May 18, 2022 • 57 mins
Inedible food, medical records written in pencil, and the alarming effects of mass incarceration. In the second part of this series, Sheena spills the secret truth of life inside federal prison.
Featuring: Sheena Eizmendiz
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The same. Let's go to the mission one. Ready for unch.
(00:30):
Welcome aboard Earth Things, Welcome back. Yes, I hope you're
traveled with us. So far has been enjoyable. Yes, we
are here at one meteor strike Part two. That's right, baby,
Welcome back, Mom, happy to be here, ladies, Thanks for
coming back. How did we coerce you back on the couch?
We didn't really give her a choice. For those of
(00:50):
you that weren't here, last week, we started to get
into the incredible story of how Shena you were wrongfully
convicted to a federal prison. And I gotta say, from
my perspective here, you know, not only reliving the details
of the actual case, but the emotional components that went
(01:11):
into it. I feel like not a lot of people
think of and it's something that happens very very often.
So I know that we left off right when you
were self surrendered and you were about to enter prison.
So you know, you take it away and and let's
do it. Open the storybook once again. It's up Bendora's box.
(01:35):
It's really good. Okay, Mom, So you arrived to the
facility I did. That was on July eleventh, of to
be exact, and then what happened. It's a compound. It
was about an hour away from Orlando, FCC Coleman. That
(01:59):
was the facility. It's a camp. And I remember arriving there,
just sitting in the car looking at this massive building.
It's a camp. I'm sorry, what does that mean? Is
it like Orange is a New Black? It's somewhat like
Orange is a New Black with a twist. So what's
the difference between a camp and a regular prison? So
(02:19):
prisons have many different levels. And I was at a
camp because it's for it's a minimum security prison. It's
a camp. It's more of an open ground. There are
no bars, and this is an opportunity for people like
myself who are first time offenders. Some are also repeated
offenders where there's no real uh. The charges are not
(02:40):
for criminal offenses such as murder or anything of the sort,
non violent crimes. It okay, mom, So you self surrender
at the prison and then what happens? And then upon
entering this is where the process begins. And the first
thing is they bring me into a room and asked
(03:01):
me to undress and put my clothes to the side,
and following that we get the cavity check. This is
where it's like spread your legs and split your butt
cheeks time. That's crazy. It was because it was very dehumanizing.
Even though it was a female guard, it still is
(03:21):
dehumanizing to be in that situation. I was just happy
that I didn't have my period, so no tampon was
And imagine how many people are in that situation, and
there is because several women as they're entering into the
facility this is a camp, they shared this with us.
They say, oh my god, I had my period. It
was so embarrassing. This was just such a disappointing moment. Okay,
(03:46):
so they process you, they do the dehumanizing cavity check,
and then what happened, And then I'm escorted by two
of the inmates into the actual facility. There there's this
art area and then there are two buildings. And these
buildings were F one, F two, F three of four,
(04:06):
so it's just two buildings there, two level buildings, and
I was serving my time. I was going to spend
my time at A four. Remember that was the on
the second floor of one of the buildings. So they
bring me into the building and upon entering this building,
I remember it's something like out of a movie. It's
(04:26):
almost as if I had stepped out of my reality
into this completely different reality, almost like a paradigm shift
of swords. There was a lot of sound, a lot
of noises. Imagine the compound itself was built for two
hundred and fifty women, and we were six hundred and
forty five women. So talk about overcrowded, overcrowded, and then
(04:52):
again mass incarceration. We are number one in the world
for mass incarceration, so it's not surprising. How can they
get away with that? Well, you gotta remember that prison
is built on two principles, profit and punishment, and particularly
in prison in terms of federal prisons, as the one
that I was appointed to, that is a for profit prison.
(05:16):
It's a corporation, investors, privately, privately owned prisons. Yes, they're
funded by the government. I think that this was a
big moment for me when I was learning about this,
as my journey through the American justice system was quite
uh an interesting one, and correct me if I'm wrong,
But the government pays privately on federal prisons around thirty
(05:41):
thousand a little more thirty ahead, so it depends by state.
In the state of Florida is roughly between thirty two
or thirty five thousand per inmate per per year. Yes,
just just based on a budget. If you look at
states such as California, New York, we're talking about seventy
thousand and plus per inmate per year. And this is
(06:03):
where we learned that prisoners are a commodity that is
truly what they are. I'll see a lot of people
have a misconception of what it's like him there um
and you can start to tell us. You know, I've
seen people argue online or make jokes or even memes
circulate where people are like, oh, you know, I want
(06:25):
to go to prisondents to walk in the park. You
have free healthcare, free education, free meals, free cable free,
all these things. And listen. I also share that view
my perception of prison because that was not my world,
no pun intended. I thought that if you went to prison,
(06:46):
you're a criminal, you're a delinquent, You're there to serve time. Yeah,
and you did think that going to prison was a
walk in the park, that you had all of these
amenities available to you. I wouldn't say walk in the park.
I mean, look at the movies, right, you see all
these Friends series going on, and it's not a walk
in the park. That was not necessarily my my exact
perception of prison, But I thought, well, I mean, you
(07:08):
do the crime, you do the time. You thought that, oh,
those people deserve it. You know, it's not like they're
torturing them. I don't know so much about deserve. It
was more like, this is this is the way it is,
this is the system. And I'll tell you what something
that a lot of people don't understand is that one
in three people in America have some type of criminal conviction.
(07:32):
One in three. That means seventy million Americans have been
in the system. If we really want to deep dive
into the stats, right into the data, then we have
to think about six point six million have been convicted
of some type of crime. That means from the six
(07:53):
point six two point one million are actually serving time
right now currently this is the most recent data up
in prison or jail, and four point five of that
six point six are either doing probation or parole. And
these are men, women, sisters, brothers, uncles, mother's daughters, so
(08:16):
a lot of people. That's a lot of people. So yeah,
persons are for profit. We've got that covered. We know,
we know that. So let's get back to your story.
Where are we at this point? So you walked in,
you know, they dehumanized you, they made you, they checked
all your cavities and everything. You walk in you feel like,
oh my gosh, I'm in a movie right Like this
(08:37):
is unreal. What was going through your mind at that point?
It was like an auto body experience for me. If
I can sum it up in just one word, I
felt dismantled. I think dismantling is appropriate and how I
(08:57):
felt internally. I felt robbed at that moment. Not just
because my freedom had been taken away from me and
all of my rights as we all know, but I
felt robbed. I felt robbed. I felt I had no voice,
that to me is very important, and I felt like
I was a really small, very small person in a
(09:19):
very large situation. Are you worried to say, pond because
what happened? Can I ask you something? Did you ever
feel mad at yourself? I was mad at myself, I
was mad at God. And I've always had a very
spiritual connection with my beliefs. I don't really identify with
(09:40):
any particular religion, even though I've studied religion for many years,
many different types of religions, but I identify more with spirituality.
And at that moment, there was this, there was this pain.
There was a gap between my beliefs what was going
(10:00):
on and everything that was happening around me. So there
was a big disconnect. I was angry. I was angry
at God. I was You never had any thought of like,
why did I plead guilty? Why did I do this?
You were just like, all right, I'm here. You accepted it.
That was it at first. At first, I think the
ego is always on the driver's seat, especially when we
(10:23):
tend to victimize ourselves. And I'm very familiar with that,
not only in my own personal experiences, but in the
work that I've always done, where I know that the
eagle tends to get in the way of of each
and every one of us, and my ego wanted to speak.
I couldn't speak up, I couldn't fend for myself, but
my ego wanted to so absolutely, I remember falling into
(10:43):
sort of this victimhood of why me? And this is
the part that's really crazy, and it's almost I'm almost
ashamed to say this, but I want to be vulnerable
and share this. I thought, oh my god, I'm going
to be the only innocent person in that entire place.
I'm going to prison with a bunch of criminals. Because
you must be there thinking that I'm going to be
(11:05):
the only innocent person. I don't belong there. That's what
the eagle does. And I'm assuming that you met some
innocent people. So definitely, I met some women who who
have been sentenced to twenty years sentences because unlike myself
who decided to take the plea, these are women who
(11:26):
wanted to go to trial and fight, and I admire
them for that. So I'll tell you what we used
to call prison the cemetery of the living, because it's
Groundhog Day. Every day, every single day is the same thing.
You wake up to the same thing. How was your
first day? My first day was scary. I was afraid.
(11:46):
I wasn't afraid for what could happen to me physically.
I was afraid that I wouldn't adapt to that environment.
I'm telling you my ego, My ego was like I
am superior in the way that I wasn't used to
that world. I wasn't used to that type of environment.
I don't know if I can adapt. So it was
(12:09):
it was not comforting. However, did anybody comfort you? Did
anyone come yes to you? Griselda? Griselda was all right,
that's enough. Listen. The first the first person that approached
me was Griselda. She came and she brought me a
blanket because it's so cold in there. It's freezing in
(12:32):
their eyes. You can't imagine how cold it is. She
brought me a blanket to keep myself warm at night.
Why did why did Griselda give you a blanket? Did
they not give you a blanket? Yes, but it's so
cold in there, and the things that they provide you
with are so minimal. So what is it they give you?
What kind of supplies do you receive upon arriving? Your
(12:55):
uniform your uniform, which is pretty much used when you
have a visitor, when someone's visiting you on the weekend.
It's kind of this military style, I think, and you
would totally dig it rocket. It looked like scrubs. I
don't know, I it's more like military okay. And then
(13:16):
what what what are the things toothbrush, toothpaste? Like? What
do they give you? What? Are the essentials. Yes, they
do provide you with that. However, you do have the
option to purchase some of these things that are a
little more upgraded in terms of branding in commissary, which
are extremely expensive by the way, like Pantine was six bucks. Right,
(13:36):
of course they up charge you because it's not enough
to have you in there, the money off of you,
and how does somebody in prison have money to buy shampoo?
So one of two ways. Because these camps were designed
as working camps, we all had to work. That's that's important.
