Ramon | Featured on ABC's Betrayal: Secrets and Lies

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite on humor me with Robert

Smigle and Friends.

“Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier this week”

my guest. SNL's Mikey Day and Headwriters Streeter Side L helped an Occupella band with their "Between Songs" banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes, those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigle and Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential.

Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days I put on 10 pounds. I was having troubles stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. On the look back at it podcast. The next is every nine days, big moment for me, 84's big to meet. I'm Sam Jack and I'm Alex E. Grish. Each episode we pick a year, unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived

it. With our friends, fellow comedians and favorite others, like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80's. If I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it was good. You're listening to learn the hard way with your favorite therapist and host care games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows

what he's doing. And he men carry a suit of arm and it's similar to the world that you're not to be played with.

“And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to listen to”

learn the hard way on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Andrea and we are re-releasing some of our past weekly episodes and there's a good reason why. For the last year, I have been working with ABC on turning some of your favorite episodes

of Betrayal Weekly into a TV show. The show is called Betrayal Secrets and Lies, and it airs every Sunday at 10 p.m. on ABC. When Ramon shared his story on Betrayal Weekly, it felt different. Not just because of what he went through, but because of who was telling it.

At the time, we weren't hearing many men speak openly about Betrayal. And for a lot of men, there's this unspoken pressure to stay quiet, to move on, to not name the hurt. Ramon chose to do the opposite. He chose to speak up, to be honest, to be vulnerable, about something deeply personal,

and that choice had a ripple effect. After his episode aired, more men wrote in, or stories came forward. Because for the first time, they saw themselves in someone else's experience. Ramon helped create that space.

And what makes his story even more powerful is what he had built, a life rooted in purpose,

mentoring young boxers, creating community, finding love, until someone from his past walked back in, and everything unraveled. What happened to Ramon is heartbreaking, but the impact of him speaking out, it's bigger than just one story. So please check out Betrayal Secrets and Lies on ABC and Hulu to see Ramon and where

his story takes place, and enjoy the episode. They take me in a black-out SUV to this location where they had already dug out this shallow grave. When I get there, they tell me they'll carry me to the strip down to you underwear. They show me how to pose on my hands, bow down my back, and I looked like I was a little

bit swollen, they put more blood on me, and they even threw dirt on me, which I thought

“it was slowly breaking, and close-wise, the only thing that I could remember was the sound”

of the 35 millimeter as it went around me just clicking pictures of me. I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most, and the deceptions that change everything. Ramon's so-sister story is one of those stranger than fiction kind of tales, it's a Betrayal that threatens everything, including Ramon's life, Ramon grew up in Puerto Rico,

the only son in a traditional and tight-knit family, Ramon idolized his father, who was a professional wrestler. Like the kind you see on WWE and WWE, and I just see him on TV all the time in Puerto

As a kid, Ramon tagged along with his dad to the gym, and it was there where he fell in love with what he calls the real thing, boxing. I started boxing about seven years old in Puerto Rico. That was my life. School boxing home, school boxing home, that was it, takes a lot of discipline in boxing

“if you want to do it right, and that's what it taught me.”

And all of that discipline started to pay off for Ramon. You fought in hundreds of amateur matches as a teenager, and he was winning a lot. A lot of the trainers that worked with me, they said that I had a lot of natural talent, and people started to say, "Man, you know, we good when you go up, for my size I hit very hard."

He's careful to point out that even though he was a champion in the ring, he never fought

outside of it. He felt like it was his responsibility as an athlete, to maintain a strong sense of right and wrong. I don't fight in the street, boxing is a skill, and when you get in that ring, it's like a chess match.

He dreamed of going pro and taking care of his family. The so-so's moved from Puerto Rico to Houston, Texas when Ramon was a teenager. After sweeping the amateur leagues, Ramon went pro. My father actually had to side my contract to turn pro because I was under age. He was a professional boxer for a few years before he eventually settled into a new career,

coaching and training young boxers in the U.S. But when it turns into a business and you see like everybody was to make money from you. Everybody was the piece of the pie. It was tough when it started getting to me. In his early 20s, he fell in love and got married.

He and his first wife had three kids.

“I mean, praise to all the mothers that stay at home with their kids because you know what?”

That is a tough, tough job. It's a full-time job. Raising three kids together strained their relationship. They moved to Houston to be closer to Ramon's parents. That's where he still lives today.

But even with his parents help, Ramon and his first wife knew that they weren't a match. They needed to separate. It didn't work out. Even though we couldn't work it out, we did the best that we could for our kids. And today's day, you know, now we have great kids together.

