[intense music playing]
[music ends]
[operator] 911, what's your emergency?
[man] These people, they're nuts.
They're stalking us. They're harassing us.
[operator] Your name?
[man] Michael Barisone.
B-A-R-I-S-O-N-E.
[woman] I've been shot in the heart!
411 Westmill Drive.
411...
A former U.S. Olympian charged with two counts of attempted murder.
[reporter 1] He shot and injured another rider
who lived and trained on his property.
[Michael] This is a war. It's gonna be dealt with right now.
We're under siege here.
[reporter 2] Police say they found a woman with multiple gunshot wounds
and former Olympian Michael Barisone.
[reporter 3] Michael Barisone is facing 60 years in prison.
His attorneys plan to argue the insanity defense as well.
A rare strategy.
Claiming Lauren used social media to push him to his breaking point.
[Michael] They are clients here at our stable.
The situation is getting worse and worse and worse.
We are in fear for our lives.
[man] Michael was driven over the edge by Lauren Kanarek.
[reporter 4] Can social media be its own weapon?
What Lauren Kanarek did to him was horrible!
He had no recollection of what had happened in this instance.
I find it hard to believe that you could shoot somebody and not remember.
[woman] He was painting a picture in the courtroom.
This is acting. This is theater that you're watching.
There's no memory disorder that happens just when someone's committing a crime.
He knew when he opened the safe and took that gun
exactly what he was going to do.
[Michael] I'm taking my life back.
[horse snorts]
[gunshot]
[woman] I'm losing a lot of blood.
Washington Township!
[operator] Okay, you're at 411 Westmill, Washington Township. Okay?
- [woman] I'm... - [operator] Okay. Ma'am, where...
[woman] Most people know by the time they're four or five years old
if they're a horse person or not.
[whistles]
I knew that when I was exactly that age.
I'm a horse person.
[sing-song] Symphony!
I have six horses.
They each have their completely entirely separate personalities.
Evie. [clicks tongue] Come here.
The minute you walk into a barn, they're always waiting to see you.
Who's my good boy?
I think even a person that's never been around a horse before,
bring them to me,
I will show them a miracle in the making.
I will show them why horses are special.
[soft music playing]
[man 1] When God created the horse,
he said to the magnificent creature,
"I have made thee as no other."
[pistol fires]
[woman 1] They're something out of a story book. Like a fairy tale.
[man 2] Horses are marvelous animals.
They've been man's companion
for we don't know how many thousands of years.
[Lauren] Horse people are people that understand
that horses are not just things that you see
on someone's property eating grass.
A horse girl is, like, someone that likes horses?
[man 3] Yeah, but it's an energy...
[woman 2] Hello.
[man 4] There are over eight million horses in America,
and perhaps twice that many riders.
[crowd cheering]
[Lauren] My father would ask me,
"Don't you get bored getting on a horse and riding it around?"
I'm like, "What?"
It's the most exciting thing in the world, riding a horse.
Walk on, walk on.
Come on.
Looks like she's walking.
I'm the type of person that is, like, people love you immediately,
and they're like, "You're my people, for sure."
But for other people,
I come off maybe a bit strong at times.
"Why does she sound so, like, entitled?"
They always use the word "entitled."
There's nothing about me that is entitled.
Like, I work very hard at what I do.
I'll do this. Thank you.
[man] You wanna do it?
[Lauren] Roll it up tighter than usual.
Like, pre-roll it tighter than usual.
I have to recheck your work on that.
- [man] Huh? - I feel like I need to recheck your work.
You put enough time into something, you get better and better.
And if you do have patience in this sport,
the right people will come along and help you.
March of 2018,
my trainer at the time mentioned the name,
"Oh, I'm gonna go do a clinic with Michael Barisone."
[announcer] For the Grand Prix Special, Safir and Michael Barisone.
[Lauren] I just Googled him
and saw, like, that he was on the 2008 Olympic team.
And I'm not saying I'm looking to go be an Olympian.
My goal as a rider was the journey of it.
I wanted to ride my horses every single day
and learn as much as you can possibly learn
from somebody who knows more than you do.
[Michael] I got involved with riding as a kid.
Pretty epic failure at jumping.
And, uh, dressage was what I gravitated to
because I was good at it.
[woman] Dressage is a French word that means training.
[man] It's beauty in motion.
Ladies on horses, men as well.
And it's got a deep, deep history.
[Michael] Dressage is based on horsemanship in the battlefield,
where a horse had to learn to move sideways, forward, and backward
and obediently follow the commands of its rider.
[woman] You're doing it with this particular position of the head,
the position of the body.
Everything has to be harmonious and rhythmical.
And we have to instill those things in a horse first.
Training a horse is about teaching the horse to accept your aids,
your legs, your hands,
so the horse learns to be responsive, acceptant of the rider.
That is a very hard job.
[woman 2] We are asking the horses to perform
to the utmost of their athletic gymnastic ability.
Yet they must do it as a dancer must perform leaps,
making it look easy.
[graceful music playing]
[music fades]
[Michael] The Olympics are a very interesting competition,
particularly when it comes to equestrian.
Twenty-five Olympic Games in a century.
Four people go on a dressage team.
That means there's a maximum of 100 people in a century
who represent their country at the Olympic Games in dressage.
[man] Two, one, ignition.
[Michael] It's about the size of the club who have ridden a rocket into space.
But I consider myself a decent competitor.
I think I'm an excellent horse trainer.
Is this fair and reasonable to the horse,
and can he mentally understand what I'm asking him to do?
Most professional horse people, myself included,
we make our money in various ways.
We take riders and horses in training in our stables.
Somebody brings their horse to you.
I say, "I'll keep the horse in my stable."
Some clients, I ride the horse myself. They never ride.
Other clients want me to teach them every day, or one of my staff.
That's what it is about contact and push.
If they misbehave, you feel what they're doing before.
You know what I mean?
I taught a seminar to one of my top Grand Prix rider students
in the beginning of 2018.
And this woman says, "Oh, by the way, I'm coming for the month of March."
"I would like to bring my student with me for one month to train."
"Her name's Lauren Kanarek."
Lauren Kanarek called me,
and she gushed about how she knew who I was
and had researched my success.
She wanted to come train, and what an honor it was gonna be.
[Lauren] He's like, "You gotta train with the best."
"You gotta be in the best places with the best trainer available."
"You have everything it takes to go to the Olympics."
"You have great horses."
"You know, you have the ambition. You're driven."
He just talks such a good game.
By the end, he had me saying to him,
like, "Where do I sign up?"
