Cyndi and Kenny got, the more Cyndi let her guard down.

• 4:09Speaker 05

  I started thinking more and more about it. And I'm kind of warming up to this idea of possibly getting married and to give it another try.

• 4:16Nancy Glass?

  And that's what happened. After a year and a half of dating, Kenny proposed during a trip to Hawaii, and Cyndi said yes.

• 4:26Speaker 05

  I was super excited that night. And so I did text my daughter. She was 13, and this is how we communicated. I said, hey, I got something important to tell you. And then this all blew up the next morning.

• 4:39Nancy Glass?

  The next day, Cyndi got a phone call from the agency in Colorado that investigates child abuse. They informed Cyndi that they were looking into allegations that Kenny had abused one of Cindy's boys.

• 4:54Speaker 05

  I was shocked. I'm like, what are you talking about? What happened last week?

• 4:59Nancy Glass?

  Cyndi's questions didn't matter. On top of that, the agency wanted Cyndi's kids to stay with her ex-husband, Steve.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  And she said, well, we're just going to allow the kids to stay with the dad. Are you going to fight me on this? Or do I need to get a court order? And I was like, okay. This is weird.

• 5:21Nancy Glass?

  While she and Kenny were in Hawaii, something had been happening back home. When she and Kenny walked off their plane in Colorado, they walked straight into a scorched-earth war they never saw coming.

• 5:36Speaker 05

  I felt pretty confident. I was like, they're going to see through this. They're going to see the kind of person he is. Someone's got to see this. And nobody did. It was one lie after the next lie after the next lie. It just got so out of control. And that's kind of how I knew. I was like, something is happening in the background here.

• 6:03Nancy Glass?

  I'm Nancy Glass, and this is Season 3 of Burden of Guilt. Episode 2, The Other Shoe.

• 6:15Nancy Glass?

  During Cyndi's marriage to Steve, they created a company called Wildcat Minerals. Wildcat was a successful player in the fracking business. When Cyndi and Steve cashed out and sold their company, they retained an ownership interest in the new company, which they split evenly. That arrangement continued after Cindy and Steve's divorce. But it was after the divorce that Cyndi learned some disturbing news.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  I accidentally found out about it by talking to another friend that there might be some fraud going on. And so we started our investigation and filed a lawsuit in April of 18.

• 7:01Nancy Glass?

  Cyndi sued Steve and another former colleague for fraud. It made headlines in the Denver Gazette. Here's the journalist who covered that story, Chris Osher. They had a business in the mining industry. And Cyndi felt that she had not been allowed to participate in a profitable arrangement that business had negotiated. According to court transcripts, that profitable arrangement involved the sale of a piece of land. The price tag of that land? $275 million. Which is a lot of money. And she was able to point out

• 7:42Nancy Glass?

  that she should be able to participate in the proceeds of that. Cyndi believes she was cut out of that deal. And according to Chris's article, she thought she was owed some of the roughly $90 million in profits her ex-husband netted from the sale. $90 million. So there was a lot on the line for both sides.

• 8:06Speaker 05

  I got the information about how much money was involved. This isn't just a little bit of money. This is a lot of money, and it could wipe out Steve. How do people react when they get caught doing stuff like that? This could get scary. Anytime there's a lot of money involved, people make really bad choices. It's really nerve-wracking. And I didn't feel safe, even with my own friends, to share what was going on. I literally was scared to death.

• 8:38Nancy Glass?

  Cyndi says filing that lawsuit was a turning point. After that, strange things started happening.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  I just got this weird sense that somebody had been in the condo. There were things that were out of place. And I'm like, someone's been here? I was on high alert after that. So I had all the locks changed.

• 9:01Nancy Glass?

  Cyndi also felt like she was being followed and that Steve might be listening to her conversations.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  I felt like he was using my kids to get information because one of my kids blurted out that my daughter's phone was being used to record. Because he took away the phone I gave her. And he's decided to buy her his own. And then he wouldn't give me the parenting code to even look at it. So then I just said, hey, no more phones in mommy's house. Your phone stays with your dad.