So, I respect that she respects me. Ramon missed being a full-time dad. It was more of free time on his hands. He decided to start a non-profit. And after school boxing program, for at-risk youths.

Now we're picking up after school, taking them to the gym, they will get a snack, homework help, and the box, and then we also talked about life situations. He loved being involved with the community and helping kids who needed a positive influence in their lives. That's how we met a close friend.

His name is Mundo. That's the name is your own name. That's the name that he went by. As a teenager, Mundo had been involved with the gang and went to prison. Now that he was out, he was turning his life around, looking for a purpose.

He always loved boxing. He saw a sign about the after school program, and he asked for Mundo if he could fall into here. And he said, "Ah, can I start today?" I said, "Start today."

He said, "Right out the bed." He said, "Yeah, I want to start today." So he went to his truck. He got some workout clothes, and he went right in with my kids. Mundo kept coming back day after day.

And Ramon liked how he related to the kids. He was honest with them about the bad choices he'd made. He had all these tattoos with his gang name on his back.

He'd never hardy ever took off his shirt because he didn't want people to see that kind

of stuff and the kids to see that kind of stuff.

“That's what I like about him, that he meant to or so many kids in the gym to not go through”

the same thing that he went through. Ramon and Mundo became close friends. They ran the after school program together. And Mundo even started working alongside Ramon at his day job, training professional boxers.

He became kind of like my right-hand man, and I would tell people when he went to the boxing tournament and it shows what he did. There's another sign. He has my third sign. He really, really close to me.

He called Pops as I was like a father for your to help. Ramon and Mundo worked side by side, training professionals, and then running the after-school program. It went on like this for years. That was until Mundo got married and had a kid of his own.

And Ramon moved to the other side of the city. Eventually, the two slowly fell out of touch. Ramon was now seven years out from his divorce, and he wanted to find someone to share his life with. That's when a friend told him about a new dance club in Houston.

He goes, "You know, he could play that salsa merengue, you know, that kind of stuff that you like. I want to go check it out. I hear this a lot of beautiful ladies there too." It was the Saturday night, and a weekend where Ramon didn't have his kids, so he decided

It was packed.

“He was going on, you know, and music was the kind of music that I liked, and the dance floor”

was packed. There she was.

He was mesmerized by this one woman on the dance floor.

So I kept looking at this lady on the other dance floor. She danced very, very well. And I might think like, "Well, she looks Colombian or the Caribbean, the way she's dancing. She was wearing a tight, meany black dress, he looked like he was painted on her. Beautiful, all his skin, she had all black hair.

Next thing I know, I see her walking towards me." And I said, "Okay, I'm trying to be cool about it." And she steps on my toe, she had high heels on it, and it was to be three-inch heels. And then I was like, "Oh my goodness, I just went down, I had to be just went down." She starts telling me, "I'm Spanish, home, I got something so sorry, I'm so sorry, but you're

okay." And then we'd say, "All I could do is just look up, stand my hand and say, which it dance with me."

“And she said, "Of course I dance with you, and that's where it all started."”

Her name was Lulu. Her real name was Maria, they moved this, she went by Lulu, they had an instant connection. After that night on the dance floor, Ramon and Lulu started going on dates, and she admitted she hadn't stepped on Ramon's toe by accident. She said, "Yeah, I did that on purpose, I wanted to get to know you."

And that's exactly what they did. We had a lot of common, but she told me that she was the worst mother to had recently moved to Texas or Mexico City for a better life for herself at her kids. After a few dates, Ramon explained to Lulu that his career as a boxing coach was very demanding. It meant working late nights and traveling to tournaments on the weekends.

He knew it was the kind of schedule that could make dating difficult if not impossible. But it didn't scare Lulu off. She was supportive of his career, and she wanted to help him succeed. She started going to those turdms with me, sit there at the whole time, supporting me, helping me with the kids, and I like that about her.

Just like Ramon, Lulu was a hard worker. The wish she was making ends meet to try to take care of family was working on the ground. She will clean houses. Lulu was determined to become a US citizen. In addition to cleaning houses and raising her kids, she went to night school to improve

her English. And I would help her too, you know, talk into her English when I cursed. She was just talking to more English when she was up on the learning list. Ramon was impressed. They both had young kids from their previous marriages.

After about six months of dating, they started getting to know each other's families. There were family gatherings.

On her side, and my side, Lulu was always there helping out, cleaning, helping, you know,

with the food. She was always very helpful with everybody. And my mother and family, they liked it, you know, they saw how she treated me. And they saw that out, have been a loan for seven years now. And they kind of saw something in her that, you know, she might be the one.