[Michael] Hawthorne Hill was my sanctuary.
It was my peaceful place.
It was in this beautiful valley an hour from New York City.
And you would've thought you were in Tennessee.
It was idyllic.
And I built a large portion of it with my own two hands.
It was my sweat and blood and heart.
It was designed as kind of a campus.
I was the overseer of training.
When you get me, you get my team. You get Justin Hardin, my right-hand man.
You get Mary Haskins Gray.
She was a dressage rider and my girlfriend at that time.
I lived on the property.
Mary Haskins Gray lived with me most of the time.
And Lauren stayed in the apartment with her boyfriend, Rob.
Her father was heavily involved.
He said, "Send the bills to me. I'll pay them."
Lauren had two horses at the time that, uh, Michael was gonna train.
And, uh, Michael invited her up and said, "You know, I happen to have a spot."
"The place is beautifully furnished, and Lauren can live there."
And I said, "Great. She's on the property."
She's a seven-minute walk to the barn, which is at the same address.
And it was all settled.
Lauren had a place to live. She had two horses being trained.
Everyone was happy.
[Michael] Okay, sit back.
Don't let her pull the bit down. Drive her uphill.
Wonderful change. Do another one.
There is a definite trust level that has to exist
between your trainer and your horse.
And Michael and I did have that.
[Michael] Close your leg and lean back. Push his nose up.
Wow. Hallelujah!
- [Lauren] Hallelujah! - [Michael] Look at Lauren smokin' around!
I could see him fixing problems quickly.
[Michael] Good. Hands together. Keep your contact.
Good. Keep riding forward into the...
He really was doing what he promised he would do.
He was making me a better rider.
But I soon learned that pretty much everybody there
was, like, almost cult-like,
obsessed with this thing of,
"This guy's gonna get me into the Olympics."
He said, "The Olympics isn't a goal. The Olympics is like a dream."
He's like, "And every one of these people here, it is their dream."
And I was like, "Yay for them."
"They have a dream. I have a dream. We all have a dream."
[Michael] This is a picture of, like, authority.
Like, I look at you and you're back in your seat
and your conduct says to me you're in control.
That is authority.
In dressage, three things are necessary for a winning combination.
You need a good trainer, a good rider,
and a good horse.
And on top of all the rest of this stuff,
it takes a lot of money.
There's a reason it's called the sport of kings.
Going to Europe to compete is necessary for anybody
in the international horse sport.
Round-trip transport is 25,000 dollars for one show,
and that doesn't include your groom and your stuff and the show fees.
Then you get back here, and if you have your own horse trailer,
that's 125 grand for a decent rig.
And horseshoes, the horse needs every four weeks
for 500 or 700 dollars.
We say things like,
"Oh, it's a cheap horse." "How much?" "50,000."
It's staggering, the cost.
[auctioneers chattering]
[Michael] Jay-T is a horse that I purchased in 2006.
And he was this incredible athlete.
He was a horse my ex-wife and I owned.
And we made an agreement.
I would personally ride the horse and compete the horse,
and I would sell the horse.
[Lauren] JJ!
Hello, my good boy.
It's very common for us as horse trainers
to let a lesser-skilled rider sit on a more-skilled horse
periodically from time to time.
You put 'em on the horse, let 'em feel something,
let 'em feel a little bit of what the future's supposed to feel like
and where they're headed.
Justin Hardin did that with Jay-T.
He put her on the horse and let her ride it.
[Lauren] Justin said, "We have this horse, and we think you're gonna like him."
"I just want you to try him."
"We don't let everybody ride this horse because, to be honest,
he can be a little bit difficult."
And the first minute I got on,
they were like, "Just be careful. It'll be fine."
I get on him. He feels amazing.
You could feel, like, a ball of, like, energy
underneath your body rise.
And I was like, "Yeah, this horse is gonna be mine one day."
My good boy.
[Michael] Compared to her horses,
her horses were Toyota Corollas.
Jay-T was a Corvette.
We let her drive a Corvette once.
And unfortunately, that sent the snowball down the mountain.
[Michael] Sharp turn and straight across the ring!
Two days after riding the horse,
Lauren posting things online, videos of her riding my horse.
[Lauren] JJ! Jay-T!
Rob, you look so tiny next to him.
[Michael] And then, in July of 2018,
Lauren Kanarek enters shows on my horse.
She went and rented the Corvette convertible from Hertz
and then decided it was hers to drive for the rest of her life.
She, in effect, had commandeered my horse for her own purposes,
and it was disastrous.
She's devaluing him, and it just can't go on.
And I told them, "You can't show this horse."
And they came after me in the stable,
screaming at me and all these things.
I was terrified of them.
I'm a chicken. You know? I've never been in a fight.
And at the same time they're threatening me,
the father's sending me all these texts.
"I'm gonna bankrupt you and keep you in court."
"I'll break you." All this.
I'm like, I'm seeing another lawyer bill,
and I've got a divorce and lawyer bills there.
I'm in a panic mode to not get beat up, to not get sued.
So I capitulate.
I got threatened, pushed,
essentially extorted into selling my horse for 50 cents on the dollar.
Getting bullied into buying a horse
is the biggest piece of bullshit I ever heard in my entire life.
Okay? Period.
I was on the way to a show that Michael had been training me for,
and Rob's telling me that Jay-T had just been pulled off the trailer.
And Michael's saying he can't go.
So I immediately run to the office.
I'm asking Michael, "What's going on with Jay-T?"
"Why is he not in that trailer?"
He is panicking, freaking out.
I've never seen him like this.
He's just saying to me, "Jay-T can't go to this show."
He had to sell this horse as soon as possible.
I'm like, "Why? What is going on?"
And he goes, "It's the divorce."
I'm like, "Why don't I just buy him?"
"Will that help something?"
And all of a sudden, he calmed down.
He was very happy to accept his check.
The horse was mine.
It's all settled.
Or that's what I thought.
Oh, hey.
Good boy, Jay.
- Walk him up. Is the girth on? - Yep.
- Tight enough? - Yep.
- Stop, stop, stop. Oh my God, Rob. - What?
- Please stop. Look what's happened here. - Hold on.
- Stop. Easy! - Let me pull you--
[Lauren] Let go of him. What did I say? Let go of the reins. Stop. Easy, boy.
- Rob? - Yeah?
- I need a whip. - Uh, check that table.
I can't check anything. I need a whip immediately.
Whoa, easy! Whoa, he's spooking bad.
- [Rob] Just focus and do it again. - Oh, this sucks.
