September 8, 2025 • 28 mins
Bruna DiBiase is the judge who presided over Kelly’s resentencing. But long before Kelly walked into her courtroom, Judge Bruna’s life had already been touched by tragedy.
In the first of four bonus episodes, Anna sits down with Bruna and her daughter Lisa- to discover how this mother and daughter found their way back to each other, from opposite sides of the law.
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, girlfriends, it's Anna here. Welcome to the first of
four special bonus episodes of The Girlfriend's Jelhouse Lawyer. In
these episodes, we'll give you a sneak peek behind the
curtain of our production. You'll hear extra interviews and conversations
that we gathered while reporting on Kelly's story, and this
episode is one of my favorites. Just a warning, this
(00:22):
conversation includes a lot about addiction and substance abuse and
probably some colorful language. But you'll also get to hear
a story of how a mother and daughter survived one
tragedy after another, and how, in the end, their struggle
brought them together. One day, about three or so years
(00:44):
ago in Queens, New York, Judge Bruner DBC is sitting
in court when she hears a voice.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
He said, Judge, can I speak to you? And I
know this is strange.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's an attorney she knows well, and he's looking a
little sheepish.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
You know, you did the case of Kelly Harnett and
I know her. I've represented her and she's really very sincere.
But she wants to come and see you and thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's an unusual request. Defendants don't usually make calls to
the judges chamber, but of course not all defendants are
like Kelly Harnett.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
She did, in fact come to see me in the courtroom.
She came in person, and the officers alerted me that
there was someone here who wanted to see me, who
had a dozen roses.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
This isn't just a nice gesture. You'll remember that Kelly
is a devout follower of Saint Herez, a Catholic saint
whose signature token is a rose. Everything Kelly believes and
holds near to her heart is represented in these flowers.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
If you look behind you, you see that vase with
the red roses. They are red silk roses. Those are
the roses. I still keep them in a vase in chambers.
And she spoke to me from a distance, and she
came up and she said hello, Judge Debasi, and then
I just embraced her and hugged her.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Do you remember what you spoke about.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Her gratitude mostly was gratitude. She shared with me that
by not delaying her case, she was able to spend
time with her mother, who then I think died three
weeks after she was released. So that was her biggest
gratitude that I didn't delay her case and that as
a result of that, she was able to be with
(02:33):
her mother when her mom passed. Once you leave Supreme
Criminal Court, you really don't want to come back, even
if it's with good news. Some do, but she was
definitely the most enthusiastic and willing, and I'm sure she
would come back every day if she could.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I don't doubt that. I still find it hard to
reckon with the eye idea of a judge physically embracing
a formally incarcerated person. The system doesn't usually give room
for that sort of warmth. But just like Kelly isn't
(03:11):
like all the other defendants, Bruna isn't like all the
other judges.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
My life experiences, I think now informs how I operate
in those courts, and I would say now I feel
more of an insider to understanding the underlying issues that
bring someone into court.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Around thirteen years ago, Judge Bruna's son Eric died of
a drug overdose. Then just a few years later, her
daughter Lisa nearly ended up going down the same path,
but this time it was someone else who died because
of her addiction. In today's episode, I'm going to sit
(03:56):
down with this mother and daughter who accidentally and tragically
found themselves on different sides of the law. I'm Anison
Field and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts.
This is the girlfriend's Gelhouse lawyer is Bonus Episode one,
(04:40):
Lisa and Bruner.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Marmy can.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I said, yeah, of course if it was like a fixture, or.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Is that just daycour right. It's October third, twenty twenty four,
and I'm sitting in Judge Bruner Dibiazzi's chambers. It should
have an air of authority to it, maybe even grandiosity,
but it doesn't. I'm here to see Bruna the judge,
(05:18):
but I'm also here to see Bruna, the mother who's
sitting here with her daughter Lisa. They're both kind of
equal parts warm and brisk, as Queen's natives are wont
to be. And they're both fussing over what I'm going
to eat.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It's an apple here staring at you.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I'm experiencing the Italian American hospitality.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Bruna is on and off the phone to her aging father,
making sure he made it to his doctor's appointment. After that,
she facetimes her husband so I can meet him, he's
also a judge, and as I'm mildly shocked to learn
a leather wearing biker, Bruna and Lisa are being gorgeous together,
both worried that the other hasn't eaten, needs water. There's
(06:06):
a purposefulness to their interactions because they're new. Lisa only
just got out of prison a month ago, and you
can tell that they're still figuring out how to be
together again in real time. So what is your relationship
like as mother and daughter?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I can only our daughter, and what is our relationship like?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Our relationship is wonderful.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
It's probably going to be impossible for me not to
get emotional. It's very open, tremendous communication, one of trust,
and I emphasize those things because it wasn't always like
(06:53):
that on my end. You know, I have a mother
that is loving and giving, sacrificing, and I know that
I was very resistant to that for a long time.