• 9:28Nancy Glass?

  Cyndi became anxious, almost paranoid. And all that happened right around the time Kenny first asked her out.

• 9:35Speaker 05

  My life is turned upside down right now. And I got this super cute guy that I just adore. And I don't want to screw it up. But I have to be honest. I can't let him walk into my life and not be honest about what's really happening here.

• 9:48Nancy Glass?

  So Cyndi came clean and shared all the uncomfortable details of her messy divorce and the litigation she had against her ex-husband. She expected Kenny to go running for the hills.

• 10:00Speaker 05

  I mean, that's a lot to put on somebody. I was surprised he even stuck around, to be honest with you.

• 10:10Nancy Glass?

  The first time I met Kenny in person was last spring. We met at a waterfront cafe in Florida, some 2,000 miles away from their home in Steamboat Springs. And there's a reason we met there, but we'll get into that later. Kenny came in a little late. He looked really tense. His arms were folded across his chest. And I knew he didn't want to talk to me at first. But he had changed his mind. This is important to me. This is important to Cyndi. And that's why we're here doing this podcast. This could happen to you, and it has happened to other people. And there was a good reason why Kenny looked so uncomfortable. Since 2019, he'd been defending himself against one of the most serious crimes imaginable.

• 10:55Nancy Glass?

  According to Kenny, the crime he's been accused of never happened. You know how embarrassing this is for me? You know how hard it is to throw this out there to the world?

• 11:08Nancy Glass?

  Today, Kenny Hemp is 53 years old. He's six feet tall with short, white hair, a color much like Cyndi's. They met in Steamboat in 2018. I don't know why I made the choice to come to Steamboat, but something was just telling me to go to Steamboat.

• 11:24Speaker 05

  2010. It worked out for me because I met Cindy, you know, the love of my life.

• 11:30Nancy Glass?

  Moving to Steamboat checked off all of Kenny's boxes.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  It fit every single niche of what I liked. Small town, but not too small. You have high-end restaurants here. Skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, fly fishing. You have a couple lakes around it. So it is the epitome of the sportsman's paradise with culture and class.

• 11:53Nancy Glass?

  Kenny grew up in a small, working-class town just outside of Spokane. It's where he got his love of the great outdoors and where he first started working in the hospitality industry.

• 12:04Speaker 05

  My family, we didn't have the money for college. I didn't have it, you know?

• 12:09Nancy Glass?

  After he graduated from high school, he leaned into his outgoing personality and got a job waiting tables at the Olive Garden.

• 12:17Speaker 05

  My job was to give people joy, smiles, happiness. I think that's what I truly loved about the business.

• 12:28Nancy Glass?

  Kenny quickly went from serving endless salad of breadsticks to management. He became a kind of traveling restaurant manager, opening and running different bars and restaurants around the country.

• 12:40Speaker 05

  I'd just get these calls, you know, all the time of, hey, we need you up here in Maryland. Hey, we need you up here in Washington, DC.

• 12:46Nancy Glass?

  By 2018, Kenny ended up in Colorado. He took a job as the general manager of a restaurant, and that restaurant was on the ground floor of the building where Cindy lived.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  First time I met her, she was sitting at a table, a reserve for the owner. So I went over there to ask her to leave. The table, not the restaurant, the table. She goes, oh, I'm friends with the owner's wife. And low and behold, I guess that she kept approaching the owners on asking about me, who I am, who's this guy?

• 13:17Nancy Glass?

  At the time, Kenny had just gotten out of a relationship.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  I had no interest in dating, period. I was there to work, fish, establish myself, and make sure that I'm going to stay in this town. So I kind of had a blocker up in front of me of, I'm not interested in anybody, no matter who you are.

• 13:37Nancy Glass?