Having his mother's approval sealed the deal for Ramon. One night in 2009, after a year and a half together, I wouldn't want me and I had to post to her. She just said, yes, of course, and then she started crying and crying, and I said, "Well, what's going on?

Are you okay?" And all she kept saying was that after all she went through with her ex-husband, she thought it would ever happen again, and she saw it in me that I was a good man, and she just couldn't believe that I asked Mary here. During their engagement, Lulu did it on him.

Oh, my goodness. There was times where I would have a drink, and I wasn't even halfway done. And she would go give me another one.

“Guys, like, man, how do you fight a woman like that man?”

Just beautiful, and she treats you like a king. You know, kind of like, make you stick your chest a little bit too, like, wow, that's my lady, actually. You know, like kind of stuff. The couple had a quick engagement.

It was a second marriage for both of them, so they opted for a simple courthouse ceremony with a backyard reception. It was a mucicous chastole. In fact, she wanted to give me that as a present sheet, that a big celebration for my marriage, a lot of family and friends were there.

Her family and her sister and brother-in-law were all there. In the middle of the reception, surrounded by family, music, and food, something strange

happened that Ramon will never forget.

Lulu's mother approached him, and she had a stern look on her face. Her mother walks up to me, and they she just whispers in my ear. And as she's your troublemaker, a walks away.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged, it's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games, and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having troubles stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

“Do you remember when Diana Ross, double-tap little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?”

I know what you're thinking, what the hell does George Bush got to do a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the lookback at a podcast. I'm SamJet, and I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how he survived it.

Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just 'cause of crack. I'm down to the talk about crack or they, but yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So, I'm starting to see that there's a through line.

We also have eggs on the table right now, so you're finishing that sense of it. Yes, I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really, yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Just in to look back at it on the Ihard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn in the Hard Way with Me. Your host, and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. In recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience

in the mental health field, and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking tripfunting, Ryan Clark, sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase, that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it, and we don't know when we've done enough, because people

scoreboard what life becomes about wins and losses, Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because

“you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth, are you a good person”

because you're free? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kier Games, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn in the Hard Way. Open your free, out-heart radio app, search, Learn in the Hard Way, and listen to them. My mother-in-law spent years sabotaging our relationship until karma made her pay for it. Wait a minute, Dakota.

How bad did it get? Well, I got bad enough that her son-in-law had to eventually arrest her himself. Oh, she moved in for two weeks, lasted for five. She left nail clippings in the bathtub, candy stuck to the furniture, and then she pressed her ear against the bedroom door and burst in screaming.

She did not burst in while they were... She did.

They kicked her out and paid for hotel, and they thought, "Hey, it's finally over."

Days later, she called her son-in-law at work, claiming that his partner had been in some kind of freak accident and had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He called every hospital in the city, and his partner was making coffee the entire time. She faked a medical emergency just to test whether or not he loved her son? Yeah, and she sat in the hospital parking lot waiting for him to see if he would show up.

When I didn't work, she walked into the son-in-law's police station and filed a kidnapping report against him. She filed a kidnapping report against him in his own police station.

“Spoiler's karma is going to show up in the best way possible.”

So if you want to hear how this story ends, search okay story time on the iHeart Radio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you're listening to podcasts. In 2009, Ramon Soso was newly married to his second-life Lulu. She was hardworking, supportive of his career, and she went above and beyond to make him happy. Instead of a honeymoon, Lulu wanted to take a more practical approach.

She wanted to invest in becoming a citizen. That's what she wanted. It's almost okay. Well, that's what she wanted. I was happy for her, because she was just tired of cleaning the houses, so she wanted

to get a regular job and be here legally. It was a mountain of paperwork.

The first big hurdle, the couple faced together.

And is that cheap? And we did it. We went over there to the immigration attorney, and I signed all the papers, saying that you was like, "Well, 300 pages is a lot of responsibility that you take when you sponsor a person to be in this country legally."

With Lulu's immigration paperwork underway, they started their new life together. The first years of our marriage, what you call the honeymoon years, were wonderful.

She supported that also, she cared a lot about me, she cared that I was a father-figured to her son, her daughter.

“Early on in their marriage, Ramon told Lulu about his career dreams.”

She wanted to open his own boxing gym in Houston, a place where he could coach and train this city's best boxers. But he knew this dream was a few years away. He didn't have the money for all the upfront costs. I told her how much he was going to cost, and she goes, "I didn't get there for you."

And I said, "What are you talking about?" Lulu was determined to help Ramon's dream come true. She was barring money for family, and also she maxed out all this credit cards as she had.