And when I was it was when I was in
active addiction, and I couldn't even understand why I was
so resistant to that. Her relationship was one of gratitude.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I think today I think so too.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
We'll get into why and how Lisa's addiction began to
take hold and impact their relationship. But first I want
to put an image in your mind of a young
Bruna Dbse born in Manhattan and raised in Queens. Could
we understand a little bit more about your life kind
of growing up so we can know who has ended
(07:39):
up at this desk.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
My dad was a New York City cup, very strict.
I always say the reason I went to law school
is because the only thing I was allowed to do
was study.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But back when she's still a student, Bruna almost takes
another path.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I was a psychology major. I wanted to help people.
I wanted to become a psychologists, a psychiatrists more in
that area.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It all changes after she gets what should be a
prestigious internship with a New York State senator.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
All the young ladies who were in the internship program
were really assigned to do the secretarial functions in the
senator's office. And I remember watching all the men who
had the positions of authority and who were lawyers, and
I remember coming back home to my father and saying
to him, I could do what they do. Daddy, and
(08:33):
I applied to law school really like at the last
minute in my final year of college and that just
changed the path of my life.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Love that. So you kind of got here as an
act of stubborn defiance against the men, you know. I. Yes,
earlier in Bruno's career, she was already working on improving
the court system, bringing in a bit of that drive
to help people from her psychology.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Days before I became a judge, I was chief of
staff to a statewide administrative judge, and in that role,
we were tasked with creating in the New York state
court system, problem solving courts. And problem solving courts was
really a unique concept to address the underlying issue that
(09:23):
would bring somebody into court. We were working on mental
health courts, we were working on creating domestic violence courts,
drug courts, veterans courts, adolescent courts.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And when you say domestic violence courts, youth courts and stuff,
that means that those are courts that are set up
specifically to deal with just domestic violence cases.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yes, that's correct. I was helping to create training programs
and to begin these projects, and at that time they
didn't seem to touch my life.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But that all changes when Bruno's son Eric dies in
twenty twelve following a battle with drug addiction. This family,
who from the outside must have looked untouchable, is suddenly
blown apart.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Probably the greatest fear of someone has is to lose
a child. I remember someone once said to me, well,
I lost my son. I don't know how you go forward.
I don't know how you could, you know, continue living.
So what do you do now? Do you fall apart
or do you pause, think about it and decide to
(10:30):
pick yourself up and move forward.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think we were all grieving in different ways, and
in some ways separate, and then slowly I started getting
into drinking, and then that led into drug use as well.
I was severely addicted to alcohol and severely addicted to cocaine.
I didn't know I was making the decisions I was making.
I just I was trying to survive and navigate through pain.
(10:52):
And I remember saying to my mother when Eric was
still alive and his addiction was just taking over. I
remember thinking, He's going to end up in prison, and
I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle.
I'll be scared thinking about what that would be like
(11:12):
for him every day. And then fast forward in here
I was inside a jail.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So this is not a late conversation. This is heavy.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
This is are you guys doing okay?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes, yeah, we're I mean, you know, we're open and
we're honest.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
On October thirtieth, twenty nineteen, Lisa gets into her car
after spending the evening in a bar. On the drive home,
Lisa's driving eighty five in a forty mile an hour zone.
She's twice the legal alcohol limit. She has cocaine in
her system, and the floor of her Chevrolet Silverado is
(11:48):
littered with bags of it. At one point, Lisa swerves violently,
she says, to avoid an oncoming car. Struggling to regain control,
she collides with a cyclist. His name is John James
Uzma Quintero. John's taken to the hospital, but his injuries
(12:11):
are too severe. He's pronounced dead that same day. He
leaves behind a daughter back home in Columbia who had
been sending money to that he made from his job
at the seven eleven.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
When I committed my crime and mister Usma Quintero died
because of it.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
It changed everything.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Lisa pleads guilty to multiple charges, including vehicular manslaughter and
aggravated driving while intoxicated, but due to COVID nineteen restrictions.
