May 16, 2023 • 33 mins
The podcast series continues with new episodes by releasing the full length interviews from the series. The first interview episode is with Dorothy Gaines. Dorothy is an example of the cruel and harsh mandatory minimum sentencing laws introduced following the death of Len Bias. Dorothy recounts her story with executive produce Dave Ungrady.
Dorthy featured prominently in Episode 8 where the series profiled her and others whose lives were turned upside down by mandatory sentencing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
As an extension of the podcast series, the producers would
like to share the full interviews of our subjects from
the series. Their accounts and memories offer a fascinating look
into the legacy of Len Bias. We begin the interview
series with a look at the effects of the drug
laws that were changed following the death of Bias. Dave Ngrady,
(00:22):
executive producer of the series, interviews Dorothy Gaines, a victim
of overzealous prosecution and mandatory minimum sentencing which sent her
to prison for a crime she did not commit. Dorothy
shares her personal and tragic family story on how the
death of Len Bias shook her family to the core
and how it still continues to affect their lives to
(00:44):
this day. Dorothy is one example of the thousands of
lives that were affected by the changes of the criminal
justice system due to the War on drugs and the
drug related death of Len Bias. Is Mama Craft and
the People's.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Let's start really from the beginning, how your life was
changed following the arrests, why you were arrested, at least
what law enforcement claimed, and then and then we'll go
from there.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
In nineteen ninety three, Alabama law enforcement claimed that I
knew about some drug dealing going on.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
They came into my house and raided and there was nothing.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
That was Alabama court and then after Alabama court, and
you know, Alabama don't send you to trial unless you
have evidence, but the Pharoh government does with conspiracy. So
it was turned over to the faiths. And that's how
it all started in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And can you explain why Alabama law enforcement felt compelled
to search your home. You had a relationship with a
gentleman I think who.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Was dealing here?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
You have relationship with a dealer name at that time
was my comradid husband. He was more as a user
than a drug person that was dealing drug. He was
a user, but he knew some guys that was into
that type of business. He testified that I knew anything,
that I didn't know anything about what was going on.
But they still even offer him to be released of
(02:13):
the fourteen years and he would just testify against me,
and he refused to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Tarbor called the Alabama prosecutors decided not to prosecute you, correct,
because they didn't have no right.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I didn't have any They didn't have an el say,
Alabama didn't prosecute me. The case was then later the
federal government picked it up.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And tell me what you recall about the trial when
the federal government process charges against you, and how and
what happened there what you thought was for some injustices
there as well.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Okay, during the trial and we went to trial at
nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
But it started off with they came and arrest me,
and I went and made a magist de bond, signed
my own recovernists and I was on pre trial, had
a group report with the probation office on pre trial.
Then I ended up going to trial with like four
other people, and I begged them let me go to
trial alone, but they wouldn't let me go to trial,
(03:11):
or they tried me with four other people. And one
of the people they tried me was was a young
lady that was working out of macdone's. And it was
a guy there in the trial that say that he
had bought an ouncer crack cocaine from her, and the
juror they asked him to point out the woman that
he bought the ouncer print cocaine from, and he pointed
out a juror. So we just knew the trial was
(03:33):
gonna be thrown out because he didn't he would nobody
had never seen this guy they had brought in the testifact.
It was just somebody after jail that they brought in
and he picked out a juror.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
So we thought the trial was gonna be thrown out.
And there it is.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
That prosecutor told me that when the guy saw the
lady the last time, she was heavy, and you know
how the prosecuted just try to and they went on
and bought and the trial see up again, you know,
went on.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
So that day I testified.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
That I knew nothing about it. Even the guy that
I was living with testibut it. I knew nothing about
what was going on that I was, you know, worked,
and I never knew that he was a drug dealer,
a user. He testified to that, and that's when, you
know everything, My judge, everybody got involved. So they ended
up blocking me up. My judge, so no, I'm gonna
let her go home because my mother was suffering from cancer.
(04:22):
So he let me go home and stay until time
for me to be sentenced. March ten or nineteen ninety
five is when I was sentenced in nineteen years and
seven months and that's when my son jumped in. The
judge left and the FBI and the Martians had to
pry him out. The judge left and the judge was crying.
He did not want to send me to prison, and
that relationship started being. You know, the judge was the
(04:43):
one that wrote a letter to the president.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Oh I didn't know that, yes, saying what that You know,
it was just a few lines. I can get the letter.
I have it in my file, just a few lines.
He said that.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You know, this was the case that he was compelled
to do this for it was his first time he
ever doing it, and the prosecute.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Was just blow because they couldn't believe that he wrote
a letter.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
To the president.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Your son. Let's go back to your family a little bit.
Tell me about what your family life was like, or
what your life was like before the arrest. You had
children before the rest.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, before the arrest, my life was I thought was perfect.
I mean I did everything in the book because my children.
Father died when my son was two and my daughter
was three. That's when he had a mass upont I
taking the age of thirty two years old. So it
just me and my kids and Natasha was eight. Natasha
is my oldest child. So with just a threell we
(05:41):
had a lovely life. You know, I did nothing that
I always set up myself, Dave that I did nothing
unless my children was involved.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I never drink. I've never been to a club in
my life.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Everything I did I did it with my children, boy Scout, girls, scout,
going to movies.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Everything involved my children.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So this was a big setback when I left my
kids and they were the only you know, I was
the only painter, not just I was the only.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Parent of my kids. Hed my mother was stuffed from cancer.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
And what kind of work were you doing at the time.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I was working.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
At the hospital as a nurse, so I you know
everything that went down the draint at that moment.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
What what can you tell us about your connection to
this gentleman who had who was using drugs?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
What was he just a friend? Was he? Why would they.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Think that he was my guy? He was my guy friend.
Let me tell you something about him. You would never
have known he was a user.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
He was what you call a he works every day
every day, clean cut. You never would he was what
you call a closet user. You didn't, you could.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Not tell he used drugs bias. Yeah, you could not
tell he used drugs. To this day, you would never
have never nobody, everybody was surprised that he was a
drug user.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
And explain again that connection.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Did that connection impact you being uh?
