August 18, 2025 • 43 mins
Reeling from the jury’s verdict, Kelly searches for the strength to keep fighting in a new maximum security prison.
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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. Most of this episode takes place
in prison. There's going to be some mentions of murder
and some very serious domestic abuse, but you'll also get
to meet some more of the women Kelly got to
know while she was locked up, many of whom have
stories just as incredible and complex as hers. If you
feel impacted by some of the themes in this show,
(00:21):
you can reach out to No More. There are a
domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources to
help you or your loved ones. You can search No
More dot org and we've also put a link to
their website in the episode description. And as you know,
we all swear a little bit. It's October twenty thirteen.
(00:44):
Alone in her cramp cell, surrounded by towering piles of
legal documents, Kelly Hannett relives her trial over and over.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I was broken apart clearly for the first few d's
asley I lead in bed.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Her fellow Ryker's Island shorties can't believe the jury's decision, She.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Says, she had been found guilty. Well, like kill, it
is not playing because Kelly is a joke starre too.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's Angelica who you heard from an episode for Kelly's
friend with all the makeup tips.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
She will say, Now they found me guilty, and she
broke down and we were shot in.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
All of us started crying like how like how is
that possible?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Kelly left the courtroom, promising herself that she would take
down the prosecutor from her trial, Assistant District Attorney Sean Clark.
But instead she's barely left herself for days. She's moping hard,
head deep under the covers. Eventually, Angelica decides enough is enough.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
We had a rule, you have three days.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Of feeling sorry for yourself, and then you gotta get
out and figure it out, right D number three.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I borge into herself.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
That's all right, she said, shouty, that's it.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It's cool. It's time to get up.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So I got up. I sat up, and she said
what are you doing? I mean, what are you doing?
I said, what do you want me to do? I
was found guilty?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
She goes, ah, guilty, shmilty. She said, look around, paperwork, paperwork,
paper All I see here is paperwork.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
Kelly.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I said, yeah, I know, and it all went to nothing.
She goes, oh no it didn't. No, No, you're not
gonna go there with me.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Take your butt to that little library and figure something out.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Laying here is an option. You gotta get up, and
you gotta go.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm Anasonfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts,
This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse. Lawyer is episode six, Guilty
(03:35):
Schmilty By November twenty thirteen, Inspired by Angelica's Tough Love,
Kelly is back in the Riker's law library.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I started looking through everything, and that's when I found
a three thirty statue.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
At three thirty motion to set aside a verdict.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
November fifth, twenty thirteen. It was my first motion that
I put in, was all in and written, and it
was sixty eight pages.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Kelly doesn't want to leave anything to chance with this document.
She picks up the phone and calls, of all people,
prosecutor Sean Clark, the man who's just got her sent
to prison.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I wasn't sure if he was going to hang up
on me or speak to me, but he did say, yeah, yeah,
I received it. I said, so, what would happen when
I go back to court? Probably nothing, It'll probably be adjourned.
And this was the beginning of a seventeen month war
of attrition.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
For seventeen months. Kelly, a self taughtu our house lawyer,
holds her sentencing at bay, trying every legal avenue she
can find.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
He wrote emotion. I wrote emotion. Maybe sometimes that every
opposition I wrote for, and it came to a point
where they stopped answering me, so I kept writing motions anyway.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
A lot of Kelly's motions focus on what's called the
Brady Rule. It states that all evidence from the police
and prosecution is meant to be turned over to the
other side, especially things that could benefit the defense. And
while it hasn't been proven, Kelly alleges that this Brady
Rule was violated and that some evidence wasn't handed over.
(05:38):
She also states that much of what's missing relates to
the problematic eyewitness Amando Perez. She found evidence in a
police officer's notepad that he was known by a different name.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They made a mistake, they didn't redact one of the
portions and it said witness Armando contreris Perez.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
According to some online slew thing, Kelly's brother, rond Amando
Contreres Perez, well, he has some skeletons in his closet,
so I.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Witnessed my trial had an extensive criminal background that was
not turned over to me. Basically the biggest Brady violation
of all Kelly suspects.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Armando may have a criminal record, and that it could
have been white in exchange for his testimony against her,
although this hasn't been proven, and while I've seen a
photocopy of the notebook with the Contrera's name in it,
I haven't been able to find these criminal records myself.
But that doesn't mean it's all just tinfoil hat nonsense either.
(06:37):
Prosecutors do strike deals with individuals who have criminal charges
or convictions in exchange for their testimony against someone else.
Then there are the moves Kelly Mankes that are a
little more unorthodox, especially when it comes to Judge Lasac.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I got a hold of his first grade teacher.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Kelly says. She makes then through a chaplain called Sister Eileen,
who she met at Riker's And Sister Eileen knew the
nun who taught at the judge's school.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So the first grade teacher called them back, and from
my understanding, she was really pushing him and prodding him,
like set this girl's verdict, decide, like listen, I'm your
first grade teacher. They tried the porn nuns.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Kelly says. She also manages to somehow find the number
for Judge lay Sack's best friend. She is nothing if
not resourceful.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I left a message on his best friend's voicemail telling
the best friend how I'm innocent and they've made a
huge mistake.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I'm sure this all went down great with Judge lay Sack.
Kelly battles on and on and on, but after holding
off her sentencing for nearly a year and a half,
she's exhausted all her possible motions. No more delays. It's
time to go back to court. It's March twenty fifteen.
(08:06):
Kelly Hannett is standing in the same courtroom where she
was found guilty seventeen months ago. It's time for her sentencing.
She's facing twenty five years to life. This is Kelly's
final opportunity to speak, and in true Kelly style, she's
taking full advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I went on and on and on and on. I
was citing case law and constitutional violations.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I've seen the transcripts of this. It really does go
on for page after page.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
All of these people were standing in front of me
as I went on and on and on, and I
looked at some of their faces and their mouths were
up and like shock and awe. That was one of
my proudest moments because I had the ada. She means
Sean Clark suck in his teeth, sighing, and what does
(09:08):
it feel like? I felt like saying, like, you shut up,
it's my time now.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Kelly also says how sorry she is for Angel and
his family, but that she shouldn't be held responsible for
his murder. She says, I did not contribute to that
death in any way, shape or form. I was definitely
afraid of my co defendant. Kelly also says that had
(09:37):
she not done what she did, Tommy would have killed
her as well, and that instead of prosecuting a case
with one victim, it would have been too Kelly ends
her monologue by thanking Judge Lasak for his patients. Then
(09:57):
it's time for the judge to deliver his center, and
he doesn't hold back. I've asked producer Jake to read
from the court transcripts.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
We had to delay the sentence to allow you to
make every three point thirty motion that you deemed necessary
to make. And it has been delayed for quite a
number of months. This is a very sad case. The
court takes no pleasure in any sentence, especially a sentence
regarding a case like this. You are not the victim
(10:33):
in this case, and you are not a witness. We
all make choices in life, Miss Harnett, on this particular
night July seventh, back in twenty ten, you were with
a person that you made a choice to be with,
mister Donovan. You had a choice to take ten years
(10:56):
on manslaughter plea, and you chose not to, just like
you chose to stay with mister Donovan, and you chose
not to try and stop him, and you chose to
give him that sneaker lace, and you chose to kick him,
kick mister Vargas when he was down on the ground.