Her sentencing is delayed for more than a year and
a half. It's not until September of twenty twenty one
that she's back in court for that. Her mother, Brunna,
(12:55):
is by her side.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Remember his brother and his mother in the courtroom. And
I watched my parents lose a child, and he was
a child.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
There are always two sides that grieve, and we had
tremendous grief, and so you know, for me, my grief
for the family was a knowing one as a parent
who lost a child, I understand from having experienced it myself,
(13:29):
So it was hard. We grieve. We still grieve for them.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
On September ninth, twenty twenty one, Lisa is sentenced to
three to nine years in state prison.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You don't really want anyone else to experience the pain
and horror of that, and those were three years that
I lived that.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Prison is difficult physically, mentally, emotionally, you get stripped spiritually,
it's loud, it's like chaos going on, and you know,
you're always in survival mode in some aspect.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
At first, there were times when I couldn't even hug her,
so I would see her but we couldn't have physical contact,
and so that to me was hard.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I remember the first time I got a hug from you,
and it startled me.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I haven't hugged somebody.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
I haven't gotten hugged from somebody, and I don't know
what it was six months. At that point, I.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Was able to visit my daughter because I'm in a
different position. But it was obvious to me there were
hundreds of women in the facility, and on visiting days
there were maybe at most eight to ten women who
had visitors. And I did learn from my daughter that
there are some women who don't get packages, who don't
(15:02):
get commissary money, and so I mean think about that too,
you know, and think about the fact that they make
I don't know how much twenty five cents an hour, no,
fourteen fourteen cents an hour, and if they have, if
they have fines, restitution, restitution is deducted from the fourteen
fifteen cents an hour they make, so half of that
(15:26):
or a percentage of that goes to the fines. And
what they're left was with that money to make purchases
and commissary if they're not getting packages.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
That's impossible. Bruna visits Lisa as much as she can,
and when she's not there physically, she makes sure she's
always there at the other end of the phone.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I would speak to her every morning. I would speak
to her in the evening. But I assure you I
was the only judge in the building who was receiving
calls from prison, and I would always make sure I
took those calls.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Lisa tells Bruna about all the things she's getting up
to to pass the time. She'd already gotten clean because
her crime had happened around COVID. The case moved really slowly,
but it meant she could spend a year in rehab
before prison.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I immersed myself into recovery, and it's a very scary time,
but I just took all the suggestions and I wanted
to live differently.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Once Lisa got to prison, she just wanted to be useful.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I stayed very, very busy while I was incarcerated. Any
type of positive program. I put myself out there, and
I applied myself and worked hard to become a part of.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
She did welding as she was part of the outside
ground crew.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I was only one of three individuals out of the
whole population.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
It's a very trusted position.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And most excitingly, she rehabilitated shelter dogs.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Also for that, I had.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
The up opportunity to go back to school. I became
part of the BPI program that Bard offers.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Bard is Bard College and BPI is their Prison Initiative program.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
I earned thirty six college credits.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It was very important for me once I immersed in
that program to see that I doubted my level of
intelligence as a woman for a very long time, and
it reminded me that I am an intelligent, thinking woman.
And Bard was wonderful. The way the professors interact with
us as students was very like we were their equals,
and that is difficult to find in the prison environment
(17:38):
when you're wearing green.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Wearing green, I can't imagine it's something Lisa ever thought
she'd do. She's a judge's daughter, and yet here she
is surrounded by the sort of women her mother sends
to prison, and she's starting to realize they're not so
(18:02):
different from her.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I have yet to have come across a woman on
the inside that didn't have a trauma or some relation
to addiction. Most women are in there because they committed
their crime. While an active addiction and a lot of
domestic violence cases too, a lot of survivors.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Everyone has a story.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I've met women that have been in there for twenty
twenty five years, and these women I just like, how
do you get through this? It was very difficult for
me at the end of my sentence, and I'll say
I only did three years compared to some of these women.
That was hard for me. In the end, I was
starting to break. If the point was to break me,
(18:47):
I was getting there.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Next Lisa comes home and Judge Bruna gets her daughter back.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Today's October third, and I was released on September ninth, nope,
September fifth, so a little less than a month.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And how are you finding it?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
So I'm good, I am good, I'm great. I'm very
grateful to be with my family. I'm very grateful to
be back home. And so now that I'm out, you
don't necessarily have somebody telling you you have to be
here this time. This is when you eat, this is
(19:48):
when you lock in, this is when you do those things.