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Law enforcement coming after you? Is that what that was
the big reason that.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
That was a connection.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
That was a connection that law enforcement come after me
and my daughter's grandmother, my daughter's oldest daughter, Natasha grandmother,
her son testified against her, and natasha father testified against
me and his mother and she was like sixty some
years old and she went to prison. So yeah, there
was a whole type of connection.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yes, tell us again what happened with your how old
your son was? Can you relive that moment in court
when when you were convicted and how he reacted?
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Uh, my son was madews.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
And when I was twenty years to live in the pool.
Speaker 7 (07:57):
And my son and mess every sister the day. Ever
since that day I went to prison, we j be
living picked up. Don't send me to prison. He has
been missed from ever. He's not in prison doing forty he.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
Mhm hm, So my life has just been tore up
ever since that day.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Mhm.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
What what were the what were the charges against your
son that he's in prison now?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Robbery? He got on drugs real bad when he was young.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Hm, And how much of how much of his behavior
do you figure as related to what happened to you?
Speaker 6 (09:06):
One hundred percent? My son tried to kill himself while
I was gone. He set himself, but he took over
those He did everything to not leave.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I was aware he was he had challenges, Dorothy, I
didn't realize it was that hard.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
I'm sorry, yes, O. How often do you talk with
him or communicate with him?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Every other day?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I tried to communicate him every the other day. My
son stay out, was stay up fifteen times?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Why he been gone? He was stay up fifteen times
and didn't sometime? He got a stroke cut last year.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
While in prison.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Well in prison did me and his daughter was going
to see him and we almost got killed going to
see him in bad.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
He has one child and she's now trying to commit
suicide last month herself.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Who Dorothy, As you're talking through this and we're listening
to this, it's pretty hard to hear. But how are
you how do you keep all this? How do you
keep it together? With all this what is your what
is your foundation of what keeps you going?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Just hoping one day is going one day we can
have enjoyment of seeing each other again on the outside.
It's just been like I've been in prison for the
last thirty years. It's been like prison.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Hm.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Oh, lord Mercy.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Can you tell me about the rest of your family,
how they're doing and and and I know how from
talking with you over the last a couple of years
that you're taking care of some of your grandchildren.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Correct, Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I'm uh Phillip's daughter, uh Taylor, and my my daughter
that when I went to prison, char Or, she's she
was eleven at that time, and she was molested by
a family member that has got her so messed up
that she's on drugs and alcohol as well. So I'm
having to help take care of for her kids. All
(11:53):
that happened while I was inconcrated. She was right by
a family member.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
I'm sorry, who was your daughter?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, Charro the level when she was eleven at the
time I went to prison, and you know, mentally, it
messed with her a lot, and so she started drinking
and started doing drugs as well. So she has four children,
(12:23):
So I just I know I ain't no guests. That's
why God keeping me here, is why COVID. I mean, hey,
it's a reason for my life. Hopefully one day I'll
see the sun shame.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
And who cares for your Who cares for your children?
Where they were adults? But are they.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
You're helping care to be clear, helping care for their
their children as best you can?
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Correct?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yes, yes, yes, it's a hard journey. But I'm trying to.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Do with how are you? How are you doing that?
What do you because you're not able to work? You're
not working? Correct?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
No, I'm not working. I don't think I get an
SSI disability.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Okay, let's talk a bit. When you were incarcerated, what
did you do?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I'm I think it's fair to say that you felt
you were unjustly convicted? Of course, what did you do
to try to first deal with the fact while you
were in prison that you don't felt you shouldn't have
been there? And secondly, what did you do to try to,
if anything, fixed your situation?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I start well, when I went to I went to
FRISM and I started writing out, I started calling out,
and I remember I got in touch with jeded Reno,
and I was explaining them on a letter about what
had went down did It wasn't fair.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
How could I be charged with something I never done?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
And and I remember her office writing me back, and
I end up still writing and writing. And then when
I went to prison, I wrote letters and different people
from all over England would get my got my story.
They send somebody over here to do a film about
how they were sending American people to prison on conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
They did that when I was in Mariana prison in
nineteen ninety nine, they sent somebody from England. Then different
magazines like Marie Clair and Ebony Essence. And you know,
Philip was in the last book that JFK put out
before he got killed in the plane crack.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
There was a story about him. Was in that book
called Joege the last book that was put out. They
wrote a story about him in that book. I mean
it just I just sent in prison. I just I
didn't go to prison. I just put' simp there. I
just let myself write in prison, knowing that I needed
my children needed me. So I started writing out and
begging for help on outside. I started begging for help
(14:55):
for somebody, some organization to take hold of my son
and be a mentor.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
But I and get that part of it. But I did.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
People did start writing out about my story and doing
a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So while you were in prison, you were doing all this,
did you darthy Did you think that you.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Were going to be in there for a really long time? Like, uh,
were you gonna do your you were gonna it was.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
A mindset thing. I kept saying every day, I was
not going to do that time. I kept telling the
officers that I was not going to do that time.
And I remember one day I kept on talking. I said,
I'm going home, and they sent me to the site ward.
They said I was losing my mind because I had
twenty years. How was I going home? And I said,
I'm going home. I'm gonna fight my case. I'm going home,
(15:37):
and they sent me to the site war.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Did you when you got arrested, when you were convicted
you did you understand what the laws were and how
it related to the death of Len Bias at that time?
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Did you know who Lenn was? Did you know any
of that?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
No?
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I did not, No, No, I did not.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
When did you finally become aware of that?
Speaker 4 (16:01):
I remember reading about uh, Lenn biased. I think it was.
I don't know what was. Eric was talking.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
About it when that's when everybody was running and jumping
and lend biased. They didn't really look into the law.
They were just upset because Lynn had od and they
just changed the law.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
And he said like overnight, Oh that was.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
That was uh oh yes, okay. But when did you
When did you become.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Aware of Len's history and how his death affected uh?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
While I was inconcentrated, because I knew nothing about any
of this before I went to prison. That's why I
was the person to try to read now and let
people know, you gotta be knowledgeable stuff. But before I
knew nothing about conspiras. I knew nothing about practic cocaine.
I knew nothing about any of it.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Did you find out about him just reading about it
while you were in prison?
