- 4 months ago
These brave individuals raised the alarm, but no one listened... Join us as we explore ordinary people who tried to warn society about notorious predators, criminals, and tyrants. From Martha Mitchell's silenced calls about Nixon to Dorothy Thompson's early warnings about Hitler, these whistleblowers risked everything to speak truth to power.
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00:00It took me five minutes to know that it was a fraud.
00:03It took me another almost four hours of mathematical modeling to prove that it was a fraud.
00:10Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're discussing 10 ordinary people who called out the most harmful and notorious people among us.
00:16He knows what happened. I know what happened. And there's only one of us telling the truth.
00:22Martha Mitchell warned us about Richard Nixon.
00:25The wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, Martha's notoriously talkative nature made her a political reporter's dream.
00:31Mrs. Mitchell was famous for calling news reporters with political gossip she got from spying on her husband.
00:38But her chatty habits eventually landed her in a nightmare.
00:41Her husband was a member of the committee to re-elect the president, Creep for short, the party responsible for the Watergate break-in.
00:47Martha was talking to a reporter friend about the incident over the phone when she was suddenly silenced and the line went dead.
00:52Pretty soon, I heard her saying, get away, get away. And I didn't know what was happening, and then there was a phone disconnect.
01:00For days, Martha was held captive in a country club to prevent her from exposing the political scandal.
01:05After she was released, the Nixon administration worked to discredit her story, blaming her so-called delusions on a nervous breakdown.
01:12Today, this misdiagnosis of paranoia is referred to as the Martha Mitchell effect.
01:16Turns out she was being truthful with what she was saying.
01:21As the big flower said on the grave, Martha was right.
01:24Frances Haugen warned us about Mark Zuckerberg.
01:27After working at Google, Yelp, and Pinterest throughout her early career, Frances Haugen joined the Facebook team with the hope of combating misinformation and doing good for Facebook's users.
01:36We've let one company, one man, influence the information environment for the world.
01:41After witnessing the internal workings of the tech company that clearly valued profit over people, Haugen decided to expose the company's wrongdoings.
01:48Haugen revealed Facebook's missteps in dealing with political misinformation, hate speech, human trafficking, and many more dangerous topics.
01:55She alleged that not only was Facebook aware of the hate, violence, and misinformation prevalent on the platform, but that Mark Zuckerberg should be held accountable as CEO.
02:03In 2021, Haugen testified before Congress against Facebook and released tens of thousands of internal documents to the SEC and media.
02:11The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.
02:21Barbara Pouchet warned us about Keith Raniere.
02:23The founder of NXIVM, an alleged self-help multi-level marketing company, Keith Raniere was exposed by former members of his organization as a cult leader, human trafficker, and fraudster.
02:33They called him Vanguard, the founder of NXIVM, a shadowy self-help organization described by federal prosecutors as cult-like.
02:41One of the individuals critical in bringing this master manipulator down was Barbara Pouchet, a financial planner, NXIVM member, and ex-girlfriend of Raniere.
02:49When I left, I was the first, I was the highest ranking person to ever leave, and a significant person, and that really threw a curveball and opened up Pandora's box.
02:58When Bouchet became aware of the abuse prevalent within the organization, she left the cult and went to law enforcement.
03:03This was a brave risk, given that she had already received threats and harassment from members still active in Raniere's cult.
03:09Thankfully, her risk paid off, and Raniere was convicted of his crimes and sentenced to 120 years in prison.
03:14Raniere, who described himself as a self-help guru, was sentenced at a federal court in Brooklyn to 120 years behind bars.
03:22Rachel Denhollander warned us about Larry Nazar.
03:25An attorney, author, educator, and survivor, Rachel Denhollander was the first woman to speak out against Larry Nazar, a former doctor who sexually assaulted over 200 young girls.
03:35Speaking up is your best chance at hope and healing, right?
03:37If you are living in silence, if you're living in isolation, your ability to access resources and to find hope and healing after abuse just isn't there.
03:45As a teen gymnast, Denhollander was assaulted by Nazar under the guise of medical treatment for her lower back pain.
03:51So being able to raise my voice and to come alongside the work that's being done in the community is critical because we're not dealing with one person.
03:57We're dealing with a societal problem.
03:59We're dealing with a cultural problem.
04:00And the only way that that changes is through having the conversations.
04:04It took Denhollander 16 years to gather the courage to speak out against his abuse.
04:08Her bravery inspired hundreds of other victims to come forward in the aftermath.
04:12Denhollander delivered a powerful speech at Nazar's sentencing hearing, after which the disgraced physician was sentenced to life in prison.
04:19This is what it looks like when institutions create a culture where a predator can flourish unafraid and unabated.
04:27Joan Tarshis warned us about Bill Cosby.
04:30For decades, The Cosby Show creator maintained a squeaky clean image as America's dad.
04:35Yes, I saved your lives because I love my family and I'm a wonderful person.
04:39Behind the scenes, however, Bill Cosby was getting away with dozens of incidents of sexual assault.
04:44As an aspiring comedy writer, Joan Tarshis was drugged and assaulted by Cosby in 1969 and 1971.
04:50Tarshis initially kept quiet about the incidents due to shame and embarrassment.
04:53But when she felt ready to share her story with a reporter in the 1980s, the reporter refused to publish her claims.
04:59I didn't think anybody would believe me.
05:01It's me saying something about Bill Cosby, who's like a god to everybody in the world.
05:09After Hannibal Buress' 2014 stand-up routine about Cosby went viral, Tarshis felt compelled to share her story again, this time with far more success.
05:17Though his criminal conviction was overturned after serving about three years in prison, Cosby's career and reputation would never recover.