[Michael] We haven't really addressed her level as a rider.
I compare it to baseball.
I have played on a World Series team.
Mary Haskins Gray and Justin Hardin were players
on a triple-A minor league baseball team,
just about ready to make the jump into the major leagues as rookies.
Follow me?
Lauren Kanarek is...
[tense music playing]
[music builds, stops]
...Little League for nine-year-olds.
Flying change. That was late. I'll do it again.
Rob, right now. Do you understand?
- [Rob] What? Slow down. - It's 6:30. Easy, boy.
Rob, are you listening to me?
- Rob? - Yes, go.
- Are you listening to me? - I'm in a conversation.
So rude. I'm asking you. You know what? Never mind.
You don't get a choice now.
[Michael] I teach Olympians, not second-level riders.
Over that period of time, there were times that Mary Haskins taught Lauren.
Mary Haskins, in my mind, was the biggest fool,
most unknowledgeable person about riding.
[Jonathan] At some point in time, I started receiving texts from Lauren
that the staff wasn't doing their job properly,
and they'd be encouraged not to do their job properly
by Michael's girlfriend, Mary Haskins.
In April, I went to have a meeting with Rob and Lauren
and Michael's girlfriend, Mary Haskins.
Lauren starts screaming about what everyone's not doing for her,
and Mary Haskins is saying to her, "You don't even show up and ride,
so don't talk about what people aren't doing for you."
"You have to work."
That starts a screaming match between these girls.
Jonathan and Goodwin are trying to get control of her,
and I'm trying to get control of Mary Haskins.
And at that meeting, Mary Haskins, you know, said the words,
"Y'all have to leave."
Michael said to Mary Haskins, "Shut the fuck up, Mary Haskins."
"I have a deal with these people."
"Shut the fuck up." I've never said that to a woman in my life.
He was allowing his girlfriend to get away with this,
instead of simply saying to his girlfriend, "Listen, cut the crap."
Michael, throughout the whole thing, was trying to burn the candle at both ends
until, eventually, the candle burned to the middle.
Rose, to your left, is your back right hind puffy?
Blink once for yes, two for no.
[horse snorts softly]
All right, we go back now.
I met Michael in 2018.
My daughter signed up for a horsemastership clinic with him.
Horse people are quirky.
And it's not unusual to have difficult clients.
[Rob] Yeah, it sticks to it.
You know, we tend to kind of ignore it
because it's just the nature of the business.
First time I met Lauren was at a show at the New Jersey Horse Park.
[Lauren] Good girl. Yes, you're a good girl.
[Lara] As soon as I met her,
I knew something wasn't right with her.
Rob, what the hell happened to this bag?
Rob, I think we have not used this bitless bridle.
Rob?
Rob, can you hear me?
[Lara] Her energy was so frantic, manic,
that I actually got a migraine, and I had to walk away from her.
It was so disruptive and so... just nerve-wracking.
It was horrible.
[keyboard clacking]
[sparse, intriguing music playing]
[Lara] At Hawthorne Hill, there was a lot of tension
between Lauren and Mary Haskins.
Lauren would snap demands and insist on certain things.
It just was... turmoil.
[music quickens]
[Lara] She had friended me on Facebook,
so I was seeing her posts as they were coming up.
You can't turn away every client that's difficult,
but when things start to cross the line
from being difficult to being dangerous...
Many of them use chess images.
"The king has been captured and killed."
"The queen must be sacrificed to protect the castle."
"The castle comes crumbling down."
Who has the time or the energy to put things out like this?
[Lara] In the dressage community,
people were seeing what was being said and were horrified by it.
With the things I was writing,
it was for him to realize the problem here
is you were being led around by your girlfriend.
She was making me riding at the barn impossible.
I'm the guy with his name on the top of the letterhead.
I have sweet ladies who ride with me
and... and older people and kids.
Lara's daughter was a 16-year-old girl living with me.
I was responsible for her.
I was extremely worried about the situation at Hawthorne Hill.
[intriguing music continues]
[music fades]
There was a hostility between the two women.
It may not be easy between having an important client
and your... and your girlfriend,
but Michael had to do it or come up with some kind of solution.
[uneasy music playing]
[Michael] This will not work.
You cannot be going on the Internet and saying bad things about us.
He came down to literally scream at me.
Who do you think you are?
I will be a nobody in this sport. He'll make one phone call.
My career will be ended.
He was there to lay down the law of who is in charge of the sport.
Now, who's in charge of his barn?
Who runs things? Who are the powerful people?
And what can they do?
[Michael] In the horse world,
reputation is critical to your success.
Reputation is earned. It's not just given.
Your whole life revolves around this one thing.
If he says, "I will ruin your career with one phone call,"
that's not something you take lightly.
[camera shutter clicks]
Because Michael's friends do have the power to blackball,
get me banned from the sport.
My life, my livelihood, and my riding career
has been put in jeopardy.
You're thinking, "Just kill me, then."
Maybe you're not really thinking, "I wanna be dead,"
but you're thinking, "Get it over with now, and just kill me."
[keyboard clacking]
[Michael] Lauren Kanarek got very weird and very unstable.
At 2:45, three o'clock in the morning,
is up in the trees behind the stable
putting out cryptic social media posts.
Lauren did not go on the offensive.
Lauren went on the defensive
with Facebook posts, "Here's what's happening."
Michael has all these friends in high places,
all these former Olympiads,
and Lauren only has, you know, Facebook to say what's happening.
She's putting out public messages.
[phone ringing]
[operator] 911. What's the address?
I did what I'm supposed to do.
What we've been taught since we were children, right?
Call the authorities.
I need an officer here to get these people to get their shit together
and not menace us.
We are decent people.
- [operator] Okay. - This is turning out terribly.
These are menaces to society.
If I need to get a restraining order tonight, I will get it.
This is a war, and it's gonna be dealt with right now.
I've had enough of these people. I need them gone.
[Lauren] This is a civil dispute.
He's using the police as a weapon for something they can't even do.
They even said to him, "Stop calling us."
"We are not your remedy for a civil dispute."
Lauren was in the barn and heard whisperings
of getting someone to beat them up or something of the like
and was concerned.
I spoke with Lauren and said,
"I think we should get some kind of audio device."
[Michael] Mary Haskins. Here's the deal, the cop wants to pass the buck.
He says it's a civil matter. It's a civil matter.
[Mary] That's why I keep saying that's why you need to keep calling
because you need to push the burden onto the police department.
- She's playing old school. - [Michael] She needs a lesson.