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, I found out about
I was convicted.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
I didn't know any thing about any of this.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
And how did it? How did that make you feel
when you found that out? Did you.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Enough that there was a whole lot you could do
at that point beside what you were doing? But did
you think about that and said why you know this
doesn't make sense or did you have any kind of
reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, yall have a reaction to it, because the thing
about the way I looked at with crack cocaine, it's
just like with a chicken.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
You can take a chicken, you can boil.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
It, fry, barbecue, and bake it, but when it all
boil down, it's a chicken. And it's the same way
with crack cocaine and powder. They give you more time
for having crack cocaine and dup of powder, but the
basic thing is the head thing is its problem. So
why they give you more time for crack dup of powder? Well,
that was some of the scenarios I was looking.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
At as you researched it.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Did you understand why that was why they were what
the reasoning might have been for a severe more severe
sentences for crack as opposed to powder.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
You know, uh uh Daves. To this day, I'm still
upset because I still don't understand why, because to me,
patter would be more potent to me, uh to me
with crack. They say they break the crack down with
bacon power all that, so it's broke down, So why
would it be more to bee or penalty unless it's
because of the race that's using the drugs.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Okay, I don't under Let's move forward to Uh, how
did it? How do you remember it happening where you were?
Were President Clinton pardoned you?
Speaker 5 (18:34):
How did it? How did all that transpire?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Well, it all comes about a lot of people got involved,
like Aery.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Sterling Sterling build a campaign families against mandatory minimum.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It was a lot of people that came on board
that uh got involved. And like I say, all my
writing did not go in vain. I wrote to everybody, right,
That's all I did was my money in prison was
about stamps and wrote out and people would you know,
another guy named Ira Glassner on this radio show called uh,
(19:10):
I got all this stuff, but his name was just
people all over that heard about my story just like
it was a while, I just caught on fire and
they couldn't believe that this has happened.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
When you found out that you were gonna be how
did you find out that you were going to be pardoned?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And okay, it.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Was the twenty second day of December. Uh, you know,
it was that Friday before Christmas coming up. And in prison,
they always give you a Christmas bag to everybody that's
in prison.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
They had locked down for lunch. Well, I called home
that morning. I call home.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I always call my children on and I call home
that Friday morning, and my kids will telling me, well,
a lot of press that come to the prison, but
put it in a lot of press.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
They come to the prison and interview me.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And I had an interview supposed to been that Friday morning,
and the guy put the interview off and told me
he was gonna come on that Monday.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
So that Friday morning, I called home.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
My kids told me, said, Mama, someth going on because
a lot of people report us been calling us all morning.
So then I asked to use the phone. Of course,
you know you got women's in prison. They love soap operas.
They're not gonna let you see the TV or any
of that. So about one o'clock I came into the
unity lockdown to give us all the Christmas bag for Christmas,
and I happened to call my attorney. I had to
(20:26):
end up with some pro bono attorneys that heard about
my case out of Maryland. I think it was Maryland
shot Holler and Stewart Firn and I called, and my
lawyer say, doth what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Where are you at?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I said, wait the hell you think I'm in prison?
You know, just like that, he said, you're in prison.
She said you got released it. I said, all I
got released? They she said, yeah, you and Kimba Smith
got released day and I just they said I fainted.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I don't know, I fainted.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
You got released on the same day as Kimber.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Yeah, he would really he spoke of us that day. Wow,
he's still twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, we've Kembas says, we've talked to Kemba and and
she's got it.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
She's actually there working.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
On a feature film about her, and she had to
check with her attorneys to make sure that what we're
doing is not going to interfere with.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
The future film. So hopefully i'll hear back from herny day.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, but she as you know, she she gave us
a lot of good stuff for the book.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
But I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
That's that's interesting, all right, So tell me about the
transition once you left Once you left prison, what was that.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Transition like for you?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
What did you see in your family, what did you see,
what did you think was ahead for you?
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Where you could go.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Well, when I left prison that day, my son, when
I got home, you know, of course, was.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
So much media around, so much media.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
And when I got home, my uh my kids kept
pitching me because they couldn't believe I was real. They
couldn't believe that I was there, or my son, and
you could see that he was just he just was
I don't know, he just was standing off and she
just he couldn't just believe that I was home.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
And you know, I saw.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
That all the damage had been done, was going on,
and it's like you walk into a fire and you
see it, but then you don't know which way to
go with it. And you know, the worst day right
now that I regret that I did not sit down
instead of coming out trying to fight the law, trying
to do everything for everybody doingthing, I didn't sit down
with my kids to really find out what they had
(22:34):
been through mentally and try to get them some help mentally.
And I'll tell you about it. They come out of
here and your children been hurt. To first put time
with your kids and find what did they go through
and what need to be done. Because I was thinking
that by me coming home that was a healing part.
That was all they needed. That wasn't all they needed.
(22:55):
I needed to see what had happened to them that Davids.
They had been done.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
So Dorothy, take us through those first five or six
years when you're now out and what are you trying
to do to accliment yourself back into society, help your
family and also make sure this isn't going to happen
to anyone else if you could well.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
That was the main thing.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
The focus was trying to make sure other women's and
people knew about after I had experienced a hard weight,
trying to make sure that it was out in the
public about crack cocaine. It was out in the pub
about the conspiracy law. The main thing is people don't
understand the conspiracy law. And then that's when there's a
guilt by association came out that I don't know if
(23:40):
a lot of people have. That explains a lot about
how women get cooked up with guys like I did
with Mercedes ral playing that role, you know. And then
they did the Snitch thing in nineteen ninety nine with
PBS front Line that shared a lot of light on
(24:01):
how this thing happens when it comes to snitching. You know,
you don't have to know it for it. Just get
people just a lot that bothers me a lot. So
you know, it's a lot of light has been shedded,
you know. And I have to say that, you know,
I put put a lot of focus out there. Again,
like I said, I should have been trying to find
out what was going on my kids, and now I'm
I'm the review.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Percussion is in my left. You know. I did all
that running around here there and young and now I'm.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Still suffering with these kids that that got messed up
doing these drug logs while I was gone, and it's
like a recycled thing. It's drifted on down to the
next generation of kids.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Tell us take us through your personal life. How long
it took you to Readjust did you.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Were able to get work? Were you uh were.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
You struggling to find work? And how what was happening
with your family at the time.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
It's been a struggle since I come home, Dave.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
It's I mean, uh, the work ethic thing with you know,
with that fellow thing I had on my work because
I was I was commentated, but I wasn't partnered, so
you know it it was a long time, a lot
of things, housing and all.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
You know, there wasn't let you get housed if you
had a drug fell on the record. It was a
lot going on that.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
We had to fight through, even with voting rights, so
we I had to get out fighting for voting, fighting
for housing, and fighting for food stamp. You had to
fight all these things because you could rob somebody, kill somebody,
you would be utible for housing and foodstack. But if
you had a drug record, you couldn't.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
So it was a still a fight.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
And how long did that is? That? Does that exist today?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Is that A lot of it still exists today. A
lot of it still exist today. A lot of it
is getting better, but you know, it's still a fight.