These are all choices that you made at that time.
(11:20):
And I'm sure Miss Harnett, you would wish you could
turn back the clock to July seventh, twenty ten and
act differently, and this never would have happened, and we
wouldn't be here and mister Vargas would be with his family.
But we have to deal with the reality, and the
reality is that you and mister Donovan acted in concert
(11:44):
and killed him.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
That was like a pretty terrifying transcript from her case,
wasn't it. Yeah, you did this and you did that,
and this is who you are. You know, you are
not a victim in this case. You are not a witness.
Speaker 7 (12:03):
It is heavy, it's really heavy.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, it's that use of the word choice that you
chose to do this, you chose to do that.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
There's no nuance in it for the judge. It feels
like the judge is almost like a representation of the
brick wall that like somebody in Kelly's position hits over
and over again as they try to just get understanding.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, and it makes sense that after that experience, she's
become so passionate about trying to get people to really
see who she is, you know, like to understand that
there's the like domestic violence aspect, as she said to me.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
On March twenty fifth, twenty fifteen, Kelly Harnett is sentenced
to a minimum of seventeen years in prison for the
murder of Reuben Angel Vargas and one year for the
criminal possession of a weapon a shoelace. In the eyes
(13:02):
of the law, Kelly is a murderer, a villain, not
a victim as she claims, And now she's finally going
where she belongs, Bedford Hill's Correctional Facility, the only maximum
security women's prison in the state of New York. When
Kelly gets to Bedford, She's immediately dropped into a new world.
(13:26):
She's out in the sticks of upstate New York, over
forty miles away from her family back in Queens and
away from her Riker's Island. Shorties after arriving, Kelly's brought
to an area known as the Jungle.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Why was it called the jungle because they're crazy. They
set their cells on fire on a regular basis. One
time there was the fire, but I hadn't been able
to use the phone for a week, so since everyone ran,
I ran into the phone room so I could finally
make a phone call. And I was like, well, when
the fiery gets really bad, I'll run. Like this is
(14:04):
how crazy it is in there.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
But underneath all the chaos, many of Kelly's fellow inmates
are lifeless.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Bad fruit. Everybody's dead. Everybody's dead inside. They're walking around,
but there's nothing in there.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Locked up away from her family, away from the world
surrounded by women so broken they're almost more zombie than human.
It would be understandable for anyone to throw in the
towel and join the walking dead. But this is Kelly Harnett.
She hasn't given up so far, and she's sure is
shit not going to give up now. Every morning, in
(14:45):
her green prison uniform, Kelly sits in her cell, in
front of her mirror and brings herself to life.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I made sure that under my state greens that I
always had a T shirt on that was a different
color than green, and that had to match my eyeshadow
as well as my lipstick every day and usually my earrings,
and I always wore a headband that matched that, because
that's a sense of individuality. I'm Kelly cloaked in a
(15:20):
guilty person's uniform, but I wanted the individuality to shine
through because I'm not guilty. I realized that when you're
just a detainee.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Meaning still a ways in your trial, you have.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Life and hope and whatnot. Now these people are walking
around with these twenty five to life sentences and they're hopeless.
I know so much about the law, so my first
thing was Jesus Christ, I have to help these people out.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Kelly's the first couple of weeks keeping her head down
getting to know the lay of the land, but she
can't stay away from the law library for too long.
And it's in there that Kelly starts to find people
who can relate to all the frankly fucking crazy experiences
she's had while locked up.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
One day, I started talking to him about how Riker's
iamon wanted to cut my leg off one time and
they had the wrong person. They literally wanted to amputate
my leg. Then they told me I had a tumor,
and I busted out laughing. I said, bring me back
to the unit. Me and my tumor would like to
leave now. I didn't have a tumor.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So he was overhearing Kelly holding court is one of
the prison officers. I'm just going to refer to him
as the officer from here on out.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
He actually started laughing. He said, Jesus, I thought it
was bed here. And then he started speaking to me,
and clearly I wanted to jump there, so I inquired,
and immediately he asked me, like, do you have any experience?
And I said a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Kelly is intrigued by the officer. There's something different about him.
He doesn't treat her like an inmate, like a number.
He's attentive. By August twenty fifteen, Kelly becomes a qualified
law clerk here in Bedford, making about twenty four cents
an hour. Kelly's back where she loves to be, neck
(17:37):
deep in a bunch of legal papers with a list
of grateful clients as long as her arm.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I don't know how many motions I rolled. I was
doing so much work.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And rather than embarrass myself by trying to explain the
complicated legal tactics being offered to the women of Bedford.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Hills, now it gets a little complex because for just vacation.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'll leave it to Kelly Harnett esquire.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I wrote her brief, and it was due to a
justification to fancountcy CPL three thirty thirty. Yet, like I said,
martians satisided vertict mass up section one of three thirty thirty,
which they said it must be two scent. There was
the weight of the evidence that behavior's corpus. I could
always do an article seventy eight, which would be directing
that the jury was wrong to date, I could reiterate everything,
(18:31):
including all of the cases. I became a person full
of hope for so many people at Bedford.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
But Kelly's not content with just inspiring hope. She wants
to do something big, something she says, no female Geilhouse
lawyer in the state of New York has ever done before.
With this in mind, one day she asked the officer
a question.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
How many people have got and other incarcerated individuals out
of here? He goes, like, you mean other inmates. Nobody's
ever done that? I said nobody. He said no. I said,
(19:20):
I'm going to be the first one to do that.
He looked at me. He goes, I hope you are.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
I hope you are.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
If I asked you to picture Kelly in prison, what's
the moment that you're seeing in your head.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Her yelling out of her cell or her door to open.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
This is Trinity. She was in prison with Kelly. They
lived on the same block, but they first met in
the law library.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
She's gonna laugh when she hears it.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
I'm telling you, she's gonna laugh because she knows what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Every morning at Bedford Hill's correctional facility, all inmates are
woken by the sound of their cell doors opening.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
They all open at once.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
All except Kelly's.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Every single day she had to yell to get her
door open, open, three open, three.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Open like you can you can like wait for it.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
All the doors would open, bam open three every single
day like it got Oh my god, like I literally
lost my mind over.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Trinity is thirty years old now, but she went to
prison when she was just a teenager.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Like Kelly, I have a domestic violence case. When I
was seventeen, I was with my father. My dad has
always been like an alcoholic and a pretty abusive towards
us growing up. My incident was it happened in July
twenty twelve. The short version is that my father was
(21:18):
drunk and tried to kill me, and I ended up
killing him and then I got arrested.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Trinity's story is depressingly similar to so many of the
women I've spoken to while making this series, women who've
experienced a life full of violence and extreme trauma, setting
them on a catastrophic path. Often they had to come
to prison to finally be free of their abuses and
(21:49):
to find a real family.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
In Bedford, Like we have nothing to do, so it's
like we just talk or laugh or play games or something,
watch a movie or whatever. One time we were playing
this boarding I think it was from my birthday party,
something like scategories, where it's like you had to roll
the die with the letter and then you had to
like try to like write down all the things that
began in that letter. So it was like different types
(22:14):
of cars, and the letter started with h I'm thinking
like a Honda.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Kelly's team mate is doing some more let's say lateral thinking.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Her partner said a hearse and it was so funny,
and Kelly thought it was the funniest thing. I mean,
she was laughing for so long and it made me
laugh too.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah. Wanting to stop her Badford family from becoming totally hopeless.