You need to work like you were obligated to find
(14:00):
job you are. My first job before I got fired
was that the gym. You got fired, you got and
I was meant to be an entrepreneur and not to
work for anybody. I was working as an orderly, which
an orderly is pretty much the person who cleans the gym,
(14:21):
and I decided to take that job because I thought
it was really easy. I wasn't going to have the
guard watching over me, micromanaging me. It was kind of
like a very liberal job where I would have to
go into the gym grab all of my cleaning products,
which translates into soap and water, you're not allowed to
have any chemicals in prison because you can or you
(14:42):
can use it for you know, to get high and whatnot.
So I had to clean the gym. So I had
this system going on with my friends where I would
leave everything set up like I was cleaning, and I
would go into the yard with all my friends hang out.
Why exercise. I took exercise very serious. Oh my god.
(15:05):
And then I would go back move things around again,
make it look like, oh, she's here, she's cleaning. I
don't know where they sucked because he leave us to
say those who were there, you should not have been
using the june Oh god, okay, so you got so okay.
So that was my first job and then I was fired.
Did you get paid for those jobs we did? I
(15:28):
was a very gracious salary of six cents per hour.
What six cents, ladies? Six cents per hour? That's what?
And you to make a phone call out to your
family is how much cents a minute? So, to be
perfectly honest, you would have to work more than four
(15:51):
hours to have one minute on the phone. Yes, So
that's one of the ways to have money to be
able to utilize it, whether it's phone calls. Emails, by
the way, also emails subtract money from your commissary. Let
me send an email. But there's also another way, which
was family or friends. They can deposit money into your account.
(16:12):
We were only allowed three hundred dollars a month. That
was sort of the cap. I never had three hundred
dollars in commissary because there was not enough money to
deposit for me. The irony considering that I had been
obviously head of household provider my entire life, and I
(16:32):
would say we lived a pretty comfortable life. And yet
when I went to prison, because everything was gone, everything
my my whole life was dismantled. There was no more money,
and so I had to depend on whoever could deposit
here fifty dollars there a hundred dollars here each month,
so I pretty much depended on my friends. I had
(16:56):
few close friends, so when I need to catch up,
I would just go to my friend and say, hey,
I don't have any catchup and have some ketchup? What
do you owe in there? Yeah, because I couldn't afford it.
In commissaries, you have to buy ketchup. Yes, it's crazy
to be because you really think that you go in
there and that you have all of these things obviously
offered to you. Um, considering that we're paying so much
(17:17):
per person. From what you've told me, the inmates of
that prison ran the prison. Yeah. There were no electricians.
There were no there were The inmates were electricians. If
you needed the landscape to because you had the inmates
to do that. Yeah. The in mainline, which is the
(17:40):
kitchen per se, right, this is where you go eat,
the cafeteria. It was called mainline. This is this was
your second job, right at the kitchen. No kitchen me, No,
I don't know. They would have killed someone. How would
have got killed? In prison? You know, being the kitchen
don't go together. So even though I did not work
in the main line or in the kitchen area, I
(18:01):
did have a bunky who lived across from my cubicle
who did work there. And I remember her telling me once, Hey,
don't ever eat the meat here. Don't eat the meat. Okay.
Why well, because the box of burgers says not for
human consumption. Oh god, most of the food is expired,
(18:35):
very high in sodium, because everything is in case. It's
an example of a meal you would get. And I
remember Wednesdays was Burger Wednesday. That was which I'd never hate,
the burger, the meat patty. I had the bread with
the tomato and some fries. Wow. Vegetarian somewhat not by
(18:58):
choice at that moment, but by fours uh So we
lived on an average of twelve calories per day. Wow,
we were hungry. Yeah, that's not that we were very hungry.
Another really interesting thing that I learned about the medical
system in prison is that everyone's file is written in pencil,
(19:19):
at least in your camp. In my camp. This is
again I'm speaking for DC Coleman. I remember that all
of our medical records, everything was written in pencil. I
remember that very d labor. Why, I'll leave that to
your imagination. I don't know. Wow. Yeah, we saw some
(19:40):
really horrific things happen. Yeah, I with One of the
things that I've always that that I haven't pushed out
of my head, one of the things that I've always
remembered about your experience was all of these stories that
you shared with me from these women that you met
in there who have had horrific experience. This is of
(20:01):
varying degrees, and there's one in particular that I would
love for you to share because it's just it was
so captivating to me when you told it to me.
And I don't I don't want to butcher it, but
it was of that the woman who um wasn't an
abusive relationship with her boyfriend who was a drug dealer.
That woman, I mean, I don't even know who she is.
(20:23):
I don't know her name. I've never met her before
in my life, but I think about her all the time.
Her story, her her brother actually documented her story and
it became it was an HBO documentary and it actually
won an award. Wow. Okay, so her story, man, I
have to tell you. At the time, she was an
abusive relationship and and the boyfriend she had was a
(20:45):
drug dealer, and he threatened her. We threatened her throughout
the whole relationship. As a matter of fact, I remember
her sharing with me how she slept in a bed
next to him and there was a gun underneath her pillow.
She could not get away from this relationship. That option
did not exist for her. And one day he was
(21:07):
I believe he was walking back into the house where
she was at. There were other people there as well,
friends of his, and he was shot. He was shot
several times. It was this big situation that happened, and uh,
and she came in and he came in, I'm sorry,
and she was able to take him put him in
the pickup drive to the hospital, but she had no
(21:29):
idea he had just died next to her. So a
few years later, she's in an incredible relationship. She's healed,
she's gotten her life back. She had two children at
the time, small children at the time, two small girls, married,
a home job. Her whole life had changed, big shift,
(21:49):
and she was indicted. She was investigated for her boyfriend's crime,
the fact that he had been a drug dealer. Because
he was no longer around, they had to pit it
on someone, and they gave her fifteen years. They gave
her fifteen years for his crime, even though his friends
(22:12):
testified and and said she never had anything to do
with this. In the contrary, she was basically a victim
of an abusive, really abusive relationship. She spent fifteen years
in prison. She to make it even worse, she was
pregnant for her with her third child when this whole
investigation was going on. She had her her third baby,
(22:35):
another girl, and she ended up going to prison, and
three years after being in prison, they relocated her. Which
that's something that's a whole other traumatic experience when they
decided to relocate you. And think think about it from
the perspective of commodity. As I said earlier, right, we're commodity.
She was serving time at a particular prison and this
(22:58):
other prison, which was Coleman. They needed to meet certain
numbers because it was around that time of the budget
where they're going to receive their money from the government,
and so they were short it's almost like short staffed,
short in prisoners. They called her prison. They needed some
prisoners to come over to the prison, and they grabbed
her three in the morning. They just they literally grab
(23:20):
you with dur in the morning. They shackle you and
they'll either put you on a plane or in a bus.
You have no idea where you're going. You can't ask
any questions, you can't call your family, you can't call anyone.
So I don't know even where. You have no idea
where you're going until you arrive. And she arrived in Florida,
in Florida at Coleman Camp. So Jim, tell me, we've
(23:43):
heard a lot from your mom. I know you were
in New York and Amber was living with your dad.
But did you ever visit visit her? Did you talk
on the phone. How was the experience of her being
in there for you? So we my mom tried to
communicate mostly through email, right more than phone calls. I
feel like there were some phone calls, but not that money.
(24:07):
I think that when I got to New York, I
was kind of just like, well, let me just swallow
this trauma and put it all behind me. Like I
wanted to throw myself into what I was doing. I mean,
I was a freshman in college. I was living somewhat
of my dream because I had always wanted to go
to New York and I always wanted to live in
New York. And I think I didn't want to, like
think about the situation with my mom, so there was
(24:33):
a lot of distance between us. I didn't I didn't.
I didn't want to. I didn't want to go there.
It was too painful. It was too painful. I don't know.
I never even let myself, I never even let myself
analyze why I didn't let myself go there. I just
distracted myself. Did anybody during that time come see you
(24:53):
or so to answer that I did. Actually, so I did.
I did get to visit her once or twice in there?
What was it was? It was once? Okay, yeah, because
in the second time we picked you up, I did
I get I did get to a visit her once
in there? What was that? Like? Really emotional? Really emotional crazy?
(25:16):
My grandparents had to rent a car, poor things. They
did their best rent a car and we had to
drive at the crack of dawn to sort of wait
outside until they decided to let the visiting hours begin.
I know, in the morning when we were going to
visit her, I could see her. I could see her
on the window of her building, which was super emotional
(25:39):
because it was like she was right there, but I
couldn't you couldn't see her touch her anything yet. Um. Yeah,
there were some board games, I think I remember, don't
I remember that? Yeah? I mean, you just you try
to like fit in as much as you can in
those few hours, and then when you leave, when you leave,
(26:01):
it's excruciated. It's excruciated because I want to take her
with you, yeah, and you and then I leave and
I have to drive like four hours. You know. It's
not like where she was was in my city or
anything like that, and I lived in New York, so um, yeah,
it was terrible. It was terrible. That wasn't for you visiting.
(26:24):
I didn't have a lot of visitations during my time there,
which was very painful. I have to be honest. I
did have a few, and I'm extremely grateful. A lot
of my friends did have weekly visitations, but a lot
of times weeks would go by and I would had
no visits, no visitors come see me. And you know,
I kind of had to fill in the day in
my time because I wasn't with my friends, so they
(26:47):
were with their family. They were with their families. Yeah,
I mean, and my grandparents didn't see you more than
I saw you the best. My poor grandma she had
to pawn and my mom. Actually, I am not getting
emotional this episode. I said it before I started, so
don't look at me like that. My mom didn't know this,
and she found out by you know, literally like two
(27:09):
years ago my grandma's birthday. Because I wanted to get
my grandma some nice jewelry. And the reason why is
because I knew that so my grandma could go see
my mom in prison. She pawned all of her jewelry,
like all of it, except for maybe like two or
three emotional pieces that she felt she couldn't let go
of just so she could go see Because remember, as
(27:32):
we said in the last episode, my mom was the
financial head figurehead of our house. So when she was
not working, there was no money. Everything was gone, everything
was gone. So my grandma obviously doesn't work and I
did not have any money like like like be like, no,
I think you brought him up? Did you meet him
(27:58):
in prison? Hello? And for us being in the inside,
visitation day is very special because that weekend meant that
(28:22):
we put makeup on. We try to look our best
for our families or friends whoever is visiting us, right,
because it's not something you do while you're there. You
don't want toful makeup on. I didn't make up. You
get your nails done. Someone always volunteers to, oh you're
you're so and so is coming this weekend to see, Oh,
I'll do your nail. We bought it in commissary, okay,
they have, so we had that opportunity. If you needed
(28:47):
to get like your hair dyed or your roots touched up,
you did that as well, right before your family your
friends visited you on the weekend. It was sort of like,
this was our moment to just share are with our
loved ones, and we really didn't want our family and
friends to see what we were going through the turmoil,
because we knew that we stay there, but you guys
(29:10):
leave and now you take this with you, and to us,
that was just too much weight, too much weight. Yeah,
well it worked because I remember seeing you with makeup
and nail post and I was like, huh, all right,
so she's not doing so bad. I was like, okay,
but you're snatched. Good job, momb there. We're trying. Yeah,
(29:35):
you try to make the best of what you have.