And I have lots of lots of love and support
coming in, which I cherish. So it's a little bit
overwhelming in the best way, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, that makes a little sense. You're like figuring out
how to be your own autonomous human being again on
the outside of freedom.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And yeah, like in a lot of ways, yes, like
in a lot of ways, your choices are made for you.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
On the inside.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
You're told where to go, when to go, and what
to do and so so of course I'm under supervision
and I welcome that. But now you know, I'm free
to answer back certain people or not, or your day
to day tasks. So trying to open up a bank
account or you know, like I said, walk the dogs,
you know, trying to train my dogs old dogs, new tricks.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
So, yes, the dogs aren't anything new. When Lisa went in,
she had two dogs and she left them with us,
and I have a dog, so we became a family
of three dogs. Wow, mom took on the dogs.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
It's busy home.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
It's a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, And Brina, how has it felt having Lisa home?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I probably cleaned the house one hundred times before she
came home, and Lisa kept reminding me that no matter
how many times I cleaned it, it was a hundred times
better than where she was coming from. Still, I wanted
everything to be just so for her.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Do you feel like you've got your daughter back?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I do? In fact, that was what I've always said,
I feel like I got my daughter back. I said
that to her once. I said that to her when
she was in recovery. I said, I feel like I
have my daughter back. And she actually said to me,
you don't have your daughter back, Mom, because the person
(21:34):
I am now never existed before. You are a different person.
I mean, how can you not when things happened to
you in your life? How can you not? You know,
life changes us, life moves forward.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I guess like one of my final questions is, Bruna,
HOWE has this affected your work as a judge? Has
it affected it at all?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Having had an incarcerated daughter has has informed my decisions
now about the length of a sentence individuals should receive.
I don't know that it's the length of a sentence
that rehabilitates or breaks a person. I feel now, with
all the knowledge that I have about addiction, about making
(22:18):
services available to the young kids who appear in my court,
and not just the kids. If I think, and I
strongly support that if someone has an underlying addiction, our
resource is are better spent in putting the resources into
treating the addiction, especially someone who wants to be treated generally.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Do you have sort of like ambitions for the future.
I know there's a lot that you're sorting out, so
you do like a fifteen year plan.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
But yeah, there's so much that I know about myself
now that I am sober and in recovery for just
about five years.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
You know, God willing we take it one day at
a time.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I think I'll always be somebody that's resilient, relentless, striving
for better. Of course for myself, but because that helps
people around me that I love. But it's very important
for me to stay of service.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Lisa's working at a place called Release Recovery. It's where
she got clean before her prison sentence.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
I would love to turn that into a career. I
would love to see in the recovery world. I mean,
one of the reasons why I stay in a twelve
step program and go to meetings is to give to
those what was so freely given to me. Right Like
I remember when I was first getting sober and people
(23:39):
showed up for me in a way that I could
not show up for myself, and that made all the difference.
And they sat with me and they listened to me,
and they cared for me, and that has carried me.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
So if I can.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Continue on that path, that would continue, you know, a
world beyond my wildest dreams.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
That's amazing. And Brunner, I know the perspective is a
little different as a mother.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
So what would you like for Lisa the same? I
support her vision. I love her vision. I think it's beautiful.
And she has taught me also that to value every
day that's a good day. And you know, and so
today is a good day. I thank you for being
with us, and I thank you for giving me the
opportunity to hear these words from my daughter.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
The pain that both Bruna and Lisa have been through
separately together is tangible. You can hear it in their voices,
and I can see it in the way that they
look at each other when they're speaking. But I also
see a deep, persevering love between a mother and a daughter,
between a judge and a former prisoner. And now I'm
(24:50):
going to get a little bit woo woo here, but
just indulge me. Something I've come to believe deeply during
the making of this podcast. Series is that every extra
turn that we get to spend on this silly little
planet is a blessing. It's why it must be taken
seriously when that opportunity, the opportunity of life is taken
(25:12):
from someone. But it also means that we have to
grant people like Lisa the opportunity to actually live too,
to grow and to move on. Judge Dbs puts it
a bit more succinctly.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I say to the kids in my court that we
all fall down in life, but what matters is what
you do when you pick yourself up, Because remember, what
is possible is greater than what is past.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Look to the future because you can't change the past,
but what if we can change how people look at it.
In our next bonus episode, I delve into a case
that at one point see clean cut woman violently attacks
man and admits it. But years later, the way people
(26:09):
and the law look at this case has changed. So
buckle up because next week I give you my most
challenging case study yet. And I asked, what should the
state have done with Tina.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
I'm looking at this grease boil and I'm still thinking
of not just him, per se. It was about everything
in life. I'm Backgrountrolls. I've disappointed so many people that
don't know I'm backgn Rolls again. I remember putting the
part down on It radiated like I had two voices.
(26:51):
One was saying, don't do this, this is so wrong,
and another like fuck that.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
The Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is 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.