  He got to know Cindy at the restaurant. At first, it was casual conversation, and as they got to know one another, there was chemistry and a lot of commonalities. Slowly, Kenny's wall came down. Months later, he finally asked Cindy out.

• 13:55Speaker 05

  And then we just started texting each other for about three weeks straight, kind of like two kids flirting with each other from a distance. That's kind of what it felt like. I'd send her pictures of me in my past, fishing and camping and, you know, doing the things that I love to do. And in return, she would send pictures of her past, you know, her geologist days and her camping. And she would also send me a lot of pictures with her and the kids, knowing that she is a mother. She has a family, knowing that those were important things.

• 14:25Nancy Glass?

  The first time he really got to know Cindy's children was at a Kentucky Derby party Cindy hosted at her condo.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  I was scared shitless on meeting these children. To me, it was a make or break situation. It was like, are these kids going to like me? Am I going to like these kids?

• 14:45Nancy Glass?

  Kenny said he didn't want to impose, so he gave the kids their space and waited for them to approach him. And that's what happened. One of Cindy's twin boys came over first.

• 14:57Speaker 05

  So he comes over and immediately just says, all right, what are your numbers? And I was like, what are my numbers? Okay, what do you mean? He's like, Kentucky Derby, what are your numbers? What are your horses you going to pick? What's your first and second? I go, all right, 711. And he's like, Bob. He goes, he picked the same numbers that you did. And I was like, BS. This is, you know, it's like, she goes, no, we wrote them down. She goes, I picked 711.

• 15:21Nancy Glass?

  And then the other twin approached Kenny.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  He's an intellectual soul. So you don't talk to him like a kid whatsoever. You talk to him like an adult because I don't think he respects you if you treat him like a kid because he's got this super brain.

• 15:37Nancy Glass?

  So the two played a game of chess, something Kenny for sure thought he would win.

• 15:43Speaker 05

  He moved his king around so many times that I couldn't keep him in check. He's moving around a couple of his pawns, and he finally, I didn't realize that he put me into a stalemate situation. I was like, you got me, buddy. You got me.

• 15:59Nancy Glass?

  As easy as things started with Cindy's children, it was a different story with Cindy's ex-husband, Steve. On one of their early dates, they ran into him.

• 16:11Speaker 05

  Steve has a way of making you feel constantly under attack. You're always under attack with Steve. You're always feeling like you're defending yourself. He never saw me as an equal, as a partner, that I have any rights at all. And when you look at somebody that way, you can easily hurt that person because you don't look at them as a human being anymore. So my mind was going to the extremes of what he was willing to do. I didn't know she was involved in a horrific lawsuit with her ex-husband at the time. She kept that from me because who wants to air their dirty laundry when you first started dating someone? And it is very detrimental on how money can control

• 16:55Speaker 05

  people, direct people, and move people to do horrendous things. It was just super uncomfortable. And my gut instinct should have kicked in more than it did.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Underdog already has team picks, player props, money lines, spreads, you name it, they got it. But apparently, somebody over there said, you know what's missing? Screaming like a maniac about a rookie card on your couch. And we love them for that. Because Underdog now has rips. You get a digital pack starting at just five bucks. You check the live odds, see which grails you could pull, then rip it open to reveal a real, physical card. And the grails are no joke. They have cards up to $125,000 in value and plenty to pull. From football and basketball to Pokemon, with new limited edition packs dropping regularly. Even cooler, you can decide to keep the card and Underdog will ship it straight to your home or sell it back instantly at 100% of its fair market value. And the cash

• 18:01Speaker 01

  goes right in your account. No listing it online, no stranger lowballing you in the messages. Just rip, reveal, and cash out instantly. Or make some room on your shelf. Download Underdog and get in on the chase. Get five free rips packs when you deposit $5. Real rips, real cards, real cash. Only on Underdog. Unleash your dog. 18 plus terms apply. Top grails are extremely rare. OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star

• 18:40Speaker 05

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• 20:32Nancy Glass?