[Lauren] We did this thinking a crime was going to be committed.
And if there is,
we'd like to have evidence
that they were planning to commit that crime.
[Michael] I'm gonna... I'm dealing with this.
[Mary] She needs to get banned from this county.
[Michael] Nobody can give a lifetime ban in horse sports
except SafeSport. That's it.
- Yeah. - And they give the...
[brooding music playing]
[Lauren] You can't call the police and say, "Hi, I have a report to make."
"People are threatening to get me kicked out of the sport I love."
"Please arrest them." That's not what they're there for.
SafeSport's job is to make sure
that people who have those kinds of powers are never allowed to do such things.
There is a big problem in equestrian sports.
Many trainers have been banned for life by SafeSport.
Michael's biggest fear was being unable to compete in the sport.
I called the hotline, and I reported him to SafeSport.
The report was about bullying, harassment, and abuse of power.
But at the time, the interviewer, she kept asking me,
"Are there minors in the property?"
"Where are they living? What are they doing?"
[Michael] I hear the truck. It comes up, and it pulls right in front of the stable.
And Lauren Kanarek is on her phone, and she's pacing.
"I'm going to do everything in my power
to destroy everything Mary Haskins loves or is important to her!"
Mary Haskins, she had two young children,
and I treated them like my own kids.
She said, "I don't feel good about my children here with these people."
- [Michael] If anything happens, I will... - [Mary] You know what? You--
[Michael] You're already talking--
You've already talked the last few days about leaving.
[Mary] I'm not leaving you, Michael.
I'm not leaving you.
[Michael] We would have these conversations.
Then we would get taunting messages like they know what I'm saying.
Lauren said to me,
"Now you know the lovely lady's not going to leave you."
I told Mary, "I'm pretty sure we're being bugged."
"And I don't know how."
"How are they hearing us?"
"Has somebody infected a phone? Justin's phone? Don't talk on your phone."
"Are they trying to learn my movements?"
Why do you need to do this?
You start to think the walls have ears and the darkness has eyes.
I found this post,
and I realized, at that time,
Lauren Kanarek will give you the road map to what she's doing.
She has to tell someone what she's done bad
or what she's going to do bad.
And she says...
You read all these memes about being happy and everything's a beautiful day.
And then she says,
"But contrary to what Mr. Rogers says,
it's not always a beautiful day in the neighborhood."
"Sometimes the neighbors are dark,
and they are using secret recording devices,
which one day they will use to destroy your life."
[phone ringing]
[Michael] There were texts to me last night where...
Apparently, they've been bugging my conversations
in my other building where we're all sitting and holing up,
like we're hostages.
The police were called again.
[tense music playing]
[Michael] This is not looking good. We're under siege here.
We're stalking them. We're harassing them. Have you met us?
[Michael] If they come up, I don't know what to do.
- [operator] Were weapons involved? - No.
[Lauren] Police have been called for some kind of harassment,
which I wasn't even in the barn for,
but I decided that this needed to be recorded,
which I am now recording.
[Michael] Stay right here. Don't you walk away.
- [operator] Don't engage them, okay? - [Michael] I'm talking to my friend.
Ruth Cox was a client friend.
She was Mary Haskins' partner on a couple of horses and...
So Ruth Cox is on her way from North Carolina
the night of August 2nd.
I said to Ruth, "Did you bring that gun?"
Because I know she travels with a 9mm pistol.
She said, "Why, yes."
I said, "Get it. It has to go in the safe. It's not safe out there."
"The cop told me, 'Don't leave anything in the cars.'"
She brought it in,
went right into my office, and we put it in the safe.
This thing is escalating, and it's spiraling out of control,
and I keep calling the federation, calling the police, and calling lawyers,
and just saying, "Just get this under control."
It was so far out of control.
The night of August 2nd, early morning of August 3rd,
she's out in the trees, circling the stable in the night,
we now know, dressed like a ninja.
I'm in just full-blown panic mode
about what in the world is gonna happen there?
Are they gonna kill somebody or burn this barn down?
What is gonna happen?
They're nuts. They're stalking us.
They've... They're harassing us.
- Last night, there was a Facebook post. - [operator] Hold on.
It's a harassing Facebook post that's going on right now, correct?
[Michael] It was last night. "Everyone should be worried."
"I'm not responsible for anything my other personalities do
when they're threatened."
That's insane.
I have a family.
I'm trying to do everything right.
Everything.
I'm crying for help.
We are in fear for our lives.
Get over here and fix this.
That's what a responsible citizen does.
And they told me to go to hell.
This is the third time. And I'm getting no relief.
I'm living my life in my community, the one I created.
[tense music continues]
People came, people went. We made friends, had Christmas parties,
Thanksgiving parties.
I could put wood fire in the wood stove and watch the Labrador sleep in front.
I could go out and cut my firewood logs myself.
It was idyllic.
And then these vagrants come in.
And I've called them terrorists. That's exactly what it was.
They did a mini 9/11 to me.
I'm taking my life back.
[music fades]
[birds squawking]
[quiet, ominous music playing]
[Michael] I stood there in the courtyard and watched this gray van come up.
It pulled right into the courtyard, right up next to me,
and it was a dark-haired lady.
And she said,
"I'm from Child Protective Services."
She wants to talk. We go in the office. I get two chairs.
I go sit down in the chair. She and Mary Haskins sit down.
"Mr. Barisone, we don't need you. I need to talk to Ms. Gray."
And I'm standing in the club room.
I could swear I stood there and I heard the word "sexual abuse."
And I remember... my body going a thousand degrees.
It was like a blowtorch went... [exhales sharply] ...on top of me.
And every inch of my body was sweating and burning.
It was like someone put a rope around my neck and pulled it tight.
And I couldn't breathe. Like... [wheezes]
And I remember picking up my phone. "Who am I gonna call?"
"I'll call the police. No, they won't help. Nobody can help."
I can remember spinning and the lights like this,
and I just lost my balance, and bang.
And I can remember being out of balance, and black, and then it's over.
[thunder rumbling]
[Lauren] I start to hear pebbles.
Just, like, first it was faintly,
and then it was, like, louder and louder.
So I immediately run up the stairs and get Rob.
Michael is here.
I don't know why he's here. I...
We haven't had any words or spoken in, like, a few days.
[ominous music playing]
Rob walks off the two little, like, steps of the porch.
He's saying, "Michael, what do you want?"
And he's like, "How do we end this? I don't want a war."
So I'm walking over to him.
And he... is just staring at me.
[lightning crashing]
[Lauren] There was something not right.
