August 25, 2025 • 39 mins
Years into her incarceration, with a decade left to serve… a new law might finally give Kelly, and some of her inmate clients, a chance at freedom.
But for some, it might have come too late.
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 to let you know what
to expect in this episode. Like with the last episode,
this one takes place inside prison. That'll be mentions of
murder as well as domestic and sexual abuse, plus some
distressing scenes. But you'll also hear how Kelly makes a
real difference for some of the women of Bedford Hills
in true Gailhouse lawyer style, and there's going to be
(00:22):
some bad language. Enjoy. Kelly Harnett's life changed forever on
July seventh, twenty ten, with the death of one man,
Reuben Angel Vargas, but his wouldn't be the last death
connected to her case.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The amount of people they have pairsd away within my case,
it's just it's very eerie. First, my trial attorney, who
was in his fifties, pairs to away.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
David Epstein. He died in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
My call Defennin's ex girlfriend who used to start fistfightsing
me every single day in Rikers passed away. There was
a man who was going to write an affid David
for me. He actually physically saw Tommy beating me up
all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I called.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
One night he passed away.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
You can't make these things up. It's eerie, Yeah, it is. Arie.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's twenty seventeen. Kelly's been in Bedford Hill's maximum security
prison for over two years. She has ten years left
of her sentence. It's a normal day. Kelly's in the
law library. She's going through the legal mail when she
sees something addressed to her. It's from a guy called Dan,
another house lawyer who Kelly refers to as the male
(02:02):
version of her. The two of them talk on the
phone sometimes abouts ideas, around formotions, test their legal arguments
on each other, that kind of thing. Kelly's curious about
what Dan sent her. She rips open the envelope.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Something pulled the ground from under me.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's about her co defendant, an ex boyfriend, Tommy Donovan.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
He died.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Tommy's died from an overdose in prison. He was thirty
eight years old. Kelly doesn't know how to feel. Part
of her is relieved the man who terrorized and abused
her is dead and can't hurt her anymore. But she's
also pretty fucking furious. Tommy killed someone in front of
her and then helped make sure she got dragged down
(02:57):
for it too, and now he's dead. Never able to
give evidence and take back what he said, while she
still has ten more years to rot behind bars.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
He got the easy way out. I did all the suffering.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
One good thing that Tommy did for Kelly, and there
aren't a lot of those to choose from, was when
he wrote that letter, the one he sent to Kelly's
trial lawyer David Epstein, that said he alone killed Angel
and that he had only incriminated Kelly out of anger
and jealousy. But now that Tommy's dead, that letter is
worth less than the paper it's written on, because now
(03:41):
that Tommy's dead, there's nobody else alive who is there
on the night of the murder who can attest to
Kelly's story in open court.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Why are people dying? Why are people dying?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I'm Anisonfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts.
This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer, Episode seven, Going Underground.
(04:41):
People are particular about their birthdays. Some of my friends
are determined to let theirs pass without so much as
a hint of fuss. And then I've got other friends
who claim the entire month for celebrations. I'll probably put
myself somewhere in the middle of those two. However, you
spend yours, I think it's fair to say, but it's
unlikely you'll be doing it behind bars. It's the twelfth
(05:08):
of August twenty nineteen, Kelly's birthday. This is the tenth
she's had while locked up. Kelly's thirty eight today, about
the same age Tommy Donovan was when he died two
years earlier. There's only so much you can do to
celebrate whilst you're in prison. It's not like you can
quickly nip out to Costco for a big cake, and
even if you could, the guards would probably end up
(05:29):
tearing it apart looking for rogue nail files. But Kelly's
Bedford family does try and make things special for her.
One year, one of Kelly's friends goes around the prison
and gets loads of women to write down some nice
things about Kelly. Then they put all the notes into
a hot pink, sparkly folder and give it to Kelly
as a present. They bake her a cake and throw
(05:51):
her a party. Kelly says it's the best birthday she's
ever had in or out of prison. Something special about
this birthday, her thirty eighth. For years, Kelly's been fighting
for her clients with one arm tied behind her back,
two arms. Sometimes getting verdicts overturned, cases reopened, and women
(06:14):
out of prison, even for an established lawyer on the
outside is extremely hard and very rare. For the women
of Bedford, the law just isn't always on their side.
But here's the thing. Laws change and a new one
has just come into effect. It's called the DVSJA, also
(06:36):
known as.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
The Domestic Violence Survivor is Justice Act. So I had
been studying this bill for ten years since Ryker's Island.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
The DVSJA, or an early version of it, was dreamt
up by the women of Bedford Penitentiary all the way
back in the eighties and now in twenty nineteen. It's
law is designed to be applied in resentencing motions. It's
meant to be used for the people who are already
in prison. In practice, it gets judges more opportunities to
(07:06):
consider how domestic abuse might have factored into someone's crime
in a way that wasn't considered at an earlier trial,
and then that judge can give out a new sentence.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
In order to submit a DVSJA, you had to be
incarcerated for at least eight years you had to be
a victim of domestic violence, the domestic violence had to
have been a significant kinshiputing factor of the crime, and
the third prong is based on the history of the
(07:37):
character and the condition of the defendant that this sentence
imposed wasn't Julie Harsh.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Kelly was really lost when she first got removed from
her job in the law library in late twenty eighteen.
