What I know now: Maria’s feet were in concrete. She wasn’t going anywhere. But don’t feel bad — she put them there. After knowing Paul for some years, Maria moved to America in 2016 on a student visa. While she was studying at American University, she was also cavorting with politicians in meetings brokered by Paul. As with the day we met them, it appeared their daily activities comprised of a whirlwind of buzzwords like Republican party, National Prayer Breakfast, and gun rights, but we had no way of knowing specifics. Until the torrent of recent coverage, both Maria and Paul were virtually scrubbed from the internet (back in 2009, I’d scoured the internet for what Paul did for a living and found nothing but some mentions in South Dakota clips — turns out he didn’t put “conman” on his LinkedIn).