That's the way we were able to open up our first gym and buy all the equipment.

The plan was dubious, but it worked, and he was grateful for it. The gym quickly became a full-time job for both Ramon and Lulu. He did the head coaching and training, and she handled the business side of things. She told me that back in Mexico City, she used to work for Ford, and she was an executive secretary, and she knew how to keep a books.

And she was good at it.

“So I was very happy that I had somebody that didn't because I mean, I'm not good at that”

part. I'm good at training people. I'm good at teaching them how to fight a box. Andy was, his gym became the place for lead boxers to sharpen their skills. And it was growing quickly.

The business took off. It took off. It took off quick. My day started at four in one and I was too mad in the evening. And I was literally exhausted every day, but that surprised you pay when you're at a business.

Within a year, he had already paid Lulu back, and they were starting to make real money. I just get the same to myself like, "Wow, this is what I wanted." I mean, that didn't become a world champion and you go to the Olympics, but I'm still doing something with boxing, and that's the same time I'm making money. And we were financially doing very, very well.

So we went to the point where we ended up buying a big house, cars, vacations, so everything was good. And to me, life was good. One day, Ramon got an unexpected visitor at the gym. His old friend, Mundo.

And I went, "Mundo, I had a slurry." It was like, "We picked up right where we had left off." Mundo asked to come work with Ramon again, but Lulu wasn't so sure about him. She didn't like his luck, or his criminal background. She told me, "I don't know about having somebody like that around our business."

She saw the tattoos. I've had to be honest with her, that told her his background, everything that happened to him. She had been released from prison back in the day, being shot at, gang member. But he cleaned his life.

He wanted to live a different life. But then, when we started coming around helping me and helping with the gym and helping the weekend, so we could have days off, when she saw the benefits in him, then she said, "Okay, well, we're making a new zone." So Mundo started working nights in weekends at the gym.

It was a relief, the so-soes really needed the help. They were beginning to struggle at home with the pressure of parenting and managing their business. So, at home, racing the family was getting difficult, and Lulu would take the issues that she had with her kids, not on me.

So yet, a family dynamic, we were seeing cracks.

After the first three years of marriage, Ramon started noticing that Lulu was changing too.

She was becoming more demanding. She did want my kids to come around, she did want my family, even my family started coming to my house, because they saw how she changed. She wasn't the same person that very nice lady that they had met when her first met her. Lulu was getting controlling about how Ramon spent money, while she was spending more

than ever. She would go shopping and come back from the mall with all these bags, I said, "What are you doing?" Mundo's concern was amplified when he discovered. I started noticing that the books were not adding up to the number of people, members

we had in the gym.

“And every time I would bring up that situation, I said, "Hey, what's going on here?”

This is not adding up the bottom line."

And she would always say, "I ought to worry about it," and that was all set in. So we hired someone else to take over the books. One night, Ramon came home from the gym to find that Lulu was posting a party at the house. The party he hadn't heard about, there were balloons and a cake, Lulu's entire family was there.

And I can tell that she had been drinking, because she was just slurring a little bit.

And she said, "Say hello to your new American wife."

“And I'm like, "What are you talking about?"”

Lulu had applied for citizenship and she was approved. Earlier that day, she'd gone to her naturalization ceremony and officially became a US citizen. But she hadn't mentioned it to Ramon, her husband, and the sponsor of her visa.

And I say, "What a second."

You're here legally in this country because of me. Your kids are here legally because of me. And you don't have the respect to ask me like, "Do you want to go to the celebration?" They got to the poor were, "I asked her, point blank." "Did you marry me just to be here legally?"

Which are family, the money, the American lifestyle. And she came back with, "Look at me, I'm beautiful, look at my body. I can get any better I want." And meant to have a lot more money than you. But no, I chose you, I want to be with you, and I love you."

“He wanted to believe her, but he was still disturbed by her choices.”

Not to mention her controlling behavior, not wanting his kids around, her spending, the discrepancies in the books. And now, she hadn't even invited him to her citizenship ceremony. And I say, "No, this is that cool. I like the way his marriage is going."

Her own pulled away emotionally and physically. He knew something was wrong, but he was too busy with his gym to take immediate action and file for divorce. In the meantime, the couple started sleeping in separate bedrooms.

"Who was still married, but living separate lives basically in the same house?"

He didn't expect Lulu to be the one to file for divorce. But one day, she came to him with the papers, and she had a bold request. She wanted to keep the house, and the business. "That's a nod, I don't think so. We're going to go half.

Everything is going to split down the middle. You go your waggle my way, but all the money and time that I have invested in this marriage and everything that we have. No." He said, "No, this is my house.