(27:30):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Shie 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,
(27:54):
Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein. 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 Nikki Etor are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to
(28:15):
Carrie Lieberman and the whole team at WME.
Hey, girlfriends, it's Anna here. Welcome to the first of
four special bonus episodes of The Girlfriend's Jelhouse Lawyer. In
these episodes, we'll give you a sneak peek behind the
curtain of our production. You'll hear extra interviews and conversations
that we gathered while reporting on Kelly's story, and this
episode is one of my favorites. Just a warning, this
(00:22):
conversation includes a lot about addiction and substance abuse and
probably some colorful language. But you'll also get to hear
a story of how a mother and daughter survived one
tragedy after another, and how, in the end, their struggle
brought them together. One day, about three or so years
(00:44):
ago in Queens, New York, Judge Bruner DBC is sitting
in court when she hears a voice.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
He said, Judge, can I speak to you? And I
know this is strange.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's an attorney she knows well, and he's looking a
little sheepish.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
You know, you did the case of Kelly Harnett and
I know her. I've represented her and she's really very sincere.
But she wants to come and see you and thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's an unusual request. Defendants don't usually make calls to
the judges chamber, but of course not all defendants are
like Kelly Harnett.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
She did, in fact come to see me in the courtroom.
She came in person, and the officers alerted me that
there was someone here who wanted to see me, who
had a dozen roses.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
This isn't just a nice gesture. You'll remember that Kelly
is a devout follower of Saint Herez, a Catholic saint
whose signature token is a rose. Everything Kelly believes and
holds near to her heart is represented in these flowers.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
If you look behind you, you see that vase with
the red roses. They are red silk roses. Those are
the roses. I still keep them in a vase in chambers.
And she spoke to me from a distance, and she
came up and she said hello, Judge Debasi, and then
I just embraced her and hugged her.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Do you remember what you spoke about.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Her gratitude mostly was gratitude. She shared with me that
by not delaying her case, she was able to spend
time with her mother, who then I think died three
weeks after she was released. So that was her biggest
gratitude that I didn't delay her case and that as
a result of that, she was able to be with
(02:33):
her mother when her mom passed. Once you leave Supreme
Criminal Court, you really don't want to come back, even
if it's with good news. Some do, but she was
definitely the most enthusiastic and willing, and I'm sure she
would come back every day if she could.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I don't doubt that. I still find it hard to
reckon with the eye idea of a judge physically embracing
a formally incarcerated person. The system doesn't usually give room
for that sort of warmth. But just like Kelly isn't
(03:11):
like all the other defendants, Bruna isn't like all the
other judges.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
My life experiences, I think now informs how I operate
in those courts, and I would say now I feel
more of an insider to understanding the underlying issues that
bring someone into court.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Around thirteen years ago, Judge Bruna's son Eric died of
a drug overdose. Then just a few years later, her
daughter Lisa nearly ended up going down the same path,
but this time it was someone else who died because
of her addiction. In today's episode, I'm going to sit
(03:56):
down with this mother and daughter who accidentally and tragically
found themselves on different sides of the law. I'm Anison
Field and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts.
This is the girlfriend's Gelhouse lawyer is Bonus Episode one,
(04:40):
Lisa and Bruner.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Marmy can.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I said, yeah, of course if it was like a fixture, or.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Is that just daycour right. It's October third, twenty twenty four,
and I'm sitting in Judge Bruner Dibiazzi's chambers. It should
have an air of authority to it, maybe even grandiosity,
but it doesn't. I'm here to see Bruna the judge,
(05:18):
but I'm also here to see Bruna, the mother who's
sitting here with her daughter Lisa. They're both kind of
equal parts warm and brisk, as Queen's natives are wont
to be. And they're both fussing over what I'm going
to eat.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It's an apple here staring at you.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I'm experiencing the Italian American hospitality.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Bruna is on and off the phone to her aging father,
making sure he made it to his doctor's appointment. After that,
she facetimes her husband so I can meet him, he's
also a judge, and as I'm mildly shocked to learn
a leather wearing biker, Bruna and Lisa are being gorgeous together,
both worried that the other hasn't eaten, needs water. There's
(06:06):
a purposefulness to their interactions because they're new. Lisa only
just got out of prison a month ago, and you
can tell that they're still figuring out how to be
together again in real time. So what is your relationship
like as mother and daughter?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I can only our daughter, and what is our relationship like?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Our relationship is wonderful.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
It's probably going to be impossible for me not to
get emotional. It's very open, tremendous communication, one of trust,
and I emphasize those things because it wasn't always like
(06:53):
that on my end. You know, I have a mother
that is loving and giving, sacrificing, and I know that
I was very resistant to that for a long time.
