God Forbid (2022) - full transcript

MAN 1: You ready?
MAN 2: Yep. All set.

MAN 1:
All right. Ready to roll?

MAN 2:
A camera rolling.

GIANCARLO GRANDA:
Oh, shit, I don't-- [laughs]

Let me mentally prepare myself

'cause I know my parents
are gonna watch this one day.

So, just-- Um...

Look, if I would've known
that accepting this woman's invitation

to go back to her hotel room

would've led
to a scandal involving the president

of the largest
Christian university in the world



and the president of the United States,

I would've walked away
and just enjoyed my private life.

♪

♪

♪ Tell 'em, pray for me ♪

♪ It was God that brought Dre to me ♪

♪ Even brought the-- Kanye for me ♪

♪ Bless... ♪

GIANCARLO: If you go
to the Fontainebleau on a Saturday,

it looks like you're in Vegas.

♪ ...ashamed of the city where he live ♪

♪ Make a--
hate the logo on the Dodger cap ♪

GIANCARLO:
And if you don't have the connections,

you're gonna wait two hours in line.



It's a big party scene,
everyone's having a good time,

people are drinking, there's cabanas.

People ordering bottle service,
spending a lot of money.

The waitresses would get hit on,
you know, us guys would get hit on too.

That's why it's a fun job.

♪ Mama, forgive me
'cause I'm tryin' to make a living, hah ♪

♪ Them-- hating 'cause they... ♪

GIANCARLO:
My job as a pool attendant
at the Fontainebleau was very simple.

♪ Me and 'Ye killin' ♪

♪ Something like my Jesus piece... ♪

GIANCARLO: Folding towels,
fixing the chairs, umbrellas,

and just interact with the guests.

♪ Throw them suicide doors up ♪

♪ And let the Holy Ghost swing ♪

♪ Something like my Jesus piece... ♪

GIANCARLO:
March 2012 was like any other day.

I'm doing the usual, just, uh,
changing towels, talking to the guests.

That day, I...

I was flirting
with, you know, some girls.

They were about my age.

And then I look over,
you know, behind my shoulder,

and I see this woman looking at me.

She was just laying back,
sipping on a drink,

and just eyeing me down,
just staring at me.

She was actually snapping pictures of me.

She was in her 40s,
more than twice my age.

She was attractive.

Yeah, she was a cougar.

And I'm like,
"Why are you taking pictures of me?"

And then she tells me,

"Don't waste your time
with the younger ones.

They don't know what they're doing."

And at that moment, I knew
that she probably wanted something more.

It started intensifying.

She makes a proposition.

She's like,
"You wanna go back to my hotel?"

I'm like, "Let's go back. I'm down."

Like, I-- I don't think any 20-year-old
would reject this proposition, right?

If an attractive woman tells you
to go back to the hotel room,

you're probably gonna take it.

And then she told me,
"But one thing, though.

My, uh, my husband wants to watch."

♪

REPORTER 1:
Jerry Falwell Jr. is officially out
as President of Liberty University.

The evangelical leader resigning
from the college his father founded

under a cloud of scandal.

REPORTER 2:
His fall from grace was swift and steep.

A one-time Miami pool attendant,
Giancarlo Granda,

claiming he had a seven-year affair
with Falwell's wife, Becki,

and that Falwell watched
when they were intimate.

REPORTER 3: It is the latest
in a shocking string of scandals

to hit one
of the most influential families

in the evangelical Conservative movement.

♪ Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard ♪

♪ Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard ♪

♪ Don't nobody know my troubles but God ♪

♪ Don't nobody know my troubles but God ♪

♪ Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard ♪

♪ Don't nobody know my troubles but God ♪

♪ Don't nobody know my troubles but God ♪

♪

GIANCARLO:
I grew up in, uh, Westchester, Miami,

which is a predominately Cuban,
working-class, uh, neighborhood.

LILIA GRANDA:
He was a cute, little, blond baby.

Everyone loved him-- Adorable.

He was the typical,
annoying little brother.

We have a seven-year difference.

GIANCARLO:
My childhood was pretty much normal,

you know, in Miami standards.