It's so much when you have a drug record.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Take us now through how your family evolved, when you
when you were released, when your your sentence was commutated
or commuted, how you tried to keep the family together,
how the family evolved, What happened in the family.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah, Uh, well, when I came home, you know, my
daughter had come out of college to raise my kids.
My eighteen year old daughter had to stop school and
she had three kids of her own, and she had
to take on my kids, and it was just impacted home,
her trying to struggle and take care of the kids,
and me myself coming out as another person involved in.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
It was like.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I'm trying to the perfect word for it. It's like
it's a bottle of struggle. But it's still is not
any opening there, you know, It's just it's still this
cycle just still goes on.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
It's not where are you just free minded that you
just everything is going all right?
Speaker 5 (26:41):
It's not.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's a struggle there that had just messed up the
whole life of the family, and it just goes from
year to year.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
To year and it's not getting a break.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And what happened to your How does your daughter's life evolve?
You tell us a little bit about your son to
be more specific about what happened to all of them.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Okay, my oldest daughter when I left, was eighteen. She
was in going into college. She was the one that
took on my two smaller kid to cause she didn't
want them to go into aposter care because my mother
had counsel anyway, you know, so she didn't want to
go in there. So she took all that big responsibility
herself and you know, and family is allso they're gonna
(27:23):
stand by and help you. But after so long people disappear.
They'll say they're gonna do something, they disappear. So all
this struggle for the time I was gone was on her.
Her burden along with trying to go to school and
take care of her family, and then with the problem
that my two children had, which was charged with you
(27:43):
at that time was eleven, That's what I told you,
that was molested by a family member and she ended
up on drugs and alcohol and still on drugs and
alcohol that to this day.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
That's why I'm having to help take care of her
kids now.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And Natasha is the oldest, which she's she has a
level head, but that was a big verd but she
has a something like a counselor thing going on with
her right now. So she's on a lot of pressure,
sick herself. That's the oldest child. And you know, we
know we talked about what Philip had, but Philip has
one daughter that she is struggling mentally, that tried to
(28:19):
kill herself a month ago, and I'm having to help
take care of his child.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
So that's just the way it's going on now.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
The oldest daughter. What is she is? She does she
have a profession? Is she able to?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
My oldest daughter was going to school to be an attorney,
but now she her profession. She's a school teacher. She's
a school teacher, and.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
She tried to teach criminal justice within the school system
to try and tell kids about it. And I've been
over to her school to speak. But she is she's
a school teacher with the criminal justice side on that.
So she's doing good trying to keep kids out of
trouble in school.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Okay, that's interesting. That's very positive. I mean, that's that's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Yeah, she's doing good with that.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Okay. What what do you think was the clincher to
get you your sentence commuted?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Well, like I said, all the publicity that I did have, UH,
my son wrote a lot of letters to the judge,
and I also wrote the president and my kids UH,
the campaigns that family against mandatory minimum and Eric Sterling
iran UH and then with the probo on lawyers out
(29:31):
of UH the trot hollering Steward, they was able to
have a sit down talk with.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
UH Eric holding mm HM, which was the Attorney general
at that My sister Attorney General. So it was a
lot of things.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Played a lot of roles in that I put yourself
out there in the immediate and people reading about it,
and people people, a lot of people just don't know that.
People a lot of people think that when people go
to prison they actually held ten keys of drugs. They
don't think that people set up in prison because they
had knowledge of I didn't help the process, you know,
And this is something that I wanted people to know,
(30:04):
especially when they set the people over in England to
come over here and interview me.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I mean, hey, they couldn't believe that you say, actually
sending people to prison, you damaged the family for life?
For what reason? That's what I don't get. For what reason?
I told them they could give me the life on
a monitor, life on probation.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I didn't care as long as I didn't leave my
children because I knew what the damage was gonna be.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
How do you put this all in perspective, all these
things that have happened to you, and and sort of
justify or accept all this and put it all on perspective.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Every time my phone ring and I see that prison
number come across my screen, I'm scared to answer because
you never know what has happened on the inside. You know,
my phone ring at two o'clock in the morning, I
don't know if somebody calling to him my son has
gotten killed, because I've had those tragic.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Phone calls before. So you know, it's just you.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I live every day on pen and needs afraid. I
have not been in peace since I've been out of prison.
I'm still in prison. I'm just I've just got my freedom,
but I'm I'm I'm mentally in prison still. And then
and then uh, legacy to me, you know, like it
was a mistake. You know, a good guy that made
(31:21):
a bad choice, and he didn't know he was making
that bad choice.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
He didn't know. I know he didn't. I'm quite sure.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I know he didn't know that he was gonna o
D on those drugs. But it wasn't it wasn't what
he done. It was a choice he made. The prosecutors
the federal government, because they're still locking people up for
life on drug charges. They're not looking into the fact
of how many children that you are, you are you
are bringing into the prison system by locking their parents up.
(31:48):
They need to get to the barb and see see
a lot of this stuff going on with these kids.
Now it's mentally because you don't know what has happened
in these kids life that has.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Caused them to do the things they're doing.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Then I breaking down and make sure these children see
that pair that is important when a child is a
mother and a father's and Trithlen that these children have
communication with their parents.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
And that's what happened with my kids.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
They had no transportation to come and see me when
they wanted to come, and when they did come, they
cried the whole while it was there, not.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Wanting to leave it.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
They pay off they they didn't even want to work
to visit room. My children come because they want to
cry and scream.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
So we were time to go. So your damnity.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
Children aren't flying, But things ain't gonna happen in the
children you studied down to them.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
That was Dorothy Gaines, who was convicted of drug crimes
related to the death of Len Bias. Her sentence was
later commuted by President Bill Clinton. Len Bias a mixed legacy.
The interviews was produced by Daveon Grady and Don Marcus.
(33:00):
He had it all strong, quick, and he.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Was so Len bias.