And immediately, Michael pulls out a gun,
shoots it at me, bang, bang.
- [operator] 911. What's the address-- - [Lauren] I've been shot in the heart.
- Okay-- - 411 Westmill Drive. 411 Westmill Drive.
- Where are you? - I'm losing a lot of blood.
Michael Barisone shot me.
[Rob] Stop fucking moving!
Stop fucking moving!
- [Rob] Hello? - [operator] Sir?
[Rob] Is an ambulance coming?
[operator] Officers are being dispatched, okay?
[muffled shouting]
[siren wailing]
[man] I was on a traffic detail.
While on the detail, we received a dispatch of an active shooter
at 411 Westmill Road.
It was stressful,
and dispatch didn't have much information to provide.
As I started to go up the driveway, I opened the driver's side door,
unholstered my handgun.
[muffled shouting]
[Rob] You fucking move, or I'm gonna fucking kill you!
Do you understand me?!
- [Lauren] I'm shot! - [Rob] You understand me?!
I saw one male face down on the ground with another male on top of his back,
also face down,
and a female a few feet to the left,
who appeared to have been shot.
I yelled out, "Where's the shooter?"
[Rob] He's the shooter right here!
Right here!
Gun is underneath him.
I rolled Mr. Barisone over. His hand was open underneath him.
And there was a 9mm handgun with a slide lock back
right next to his hand.
I secured the weapon.
I then turned my attention toward Miss Kanarek.
[siren wailing]
[Heymer] Chest seals! Get chest seals!
Were you shot just once?
She was very gray, not really speaking much.
She said, "Help me," a few times.
Based on her appearance, there was, uh, a good chance
that she was not gonna survive her injuries.
[siren wailing]
Once more officers got on scene, we separated Mr. Barisone.
We had him seated against a landscaping trailer,
waiting for medical attention.
While sitting there with his back against the trailer,
he just was staring off in the distance
and repeated, "I had a good life," three times.
[Jonathan] I arrived at the hospital, and I have no idea what happened.
Some doctor comes in and said,
"We can't keep her blood pressure up. We're gonna have to..."
I forget exactly what he said,
"but we have to get her to surgery and get the trauma team working."
And now we realize it's serious,
and I guess this was on, uh, Wednesday,
and I guess we were able to see her, and she had...
so many, you know, tubes in her mouth and her nose and bandages, and...
And we just didn't know whether she was gonna make it or not.
[Lauren] I opened my eyes.
I don't know where I am... at all.
I see tubes coming out of my left side abdomen,
and I see machines.
I see machines everywhere.
So that's when I started thinking,
"Maybe I'm not, like, in limbo or, like, some in-between place."
"Maybe I'm in a hospital, but why do I not remember anything?"
"Why don't I remember how I... Why don't I remember how I got here?"
So my mom comes in smiling.
She said, "You've been through surgery."
"You just woke up, and you've been in a coma."
"And the doctors are coming in."
And you start to slowly remember little bits of the things that happened.
I can't wait to be there in court to testify to what happened.
This is an open-and-shut case.
What could possibly go wrong?
[unsettling music playing]
[reporter] A US Olympian is accused of attempted murder.
He was a member of the 2008 Beijing Olympic team
and the 2009 Sportsman International Horseman of the Year.
Police say this incident is still under investigation.
[Michael] I was awakened.
[music fades]
And I remember, I looked at my arm,
and it was wrapped in this stuff like this from my shoulder down to my hand.
And I couldn't bend it. I looked, and I said, "What the fuck?"
"I want my lawyer."
[Bilinkas] I think I'm the best there is at what I do.
I don't advertise.
I don't have a website.
All I have is 43 years of pouring my heart and soul into each case.
It takes over my mind, my soul,
and I give everything that I have
because every time I try a case, I have someone's life in my hands.
I travel to Morris County Jail,
and I'm put into a room.
And all of a sudden, the door opens,
and Michael comes shuffling in.
He tells me...
I don't remember being at the scene.
Someone ruined my life, and they did it on purpose.
At first, I wasn't sure I believed,
but he started to tell me about this woman, Lauren Kanarek.
[Michael] She started to attack me on Facebook.
And it is this unabating attack.
She's talked about, "The king needs to die,
queen needs to die, weapons hot."
What person bugs another person?
What are you planning to do to us?
I had called everyone from the Equestrian Federation to the cops,
asking for the chief, asking for detectives,
emails, phone calls,
the Washington Township Police Department.
I know the number by heart. It's 908-876-3232.
In deciding how to approach Michael's case,
it was clear that a psychiatric defense was something that I needed to look into.
Only a very small percentage of all felony defendants
successfully use the insanity defense.
[reporter 1] Insanity defense, a claim that at the time of the crime,
the defendant did not know the conduct was wrong
as a result of a severe mental disease or defect.
[reporter 2] ...raised in only one percent of all felony cases in this country.
Jeffrey Dahmer tried to plead insanity, and the jury rejected it.
Even though he admitted to cannibalizing his victims.
[reporter 3] John Wayne Gacy killed 33 children.
The jury refused to accept Gacy's insanity defense.
Why is the insanity defense so rarely successful?
[scoffs] Perhaps because it so rarely is credible.
[Bilinkas] Chris Deininger is the legal mind of the team.
The basis of the insanity defense
is that you have a mental disease or defect
at the time of the act
that prohibits you from knowing right or wrong
or being able to control your behavior.
It was our position that Lauren Kanarek had driven Michael Barisone insane.
At the time of the shooting,
Michael was in a delusional state
and therefore would not be responsible for his actions.
A rare strategy, the insanity defense,
claiming Lauren used social media to push him to his breaking point.
Some 50-year-old man all of a sudden developing a mental illness
at this point in his life seems highly unlikely.
[reporter] He faces up to a maximum of 60 years in prison.
[Bilinkas] Who takes a case like this?
Who mounts a defense in a case like this?
I believed that I could pull it off.
Thank you, members of the jury. We are ready to commence with the trial,
beginning with opening statements.
- [indistinct chattering] - Quiet on the set!
There's no way to describe the pressure, the intensity that you feel.
You walk into that courtroom,
and the judge tells me it's time for me to give my opening.
That moment is like no other moment in my life.
I stand up, I walk to the jury,
and I say my first words.
"Help! I'm in..."
"...fear of my life."
"Someone..."
"...anyone, please, help me!"
Those are the cries for help from Michael Barisone.
It's a tragedy,
a tragedy that Lauren Kanarek was shot on that day.