MARK EBNER: Giancarlo may seem
a little aloof, a little guarded.

That's just him
being a product of his upbringing.

He was raised in a conservative
Catholic family in Miami.

- Write to me, Jerry Falwell--

MARK: His mom grew up
on The Old-Time Gospel Hour,

courtesy of Jerry Falwell Sr.

She was very religious.

She was a true believer.

LILIA: As a child,
he was always the social kid.

He made friends everywhere he went.

- I went to a Catholic high school
called St. Brendan High School.

LILIA:
Once he got into the teen years,

there was a little bit of a switch in him.

He got really into video games.

It was an addiction.

GIANCARLO:
Just spent an unhealthy amount of time
playing video games.

It became a problem.

My personality
just completely transformed.

I started to isolate, withdraw.

- He became introverted, antisocial.

GIANCARLO: My ability to feel comfortable
in a social setting was, uh, compromised.

Like, I just--
I didn't wanna be out with friends.

I didn't feel comfortable.

LILIA:
It was rough to experience

'cause no one really knew
how to handle it.

GIANCARLO:
My parents, my sister,

they were very supportive
during that time.

It was a dark period for me.

- It was sad and-- and hard
for all of us, especially my parents

because they didn't really know
how to handle it.

GIANCARLO: After high school,
I told myself, "I need to change my life,"

so I started eating healthy,
started working out.

But I was still that shy, reserved kid.

I still had insecurities.

I wanted to-- to work and experience life,

and-- and actually,
make money and save money.

So I reached out to a friend
that worked at the Fontainebleau Hotel.

- That's when he really started
coming out of his shell,

dating girls, having a social life.

He was doing good.

He was excited about school,
excited about his future.

GIANCARLO: I worked
at the Fontainebleau for one year.

I was working full-time
and going to school part-time.

There's days where I was making,
like, $200 to $500 a day in cash.

It was pretty good for a 20-year-old.

- From that dark time
when he was, like, 15

to where he was at now,
like, it was just a different kid.

MARK: When he started busting out,
that was a whole new world for him.

And he went off the deep end head-first.

♪

GIANCARLO:
After my shift, I'm driving home.

I tell my sister what's gonna happen.

- This is a terrible idea.

Like, this is weird.

Who are these people? Where are they from?

Are they just here in Miami
just to do sexual escapades?

- She's like, "Oh,
this doesn't sound like a good idea."

- There's only so much I could tell him.

Like, once he makes up his mind
and is gonna do something,

he's gonna do it.

- I probably should've listened to her.

♪

- That's been our relationship
our entire lives.

Like, if you'd just listened to me
from the beginning,

your life would be a lot easier.

GIANCARLO:
That night, I get a phone call
from a blocked private number,

and, uh, it was the woman.

She said, "We rented a hotel room
at the Days Inn just around the block."

They didn't wanna
do it at the Fontainebleau

'cause their kids were staying there.

♪

LILIA:
My brother calls me on his way

so someone knew what he was doing
and where he was going.

In case things got weird,
someone knew where to go to get him.

GIANCARLO:
I walk into the-- to the lobby.

I'm nervous.
I'm like, "What the hell am I doing?"

Again, this is a very stupid scenario
I got myself into.

And I'm trying to talk myself out of it,

but then, I'm also thinking,
"Eh, who cares? I'll just do this."

I was a horny 20-year-old.

Uh, there-- There really
is no other explanation other than that.

MARK:
This guy was as green as they come.

He never even had
a high school girlfriend.

GIANCARLO:
She's sitting there on the couch.

I sit down. I'm nervous.

She's like, "Hey, I'm Becki.
Take this to-- to calm down."

She told me that,

"The night before, we were
at a swingers club called Miami Velvet."

I'm like, "Oh, shit."

"No, that's not our thing,
it's too public.

"We want something more private.

"We were looking around for other people,
and you were perfect."

She stroked my inner thigh.

She did a very good job at seducing me.

And the Jack Daniels definitely helped.

And she said, "All right,
let's just go up to the room."

I'm like,
"All right. Shit, let's do it."

♪

It's a small hotel room. There's two beds.

