Out Of The Blue Podcast Series

About Out Of The Blue Podcast Series

I was arrested in 2017 and acquitted nearly four years later to the day. This is what happened in between. www.outofthebluepodcast.com (https://www.outofthebluepodcast.com/s/out-of-the-blue?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Accused - Acquitted - Ruined

Category

society & culture · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

24 Feb 2025

Latest episode

23 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

25 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 Oct 2026

   Introducing Beth Pacunas

   For three years, Out of the Blue has been a one-man show. I wrote it. I voiced it. I produced it. Hundreds of episodes. The heart of that work was a ten-part series about being wrongfully accused of rape at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. It covered four years of my life. From arrest to acquittal. From the headline to the silence that followed it. I told that story alone because I had to. Now I am ready for a change. And this is a good one. Meet Beth Pacunas My new co-host is Beth Pacunas. She is a writer, producer, and filmmaker. She is also a progressive feminist, and she says so without apology. Beth has spent years working with women challenged by poverty, domestic violence, and sexual violence. These are women whose voices are often drowned out in the noise of social media. Beth works as an on-set intimacy coordinator for motion pictures. Consent is not an abstraction for her. It is her job. She is an outspoken advocate for rape victims and for people caught in the cycle of domestic violence. She is also a survivor. That is exactly why her voice matters here. We do not always agree. That is the point. Beth brings a fresh, provocative, and nuanced view to the questions I take on each week. In This Episode Beth talks about her own experience as a victim of rape. She talks about what it took to name it, and what it cost. Then she tells me what she thought when she first heard about the accusations against me. She did not start out on my side. She describes how her thinking shifted, and what moved it. It was not loyalty. It was the facts, and the questions nobody seemed willing to ask. We talk about why a survivor would choose to sit across the table from a man who was accused. We talk about what it means to hold two things at once. That rape is real and devastating. And that an accusation is not a verdict. And Beth explains why she wants to confront the hard questions in our debates about sexual violence. Biased media. The mixed messages coming from social media and politics. The pressure to pick a side before anyone knows what happened. Why Due Process An accusation travels at the speed of a headline. A vindication barely travels at all. That asymmetry is where this show begins. When I was arrested, my name was everywhere. When I was acquitted, almost no one called. The institutions that amplified the charge had no interest in the outcome. The damage was public. The correction was private. Due process is not a technicality. It is the promise that facts come before conclusions. It protects the accused. It also protects survivors, because every verdict built on evidence makes the next survivor more credible, not less. Beth and I start from a shared belief. You can take sexual violence seriously and still insist on the presumption of innocence. Those two commitments are not enemies. Treating them as enemies has hurt everyone. What’s Ahead Each week, Beth and I will look at how stories get told and who gets to tell them. Media accountability. Institutional credibility. The way certainty spreads faster than evidence. The way trauma can become currency, and how that cheapens real suffering. We will take on politics, movies, books, and the authors who shape how we think. We will look at the cases in the news and the cases nobody covers. We will ask why a woman’s agency is honored in one room and erased in the next. We will argue. We will change our minds. We avoid slogans. We think it is a conversation worth having. We hope you will listen. *We know this is a long episode, but felt we needed to give the conversation some space to unfold. *Note: This episode includes graphic descriptions of sexual violence This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.outofthebluepodcast.com/subscribe (https://www.outofthebluepodcast.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   20 Oct 2026

   The Scales Can't Hold

   This is the audio of a written article from last week. Please note, I’ve fixed a few minor errors in the original written article, and are included in this episode. There will another podcast yet this week. Thank You This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.outofthebluepodcast.com/subscribe (https://www.outofthebluepodcast.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   8 Oct 2026

