September 15, 2025 • 36 mins
Anna deep dives into the story of Tina, who you first met back in Episode 7.
Unlike Kelly, Tina fully admits that she committed a terrible crime. But is prison the right place for her? And does she deserve to be forgiven?
If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show please reach out to NO MORE at https://www.nomore.org a domestic violence charity we’ve partnered with.
The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.
You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, girlfriends, it's Anna here. Just wanted to let you
know that this bonus episode is going to include some
pretty difficult stuff mentions of child abuse, sexual assault, and
an instance of very graphic violence. There'll be some swearing too,
but you'll also get to hear the full story of
a woman you first met back in episode seven, Tina.
(00:22):
She introduced Kelly Harnett to her lawyer, Kate Mogolescu.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
From the time I walk up in Rikers and looked
at my environment, I will see as on myself.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
How did I get Tina, which is not her real name,
has just woken up in Riker's Island jail a few
nights earlier, on January thirtieth, twenty sixteen, she violently attacked
her boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
How did I allow myself to get to this point
in my life?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
How did I get to that point?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
There are caused debt, must damage to another human being,
and from their thought, I went throughout my whole encorag
of reach and wanting to know, wanting to understand.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
How did this happen?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
You see, Tina isn't like Kelly, who has always maintained
her innocence. Tina fully accepts that she committed a crime.
She puts her hands up to her She did something awful,
but what kind of punishment fits a crime like hers?
(01:47):
I'm Anison Field and from the teams at Novel and
iHeart Podcasts, This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is Bonus
(02:17):
Episode two Tina's Story.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Tina's story starts with her mom. I have no fond
memories of my mother, but I love her with all.
Here we go, Oh, hold on, that's all right.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Tina was born in nineteen seventy four, but it isn't
the start in life that any child deserves.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I did not grow up in a happy home at all.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Tina says her mum was both neglectful and violent, and
that abuse pete when Tina was still just a baby.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
My mother's set me in a tober hot boil and water,
and both of my feet were burned.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Tina is left with scars on her feet. She's quickly
removed from the family home and put into foster care,
which begins a year's long cycle of being bounced between
childcare services and then back to her parents. Each time
she gets sent home to give it another go, another
instance of abuse or neglect happens Tina feels much safer
(03:39):
when her dad is around, which he isn't often. He's
able to come between her and her mother's violent outbursts.
Tina trusts him, but then the final time Tina moves
back into her parents' home, she says that one thread
of trust is broken. I can't tell you exactly what happened,
(04:02):
but it's the worst thing a parent could do to
a child.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
So when this situation did happen, I think it broke me.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Throughout the rest of my teenage years, I was just
all over the place, drinking, having sex with this person
in that person, in smoking cigarettes, not abiding by curfew.
By then, I was so self destructive.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
At fourteen years old, Tina finds herself living with a
foster family and pregnant. She gives birth to her son
at just fifteen, and then has her daughter at seventeen.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I didn't even know nothing about being a mother.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Of course, I know, you give the baby a bottle,
you change this pamper, but to actually be motherly, I
had no idea whatsoever, and eventually took them from me
because of me not.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Being a good mother. I don't even know how to
see there, but the sea it.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Flash forward a few difficult years, and Tina's now twenty
years old. She's back on her feet, living in an
apartment in Newark, New Jersey. She's got her life back
enough on track that finally her kids have come back
to live with her. And it's not just her kids.
She's also recently gained custody of two of her younger siblings.
(05:32):
But while the state made sure her apartment was big
enough for all five of them, she didn't get any
extra child support money for her siblings. As a single
income household of five, they're barely able to survive. One day.
Outside the YFCA where she works, Tina gets chatting to
a young guy selling drugs in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He said, well, I can show you how you could
sell no coke and that aid the money that you
need to take care of everything.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Tina drinks and she smoked a bit of weed, though
she doesn't really do drugs, but standing on the street corner,
she figures selling them could be a way out, a
way out of poverty, but also out of the shadow
of her and her siblings childhoods.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I'm like cool, I'm like yeah, so I'll basically put
in the money from the job and my brother was
actually out on the street hustling in the drug.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
One night, drunk and numbing her pain with booze, Tina's
gaze turns to hustash.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I was like, I wonder what they get out of
chasing this stuff so hard like that, So I tried
the cocaine and I liked the feeling. And if I
would never have been drunk with dad questioning, I would
have never tried it. It took me like on a
high that I was like party like type, and I
(07:00):
just started sniffing cocaine on a regular basis as I
drink my alcohol, and I got a lot of more
things done, like I was the best employee of the month,
I was the best parent of the year. Then I
realized I had a habit. One day when I didn't
have it and I wanted it, and it started to
(07:21):
be in a problem.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Oh shit, I'm hooked on this.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Tina realizes she's no longer capable of looking after the kids,
so she makes a heart wrenching decision to give them up.
They end up living with her old foster mom. From
that decision, I was just in the street. I was
in the street chasing the drug. I had learned a
new way to use the drug. I was no longer
(07:47):
sniffing cocaine. I learned how to smoke the cocaine, which
is crack cocaine. Before she knows it, Tina is shoplifting
and burgling to fund her new expensive habit, getting into
more trouble with the law. She builds up a pretty
long rap sheet and spends her mid twenties in and
(08:07):
out of correctional facilities. How did you find it?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Crazy things? I was having the time of my life. Yeah,
I was with a young crowd there. We was running around,
and you have to remember how I have been in
the system. I'm used to this structured life. I do
good with structured life, being told when to go to bed,
(08:32):
when your area has to be clean. I had no responsibilities,
I had no bills, I had no chosen to take
care of. So, yeah, it's crazy to say, but that's
what it was for me. You know.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Prison also gave Tina a crucial break from drugs. In
this highly controlled environment, she's able to get clean and sober.