So I told her, "We can work it out or we can go to court."

“And that's what I got my attorney and we were going to fight it out."”

He had been through a divorce before. And although the first one was difficult, it had been fair and respectful. But this divorce was about to take a devastating turn. "I remember I was driving and wouldn't have caused me." Mundo explained that the night before, he'd been closing the gym when he overheard Lulu

talking about hiring a hitman. "And you know, Mundo being funny when we joke around before all the time, I said, "Mundo, you know, we joke around, man." "You know what we want? Because it's just that cool when we joke like that."

He said, "No, no, pops." I said, "Look, in people's eyes when they want to kill somebody." And she has that look. Mundo approached Lulu to ask about what he overheard.

And he walked up to the rest, and he got used to be careful what you say, because you never

know it was listening, and he said, "Are you guys talking about remote?" And he said, "Yeah." Mundo said, "You want him gone and you're a disappear?" And Mundo did the pistol side with his hand, and he said, "You want him gone like this?" Like, you know, and she said, "Yeah, I'm tired of him, and when she was gone disappear."

"Yeah, like that. I just want him gone out of my life." Mundo said to you, "Well, you know, I've got some people that can do the job for you." Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged, it's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games, and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having troubles stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the I-Hard Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sam Jet, and I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick you here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about cracking the eggs.

I'm down to talk about crack or tape, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally, just so you all know. At this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through-line. We also have eggs on the table right now.

So, you know. Are you fishing as sensitive?

“Yes, I don't think there's a more important year for black people.”

Really?

Yeah, for me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Listen to look back at it on the I-Hard Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn In The Hard Way With Me, Your Hose, and your favorite therapists, care games, and in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field, and conversations with so many incredible guests.

I'm talking trip, fine team, Ryan Clark, sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it, and we don't know when we've done enough, because people are in a scoreboard or what, life becomes about wins and losses, Steve Burns, Dustin

Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth, are

you a good person because you're free, because that's two different intentions, bro.

Absolutely, and that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keer Games, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure and purpose on my new podcast, Learn In The Hard Way. Hope you're free, I'm heart radial at, search, learn in the hard way, and listen.

My mother-in-law spent years sabotaging our relationship until karma made her pay for it. Wait a minute, Dakota. How bad did it get? Well, I got bad enough that her son-in-law had to eventually arrest her himself. She moved in for two weeks, lasted for five, she left nail clippings in the bathtub, candy

stuck to the furniture, and then she pressed her eariest of bedroom door and burst in screaming. She did not burst in while they were shooting, they kicked her out and paid for her

hotel, and they thought, "Hey, it's finally over."

Days later, she called her son-in-law at work, claiming that his partner had been in some kind of freak accident, and had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He called every hospital in the city, and his partner was making coffee the entire time. She faked a medical emergency just to test whether or not he loved her son. Yeah, and she sat in the hospital parking lot waiting for him to see if he would show up.

When I didn't work, she walked into the son-in-law's police station and filed a kidnapping report against him. She filed a kidnapping report against him in his own police station.

“Spoilers, Karma's going to show up in the best way possible, so if you want to hear”

how this story ends, search okay story time on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you're listening to podcasts. Moonjo told Lulu he could help, that he knew someone who could do the hit, instead of calling up a connection, he went straight to his good friend Ramon. I was upset, I was so upset I had to pull over, I had so much rage, I didn't know what

to do. That was like what I do, so I called a police, he said, no, he used to do, I talked to her, and I'm going to start meeting with her, and I'm going to record every day on my phone, and see how far she's willing to go, and then I want to want to do us take all these recordings to the police and see what they want to do.

Ramon was skeptical that this plan would work, and taking Moonjo at his word, meant Lulu was dangerous, so right after that phone call, he decided to go to the police. And I told him the situation, what happened, and he responded with, you know what? You guys are going through a divorce, women and men sometimes say things when they're upset, and that they want to kill their wives or their husbands, but this is saying it at an anger.

There's really not a lot of evidence to do anything with that. He wasn't sure if Moonjo's plan to use secret recordings would be admissible, or even legal. It sounded kind of like in trapmen, so he asked the detectives about it. I told a whole black woman who doesn't look, and he said, "Guess, you can go and

“get more evidence." And I said, "Okay, barely that is legal, so that's what we did."”

So they moved forward with the plan. Moonjo would meet with Lulu in private places like cars to see if she was actually serious about hiring a hitman. And all the while, he was secretly recording on his phone. For this to work, she'd have to believe that Moonjo was in 100%.

