M. Gessen

Alan didn't write back to me.

Instead, he filed a lawsuit trying to stop the release of this podcast.

In his filing and in letters to the New York Times, he accused me of pursuing what he called a decades-long family feud, and of all sorts of other things I'm not going to repeat.

These were lies, and they made me very angry.

For a full 24 hours, I fantasized about taking revenge.

I could report him to ICE.

Aren't they supposed to be deporting immigrants convicted of violent crime?

He could get deported to Russia.

And then, and then he could get arrested there and rot in Russian jail for the rest of his life.

And then Priscilla and the kids would finally be free of him and the fear he brings.

And then... Did I go looking for a way to actually get Alan deported?

I did not.

Because I'm not an idiot.

The Idiot was reported and written by me, M. Gessen, and produced by Daniel Guillemette with Andrei Barzenka and Lika Kramer of Libro Libro Studios.

Our editor is Julie Snyder.

Additional editing by Ira Glass and Sarah Koenig.

Research and fact-checking by Ben Phelan and Marisa Robertson-Texter.

Original score by Alison Leighton-Brown.

Additional music from Dan Powell and Marion Lozano.

The show was mixed by Phoebe Wang with additional mixing by Katherine Anderson.