That said,
there is another tragedy.
The tragic story of Michael Barisone.
Every man has a breaking point.
What this case is really about,
it's about Lauren Kanarek and her boyfriend
devising a plan to destroy this man and drive him crazy.
[Taylor] Thank you, Mr. Bilinkas.
Uh, Mr. Schellhorn?
Do I need to, uh, project more?
I'm Chris Schellhorn.
I'm an assistant prosecutor in the Morris County Prosecutor's Office.
Part of, um, a prosecutor's role is to represent the crime victims
and hopefully seek justice on their behalf as we go to court.
Good morning.
Thank you again, all, for being here today and for serving on the jury.
It is definitely a lot of pressure to give the opening statement
in a way where you're gaining that trust with the jury
but also being persuasive in what you're telling them.
We're here on this trial because of the defendant's choice
on August 7th, 2019.
His choice to get a gun,
to point that gun at Lauren and pull the trigger twice,
and then to turn it on Rob and pull the trigger again.
We knew that we had prepared
and had a... a coherent theory of... of what happened,
why the shooting happened when it happened,
what was going on between these folks leading up to the shooting.
This man, the defendant, is the one on trial.
So you may hear things that you don't like
about Lauren or Rob or Mary Haskins or any of these other people.
But none of that is a justification to get shot.
Looking at the charges,
make sure that we have enough evidence to give to a jury
that would establish the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.
We felt that we had sufficient evidence to prove that.
[Bilinkas] To mount a defense of insanity,
you need to have an expert,
a psychiatrist who's evaluated your client.
His diagnosis is that it meets the legal definition.
[Taylor] Call your witness.
[Bilinkas] Defense calls Dr. Steven Simring.
What I was trying to prove is that Lauren Kanarek had a plan
to destroy Michael Barisone.
Doctor, uh, what are your opinions
that you formed reviewing everything in its entirety?
[Simring] Mr. Barisone, in my opinion, has two diagnoses.
So the first diagnosis is delusional disorder.
And the second diagnosis is persistent depressive disorder.
[Bilinkas] Dr. Simring agreed,
and he also felt that Michael Barisone was driven over the edge by Lauren Kanarek
and that he was not responsible for his actions.
When you have a delusional disorder,
you don't get talked out of the false belief.
The core false belief
is that Lauren Kanarek was going to annihilate him
and did everything he could
to try to protect himself against this delusion.
[Bilinkas] As far as the actual incident,
he was never able to give you any specific details--
That is correct. He gave me no details, and he gave law enforcement no details.
[Bilinkas] Did he know the difference between right and wrong?
Time of the incident, he did not. No.
[reporter 1] Michael Barisone has no personal knowledge of what happened.
Pretty hard for a jury to swallow.
[reporter 2] You can snap that much that you don't remember nothing?
[Deininger] We have a doctor's opinion saying he was broken.
We started to present evidence
of people who saw physical manifestations of Michael's breaking.
[Bilinkas] Did you ever see Michael break down
in response to what he saw on those social media posts?
Um, he continued to become more and more fearful,
um, to unravel, to be in panic, sheer panic.
[Bilinkas] Can you describe your observations,
say, for the last two or three days
prior to the shooting?
I would say he was in an almost catatonic state.
Hadn't been sleeping, eating...
Um...
Glazed-over look in his eyes. Just...
[Bilinkas] Every trial has its ups and downs.
Each day is a separate battle.
The only thing that matters at the end
is winning the war.
[horse whinnies]
[Schellhorn] The State calls Lauren Kanarek.
[Taylor] All right, Lauren Kanarek.
[clerk] Do you swear in the presence of almighty God that testimony you give...
[Deininger] Discovery starts,
and in a normal case, it'd usually be a small file.
But in this case, it was a book of 30, 40 DVDs.
There were mountains of text messages.
Lauren Kanarek's Facebook account,
that was 19,800 pages.
All right, cross examination, Mr. Bilinkas.
- [Bilinkas] Good afternoon. - [Lauren] Good afternoon.
With regards to your Facebook account, uh,
you were posting things daily, correct?
Correct.
I had spent 100 hours-plus
going through all her social media posts.
I felt that I could destroy her.
"Once a homewrecker, always a homewrecker."
"She is hardly more than pond scum. Weapons hot."
Did you say that?
- Probably. - "It's about time to possibly go to war."
[Lauren] Go back to the post from a minute ago about--
- I'm moving on. I have a lot to go. - Okay.
What Ed and I were trying to do was to bring out the truth from the witness
that they were trying to mask.
Do you recall saying things like, "The king will be killed,
the queen will be sacrificed"?
I don't know, honestly. I was talking about a chess game,
and it might have been an analogy, but--
[Bilinkas] But the analogy was towards
Michael Barisone and Mary Haskins, correct?
Most certainly.
[Bilinkas] The things that Lauren Kanarek had... had done
were enough to drive anyone crazy.
Did you say words to the effect,
"This is me. Look out 'cause here I come"?
I'm like, "Yes."
♪ This is me ♪
♪ Look out 'cause here I come... ♪
I think it was a post from The Greatest Showman.
He was so dirty to take something
so obviously not about murder
or fighting or hostility.
I have no recollection of that.
[laughs]
I only brought out the things that I thought were helpful to the jury.
After I brought in numerous documents
indicating that she said this or she said that,
I asked her that pivotal question.
Did you have a plan to destroy Michael Barisone?
At some point, yes.
As soon as she said that,
I thought the game was over.
[Taylor] Ladies and gentlemen, we'll break for today.
Please don't discuss the case.
You can step down, ma'am. You just wait outside.
[Deininger] With questions and answers like that, you really get this sense
that there was a concerted effort to break him.
Bilinkas is using a word that I'm interpreting in a different way.
In my mind, I'm thinking,
he has done nothing but harass me, bully me, and try to ruin my life.
I don't want him destroyed.
I wanted him stopped.
Michael Barisone
was driven over the edge
by Lauren Kanarek.
Pure evil.
[Taylor] Mr. Schellhorn, does the State have any rebuttal witnesses?
[Schellhorn] Yes, Judge.
Our theory at trial was that you can't shoot somebody.
And Michael Barisone took a substantial step
in a course of conduct to kill Lauren Kanarek.
And that was his purpose.
[clears throat]
The State will call Dr. Louis Schlesinger.
[Taylor] All right, Dr. Schlesinger.
[Schellhorn] In this case, did you find any evidence of delusions
based on your examination of Michael Barisone?
No. I found... I found no evidence of this at all.