And when I was it was when I was in
active addiction, and I couldn't even understand why I was
so resistant to that. Her relationship was one of gratitude.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I think today I think so too.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
We'll get into why and how Lisa's addiction began to
take hold and impact their relationship. But first I want
to put an image in your mind of a young
Bruna Dbse born in Manhattan and raised in Queens. Could
we understand a little bit more about your life kind
of growing up so we can know who has ended
(07:39):
up at this desk.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
My dad was a New York City cup, very strict.
I always say the reason I went to law school
is because the only thing I was allowed to do
was study.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But back when she's still a student, Bruna almost takes
another path.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I was a psychology major. I wanted to help people.
I wanted to become a psychologists, a psychiatrists more in
that area.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It all changes after she gets what should be a
prestigious internship with a New York State senator.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
All the young ladies who were in the internship program
were really assigned to do the secretarial functions in the
senator's office. And I remember watching all the men who
had the positions of authority and who were lawyers, and
I remember coming back home to my father and saying
to him, I could do what they do. Daddy, and
(08:33):
I applied to law school really like at the last
minute in my final year of college and that just
changed the path of my life.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Love that. So you kind of got here as an
act of stubborn defiance against the men, you know. I. Yes,
earlier in Bruno's career, she was already working on improving
the court system, bringing in a bit of that drive
to help people from her psychology.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Days before I became a judge, I was chief of
staff to a statewide administrative judge, and in that role,
we were tasked with creating in the New York state
court system, problem solving courts. And problem solving courts was
really a unique concept to address the underlying issue that
(09:23):
would bring somebody into court. We were working on mental
health courts, we were working on creating domestic violence courts,
drug courts, veterans courts, adolescent courts.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And when you say domestic violence courts, youth courts and stuff,
that means that those are courts that are set up
specifically to deal with just domestic violence cases.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yes, that's correct. I was helping to create training programs
and to begin these projects, and at that time they
didn't seem to touch my life.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
But that all changes when Bruno's son Eric dies in
twenty twelve following a battle with drug addiction. This family,
who from the outside must have looked untouchable, is suddenly
blown apart.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Probably the greatest fear of someone has is to lose
a child. I remember someone once said to me, well,
I lost my son. I don't know how you go forward.
I don't know how you could, you know, continue living.
So what do you do now? Do you fall apart
or do you pause, think about it and decide to
(10:30):
pick yourself up and move forward.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think we were all grieving in different ways, and
in some ways separate, and then slowly I started getting
into drinking, and then that led into drug use as well.
I was severely addicted to alcohol and severely addicted to cocaine.
I didn't know I was making the decisions I was making.
I just I was trying to survive and navigate through pain.
(10:52):
And I remember saying to my mother when Eric was
still alive and his addiction was just taking over. I
remember thinking, He's going to end up in prison, and
I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle.
I'll be scared thinking about what that would be like
(11:12):
for him every day. And then fast forward in here
I was inside a jail.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So this is not a late conversation. This is heavy.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
This is are you guys doing okay?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes, yeah, we're I mean, you know, we're open and
we're honest.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
On October thirtieth, twenty nineteen, Lisa gets into her car
after spending the evening in a bar. On the drive home,
Lisa's driving eighty five in a forty mile an hour zone.
She's twice the legal alcohol limit. She has cocaine in
her system, and the floor of her Chevrolet Silverado is
(11:48):
littered with bags of it. At one point, Lisa swerves violently,
she says, to avoid an oncoming car. Struggling to regain control,
she collides with a cyclist. His name is John James
Uzma Quintero. John's taken to the hospital, but his injuries
(12:11):
are too severe. He's pronounced dead that same day. He
leaves behind a daughter back home in Columbia who had
been sending money to that he made from his job
at the seven eleven.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
When I committed my crime and mister Usma Quintero died
because of it.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
It changed everything.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Lisa pleads guilty to multiple charges, including vehicular manslaughter and
aggravated driving while intoxicated, but due to COVID nineteen restrictions.