   The Machine Comes To Cornell

   The now infamous story about seven college students accused of drugging and raping a woman at Cornell is ubiquitous and ugly. Reading through the articles, I felt a familiar knot in my stomach. Is this the start of another moral panic? Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it plainly: “Seven men drugged and gang raped a 20-year-old woman.” Not alleged. Not accused. Stated as fact by a sitting member of Congress about a case no court has decided. The picture forming is of campuses overrun by drunken fraternity parties where rape is routine. Celebrities condemning. Politicians commenting. I could almost smell the torch fuel and hear the mob. I thought, here we go again. They might all be right, but history suggests it’s more complicated. This episode isn’t about deciding what happened in that house. It’s about how the story of what happened gets built, who builds it, and what it costs the people inside it, long before anyone hears the evidence. In case you missed it, Jane Doe, of course not her real name, filed a civil lawsuit on September 14 alleging, among other things, that Cornell University was negligent in its handling and investigation of her 2024 complaint. In that complaint, she alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by seven fraternity members. Cornell did conduct an extensive internal Title IX investigation, but Doe now argues in civil court that the university’s investigation was wholly inadequate and caused her additional harm. Her claims have not been tested in court. The original prosecutorial review resulted in no charges. The criminal matter was reopened in September, and on October 1, Governor Kathy Hochul appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor. So far, no criminal charges have been brought against the men. But given the intensity of the public outcry, it may only be a matter of time before the gallows go up in the digital commons. Before I go any further, I want to be clear about something. I realize rape victims have to face deep trauma and confront years, sometimes decades, of recovery. They struggle to trust others. Many end up on substances that dim the pain, or get lost in abusive relationships. There is no finish line to recovering from such violence. The pain is in remission. That is exactly why this case deserves care, and not a stampede. For most of history, men weren't held to account for sexual violence. Women weren't believed, cases weren't pursued, and institutions protected their own. The correction that came, on campuses and in workplaces, was overdue, and often uneven in its enforcement. But a correction can overshoot. When the lesson becomes "the accusation is the proof," we haven't fixed the old injustice. We've traded it for a new one. Now that social media and the protests are growing, people are demanding immediate justice for Jane Doe. But it’s not clear who is guilty of what. According to reporting, a couple of the accused men simply walked into the room where something was happening, and then left. One says he kissed her. She says it was forced. Not every accusation in this case is the same accusation, yet all seven are being treated as rapists. That isn’t a judgment about her. It’s a distinction the coverage should be making, and mostly isn’t. The internet has already ruled. The names of all seven are everywhere, paired with group rape. The student newspaper printed their names and faces. That was an editorial decision, made by journalists, and everything downstream runs on it. TMZ is going 24/7. A former South Park talent says he’s building a website to post their photos, their messages, their documents. He says billboards are going up next. This feels uncomfortably familiar. Guilty before the court of public and political opinion. Guilty because the accusation itself is treated as proof. Guilty because “All Women Are Jane Doe.” This is the same violence I had to endure. It was quite literally an assault not just on my life, but on my existence. The commitment to ad hominem knows few limits when it comes to allegations of sexual violence, rape or molestation. Once accused, I was done. My life upended, my career destroyed, and my reputation damaged in ways that can never be completely repaired. All of this began with a criminal complaint alleging a grotesquely violent rape, for which I was ultimately acquitted. But the public narrative was a flood that drowned out any sense of propriety and fairness. The accuser’s attorney, John Klassen, told the Star Tribune that there had been an “ongoing and years long issue of sexual harassment” and sexual exploitation at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, adding that I was “the face and controlling authority over there.” Scott County Attorney Ron Hocevar described the allegations as “a pretty bad alleged abuse of power and physical superiority.” Klassen went further, describing the alleged assault as one of the most vicious cases he had encountered in 25 years of practicing law. The stories in the press were how most people learned about my case. You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking those stories made me look guilty. Of course my denials were reported, and a few facts appeared, but skepticism