But once she's released and back in the outside world,
that structure she thrived in disappears. She gets back with
an abusive X for a while. She also starts using
(09:10):
cocaine again. Desperate to get some stability back, Tina enrolls
in a drug rehabilitation program.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I went to a program called ARC here in New York.
I believe it was in Harlem. And yeah, I did
good in that program. I was working. I was saving
money to eventually move out.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That's where she meets a guy we're calling Eli.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
He was a funny little character, funny looking little character,
and he was not my tape whatsoever. But he used
to have me laughing and all that I had been
going through. That's how he got me, always making a joe,
putting a smile on my face, lifting my spirits and everything.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Soon enough they become a couple and things are looking up.
They're both sober, stable and falling in love.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And there was another couple that had found the apartment
and they needed someone else to move in with them,
and they asked us, and we decided to move out
with each other. By now, I'm not on drugs, I'm
not drinking. I'm working on living life. So we move
into this apartment. But the good times don't last. Things
(10:27):
begin to spiral all the laughter was leaving. It started
to be a lot of sneaky behavior.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Tina and Eli start bickering all the time, and then
they start to drift apart. In that isolation, Tina becomes
depressed and withdrawn from the world.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I start working, I will stay in a dark room
all the time.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Unsurprisingly, she falls back into her old coping mechanisms.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I'm drinking more heavily, and on the corner, I saw
a boy selling drugs. I went out to see that
boy and bought drugs, and I started back on my bullshit.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
One night, Tina's drug taking and the tensions with Eli
reaches a fever pitch. Because of her depression, She's pretty
much unable to leave the house, which means she stopped working,
so she's financially dependent on him. She's sitting at home
waiting for him to come back with some money that
(11:29):
she desperately needs to buy food and drugs.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
The time that he told me he would be bad,
he didn't come back. I'm all crack okay now, So
I begin to call him and I'm like, where are you?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
He was like, well, I decided to go to Jersie.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
At this point, the argument doesn't seem like anything out
of the ordinary for any normal couple, a last minute
change of plans that creates tension, followed by a slew
of angry texts that were probably taken in the world way.
Tina is hungry and withdrawing, stewing in her anger back
(12:07):
at home. By the time Eli does come home with
food for her, she's on edge and starving. She tears
into the food.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
He was like, ah, damn you hungry as her Oh huh, laughing,
and I'm like, what's funny about that?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The argument ends, and while Tina takes her leftovers into
the kitchen, Eli drifts off to sleep in their bedroom.
No big deal with a Tina. Something has switched. That
throwaway laugh from Eli was just a mean joke, sure,
(12:46):
But Tina, it was the final jenger block being pulled
from a wonky, insecure tower.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I wanted to a hold home. I started thinking of
my mother, I started thinking of my father. I started
thinking of everything that I had endured in my life.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
All those familiar and corrosive feelings of anger, fear, abandonment,
and betrayal rise up in her chest. She starts getting
high in the kitchen. Her feelings about the earlier argument festering,
(13:24):
all while images of her brutal life are flashing before
her eyes.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
The next thing you know, I'm over the stoolball in
hat grease.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Tina is experiencing what would later be described as a
drug induced psychosis, and it's going to drive her to
do something really, really horrible. So feel free to skip
ahead about three and a half minutes if you don't
want to hear the details.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I'm looking at this grease boil you, and I'm still
thinking of not just him per se. It was about
everything in life. I'm back on drugs. I've disappointed so
many people that don't know I'm back on drugs again.
And as I'm leaving out of the kitchen with the
(14:25):
boiling grease, I pick up a knife and I head
towards our bathroom. I remember putting the pot down on
that radiator, thinking to myself like I had two voices.
One was saying, don't do this, this is so wrong,
(14:48):
and another like fuck that, Like people keep playing you.
How long are you gonna be stupid? How long are
you gonna be a And I opened their door with
their hat powder goose in our win'ar into her while he.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Was sleeping boiling oil makes contact with Eli's skin, causing
third degree burns. Panicking, he jumps up from the bed
in the small bedroom, they start tussling with the knife
still in Tina's hand. Tina's lost in a chaotic blur
(15:29):
of drugs and fear and anger. She doesn't know what
she's doing until she feels herself stab Eli in the stomach.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I pulled a knife out and he fell onto the bed,
so he's just leaning there. He says to me, He says,
I love you, and I'm looking at him in this
DZ and I'm like, oh, now you love me, Now
you love me. And I remember leaving out of that room,
(16:02):
going back into the kitchen and continue getting hi, getting
high in the kitchen and continue getting hot.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I'm so high, and.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I remember the drugs eventually going low until they was gone,
and I started coming to a little bit of reality
all of a sudden, and he started conversating with me.
He was like, if you just leave and call nine
one one for me, I won't tell them that you
did this. I'll tell them somebody else did this. I
(16:30):
picked up a trick. She hurt me or a friend
they did this. But I have to get help, please.
I have children, and that's what did it for me.
And I remember looking up at him because he was moaning,
(16:53):
and that's why I saw the damage that I had
to time, and I will say and ourself, how.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Did I be?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
What the newspapers say that I was in that room
we have for thirty six hours. I don't know if
it was that long, but I knew it was more
than a day that we was like that in her room.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Tina wasn't aware until after the incident, but she had
stabbed Eli multiple times in the leg, in the hand,
and in the stomach, piercing vital organs. Now, I just
want to pause here for a moment and say, I
know that this will have been really difficult to listen to.