  After Cindy's marriage to Steve ended, she wanted to move on. But once she suspected that Steve had cut her out of a huge profit from the company they created together, she found herself torn. Filing a lawsuit would be reopening the door and litigating with the father of her three children. She ultimately believed it was a battle worth fighting. In the spring of 2018, Cindy filed a lawsuit against Steve and another former colleague. That happened right around the time she started dating Kenny. So how do you tell your new boyfriend that you're involved in a nasty lawsuit with your ex-husband disputing the split of a $90 million profit?

• 21:17Nancy Glass?

  That's the question that rolled around in Cindy's head.

• 21:21Speaker 05

  It is so uncomfortable to tell somebody, hey, this is my world right now, and it's probably going to get worse.

• 21:28Nancy Glass?

  By that summer, it was clear to Cindy that Kenny wasn't just some guy she was dating. She had feelings for him. And if they really had any chance of a future together, it was best just to be totally honest about what was going on with her ex-husband, Steve.

• 21:44Speaker 05

  First, I started telling him about the lawsuit. And I had to tell him how much money was involved. Because this isn't just a little bit of money. This is a lot of money, and it could wipe out Steve. And how afraid I was of Steve. And the fear I had of just being in my condo.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  That's when she started being brutally honest about the past, current affairs with Steve, her worries about Steve in the future.

• 22:10Nancy Glass?

  Cindy remembers that Kenny didn't say a word. He just listened as she ran through the laundry list of drama happening in her life.

• 22:20Speaker 05

  It was an awkward conversation. I said, you know, I don't blame you if this is too much. I mean, I got three kids. You've never been married. You don't have kids. I mean, that in and of itself can be a challenge. And then you add a layer of financial fraud going on, and I'm scared to death about it.

• 22:39Nancy Glass?

  She feared that the lawsuit against Steve could bankrupt him. It was a huge chunk of change, an amount that could bring out the worst in people. And she was fearful of what the worst of Steve could look like. Kenny was conflicted. As much as what Cindy was describing was scary, Kenny was attached to what he was building with Cindy and her kids.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  I taught those kids how to fish, fly fish even. Taught the kids how to chop firewood, build a fire. And it turned out to be an amazing, close relationship. It was special. I stepped into being an adult in their lives and becoming their stepfather. It was something I hadn't done in my life before. It actually felt very easy.

• 23:27Nancy Glass?

  Kenny's biggest compliment came from Cindy's daughter.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  She said, I've never seen my mom this happy in her entire life. You make my mom so happy. You know, you love her. You take care of her. I think the kids were all happy that Cindy and I were happy. Therefore, the kids were happy. It was quite a special bond that we had altogether. Cindy and I thought it was just the best thing ever. You know, that's why we were blindsided at what happened.

• 23:58Nancy Glass?

  As great as things were between Cindy and Kenny and the kids, Cindy's fear of Steve consumed her.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  She asked me to get my concealed weapons permit by a pistol.

• 24:09Speaker 05

  And I said, I want you to have a concealed carry so you can have a gun in each vehicle. So if we're together, you have it.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Never was I thinking I'd get a concealed weapons permit to carry on me on a day-to-day basis because there was a threat out there against you for your life.

• 24:26Nancy Glass?

  So Kenny, what's going through your mind when Cindy says she wants you to carry a gun?

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Well, the hair raises on the back of your neck. Like, is this serious? Or are you just being an overdramatic person? But I know she's dead serious. She was definitely afraid of Steve.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  When she told me the truth of what was going on, that was unnerving, but I wasn't backpedaling. I was already involved emotionally.

• 24:55Speaker 05

  He took it in stride. He's like, I can understand why you feel that way after meeting him.

• 25:02Nancy Glass?