But why would she trust Moonjo, one of Ramon's best friends? Ramon has a simple answer. Lulu's so desperate in everything that's going on, the divorce that I go on her way, her life is slowly crumbling. The most difficult part of their plan was that Ramon would have to play dumb, and spend

she was planning.

“Ramon remembers turning into his driveway that day, something he'd done a thousand times”

before, and he always felt comfort and relief when he got home.

But now, it was all so eerie. His house would be crime-seed, and him, an unsuspecting murder victim. Even though he was sleeping in separate rooms, I had to go home, and see this lady, and look at this lady. Knowing that she wanted to have me killed.

He barely said a word to her. That night, he lodged his bedroom door. He tried to sleep, but he was wide away, but thoughts racing. People say things they don't mean during a divorce all the time, could she just be fuming, or could she actually go through with it?

The next day, Ramon got his answer. It turns out, Lulu was in a hurry. She wanted to take Mundo up on his offer right away. Lulu, what I mean did, before our divorce was finalized, because she said to Mundo look, if he dies after our divorce is finalized, my kids get everything, but if he dies before

that the divorce is finalized, she gets everything. Now, the divorce was going to be finalized in about a month, so she wanted me dead as soon as possible. Ramon had spent seven years with Lulu. From most of that time, he genuinely adored her.

He wanted to give her that second chance at a loving partnership, and he dreamed of seeing

her succeed alongside of him. Instead, she was throwing it all away, and Ramon heard everything, captured on tape. I killed Lulu when I was hearing from Lulu. She's telling Mundo how she's practicing, how she's going to cry, when the police calls her after they kill me, and she's literally making crying sounds, and she starts laughing

after that. In one of the first recorded conversations, Lulu dropped a bomb shell.

“Lumi was planning to have me kill two years prior to our divorce, I was like, what?”

And Mundo said, yeah, I have it on one of the recordings, and I'm listening to it. And I said, I can't believe what I'm listening to. Two years earlier, they'd taken a family vacation to Mexico City, from my own thought their relationship was in a good place. And she was so happy to show me Mexico City, and go to the pyramids, she had a whole

itinerary for everything we were supposed to do in Mexico City. She told Mundo that she was planning to kill Ramon on that trip, Lulu wanted his savings, his business, and his life insurance. She was conspiring to commit the crime with a friend back in Mexico. And the plan was, yeah, bring them over here, we'll disappear, people disappear here all

this time. Where we can do is have you guys help for ransom, and they're going to let you go, and then we're going to disappear here.

“And then Mundo asked Lulu, and so, how come you didn't go through with it?”

And Lulu said, well, I didn't have the heart to do it then. Well, now I do it. This chilled him to the bone, he didn't recognize this woman. He'd never heard his wife speak like this before, the coldness in her voice, her laughter. They never crossed my mind that Lulu had this cold blooded heart through our good times

and our marriage, I never would have ever thought, in a million years, this person had

that kind of mind to do this kind of stuff. He became genuinely terrified for his life. Ramon let the house and stayed with his parents who lived across town. In the meantime, Mundo asked Lulu if she wanted him to reach out to one of his guys, if she was ready.

She said she was, so Mundo called his contacts. He called one of them John Boy and the other one, Puckle. If those sound like characters from a crummy action movie, it's because they are. So with that, he saw a blood in blood out.

From that movie.

“But Lulu bought it, so Mundo texted Puckle, who was actually a remote using a burner”

phone. Then I said, well, Mundo, I'm not a street guy. So he's only teaching me how to talk for text in that ganged lingo to pass us a criminal basically. He's meeting with Lulu and the person I do at text, Mundo said, hey, the boss lead ready

to do this. We need $200 for the toy. Mundo explained that the hit would cost $12,000, but the guys would need $200 upfront for the gun. She went to our bank, we still had our account together.

She went to our account, got the $200 out of our savings, which is basically money too,

and gets Mundo $200.

“As soon as the money changed hands, they had enough to go to the police.”

The moment was both a relief and a horrible betrayal. And with this evidence, the police were finally ready to move on remote case. They took it very seriously. They had to get all these different agencies together and come up with a plan. State troopers, the share with the par with FBI, they got real quick.

Mundo enforcement wanted to collect evidence of their own. They decided to see if Lulu would make a down payment for the hit, and if she would exchange the money with one of these fictitious hitmen in person. The state police brought their own undercover police officer to play as one of the hitman to start meeting with Mundo in person.

And in this guy, Chris Oliver, the street, died that he was really a gang member, hit man, you know, you put everything to the tea.

“You had all the tats, anybody talk, you had a mean look like you would be scared of him.”