What do you think was if you can think of
one moment would experience, it was the scariest thing that
you experienced while in there. It's not a violent place.
It's not and at least where you were right, because
(29:56):
I was at a camp minimal security, non violent fenders.
Yes there's disputes, Yes there was an occasional fifth fight
here and there, But I think for me, the scariest moment,
if I'm going to be completely blunt, I remember waking
up one morning and being angry that I had woken up.
(30:21):
I wanted to die. And this is at the very
beginning of this experience. I remember going to sleep the
night before praying to God that I would die in
my sleep. Love. I didn't know that because it is
the cemetery of a living You're you're dead and there
(30:41):
and mind you. I kept a really busy schedule for myself.
I remember asking for a calendar and I made sure
that from the moment I awoken and I think it
was around five in the morning to the time that
I had to be in bed for that roll call
that we have. I kept myself extremely as I did yoga,
I ran seven miles, I exercise, I meditated, I wrote.
(31:05):
I spent so much time writing, interviewing other women, trying
to understand their stories, collecting that information, asking questions. But
I remember that was the scariest moment, when I realized
that I was in a very dark place. I remember
praying like praying, please, God, I beg you, I don't
(31:29):
want to wake up tomorrow to this. I remember, I've
never in my life felt that way. And I've worked
with so many people who have attempted suicide or suicidal ideations,
and I always wonder my gosh, what is that like
to be in that situation and and praying that I
would not wake up the next morning? That was tough,
(31:50):
and then waking up and realizing here I am again
another day. Why did I feel like it was not
going to end at that point? Yes, you, it's not
like in the movies where you count like the little
lines on the wall of the brick wall, but you count,
you count. Yeah. I will blame you at all for
(32:14):
feeling that way. I know that you say that you
had entered a state of victimhood, like if it was
a bad thing, but you were a victim. We were
failed by the system. I think at the moment, when
you're in that space, that you're looking at everything from
a very subjective level, it's easy to feel like you
(32:38):
are victim and that you have been failed. I think
the moment that the shift and me took place and
I was able to objectively look at the situation and
really distance myself from it and and sort of surrender
to the circumstances and given I think giving in was
so important and allowing things to sort of break me open.
(33:01):
I think I needed to be broken open. I no
longer felt that way I really did not. I think
that that was my awakening, that was my my rebirth
of sorts. I had. I had a second chance in life,
because up to that point, truly I had not been
living my life. Life was living me. I had a
(33:22):
chance in there to really look back at the way
that I was showing up in my business, for my family,
for everyone. I thought I was doing it right. I
thought the way that I was doing things was how
I needed to do them. But I was wrong, and
I realized that in there that was the big So
I have a question. You know your daughter is gay?
(33:44):
What I know? Right? I just found out yesterday. I
was in shock. I was like, I thought we were
just friends who did fun stuff. Um anyway, So you know,
there's a lot of stigmas and stereotypes too about you know,
being a homosexual in prison. Yeah, me and my friends
would would make bets like whether or not you were
going to sleep with somebody. Oh my geminy mom, it
was a long time. I wouldn't have judged you that
(34:07):
was already gay. Well, it wouldn't have been something abnormal.
So a lot of women there who were married, had children,
have families considering you know, there's such a devoid of
love in there. Yeah, there is no love. Pain, but
there's no love, and so needing that, yes, affection, someone
(34:28):
to care for them. Remember that as humans were here
to have a relationship that's interchangeable, there's a given receive
that must take place, and you don't do that in prison.
So it's very normal. But no, I didn't do you.
I did not. I don't think that was the question.
Do you want to know? Mom? That's question that was not.
(34:50):
My question was did you notice a difference between how
maybe women that were perhaps more were um masculine presenting,
or you know, maybe maybe gay right were treated differently
than women who were straight or married in there or
something like that. So, like anywhere in the world, it
(35:12):
is a big community, especially in prison. There there were
a lot of gay women in prison. And I remember
one incident where some I think it was like two
in the morning, all of a sudden, these men came
took them. I could kid you, not like guards. I
took them, right, they were taken and they were sent
(35:34):
to It's not the shoe because we don't have that
in federal prison really, or at least not at the
camp level. But more too, they were taken to a
jail holding facility and they were placed there for several
weeks as a matter of fact, for what reason, because
there were lesbians, because there were relationships going on, There
(35:55):
were sex going on in in the camp, which, again, human,
you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to
do that. No, but so you're not allowed to have sex.
But I'll tell you what happened oftentimes, and I witnessed this,
We we knew about this. Many of the inmates were
having sex with the guards. Now when this was discovered,
(36:17):
guess what would happen. The guards simply were trans were
transferred over to another prison, maybe to a medium or penitentiary,
a maximum security prison. So in other words, they were
taken from that camp and taken somewhere else. Right, a
little slap in the hand, you don't do that. The
women in the other hand, now, they were transferred to Tallahassee.
(36:39):
And in Tallahassee, here you're in prison, like this is
like bars and you're with all kinds of criminals. You
have solitary, you have it all. So they took the
women away. They did for I remember it was about
two to three weeks. We were like what the hell
just happened. It was only the lesbians, that's it. Only
(36:59):
the so you knew, you knew. Of course there were
girlfriends and of course, and they were taken away. And
I remember when they came back. It was like all
of a sudden they were taken away, but all of
a sudden they were brought back. And it had a
lot to do with one particular inmate who she was
able to make a phone call called her attorney. Her
(37:21):
attorney was, I mean this guy, he was a shark,
and he called Washington. He called the regional office. So
as quickly as they took them, they returned them a
few weeks later. Now, when they were returned, when they
were brought back, there was this kind of like label
that was put outside of their cubicle that identified them
(37:46):
as being gay. Oh good, what yeah? How what like?
What did it say? I don't recall exactly, but I
remember that you wouldn't walk by and you would see it.
So they were labeled. They were they were tacked. WHOA,
that's crazy. Yeah, m that was a great question. Jeez. Okay,
(38:09):
So curious because you mentioned this in the last part
of this series. I don't know how you didn't fight
Griselda when you walked in and saw her in your cell.
I don't know how you didn't fight her. What she
had to do a blanket? I probably would have strangled
her with that blanket, Like, how dare you the irony
of all things? I know that your relationship with her
(38:33):
in there was not one where you held her accountable
for her actions. You took a very different road. Can you?
Can you share with us why? How? What made you
feel that way? Why did you not? How did you?
How did how did you manage not to direct your
anger at her? So we have to take into account
that I'm a huge advocate of forgiveness, and I truly
(38:56):
believe that in order for us to heal, we need
to forgive. Doesn't mean you need to forget. Forgiveness does
not mean that what you did was right, But forgiveness
is really for you, for you, for the individual. This,
this was, this is necessary in order for us to
really heal and come to terms. I had done some
work prior to going to prison. I worked on myself
(39:20):
and I worked on forgiving her and forgiving this experience.
So what I was in prison, and I did not
think I was going to be serving time with her.
I will tell you that was a that was a
gift from the universe, because it truly was it. Well,
think about it. It put me in a situation where
I had to walk my talk. I had spend my
(39:42):
whole life telling people why they needed to forgive their abusers,
why they needed to forgive people in order to move on,
And here I am with this individual that was part
of this entire story. Yeah, okay, So when you first
saw her for that first time, you had already forgiven her. Yes,
had we worked on forgiving, forgiving her. I hadn't forgiven God.
(40:05):
I hadn't forgiven my spiritual beliefs as to why I
was going to prison. But I can guarantee you that
I had no anger in my heart towards her whatsoever.
So much so that did you have conversations with her,
And not only had conversations that had breakfast, lunch, dinner,
We had conversations what do you even what do you
even talk about? HI? Good morning, everyday conversation. So you
(40:32):
never spoke about it from that time that we spoke
about last time that you were calling her and calling
her and she called you and said, hey, get out
of the apartment. Why did you do this? Not at all? No,
one time though, she she came up to me and
my friend who was with me. She was the title
company whom I mentioned that she had nothing to do
(40:53):
with this as well, and she said, the two people
that shouldn't be here, there's there's two people here shouldn't
be here. It's definitely you girls. But how could you not?
I just want to understand. Forget about violence, because I
really don't think that that's the option. But I'm trying
to understand how somebody in your position, how do you
not say, mommy whatever, even if you forgive her right listen,
(41:18):
you know whatever it is that ended you up here,
I forgive you. However, what why why did you do this?
I wasn't asking I didn't feel compelled to ask her
those questions. I was asking the universe, show me, show
me why I'm here. No matter of fact, I'll tell
you something. Out of the entire time that I was there,
I probably spent the time asking the universe to show me,
(41:42):
show me, show me why I'm here, because you didn't
think I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but you
thought maybe perhaps okay, these are her life choices. I
ended up here as a result. But in the grand
scheme of things, it was a big part of your life,
and she maybe was not. You didn't associate it with her.