Speaker 9 (33:04):
A mixed legacy is distributed by the eighth side number.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Just for greatness and loss, that you're known of all
of her memories, Remember me.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I hope they do the same.
As an extension of the podcast series, the producers would
like to share the full interviews of our subjects from
the series. Their accounts and memories offer a fascinating look
into the legacy of Len Bias. We begin the interview
series with a look at the effects of the drug
laws that were changed following the death of Bias. Dave Ngrady,
(00:22):
executive producer of the series, interviews Dorothy Gaines, a victim
of overzealous prosecution and mandatory minimum sentencing which sent her
to prison for a crime she did not commit. Dorothy
shares her personal and tragic family story on how the
death of Len Bias shook her family to the core
and how it still continues to affect their lives to
(00:44):
this day. Dorothy is one example of the thousands of
lives that were affected by the changes of the criminal
justice system due to the War on drugs and the
drug related death of Len Bias. Is Mama Craft and
the People's.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Let's start really from the beginning, how your life was
changed following the arrests, why you were arrested, at least
what law enforcement claimed, and then and then we'll go
from there.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
In nineteen ninety three, Alabama law enforcement claimed that I
knew about some drug dealing going on.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
They came into my house and raided and there was nothing.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
That was Alabama court and then after Alabama court, and
you know, Alabama don't send you to trial unless you
have evidence, but the Pharoh government does with conspiracy. So
it was turned over to the faiths. And that's how
it all started in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And can you explain why Alabama law enforcement felt compelled
to search your home. You had a relationship with a
gentleman I think who.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Was dealing here?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
You have relationship with a dealer name at that time
was my comradid husband. He was more as a user
than a drug person that was dealing drug. He was
a user, but he knew some guys that was into
that type of business. He testified that I knew anything,
that I didn't know anything about what was going on.
But they still even offer him to be released of
(02:13):
the fourteen years and he would just testify against me,
and he refused to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Tarbor called the Alabama prosecutors decided not to prosecute you, correct,
because they didn't have no right.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I didn't have any They didn't have an el say,
Alabama didn't prosecute me. The case was then later the
federal government picked it up.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And tell me what you recall about the trial when
the federal government process charges against you, and how and
what happened there what you thought was for some injustices
there as well.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Okay, during the trial and we went to trial at
nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
But it started off with they came and arrest me,
and I went and made a magist de bond, signed
my own recovernists and I was on pre trial, had
a group report with the probation office on pre trial.
Then I ended up going to trial with like four
other people, and I begged them let me go to
trial alone, but they wouldn't let me go to trial,
(03:11):
or they tried me with four other people. And one
of the people they tried me was was a young
lady that was working out of macdone's. And it was
a guy there in the trial that say that he
had bought an ouncer crack cocaine from her, and the
juror they asked him to point out the woman that
he bought the ouncer print cocaine from, and he pointed
out a juror. So we just knew the trial was
(03:33):
gonna be thrown out because he didn't he would nobody
had never seen this guy they had brought in the testifact.
It was just somebody after jail that they brought in
and he picked out a juror.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
So we thought the trial was gonna be thrown out.
And there it is.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
That prosecutor told me that when the guy saw the
lady the last time, she was heavy, and you know
how the prosecuted just try to and they went on
and bought and the trial see up again, you know,
went on.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
So that day I testified.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
That I knew nothing about it. Even the guy that
I was living with testibut it. I knew nothing about
what was going on that I was, you know, worked,
and I never knew that he was a drug dealer,
a user. He testified to that, and that's when, you
know everything, My judge, everybody got involved. So they ended
up blocking me up. My judge, so no, I'm gonna
let her go home because my mother was suffering from cancer.
(04:22):
So he let me go home and stay until time
for me to be sentenced. March ten or nineteen ninety
five is when I was sentenced in nineteen years and
seven months and that's when my son jumped in. The
judge left and the FBI and the Martians had to
pry him out. The judge left and the judge was crying.
He did not want to send me to prison, and
that relationship started being. You know, the judge was the
(04:43):
one that wrote a letter to the president.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Oh I didn't know that, yes, saying what that You know,
it was just a few lines. I can get the letter.
I have it in my file, just a few lines.
He said that.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You know, this was the case that he was compelled
to do this for it was his first time he
ever doing it, and the prosecute.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Was just blow because they couldn't believe that he wrote
a letter.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
To the president.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Your son. Let's go back to your family a little bit.
Tell me about what your family life was like, or
what your life was like before the arrest. You had
children before the rest.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, before the arrest, my life was I thought was perfect.
I mean I did everything in the book because my children.
Father died when my son was two and my daughter
was three. That's when he had a mass upont I
taking the age of thirty two years old. So it
just me and my kids and Natasha was eight. Natasha
is my oldest child. So with just a threell we
(05:41):
had a lovely life. You know, I did nothing that
I always set up myself, Dave that I did nothing
unless my children was involved.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I never drink. I've never been to a club in
my life.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Everything I did I did it with my children, boy Scout, girls, scout,
going to movies.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Everything involved my children.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So this was a big setback when I left my
kids and they were the only you know, I was
the only painter, not just I was the only.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Parent of my kids. Hed my mother was stuffed from cancer.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
And what kind of work were you doing at the time.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I was working.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
At the hospital as a nurse, so I you know
everything that went down the draint at that moment.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
What what can you tell us about your connection to
this gentleman who had who was using drugs?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
What was he just a friend? Was he? Why would they.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Think that he was my guy? He was my guy friend.
Let me tell you something about him. You would never
have known he was a user.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
He was what you call a he works every day
every day, clean cut. You never would he was what
you call a closet user. You didn't, you could.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Not tell he used drugs bias. Yeah, you could not
tell he used drugs. To this day, you would never
have never nobody, everybody was surprised that he was a
drug user.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
And explain again that connection.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Did that connection impact you being uh?
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Law enforcement coming after you? Is that what that was
the big reason that.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
That was a connection.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
That was a connection that law enforcement come after me
and my daughter's grandmother, my daughter's oldest daughter, Natasha grandmother,
her son testified against her, and natasha father testified against
me and his mother and she was like sixty some
years old and she went to prison. So yeah, there
was a whole type of connection.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yes, tell us again what happened with your how old
your son was? Can you relive that moment in court
when when you were convicted and how he reacted?