(17:40):
Believe me, it's been pretty difficult to report on. If
I'm honest, I don't enjoy breaking over the lurid details
of Tina's life or this incident. But considering Jailhouse Lawyer
has really been about a woman who has always maintained
her innocence, I think it's important to challenge ourselves with
an e even more complicated case, with a woman who absolutely,
(18:04):
without a shred of doubt, has committed a violent crime
against a man who was not abusive towards her. In fact,
in this moment, it's Tina who's the perpetrator of domestic violence.
What should the system do with women like Tina who
have experienced a lifetime of abuse, but who have also
(18:27):
caused a lot of harm. I feel in my gut
that there has to be some kind of consequences for
something like this, for Tina, for Eli, and for the
greater public. But when I try and come up with
one perfect solution for everyone, I come up short. I
think it comes down to thinking about what justice really
(18:49):
looks like, and whether our end goal is to help
or if it's simply to punish. As the drugs are
wearing off, Tina starts to really comprehend what she's done
with shaking hands. She calls the police and tells them
(19:14):
what's happened, and she texts her sister.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
So I'm all gone away for Lata this time.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
When the police show up, they quickly notice Tina's psych
medication on the dresser, and the process of getting her
into a secure hospital begins. She's assessed by doctors, interviewed
by police officers. The whole time Tina remains steadfastly honest.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I was going to be willing and accepting of it.
I was going to tell the truth of what happened.
I went in with hours high, and I committed the
Crown and I Committee.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
She spends the next month or so in a secure
psychiatric hospital on a course of various heavy medications.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
As far as arraignment, meeting my public defender for the
first time.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I was so drugged up.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I was a little slower with my speech, my thought process,
and everything was like a little blurred.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Finally, she spat out into Rikers Island Jail, where she's
eventually put into the intensive treatment unit. This is where
they house people with complex mental health histories, and just
like Kelly did, Tina starts opening up to the women
around her.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Eventually, we all had conversations with each other, and yeah,
majority of every woman that I talked to that was
on unit with us had been through some type of
domestic rounds abuse. We were all there for hurting a
man that we was in a relationship with. Every single
one of it, every single one of us on this shown.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
One day, Tina is on the phone to her mother
when her mom catches her by surprise.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
She said, guess who came by my house? So I'm
thinking she was going to say my ex husband came by.
So I'm like, oh, who came out? Now it's Eli.
He's alive and he's in her mother's house.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I'm confused. I'm so confused.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm like, for what now, I'm thinking, you know you're
gonna get back at me in horror my family. She
was like, no, he wanted to know you know where
you were at, And she said he's gonna come see you,
and I'm like what.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's a lot to take in. Not only has Eli survived,
but he's well enough to casually visit Tina's mother with
no malice or anger.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
By the time I hung up the phone with my mother,
they said, you have a visit. I'm like, I have
a visit now. My mother just told me this, but
I'm still not thinking it's him. He's not coming to
see me. So I get to the visiting floor and
it's him.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Sitting behind the protective glass waiting to meet her, the
man she essentially tortured and nearly killed.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I don't know what to say. I'm totally confused, why
are you here? And he's like you know, I had
to come see you. I want you to know that
I forgive you and that I'm going to be here
to support you do all of this.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
And I'm like, what.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
The visit ended with him saying, you know, do you
need anything, I'll be back next week and you know
you can call me when if you want to let
me know if you need anything. In it, really, I
don't know, really was nothing behind it but forgiveness, but
(23:12):
I really did not know how to take it at
the time. I'm like, why would you want to forgive
me for a situation such as this.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Eli actually becomes a huge advocate for Tina. He says
he understands that she was high experiencing a psychological break,
it wasn't really her. Her public defender, a man named
George du Pontis, also has her back. George was actually
the first person to suggest to Tina that there might
(23:44):
be a connection between her crime and her past experiences.
He then suggests that to the court too, this connection
between the abuse she had suffered and her attack on Eli.
This and the fact she pled guilty to attempted murder
straight away means that her sentence is reduced from twenty
(24:06):
five to life down to sixteen. Tina says her goodbyes
to the women on her Rikers' unit and gets ready
to face the years ahead at Bedford Hills Prison. From
(24:45):
the moment she arrives at Bedford Hills, Tina knew this
was going to be a drastically different experience from her
first incarceration. Back then, she'd relish the break from responsibility
and even enjoyed her time side. At this time, she's
on a mission.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
She was trying to understand me and how did I
get to that point in my life.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
One of the first things to sort was getting visitation
rights for.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Eli, because automatically it was a restrainer ordered issue for
me not to be in contact with him. So he
went to the courts and basically asks to be able
to come see me.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Then we started having visits.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
And then there's a shitlight of self work.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Today there was this program called Family Balance, and I
was like, oh, this might be, you know, a good
fit for me and what I was trying to understand,
and I went in open.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I'm the only one talking for a good two weeks.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I'm just pouring my heart out and you know, trying
to get a better understanding, and from me talking, other
people began to open up and talk.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Tina puts in the hard graft like this for years,
trying to unravel the knots of her lifelong traumas from
the reality of what she did to Eli. When in
around twenty nineteen, she hears about a new law called
the DVSJA the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. You heard
(26:18):
about it in Kelly's story. The law works to reduce
the sentences of people whose experiences of domestic abuse have
been shown to influence their crimes. It's clearly relevant to
Tina's case, so she contacts her lawyer, who in turn
puts her in touch with a woman named Kate. Kate Mogolescu,
(26:39):
the lawyer that Tina introduced to Kelly in episode seven.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
A lawyer slash professor at Brooklyn Law School, and I
remember meeting her, little, sure, curly black hair, Jewish lady.