Her sentencing is delayed for more than a year and
a half. It's not until September of twenty twenty one
that she's back in court for that. Her mother, Brunna,
(12:55):
is by her side.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Remember his brother and his mother in the courtroom. And
I watched my parents lose a child, and he was
a child.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
There are always two sides that grieve, and we had
tremendous grief, and so you know, for me, my grief
for the family was a knowing one as a parent
who lost a child, I understand from having experienced it myself,
(13:29):
So it was hard. We grieve. We still grieve for them.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
On September ninth, twenty twenty one, Lisa is sentenced to
three to nine years in state prison.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You don't really want anyone else to experience the pain
and horror of that, and those were three years that
I lived that.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Prison is difficult physically, mentally, emotionally, you get stripped spiritually,
it's loud, it's like chaos going on, and you know,
you're always in survival mode in some aspect.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
At first, there were times when I couldn't even hug her,
so I would see her but we couldn't have physical contact,
and so that to me was hard.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I remember the first time I got a hug from you,
and it startled me.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I haven't hugged somebody.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
I haven't gotten hugged from somebody, and I don't know
what it was six months. At that point, I.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Was able to visit my daughter because I'm in a
different position. But it was obvious to me there were
hundreds of women in the facility, and on visiting days
there were maybe at most eight to ten women who
had visitors. And I did learn from my daughter that
there are some women who don't get packages, who don't
(15:02):
get commissary money, and so I mean think about that too,
you know, and think about the fact that they make
I don't know how much twenty five cents an hour, no,
fourteen fourteen cents an hour, and if they have, if
they have fines, restitution, restitution is deducted from the fourteen
fifteen cents an hour they make, so half of that
(15:26):
or a percentage of that goes to the fines. And
what they're left was with that money to make purchases
and commissary if they're not getting packages.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
That's impossible. Bruna visits Lisa as much as she can,
and when she's not there physically, she makes sure she's
always there at the other end of the phone.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I would speak to her every morning. I would speak
to her in the evening. But I assure you I
was the only judge in the building who was receiving
calls from prison, and I would always make sure I
took those calls.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Lisa tells Bruna about all the things she's getting up
to to pass the time. She'd already gotten clean because
her crime had happened around COVID. The case moved really slowly,
but it meant she could spend a year in rehab
before prison.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I immersed myself into recovery, and it's a very scary time,
but I just took all the suggestions and I wanted
to live differently.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Once Lisa got to prison, she just wanted to be useful.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I stayed very, very busy while I was incarcerated. Any
type of positive program. I put myself out there, and
I applied myself and worked hard to become a part of.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
She did welding as she was part of the outside
ground crew.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I was only one of three individuals out of the
whole population.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
It's a very trusted position.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And most excitingly, she rehabilitated shelter dogs.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Also for that, I had.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
The up opportunity to go back to school. I became
part of the BPI program that Bard offers.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Bard is Bard College and BPI is their Prison Initiative program.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
I earned thirty six college credits.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It was very important for me once I immersed in
that program to see that I doubted my level of
intelligence as a woman for a very long time, and
it reminded me that I am an intelligent, thinking woman.
And Bard was wonderful. The way the professors interact with
us as students was very like we were their equals,
and that is difficult to find in the prison environment
(17:38):
when you're wearing green.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Wearing green, I can't imagine it's something Lisa ever thought
she'd do. She's a judge's daughter, and yet here she
is surrounded by the sort of women her mother sends
to prison, and she's starting to realize they're not so
(18:02):
different from her.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I have yet to have come across a woman on
the inside that didn't have a trauma or some relation
to addiction. Most women are in there because they committed
their crime. While an active addiction and a lot of
domestic violence cases too, a lot of survivors.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Everyone has a story.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I've met women that have been in there for twenty
twenty five years, and these women I just like, how
do you get through this? It was very difficult for
me at the end of my sentence, and I'll say
I only did three years compared to some of these women.
That was hard for me. In the end, I was
starting to break. If the point was to break me,
(18:47):
I was getting there.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Next Lisa comes home and Judge Bruna gets her daughter back.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Today's October third, and I was released on September ninth, nope,
September fifth, so a little less than a month.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And how are you finding it?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
So I'm good, I am good, I'm great. I'm very
grateful to be with my family. I'm very grateful to
be back home. And so now that I'm out, you
don't necessarily have somebody telling you you have to be
here this time. This is when you eat, this is
(19:48):
when you lock in, this is when you do those things.