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Uh, my son was madews.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
And when I was twenty years to live in the pool.
Speaker 7 (07:57):
And my son and mess every sister the day. Ever
since that day I went to prison, we j be
living picked up. Don't send me to prison. He has
been missed from ever. He's not in prison doing forty he.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
Mhm hm, So my life has just been tore up
ever since that day.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Mhm.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
What what were the what were the charges against your
son that he's in prison now?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Robbery? He got on drugs real bad when he was young.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Hm, And how much of how much of his behavior
do you figure as related to what happened to you?
Speaker 6 (09:06):
One hundred percent? My son tried to kill himself while
I was gone. He set himself, but he took over
those He did everything to not leave.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I was aware he was he had challenges, Dorothy, I
didn't realize it was that hard.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
I'm sorry, yes, O. How often do you talk with
him or communicate with him?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Every other day?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I tried to communicate him every the other day. My
son stay out, was stay up fifteen times?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Why he been gone? He was stay up fifteen times
and didn't sometime? He got a stroke cut last year.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
While in prison.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Well in prison did me and his daughter was going
to see him and we almost got killed going to
see him in bad.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
He has one child and she's now trying to commit
suicide last month herself.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Who Dorothy, As you're talking through this and we're listening
to this, it's pretty hard to hear. But how are
you how do you keep all this? How do you
keep it together? With all this what is your what
is your foundation of what keeps you going?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Just hoping one day is going one day we can
have enjoyment of seeing each other again on the outside.
It's just been like I've been in prison for the
last thirty years. It's been like prison.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Hm.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Oh, lord Mercy.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Can you tell me about the rest of your family,
how they're doing and and and I know how from
talking with you over the last a couple of years
that you're taking care of some of your grandchildren.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Correct, Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I'm uh Phillip's daughter, uh Taylor, and my my daughter
that when I went to prison, char Or, she's she
was eleven at that time, and she was molested by
a family member that has got her so messed up
that she's on drugs and alcohol as well. So I'm
having to help take care of for her kids. All
(11:53):
that happened while I was inconcrated. She was right by
a family member.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
I'm sorry, who was your daughter?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, Charro the level when she was eleven at the
time I went to prison, and you know, mentally, it
messed with her a lot, and so she started drinking
and started doing drugs as well. So she has four children,
(12:23):
So I just I know I ain't no guests. That's
why God keeping me here, is why COVID. I mean, hey,
it's a reason for my life. Hopefully one day I'll
see the sun shame.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
And who cares for your Who cares for your children?
Where they were adults? But are they.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
You're helping care to be clear, helping care for their
their children as best you can?
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Correct?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yes, yes, yes, it's a hard journey. But I'm trying to.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Do with how are you? How are you doing that?
What do you because you're not able to work? You're
not working? Correct?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
No, I'm not working. I don't think I get an
SSI disability.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Okay, let's talk a bit. When you were incarcerated, what
did you do?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I'm I think it's fair to say that you felt
you were unjustly convicted? Of course, what did you do
to try to first deal with the fact while you
were in prison that you don't felt you shouldn't have
been there? And secondly, what did you do to try to,
if anything, fixed your situation?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I start well, when I went to I went to
FRISM and I started writing out, I started calling out,
and I remember I got in touch with jeded Reno,
and I was explaining them on a letter about what
had went down did It wasn't fair.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
How could I be charged with something I never done?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
And and I remember her office writing me back, and
I end up still writing and writing. And then when
I went to prison, I wrote letters and different people
from all over England would get my got my story.
They send somebody over here to do a film about
how they were sending American people to prison on conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
They did that when I was in Mariana prison in
nineteen ninety nine, they sent somebody from England. Then different
magazines like Marie Clair and Ebony Essence. And you know,
Philip was in the last book that JFK put out
before he got killed in the plane crack.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
There was a story about him. Was in that book
called Joege the last book that was put out. They
wrote a story about him in that book. I mean
it just I just sent in prison. I just I
didn't go to prison. I just put' simp there. I
just let myself write in prison, knowing that I needed
my children needed me. So I started writing out and
begging for help on outside. I started begging for help
(14:55):
for somebody, some organization to take hold of my son
and be a mentor.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
But I and get that part of it. But I did.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
People did start writing out about my story and doing
a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So while you were in prison, you were doing all this,
did you darthy Did you think that you.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Were going to be in there for a really long time? Like, uh,
were you gonna do your you were gonna it was.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
A mindset thing. I kept saying every day, I was
not going to do that time. I kept telling the
officers that I was not going to do that time.
And I remember one day I kept on talking. I said,
I'm going home, and they sent me to the site ward.
They said I was losing my mind because I had
twenty years. How was I going home? And I said,
I'm going home. I'm gonna fight my case. I'm going home,
(15:37):
and they sent me to the site war.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Did you when you got arrested, when you were convicted
you did you understand what the laws were and how
it related to the death of Len Bias at that time?
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Did you know who Lenn was? Did you know any
of that?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
No?
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I did not, No, No, I did not.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
When did you finally become aware of that?
Speaker 4 (16:01):
I remember reading about uh, Lenn biased. I think it was.
I don't know what was. Eric was talking.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
About it when that's when everybody was running and jumping
and lend biased. They didn't really look into the law.
They were just upset because Lynn had od and they
just changed the law.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
And he said like overnight, Oh that was.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
That was uh oh yes, okay. But when did you
When did you become.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Aware of Len's history and how his death affected uh?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
While I was inconcentrated, because I knew nothing about any
of this before I went to prison. That's why I
was the person to try to read now and let
people know, you gotta be knowledgeable stuff. But before I
knew nothing about conspiras. I knew nothing about practic cocaine.
I knew nothing about any of it.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Did you find out about him just reading about it
while you were in prison?
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, I found out about
I was convicted.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
I didn't know any thing about any of this.