As I walk in, it's just her husband,

he's laying on the bed,
jeans are unzipped.

He's having a drink,

kinda giggling to himself
'cause he-- he's excited.

We did small talk, trying to just get
comfortable with each other.

I told the husband, I'm like,

"Hey, if you get jealous,
or you don't like this

"and you-- you don't want me here,

just let me know
and I'll walk out, no problem."

"Oh, no.
Don't worry about it. Just go for it.

I'm gonna sit right here,
and, uh, you guys do your thing."

We start kissing,
we were feeling each other up.

And then she said, "Anything but.

No penetration,
no actual sex, just oral sex."

We're kissing, and,
you know, we go back to the bed.

Oh, shit, I don't--

Yeah, it's-- Ev-- Ev--
Whenever I think of it,

I just-- I cringe
at the thought of it but...

♪

The husband gets up,
and I get-- I get a little nervous.

I'm like, "What is he doing behind me?"

Uh, but he goes to the corner of the room.

He took off his jeans
and then he just started, uh, jacking off.

MARK:
Let's talk about cuck theory.

Ultimately, it's a guy who likes to watch.

"I'm fulfilled on a sexual level

by watching my wife
with a Cuban stallion."

GIANCARLO: I kept looking back,
and I saw him, like, in the corner.

He was trying to hide.

He didn't want
himself being exposed or anything.

He just wanted to observe the situation.

I wish the husband wasn't there.

That would've been a better situation.

That's what
I was telling myself at the time.

As a horny 20-year-old,

I'm like, "I'm gonna block this out,
I'm gonna have sex with this cougar."

Instantly, like,
there was this connection.

She was staring at me.

I could tell that
she obviously wanted to do this again.

♪

The next day,
we hung out again at the Fontainebleau.

I knew what
I was getting myself into at that point.

After we finished,

we actually hung out and we talked.

And they said what their names were,
you know, Jerry and Becki.

"Wow, nice to meet you guys."

They said that
they help out a lot of young people,

and if I ever need help
that they can definitely help me out.

We were talking about politics.

We had, you know, common beliefs.

I-- I was raised Republican.

I remember Becki said, "He's perfect."

It was nice connecting with them

and just humanizing the situation.

It wasn't just these strangers anymore.

After they left Miami,

she gave me a really good review
on Tripadvisor.

I didn't have her last name.

I didn't really know who they were,

until I-- I got an email on March 22nd.

And it actually came from Jerry.

It was a picture of us that we took
at the Fontainebleau Hotel.

There's a picture with me and Becki,

and then one with Jerry.

He sent the email saying,
"Becki wanted me to send this to you."

- Immediately, I was like, "Who?"

- And she's like, "Oh, Jerry Falwell?"

She-- She recognized the name.

She's like, "Isn't that,
like, the famous pastor, preacher?"

- Wait a minute. Hold on.

This cannot be the same people
that I'm thinking about right now.

- And I'm like,
"I-- I honestly don't even know."

So I ended up googling him.

- Becki, would you stand
in your Liberty Flames dress?

[crowd cheering]

I think it's very fitting
that she's wearing that dress

because I believe
she's the hottest first lady

of any college in the country.

[crowd cheering]

GIANCARLO:
"Oh, so he's the President
of Liberty University."

I didn't know what Liberty University was,
never heard of it.

♪ L-U ♪

♪ I can't hear you ♪

♪ L-U ♪

♪ Turn it up, turn it up... ♪

- Liberty University
is a one-of-a-kind school

in Lynchburg, Virginia.

It's a nonprofit Christian university,

where both students and faculty
practice what they preach.

♪ 154 students, man ♪

♪ How could they manage? ♪

♪ Now, we the biggest
Christian university on the planet... ♪

GIANCARLO:
I knew immediately
that they were successful,

and then I started learning that they were
not just successful and had money,

but they were powerful and well-connected.

- My father founded
Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1956.

It is now located next door to campus.

- Good morning.

And I welcome you to the morning service

at the Thomas Road Baptist Church
in Lynchburg, Virginia.

- The church services
were broadcast nationally

in the 1970s and '80s.