Nobody really knows how to go about this dismal law.
So she's discussing how I'm a good candidate because of
(27:05):
all the abuse that I went through as a child.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Kate and Tina get to work compiling a trove of
documents and details about the abuse Tina had suffered. It's heavy,
hard work, trawling through the worst moments of her life,
building the case, one painful memory at a time, all
for her application to be rejected.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
The abuse wasn't substantial at the time of the crime,
so I was denied a hearing and I was hurt.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
It wasn't even about the freedom.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I think I was more hurt because I felt like
I wasn't being hurt. I remember Kate saying to me,
but we're not going to give up. We're going to
shry something else.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Kate thinks that Tina could be eligible for clemency from
the governor. Clemency basically means mercy. The idea is that
the governor would look at the context of Tina's life,
as well as the work she's done since, and decide
if that sixteen year sentence was really the right call.
If the governor decides it's not that she deserves a
(28:14):
little mercy, Tina could have her sentence changed or reduced.
But she's not buying it.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I'm definitely not thinking I'm going to get clemency. There's
no way in the world. Sorry to say, black women
that was in garsret is not getting clemency from prison
like the ones that we have. Her was wait and
let alone a woman at all. Men get calmucy. Women
don't get clemency in the state of New York. That's
(28:44):
just like a non effect.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Despite this, Kate and Tina finish assembling the paperwork, They
get a testimonial of support from ELI, and then they
file the case. One morning, the officer on duty tells
Tina to get ready because she's being cooled down to
an area known as traffic. It's where the superintendent is posted,
(29:08):
and it's also the area that you go for visitation.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
And I don't have a visit, so I'm like, what
do you want me for? So instantly I thought somebody died.
They they're calling me down here to inform me that
somebody pats away in my family.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
She's been told by the officer to hurry up and
get ready. Somebody is coming to get her and escort
her down there.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
And I'm being escorted somebody's did. I asked him what
am I going down here for? He was like, I
don't know. They just told me to bring you down here.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
As soon as she walks through the door and into traffic,
she notices the superintendent standing.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
There, tall, hm scary leading.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Tina's ushered into a room with a box of tissues
sitting on the table.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yup, somebody's dead. Who is it?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
The superin tenant says nothing and they sit down. Tina's
mind is running through every awful possibility. The superintendent looks
up at her.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
She's like, I just want to say congratulations to you.
As soon as she said that, I knew and I
just started crying.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Governor Hochel has granted Tina clemency.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
And I was like, she did it, She did it,
And she was like, who did it.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I'm like my lawyer, like my lawyer.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
She did it. After seven and a half years behind bars,
years of reflecting on the terrible crime she committed and
the terrible crimes that were committed against her, Tina is free.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
As I was walking up the hill with the officer
with my good news, I started thinking of all the
other women here who had been fighting, who had been
fighting before me, the ones who deserved it, mourning me,
(31:13):
the one that was seventy eighty years old. Oh no,
I just felt like there were so many other people
that should be in my shoes dead day.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
These days, Tina is out and sober, with a job
and a roof over her head, but she never stopped
thinking about those women left inside, and now she spends
her time fighting for them. She joined the organization founded
by her lawyer Kate. It's called SJP, the Survivor's Justice Project.
(31:53):
They focus on using the DVSJA to get survivors out
of prison through reduced sentences.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
SJP is basically a group of forly incarcerated women that
sits on the board and give their experiences to make
the law better than what it is. And the biggest
thing with the law that needs to be changed is
how they look at substantial.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Tina's talking about what counts as substantial abuse in the
eyes of the law.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
At the time of my crime, my abuse was substantial,
but the court don't see it as we see it
because I walked my whole life with scars on my
body and my emotions of all that happened to me
throughout my life. So it was substantial at the time
of my crime. And that's what we're trying to make
(32:47):
them understand a different way of how to look at
this law so other women who are in the same
situation can come home earlier. Because they're still victims in
the court style see it is it.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I'm sure there were many people who read the headlines
about Tina's crime when it first happened, people who are
probably shocked that she's free just eight years later. But
ask yourself this, If Tina was still in prison today,
what good would it do. She's long since taken full
(33:28):
accountability for what she did. She spent years behind bars,
painstakingly re examining her past, and she's even got the
forgiveness and support of the person she hurt. Tina did
something terrible and she's not afraid to own that, but
that doesn't take away from the fact that she's also
(33:48):
a victim and a survivor. I keep coming back to
that question I asked earlier, is a goal to help
or punish? In my mind, our social and legal structures
should help citizens be the best they can be. Tina
(34:09):
has already been let down by those systems time and
time again. Locking her up will not break that cycle.
So what should we do with women like Tina instead?
Next week? I ask an expert, just that we have.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Told people that justice is punishment.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
We are a retributive people, and it's what we've been taught,
and I don't want to live in that kind of society.
And I eat some humble pie.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
I was listening to the first season and was yelling
at the at the radio. I liked the idea of
you yelling at the radio at the work. That that idea,
and I think that's great. The Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is
(35:13):
produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel,
visit novel dot Audio. The show is hosted by me
Annasinfield and is written and produced by me and Lee Meyer,
with additional production from Jako Taivich and Michael Jinno. Our
assistant producer is Madeline Parr. The editors are Georgia Moody
(35:34):
and me Annasinfield. Production management from Shari Houston, Joe Savage,
and Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman. Sound design,
mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music
supervision by me alis Infield, Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander.
Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.