Speaker 5 (17:02):
And how did it? How did that make you feel
when you found that out? Did you.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Enough that there was a whole lot you could do
at that point beside what you were doing? But did
you think about that and said why you know this
doesn't make sense or did you have any kind of
reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well, yall have a reaction to it, because the thing
about the way I looked at with crack cocaine, it's
just like with a chicken.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
You can take a chicken, you can boil.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
It, fry, barbecue, and bake it, but when it all
boil down, it's a chicken. And it's the same way
with crack cocaine and powder. They give you more time
for having crack cocaine and dup of powder, but the
basic thing is the head thing is its problem. So
why they give you more time for crack dup of powder? Well,
that was some of the scenarios I was looking.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
At as you researched it.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Did you understand why that was why they were what
the reasoning might have been for a severe more severe
sentences for crack as opposed to powder.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
You know, uh uh Daves. To this day, I'm still
upset because I still don't understand why, because to me,
patter would be more potent to me, uh to me
with crack. They say they break the crack down with
bacon power all that, so it's broke down, So why
would it be more to bee or penalty unless it's
because of the race that's using the drugs.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Okay, I don't under Let's move forward to Uh, how
did it? How do you remember it happening where you were?
Were President Clinton pardoned you?
Speaker 5 (18:34):
How did it? How did all that transpire?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Well, it all comes about a lot of people got involved,
like Aery.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Sterling Sterling build a campaign families against mandatory minimum.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It was a lot of people that came on board
that uh got involved. And like I say, all my
writing did not go in vain. I wrote to everybody, right,
That's all I did was my money in prison was
about stamps and wrote out and people would you know,
another guy named Ira Glassner on this radio show called uh,
(19:10):
I got all this stuff, but his name was just
people all over that heard about my story just like
it was a while, I just caught on fire and
they couldn't believe that this has happened.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
When you found out that you were gonna be how
did you find out that you were going to be pardoned?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And okay, it.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Was the twenty second day of December. Uh, you know,
it was that Friday before Christmas coming up. And in prison,
they always give you a Christmas bag to everybody that's
in prison.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
They had locked down for lunch. Well, I called home
that morning. I call home.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I always call my children on and I call home
that Friday morning, and my kids will telling me, well,
a lot of press that come to the prison, but
put it in a lot of press.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
They come to the prison and interview me.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And I had an interview supposed to been that Friday morning,
and the guy put the interview off and told me
he was gonna come on that Monday.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
So that Friday morning, I called home.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
My kids told me, said, Mama, someth going on because
a lot of people report us been calling us all morning.
So then I asked to use the phone. Of course,
you know you got women's in prison. They love soap operas.
They're not gonna let you see the TV or any
of that. So about one o'clock I came into the
unity lockdown to give us all the Christmas bag for Christmas,
and I happened to call my attorney. I had to
(20:26):
end up with some pro bono attorneys that heard about
my case out of Maryland. I think it was Maryland
shot Holler and Stewart Firn and I called, and my
lawyer say, doth what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Where are you at?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I said, wait the hell you think I'm in prison?
You know, just like that, he said, you're in prison.
She said you got released it. I said, all I
got released? They she said, yeah, you and Kimba Smith
got released day and I just they said I fainted.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I don't know, I fainted.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
You got released on the same day as Kimber.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Yeah, he would really he spoke of us that day. Wow,
he's still twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, we've Kembas says, we've talked to Kemba and and
she's got it.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
She's actually there working.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
On a feature film about her, and she had to
check with her attorneys to make sure that what we're
doing is not going to interfere with.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
The future film. So hopefully i'll hear back from herny day.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, but she as you know, she she gave us
a lot of good stuff for the book.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
But I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
That's that's interesting, all right, So tell me about the
transition once you left Once you left prison, what was that.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Transition like for you?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
What did you see in your family, what did you see,
what did you think was ahead for you?
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Where you could go.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Well, when I left prison that day, my son, when
I got home, you know, of course, was.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
So much media around, so much media.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
And when I got home, my uh my kids kept
pitching me because they couldn't believe I was real. They
couldn't believe that I was there, or my son, and
you could see that he was just he just was
I don't know, he just was standing off and she
just he couldn't just believe that I was home.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
And you know, I saw.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
That all the damage had been done, was going on,
and it's like you walk into a fire and you
see it, but then you don't know which way to
go with it. And you know, the worst day right
now that I regret that I did not sit down
instead of coming out trying to fight the law, trying
to do everything for everybody doingthing, I didn't sit down
with my kids to really find out what they had
(22:34):
been through mentally and try to get them some help mentally.
And I'll tell you about it. They come out of
here and your children been hurt. To first put time
with your kids and find what did they go through
and what need to be done. Because I was thinking
that by me coming home that was a healing part.
That was all they needed. That wasn't all they needed.
(22:55):
I needed to see what had happened to them that Davids.
They had been done.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
So Dorothy, take us through those first five or six
years when you're now out and what are you trying
to do to accliment yourself back into society, help your
family and also make sure this isn't going to happen
to anyone else if you could well.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
That was the main thing.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
The focus was trying to make sure other women's and
people knew about after I had experienced a hard weight,
trying to make sure that it was out in the
public about crack cocaine. It was out in the pub
about the conspiracy law. The main thing is people don't
understand the conspiracy law. And then that's when there's a
guilt by association came out that I don't know if
(23:40):
a lot of people have. That explains a lot about
how women get cooked up with guys like I did
with Mercedes ral playing that role, you know. And then
they did the Snitch thing in nineteen ninety nine with
PBS front Line that shared a lot of light on
(24:01):
how this thing happens when it comes to snitching. You know,
you don't have to know it for it. Just get
people just a lot that bothers me a lot. So
you know, it's a lot of light has been shedded,
you know. And I have to say that, you know,
I put put a lot of focus out there. Again,
like I said, I should have been trying to find
out what was going on my kids, and now I'm
I'm the review.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Percussion is in my left. You know. I did all
that running around here there and young and now I'm.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Still suffering with these kids that that got messed up
doing these drug logs while I was gone, and it's
like a recycled thing. It's drifted on down to the
next generation of kids.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Tell us take us through your personal life. How long
it took you to Readjust did you.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Were able to get work? Were you uh were.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
You struggling to find work? And how what was happening
with your family at the time.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
It's been a struggle since I come home, Dave.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
It's I mean, uh, the work ethic thing with you know,
with that fellow thing I had on my work because
I was I was commentated, but I wasn't partnered, so
you know it it was a long time, a lot
of things, housing and all.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
You know, there wasn't let you get housed if you
had a drug fell on the record. It was a
lot going on that.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
We had to fight through, even with voting rights, so
we I had to get out fighting for voting, fighting
for housing, and fighting for food stamp. You had to
fight all these things because you could rob somebody, kill somebody,
you would be utible for housing and foodstack. But if
you had a drug record, you couldn't.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
So it was a still a fight.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
And how long did that is? That? Does that exist today?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Is that A lot of it still exists today. A
lot of it still exist today. A lot of it
is getting better, but you know, it's still a fight.