  The first time Kenny officially met Steve was at a fundraiser to benefit Cindy's children's school. The event featured a silent auction of kids' artwork. Cindy knew there was a chance Steve would be there, and she was right. Steve was there with his girlfriend, Christine.

• 25:19Speaker 05

  He had been with Christine for over a year by then. So I was thinking that he wouldn't even care.

• 25:25Nancy Glass?

  As soon as Cindy spotted Steve, she pulled Kenny aside and gave him a warning.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  She goes, you know, we're fine with each other. It's okay if he comes over and say hi, just shake his hand, say hi. But keep a small talk. Don't engage in conversation. And I kind of like raised my eyebrow over that one. I was like, okay, I get it. But I just respected that and asked questions.

• 25:46Nancy Glass?

  To Kenny, Steve didn't exactly look the part of a scary ex-husband. He was in his mid-40s. He was tall, thin, with salt and pepper hair and facial hair. And on this particular night...

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Steve is using a cane to kind of hobble around.

• 26:02Nancy Glass?

  At the time, Steve was recovering from surgery and was using a cane.

• 26:07Speaker 05

  He kept trying to walk right in front of us. And we kept moving. And he'd walk in front of us again. And I noticed every time that I'd bid on something, Steve would walk up right behind me and try not bid me. And so that was really awkward.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  It got to the point, you know, where she actually had to have her friends go bid on the auction items she wanted. Because whenever she went over there to go bid on an auction, he'd follow up and write his name down behind us and try not bid her. He just kept following us around the entire evening. You know, hey, hey, hey, what's going on? It was just awkward, uncomfortable.

• 26:45Nancy Glass?

  Kenny and Cindy ended up leaving the silent auction early without any altercation with Steve. Cindy felt uneasy and unsettled after seeing her ex. But to Kenny, the guy seemed harmless.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Cindy was definitely afraid of Steve. So anything that had to do with Steve and Cindy, Cindy always wanted me there.

• 27:07Nancy Glass?

  Kenny started taking the kids places like Boy Scouts, school, or any place Steve might be. He says he was stepping up to protect Cindy from having to interact with her ex. But the more Kenny watched Steve interact with the kids, the more he began to see what Cindy saw. One afternoon, Kenny brought the kids to the pediatrician. The twins were only seven or eight, and they started playing with the toys in the waiting room while Kenny watched. Then Steve arrived.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  He goes to the two boys sitting on the floor, and he sits on the ground with them. And halfway starts like crying. And he's telling the boys, oh, I know you're so scared. I know you're so scared. And the kids get awkwardly uncomfortable. And he puts them in his lap, and he's just like stirring them into a state of fear. They were confused. Their emotions were confused. Like, he got them scared. And they started kind of crying with him. And then all of a sudden, he just snaps out of it as soon as the kids kind of got like erupted into some sort of emotional frenzy. Then he looks at me and just starts talking to me like nothing happened. Like, we're best friends.

• 28:19Nancy Glass?

  While Kenny was trying to process what he had just witnessed, Steve remained nonchalant and began peppering him with questions.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Oh, so you used to be a manager for a restaurant, huh? And like that. So you're not working right now? So you're Cindy's like, you know, business partner right now? Kind of that salesman routine that I know is fake. It's insincere. He's kind of trying to personally agitate me on stuff, not as if he was actually really caring who I was and what I was doing. It was more of a nice confrontational style.

• 28:51Nancy Glass?

  To Kenny, the questions felt backhanded, loaded, kind of like the taunting nickname Steve would later use to refer to him. He'd call Kenny Cindy's paid caregiver.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  For me, I was like, whatever. I didn't really care too much. But it was very upsetting for Cindy.

• 29:13Nancy Glass?

  As much as Cindy and Kenny tried to avoid Steve, it wasn't always possible, especially when it involved picking up the kids at school. Cindy and Kenny were there to pick up her three kids. And Steve was there to pick up the son from his current marriage, his stepson. Cindy and Kenny watched as Steve began an unsettling routine where he seemed to be lingering during pickup.