I never associated with her. I never put I never
(42:02):
saw her as a culprit. I did not, even though
they called her mastermind in the case, I never saw
her as a culprit. I saw her as a very
important piece of this puzzle. And let me ask you,
have you gotten those answers from the universe this day? Absolutely,
I am certain that I have. I feel that she
was an instrument. Had it not been for her, I
(42:24):
would have never had the opportunity two have been humbled
at the level that I was humbled to really get
to experience what that world in there was like, to
to try to learn from a different perspective. What did
I learned so many things aside from what I learned
(42:44):
from the from the system, which is, you know, just
there's just so much about the system that that is
still upsetting to me today, especially when it comes to
women being incarcerated. And there's a real common factor amongst
those women, and that's a mental health problem. A lot
of the women they're unlike myself. These are women who
(43:05):
have come through trauma's abuse of all kinds their entire life.
These are women who have experienced poverty, women who don't
have education, and for one reason or another, they have
found themselves within the system. So that common denominator is there.
And we know that we have a mental health problem
in America that is not addressed. We talk about it
(43:27):
may as a matter of fact, it's Mental Health Month
and we're trying to bring a lot of awareness around
that subject. But these are people that have real problems.
These are issues that they're not being supported. They're not
they're not there's not enough resources just in general. You
know what I'm saying there is it's very minimal, and
(43:49):
I would say it's very lacking, extremely deficient. Uh, it's
a very deficient system. And when it comes to the
mental health system, yeah, we don't rehabilitate our popular relation. No,
it's not mental rehbilitate them. But it's punishments. Well, we
know that doesn't work, Like what is this medieval ages
with a costume on it? Like then we're surprised when
(44:13):
people enter the system more than once, because that's a
bit there's a big statistic for that there is there's
actually a fifty three percent within the first three years
of being released from prison, there is a fifty three
chance that you will return to prison. There's also no
resources there were the transition out of prison. They're none.
(44:33):
You you go to a halfway house the majority of
the time, and you stay at this halfway house, which
is really more of an extension of prison than anything else.
And this is a nonprofit organization that pretty much houses you.
And during that time, you're supposed to look for a job,
You're supposed to find a place to live or aren't
you allowed to live at home? Well, you can after
(44:55):
a period of time. You have to go through certain
program It's a certain programming that they give you, which
is again very deficient, very lacking of resources, real resources.
There's people who are are released into these halfway houses
who have not never seen a computer in their lives.
Because if you especially right now, with how much and
(45:17):
how quickly the world has been changing in terms of technology,
I wanna I want to get to is there anything
else that you wanted to share about your time in prison.
I would say that prison has two problems. It has
two problems. It's a people problem in a systemic problem.
(45:39):
It's a there's a lot of misconceptions. And I know
that we discussed earlier how we generalize people who go
to prison. For me, it's really important to amplify the
voices of both women and men who have been to prison.
Have you experienced some of that generalization, because you know,
(46:01):
as we see in the movies, um, most most criminals
don't look like you. Um, have you had any experiences
with that? To your point, you're absolutely right. In the movies,
most criminals don't look like me. But in real life,
they actually do. They actually do. I recently attended a
(46:34):
charity event. It's a not in profit organization that supports
formerly incarcerated women. Incredible incredible, Uh. Nonprofit provides them with entrepreneurship,
leadership skills, all of the necessary things that they're going
to need. Because, after all, once you're labeled felon, and
that's a whole other thing. Remember I'm a felon. I
(46:55):
have a felony conviction for a white collar crime, but
felonyal so applies to murder, drugs, I mean, all things
across the board, So there's no real distinction, especially when
you're applying for a job per se and they ask
you in the job application do you have a felony
and you check that off. You're not supposed to discriminate
someone from a job opportunity, But the reality is that
(47:18):
those unconscious biases are there. They're there, those microaggressions are there.
It's very normal. So I went to this charity event
and I was in conversation with one of the women
that were attending this event, and she's telling me about
her experience as a volunteer. And she's telling me how
she's worked with one of the formerly incarcerated women from
(47:40):
the organization and what an incredible experience she had. It
was just so awakening to her. And she's like, you know,
these women are actually really great women. They're amazing women.
These are great women. And I'm just listening to her,
giving her the opportunity to share her experience, and she
tells me, you know, these are not white you know
(48:02):
what one would think bad women to liquent women. Some
of these are really phenomenal women. Their mothers, their sisters,
They're women that really want to get back into society.
I have so much admiration for them. And she and
she tells me, I don't know if you've ever had
a chance to speak to any of those Menen, You're like,
(48:22):
you're speaking to one of them right now. What did
you say? So? I said, actually, yes, I um, I'm
very familiar because I myself, I am a I am
a felon and I was formerly incarcerated back and I wish,
(48:43):
I wish I would have a camera. I wish there
would have been a camera somewhere just to capture her
her facial expression. This woman literally physically stepped back. She
looked at me from my shoes all the way up
to my hair, and I will say, I look very
I was at a charity of it. I wanted to
look nice. I felt good that day. And she said,
(49:06):
what no way, God like the way to drive the
dagger in Further, I have to tell you I was
pained by that reaction. Of course, I was pained because
I felt, um, it was unfair. It is imagine they
were judged and it wasn't about It wasn't about me.
(49:27):
I kept thinking about the many women, all of us right,
we're community. And it hurt me that because because I
may have some skills that maybe they don't have, or
because I look a certain way that there's no one
(49:47):
can really identify me as you haven't been to prison.
I mean, look at you. That hurt me, That hurt
me a lot, no matter hucked. That's terrible. So walk
us through your last day. There was that like bitter sweet.
(50:07):
It was painful. It was bitter sweet. I wanted to
have a smile in my friends, my face for my
friends I there was. It was very celebratory. They made
me a like a last dinner, last dinner going away,
But it was very painful because for me, I wanted
to take them with me. I remember the evening before
(50:29):
my last day there, and I didn't sleep. I felt
an enormous amount of guilt. I felt that why me
and not them? Why am I so lucky that I'm
leaving this place? There's women here that still have years, years, lifetimes, lifetimes,
And so it was very bitter sweet. There was a
sense of, oh my god, I'm being released, but there
(50:52):
was also this, oh my god, why can't I bring
them with me? What happens to them? Why me? Not them?
And you know, it's hard to stay in time. Survivor's
skill if I can, it was survivor's sales. I carried
that with me for a very long time. I have
to say, even still today, I look back and and
I think that that's why I feel this need to
(51:13):
educate and bring information to people, because I too was
ignorant to all of this, and it was so important
for me to be able to continue to share not
my story, but really to amplify their voices more than
anything else. There's so many people out there who are
abandoned by their families, like you have a very You're
(51:36):
very fortunate. I was fortunate, even though you know you
suffered so much, you had resources, you know, in comparison
to these thirty years sentences, you had a short sentence.
You had family that was waiting for you. So I
would love to hear because in my life I've tried
(51:56):
to adopt a lot about like turning pain into purpose
for whatever reason that may have entered your life, and
I've known you to be somebody who has really, you know,
put your experience into action for other people. And that's
one of the biggest reasons why we have you here today,
because I also want to know, you know, for those
(52:18):
who are listening, or for those perhaps who have been
in this situation, or perhaps for those who don't have
anybody waiting for him for them on the outside, or
aren't able to get out. Um, you know what is
your advice? What? What can we do? Like? What have
you taken away that you can share with people that
are not in your perspective? Perhaps you know that woman
(52:41):
that took a step back from you? You know what
do you wish that she could hear to make her
understand why we're having such an important conversation today. I
think first and foremost, we we need to stop judging
each other. We live in a within a society where
we're constantly judging. We judge people because of the color
(53:02):
of their skin, because of their sexual preference, because of
their success level. And I think that's where we need
to start. We need to stop judging. I think we
need to humble ourselves and remember that we all share
a common ground, that my suffering is your suffering, that collectively,
(53:23):
whatever happens to someone will in fact impact you, maybe
not directly, maybe indirectly, But there's no such thing as
this separation or this divide that we've created. This notion
is an island, moment is an island. And when it
comes to people who are either in the system, have
(53:44):
been in the system, or as we know because of
the statistics, will probably be in the system. I think
that we need to be open to the possibility that
not everything you read is real in social media or
in the media or anywhere. I mean, after all, if
you read my story, I'm part of a forty million
dollar crime and we've just had an opportunity to really
(54:05):
share the raw moments having gone from having a life
where we lived very comfortably to everything being taken from us,
everything was gone, and then the rebuilt of that, that
rebirth process. I think judgment is a big part of this,
and we need to stop marginalizing people, discriminating people because
(54:27):
of their history or their past or what they've gone through.
And speaking of since your release, have you ever crossed
paths with Griselda again in any capacity? I have not.
There's one thing that I also learned. Um, I don't
know if you remember the phrase, is it queen for
a day? Is that what it is? What is it
(54:50):
when you can buy cases? Yes, that's a whole What
do you mean by cases? You can there there is
also an opportunity where you can actually for a certain
amount of money, you can purchase a case, a case
that's being under investigation, and I'm going to like a
(55:11):
file and study the file and be a witness to
that crime. And that also reduces is this what Griselda did?
But wouldn't that be a lie? How can you be
a witness if you weren't there? Well? And that's legal,
that is absolutely legal. Wow. You go on something called
(55:31):
a writ and that means that you now leave wherever
you're serving your time and you're transferred over to whatever
city this case took place, and now you testify. You
have all these different interviews and how are you not
going to do everything that you can do for your
(55:54):
life and your family? And then, just like you said,
even that action is influence whosever case that that is?
And they're you know, future and their family. It is
just a web of destruction and lies. Yeah, it's an
interesting system, and that's why I think it's so important
(56:16):
that we understand. I think a level of education, of
understanding of knowledge and conversations like these. You're doing powerful work. Mom.
I'm very proud of you. To start, I would ask
you to do another song, but honestly, I think you've
covered it last boxing Alright, show us what you got.
(56:45):
Thank you girls alright, and for those of you out
there who have joined us for this epic two part
series When Meteor Strike. The reason why we called it
that is because at any moment in your life, you
think that everything's under control and you're good, But there
are obstacles all around you in many forms that can
come and intervene and disrupt your life. And the important
thing is how you go through it, how you recover
(57:07):
from it, and in turn, what you do as a
result of it. So thank you for being here, thank
you for joining us everyone out there, and we'll see
you next week on in our own world. Good Bye, everybody,
Bye everyone. This is a Moonflower production in partnership with
I Hearts Michael do That Podcast Network. For more podcasts,
visit the I Heart Radio app or wherever you listen
(57:29):
to your favorite shows.