REPORTER:
TV preacher, Dr. Jerry Falwell,

whose doctorate is honorary, not earned,

turned a small Virginia church of 35
into a Christians communications empire.

Falwell preaches
to a church of 4,000 each Sunday,

with a TV audience of 20 million.

JERRY FALWELL SR.:
I believe these are the last days.

What is the thing
that interests God the most?

Getting people ready for his coming,

getting people ready
for the sounding of the cross.

- He founded Liberty University in 1971.

REPORTER:
A school for 50,000 students,

from kindergarten
right through a doctoral program.

- We have what we think
is a boot camp here for the Lord,

training soldiers for Christ.

- He founded
Moral Majority a few years later.

Moral Majority was a coalition that shared
pro-life and pro-family values.

- One man for one woman for one lifetime.

It's called the traditional family.

It's worked for 6,000 years.

- Many credited Moral Majority

with the election
of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

GIANCARLO: I told Jerry,
"I found out more about your dad.

"I read about what he would say,

blaming, uh, 9/11 on homosexuals."

- The abortionists and the feminists
and the gays and the lesbians,

all of them,

you helped this happen.

- "Honestly, if you wanna know my opinion,
I think your dad was a piece of shit."

He's like, "Eh, you know,
yeah, a lot of people think that.

But I'm completely different.
I'm not like my dad."

He said, "I'm a business guy,
and I see the future,"

and I liked that.

MARK:
The Falwells are the Southern Gatsbys.

They're wealthy
and they're sloppy as fuck.

- How old was Becki when you guys met?

Uh, some of our freshmen
don't know this story.

- No, we don't need to get on that story.

JERRY JR.:
She was 13 and I was 18 when I met her.

BECKI:
All right, let's not get, um--
So, Candace. [laughs]

Hey, girls, let's take a look at the ring
on Candace's finger, by the way.

- I think it's 13 carats,

the same age that you were,
Becki, when you guys met.

[crowd cheering]

MEGAN K. STACK:
Becki grew up in North Carolina.

They were a religious family.

She told me that her father was in timber.

I later found out
her father was in trailer parks,

and went to prison for tax evasion.

- Becki, tell 'em how you proposed to me.

- Falwell Jr. went to Liberty University
with Becki's older sister.

- Yeah, I proposed to Jerry.

He had finished law school,
and he had taken the bar exam.

MEGAN:
She dropped out of Liberty
to support Jerry,

who was down
at the University of Virginia.

- And I said, "Can we get married now?"

And he said, "Yes."

MEGAN: Becki said to me,
with sort of embarrassment,

"Oh, we had the most boring wedding
of anybody ever.

There was no drinking alcohol.
There was no dancing. It was just awful."

MARK:
And they popped out three kids,

Trey, Wesley, and Caroline.

MEGAN:
These are two people

who have, for a long time,
been and remain very much in love.

I don't see any daylight between them.

They're just extremely intertwined,
psychologically and emotionally.

It's very unusual
to come across a married couple like that.

JERRY JR.: My father,
he would tell his congregation,

"Don't get mad
when people tell lies about you,

just be glad
they don't know the truth." So.

[audience laughing]

MEGAN:
In some ways, Jerry was a black sheep.

A son who was not able
to access the kind of religious fervor

that defined his father
and that was going to define his family.

- Jerry Jr. had not been
a conventional evangelical.

He believed that his role
to support the ministry

would be in business.

MEGAN:
He did set out doing real estate law

and not working with his father.

He came back to help get
the university out of financial distress.

JERRY JR.: I spent many days
negotiating with creditors

and spent many weekends begging
and borrowing from donors and lenders

to cover the paychecks
that had already been issued

on the Friday before.

DUSTIN WAHL: Falwell Jr. was never
a good fit to be in a public-facing role.

It wasn't something
that he sought out and asked for.

He inherited it
when his father passed away.

MEGAN:
He was a hero to Liberty, financially.

It brought Jerry Falwell money.
It brought him power.

It gave him
the tacit approval of his father,

even after his father's death.