wasn’t in any line of copy. The accusation remained the organizing fact around which everything else was arranged. That is the issue. It becomes the foundation every future story is built on. That can happen in subtle ways. Word choice. Which details are included. Whom a reporter chooses to quote, how much space those voices receive, and where their comments appear in the story. Consider an August 8, 2018 Star Tribune story by Liz Sawyer. After page after page of gross allegations about me and the supposed culture of the Renaissance Festival, the story finally introduces people who weren’t on board with those claims. One of them was Jen Cowitz, who was a performer at the Renaissance Festival at the time. “He’s fundamentally not violent,” she told the paper. “This community is torn apart by this.” That’s a few words from her. She later told me it was a long interview, and that she said much more, but it was cut to that line. The newspaper did include someone who offered an alternative image of me. But placement matters. By the time a reader reaches Cowitz, the narrative has already been established through allegations that I was a groomer, that I sexually harassed women, that I had a “casting couch,” and that I cultivated a sexually hostile workplace. Jen’s brief quote arrives deep into the story, and the story just as quickly turns back to describe further allegations against me. This is what I mean by an organizing narrative. My guilt inferred. A denial may be included. A contrary witness may even be quoted. But the accumulation, sequence and weight of those choices can still leave the reader with an unmistakable story about what happened, long before any of it has been tested in a courtroom. The arithmetic of the media coverage in my case shows the same kind of narrative building now happening at Cornell. When I was charged in 2018, the Star Tribune devoted roughly 900 words to the story. It described the accusation in graphic detail and included trigger warnings, language that underscored the violence of the accusation. The alleged brutal beating. The alleged violence of the rape. That she vomited. That I threatened her. The supposed physical evidence and the words I was alleged to have spoken. None of it was tested before it was printed. Four years later, when a jury acquitted me on both counts, the newspaper devoted roughly 280 words to the verdict, less than a third as much. And that story didn’t include any of the evidence the jury actually heard when weighing my guilt. There was no examination of the facts, the inconsistencies exposed at trial, the defense evidence, or why twelve jurors acquitted me so quickly. A Star Tribune reporter was present at nearly every one of my court appearances. Not one came to the trial. The accusation had been explained at length in 2018. The acquittal in 2022 was merely announced. Then, nothing. Except it never really ends. Search my name today and [FILL IN: what comes up first, and where the acquittal appears, if at all]. The 2018 story is still doing its work. The 2022 story barely registers. That’s what the arithmetic looks like once it’s permanent. By the time the evidence arrives, the story is already finished. And at Cornell, the story is being finished faster. In my case, the narrative was built on a criminal charge. At Cornell, there is no charge. There is a civil complaint, a reopened investigation, and a member of Congress who has already announced the verdict. The narrative has now expanded to include a cover-up. Transcripts released this month show that in her November 2024 interview with Cornell police, Jane Doe said, "I can say with 100% confidence I was raped." That line was left out of the statement Cornell police sent to the Tompkins County District Attorney, who says he never saw it, and who based his decision not to charge on her signed statement. That omission is real, and it deserves answers. But "cover-up" assumes a motive no one has shown. And the same transcript describes drinking, drug use and gaps in her memory, while the district attorney says her signed statement described her participation as voluntary. One sentence from a 120-page transcript has become the headline. This isn't to say she wasn't raped. It's that, like everything else in this case, it's messy, and it's still unclear what happened that night, and who is responsible for what. In an online exchange, I pushed back on a woman I know who had posted a public shaming meme: photos of the seven students under bold letters reading SAY THEIR NAMES. Her own comment at the top of the post went further, invoking graphic physical violence. She suggested her mother would have insisted these boys be “strung up by their family jewels until they dropped off.” That alarmed me. So I sent her a direct message, essentially pleading with her to reconsider. I pointed out that there were many conflicting accounts of what had happened, and that we should wait for more details. To her credit, she took the post down, and we had a brief and mature exchange. It occurred to me that she was as exercised about the Cornell case as I was, though we arrived at it from different experiences. And those experiences shape how each of us reads and reacts to these stories. I can’t say for certain, but her posts