The same. Let's go to the mission one. Ready for unch.
(00:30):
Welcome aboard Earth Things, Welcome back. Yes, I hope you're
traveled with us. So far has been enjoyable. Yes, we
are here at one meteor strike Part two. That's right, baby,
Welcome back, Mom, happy to be here, ladies, Thanks for
coming back. How did we coerce you back on the couch?
We didn't really give her a choice. For those of
(00:50):
you that weren't here, last week, we started to get
into the incredible story of how Shena you were wrongfully
convicted to a federal prison. And I gotta say, from
my perspective here, you know, not only reliving the details
of the actual case, but the emotional components that went
(01:11):
into it. I feel like not a lot of people
think of and it's something that happens very very often.
So I know that we left off right when you
were self surrendered and you were about to enter prison.
So you know, you take it away and and let's
do it. Open the storybook once again. It's up Bendora's box.
(01:35):
It's really good. Okay, Mom, So you arrived to the
facility I did. That was on July eleventh, of to
be exact, and then what happened. It's a compound. It
was about an hour away from Orlando, FCC Coleman. That
(01:59):
was the facility. It's a camp. And I remember arriving there,
just sitting in the car looking at this massive building.
It's a camp. I'm sorry, what does that mean? Is
it like Orange is a New Black? It's somewhat like
Orange is a New Black with a twist. So what's
the difference between a camp and a regular prison? So
(02:19):
prisons have many different levels. And I was at a
camp because it's for it's a minimum security prison. It's
a camp. It's more of an open ground. There are
no bars, and this is an opportunity for people like
myself who are first time offenders. Some are also repeated
offenders where there's no real uh. The charges are not
(02:40):
for criminal offenses such as murder or anything of the sort,
non violent crimes. It okay, mom, So you self surrender
at the prison and then what happens? And then upon
entering this is where the process begins. And the first
thing is they bring me into a room and asked
(03:01):
me to undress and put my clothes to the side,
and following that we get the cavity check. This is
where it's like spread your legs and split your butt
cheeks time. That's crazy. It was because it was very dehumanizing.
Even though it was a female guard, it still is
(03:21):
dehumanizing to be in that situation. I was just happy
that I didn't have my period, so no tampon was
And imagine how many people are in that situation, and
there is because several women as they're entering into the
facility this is a camp, they shared this with us.
They say, oh my god, I had my period. It
was so embarrassing. This was just such a disappointing moment. Okay,
(03:46):
so they process you, they do the dehumanizing cavity check,
and then what happened, And then I'm escorted by two
of the inmates into the actual facility. There there's this
art area and then there are two buildings. And these
buildings were F one, F two, F three of four,
(04:06):
so it's just two buildings there, two level buildings, and
I was serving my time. I was going to spend
my time at A four. Remember that was the on
the second floor of one of the buildings. So they
bring me into the building and upon entering this building,
I remember it's something like out of a movie. It's
(04:26):
almost as if I had stepped out of my reality
into this completely different reality, almost like a paradigm shift
of swords. There was a lot of sound, a lot
of noises. Imagine the compound itself was built for two
hundred and fifty women, and we were six hundred and
forty five women. So talk about overcrowded, overcrowded, and then
(04:52):
again mass incarceration. We are number one in the world
for mass incarceration, so it's not surprising. How can they
get away with that? Well, you gotta remember that prison
is built on two principles, profit and punishment, and particularly
in prison in terms of federal prisons, as the one
that I was appointed to, that is a for profit prison.
(05:16):
It's a corporation, investors, privately, privately owned prisons. Yes, they're
funded by the government. I think that this was a
big moment for me when I was learning about this,
as my journey through the American justice system was quite
uh an interesting one, and correct me if I'm wrong,
But the government pays privately on federal prisons around thirty
(05:41):
thousand a little more thirty ahead, so it depends by state.
In the state of Florida is roughly between thirty two
or thirty five thousand per inmate per per year. Yes,
just just based on a budget. If you look at
states such as California, New York, we're talking about seventy
thousand and plus per inmate per year. And this is
(06:03):
where we learned that prisoners are a commodity that is
truly what they are. I'll see a lot of people
have a misconception of what it's like him there um
and you can start to tell us. You know, I've
seen people argue online or make jokes or even memes
circulate where people are like, oh, you know, I want
(06:25):
to go to prisondents to walk in the park. You
have free healthcare, free education, free meals, free cable free,
all these things. And listen. I also share that view
my perception of prison because that was not my world,
no pun intended. I thought that if you went to prison,
(06:46):
you're a criminal, you're a delinquent, You're there to serve time. Yeah,
and you did think that going to prison was a
walk in the park, that you had all of these
amenities available to you. I wouldn't say walk in the park.
I mean, look at the movies, right, you see all
these Friends series going on, and it's not a walk
in the park. That was not necessarily my my exact
perception of prison, But I thought, well, I mean, you
(07:08):
do the crime, you do the time. You thought that, oh,
those people deserve it. You know, it's not like they're
torturing them. I don't know so much about deserve. It
was more like, this is this is the way it is,
this is the system. And I'll tell you what something
that a lot of people don't understand is that one
in three people in America have some type of criminal conviction.
(07:32):
One in three. That means seventy million Americans have been
in the system. If we really want to deep dive
into the stats, right into the data, then we have
to think about six point six million have been convicted
of some type of crime. That means from the six
(07:53):
point six two point one million are actually serving time
right now currently this is the most recent data up
in prison or jail, and four point five of that
six point six are either doing probation or parole. And
these are men, women, sisters, brothers, uncles, mother's daughters, so
(08:16):
a lot of people. That's a lot of people. So yeah,
persons are for profit. We've got that covered. We know,
we know that. So let's get back to your story.
Where are we at this point? So you walked in,
you know, they dehumanized you, they made you, they checked
all your cavities and everything. You walk in you feel like,
oh my gosh, I'm in a movie right Like this
(08:37):
is unreal. What was going through your mind at that point?
It was like an auto body experience for me. If
I can sum it up in just one word, I
felt dismantled. I think dismantling is appropriate and how I
(08:57):
felt internally. I felt robbed at that moment. Not just
because my freedom had been taken away from me and
all of my rights as we all know, but I
felt robbed. I felt robbed. I felt I had no voice,
that to me is very important, and I felt like
I was a really small, very small person in a
(09:19):
very large situation. Are you worried to say, pond because
what happened? Can I ask you something? Did you ever
feel mad at yourself? I was mad at myself, I
was mad at God. And I've always had a very
spiritual connection with my beliefs. I don't really identify with
(09:40):
any particular religion, even though I've studied religion for many years,
many different types of religions, but I identify more with spirituality.
And at that moment, there was this, there was this pain.
There was a gap between my beliefs what was going
(10:00):
on and everything that was happening around me. So there
was a big disconnect. I was angry. I was angry
at God. I was You never had any thought of like,
why did I plead guilty? Why did I do this?
You were just like, all right, I'm here. You accepted it.
That was it at first. At first, I think the
ego is always on the driver's seat, especially when we
(10:23):
tend to victimize ourselves. And I'm very familiar with that,
not only in my own personal experiences, but in the
work that I've always done, where I know that the
eagle tends to get in the way of of each
and every one of us, and my ego wanted to speak.
I couldn't speak up, I couldn't fend for myself, but
my ego wanted to so absolutely, I remember falling into
(10:43):
sort of this victimhood of why me? And this is
the part that's really crazy, and it's almost I'm almost
ashamed to say this, but I want to be vulnerable
and share this. I thought, oh my god, I'm going
to be the only innocent person in that entire place.
I'm going to prison with a bunch of criminals. Because
you must be there thinking that I'm going to be
(11:05):
the only innocent person. I don't belong there. That's what
the eagle does. And I'm assuming that you met some
innocent people. So definitely, I met some women who who
have been sentenced to twenty years sentences because unlike myself
who decided to take the plea, these are women who
(11:26):
wanted to go to trial and fight, and I admire
them for that. So I'll tell you what we used
to call prison the cemetery of the living, because it's
Groundhog Day. Every day, every single day is the same thing.
You wake up to the same thing. How was your
first day? My first day was scary. I was afraid.
(11:46):
I wasn't afraid for what could happen to me physically.
I was afraid that I wouldn't adapt to that environment.
I'm telling you my ego, My ego was like I
am superior in the way that I wasn't used to
that world. I wasn't used to that type of environment.
I don't know if I can adapt. So it was
(12:09):
it was not comforting. However, did anybody comfort you? Did
anyone come yes to you? Griselda? Griselda was all right,
that's enough. Listen. The first the first person that approached
me was Griselda. She came and she brought me a
blanket because it's so cold in there. It's freezing in
(12:32):
their eyes. You can't imagine how cold it is. She
brought me a blanket to keep myself warm at night.
Why did why did Griselda give you a blanket? Did
they not give you a blanket? Yes, but it's so
cold in there, and the things that they provide you
with are so minimal. So what is it they give you?
What kind of supplies do you receive upon arriving? Your
(12:55):
uniform your uniform, which is pretty much used when you
have a visitor, when someone's visiting you on the weekend.
It's kind of this military style, I think, and you
would totally dig it rocket. It looked like scrubs. I
don't know, I it's more like military okay. And then
(13:16):
what what what are the things toothbrush, toothpaste? Like? What
do they give you? What? Are the essentials. Yes, they
do provide you with that. However, you do have the
option to purchase some of these things that are a
little more upgraded in terms of branding in commissary, which
are extremely expensive by the way, like Pantine was six bucks. Right,
(13:36):
of course they up charge you because it's not enough
to have you in there, the money off of you,
and how does somebody in prison have money to buy shampoo?
So one of two ways. Because these camps were designed
as working camps, we all had to work. That's that's important.
You need to work like you were obligated to find
(14:00):
job you are. My first job before I got fired
was that the gym. You got fired, you got and
I was meant to be an entrepreneur and not to
work for anybody. I was working as an orderly, which
an orderly is pretty much the person who cleans the gym,
(14:21):
and I decided to take that job because I thought
it was really easy. I wasn't going to have the
guard watching over me, micromanaging me. It was kind of
like a very liberal job where I would have to
go into the gym grab all of my cleaning products,
which translates into soap and water, you're not allowed to
have any chemicals in prison because you can or you
(14:42):
can use it for you know, to get high and whatnot.