Like so many of her fellow inmates, Kelly pushes them
to relook into their own cases, like she's doing with hers.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
Kelly taught me that you can get out on a technicality,
like an infraction like something like that. So she encouraged me,
you know, like read your transcripts, go over it. If
it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have done that. More
than likely.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Working alongside Kelly in the law library, Trinity can see
how many inmates are relying on her. Kelly sees the
benefits too.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I had the protection from the Law Library. If somebody
tried me, I always tell them like, listen, this is
something you don't want to do, because I guarantee you
you will need me at some point in your bid.
And then other people would finally say, oh, this one
you don't touch like anybody else. I don't care. But
(23:30):
it's just because I was like the only lawyer you know,
Jelhouse lawyer. Obviously, Yeah, the.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Law Library offers physical protection from the other inmates, but
it's so much more important to Kelly than that. It's
her sacred safe space. But then something happens, something that
puts Kelly at risk of losing the law library job
she's worked so hard for. Kelly begins to spend more
(24:01):
time with the officer. He's been so helpful to her
throughout her incarceration so far, and as Kelly sees it,
he's one of the few good men she's met in
her life. But one day, Kelly says, their relationship crosses
a line from prison guard and prisoner into something else.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, he definitely he put the moons on me. He
started touching me and things of that nature. I'm not
going to lie. When we kissed for the first time,
that felt nice. I wanted to feel love, and when
you're taken away from human contact for so long, just
(24:46):
this feels good. I always just wanted to kiss and
like a hub I felt a lot when I kissed him,
and he said that he felt a lot too, And
then I was to get excited like I have a boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Deep down, Kelly knows what the officer is doing isn't right.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It was weird. It was kind of maybe like they
call it grooming.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I felt violated in every prison, not only in New York,
but across the whole of the USA. Sexual or intimate
relationships between prison officers and inmates are forbidden, and it's
not just against the rules, it's a crime. Even if
both the officer and inmate claim it was consensual, the
(25:39):
law wouldn't agree. The power and balances involved are just
too great.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I felt that I couldn't tell him no.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Kelly's worried what if this could jeopardize her access to
the law library.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
The law library is my life, and without the law library,
I'll probably never get home.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Kelly also knows how many of her fellow in mates
are depending on her.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I'm gonna let the whole facility down if this ever
gets out, because I'm taking care of everyone's cases, and
what would everyone ever do? So I felt that I
had to let him do these things to me.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Eventually, Kelly says, the officer reveals a different side of himself.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
He became abusive right along with the rest of them.
I would come in one day and he would like
slam the book down and be like demanding get these cases.
I didn't even do anything to him. He had me
going so crazy, roller coaster of emotions. I was like,
what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Kelly says. The officer would win her back on side.
He would spin her bullshit about how the two of
them would be together once she got out of prison.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
This went on for two and a half years.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
One day it all comes to a head.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
On my birthday. He wrote a note to me that
stated something about I can't wait to give the birthday
girl a kiss in playland.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Playland and honestly, I'm so fucking grossed out that I
have to repeat that word in this context is code
for the bathroom that the officer would allegedly sneak Kelly into.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Somebody found the note, so they know that we're having
a relationship.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
The person who finds the note is Trinity.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Something told me to keep it. And then I told
another one of my friends, not knowing that that other
friend also had a relationship with him.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Another inmate that the officer is accused of having an
inappropriate relationship with.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, it was bear Stard, I guess was screwing around
some with both of us at the same time. I
came in like a raging bull and I went ballistic
on him and I called him like every name in
the book that. I said, you little bastard. What you
(28:18):
can't get a girl on the outside, so you come
to prison to pray on the weak and vulnerable. You're sick.
And I said, I'm telling you right now, I'm going
to take this little library and use it to convict you.
And then he was like, oh it stop. Please. I said,
(28:39):
you're going to jail and you're going to be somebody's bitch.
He started crying and then he tells me, please don't
do this. I'm going to kill myself. I told him
that Tommy used to say that to me, and he
said to me you know what, you should have said,
(29:01):
do what you got to do. So when he said
I'm going to kill myself, I said, do what you
gotta do.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Kelly tells the prison about what's happened between her and
the officer. I've seen the documents to prove this, but
she says she doesn't get much of a response.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
They didn't take it seriously at all. As a matter
of fact, I told them that Trinity has the letter.
They went out of their way to not call Trinity
so that they wouldn't get evidence.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
There is one person who comes to Kelly's aid, someone unexpected,
the man who helped send her to prison in the
first place, Assistant District Attorney Sean Clark. Most of the
(30:10):
men in Kelly's life have not treated her the way
they should have. They've often been controlling, abusive, and at
times extremely violent. Seems like the officer was just the
latest in that long, unfortunate line. Kelly's brother Ronnie, has
really been the only exception, well apart from one other man.
(30:31):
I'm going to tell you about the curious case of
Kelly Harnett and Prosecutor Sean Clark. Their unusual relationship first
began in the months between Kelly's verdict and her sentencing,
when she started calling Sean on the phone.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Hi, Sean, it's Kelly, who was usually like, Hi, Kelly,
what is it this time?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Often Kelly would be calling to contest some part of
her case, or learying out what kind of motions she
thought should be filed. I can't stress enough how unusual
this all is. Defendants in murder trials do not call
up their prosecutors for a chit chat about the finer
details of their case. But Kelly says she just wanted
(31:20):
Sean to see her as a person, not just some defendant.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I'm not a number, I'm not a case. I was
trying to show him the level of humanity that they
never see, and I think he was starting to see it.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Kelly wasn't just calling him up. She was sending him
some special deliveries.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I would make comic books of what was going on
between me, Sean Clark, and mister Murder.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
When Kelly says mister murder, she means Judge lasac As
for Sean Clark. Do you remember in our last episode
where Kelly said he looked kind of like Clark Kent?