(35:59):
Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative
director of Novel, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive
producers for Novel, and Katrina Norvell and Niki Eator are
the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts. And the marketing lead
is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to Kerry Lieberman and the
whole team at WME.
Hey, girlfriends, it's Anna here. Just wanted to let you
know that this bonus episode is going to include some
pretty difficult stuff mentions of child abuse, sexual assault, and
an instance of very graphic violence. There'll be some swearing too,
but you'll also get to hear the full story of
a woman you first met back in episode seven, Tina.
(00:22):
She introduced Kelly Harnett to her lawyer, Kate Mogolescu.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
From the time I walk up in Rikers and looked
at my environment, I will see as on myself.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
How did I get Tina, which is not her real name,
has just woken up in Riker's Island jail a few
nights earlier, on January thirtieth, twenty sixteen, she violently attacked
her boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
How did I allow myself to get to this point
in my life?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
How did I get to that point?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
There are caused debt, must damage to another human being,
and from their thought, I went throughout my whole encorag
of reach and wanting to know, wanting to understand.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
How did this happen?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
You see, Tina isn't like Kelly, who has always maintained
her innocence. Tina fully accepts that she committed a crime.
She puts her hands up to her She did something awful,
but what kind of punishment fits a crime like hers?
(01:47):
I'm Anison Field and from the teams at Novel and
iHeart Podcasts, This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is Bonus
(02:17):
Episode two Tina's Story.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Tina's story starts with her mom. I have no fond
memories of my mother, but I love her with all.
Here we go, Oh, hold on, that's all right.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Tina was born in nineteen seventy four, but it isn't
the start in life that any child deserves.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I did not grow up in a happy home at all.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Tina says her mum was both neglectful and violent, and
that abuse pete when Tina was still just a baby.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
My mother's set me in a tober hot boil and water,
and both of my feet were burned.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Tina is left with scars on her feet. She's quickly
removed from the family home and put into foster care,
which begins a year's long cycle of being bounced between
childcare services and then back to her parents. Each time
she gets sent home to give it another go, another
instance of abuse or neglect happens Tina feels much safer
(03:39):
when her dad is around, which he isn't often. He's
able to come between her and her mother's violent outbursts.
Tina trusts him, but then the final time Tina moves
back into her parents' home, she says that one thread
of trust is broken. I can't tell you exactly what happened,
(04:02):
but it's the worst thing a parent could do to
a child.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
So when this situation did happen, I think it broke me.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Throughout the rest of my teenage years, I was just
all over the place, drinking, having sex with this person
in that person, in smoking cigarettes, not abiding by curfew.
By then, I was so self destructive.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
At fourteen years old, Tina finds herself living with a
foster family and pregnant. She gives birth to her son
at just fifteen, and then has her daughter at seventeen.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I didn't even know nothing about being a mother.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Of course, I know, you give the baby a bottle,
you change this pamper, but to actually be motherly, I
had no idea whatsoever, and eventually took them from me
because of me not.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Being a good mother. I don't even know how to
see there, but the sea it.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Flash forward a few difficult years, and Tina's now twenty
years old. She's back on her feet, living in an
apartment in Newark, New Jersey. She's got her life back
enough on track that finally her kids have come back
to live with her. And it's not just her kids.
She's also recently gained custody of two of her younger siblings.
(05:32):
But while the state made sure her apartment was big
enough for all five of them, she didn't get any
extra child support money for her siblings. As a single
income household of five, they're barely able to survive. One day.
Outside the YFCA where she works, Tina gets chatting to
a young guy selling drugs in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He said, well, I can show you how you could
sell no coke and that aid the money that you
need to take care of everything.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Tina drinks and she smoked a bit of weed, though
she doesn't really do drugs, but standing on the street corner,
she figures selling them could be a way out, a
way out of poverty, but also out of the shadow
of her and her siblings childhoods.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I'm like cool, I'm like yeah, so I'll basically put
in the money from the job and my brother was
actually out on the street hustling in the drug.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
One night, drunk and numbing her pain with booze, Tina's
gaze turns to hustash.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I was like, I wonder what they get out of
chasing this stuff so hard like that, So I tried
the cocaine and I liked the feeling. And if I
would never have been drunk with dad questioning, I would
have never tried it. It took me like on a
high that I was like party like type, and I
(07:00):
just started sniffing cocaine on a regular basis as I
drink my alcohol, and I got a lot of more
things done, like I was the best employee of the month,
I was the best parent of the year. Then I
realized I had a habit. One day when I didn't
have it and I wanted it, and it started to
(07:21):
be in a problem.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Oh shit, I'm hooked on this.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Tina realizes she's no longer capable of looking after the kids,
so she makes a heart wrenching decision to give them up.
They end up living with her old foster mom. From
that decision, I was just in the street. I was
in the street chasing the drug. I had learned a
new way to use the drug. I was no longer
(07:47):
sniffing cocaine. I learned how to smoke the cocaine, which
is crack cocaine. Before she knows it, Tina is shoplifting
and burgling to fund her new expensive habit, getting into
more trouble with the law. She builds up a pretty
long rap sheet and spends her mid twenties in and
(08:07):
out of correctional facilities. How did you find it?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Crazy things? I was having the time of my life. Yeah,
I was with a young crowd there. We was running around,
and you have to remember how I have been in
the system. I'm used to this structured life. I do
good with structured life, being told when to go to bed,
(08:32):
when your area has to be clean. I had no responsibilities,
I had no bills, I had no chosen to take
care of. So, yeah, it's crazy to say, but that's
what it was for me. You know.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Prison also gave Tina a crucial break from drugs. In
this highly controlled environment, she's able to get clean and sober.