So I had to clean the gym. So I had
this system going on with my friends where I would
leave everything set up like I was cleaning, and I
would go into the yard with all my friends hang out.
Why exercise. I took exercise very serious. Oh my god.
(15:05):
And then I would go back move things around again,
make it look like, oh, she's here, she's cleaning. I
don't know where they sucked because he leave us to
say those who were there, you should not have been
using the june Oh god, okay, so you got so okay.
So that was my first job and then I was fired.
Did you get paid for those jobs we did? I
(15:28):
was a very gracious salary of six cents per hour.
What six cents, ladies? Six cents per hour? That's what?
And you to make a phone call out to your
family is how much cents a minute? So, to be
perfectly honest, you would have to work more than four
(15:51):
hours to have one minute on the phone. Yes, So
that's one of the ways to have money to be
able to utilize it, whether it's phone calls. Emails, by
the way, also emails subtract money from your commissary. Let
me send an email. But there's also another way, which
was family or friends. They can deposit money into your account.
(16:12):
We were only allowed three hundred dollars a month. That
was sort of the cap. I never had three hundred
dollars in commissary because there was not enough money to
deposit for me. The irony considering that I had been
obviously head of household provider my entire life, and I
(16:32):
would say we lived a pretty comfortable life. And yet
when I went to prison, because everything was gone, everything
my my whole life was dismantled. There was no more money,
and so I had to depend on whoever could deposit
here fifty dollars there a hundred dollars here each month,
so I pretty much depended on my friends. I had
(16:56):
few close friends, so when I need to catch up,
I would just go to my friend and say, hey,
I don't have any catchup and have some ketchup? What
do you owe in there? Yeah, because I couldn't afford it.
In commissaries, you have to buy ketchup. Yes, it's crazy
to be because you really think that you go in
there and that you have all of these things obviously
offered to you. Um, considering that we're paying so much
(17:17):
per person. From what you've told me, the inmates of
that prison ran the prison. Yeah. There were no electricians.
There were no there were The inmates were electricians. If
you needed the landscape to because you had the inmates
to do that. Yeah. The in mainline, which is the
(17:40):
kitchen per se, right, this is where you go eat,
the cafeteria. It was called mainline. This is this was
your second job, right at the kitchen. No kitchen me, No,
I don't know. They would have killed someone. How would
have got killed? In prison? You know, being the kitchen
don't go together. So even though I did not work
in the main line or in the kitchen area, I
(18:01):
did have a bunky who lived across from my cubicle
who did work there. And I remember her telling me once, Hey,
don't ever eat the meat here. Don't eat the meat. Okay.
Why well, because the box of burgers says not for
human consumption. Oh god, most of the food is expired,
(18:35):
very high in sodium, because everything is in case. It's
an example of a meal you would get. And I
remember Wednesdays was Burger Wednesday. That was which I'd never hate,
the burger, the meat patty. I had the bread with
the tomato and some fries. Wow. Vegetarian somewhat not by
(18:58):
choice at that moment, but by fours uh So we
lived on an average of twelve calories per day. Wow,
we were hungry. Yeah, that's not that we were very hungry.
Another really interesting thing that I learned about the medical
system in prison is that everyone's file is written in pencil,
(19:19):
at least in your camp. In my camp. This is
again I'm speaking for DC Coleman. I remember that all
of our medical records, everything was written in pencil. I
remember that very d labor. Why, I'll leave that to
your imagination. I don't know. Wow. Yeah, we saw some
(19:40):
really horrific things happen. Yeah, I with One of the
things that I've always that that I haven't pushed out
of my head, one of the things that I've always
remembered about your experience was all of these stories that
you shared with me from these women that you met
in there who have had horrific experience. This is of
(20:01):
varying degrees, and there's one in particular that I would
love for you to share because it's just it was
so captivating to me when you told it to me.
And I don't I don't want to butcher it, but
it was of that the woman who um wasn't an
abusive relationship with her boyfriend who was a drug dealer.
That woman, I mean, I don't even know who she is.
(20:23):
I don't know her name. I've never met her before
in my life, but I think about her all the time.
Her story, her her brother actually documented her story and
it became it was an HBO documentary and it actually
won an award. Wow. Okay, so her story, man, I
have to tell you. At the time, she was an
abusive relationship and and the boyfriend she had was a
(20:45):
drug dealer, and he threatened her. We threatened her throughout
the whole relationship. As a matter of fact, I remember
her sharing with me how she slept in a bed
next to him and there was a gun underneath her pillow.
She could not get away from this relationship. That option
did not exist for her. And one day he was
(21:07):
I believe he was walking back into the house where
she was at. There were other people there as well,
friends of his, and he was shot. He was shot
several times. It was this big situation that happened, and uh,
and she came in and he came in, I'm sorry,
and she was able to take him put him in
the pickup drive to the hospital, but she had no
(21:29):
idea he had just died next to her. So a
few years later, she's in an incredible relationship. She's healed,
she's gotten her life back. She had two children at
the time, small children at the time, two small girls, married,
a home job. Her whole life had changed, big shift,
(21:49):
and she was indicted. She was investigated for her boyfriend's crime,
the fact that he had been a drug dealer. Because
he was no longer around, they had to pit it
on someone, and they gave her fifteen years. They gave
her fifteen years for his crime, even though his friends
(22:12):
testified and and said she never had anything to do
with this. In the contrary, she was basically a victim
of an abusive, really abusive relationship. She spent fifteen years
in prison. She to make it even worse, she was
pregnant for her with her third child when this whole
investigation was going on. She had her her third baby,
(22:35):
another girl, and she ended up going to prison, and
three years after being in prison, they relocated her. Which
that's something that's a whole other traumatic experience when they
decided to relocate you. And think think about it from
the perspective of commodity. As I said earlier, right, we're commodity.
She was serving time at a particular prison and this
(22:58):
other prison, which was Coleman. They needed to meet certain
numbers because it was around that time of the budget
where they're going to receive their money from the government,
and so they were short it's almost like short staffed,
short in prisoners. They called her prison. They needed some
prisoners to come over to the prison, and they grabbed
her three in the morning. They just they literally grab
(23:20):
you with dur in the morning. They shackle you and
they'll either put you on a plane or in a bus.
You have no idea where you're going. You can't ask
any questions, you can't call your family, you can't call anyone.
So I don't know even where. You have no idea
where you're going until you arrive. And she arrived in Florida,
in Florida at Coleman Camp. So Jim, tell me, we've
(23:43):
heard a lot from your mom. I know you were
in New York and Amber was living with your dad.
But did you ever visit visit her? Did you talk
on the phone. How was the experience of her being
in there for you? So we my mom tried to
communicate mostly through email, right more than phone calls. I
feel like there were some phone calls, but not that money.
(24:07):
I think that when I got to New York, I
was kind of just like, well, let me just swallow
this trauma and put it all behind me. Like I
wanted to throw myself into what I was doing. I mean,
I was a freshman in college. I was living somewhat
of my dream because I had always wanted to go
to New York and I always wanted to live in
New York. And I think I didn't want to, like
think about the situation with my mom, so there was
(24:33):
a lot of distance between us. I didn't I didn't.
I didn't want to. I didn't want to go there.
It was too painful. It was too painful. I don't know.
I never even let myself, I never even let myself
analyze why I didn't let myself go there. I just
distracted myself. Did anybody during that time come see you
(24:53):
or so to answer that I did. Actually, so I did.
I did get to visit her once or twice in there?
What was it was? It was once? Okay, yeah, because
in the second time we picked you up, I did
I get I did get to a visit her once
in there? What was that? Like? Really emotional? Really emotional crazy?
(25:16):
My grandparents had to rent a car, poor things. They
did their best rent a car and we had to
drive at the crack of dawn to sort of wait
outside until they decided to let the visiting hours begin.
I know, in the morning when we were going to
visit her, I could see her. I could see her
on the window of her building, which was super emotional
(25:39):
because it was like she was right there, but I
couldn't you couldn't see her touch her anything yet. Um. Yeah,
there were some board games, I think I remember, don't
I remember that? Yeah? I mean, you just you try
to like fit in as much as you can in
those few hours, and then when you leave, when you leave,
(26:01):
it's excruciated. It's excruciated because I want to take her
with you, yeah, and you and then I leave and
I have to drive like four hours. You know. It's
not like where she was was in my city or
anything like that, and I lived in New York, so um, yeah,
it was terrible. It was terrible. That wasn't for you visiting.
(26:24):
I didn't have a lot of visitations during my time there,
which was very painful. I have to be honest. I
did have a few, and I'm extremely grateful. A lot
of my friends did have weekly visitations, but a lot
of times weeks would go by and I would had
no visits, no visitors come see me. And you know,
I kind of had to fill in the day in
my time because I wasn't with my friends, so they
(26:47):
were with their family. They were with their families. Yeah,
I mean, and my grandparents didn't see you more than
I saw you the best. My poor grandma she had
to pawn and my mom. Actually, I am not getting
emotional this episode. I said it before I started, so
don't look at me like that. My mom didn't know this,
and she found out by you know, literally like two
(27:09):
years ago my grandma's birthday. Because I wanted to get
my grandma some nice jewelry. And the reason why is
because I knew that so my grandma could go see
my mom in prison. She pawned all of her jewelry,
like all of it, except for maybe like two or
three emotional pieces that she felt she couldn't let go
of just so she could go see Because remember, as
(27:32):
we said in the last episode, my mom was the
financial head figurehead of our house. So when she was
not working, there was no money. Everything was gone, everything
was gone. So my grandma obviously doesn't work and I
did not have any money like like like be like, no,
I think you brought him up? Did you meet him
(27:58):
in prison? Hello? And for us being in the inside,
visitation day is very special because that weekend meant that
(28:22):
we put makeup on. We try to look our best
for our families or friends whoever is visiting us, right,
because it's not something you do while you're there. You
don't want toful makeup on. I didn't make up. You
get your nails done. Someone always volunteers to, oh you're
you're so and so is coming this weekend to see, Oh,
I'll do your nail. We bought it in commissary, okay,
they have, so we had that opportunity. If you needed
(28:47):
to get like your hair dyed or your roots touched up,
you did that as well, right before your family your
friends visited you on the weekend. It was sort of like,
this was our moment to just share are with our
loved ones, and we really didn't want our family and
friends to see what we were going through the turmoil,
because we knew that we stay there, but you guys
(29:10):
leave and now you take this with you, and to us,
that was just too much weight, too much weight. Yeah,
well it worked because I remember seeing you with makeup
and nail post and I was like, huh, all right,
so she's not doing so bad. I was like, okay,
but you're snatched. Good job, momb there. We're trying. Yeah,
(29:35):
you try to make the best of what you have.