• 29:39Speaker 05

  I would intentionally show up 10 minutes after my kids were supposed to be picked up, and he's still there. And he'd make a big scene at the car right in front of the kids, telling them how much he's going to miss them.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  And Steve is just in tears, bawling in front of the whole school. So I would have to go over there and tell the kids, come on, guys, you have to go with me. And I had to do this multiple times.

• 30:04Nancy Glass?

  Things got so bad Cindy brought it up in the courts. And the judge in their custody case actually ordered Steve not to be at school when it was Cindy's day to pick up their children.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  Cindy and Steve are not supposed to be in the same room with each other, per the court order. So you drop them off in front of the school, you exchange, no conversations, bye-bye.

• 30:27Nancy Glass?

  But that didn't always happen.

• 30:31Nancy Glass?

  One afternoon, Kenny went to pick up the boys, and there was Steve.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Steve is not supposed to be there, but he was waiting outside the door. And then Steve starts following you down the hallway.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Finally, I saw... And I turned and I just politely asked him, I was like, Steve, you're not supposed to be here. I don't want to talk to you. And I've got nothing to say. I go, I'm just here to pick up the kids. I go, you need to leave.

• 30:56Nancy Glass?

  But Steve didn't leave.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  He starts pointing his finger at me, almost to the verge where he's pointing me in the chest. He doesn't touch me, but he's just sticking his finger in my face, yelling at me, saying, you do not talk to me in front of my children's way. And I was very polite. And so I said, come on, boys, we gotta go. It doesn't stop there. He follows me all the way to my truck. And this is halfway down the block, berating me to my truck. And he wasn't even parked anywhere near me. At that point, I realized that he has an underlying rage that is scary. And you know what he did the next day? He called the school and said that I tried to fight him. And he told the children. And the children next to me was like, you tried to fight my daddy.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  And I was like, kids, you were there. All the teachers are there. Everybody saw this. Did I really try and fight you? It's like, no, but that's what he told us.

• 31:51Nancy Glass?

  It was uncomfortable for Kenny, but he was mostly concerned with the kids.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  I felt like I'm stealing the kids away from their own father. They don't want to take sides. But he used them in that situation in order to take a side. So Steve was emotionally putting up road barriers and getting these kids highly reactive to them coming with me and Cindy.

• 32:18Nancy Glass?

  Ultimately, Kenny was most shocked at the one thing Steve didn't do.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  I mean, months have gone and I've become close with the children. But he never once gave a phone call. He never once gave an invite, an email, asked Cindy, hey, why don't Kenny and I get together and have a little chit chat? Cause you know, we're sharing children now. Never once did he ever ask me to have a conversation. If I was a father, I would have. I would want to know who is this guy that's dating my ex-wife? That's become a parental figure in my children's life.

• 32:53Nancy Glass?

  Despite the uncertainty of the lawsuit and all the other drama happening with Steve, Cindy and Kenny's relationship flourished. And yet, as good as things were, they both felt Steve's presence like a looming threat in the background.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  You know, I am genuinely scared. I have a lot of fear of my ex. You got this hyper vigilance of what's next? Something bad's around the corner. I know it's coming and you need to kind of keep your head on a swivel.

• 33:26Nancy Glass?

  In fact, Cindy's fear of Steve played into why she wanted Kenny to move in with her.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  When I moved in, not only did she want me there as a companion, but she wanted me there also for protection. You know, she's the love of my life. She's my best friend. So I want to protect her. When you're in the hospitality industry for 20, 25 years, you get to know personalities. You can pick up on them pretty quickly. I never thought Steve was a physical threat. I think he was more of a person that would use other tactics to cause harm or ill will. And my feelings were right.

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• 36:55Nancy Glass?