MARK:
If you're part of this dynasty,

then you can do
whatever the fuck you want,

and that couple did it to the hilt.

[indistinct chatter]

DUSTIN: He was beloved
by a lot of students for his quirkiness.

People didn't treat him
like he was the spokesperson

for one of the largest Christian
and Conservative institutions
in the world.

People treated him
like he was a cartoon character,

or their crazy uncle.

He realized that
that familiarity students felt with him

gave him a lot of power.

[crowd cheering]

LILIA:
What my brother did

was with almost like the first family

of, like,
the evangelical Christianity Church.

♪

GIANCARLO:
Becki calls me,

and she says they got a hotel
at the Cheeca Resort in the Keys.

This trip was different

because I wasn't just meeting them
and going back home.

I'm actually gonna
stay there for the weekend.

I remember driving down to Cheeca,

I'm like, "Wait,
we're gonna be in the same room.

Where's Jerry gonna be?"

Uh, so that was-- that was a concern.

The sleeping arrangement was,

I slept on the bed with Becki

and, you know,
Jerry slept, uh, next to the bed.

Which, you know,
thinking back, it's kind of strange.

It was, I don't know,
like 5:00 in the morning,

and I just-- I randomly woke up,

and I look over to the side
and Becki's just staring at me.

She has these dark black eyes.

I obviously kept hooking up with her,

but, you know,
I'm like, "This is kinda weird."

I'm like-- I was startled by it.

♪

MARK: The dynamic
of the relationship outside of the sex,

he liked being around them.

Jerry had the business acumen,
he was kind of a goofball.

And Becki Falwell
was Giancarlo Granda's warm bathwater.

She held his hand.

- When we're talking,
it-- it just felt natural.

We really connected
'cause we would talk about business,

how he was a real estate attorney,

how he developed real estate.

And he would tell me
about Liberty University,

how, you know,
they were doing over $100 million

in construction projects.

LILIA:
You go to Lynchburg, Virginia,

and they own
half of the real estate in that town.

He was impressed by them.

- Your ego is being stroked,

and you have Becki on one hand
telling him how beautiful he was,

and then you get Jerry telling him,

"You're a bright kid,
and I like your thinking."

- After the Cheeca trip,
we're talking on the phone every day

and texting every day.

She became my girlfriend.

♪

MARK:
Becki was texting him 24/7.

They didn't end a day
without at least one hour on the phone.

- She's really making an effort
to maintain this relationship.

MEGAN:
She said, finally she met somebody,

and she felt that she was having
an adventure.

She was having an affair.

She was living this carefree,
youthful lifestyle

that she never got to experience
when she was young.

GIANCARLO:
Becki was the first woman
outside of my family,

uh, to say, "I love you."

This is three weeks after meeting 'em.

I'm like...

MARK: He's a kid,
he doesn't know what love is.

And this is where
it became dangerous down the line.

But in the beginning, it's like,
"Whoa, I'm being lavished with attention.

"She wants to do it again?

Which exotic locale are we going to now?"

♪

GIANCARLO:
Shortly after the Cheeca trip,

they invited me to New York.

They were gonna go there for business.

And they're like, "Hey, come over

and we can discuss
how we can become business partners."

So I meet them,
and I stayed the weekend with them.

We stayed at the Gansevoort Hotel
on Park Avenue.

We're at dinner at STK,

and I was really worried
that someone was gonna discover us

and it's gonna end up in the tabloids.

We're looking through the dessert menu,

and Becki spotted
the Carnival Menage A Trois.

And she was like, "Oh, let's get this."

And I-- I remember just feeling awkward

when she ordered
the Carnival Menage A Trois.

Like, they're not being subtle about this.

But after dinner, we're talking,

and that's when he said,
"You need to make money yourself.

"With my past in real estate,
it's a great way to build wealth.

"We'll acquire a property
and we'll give you an equity stake in it.

"You just have to manage it.

"And then, you know,
when you make your first million,

"we'll all drink champagne together

and life is gonna be great."

Deep down,
I always wanted to invest in real estate.

I wanted to get in the game.

I'm like, "This is it!"