Dr. Schlesinger did not diagnose delusional disorder,
didn't find any evidence of delusion in the case.
I think that this is malingered amnesia.
He claimed that he doesn't have memory only for the criminal behavior.
His memory for everything else is excellent. Are you kidding?
If you have good memory like he does,
and the only thing you forget is criminal conduct,
that's a red flag.
They made him into this, like, you know, big Olympian who became a broken man.
"Why is this like this?"
"It had to have been those people."
"Because when we knew him, he was this."
"And now he's this."
He's this, like, shell of a man looking for when the jury's there
to make sure he looks extra crazy,
and then when the jury's not there, he's taking notes.
There's a certain point in the trial where we're talking about a Twitter post.
Michael posted,
"Once you got into the Olympics, you have all this power."
"I'm gonna do whatever I want." Encouraging this person--
He said, "I'm gonna do whatever I want," in that Twitter?
Something like that. I'm paraphrasing most of these things.
Like you have a little bit.
- But, um, yes. - [Bilinkas scoffs]
He gets this note handed to him from Michael,
crazy Michael who's sitting there banging his head on the table, you know...
[wails] Making all these faces,
but has enough common sense,
and, like, obviously, he's still in reality enough
to make a note to give to his lawyer.
"Make sure you add that in."
[Bilinkas] Would it surprise you to know
that Michael Barisone doesn't have a Twitter account?
He's not still insane. That's not what the thing was.
He was pleading insanity for that time.
Why's he still looking like a crazy person?
[Schellhorn] Do you see Mr. Barisone in court?
Um, I think it's... I think that's Michael sitting next to his attorney.
Although I will say, he looks different than when I saw him.
When I saw him, he was well-groomed and looked appropriate,
and now he looks... long, disheveled hair. I...
That's not how he looked when I saw him.
[Lauren] This is acting. This is theater you're watching.
If you're not smart enough to know that,
you should not be on a jury, period.
I think one of the challenges here was that they were working together.
They were living at the same property.
They each had perhaps separate goals.
At some point, did Michael Barisone send you a text message
telling you that he would make things miserable for them to stay?
[Schellhorn reads messages aloud]
Yes.
Well, Lauren is driving Michael crazy
because she's saying all these bad things about him
and reporting him to SafeSport,
and meanwhile, that's exactly what Michael Barisone and Mary Haskins
are doing to Lauren.
[tense music playing]
[Schellhorn] Did you or the defendant at some point
make a complaint directly to USEF about Lauren Kanarek?
Yes.
Our argument to the jury was that a lot of his behavior
was inconsistent with someone who was scared.
He was having his lawyer send fake eviction notices to scare her.
Michael did not want to start eviction.
He wanted to scare her into leaving. So...
The reason we didn't just leave is because we couldn't,
because they were calling barns and bad-mouthing us.
The barns that were going to take my horses suddenly wouldn't.
Michael Barisone never wanted to just use the words to Lauren,
"You're not welcome here. You need to leave,"
and instead tried all these sideways and backhanded ways to get her to leave,
and when that didn't work, resorted to violence.
There are different theories on how you try a case.
Some cases call for the drama at the beginning.
Sometimes you want to ramp up the drama till the end.
[clerk] State your name and spell your last name for the record.
Ruth Pinnix Cox. My last name is C-O-X.
[clerk] Thank you.
- Ms. Cox. You may have a seat. - Thank you.
All right. Please keep your voice up so we hear...
[Schellhorn] Dr. Cox owned a horse with Mary Haskins Gray
that was being trained with Mary Haskins
and being trained at the property by Michael Barisone.
On August 4th, were you having a conversation
with the defendant in the stables on that property?
- Yes, sir. I was. - [Schellhorn] Did he ask for something?
- Yes, sir. - What did he ask you for?
He wanted to see a gun that I had in my car.
Do you recall what kind of gun that was?
It is a 9mm Ruger.
[Schellhorn] You have any concerns with giving it to him at that time?
Absolutely, sir, I did not at that time.
Dr. Cox gave him the gun.
It was unloaded. It was in the case.
Michael Barisone put that gun into his gun safe.
And that was three days before the shooting,
which would indicate someone planning a murder
or preparing for a murder.
This wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment decision,
but there was a culmination here.
It wasn't the product of a delusion,
but it was a response to neither side getting what they wanted.
And it came to a head on August 7th
when a caseworker from the Division of Child Protection
arrived at the farm.
Minutes later, Michael Barisone is getting into his car
and driving a half a mile to confront Lauren
without even ever knowing or understanding why that worker was at the property.
Were you there looking specifically for Michael Barisone?
No.
[Schellhorn] The caseworker had been sent there
because of a neglect complaint from SafeSport
about potential neglect involving Mary Haskins and her children.
[Lauren] When I made the report,
SafeSport kept asking, "Are there minors on the property?"
I'm not CPS, and I don't have kids,
so I don't know what they're thinking about this
or why it's important.
I'm reporting him for what he is doing.
It was only about harassment, bullying, and abuse of power.
While Mary Haskins and the caseworker were having that private conversation,
three times he went in and interrupted.
And on the third occasion is when he told them
he needed to use the office,
the office being the place where the gun safe was.
His own expert testifies he remembers getting the gun,
loading it, and driving to go confront her.
[Schellhorn] Your recollection is that at some point,
when you were interviewing Michael Barisone,
he told you that he remembered
getting the gun from the safe before he went to the house?
- Yes. - You agree that's not in your report?
I'm not gonna look through it and waste the jury's time.
I'll accept your representation.
He made a conscious decision to go into his office
to get his gun, to load the gun,
put it in his pocket, hide it,
and that he went there knowing that this was... the end.
- [siren wailing] - [chattering over police radio]
[podcaster] We should have a kind of lengthy show this morning
with the closing arguments
of the Michael Barisone attempted murder trial.
[Taylor] We'll bring the jurors in.
[Bilinkas] There's a connection with the jury.
I think they appreciate my passion.
He could've made up a much better story!
"Kanarek had a gun. I shot her."
"I was getting the hell beaten out of me!"
"I don't remember" doesn't help him.
They believe that I believe that Michael Barisone was not guilty.
I don't have any remarkable catchphrases for you.
I'm not gonna cry.
I'm just gonna ask you to follow the facts and apply the law.
When it comes time for closing argument,
I'm asking them to rely on the evidence we gave them and return a guilty verdict,
that they trust the case that we gave them.
Just based on the fact that the defendant used a deadly weapon,
you can infer that his purpose was to take a life.