  At the time Kenny met Cindy, he was 42. He'd never been married and he'd given up on the dream of having kids of his own. Years earlier, he rescued a chocolate lab who became his travel companion.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  I think that dog saved my life. And I think it was because I got something that I guess needed me as much as I needed it. Maybe that's what a wife and children does for you. Something bigger to live for. And you know, that's what happened with these kids.

• 37:33Nancy Glass?

  That's what this whole story is about. The happy family Cindy and Kenny were hoping for would never come to be. And the timing of it all is more than coincidental. By the summer of 2019, the lawsuit Cindy filed against her ex-husband Steve and another former colleague was scheduled to go to trial. They were arguing over tens of millions of dollars. And as that trial got closer, Cindy's anxiety was off the charts.

• 38:04Speaker 05

  What it is, is greed. And greed does things to every single human being on the planet. That's why it's one of the seven deadly sins, because it can really put you down the wrong path.

• 38:15Nancy Glass?

  Even with Kenny at her side, she couldn't shake that feeling that somehow the other shoe was going to drop. And then, just as jury selection began, something unexpected happened. Both sides reached a settlement. Usually in cases like this, terms of a settlement remain private. But according to the Denver Gazette, the settlement paid to Cindy was $10.5 million. The article states that the settlement was based on Steve having, quote, misled Cindy about the lucrative aspects of an investment, end quote.

• 38:58Nancy Glass?

  With that over, Cindy breathed a sigh of relief and said she finally relaxed.

• 39:04Speaker 05

  I said, you know what? We just need to go and celebrate. I mean, this was a monkey off my back since 2017, when I found out about it.

• 39:12Nancy Glass?

  She booked a trip to Hawaii for her and Kenny. The plan was to get some sun, play a little golf, and just take a deep breath.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Everything was over, like Steve's gone, not in our lives, there's no more fight.

• 39:26Speaker 05

  So that's what the whole point was, was to celebrate the end of the litigation.

• 39:30Nancy Glass?

  And according to court documents, Cindy received that $10.5 million settlement shortly before she and Kenny flew to Hawaii.

• 39:40Speaker 05

  When you're in litigation, it literally consumes all of your available downtime. Your mind goes immediately to it. It is a non-stop ruminating nightmare. So when we were in Hawaii, I was like, oh, this is great. I had this massive load off my shoulders. Like my life can finally move forward again.

• 40:02Nancy Glass?

  With a clear head, Cindy started to focus on the next family camping trip she wanted to take. The new house they were about to move into, all the things she had put on hold.

• 40:14Speaker 05

  And then it allowed me to relax and say, you know, maybe marriage isn't such a bad thing. I've been discounting it and you know, this person in front of me is wonderful. And he's never experienced it.

• 40:25Nancy Glass?

  In the months leading up to this trip, Kenny had been hinting about marriage.

• 40:30Speaker 05

  When Kenny first brought it up, I mean, I, I almost bit his head off. I'm like, hell no, never again, never doing that.

• 40:36Nancy Glass?

  As you can imagine, Cindy's first marriage to Steve left her a little gun shy about doing that again.

• 40:43Speaker 05

  I said, that was such a miserable experience. I'll let you know if I change my mind, but it's, it's probably not for now.

• 40:52Nancy Glass?

  But leading up to that Hawaiian vacation, Cindy started to soften.

• 40:58Speaker 05

  The more I thought about it, I was like, you know, he's never been married. And maybe I'm just having this really negative view of marriage because of the person I was married to. And maybe I need to start rethinking that. Cause I've already created this bias in my head and that's not fair. It's not fair to him.

• 41:19Nancy Glass?

  One night during their vacation in Hawaii, Cindy and Kenny went to a luau. Cindy said that's when it hit her. She couldn't imagine being without Kenny.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  And I just brought it up to him, I was like, you know, I'm kind of warming up to this idea of possibly getting married. I think I need to give this another chance. I'm thinking marriage is bad because of my first experience and that it's a controlling environment and you lose yourself. And I don't feel like I lose myself when I'm around you. I feel like myself.

