Second Season Of The Impostors Podcast Launches September 13th

 In the first season of Impostors, listeners heard about a spy who wasn't a spy.

For more than a decade, Wayne Simmons was a Fox News star. Every time Wayne appeared on TV, he served up extreme opinions on war and terrorism that influenced an audience of millions. His dramatic 27-year career with the CIA—taking down cartels, busting arms smugglers, conducting interrogations—gave his opinions credibility. 

 

Simmons' life as a spy led to friendships with high-ranking officials and lucrative military jobs. He was living his version of the dream… until the government, which he says he risked his life for, branded him a fraud. 

 

But he insists his CIA career really happened. 

 

Beginning September 13th, the second season of Impostors: The Commander will launch with a six-part season, releasing episodes every week.

 

 In Impostors: The Commander, journalist and host Abby Ellin tells the incredible story of a con man who entangled her, friends, family, coworkers, and other lovers in an identity fraud scheme that stretched all the way to the Pentagon.

The question host Ellin asks is: What if Mr. Right turns out to be Mr. So Wrong?

Impostors: The Commander is the second in a multi-part series from Topic Studios, Spotify, and Parcast on liars, con men, and other Impostors who leave trails of deceit - and sometimes destruction - behind them.

This season, like the first, is produced by Topic Studios with Transmitter Media, and is a Spotify Original from Parcast. The executive producers are Abby Ellin, Maria Zuckerman, Christy Gressman, Lisa Leingang, Leital Molad, Gretta Cohn for Transmitter Media, and Max Cutler for Parcast.

Listen to the trailer: HERE

Podcast host Ellin fell hard for an empathetic Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Medical Corps working to build hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had saved the grandson of one of the world’s wealthiest men from an attempted kidnapping, and had done secret missions with the CIA. And he wasn’t on some narcissistic quest to become rich and famous; instead, he only wanted to keep America safe from 'the bad guys.' On top of it all, he was an excellent father and a hopeless romantic. Who wouldn’t fall in love with him?

The problem is, almost everything The Commander said was a lie. He told these lies to woman after woman, for years. And many of these women fell for it, and fell for him. Until, that is, he messed with the wrong woman - Abby Ellin.

Impostors: The Commander host and Executive Producer Abby Ellin is an award-winning journalist and the author of “Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married” and “Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs In On Living Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can't) Help.” A former columnist for the New York Times Business Section, she is also a regular contributor to the Health, Style, and Education sections of the paper. 

Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, New York, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Psychology Today, Time, Newsweek, the Village Voice, the Boston Phoenix, Salon, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Spy (RIP).

In the series, based on her book Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married, Ellin shares The Commander’s journey from duper to felon through the eyes of the people he lied to. She talks to experts of all stripes: lie detectors who spot dupers, scientists who study trust and deception, and psychologists who work with those who’ve experienced a traumatic deception. And she seeks answers: why do we fall for cons and liars? How did she herself become so entrapped? And when you’ve been through an experience like this, can you ever trust again?

​​To listen to episodes of Impostors: The Commander, visit: HERE.