He knew when he opened the safe and took that gun
exactly what he was going to do.
What Lauren Kanarek did to him was horrible!
Horrible!
Who goes to the extent that Lauren Kanarek and Robert Goodwin went to?
Mr. Bilinkas said that about Lauren Kanarek
over and over and over.
"Who would do this?"
The defendant is doing
the exact same thing to her.
Michael Barisone was insane at the time of the incident.
He was suffering from a mental defect.
There's no memory disorder that a person would forget
just the time when they're committing a criminal act
until they're finished committing the criminal act.
They had a plan to destroy Michael Barisone.
Don't let them use you!
I would ask that you not return a verdict
based on any sympathy, disgust, or emotion.
Find Michael Barisone not guilty!
It is the right and just thing to do.
[reporter 1] Breaking news coming out of New Jersey
as a verdict is in.
[reporter 2] A verdict is handed in in the attempted murder case
of ex-Olympian Michael Barisone.
The verdict is in for Michael Barisone.
[Bilinkas] The jury had been out for days.
The pressure, again, is mounting.
You never know what a jury is gonna do.
[Schellhorn] As I tell almost all victims,
I felt very confident in the proofs that we had,
but anything is possible when the case goes to deliberations.
All right, counsel, Mr. Barisone.
The jury sent out a note about ten minutes ago
that they have in fact reached a verdict in this matter.
So we're gonna bring...
I was convinced Michael could literally have a heart attack.
[Lauren] I couldn't be in the room.
I left and went to go, like, sit on the stairs
with just my head on my hands.
[tense music playing]
[Schellhorn] The moment that a verdict comes in is highly stressful,
and it only gets worse as the jurors walk into the courtroom,
and literally the fate of the case is in their hands.
[Taylor] Be seated, everyone.
All right, Mr. Foreman, please rise, please.
Mr. Foreman, has the jury agreed upon a verdict in this case?
[foreman] We have.
[Taylor] With regard to count one, attempted murder of Lauren Kanarek,
what is your verdict?
[foreman] Not guilty by reason of insanity.
[Taylor] With regard to count two...
[podcaster] I can't remember the last time I heard, "Not guilty, reason of insanity."
[man 1] It's not temporary insanity. If he was temporarily insane,
why'd he sit in the courtroom every day, looking like he was a crazy man?
He did it 'cause he put on a show,
and the jury bought it hook, line, and sinker.
[man 2] There's a lot of conjecture, the idea that he was acting this way.
But I think for... That would have to be an Oscar-level performance
for him to act that way for eight hours.
[Bilinkas] People are saying, "That's an act."
"You had him act like this, had him act like that."
Fuck you. That never happened.
That was raw human emotion.
[Lara] They announced the verdict over the loudspeaker
at the show in Florida.
People at the show were cheering and crying.
Hashtag Free Michael!
People would text me and say, "Oh, my God, you've got to see the comments."
And, you know, they would send me a screenshot.
Very few people had any support for her.
[Taylor] Members of the jury, you have heard the verdict
as reported by your foreperson.
The defendant, Mr. Barisone, will now be civilly committed.
[Schellhorn] You can't shoot somebody, and I think that remains true.
From a civilized perspective,
even if you don't like Lauren, even if you don't like what she was doing,
it's just so hard for me to wrap my head around
someone maintaining that it was okay to shoot her.
[Jonathan] When you reach breaking point, you don't kill somebody.
You quit your job. You divorce your wife.
You throw the child out, move across the country.
The world knows you don't kill people because you're upset with them.
Finally, freedom!
Justice!
Finally, for all!
Michael Barisone is a free man!
[man] Yee-haw!
Thank you so much. Go home and--
- [Bilinkas] I'm gonna get drunk. - [Michael] I'm not.
[Bilinkas chuckles]
[Bilinkas] After the not guilty by reason of insanity,
Michael was put in a mental institution.
The doctors did there an extensive evaluation
and determined he does not have a mental defect
and that he should be released to the community.
[laughter]
I was physically at the trial every single day.
Through everything, our relationship just grew,
and, you know, we just had feelings for each other.
With the verdict, it was a huge, huge, huge relief
because I knew that we would have a future.
[soft music playing]
I'm sitting here because somebody said, "This wasn't his fault. He broke."
Whether I did anything wrong or I didn't do anything wrong,
regardless of all that,
I've been given a chance to have a new life,
and I wanna live it well.
- Halt. Halt. - [horse whinnies]
Thank you.
Okay, walk on.
[woman] How are you recovering from this?
I mean, it's... it's been a long road,
a very long, difficult, hard road that is never-ending.
Once two bullets collapse your lung entirely,
your body is never going to be the same again.
I do not think Michael Barisone is insane one single bit.
[Deininger] Something incredibly bad happened here.
I think that everybody involved has a chance
to start to try and live their lives again.
People go, "Michael, you got your life back!" Blah, blah. No!
I lost a tremendous amount, and I've gained back a lot,
but this is still this trauma, stigma thing.
I have an asterisk next to my name for the rest of my life.
I wanna show you this.
We have everything printed, every single thing.
Two TBs of things printed.
I don't know if they're all here. These are important messages too.
This is all printed-out text messages.
Don't get sucked down that stupid rabbit hole from these people.
If you'd like me to produce the exchange, I'll be happy to produce it.
[tense music playing]
I get told again and again and again, "Michael, leave this behind."
I'm not allowed to leave this behind.
[Lauren] This is the transcript of audio...
[Michael] This stack alone is hundreds of pages.
Rob, where is Dr. Hassan's...
How in the world does someone survive this?
I was a law-abiding man who never had any problems in life at all.
- Posting for page after page-- - Michael, we got--
Drink this. Relax.
We got this.
So he thought I was gonna burn the barn down?
Bullshit. I'm not defending myself against a post
that he made up in his head...
It's just so unbelievable that this jury could reach this verdict.
She has to watch it over and over again.
I'd prefer she stop watching because it's so painful.
Lauren Kanarek sat on a stand in a courtroom, and she said,
"I instituted a plot to destroy his life."
Lauren, you tried to destroy my life, and you failed.
If I was to actually make the Olympic Games or the World Cup final,
I will be the biggest comeback in history.
- [man 1] Michael Barisone! - [man 2] Michael Barisone.
- [man 3] Michael Barisone. - [cheering]
And that's my goal.
I'm not the type of person to go cry in the corner.
Come hell or high water, I'm going to continue in this sport.
And if you want me out of it, you're gonna have to kill me
like Michael tried to.
[tense music playing]
[music ends]