It's so much when you have a drug record.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Take us now through how your family evolved, when you
when you were released, when your your sentence was commutated
or commuted, how you tried to keep the family together,
how the family evolved, What happened in the family.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah, Uh, well, when I came home, you know, my
daughter had come out of college to raise my kids.
My eighteen year old daughter had to stop school and
she had three kids of her own, and she had
to take on my kids, and it was just impacted home,
her trying to struggle and take care of the kids,
and me myself coming out as another person involved in.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
It was like.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I'm trying to the perfect word for it. It's like
it's a bottle of struggle. But it's still is not
any opening there, you know, It's just it's still this
cycle just still goes on.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
It's not where are you just free minded that you
just everything is going all right?
Speaker 5 (26:41):
It's not.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's a struggle there that had just messed up the
whole life of the family, and it just goes from
year to year.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
To year and it's not getting a break.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And what happened to your How does your daughter's life evolve?
You tell us a little bit about your son to
be more specific about what happened to all of them.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Okay, my oldest daughter when I left, was eighteen. She
was in going into college. She was the one that
took on my two smaller kid to cause she didn't
want them to go into aposter care because my mother
had counsel anyway, you know, so she didn't want to
go in there. So she took all that big responsibility
herself and you know, and family is allso they're gonna
(27:23):
stand by and help you. But after so long people disappear.
They'll say they're gonna do something, they disappear. So all
this struggle for the time I was gone was on her.
Her burden along with trying to go to school and
take care of her family, and then with the problem
that my two children had, which was charged with you
(27:43):
at that time was eleven, That's what I told you,
that was molested by a family member and she ended
up on drugs and alcohol and still on drugs and
alcohol that to this day.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
That's why I'm having to help take care of her
kids now.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And Natasha is the oldest, which she's she has a
level head, but that was a big verd but she
has a something like a counselor thing going on with
her right now. So she's on a lot of pressure,
sick herself. That's the oldest child. And you know, we
know we talked about what Philip had, but Philip has
one daughter that she is struggling mentally, that tried to
(28:19):
kill herself a month ago, and I'm having to help
take care of his child.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
So that's just the way it's going on now.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
The oldest daughter. What is she is? She does she
have a profession? Is she able to?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
My oldest daughter was going to school to be an attorney,
but now she her profession. She's a school teacher. She's
a school teacher, and.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
She tried to teach criminal justice within the school system
to try and tell kids about it. And I've been
over to her school to speak. But she is she's
a school teacher with the criminal justice side on that.
So she's doing good trying to keep kids out of
trouble in school.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Okay, that's interesting. That's very positive. I mean, that's that's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Yeah, she's doing good with that.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Okay. What what do you think was the clincher to
get you your sentence commuted?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Well, like I said, all the publicity that I did have, UH,
my son wrote a lot of letters to the judge,
and I also wrote the president and my kids UH,
the campaigns that family against mandatory minimum and Eric Sterling
iran UH and then with the probo on lawyers out
(29:31):
of UH the trot hollering Steward, they was able to
have a sit down talk with.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
UH Eric holding mm HM, which was the Attorney general
at that My sister Attorney General. So it was a
lot of things.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Played a lot of roles in that I put yourself
out there in the immediate and people reading about it,
and people people, a lot of people just don't know that.
People a lot of people think that when people go
to prison they actually held ten keys of drugs. They
don't think that people set up in prison because they
had knowledge of I didn't help the process, you know,
And this is something that I wanted people to know,
(30:04):
especially when they set the people over in England to
come over here and interview me.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I mean, hey, they couldn't believe that you say, actually
sending people to prison, you damaged the family for life?
For what reason? That's what I don't get. For what reason?
I told them they could give me the life on
a monitor, life on probation.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I didn't care as long as I didn't leave my
children because I knew what the damage was gonna be.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
How do you put this all in perspective, all these
things that have happened to you, and and sort of
justify or accept all this and put it all on perspective.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Every time my phone ring and I see that prison
number come across my screen, I'm scared to answer because
you never know what has happened on the inside. You know,
my phone ring at two o'clock in the morning, I
don't know if somebody calling to him my son has
gotten killed, because I've had those tragic.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Phone calls before. So you know, it's just you.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I live every day on pen and needs afraid. I
have not been in peace since I've been out of prison.
I'm still in prison. I'm just I've just got my freedom,
but I'm I'm I'm mentally in prison still. And then
and then uh, legacy to me, you know, like it
was a mistake. You know, a good guy that made
(31:21):
a bad choice, and he didn't know he was making
that bad choice.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
He didn't know. I know he didn't. I'm quite sure.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I know he didn't know that he was gonna o
D on those drugs. But it wasn't it wasn't what
he done. It was a choice he made. The prosecutors
the federal government, because they're still locking people up for
life on drug charges. They're not looking into the fact
of how many children that you are, you are you
are bringing into the prison system by locking their parents up.
(31:48):
They need to get to the barb and see see
a lot of this stuff going on with these kids.
Now it's mentally because you don't know what has happened
in these kids life that has.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Caused them to do the things they're doing.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Then I breaking down and make sure these children see
that pair that is important when a child is a
mother and a father's and Trithlen that these children have
communication with their parents.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
And that's what happened with my kids.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
They had no transportation to come and see me when
they wanted to come, and when they did come, they
cried the whole while it was there, not.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Wanting to leave it.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
They pay off they they didn't even want to work
to visit room. My children come because they want to
cry and scream.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
So we were time to go. So your damnity.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
Children aren't flying, But things ain't gonna happen in the
children you studied down to them.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
That was Dorothy Gaines, who was convicted of drug crimes
related to the death of Len Bias. Her sentence was
later commuted by President Bill Clinton. Len Bias a mixed legacy.
The interviews was produced by Daveon Grady and Don Marcus.
(33:00):
He had it all strong, quick, and he.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Was so Len bias.
Speaker 9 (33:04):
A mixed legacy is distributed by the eighth side number.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Just for greatness and loss, that you're known of all
of her memories, Remember me.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I hope they do the same.
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