- I thought, "Well,
maybe they can help him in some way,

"and however weird this thing started,

maybe it'll turn into something good."

They did what they wanted to do,

everyone had their fun,

and now let's go and be... adults.

GIANCARLO:
But Jerry quickly wanted to cut to,

"Hey, let's go back to the hotel room
and do what we have to do."

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Woman got a big ol' ass
and bow legs... ♪

GIANCARLO:
Becki, she said, "I have some good news.

We can go all the way this time."

They were both ready for me.

They both felt comfortable with me.

♪ 'Cause we gon' fuck tonight ♪

♪ My dick is getting rock hard... ♪

- They thought it was the right time
to actually go forward with it.

♪ Gonna be some fuckin' tonight ♪

♪ Take your panties off ♪

♪ Moving things off to the side... ♪

- And there's no holding back anymore.

♪ Is we gon' fuck tonight ♪

♪ Yeah... ♪

MARK: As the relationship grew
and it intensified,

Jerry could sort of move out
of that creepy corner that he was in.

GIANCARLO:
Jerry, you know,

he went from just, you know,
masturbating in the corner

to whenever I would finish,

he would go in, uh, for round two.

MEGAN: They were both
kind of looking for these things

that weren't actually available to them
within their religious community.

Granda is part of that desire
that they shared.

MARK:
He was that element of kink

that they needed for them
to become closer, if you will.

GIANCARLO: Fast forward,
I'm back in Miami looking for properties.

I actually started
driving around by myself.

I narrowed it down to Miami Beach.

- What is happening?

What do you know about any of this?

Like, you're 20.

He was like,
"I know, like, what I'm doing,

"I know the right people.

Like, we're gonna get this done."

And he relied on the Fernandezes.

♪

GIANCARLO: I reached out
to a friend of mine at the time,

Jesus Fernandez Jr.

We called him Tito.
That was his nickname.

And his dad, Jesus Fernandez Sr.,
he was a broker.

LILIA: Him and his dad
are like your classic wannabe,

just Miami bullshit artists.

It never really made sense
how he was friends with him, honestly.

- I met Giancarlo through Jesus.

Giancarlo and Jesus
were kind of like best friends.

I was Jesus' girlfriend,
and I was very close with them.

I mean, everybody changed
in the five years that I dated Jesus,

they kinda grew up.

But Giancarlo did not strike me
as having any street smarts.

Nothing, not even an instinct.

He doesn't really have a hustle spirit.

Jesus was the street-smart hustler
of the group.

When I met him,
I was absolutely under the impression

that that was a wealthy family.

MARK:
Jesus Fernandez Sr. was, at one point,

a big-time real estate investor
and a broker.

That family had lived the American Dream.

NICOLE:
The houses that they lived in
were gorgeous.

Unfortunately, none of them lasted long

before... the sheriff's department came.

MARK:
If you look at Jesus Sr.'s rap sheet,

there was a major bankruptcy,

there were allegations of fraud.

The guy didn't even have
a broker license anymore.

None of this was disclosed to Giancarlo.

GIANCARLO:
By me reaching out to them

and telling, "Hey,
you're gonna get a commission from this,"

I felt like I was helping them out.

♪

NICOLE:
I was an assistant general manager
working at South Beach Hostel.

I mean, in Miami, hostels,
you build it and it's gonna be filled.

It's like a fail-safe business.

- Jesus knew the real estate side,
I knew the hostel side,

and Giancarlo had the financial backing.

- I called Jerry, I said, "Hey, come down.

I have some guys that are gonna
find the best investment property."

NICOLE: Jesus and Giancarlo,
his father eventually found a property.

It was Miami Hostel.

The first floor had a restaurant
and a liquor store.

GIANCARLO: It was just in the heart
of South Beach, which is perfect.

The land itself is very valuable.

LILIA: Once the Fernandezes saw
these evangelicals come down here,

they probably saw, you know,
just nothing but money signs everywhere.

MARK: This is a guy from Lynchburg
trying to do business in Miami.

He didn't know where the fuck he was.

They should've done diligence
on these guys.