What do you think was if you can think of
one moment would experience, it was the scariest thing that
you experienced while in there. It's not a violent place.
It's not and at least where you were right, because
(29:56):
I was at a camp minimal security, non violent fenders.
Yes there's disputes, Yes there was an occasional fifth fight
here and there, But I think for me, the scariest moment,
if I'm going to be completely blunt, I remember waking
up one morning and being angry that I had woken up.
(30:21):
I wanted to die. And this is at the very
beginning of this experience. I remember going to sleep the
night before praying to God that I would die in
my sleep. Love. I didn't know that because it is
the cemetery of a living You're you're dead and there
(30:41):
and mind you. I kept a really busy schedule for myself.
I remember asking for a calendar and I made sure
that from the moment I awoken and I think it
was around five in the morning to the time that
I had to be in bed for that roll call
that we have. I kept myself extremely as I did yoga,
I ran seven miles, I exercise, I meditated, I wrote.
(31:05):
I spent so much time writing, interviewing other women, trying
to understand their stories, collecting that information, asking questions. But
I remember that was the scariest moment, when I realized
that I was in a very dark place. I remember
praying like praying, please, God, I beg you, I don't
(31:29):
want to wake up tomorrow to this. I remember, I've
never in my life felt that way. And I've worked
with so many people who have attempted suicide or suicidal ideations,
and I always wonder my gosh, what is that like
to be in that situation and and praying that I
would not wake up the next morning? That was tough,
(31:50):
and then waking up and realizing here I am again
another day. Why did I feel like it was not
going to end at that point? Yes, you, it's not
like in the movies where you count like the little
lines on the wall of the brick wall, but you count,
you count. Yeah. I will blame you at all for
(32:14):
feeling that way. I know that you say that you
had entered a state of victimhood, like if it was
a bad thing, but you were a victim. We were
failed by the system. I think at the moment, when
you're in that space, that you're looking at everything from
a very subjective level, it's easy to feel like you
(32:38):
are victim and that you have been failed. I think
the moment that the shift and me took place and
I was able to objectively look at the situation and
really distance myself from it and and sort of surrender
to the circumstances and given I think giving in was
so important and allowing things to sort of break me open.
(33:01):
I think I needed to be broken open. I no
longer felt that way I really did not. I think
that that was my awakening, that was my my rebirth
of sorts. I had. I had a second chance in life,
because up to that point, truly I had not been
living my life. Life was living me. I had a
(33:22):
chance in there to really look back at the way
that I was showing up in my business, for my family,
for everyone. I thought I was doing it right. I
thought the way that I was doing things was how
I needed to do them. But I was wrong, and
I realized that in there that was the big So
I have a question. You know your daughter is gay?
(33:44):
What I know? Right? I just found out yesterday. I
was in shock. I was like, I thought we were
just friends who did fun stuff. Um anyway, So you know,
there's a lot of stigmas and stereotypes too about you know,
being a homosexual in prison. Yeah, me and my friends
would would make bets like whether or not you were
going to sleep with somebody. Oh my geminy mom, it
was a long time. I wouldn't have judged you that
(34:07):
was already gay. Well, it wouldn't have been something abnormal.
So a lot of women there who were married, had children,
have families considering you know, there's such a devoid of
love in there. Yeah, there is no love. Pain, but
there's no love, and so needing that, yes, affection, someone
(34:28):
to care for them. Remember that as humans were here
to have a relationship that's interchangeable, there's a given receive
that must take place, and you don't do that in prison.
So it's very normal. But no, I didn't do you.
I did not. I don't think that was the question.
Do you want to know? Mom? That's question that was not.
(34:50):
My question was did you notice a difference between how
maybe women that were perhaps more were um masculine presenting,
or you know, maybe maybe gay right were treated differently
than women who were straight or married in there or
something like that. So, like anywhere in the world, it
(35:12):
is a big community, especially in prison. There there were
a lot of gay women in prison. And I remember
one incident where some I think it was like two
in the morning, all of a sudden, these men came
took them. I could kid you, not like guards. I
took them, right, they were taken and they were sent
(35:34):
to It's not the shoe because we don't have that
in federal prison really, or at least not at the
camp level. But more too, they were taken to a
jail holding facility and they were placed there for several
weeks as a matter of fact, for what reason, because
there were lesbians, because there were relationships going on, There
(35:55):
were sex going on in in the camp, which, again, human,
you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to
do that. No, but so you're not allowed to have sex.
But I'll tell you what happened oftentimes, and I witnessed this,
We we knew about this. Many of the inmates were
having sex with the guards. Now when this was discovered,
(36:17):
guess what would happen. The guards simply were trans were
transferred over to another prison, maybe to a medium or penitentiary,
a maximum security prison. So in other words, they were
taken from that camp and taken somewhere else. Right, a
little slap in the hand, you don't do that. The
women in the other hand, now, they were transferred to Tallahassee.
(36:39):
And in Tallahassee, here you're in prison, like this is
like bars and you're with all kinds of criminals. You
have solitary, you have it all. So they took the
women away. They did for I remember it was about
two to three weeks. We were like what the hell
just happened. It was only the lesbians, that's it. Only
(36:59):
the so you knew, you knew. Of course there were
girlfriends and of course, and they were taken away. And
I remember when they came back. It was like all
of a sudden they were taken away, but all of
a sudden they were brought back. And it had a
lot to do with one particular inmate who she was
able to make a phone call called her attorney. Her
(37:21):
attorney was, I mean this guy, he was a shark,
and he called Washington. He called the regional office. So
as quickly as they took them, they returned them a
few weeks later. Now, when they were returned, when they
were brought back, there was this kind of like label
that was put outside of their cubicle that identified them
(37:46):
as being gay. Oh good, what yeah? How what like?
What did it say? I don't recall exactly, but I
remember that you wouldn't walk by and you would see it.
So they were labeled. They were they were tacked. WHOA,
that's crazy. Yeah, m that was a great question. Jeez. Okay,
(38:09):
So curious because you mentioned this in the last part
of this series. I don't know how you didn't fight
Griselda when you walked in and saw her in your cell.
I don't know how you didn't fight her. What she
had to do a blanket? I probably would have strangled
her with that blanket, Like, how dare you the irony
of all things? I know that your relationship with her
(38:33):
in there was not one where you held her accountable
for her actions. You took a very different road. Can you?
Can you share with us why? How? What made you
feel that way? Why did you not? How did you?
How did how did you manage not to direct your
anger at her? So we have to take into account
that I'm a huge advocate of forgiveness, and I truly
(38:56):
believe that in order for us to heal, we need
to forgive. Doesn't mean you need to forget. Forgiveness does
not mean that what you did was right, But forgiveness
is really for you, for you, for the individual. This,
this was, this is necessary in order for us to
really heal and come to terms. I had done some
work prior to going to prison. I worked on myself
(39:20):
and I worked on forgiving her and forgiving this experience.
So what I was in prison, and I did not
think I was going to be serving time with her.
I will tell you that was a that was a
gift from the universe, because it truly was it. Well,
think about it. It put me in a situation where
I had to walk my talk. I had spend my
(39:42):
whole life telling people why they needed to forgive their abusers,
why they needed to forgive people in order to move on,
And here I am with this individual that was part
of this entire story. Yeah, okay, So when you first
saw her for that first time, you had already forgiven her. Yes,
had we worked on forgiving, forgiving her. I hadn't forgiven God.
(40:05):
I hadn't forgiven my spiritual beliefs as to why I
was going to prison. But I can guarantee you that
I had no anger in my heart towards her whatsoever.
So much so that did you have conversations with her,
And not only had conversations that had breakfast, lunch, dinner,
We had conversations what do you even what do you
even talk about? HI? Good morning, everyday conversation. So you
(40:32):
never spoke about it from that time that we spoke
about last time that you were calling her and calling
her and she called you and said, hey, get out
of the apartment. Why did you do this? Not at all? No,
one time though, she she came up to me and
my friend who was with me. She was the title
company whom I mentioned that she had nothing to do
(40:53):
with this as well, and she said, the two people
that shouldn't be here, there's there's two people here shouldn't
be here. It's definitely you girls. But how could you not?
I just want to understand. Forget about violence, because I
really don't think that that's the option. But I'm trying
to understand how somebody in your position, how do you
not say, mommy whatever, even if you forgive her right listen,
(41:18):
you know whatever it is that ended you up here,
I forgive you. However, what why why did you do this?
I wasn't asking I didn't feel compelled to ask her
those questions. I was asking the universe, show me, show
me why I'm here. No matter of fact, I'll tell
you something. Out of the entire time that I was there,
I probably spent the time asking the universe to show me,
(41:42):
show me, show me why I'm here, because you didn't
think I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but you
thought maybe perhaps okay, these are her life choices. I
ended up here as a result. But in the grand
scheme of things, it was a big part of your life,
and she maybe was not. You didn't associate it with her.
I never associated with her. I never put I never
(42:02):
saw her as a culprit. I did not, even though
they called her mastermind in the case, I never saw
her as a culprit. I saw her as a very
important piece of this puzzle. And let me ask you,
have you gotten those answers from the universe this day? Absolutely,
I am certain that I have. I feel that she
was an instrument. Had it not been for her, I
(42:24):
would have never had the opportunity two have been humbled
at the level that I was humbled to really get
to experience what that world in there was like, to
to try to learn from a different perspective. What did
I learned so many things aside from what I learned
(42:44):
from the from the system, which is, you know, just
there's just so much about the system that that is
still upsetting to me today, especially when it comes to
women being incarcerated. And there's a real common factor amongst
those women, and that's a mental health problem. A lot
of the women they're unlike myself. These are women who
(43:05):
have come through trauma's abuse of all kinds their entire life.