She was really serious about that.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I had people sending me Superman comics all the time, right,
and Supergirl. Supergirl had blonde hair.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
You can probably guess who Kelly put in the role
of the blonde haired Supergirl.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I cut out Clark Kent, and then Supergirl. I cut
her out and she was walking by a door. I
roll on the door while library, right, and then Supergirl
in the comic. I didn't have to touch it or
alter it. It actually said Clark, is that you I
can speak your language? Now, no way, that's right. It
(32:39):
was the first one I sent him. I waited till
I knew he got it. Then I called him up.
I was like, maybe he's gonna be really ticked off
about this. He was like, Hi, Kelly, I could hear
him smiling through the phone, you know, when you could
just he was almost giggling, Like you could just hear
(33:01):
his voice went up a few decibels. I never wanted
to harass him per se, but I think you could
suck up a few phone calls.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh yeah, absolutely. But did you ever worry that you
might be jeopardizing your chances more than helping? Not at all.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
No, no, because what are they going to do put
into evidence? A piece of a comic book like That's
why I made sure I left it at like these
ridiculous things that they would almost feel stupid bringing up,
and nobody ever brought it up.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, you're a very unique person, Kelly. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It's a compliment. It is a compliment for sure. These
conversations between Sean and Kelly lasted well beyond her sentencing.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I've even recorded Sean Clark and then called him up
afterwards and said, I, Shanna just wanted to let you
know that on the last two conversations I recorded you
and I'm going to get them transcribed and I'm going
to submit them in my.
Speaker 6 (34:06):
Four forty ten.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
He just stopped.
Speaker 6 (34:08):
He was like, oh, okay, Kelly, thanks for the heads up.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
After that, I said, that's going to be it. He's
never going to take a call again. I waited for
like two months. I called him back. He didn't hang
up on me. He was just a little bit more
cautious after that.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
It wasn't just Kelly who Sean was in contact with.
Kelly says he also made a lot of time for
her family too. Her brother started calling him. In fact,
it seems like During this time, Sean's going out of
his way to help Kelly's case before her sentencing. He
even sends her a transcript of the witness's testimony, where
(34:49):
he'd healthily marked up and notated certain sections that just
happened to include the problematic points in his story. I've
literally seen a copy of this. I still can't quite
believe it's real. A sitting assistant DA sending a cheat
sheet to the same woman he's trying to send to prison.
(35:10):
I've already struggled with unsuccessfully fitting Kelly into a nice
neat podcast shaped box, and now his Sean Clark, also
not playing the role I expected him to play. It is,
from his side, a very odd relationship to be keeping up.
I can see why you were doing it.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You know why, I believe. I mean, I can't speak
for him. I don't know if you've ever read the
telltale heart Egger Owl Poe. I think a guy killed somebody.
If I'm not mistaken, somebody was buried under the floorboards,
and you just kept hearing like beat beat, beat, louder
and louder and louder, And it was the man's conscience
(35:54):
the whole time. He did ask me one time, Kelly.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
Can I ask you a question, Why didn't you just
take the plea? So?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I said, because I didn't do it, Sean, I'm one
hundred percent innocent. And to tell you this, she was, Sean,
if I have to stay in prison for the rest
of my life and die here, I'd rather that than
to lie and say that I did something I didn't do.
He gave this heavy sigh.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
And he goes, Wow, you did always maintain your innocence.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
I wrote to Sean Clark asking him to comment on
the unusual relationship he had with Kelly, to ask why
he kept up those phone calls for so long, to
confirm if he spoke to her family, and if he
really did send those transcripts. And I got a reply,
but not from Sean. It was from the Queen's District
Attorney's spokesman, Brendan A. And Brendan didn't really respond to
(37:03):
anything I asked, like at all. He just doubled down.
Here's producer Jake reading from their response.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
On July seventh, twenty ten, Thomas Donovan and Kelly Harnett
murdered thirty two year old victim Reuben Angel Vargas an
Astoria Park, Harnett repeatedly kicked the victim while Donovan manually
strangled him. Hartnett handed a shoelace to Donovan, who then
used the lace as a ligature to further strangle and
kill the victim. An eyewitness's account was further corroborated by
(37:36):
the medical examiner, who found that strangulation was the cause
of mister Vargas's death. It took a jury of Harnet's
peers two hours to unanimously agree on a conviction. Miss
Harnett repeatedly attempted communications with the prosecuting attorney, unsolicited and uninvited,
(37:57):
despite overwhelming evidence of her guilt. In numerous court filings,
the defendant blamed her attorney, the court, the district attorney's office,
the jury, and the eyewakness. She blamed everyone but herself
for her guilty conduct.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
It feels like neither Brendan nor I can really speak
to why Sean Clark kept up this strange back and
forth with Kelly. It's possible he felt some doubts about
Kelly's conviction. Maybe as he got to know her more,
he saw her more as a victim and not the
villain he claimed. She was back in twenty thirteen. Maybe
he was trying to make up for that, or maybe
(38:39):
he's just a good guy who wants to help where
he can, including with Kelly's case against the officer.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
My brother got in touch with Sean Clark and told
him what was happening. Peta Ronnie. I guarantee you we're
going to get rid of him.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Kelly says. Sean makes some calls to the department who
are handling the investigation.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Now they're taking me seriously, they said, because we're getting
phone calls.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
Now.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
He really did save me, Sewan' Clark.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
The officer doesn't face any jail time, despite the fact
that Kelly says she and the other inmate the officer
was allegedly involved with both gave statements.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Western to the County District Attorney's office decided that there
was insufficient evidence to go through and prosecute him under
Penal Law one thirty, which is a sex offender.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
This is why I can't tell you his real name.
Because no charges were brought against him. He still legally
has the presumption of innocence.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
It was just such a traumatic situation.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
It really was.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
For it to have gone on for two and a
half years too, and then the worst came. They took
my job for.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Me working as a clerk in the law library. Being
the jail house lawyer, both back in Rikers and here
in Bedford, has been Kelly's one continuous source of strength
throughout her long incarceration. It gave Kelly suffering some meaning,
(40:18):
kept her fighting all these years, not just for her
own case, but for all her fellow inmate clients. Without
the law library, Kelly can't see how she can help anyone,
let alone prove her own innocence. And worst of all,
if she's not the jailhouse lawyer, then she's just another prisoner,
(40:43):
another villain with a guilty verdict, joining the ranks of
the walking dead.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
That's the worst thing you could have done to me.
That's when I just freaked out.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Next time on the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I think I'm gonna die here. It was a race
against time.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
Now I'm not thinking of her helping me, I'm thinking
of me helping her.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Listen, this new lodge is pissed in.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
She took Kelly's keys.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I just started screaming.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
I was like.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
The Girlfriend's Jaelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
is hosted by me Anna Sinfield and is written and
produced by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from
Jako Taivich and Michael Jinno. Our assistant producer is Madeline pa.