But once she's released and back in the outside world,
that structure she thrived in disappears. She gets back with
an abusive X for a while. She also starts using
(09:10):
cocaine again. Desperate to get some stability back, Tina enrolls
in a drug rehabilitation program.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I went to a program called ARC here in New York.
I believe it was in Harlem. And yeah, I did
good in that program. I was working. I was saving
money to eventually move out.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That's where she meets a guy we're calling Eli.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
He was a funny little character, funny looking little character,
and he was not my tape whatsoever. But he used
to have me laughing and all that I had been
going through. That's how he got me, always making a joe,
putting a smile on my face, lifting my spirits and everything.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Soon enough they become a couple and things are looking up.
They're both sober, stable and falling in love.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And there was another couple that had found the apartment
and they needed someone else to move in with them,
and they asked us, and we decided to move out
with each other. By now, I'm not on drugs, I'm
not drinking. I'm working on living life. So we move
into this apartment. But the good times don't last. Things
(10:27):
begin to spiral all the laughter was leaving. It started
to be a lot of sneaky behavior.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Tina and Eli start bickering all the time, and then
they start to drift apart. In that isolation, Tina becomes
depressed and withdrawn from the world.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I start working, I will stay in a dark room
all the time.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Unsurprisingly, she falls back into her old coping mechanisms.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I'm drinking more heavily, and on the corner, I saw
a boy selling drugs. I went out to see that
boy and bought drugs, and I started back on my bullshit.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
One night, Tina's drug taking and the tensions with Eli
reaches a fever pitch. Because of her depression, She's pretty
much unable to leave the house, which means she stopped working,
so she's financially dependent on him. She's sitting at home
waiting for him to come back with some money that
(11:29):
she desperately needs to buy food and drugs.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
The time that he told me he would be bad,
he didn't come back. I'm all crack okay now, So
I begin to call him and I'm like, where are you?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
He was like, well, I decided to go to Jersie.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
At this point, the argument doesn't seem like anything out
of the ordinary for any normal couple, a last minute
change of plans that creates tension, followed by a slew
of angry texts that were probably taken in the world way.
Tina is hungry and withdrawing, stewing in her anger back
(12:07):
at home. By the time Eli does come home with
food for her, she's on edge and starving. She tears
into the food.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
He was like, ah, damn you hungry as her Oh huh, laughing,
and I'm like, what's funny about that?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The argument ends, and while Tina takes her leftovers into
the kitchen, Eli drifts off to sleep in their bedroom.
No big deal with a Tina. Something has switched. That
throwaway laugh from Eli was just a mean joke, sure,
(12:46):
But Tina, it was the final jenger block being pulled
from a wonky, insecure tower.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I wanted to a hold home. I started thinking of
my mother, I started thinking of my father. I started
thinking of everything that I had endured in my life.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
All those familiar and corrosive feelings of anger, fear, abandonment,
and betrayal rise up in her chest. She starts getting
high in the kitchen. Her feelings about the earlier argument festering,
(13:24):
all while images of her brutal life are flashing before
her eyes.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
The next thing you know, I'm over the stoolball in
hat grease.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Tina is experiencing what would later be described as a
drug induced psychosis, and it's going to drive her to
do something really, really horrible. So feel free to skip
ahead about three and a half minutes if you don't
want to hear the details.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I'm looking at this grease boil you, and I'm still
thinking of not just him per se. It was about
everything in life. I'm back on drugs. I've disappointed so
many people that don't know I'm back on drugs again.
And as I'm leaving out of the kitchen with the
(14:25):
boiling grease, I pick up a knife and I head
towards our bathroom. I remember putting the pot down on
that radiator, thinking to myself like I had two voices.
One was saying, don't do this, this is so wrong,
(14:48):
and another like fuck that, Like people keep playing you.
How long are you gonna be stupid? How long are
you gonna be a And I opened their door with
their hat powder goose in our win'ar into her while he.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Was sleeping boiling oil makes contact with Eli's skin, causing
third degree burns. Panicking, he jumps up from the bed
in the small bedroom, they start tussling with the knife
still in Tina's hand. Tina's lost in a chaotic blur
(15:29):
of drugs and fear and anger. She doesn't know what
she's doing until she feels herself stab Eli in the stomach.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I pulled a knife out and he fell onto the bed,
so he's just leaning there. He says to me, He says,
I love you, and I'm looking at him in this
DZ and I'm like, oh, now you love me, Now
you love me. And I remember leaving out of that room,
(16:02):
going back into the kitchen and continue getting hi, getting
high in the kitchen and continue getting hot.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I'm so high, and.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I remember the drugs eventually going low until they was gone,
and I started coming to a little bit of reality
all of a sudden, and he started conversating with me.
He was like, if you just leave and call nine
one one for me, I won't tell them that you
did this. I'll tell them somebody else did this. I
(16:30):
picked up a trick. She hurt me or a friend
they did this. But I have to get help, please.
I have children, and that's what did it for me.
And I remember looking up at him because he was moaning,
(16:53):
and that's why I saw the damage that I had
to time, and I will say and ourself, how.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Did I be?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
What the newspapers say that I was in that room
we have for thirty six hours. I don't know if
it was that long, but I knew it was more
than a day that we was like that in her room.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Tina wasn't aware until after the incident, but she had
stabbed Eli multiple times in the leg, in the hand,
and in the stomach, piercing vital organs. Now, I just
want to pause here for a moment and say, I
know that this will have been really difficult to listen to.