• 41:50Nancy Glass?

  That night in Hawaii, Cindy and Kenny got engaged.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  And it was pretty special. You know, I was wanting to marry Cindy for some period of time. And we were together for over a year and a half or so. It was like, it's time. Right? We're gonna do this. We're taking the next steps in life and doing this as a family and going forward with it.

• 42:13Nancy Glass?

  It was a wonderful, life-changing moment for Kenny.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  I guess you could say, I didn't realize what I missed in my entire life of not having a family, a wife, children. You know, they're not my children, but they were my children, you know, because we have that bond, we have that love, we have that relationship of I'd do anything, you know, and I'd do anything for those kids. And they loved me and I loved them back. I just didn't know what I missed out on. So I was blessed and it was probably the most amazing year and a half to a couple of years of my life.

• 42:55Nancy Glass?

  That night, Cindy teased the good news in a text to her daughter. She said, "We have something special to tell you when we see you and the boys."

• 43:05Speaker 05

  I think I was just kind of giddy at that moment because she had been talking about a wedding dress. She had already shown me pictures, how she's going to do my hair. So I wanted to share it with her first.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  All's happy and all's great. Well, that changed.

• 43:24Speaker 05

  This all blew up the next morning.

• 43:26Nancy Glass?

  That following day, Cindy received a phone call from a caseworker with DHS, Colorado's Department of Human Services. The caseworker had some disturbing news. Kenny was being investigated for child abuse.

• 43:41Speaker 05

  I was shocked. I like, what are you talking about?

• 43:46Nancy Glass?

  The victim was one of Cindy's nine-year-old boys, and the caseworker had a warning for Cindy.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  She says, "My children are in imminent danger as we speak." And I'm like, "I'm not the one who poses that danger." That person's always been living with them, and she couldn't wrap her head around that idea.

• 44:10Nancy Glass?

  After a long conversation with DHS, Cindy hung up the phone. She had a bad feeling. But it's not what you might think.

• 44:19Speaker 05

  My first thought wasn't, "Did Kenny abuse my kids?" Because I knew he didn't. I never saw anything any whole year and a half with my kids, anything to ever consider that this man was abusive.

• 44:32Nancy Glass?

  Cindy believed this was something that Kenny did not do, but that decision cost her. Because once Cindy and Kenny returned home from Hawaii... So we need you to go ahead and turn around and place your hands behind your back, okay? You are under arrest. All right, Mr. Ham, let's go ahead and walk this way.

• 44:50Nancy Glass?

  I said this in the first episode, and I'm going to say it again. At first glance, this looked like a story about child abuse allegations. But the more I learned, the clearer it became that the real story was something completely different.

• 45:06Speaker 05

  I could not have imagined the future of the legal warfare I was going to be involved with and the fact that I would not see my children for almost seven years.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Um, my motto is, "It always is going to work out. Don't worry about it. You just keep on trucking forward, keep on moving forward, have faith, and it works." Well, maybe not this time.

• 45:34Nancy Glass?

  That's next time on Burden of Guilt.

• 45:59Nancy Glass?

  Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying Burden of Guilt, subscribe, rate, and review the series with five stars, hopefully. That helps other people find our show. Are you curious about what the people involved in this look like? Do you want to hear bonus content? Just check out our Instagram account at Glass Podcasts. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in

• 46:38Nancy Glass?

  partnership with iHeart Podcasts. This series is executive produced and hosted by me, Nancy Glass, produced by Todd Gans, also produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Additional production support provided by Carrie Hartman. Our story editor is Monique LaBord. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik. Our production manager is Kristin Melchurey. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krychek. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Audio mixing and mastering by Anna McLean and Matt Del Vecchio. The Burden of Guilt theme is composed by

• 47:21Nancy Glass?

  Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MyB Music. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app or Apple Podcasts.

• 48:50Speaker 02

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• 49:50Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.