Lulu met him in a car, which, of course, was an undercover police car full of cameras. She said she didn't have the cash to pay him just yet, but she brought my own jewelry as a down payment from my own order. Bracelets, watches, just so self that I have left behind at the house, and she gave that to him as a down payment.

And she also had the nerd to tell him, look, and he also wears this really nice watch. And if he has it on, you can keep that too, because his wears something in then, after he dies, I'll give you the rest of the money. And he says, OK, we'll take care of business down. That night, the police asked for Mundo to come to the station right away.

And I said, what about Mundo? He's not coming, he said, no, we just need to talk to you.

When I arrived at the station, go to the special room that we always met.

And when I get in, I started noticing like, wait a second, there's a lot more people in this room than before. The FBI guy was there at the state police, the detective and the A or assistant, the A was there. So it was all packed, room, and they started telling me to say, OK, we're mowing up. We feel that we have enough evidence to arrest Lumi right now, but here's the deal.

You guys want to business here locally. She's a mother, she's there being a trouble, and we need to make this a slammed-on case. I'm afraid that if we go to a jury trial, we might have one of the jurists who are sorry for her, and I just want to make sure it's a slammed-on case, so we have decided to stage your death and show her your picture and then record it.

It sounded over the top.

He'd never heard anything like it, and to be honest, neither of I.

The police hold her mouth, but they need him for three days, so we quickly went home and packed it back. He was advised not to tell anyone where he was going. That moon dough, that his parents, not his kids. He returned to the police station the next morning, and was surprised when the police started

doing special effects make up. To make it look, a kid been shot in the head. The police even had a reference image. A photo of a real murder victim whose body had been dumped in the desert. They take me in a blacked-out SUV to this location where they had already dug out this

shallow grave. And when I get there, the detector tells me he'll get me to the strip down to the underwear. They show me how to pose on my hands, bow down my back, and I looked like I was a little bit swollen, they put more blood on me, and they went through dirt on me, which I thought it was slowly creating, and closed my eyes, and the only thing that I could remember the

taking pictures of me.

“And then the detector, the selfie, Mr. Shosa, we're done here, to close on, and they took”

me a way to a hotel.

He sat in the hotel room for two days, not able to contact anyone, just waiting for the

police to arrest Lulo. I couldn't sleep, all I did was pay back and forth, thinking about all of the different situation, what he threw doesn't happen, what does she, doesn't fall for it. What are my kids gonna think when they see this, my parents, everybody, I mean, I mean, it's so many things going through my head, meanwhile, back in Houston, the undercover police officer

was in their car with Lulo, and he shows Lulo the picture of me in the shallow grave. So next thing she does, she starts racing up her hands up, like doing the racing the roof, like she's laughing, like, yeah, I'd like to get paid, I hit the lotto, and then watch out of the car, closes the door, no idea whatsoever, the whole time she was starting to run on the cover, police officer.

“Lulo was arrested right there for solicitation of first-degree capital murder.”

After the arrest was made, the police called Ramon's hotel room to let him know. I literally said on the edge of that bed and tears started coming out, tears of anger, tears of sadness, not because I was still in love with this person, but seating think about me being a son, me being a father, a friend, a brother, all those, seeing think about none of that. You taking me away from my kids, my mother, my father, that hurt me a lot.

Ramon says the worst part of this entire betrayal was what happened next. He hadn't been able to talk to his family for three days and explain where he was going or what was going on. He's the kind of son who calls his mom nearly every day. He knew she'd be panicked.

So as soon as he could, he dialed his parents' house.

My father asked his phone, and my dad never asked his phone, my dad is not a phone person.

And she says, "Well, sure, what are you at?" And I can hear the crack in his voice, and the back row, I hear my mother screamily crying. I kind of cry you hear a few little rules with somebody passes. His parents had just heard the news of Lulu's arrest, but they didn't know it was a setup.

“The only thing they knew was that they hadn't heard from Ramon, and that his wife had”

just been arrested for soliciting his murder. And I tried to drive his fastest possible trying to get to her, and when I get there, my dad opened his door and my dad's eyes were blood shut. I've never seen my dad cry ever. He just hugged me and I was straight to my mother, she was there on the catches.

She can't catch her breath in, and she's crying and said, "Mom, come, I'm okay. I mean, I'm okay." And you know, I tried to explain to her, "That was gonna be okay." But she still couldn't catch her breath. She was basically hyperventilating, you know, because she was so anxious.

This is the moment that still haunts Ramon. Seeing his own mom grieve his dad. It's something few people ever see. And it's extremely difficult to process. You know, I'm there only son, and there forget that it's gonna be the picture that

it always be all I was. My dad won't come up with him. He's telling her, "It's gonna be okay."