suggest she sees these boys as likely guilty and deserving of harsh punishments. Maybe I’m misreading it. My point of view is informed by having been attacked by people who were just as certain I’d done things I didn’t do, and who wanted me harmed. I watched everything I’d built, my career, my savings, my self-confidence and sense of fairness, destroyed by the violent rhetoric aimed at me in the hours after I was charged and arrested. We may have access to the same information, but it passes through different filters that do less to inform us than to influence and inflame how we see things. Whatever lives these young men might have had are now swamped. If there’s a trial, and it seems likely there will be, and they’re found guilty, they’ll go to prison. But right now, they are being drowned. I don’t know any of them, but I can say with some certainty that they are terrified of the unfolding press coverage and the remarkable violence now coming from anyone with a computer. Truth is out of fashion. Jane Doe’s life is surely in tumult too, likely under assault by trolls. One comment on X called her the “Slut From Ithaca.” That’s vile. But she is still Jane Doe, while the names of the accused are scratched like graffiti on the walls of a s**t house. This is where I think the mob, and those who are shouting for quick judgment, are wrong. The narrative is a trap, for her too. Right now, Doe is the story’s hero. But a story built before the evidence can’t absorb evidence that complicates it. If something comes out at trial that doesn’t fit, the same machine that made her a symbol will turn on her, just as publicly and just as fast. A narrative doesn’t protect the people it’s built around. It uses them. The narrative machine is humming along, like a harvester in a cornfield. Efficient. Big. Sharp. Brutal. It mows down everything in its path, day and night, until someone decides justice has been harvested and the field is empty. And as Cornell shows, you don’t even need to be arrested to be cut down. Some see these young men as monsters who deserve swift and brutal punishment. Maybe some of them are. I don't know, and neither does anyone posting about them. What I do know is that they are young adults, and so is Jane Doe. She deserves care. They deserve patience, and the presumption that the evidence will be heard, before anyone ships them off to the gulag. I’m not here to decide what happened in that house, or who got what wrong, or right, and we may never get a clear answer. My case and theirs are not the same case. What I know, and what most people will never experience, is what happens to a human being after an accusation. The world closes in. The ugly demons of fear, shame and humiliation are a nightmare to anyone caught in them. When I was accused, I was 60 years old, wiser by decades than these kids, and it nearly took my life. You cannot imagine what they’re going through. Something ugly happened in that house. That much seems clear. But until we sort it out, if we can sort it out, we should be wary of damning them all, or of using them as pawns for profit and political gain. We’re the adults in the room. We should act like it. Mob justice is lethal. Being the adult isn’t complicated. Here’s my suggestion for how we should handle these messy stories. First, an allegation is an allegation. It is not a verdict. It is not a sentence. An account is not yet a set of facts. Treat each allegation separately. In the case of the Cornell 7, there are seven different stories, each with its own evidence. And news outlets shouldn’t publish the names and faces of the accused until the evidence has been tested at trial. A charge is not a finding. It hasn’t had the benefit of a defense, of cross-examination, of a jury. I understand we live in a country that guarantees free speech and a free press, and I’m not asking for a law. I’m asking for restraint. Because in the age of social media, a name and a face are instantly ruinous. They have become a verdict of their own, delivered before a single juror has heard a word. And when the case ends, the verdict deserves the same care the charge got. Evidence really, really matters. For those of us reading the news, it means starting with the known facts, as best we can know them, and building a narrative from there. The wrong way, and I do mean the wrong way, is to start with the narrative, then ignore the facts that challenge it, or bend the details to fit. Facts first. Narrative second. I know what the narrative machine does. I know the blood it draws and the lives it takes, because I lived through it. It doesn’t wait for the truth. It wants us to embrace the narrative, to become emotionally involved. It needs outrage to fuel interest. Eight young people are now trapped inside the narrative, including the accuser. They could all be eaten alive. Ruined for life without ever being charged. Or, like me, ruined for life even after acquittal. I won’t feed it. Not until we know more. Too many lives are on the line. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.outofthebluepodcast.com/subscribe (https://www.outofthebluepodcast.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Contact Out Of The Blue Podcast Series

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.