(42:00):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Sarie 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,
(42:24):
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 Nicki Eatoor are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to
(42:45):
Carrie Lieberman and the whole team at WME
Hey, girlfriends, it's Anna. Most of this episode takes place
in prison. There's going to be some mentions of murder
and some very serious domestic abuse, but you'll also get
to meet some more of the women Kelly got to
know while she was locked up, many of whom have
stories just as incredible and complex as hers. If you
feel impacted by some of the themes in this show,
(00:21):
you can reach out to No More. There are a
domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources to
help you or your loved ones. You can search No
More dot org and we've also put a link to
their website in the episode description. And as you know,
we all swear a little bit. It's October twenty thirteen.
(00:44):
Alone in her cramp cell, surrounded by towering piles of
legal documents, Kelly Hannett relives her trial over and over.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I was broken apart clearly for the first few d's
asley I lead in bed.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Her fellow Ryker's Island shorties can't believe the jury's decision, She.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Says, she had been found guilty. Well, like kill, it
is not playing because Kelly is a joke starre too.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's Angelica who you heard from an episode for Kelly's
friend with all the makeup tips.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
She will say, Now they found me guilty, and she
broke down and we were shot in.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
All of us started crying like how like how is
that possible?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Kelly left the courtroom, promising herself that she would take
down the prosecutor from her trial, Assistant District Attorney Sean Clark.
But instead she's barely left herself for days. She's moping hard,
head deep under the covers. Eventually, Angelica decides enough is enough.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
We had a rule, you have three days.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Of feeling sorry for yourself, and then you gotta get
out and figure it out, right D number three.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I borge into herself.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
That's all right, she said, shouty, that's it.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It's cool. It's time to get up.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So I got up. I sat up, and she said
what are you doing? I mean, what are you doing?
I said, what do you want me to do? I
was found guilty?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
She goes, ah, guilty, shmilty. She said, look around, paperwork, paperwork,
paper All I see here is paperwork.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
Kelly.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I said, yeah, I know, and it all went to nothing.
She goes, oh no it didn't. No, No, you're not
gonna go there with me.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Take your butt to that little library and figure something out.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Laying here is an option. You gotta get up, and
you gotta go.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm Anasonfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts,
This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse. Lawyer is episode six, Guilty
(03:35):
Schmilty By November twenty thirteen, Inspired by Angelica's Tough Love,
Kelly is back in the Riker's law library.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I started looking through everything, and that's when I found
a three thirty statue.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
At three thirty motion to set aside a verdict.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
November fifth, twenty thirteen. It was my first motion that
I put in, was all in and written, and it
was sixty eight pages.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Kelly doesn't want to leave anything to chance with this document.
She picks up the phone and calls, of all people,
prosecutor Sean Clark, the man who's just got her sent
to prison.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I wasn't sure if he was going to hang up
on me or speak to me, but he did say, yeah, yeah,
I received it. I said, so, what would happen when
I go back to court? Probably nothing, It'll probably be adjourned.
And this was the beginning of a seventeen month war
of attrition.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
For seventeen months. Kelly, a self taughtu our house lawyer,
holds her sentencing at bay, trying every legal avenue she
can find.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
He wrote emotion. I wrote emotion. Maybe sometimes that every
opposition I wrote for, and it came to a point
where they stopped answering me, so I kept writing motions anyway.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
A lot of Kelly's motions focus on what's called the
Brady Rule. It states that all evidence from the police
and prosecution is meant to be turned over to the
other side, especially things that could benefit the defense. And
while it hasn't been proven, Kelly alleges that this Brady
Rule was violated and that some evidence wasn't handed over.
(05:38):
She also states that much of what's missing relates to
the problematic eyewitness Amando Perez. She found evidence in a
police officer's notepad that he was known by a different name.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They made a mistake, they didn't redact one of the
portions and it said witness Armando contreris Perez.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
According to some online slew thing, Kelly's brother, rond Amando
Contreres Perez, well, he has some skeletons in his closet,
so I.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Witnessed my trial had an extensive criminal background that was
not turned over to me. Basically the biggest Brady violation
of all Kelly suspects.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Armando may have a criminal record, and that it could
have been white in exchange for his testimony against her,
although this hasn't been proven, and while I've seen a
photocopy of the notebook with the Contrera's name in it,
I haven't been able to find these criminal records myself.
But that doesn't mean it's all just tinfoil hat nonsense either.
(06:37):
Prosecutors do strike deals with individuals who have criminal charges
or convictions in exchange for their testimony against someone else.
Then there are the moves Kelly Mankes that are a
little more unorthodox, especially when it comes to Judge Lasac.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I got a hold of his first grade teacher.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Kelly says. She makes then through a chaplain called Sister Eileen,
who she met at Riker's And Sister Eileen knew the
nun who taught at the judge's school.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So the first grade teacher called them back, and from
my understanding, she was really pushing him and prodding him,
like set this girl's verdict, decide, like listen, I'm your
first grade teacher. They tried the porn nuns.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Kelly says. She also manages to somehow find the number
for Judge lay Sack's best friend. She is nothing if
not resourceful.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I left a message on his best friend's voicemail telling
the best friend how I'm innocent and they've made a
huge mistake.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I'm sure this all went down great with Judge lay Sack.
Kelly battles on and on and on, but after holding
off her sentencing for nearly a year and a half,
she's exhausted all her possible motions. No more delays. It's
time to go back to court. It's March twenty fifteen.
(08:06):
Kelly Hannett is standing in the same courtroom where she
was found guilty seventeen months ago. It's time for her sentencing.
She's facing twenty five years to life. This is Kelly's
final opportunity to speak, and in true Kelly style, she's
taking full advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I went on and on and on and on. I
was citing case law and constitutional violations.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I've seen the transcripts of this. It really does go
on for page after page.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
All of these people were standing in front of me
as I went on and on and on, and I
looked at some of their faces and their mouths were
up and like shock and awe. That was one of
my proudest moments because I had the ada. She means
Sean Clark suck in his teeth, sighing, and what does
(09:08):
it feel like? I felt like saying, like, you shut up,
it's my time now.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Kelly also says how sorry she is for Angel and
his family, but that she shouldn't be held responsible for
his murder. She says, I did not contribute to that
death in any way, shape or form. I was definitely
afraid of my co defendant. Kelly also says that had
(09:37):
she not done what she did, Tommy would have killed
her as well, and that instead of prosecuting a case
with one victim, it would have been too Kelly ends
her monologue by thanking Judge Lasak for his patients. Then
(09:57):
it's time for the judge to deliver his center, and
he doesn't hold back. I've asked producer Jake to read
from the court transcripts.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
We had to delay the sentence to allow you to
make every three point thirty motion that you deemed necessary
to make. And it has been delayed for quite a
number of months. This is a very sad case. The
court takes no pleasure in any sentence, especially a sentence
regarding a case like this. You are not the victim
(10:33):
in this case, and you are not a witness. We
all make choices in life, Miss Harnett, on this particular
night July seventh, back in twenty ten, you were with
a person that you made a choice to be with,
mister Donovan. You had a choice to take ten years
(10:56):
on manslaughter plea, and you chose not to, just like
you chose to stay with mister Donovan, and you chose
not to try and stop him, and you chose to
give him that sneaker lace, and you chose to kick him,
kick mister Vargas when he was down on the ground.