(17:40):
Believe me, it's been pretty difficult to report on. If
I'm honest, I don't enjoy breaking over the lurid details
of Tina's life or this incident. But considering Jailhouse Lawyer
has really been about a woman who has always maintained
her innocence, I think it's important to challenge ourselves with
an e even more complicated case, with a woman who absolutely,
(18:04):
without a shred of doubt, has committed a violent crime
against a man who was not abusive towards her. In fact,
in this moment, it's Tina who's the perpetrator of domestic violence.
What should the system do with women like Tina who
have experienced a lifetime of abuse, but who have also
(18:27):
caused a lot of harm. I feel in my gut
that there has to be some kind of consequences for
something like this, for Tina, for Eli, and for the
greater public. But when I try and come up with
one perfect solution for everyone, I come up short. I
think it comes down to thinking about what justice really
(18:49):
looks like, and whether our end goal is to help
or if it's simply to punish. As the drugs are
wearing off, Tina starts to really comprehend what she's done
with shaking hands. She calls the police and tells them
(19:14):
what's happened, and she texts her sister.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
So I'm all gone away for Lata this time.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
When the police show up, they quickly notice Tina's psych
medication on the dresser, and the process of getting her
into a secure hospital begins. She's assessed by doctors, interviewed
by police officers. The whole time Tina remains steadfastly honest.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I was going to be willing and accepting of it.
I was going to tell the truth of what happened.
I went in with hours high, and I committed the
Crown and I Committee.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
She spends the next month or so in a secure
psychiatric hospital on a course of various heavy medications.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
As far as arraignment, meeting my public defender for the
first time.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I was so drugged up.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
I was a little slower with my speech, my thought process,
and everything was like a little blurred.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Finally, she spat out into Rikers Island Jail, where she's
eventually put into the intensive treatment unit. This is where
they house people with complex mental health histories, and just
like Kelly did, Tina starts opening up to the women
around her.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Eventually, we all had conversations with each other, and yeah,
majority of every woman that I talked to that was
on unit with us had been through some type of
domestic rounds abuse. We were all there for hurting a
man that we was in a relationship with. Every single
one of it, every single one of us on this shown.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
One day, Tina is on the phone to her mother
when her mom catches her by surprise.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
She said, guess who came by my house? So I'm
thinking she was going to say my ex husband came by.
So I'm like, oh, who came out? Now it's Eli.
He's alive and he's in her mother's house.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I'm confused. I'm so confused.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm like, for what now, I'm thinking, you know you're
gonna get back at me in horror my family. She
was like, no, he wanted to know you know where
you were at, And she said he's gonna come see you,
and I'm like what.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's a lot to take in. Not only has Eli survived,
but he's well enough to casually visit Tina's mother with
no malice or anger.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
By the time I hung up the phone with my mother,
they said, you have a visit. I'm like, I have
a visit now. My mother just told me this, but
I'm still not thinking it's him. He's not coming to
see me. So I get to the visiting floor and
it's him.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Sitting behind the protective glass waiting to meet her, the
man she essentially tortured and nearly killed.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I don't know what to say. I'm totally confused, why
are you here? And he's like you know, I had
to come see you. I want you to know that
I forgive you and that I'm going to be here
to support you do all of this.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
And I'm like, what.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
The visit ended with him saying, you know, do you
need anything, I'll be back next week and you know
you can call me when if you want to let
me know if you need anything. In it, really, I
don't know, really was nothing behind it but forgiveness, but
(23:12):
I really did not know how to take it at
the time. I'm like, why would you want to forgive
me for a situation such as this.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Eli actually becomes a huge advocate for Tina. He says
he understands that she was high experiencing a psychological break,
it wasn't really her. Her public defender, a man named
George du Pontis, also has her back. George was actually
the first person to suggest to Tina that there might
(23:44):
be a connection between her crime and her past experiences.
He then suggests that to the court too, this connection
between the abuse she had suffered and her attack on Eli.
This and the fact she pled guilty to attempted murder
straight away means that her sentence is reduced from twenty
(24:06):
five to life down to sixteen. Tina says her goodbyes
to the women on her Rikers' unit and gets ready
to face the years ahead at Bedford Hills Prison. From
(24:45):
the moment she arrives at Bedford Hills, Tina knew this
was going to be a drastically different experience from her
first incarceration. Back then, she'd relish the break from responsibility
and even enjoyed her time side. At this time, she's
on a mission.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
She was trying to understand me and how did I
get to that point in my life.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
One of the first things to sort was getting visitation
rights for.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Eli, because automatically it was a restrainer ordered issue for
me not to be in contact with him. So he
went to the courts and basically asks to be able
to come see me.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Then we started having visits.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
And then there's a shitlight of self work.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Today there was this program called Family Balance, and I
was like, oh, this might be, you know, a good
fit for me and what I was trying to understand,
and I went in open.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I'm the only one talking for a good two weeks.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I'm just pouring my heart out and you know, trying
to get a better understanding, and from me talking, other
people began to open up and talk.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Tina puts in the hard graft like this for years,
trying to unravel the knots of her lifelong traumas from
the reality of what she did to Eli. When in
around twenty nineteen, she hears about a new law called
the DVSJA the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. You heard
(26:18):
about it in Kelly's story. The law works to reduce
the sentences of people whose experiences of domestic abuse have
been shown to influence their crimes. It's clearly relevant to
Tina's case, so she contacts her lawyer, who in turn
puts her in touch with a woman named Kate. Kate Mogolescu,
(26:39):
the lawyer that Tina introduced to Kelly in episode seven.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
A lawyer slash professor at Brooklyn Law School, and I
remember meeting her, little, sure, curly black hair, Jewish lady.
Nobody really knows how to go about this dismal law.
