Witness Docks from Stocz from Stitcher

This story contains adult themes and descriptions of sexual violence.

Listeners, very real. Looking at his face, there was something wrong with his eyes, I think he was wearing like color contact lenses he had a weird

look and I the impression I had as a woman was like this is a slimy man this is somebody

I will never trust just from a picture.

Not ugly, not beautiful, you know, like a very tender guy, but it was something brang about him like first impression I got. So you're seeing those pictures and then you also know that he's a cop. So how did that

compute in your mind? Well unfortunately there is a lot of cops who are like that.

So, I mean there are a lot of good cops, but they're also,

it wouldn't be the first and the last one to, you know, sort of use

that kind of power that the police suits gives you. So sometimes you don't have

good guys wearing the cop suits. This is verified. I'm your host Natasha del Toro.

Here's where we are in the story.

After Maria returned home to Portugal, she admitted to herself that she'd been drugged and assaulted by her

couch-shirving host, the Italian cop, Leonardo.

And she managed to track down 14 other women from all over the world who like her had also been violated by this same guy.

So Maria formed a secret Facebook group where they could talk openly about what had happened and how to stop Leonardo.

They even considered returning to Padua to try to catch him in the act. But instead, Maria and her boyfriend decided they needed

some help. So they turned to a group of three Italian journalists at ERP, the

investigative reporting project, Italy.

Now, I want you to get to know them because they play a huge role in the story.

Cecilia, Giulio, and Alessia are all Italians in their 30s.

They're hardworking, they're passionate, and creative, and they're all investigative

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