NICOLE:
I understood flying him places,

but I have never heard of anybody

buying some kid,
that they met at the Fontainebleau pool,

a four-and-a-half-million-dollar business.

What the fuck? Like, what's going on?

GIANCARLO:
Tito and his dad were both very curious,

and they were trying
to find out what was going on.

And they kept trying
to get answers out of me.

I'm like, "No,
they just wanna help me out."

Obviously, that didn't make sense.

That-- That was just-- That was--
You know, it wasn't a good excuse.

I think that they-- they were convinced
there was more to it,

and they were right, there was more to it.

- Now you got
the Fernandezes working Giancarlo,

because they're smelling money,
real money.

The long con had already started.

Who knew what a buddy fucker
Jesus Fernandez turned out to be, right?

LILIA: It was a few months
for the deal to actually close.

Throughout this process,

my brother and Tito,
their friendship started fracturing a bit.

GIANCARLO:
The Fernandezes received their commission

on the sale of the property,

and we didn't really talk much after that.

It was just like,
all right, the deal closed,

and then they kind of just vanished.

LILIA:
Between the time that he met the Falwells

to when they closed on that property
was less than a year.

- About 11 months after meeting them,

we're closing on
a 4.65-million-dollar commercial property.

It just felt like I was living in a movie.

It just didn't feel real.

I'm like, "Why am I here?
Why am I a part of this?"

LILIA:
Imagine the first property you own

is a four-and-a-half-million-dollar
property.

GIANCARLO:
I saw it as a big opportunity to learn,

to grow within business.

It was tough to turn down.

- Okay, so how did the deal break down?

Who was the principal in name?

It wasn't Jerry.

He didn't want his name
anywhere near that deal

with a 20-year-old pool boy,

so he put it in Becki's name.

- At this point,
my dreams were coming true.

I can see
how I can make that first million.

- How do you keep Giancarlo on a leash?

Go into business with him.

And Jerry was looking
at keeping his wife happy at that point.

Where she was happiest

was when Giancarlo Granda
was balls-deep inside of her.

- So from March 2012
till about, like, June, June, July,

you know, we had this sexual component
with the relationship.

I broke it off.

I told Becki, I'm like,
"We can't have sex anymore

"'cause I found a girl my age.

I wanna date her, I like her a lot.
We obviously can't be doing this."

She didn't take it very well.

Becki cried.
She made me feel guilty for it.

"Oh, you replaced me for someone younger."

She would tell me, "God put us together."

I'm like, "I need to live my own life.
I need to find someone my age."

And then Jerry said,
"Well, she doesn't have to know.

We won't tell her."

And I said,
"No, I'm sorry, I just-- I can't.

I-- I don't feel comfortable doing it."

What I did agree to,
and it's not-- it's not right,

I continued the emotional connection.

I kept texting her,
I kept talking to her every day.

I felt like I was living a double life.

Becki, she would call me every day,
she would text me every day.

If I didn't respond to her right away,
she would call me crying.

If I didn't respond for a couple days,
then Jerry would call me.

He was disappointed.

He'd say, "Hey, what's going on?
Like, she loves you so much.

"Why are you trying to break away?
She's been so nice to you.

"And we're going to bat
for you for this property.

Why-- why break up now?"

Things started slowly morphing into,
"Oh, this is just sex and friendship,"

to "Now we're gonna control you."

LILIA:
Imagine how sick and twisted that is.

Like, you're middle-aged people
calling him, making him feel bad

because he's not texting your wife?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

- So I had two options:

I could just walk away
and never talk to 'em again

and lose out on this multi-million-dollar,
uh, commercial property,

or just trust them and see what happens.

MARK:
These are predators.

Becki, she was addicted to the idea
of being in love with this kid,

and she was not gonna let go.

♪

GIANCARLO:
One day, Becki texted me,

"I was watching
some video clips on my phone... Wow."

At that moment,
that just, like, set off an alarm.

And that was the first time
that I realized,

"Oh, they were recording everything."

I felt like it was a subtle hint as to,

you know, "We got the goods on you too.
Like, don't forget that."

MARK:
Jerry Falwell Jr., at the time,

was everything
that Giancarlo wanted to be.