05:23I'm just so relieved that the truth has come out.
05:28Harry Markopoulos warned us about Bernie Madoff.
05:31You'd think having evidence exposing the biggest Ponzi scheme in history might pique the SEC's interest.
05:36But Harry Markopoulos' experience was more like shouting at a wall.
05:39How many times did you send material to the SEC?
05:41May 2000, October 2001, October, November and December 2005, then again June 2007, and finally April 2008.
05:55It took just minutes for the financial fraud investigator to notice that Bernie Madoff's books weren't adding up.
06:00And with hours, Markopoulos had irrefutable evidence of fraud.
06:04Markopoulos brought his findings to the SEC in 2000, and in 2001, and again in 2005.
06:09He had very few down months. Only 4% of the months were down months.
06:13And that would be equivalent to a baseball player in the major leagues batting 960 for a year.
06:18Clearly impossible. You would suspect cheating immediately.
06:22Maybe he was just good.
06:24No one's that good.
06:25Each time he was ignored, Madoff's $65 billion scheme wasn't exposed until his sons went to the FBI in 2008.
06:32The SEC's failure to investigate Markopoulos' tips allowed Madoff to continue defrauding his investors of billions.
06:38Biggest I told you so ever.
06:40So he turned himself in before anybody in a position of authority began a serious investigation.
06:46That's typically how the SEC does it.
06:48Virginia Giuffre warned us about Jeffrey Epstein.
06:51While working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,
06:55Virginia Giuffre was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein through Ghislaine Maxwell.
06:59Virginia's just remarkable.
07:01She put Epstein in prison.
07:03She put Maxwell in prison.
07:04She had Prince Andrew stripped of his titles.
07:07This fateful introduction would be the beginning of two and a half years of trafficking at the hands of Maxwell and Epstein.
07:12Giuffre eventually relocated to Australia with her husband and the couple quietly settled and began growing their family.
07:18It was escaping to Australia that made Virginia most happy.
07:23This mom of three drawn to horses and the quiet life away from the big city.
07:29Thinking of her young children, Giuffre gained the courage to speak out in 2010.
07:32She began sharing her story with the media, aided the FBI's investigation into Epstein's crimes,
07:37and was crucial in exposing Prince Andrew's involvement.
07:40Virginia Giuffre passed away in April of 2025.
07:43Her work in amplifying the voices of sexual assault survivors will never be forgotten.
07:47We've had a pretty poignant statement from Virginia Giuffre's family saying that she was a heroic and courageous.
07:56John O'Neill warned us about Al-Qaeda.
07:58As an FBI agent in the 1990s, John O'Neill took a particular interest in studying the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the rise of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.
08:07John was razor-focused on Al-Qaeda and on Osama bin Laden.
08:11O'Neill became a leading expert on Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and frequently warned of potential terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
08:17After retiring from the FBI in 2001, O'Neill took on a new role as chief of security at the World Trade Center.
08:23He understood the symbolism.
08:25It had been Al-Qaeda's target.
08:27And he wanted to kind of take over and take them to the next level of security.
08:32Something that would protect it from another terrorist attack.
08:34When a friend joked, at least they're not going to try to bomb it again, O'Neill replied, they'll probably try to finish the job.
08:39Just two weeks later, O'Neill's intuition was tragically proven right.
08:43O'Neill passed away during the September 11th attacks while he was helping people evacuate.
08:47Everything that he fought against came back and killed him.
08:55Glenda Cleveland warned us about Jeffrey Dahmer.
08:58If you've seen the chilling Netflix series Monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer story, you're already familiar with the tragic and frustrating story of Glenda Cleveland.
09:05I knew you was up to something, Jeff Dahmer.
09:08And I called y'all.
09:09And I told you over and over a million times that something was going on.
09:14And you know what you did?
09:15Y'all did nothing.
09:17Living in an apartment building adjacent to Dahmer's, Cleveland frequently reported Dahmer's suspicious activity to the police, only for her reports to be completely ignored.
09:25Cleveland even saw and reported one soon-to-be victim of Dahmer's.
09:29Conorak sent the sump phone, attempting to escape from Dahmer's apartment while naked and drugged.
09:34Hers was the voice of insistence, the voice of concern, the voice that fell on deaf ears.
09:38Dahmer convinced police he and Cynthia Sump phone were in a relationship and they allowed Dahmer to take the young boy back to his apartment.
09:45Cleveland's persistent calls to police should have been all it took to stop Dahmer's heinous crimes.
09:50If only they had listened to her.
09:51But do you feel they let that boy down that night?
09:53Yes, they did.
09:55Yes.
09:56Yes, he was definitely let down.
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10:13Dorothy Thompson warned us about Adolf Hitler.
10:15As a foreign correspondent based in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s, journalist Dorothy Thompson witnessed Adolf Hitler's rise to power firsthand.
10:24In 1931, Thompson interviewed Hitler and wrote her impressions of the future German chancellor with scathing honesty in her book, I Saw Hitler.
10:32Thompson described Hitler as weak and insecure, the very prototype of the little man.
10:36This contrasted greatly with the popular image of Hitler in Germany as the strong, powerful leader sent to save the nation.
10:43Because of her comments, Thompson became the first American journalist expelled from Nazi Germany.
10:48She then focused on educating the American public about the rise of fascism in Europe and the violent anti-Semitism of the Nazi party.
10:55Did we miss any brave alarm sounders?
10:57Let us know in the comments.
10:59So both organizations are entirely unwilling to take responsibility for what happened.
11:03They're entirely unwilling to admit any failures.
11:06They're entirely unwilling to even look for them.
11:08And that's devastating to all of us.
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