These are all choices that you made at that time.
(11:20):
And I'm sure Miss Harnett, you would wish you could
turn back the clock to July seventh, twenty ten and
act differently, and this never would have happened, and we
wouldn't be here and mister Vargas would be with his family.
But we have to deal with the reality, and the
reality is that you and mister Donovan acted in concert
(11:44):
and killed him.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
That was like a pretty terrifying transcript from her case,
wasn't it. Yeah, you did this and you did that,
and this is who you are. You know, you are
not a victim in this case. You are not a witness.
Speaker 7 (12:03):
It is heavy, it's really heavy.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, it's that use of the word choice that you
chose to do this, you chose to do that.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
There's no nuance in it for the judge. It feels
like the judge is almost like a representation of the
brick wall that like somebody in Kelly's position hits over
and over again as they try to just get understanding.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, and it makes sense that after that experience, she's
become so passionate about trying to get people to really
see who she is, you know, like to understand that
there's the like domestic violence aspect, as she said to me.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
On March twenty fifth, twenty fifteen, Kelly Harnett is sentenced
to a minimum of seventeen years in prison for the
murder of Reuben Angel Vargas and one year for the
criminal possession of a weapon a shoelace. In the eyes
(13:02):
of the law, Kelly is a murderer, a villain, not
a victim as she claims, And now she's finally going
where she belongs, Bedford Hill's Correctional Facility, the only maximum
security women's prison in the state of New York. When
Kelly gets to Bedford, She's immediately dropped into a new world.
(13:26):
She's out in the sticks of upstate New York, over
forty miles away from her family back in Queens and
away from her Riker's Island. Shorties after arriving, Kelly's brought
to an area known as the Jungle.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Why was it called the jungle because they're crazy. They
set their cells on fire on a regular basis. One
time there was the fire, but I hadn't been able
to use the phone for a week, so since everyone ran,
I ran into the phone room so I could finally
make a phone call. And I was like, well, when
the fiery gets really bad, I'll run. Like this is
(14:04):
how crazy it is in there.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
But underneath all the chaos, many of Kelly's fellow inmates
are lifeless.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Bad fruit. Everybody's dead. Everybody's dead inside. They're walking around,
but there's nothing in there.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Locked up away from her family, away from the world
surrounded by women so broken they're almost more zombie than human.
It would be understandable for anyone to throw in the
towel and join the walking dead. But this is Kelly Harnett.
She hasn't given up so far, and she's sure is
shit not going to give up now. Every morning, in
(14:45):
her green prison uniform, Kelly sits in her cell, in
front of her mirror and brings herself to life.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I made sure that under my state greens that I
always had a T shirt on that was a different
color than green, and that had to match my eyeshadow
as well as my lipstick every day and usually my earrings,
and I always wore a headband that matched that, because
that's a sense of individuality. I'm Kelly cloaked in a
(15:20):
guilty person's uniform, but I wanted the individuality to shine
through because I'm not guilty. I realized that when you're
just a detainee.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Meaning still a ways in your trial, you have.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Life and hope and whatnot. Now these people are walking
around with these twenty five to life sentences and they're hopeless.
I know so much about the law, so my first
thing was Jesus Christ, I have to help these people out.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Kelly's the first couple of weeks keeping her head down
getting to know the lay of the land, but she
can't stay away from the law library for too long.
And it's in there that Kelly starts to find people
who can relate to all the frankly fucking crazy experiences
she's had while locked up.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
One day, I started talking to him about how Riker's
iamon wanted to cut my leg off one time and
they had the wrong person. They literally wanted to amputate
my leg. Then they told me I had a tumor,
and I busted out laughing. I said, bring me back
to the unit. Me and my tumor would like to
leave now. I didn't have a tumor.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So he was overhearing Kelly holding court is one of
the prison officers. I'm just going to refer to him
as the officer from here on out.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
He actually started laughing. He said, Jesus, I thought it
was bed here. And then he started speaking to me,
and clearly I wanted to jump there, so I inquired,
and immediately he asked me, like, do you have any experience?
And I said a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Kelly is intrigued by the officer. There's something different about him.
He doesn't treat her like an inmate, like a number.
He's attentive. By August twenty fifteen, Kelly becomes a qualified
law clerk here in Bedford, making about twenty four cents
an hour. Kelly's back where she loves to be, neck
(17:37):
deep in a bunch of legal papers with a list
of grateful clients as long as her arm.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I don't know how many motions I rolled. I was
doing so much work.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And rather than embarrass myself by trying to explain the
complicated legal tactics being offered to the women of Bedford.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Hills, now it gets a little complex because for just vacation.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'll leave it to Kelly Harnett esquire.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I wrote her brief, and it was due to a
justification to fancountcy CPL three thirty thirty. Yet, like I said,
martians satisided vertict mass up section one of three thirty thirty,
which they said it must be two scent. There was
the weight of the evidence that behavior's corpus. I could
always do an article seventy eight, which would be directing
that the jury was wrong to date, I could reiterate everything,
(18:31):
including all of the cases. I became a person full
of hope for so many people at Bedford.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
But Kelly's not content with just inspiring hope. She wants
to do something big, something she says, no female Geilhouse
lawyer in the state of New York has ever done before.
With this in mind, one day she asked the officer
a question.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
How many people have got and other incarcerated individuals out
of here? He goes, like, you mean other inmates. Nobody's
ever done that? I said nobody. He said no. I said,
(19:20):
I'm going to be the first one to do that.
He looked at me. He goes, I hope you are.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
I hope you are.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
If I asked you to picture Kelly in prison, what's
the moment that you're seeing in your head.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Her yelling out of her cell or her door to open.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
This is Trinity. She was in prison with Kelly. They
lived on the same block, but they first met in
the law library.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
She's gonna laugh when she hears it.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
I'm telling you, she's gonna laugh because she knows what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Every morning at Bedford Hill's correctional facility, all inmates are
woken by the sound of their cell doors opening.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
They all open at once.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
All except Kelly's.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Every single day she had to yell to get her
door open, open, three open, three.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Open like you can you can like wait for it.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
All the doors would open, bam open three every single
day like it got Oh my god, like I literally
lost my mind over.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Trinity is thirty years old now, but she went to
prison when she was just a teenager.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Like Kelly, I have a domestic violence case. When I
was seventeen, I was with my father. My dad has
always been like an alcoholic and a pretty abusive towards
us growing up. My incident was it happened in July
twenty twelve. The short version is that my father was
(21:18):
drunk and tried to kill me, and I ended up
killing him and then I got arrested.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Trinity's story is depressingly similar to so many of the
women I've spoken to while making this series, women who've
experienced a life full of violence and extreme trauma, setting
them on a catastrophic path. Often they had to come
to prison to finally be free of their abuses and
(21:49):
to find a real family.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
In Bedford, Like we have nothing to do, so it's
like we just talk or laugh or play games or something,
watch a movie or whatever. One time we were playing
this boarding I think it was from my birthday party,
something like scategories, where it's like you had to roll
the die with the letter and then you had to
like try to like write down all the things that
began in that letter. So it was like different types
(22:14):
of cars, and the letter started with h I'm thinking
like a Honda.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Kelly's team mate is doing some more let's say lateral thinking.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Her partner said a hearse and it was so funny,
and Kelly thought it was the funniest thing. I mean,
she was laughing for so long and it made me
laugh too.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah. Wanting to stop her Badford family from becoming totally hopeless.