Even though Lulu was being held on a million dollar bail, Ramon couldn't shake this

fear that she'd somehow find him. I didn't know if Lulu had a plan B or C, so I was sleeping with a loaded shotgun next to my bed. Then I had another loaded gun on the counter of my kitchen, which was a 40 millimeter. Then I had a 9 millimeter loaded in my vehicle at all times, ready to go.

In the year following Lulu's arrest, he didn't leave the house unless he had to. Over time, all of that fear turned to anger. As so much bottled up anger inside of me, my family, my kids and my mother, all that anger

Anybody that has gone through something so traumatic like have went through, you can't live with them with anger.

“I couldn't continue to live the whales living with that anger, with loaded guns around”

me all the time, I was a ticking bomb, but if there's I was afraid of myself.

After 15 months in jail, Lulu pleaded down to second degree solicitation of capital murder.

Ramon channeled his anger into writing a victim impact statement to deliver at her sentencing hearing. I mean, I was going to let her have it verbally of all the pain and anger that she had caused me and my family. When they let me talk, it was packed, a lot of people were there, from the press.

I get up, I took a deep breath, I should gave this lady. This was about him. It wasn't about making Lulu feel better or letting her off the hook. It was about making this moment into a ceremony for himself. This ceremony to release all the anger he'd been carrying.

And once I did that, it was as if all that anger just was gone.

“Really like all that air went out of the boat and I was able to breathe in, and it was just”

life was beginning to be more normal now. Lulu was sentenced to 20 years, but ended up serving eight and a half. She was released in November of 2023, and she'll serve another 12 years on parole. She's on the very, very strict rules with the Texas State Parole board. She misses up, she's going right back in.

Ramon decided to move on from the spaces they shared, which meant selling the house and the gym. It was just way too many memories I just need to move on. As for Mundo, there's still friends today. You just didn't think about Lulu every day like he used to.

It's in part because... I mean, love again. Yes, yes, it's been wonderful to me. It's just Puerto Rican too. I say that because we have a lot in common with our cultures.

Ramon is determined to turn his betrayal into a positive force. He wrote a memoir about his experience. It's called, "I walked on my own grave." And he wants to tell his story on stage as a one-man play. I'm not an actor, I'm not a professional speaker.

But when you speak from the heart, it means something. And I think I'd like to do that tell my story on stage. The real deal here within that haven. Part of his healing process has been understanding that there's a term for what Lulu did to him.

The terror he lived with for years afterwards. It's domestic abuse.

“Even though his story has so many twists and turns, that's what it boils down to.”

His own spouse tried to have him killed. As you know, we end all of our weekly episodes with the same question. Why did you want to tell your story? My hope is that my story heals many women that are caught in difficult situations in their marriage.

I go through what I went through, because I was a victim of domestic abuse. And it's hard for people to understand that, basically, you're a boxer and you're this and you're that.

So I advocate for men that are victims of domestic abuse to never give up, get help.

I mean, just like women, men should be getting the same type of help. On the next episode of Betrayal, who wants to file a police report against their father? You know, I didn't want to put my dad in jail. I really didn't, like, I didn't want to be the kind of person we did that. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team or want to tell us your Betrayal story,

email us at [email protected]. Also, please be sure to follow us @glaspodcasts on Instagram for all Betrayal content news and updates. We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts.

And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Fives are reviews go a long way, a big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of glass podcasts, a division of glass entertainment group in partnership with iHeart podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass in Jennifer Fasin, hosted and produced by

associate producers are Kristen Belkuri and Caitlyn Golden, our iHeart team is Allie Perry

“and Jessica Crancheck, audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio and”

Nico Aruca. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by my music. And for more podcast from iHeart visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite on humor me with Robert

Smigle and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Oden Kirk to David Letterman help make you funnier this week my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and Headwriters Streeter Side L helped an Occupel a band with their between songs Banner. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes, those people are starving for Banner.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigle and Friends on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where Dolping is not only legal but encouraged, it's the enhanced games, some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential, either way the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds, I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the look back at it podcast. Thanks in 79, that was a big moment for me, 84 is big to me.

I'm Sam Jay and I'm Alex Egrish, each episode we pick a here, unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it, with our friends, fellow comedians and favorite others, like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

“It was a wild year, I don't think there's a more important year for black people.”

Listen to look back at it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations, that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing, how many men carry a suit or armor.

It's similar to the world that you're not to be played with, and just because you have

“the capability that does not mean that you need to.”

Listen to learn the hard way on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.