Giancarlo wanted all of this
and they knew it.

So they were using it
as a method of control.

"Hey, you know,
have fun with your little girlfriend,

but we own your ass."

♪

- You're fired.

♪ Money, money, money, money ♪

GIANCARLO:
September 2012,

Becki gives me a call saying,
"Hey, do you wanna meet Donald Trump?"

'Cause at the time,
he wasn't who he is today.

He wasn't running for president.
He was just the star on The Apprentice.

They knew that I liked Donald Trump,

that I read his book, The Art of the Deal.

LILIA:
My brother loved business

and thought Donald Trump was great,
and so he was like--

- Yeah, absolutely!

MARK:
They were bringing him into a world

that he couldn't even imagine.

"Real estate, politics,
my future, everything is here."

He had never in his life imagined

being able to be allowed entrée
into that world.

GIANCARLO: I paid
for the ticket from Miami to Lynchburg,

then they put me at a hotel.

But after a day, they're like, "Hey,
you don't need to stay there actually.

Just come stay with us at our house."

It was the first time
that I met their kids.

I don't think they suspected anything
at the moment.

Jerry and Becki did tell the kids
they were helping me out,

that they wanna give me
the opportunity to rise within business.

Jerry was the leader
of this Christian university,

so they're around young adults.

It's actually pretty reasonable.

No one really asked why I was around.

I just kind of blended right in.

I was kind of expecting

this weird Bible college
in the middle of nowhere,

but Liberty University is one
of the nicest campuses I've seen.

Jerry was very proud,

and he mentioned that the endowment
was about two billion dollars.

Coming from Miami where you have
people from all parts of the world,

it's a melting pot,

but what I did notice at Liberty,
there weren't many Black students.

It was mostly white evangelicals.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Today,
I want to say to the people of America

and the nations of the world,

we are not about to turn around.

We are on the move now.

Yes, we are on the move,
and no wave of racism can stop us.

[crowd clamoring]

- March 1965 is a big turning point
for many white evangelical pastors

to understand that the world was changing.

They would have to consider

what side of that world
that they wanted to be on.

Would they be on the side
of the Civil Rights Movement,

or would they be on the side
of white supremacy?

And Jerry Falwell Sr. made a choice.

JERRY SR.:
I remember preaching a sermon
justifying the segregationist position.

One can make the Bible say almost anything
he wants to make it say.

- Our God is marching on.

Glory hallelujah!

Glory hallelujah!

Glory hallelujah!

- Jerry Falwell Sr. says that ministers
should not be involved in the political,

they should only be involved
in preaching the Gospel of Jesus.

But later on, his game had changed.

REPORTER:
School districts began desegregating today

under Supreme Court orders.

- Jerry Falwell Sr. was not happy

about the Brown v. Board of Education
decision.

- But as the public schools reopen,

a number of new private schools,
all white, sprang into existence.

- He started his own
segregation academy there

in conjunction with
the Thomas Road Baptist Church.

- These segregation academies
were not called segregation academies.

They had Christian names.

But they were built to make sure

that white children did not have to be
in contact with African American children.

- The IRS wants to revoke
the tax exemptions for private schools

which discriminate racially
in their admissions policies.

MATTHEW SUTTON:
In the 1970s, the IRS determines

that if you were
a charitable institution by definition,

so it means you get tax exemption,

you cannot practice segregation.

And one of the things they'd then target
are these Christian-segregated academies.

So this really wakes up Falwell
and a number of other ministers,

and they realize that if they don't have
allies in the Federal Government,

they're not gonna be able
to keep doing what they're trying to do.

JERRY JR.:
I preached a few years ago

that Christians
shouldn't be involved in politics,

but I think we have every right to speak.

We're citizens too.

- He actually at least had the integrity
to acknowledge that he was a hypocrite.

- Jerry Falwell Sr.'s idea
about ministers being involved in politics

was to support the status quo
of white supremacy.

- Falwell is really at the ground level
doing this through his school,

through his academy
in Lynchburg, Virginia.

♪

- We're waiting in this back area.

I'm with Becki and the kids.