And I have lots of lots of love and support
coming in, which I cherish. So it's a little bit
overwhelming in the best way, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, that makes a little sense. You're like figuring out
how to be your own autonomous human being again on
the outside of freedom.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And yeah, like in a lot of ways, yes, like
in a lot of ways, your choices are made for you.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
On the inside.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
You're told where to go, when to go, and what
to do and so so of course I'm under supervision
and I welcome that. But now you know, I'm free
to answer back certain people or not, or your day
to day tasks. So trying to open up a bank
account or you know, like I said, walk the dogs,
you know, trying to train my dogs old dogs, new tricks.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
So, yes, the dogs aren't anything new. When Lisa went in,
she had two dogs and she left them with us,
and I have a dog, so we became a family
of three dogs. Wow, mom took on the dogs.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
It's busy home.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
It's a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, And Brina, how has it felt having Lisa home?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I probably cleaned the house one hundred times before she
came home, and Lisa kept reminding me that no matter
how many times I cleaned it, it was a hundred times
better than where she was coming from. Still, I wanted
everything to be just so for her.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Do you feel like you've got your daughter back?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I do? In fact, that was what I've always said,
I feel like I got my daughter back. I said
that to her once. I said that to her when
she was in recovery. I said, I feel like I
have my daughter back. And she actually said to me,
you don't have your daughter back, Mom, because the person
(21:34):
I am now never existed before. You are a different person.
I mean, how can you not when things happened to
you in your life? How can you not? You know,
life changes us, life moves forward.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I guess like one of my final questions is, Bruna,
HOWE has this affected your work as a judge? Has
it affected it at all?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Having had an incarcerated daughter has has informed my decisions
now about the length of a sentence individuals should receive.
I don't know that it's the length of a sentence
that rehabilitates or breaks a person. I feel now, with
all the knowledge that I have about addiction, about making
(22:18):
services available to the young kids who appear in my court,
and not just the kids. If I think, and I
strongly support that if someone has an underlying addiction, our
resource is are better spent in putting the resources into
treating the addiction, especially someone who wants to be treated generally.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Do you have sort of like ambitions for the future.
I know there's a lot that you're sorting out, so
you do like a fifteen year plan.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
But yeah, there's so much that I know about myself
now that I am sober and in recovery for just
about five years.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
You know, God willing we take it one day at
a time.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I think I'll always be somebody that's resilient, relentless, striving
for better. Of course for myself, but because that helps
people around me that I love. But it's very important
for me to stay of service.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Lisa's working at a place called Release Recovery. It's where
she got clean before her prison sentence.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
I would love to turn that into a career. I
would love to see in the recovery world. I mean,
one of the reasons why I stay in a twelve
step program and go to meetings is to give to
those what was so freely given to me. Right Like
I remember when I was first getting sober and people
(23:39):
showed up for me in a way that I could
not show up for myself, and that made all the difference.
And they sat with me and they listened to me,
and they cared for me, and that has carried me.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
So if I can.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Continue on that path, that would continue, you know, a
world beyond my wildest dreams.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
That's amazing. And Brunner, I know the perspective is a
little different as a mother.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
So what would you like for Lisa the same? I
support her vision. I love her vision. I think it's beautiful.
And she has taught me also that to value every
day that's a good day. And you know, and so
today is a good day. I thank you for being
with us, and I thank you for giving me the
opportunity to hear these words from my daughter.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
The pain that both Bruna and Lisa have been through
separately together is tangible. You can hear it in their voices,
and I can see it in the way that they
look at each other when they're speaking. But I also
see a deep, persevering love between a mother and a daughter,
between a judge and a former prisoner. And now I'm
(24:50):
going to get a little bit woo woo here, but
just indulge me. Something I've come to believe deeply during
the making of this podcast. Series is that every extra
turn that we get to spend on this silly little
planet is a blessing. It's why it must be taken
seriously when that opportunity, the opportunity of life is taken
(25:12):
from someone. But it also means that we have to
grant people like Lisa the opportunity to actually live too,
to grow and to move on. Judge Dbs puts it
a bit more succinctly.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I say to the kids in my court that we
all fall down in life, but what matters is what
you do when you pick yourself up, Because remember, what
is possible is greater than what is past.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Look to the future because you can't change the past,
but what if we can change how people look at it.
In our next bonus episode, I delve into a case
that at one point see clean cut woman violently attacks
man and admits it. But years later, the way people
(26:09):
and the law look at this case has changed. So
buckle up because next week I give you my most
challenging case study yet. And I asked, what should the
state have done with Tina.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
I'm looking at this grease boil and I'm still thinking
of not just him, per se. It was about everything
in life. I'm Backgrountrolls. I've disappointed so many people that
don't know I'm backgn Rolls again. I remember putting the
part down on It radiated like I had two voices.
(26:51):
One was saying, don't do this, this is so wrong,
and another like fuck that.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
The Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer is 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.
(27:30):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Shie 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,
(27:54):
Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein. 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 Nikki Etor are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to
(28:15):
Carrie Lieberman and the whole team at WME.
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