Like so many of her fellow inmates, Kelly pushes them
to relook into their own cases, like she's doing with hers.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
Kelly taught me that you can get out on a technicality,
like an infraction like something like that. So she encouraged me,
you know, like read your transcripts, go over it. If
it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have done that. More
than likely.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Working alongside Kelly in the law library, Trinity can see
how many inmates are relying on her. Kelly sees the
benefits too.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I had the protection from the Law Library. If somebody
tried me, I always tell them like, listen, this is
something you don't want to do, because I guarantee you
you will need me at some point in your bid.
And then other people would finally say, oh, this one
you don't touch like anybody else. I don't care. But
(23:30):
it's just because I was like the only lawyer you know,
Jelhouse lawyer. Obviously, Yeah, the.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Law Library offers physical protection from the other inmates, but
it's so much more important to Kelly than that. It's
her sacred safe space. But then something happens, something that
puts Kelly at risk of losing the law library job
she's worked so hard for. Kelly begins to spend more
(24:01):
time with the officer. He's been so helpful to her
throughout her incarceration so far, and as Kelly sees it,
he's one of the few good men she's met in
her life. But one day, Kelly says, their relationship crosses
a line from prison guard and prisoner into something else.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, he definitely he put the moons on me. He
started touching me and things of that nature. I'm not
going to lie. When we kissed for the first time,
that felt nice. I wanted to feel love, and when
you're taken away from human contact for so long, just
(24:46):
this feels good. I always just wanted to kiss and
like a hub I felt a lot when I kissed him,
and he said that he felt a lot too, And
then I was to get excited like I have a boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Deep down, Kelly knows what the officer is doing isn't right.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It was weird. It was kind of maybe like they
call it grooming.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I felt violated in every prison, not only in New York,
but across the whole of the USA. Sexual or intimate
relationships between prison officers and inmates are forbidden, and it's
not just against the rules, it's a crime. Even if
both the officer and inmate claim it was consensual, the
(25:39):
law wouldn't agree. The power and balances involved are just
too great.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I felt that I couldn't tell him no.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Kelly's worried what if this could jeopardize her access to
the law library.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
The law library is my life, and without the law library,
I'll probably never get home.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Kelly also knows how many of her fellow in mates
are depending on her.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I'm gonna let the whole facility down if this ever
gets out, because I'm taking care of everyone's cases, and
what would everyone ever do? So I felt that I
had to let him do these things to me.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Eventually, Kelly says, the officer reveals a different side of himself.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
He became abusive right along with the rest of them.
I would come in one day and he would like
slam the book down and be like demanding get these cases.
I didn't even do anything to him. He had me
going so crazy, roller coaster of emotions. I was like,
what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Kelly says. The officer would win her back on side.
He would spin her bullshit about how the two of
them would be together once she got out of prison.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
This went on for two and a half years.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
One day it all comes to a head.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
On my birthday. He wrote a note to me that
stated something about I can't wait to give the birthday
girl a kiss in playland.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Playland and honestly, I'm so fucking grossed out that I
have to repeat that word in this context is code
for the bathroom that the officer would allegedly sneak Kelly into.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Somebody found the note, so they know that we're having
a relationship.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
The person who finds the note is Trinity.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Something told me to keep it. And then I told
another one of my friends, not knowing that that other
friend also had a relationship with him.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Another inmate that the officer is accused of having an
inappropriate relationship with.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, it was bear Stard, I guess was screwing around
some with both of us at the same time. I
came in like a raging bull and I went ballistic
on him and I called him like every name in
the book that. I said, you little bastard. What you
(28:18):
can't get a girl on the outside, so you come
to prison to pray on the weak and vulnerable. You're sick.
And I said, I'm telling you right now, I'm going
to take this little library and use it to convict you.
And then he was like, oh it stop. Please. I said,
(28:39):
you're going to jail and you're going to be somebody's bitch.
He started crying and then he tells me, please don't
do this. I'm going to kill myself. I told him
that Tommy used to say that to me, and he
said to me you know what, you should have said,
(29:01):
do what you got to do. So when he said
I'm going to kill myself, I said, do what you
gotta do.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Kelly tells the prison about what's happened between her and
the officer. I've seen the documents to prove this, but
she says she doesn't get much of a response.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
They didn't take it seriously at all. As a matter
of fact, I told them that Trinity has the letter.
They went out of their way to not call Trinity
so that they wouldn't get evidence.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
There is one person who comes to Kelly's aid, someone unexpected,
the man who helped send her to prison in the
first place, Assistant District Attorney Sean Clark. Most of the
(30:10):
men in Kelly's life have not treated her the way
they should have. They've often been controlling, abusive, and at
times extremely violent. Seems like the officer was just the
latest in that long, unfortunate line. Kelly's brother Ronnie, has
really been the only exception, well apart from one other man.
(30:31):
I'm going to tell you about the curious case of
Kelly Harnett and Prosecutor Sean Clark. Their unusual relationship first
began in the months between Kelly's verdict and her sentencing,
when she started calling Sean on the phone.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Hi, Sean, it's Kelly, who was usually like, Hi, Kelly,
what is it this time?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Often Kelly would be calling to contest some part of
her case, or learying out what kind of motions she
thought should be filed. I can't stress enough how unusual
this all is. Defendants in murder trials do not call
up their prosecutors for a chit chat about the finer
details of their case. But Kelly says she just wanted
(31:20):
Sean to see her as a person, not just some defendant.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I'm not a number, I'm not a case. I was
trying to show him the level of humanity that they
never see, and I think he was starting to see it.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Kelly wasn't just calling him up. She was sending him
some special deliveries.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I would make comic books of what was going on
between me, Sean Clark, and mister Murder.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
When Kelly says mister murder, she means Judge lasac As
for Sean Clark. Do you remember in our last episode
where Kelly said he looked kind of like Clark Kent?