These are women who have experienced poverty, women who don't
have education, and for one reason or another, they have
found themselves within the system. So that common denominator is there.
And we know that we have a mental health problem
in America that is not addressed. We talk about it
(43:27):
may as a matter of fact, it's Mental Health Month
and we're trying to bring a lot of awareness around
that subject. But these are people that have real problems.
These are issues that they're not being supported. They're not
they're not there's not enough resources just in general. You
know what I'm saying there is it's very minimal, and
(43:49):
I would say it's very lacking, extremely deficient. Uh, it's
a very deficient system. And when it comes to the
mental health system, yeah, we don't rehabilitate our popular relation. No,
it's not mental rehbilitate them. But it's punishments. Well, we
know that doesn't work, Like what is this medieval ages
with a costume on it? Like then we're surprised when
(44:13):
people enter the system more than once, because that's a
bit there's a big statistic for that there is there's
actually a fifty three percent within the first three years
of being released from prison, there is a fifty three
chance that you will return to prison. There's also no
resources there were the transition out of prison. They're none.
(44:33):
You you go to a halfway house the majority of
the time, and you stay at this halfway house, which
is really more of an extension of prison than anything else.
And this is a nonprofit organization that pretty much houses you.
And during that time, you're supposed to look for a job,
You're supposed to find a place to live or aren't
you allowed to live at home? Well, you can after
(44:55):
a period of time. You have to go through certain
program It's a certain programming that they give you, which
is again very deficient, very lacking of resources, real resources.
There's people who are are released into these halfway houses
who have not never seen a computer in their lives.
Because if you especially right now, with how much and
(45:17):
how quickly the world has been changing in terms of technology,
I wanna I want to get to is there anything
else that you wanted to share about your time in prison.
I would say that prison has two problems. It has
two problems. It's a people problem in a systemic problem.
(45:39):
It's a there's a lot of misconceptions. And I know
that we discussed earlier how we generalize people who go
to prison. For me, it's really important to amplify the
voices of both women and men who have been to prison.
Have you experienced some of that generalization, because you know,
(46:01):
as we see in the movies, um, most most criminals
don't look like you. Um, have you had any experiences
with that? To your point, you're absolutely right. In the movies,
most criminals don't look like me. But in real life,
they actually do. They actually do. I recently attended a
(46:34):
charity event. It's a not in profit organization that supports
formerly incarcerated women. Incredible incredible, Uh. Nonprofit provides them with entrepreneurship,
leadership skills, all of the necessary things that they're going
to need. Because, after all, once you're labeled felon, and
that's a whole other thing. Remember I'm a felon. I
(46:55):
have a felony conviction for a white collar crime, but
felonyal so applies to murder, drugs, I mean, all things
across the board, So there's no real distinction, especially when
you're applying for a job per se and they ask
you in the job application do you have a felony
and you check that off. You're not supposed to discriminate
someone from a job opportunity, But the reality is that
(47:18):
those unconscious biases are there. They're there, those microaggressions are there.
It's very normal. So I went to this charity event
and I was in conversation with one of the women
that were attending this event, and she's telling me about
her experience as a volunteer. And she's telling me how
she's worked with one of the formerly incarcerated women from
(47:40):
the organization and what an incredible experience she had. It
was just so awakening to her. And she's like, you know,
these women are actually really great women. They're amazing women.
These are great women. And I'm just listening to her,
giving her the opportunity to share her experience, and she
tells me, you know, these are not white you know
(48:02):
what one would think bad women to liquent women. Some
of these are really phenomenal women. Their mothers, their sisters,
They're women that really want to get back into society.
I have so much admiration for them. And she and
she tells me, I don't know if you've ever had
a chance to speak to any of those Menen, You're like,
(48:22):
you're speaking to one of them right now. What did
you say? So? I said, actually, yes, I um, I'm
very familiar because I myself, I am a I am
a felon and I was formerly incarcerated back and I wish,
(48:43):
I wish I would have a camera. I wish there
would have been a camera somewhere just to capture her
her facial expression. This woman literally physically stepped back. She
looked at me from my shoes all the way up
to my hair, and I will say, I look very
I was at a charity of it. I wanted to
look nice. I felt good that day. And she said,
(49:06):
what no way, God like the way to drive the
dagger in Further, I have to tell you I was
pained by that reaction. Of course, I was pained because
I felt, um, it was unfair. It is imagine they
were judged and it wasn't about It wasn't about me.
(49:27):
I kept thinking about the many women, all of us right,
we're community. And it hurt me that because because I
may have some skills that maybe they don't have, or
because I look a certain way that there's no one
(49:47):
can really identify me as you haven't been to prison.
I mean, look at you. That hurt me, That hurt
me a lot, no matter hucked. That's terrible. So walk
us through your last day. There was that like bitter sweet.
(50:07):
It was painful. It was bitter sweet. I wanted to
have a smile in my friends, my face for my
friends I there was. It was very celebratory. They made
me a like a last dinner, last dinner going away,
But it was very painful because for me, I wanted
to take them with me. I remember the evening before
(50:29):
my last day there, and I didn't sleep. I felt
an enormous amount of guilt. I felt that why me
and not them? Why am I so lucky that I'm
leaving this place? There's women here that still have years, years, lifetimes, lifetimes,
And so it was very bitter sweet. There was a
sense of, oh my god, I'm being released, but there
(50:52):
was also this, oh my god, why can't I bring
them with me? What happens to them? Why me? Not them?
And you know, it's hard to stay in time. Survivor's
skill if I can, it was survivor's sales. I carried
that with me for a very long time. I have
to say, even still today, I look back and and
I think that that's why I feel this need to
(51:13):
educate and bring information to people, because I too was
ignorant to all of this, and it was so important
for me to be able to continue to share not
my story, but really to amplify their voices more than
anything else. There's so many people out there who are
abandoned by their families, like you have a very You're
(51:36):
very fortunate. I was fortunate, even though you know you
suffered so much, you had resources, you know, in comparison
to these thirty years sentences, you had a short sentence.
You had family that was waiting for you. So I
would love to hear because in my life I've tried
(51:56):
to adopt a lot about like turning pain into purpose
for whatever reason that may have entered your life, and
I've known you to be somebody who has really, you know,
put your experience into action for other people. And that's
one of the biggest reasons why we have you here today,
because I also want to know, you know, for those
(52:18):
who are listening, or for those perhaps who have been
in this situation, or perhaps for those who don't have
anybody waiting for him for them on the outside, or
aren't able to get out. Um, you know what is
your advice? What? What can we do? Like? What have
you taken away that you can share with people that
are not in your perspective? Perhaps you know that woman
(52:41):
that took a step back from you? You know what
do you wish that she could hear to make her
understand why we're having such an important conversation today. I
think first and foremost, we we need to stop judging
each other. We live in a within a society where
we're constantly judging. We judge people because of the color
(53:02):
of their skin, because of their sexual preference, because of
their success level. And I think that's where we need
to start. We need to stop judging. I think we
need to humble ourselves and remember that we all share
a common ground, that my suffering is your suffering, that collectively,
(53:23):
whatever happens to someone will in fact impact you, maybe
not directly, maybe indirectly, But there's no such thing as
this separation or this divide that we've created. This notion
is an island, moment is an island. And when it
comes to people who are either in the system, have
(53:44):
been in the system, or as we know because of
the statistics, will probably be in the system. I think
that we need to be open to the possibility that
not everything you read is real in social media or
in the media or anywhere. I mean, after all, if
you read my story, I'm part of a forty million
dollar crime and we've just had an opportunity to really
(54:05):
share the raw moments having gone from having a life
where we lived very comfortably to everything being taken from us,
everything was gone, and then the rebuilt of that, that
rebirth process. I think judgment is a big part of this,
and we need to stop marginalizing people, discriminating people because
(54:27):
of their history or their past or what they've gone through.
And speaking of since your release, have you ever crossed
paths with Griselda again in any capacity? I have not.
There's one thing that I also learned. Um, I don't
know if you remember the phrase, is it queen for
a day? Is that what it is? What is it
(54:50):
when you can buy cases? Yes, that's a whole What
do you mean by cases? You can there there is
also an opportunity where you can actually for a certain
amount of money, you can purchase a case, a case
that's being under investigation, and I'm going to like a
(55:11):
file and study the file and be a witness to
that crime. And that also reduces is this what Griselda did?
But wouldn't that be a lie? How can you be
a witness if you weren't there? Well? And that's legal,
that is absolutely legal. Wow. You go on something called
(55:31):
a writ and that means that you now leave wherever
you're serving your time and you're transferred over to whatever
city this case took place, and now you testify. You
have all these different interviews and how are you not
going to do everything that you can do for your
(55:54):
life and your family? And then, just like you said,
even that action is influence whosever case that that is?
And they're you know, future and their family. It is
just a web of destruction and lies. Yeah, it's an
interesting system, and that's why I think it's so important
(56:16):
that we understand. I think a level of education, of
understanding of knowledge and conversations like these. You're doing powerful work. Mom.
I'm very proud of you. To start, I would ask
you to do another song, but honestly, I think you've
covered it last boxing Alright, show us what you got.
(56:45):
Thank you girls alright, and for those of you out
there who have joined us for this epic two part
series When Meteor Strike. The reason why we called it
that is because at any moment in your life, you
think that everything's under control and you're good, But there
are obstacles all around you in many forms that can
come and intervene and disrupt your life. And the important
thing is how you go through it, how you recover
(57:07):
from it, and in turn, what you do as a
result of it. So thank you for being here, thank
you for joining us everyone out there, and we'll see
you next week on in our own world. Good Bye, everybody,
Bye everyone. This is a Moonflower production in partnership with
I Hearts Michael do That Podcast Network. For more podcasts,
visit the I Heart Radio app or wherever you listen
(57:29):
to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Gemeny Hernandez
Emily Estefan
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