Distance Converter

Paul and Maria met in Moscow at a meeting of the Right to Bear Arms in November 2013, then reunited in Israel a few weeks later to be together on New Year’s Eve. It was all very fast and very romantic. In my head, I pictured a Russian starlet with deep red lipstick and a past of which she did not speak.

But that was not who I saw standing outside the van in Orlando. Here was a girl only six years older than me, wearing a princess T-shirt and blue jean cut-off shorts. Her entire personality in that moment boiled down to, “Excited to go to Disney World.” In contrast, Paul, then 53, seemed unbearably old, with his yellow buck teeth poking from his gums at jagged angles, and the last strands of his ridiculous haircut moments away from skipping town. “Come on,” I wanted to say to her. “Let’s Thelma and Louise out of here.” I had red lipstick in my back pocket, I really did.

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).