So she's discussing how I'm a good candidate because of
(27:05):
all the abuse that I went through as a child.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Kate and Tina get to work compiling a trove of
documents and details about the abuse Tina had suffered. It's heavy,
hard work, trawling through the worst moments of her life,
building the case, one painful memory at a time, all
for her application to be rejected.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
The abuse wasn't substantial at the time of the crime,
so I was denied a hearing and I was hurt.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
It wasn't even about the freedom.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I think I was more hurt because I felt like
I wasn't being hurt. I remember Kate saying to me,
but we're not going to give up. We're going to
shry something else.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Kate thinks that Tina could be eligible for clemency from
the governor. Clemency basically means mercy. The idea is that
the governor would look at the context of Tina's life,
as well as the work she's done since, and decide
if that sixteen year sentence was really the right call.
If the governor decides it's not that she deserves a
(28:14):
little mercy, Tina could have her sentence changed or reduced.
But she's not buying it.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I'm definitely not thinking I'm going to get clemency. There's
no way in the world. Sorry to say, black women
that was in garsret is not getting clemency from prison
like the ones that we have. Her was wait and
let alone a woman at all. Men get calmucy. Women
don't get clemency in the state of New York. That's
(28:44):
just like a non effect.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Despite this, Kate and Tina finish assembling the paperwork, They
get a testimonial of support from ELI, and then they
file the case. One morning, the officer on duty tells
Tina to get ready because she's being cooled down to
an area known as traffic. It's where the superintendent is posted,
(29:08):
and it's also the area that you go for visitation.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
And I don't have a visit, so I'm like, what
do you want me for? So instantly I thought somebody died.
They they're calling me down here to inform me that
somebody pats away in my family.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
She's been told by the officer to hurry up and
get ready. Somebody is coming to get her and escort
her down there.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
And I'm being escorted somebody's did. I asked him what
am I going down here for? He was like, I
don't know. They just told me to bring you down here.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
As soon as she walks through the door and into traffic,
she notices the superintendent standing.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
There, tall, hm scary leading.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Tina's ushered into a room with a box of tissues
sitting on the table.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yup, somebody's dead. Who is it?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
The superin tenant says nothing and they sit down. Tina's
mind is running through every awful possibility. The superintendent looks
up at her.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
She's like, I just want to say congratulations to you.
As soon as she said that, I knew and I
just started crying.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Governor Hochel has granted Tina clemency.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
And I was like, she did it, She did it,
And she was like, who did it.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I'm like my lawyer, like my lawyer.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
She did it. After seven and a half years behind bars,
years of reflecting on the terrible crime she committed and
the terrible crimes that were committed against her, Tina is free.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
As I was walking up the hill with the officer
with my good news, I started thinking of all the
other women here who had been fighting, who had been
fighting before me, the ones who deserved it, mourning me,
(31:13):
the one that was seventy eighty years old. Oh no,
I just felt like there were so many other people
that should be in my shoes dead day.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
These days, Tina is out and sober, with a job
and a roof over her head, but she never stopped
thinking about those women left inside, and now she spends
her time fighting for them. She joined the organization founded
by her lawyer Kate. It's called SJP, the Survivor's Justice Project.
(31:53):
They focus on using the DVSJA to get survivors out
of prison through reduced sentences.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
SJP is basically a group of forly incarcerated women that
sits on the board and give their experiences to make
the law better than what it is. And the biggest
thing with the law that needs to be changed is
how they look at substantial.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Tina's talking about what counts as substantial abuse in the
eyes of the law.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
At the time of my crime, my abuse was substantial,
but the court don't see it as we see it
because I walked my whole life with scars on my
body and my emotions of all that happened to me
throughout my life. So it was substantial at the time
of my crime. And that's what we're trying to make
(32:47):
them understand a different way of how to look at
this law so other women who are in the same
situation can come home earlier. Because they're still victims in
the court style see it is it.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I'm sure there were many people who read the headlines
about Tina's crime when it first happened, people who are
probably shocked that she's free just eight years later. But
ask yourself this, If Tina was still in prison today,
what good would it do. She's long since taken full
(33:28):
accountability for what she did. She spent years behind bars,
painstakingly re examining her past, and she's even got the
forgiveness and support of the person she hurt. Tina did
something terrible and she's not afraid to own that, but
that doesn't take away from the fact that she's also
(33:48):
a victim and a survivor. I keep coming back to
that question I asked earlier, is a goal to help
or punish? In my mind, our social and legal structures
should help citizens be the best they can be. Tina
(34:09):
has already been let down by those systems time and
time again. Locking her up will not break that cycle.
So what should we do with women like Tina instead?
Next week? I ask an expert, just that we have.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Told people that justice is punishment.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
We are a retributive people, and it's what we've been taught,
and I don't want to live in that kind of society.
And I eat some humble pie.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
I was listening to the first season and was yelling
at the at the radio. I liked the idea of
you yelling at the radio at the work. That that idea,
and I think that's great. The Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is
(35:13):
produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel,
visit novel dot Audio. The show is hosted by me
Annasinfield and is written and produced by me and Lee Meyer,
with additional production from Jako Taivich and Michael Jinno. Our
assistant producer is Madeline Parr. The editors are Georgia Moody
(35:34):
and me Annasinfield. Production management from Shari Houston, Joe Savage,
and Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman. Sound design,
mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music
supervision by me alis Infield, Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander.
Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.
(35:59):
Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative
director of Novel, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive
producers for Novel, and Katrina Norvell and Niki Eator are
the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts. And the marketing lead
is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to Kerry Lieberman and the
whole team at WME.
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