She was really serious about that.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I had people sending me Superman comics all the time, right,
and Supergirl. Supergirl had blonde hair.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
You can probably guess who Kelly put in the role
of the blonde haired Supergirl.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I cut out Clark Kent, and then Supergirl. I cut
her out and she was walking by a door. I
roll on the door while library, right, and then Supergirl
in the comic. I didn't have to touch it or
alter it. It actually said Clark, is that you I
can speak your language? Now, no way, that's right. It
(32:39):
was the first one I sent him. I waited till
I knew he got it. Then I called him up.
I was like, maybe he's gonna be really ticked off
about this. He was like, Hi, Kelly, I could hear
him smiling through the phone, you know, when you could
just he was almost giggling, Like you could just hear
(33:01):
his voice went up a few decibels. I never wanted
to harass him per se, but I think you could
suck up a few phone calls.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh yeah, absolutely. But did you ever worry that you
might be jeopardizing your chances more than helping? Not at all.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
No, no, because what are they going to do put
into evidence? A piece of a comic book like That's
why I made sure I left it at like these
ridiculous things that they would almost feel stupid bringing up,
and nobody ever brought it up.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, you're a very unique person, Kelly. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
I take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It's a compliment. It is a compliment for sure. These
conversations between Sean and Kelly lasted well beyond her sentencing.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I've even recorded Sean Clark and then called him up
afterwards and said, I, Shanna just wanted to let you
know that on the last two conversations I recorded you
and I'm going to get them transcribed and I'm going
to submit them in my.
Speaker 6 (34:06):
Four forty ten.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
He just stopped.
Speaker 6 (34:08):
He was like, oh, okay, Kelly, thanks for the heads up.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
After that, I said, that's going to be it. He's
never going to take a call again. I waited for
like two months. I called him back. He didn't hang
up on me. He was just a little bit more
cautious after that.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
It wasn't just Kelly who Sean was in contact with.
Kelly says he also made a lot of time for
her family too. Her brother started calling him. In fact,
it seems like During this time, Sean's going out of
his way to help Kelly's case before her sentencing. He
even sends her a transcript of the witness's testimony, where
(34:49):
he'd healthily marked up and notated certain sections that just
happened to include the problematic points in his story. I've
literally seen a copy of this. I still can't quite
believe it's real. A sitting assistant DA sending a cheat
sheet to the same woman he's trying to send to prison.
(35:10):
I've already struggled with unsuccessfully fitting Kelly into a nice
neat podcast shaped box, and now his Sean Clark, also
not playing the role I expected him to play. It is,
from his side, a very odd relationship to be keeping up.
I can see why you were doing it.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You know why, I believe. I mean, I can't speak
for him. I don't know if you've ever read the
telltale heart Egger Owl Poe. I think a guy killed somebody.
If I'm not mistaken, somebody was buried under the floorboards,
and you just kept hearing like beat beat, beat, louder
and louder and louder, And it was the man's conscience
(35:54):
the whole time. He did ask me one time, Kelly.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
Can I ask you a question, Why didn't you just
take the plea? So?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I said, because I didn't do it, Sean, I'm one
hundred percent innocent. And to tell you this, she was, Sean,
if I have to stay in prison for the rest
of my life and die here, I'd rather that than
to lie and say that I did something I didn't do.
He gave this heavy sigh.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
And he goes, Wow, you did always maintain your innocence.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
I wrote to Sean Clark asking him to comment on
the unusual relationship he had with Kelly, to ask why
he kept up those phone calls for so long, to
confirm if he spoke to her family, and if he
really did send those transcripts. And I got a reply,
but not from Sean. It was from the Queen's District
Attorney's spokesman, Brendan A. And Brendan didn't really respond to
(37:03):
anything I asked, like at all. He just doubled down.
Here's producer Jake reading from their response.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
On July seventh, twenty ten, Thomas Donovan and Kelly Harnett
murdered thirty two year old victim Reuben Angel Vargas an
Astoria Park, Harnett repeatedly kicked the victim while Donovan manually
strangled him. Hartnett handed a shoelace to Donovan, who then
used the lace as a ligature to further strangle and
kill the victim. An eyewitness's account was further corroborated by
(37:36):
the medical examiner, who found that strangulation was the cause
of mister Vargas's death. It took a jury of Harnet's
peers two hours to unanimously agree on a conviction. Miss
Harnett repeatedly attempted communications with the prosecuting attorney, unsolicited and uninvited,
(37:57):
despite overwhelming evidence of her guilt. In numerous court filings,
the defendant blamed her attorney, the court, the district attorney's office,
the jury, and the eyewakness. She blamed everyone but herself
for her guilty conduct.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
It feels like neither Brendan nor I can really speak
to why Sean Clark kept up this strange back and
forth with Kelly. It's possible he felt some doubts about
Kelly's conviction. Maybe as he got to know her more,
he saw her more as a victim and not the
villain he claimed. She was back in twenty thirteen. Maybe
he was trying to make up for that, or maybe
(38:39):
he's just a good guy who wants to help where
he can, including with Kelly's case against the officer.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
My brother got in touch with Sean Clark and told
him what was happening. Peta Ronnie. I guarantee you we're
going to get rid of him.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Kelly says. Sean makes some calls to the department who
are handling the investigation.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Now they're taking me seriously, they said, because we're getting
phone calls.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
Now.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
He really did save me, Sewan' Clark.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
The officer doesn't face any jail time, despite the fact
that Kelly says she and the other inmate the officer
was allegedly involved with both gave statements.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Western to the County District Attorney's office decided that there
was insufficient evidence to go through and prosecute him under
Penal Law one thirty, which is a sex offender.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
This is why I can't tell you his real name.
Because no charges were brought against him. He still legally
has the presumption of innocence.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
It was just such a traumatic situation.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
It really was.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
For it to have gone on for two and a
half years too, and then the worst came. They took
my job for.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Me working as a clerk in the law library. Being
the jail house lawyer, both back in Rikers and here
in Bedford, has been Kelly's one continuous source of strength
throughout her long incarceration. It gave Kelly suffering some meaning,
(40:18):
kept her fighting all these years, not just for her
own case, but for all her fellow inmate clients. Without
the law library, Kelly can't see how she can help anyone,
let alone prove her own innocence. And worst of all,
if she's not the jailhouse lawyer, then she's just another prisoner,
(40:43):
another villain with a guilty verdict, joining the ranks of
the walking dead.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
That's the worst thing you could have done to me.
That's when I just freaked out.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Next time on the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I think I'm gonna die here. It was a race
against time.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
Now I'm not thinking of her helping me, I'm thinking
of me helping her.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Listen, this new lodge is pissed in.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
She took Kelly's keys.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I just started screaming.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
I was like.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
The Girlfriend's Jaelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
is hosted by me Anna Sinfield and is written and
produced by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from
Jako Taivich and Michael Jinno. Our assistant producer is Madeline pa.
(42:00):
The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
from Sarie 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,
(42:24):
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 Nicki Eatoor are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to
(42:45):
Carrie Lieberman and the whole team at WME
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