She saw it as a retaliation from the prison Service
for reporting the officer she'd been having that secret inappropriate
relationship with. Kelly does get her job back at one point,
but then she's told that she's going to be removed again,
this time because of a new rule saying that an
(08:05):
inmate can't be in the same job for more than
thirty six months and that you need to wait a
full calendar year before getting that job back again. Kelly's
furious about it, and she's not alone. Her fellow inmates
really don't want her to be removed either. They rally
behind her, sending letters of support to the prison.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I have some of the letters myself, and some of
them are heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I've seen some of these letters. There's so many, and
you do really get the sense of how much Kelly
means to the women she's been helping. One of them says,
I'd lost all hope in the judicial system until Kelly
Harnett arrived. Miss Harnette has given me hope towards the future.
I fully trust Miss Harnette with my life, and her
possible removal will, in all likelihood take any hope that
(08:54):
I have left. As Kelly runs out the clock on
her job, she's studying the new Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act.
Because this is a brand new law, there's no existing
template to follow when it comes to filing motions, so
Kelly makes one.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
When I made this template, I started asking people if
they were victims of domestic violence. It was on my birthday,
on the very first day that it passed, there was
a girl that came into pick up meal.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
We'll call this girl Jessica. On Kelly's birthday in August
twenty nineteen, which of course she's spending in the law
library while she still can. She bumps into Jessica.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
She was like, hi, Kelly, And when she was walking out,
I said, wait, Kim, here, were you a victim of
domestic violence? And she was like yeah, And then I
said listen, this new lawg just pissed.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Kelly breaks down the workings of the DVSJA. Next, she
works up a motion for Jessica and it struckt her
on how to submit it.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Now, before you know it, the girl has a court date. Yeah,
she's screaming, I'm.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Going a court.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I was so happy because you never really saw people
go to court in Bedford. Like when someone went to court,
the whole place would know about it because it's such
big news. And she went to court. She came back
(10:37):
for like a day and she was gone.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
She went home. When Kelly first came to Bedford, she
promised herself that she would be the first jailhouse lawyer
to get someone out of prison. And now, finally, after
years and years of graft, she's done it. But why
(11:06):
stop at just one? In addition to Jessica, Kelly says
that she helps at least two more women get out.
One will called Stacy and the other will call Mikayla.
Another of the many women that Kelly helps is an
old friend from Rikers, Tasha. It's not her real name,
but it's what we're calling her. You first met her
back in episode four. Like Kelly, Tasha had witnessed her
(11:29):
then boyfriend commit a murder, but she ended up in
prison for it as well. She came to Bedford from
Rikers in twenty eighteen without much hope for her future.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
So I just have been I've seen her one day
in a walk week and I've seen I was like,
oh my.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
God, Kelly Tasha had just received some bad news about
her case.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
He said, I can appeal it. She said, yes, you can.
She told me what to do, she wrote it down.
I did it.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
I submitted it and it was accepted. And these people
told me I could doing a pill. That letter got
me the legal aid lawyer.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Now I'm excited. I got a lawyer. My first time
sitting with him.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
He's going very impressed on you know your pill people
broke you stay in low library alert and said, nope,
somebody did it for me.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Kelly has an inmate client waiting list as long as
her arm. She's getting through each of them as quick
as she can. But she's not prepared to do a
rush job. Firstly because Kelly is nothing if not a perfectionist,
but also because she knows how high the stakes are.
One of the next thing makes Kelly helps is a
woman called Lulu.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
We started out Lulu and I very slowly because I
had so many other people that I was assisting. However,
what made me put like bump her up on the
list was her perseverance. Lulu came to the law library
more often than anyone that I knew, and she stayed
(13:11):
for what they called the whole module, because some people
go and within an hour they say movement, and everybody
gets up and they can leave if they want. But
she would stay for the entire module. We were in
the process of actually reaching out to her attorney.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
But just as Kelly is starting to make progress, and
as Lulu must allow herself to imagine the light at
the end of the tunnel, there's a dark shadow growing
outside the walls of Bedford Hills. This shadow will morph
and swell, and neither Lulu, Kelly, or even the justice
(13:50):
system itself will be powerful enough to stop it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I didn't even get to finish the latter, and there was.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It before we go any further. There's some things I
(14:25):
want to tell you about Lulu. Her real name is Darlene,
but she's Lulu to her friends. She was born in Buffalo,
New York, in nineteen fifty eight and she was one
of thirteen children. Her story is like a really tragic case.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Lulu was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and then
when she was around just eight years old, her mother
was murdered.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I started getting acquainted first with her story. It was
complete heartbreaking. She kind of had to play the mother
role for many of her siblings. She had suffered throughout
her childhood just to eat a regular meal, and when
(15:21):
she got older, unfortunately, she had gotten into drugs. However,
the person that she was in a relationship with was abusing.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Her and.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
She felt that she was trapped in this abusive relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
According to Lulu, one night, a group of men turned
up at the house she shared with her partner. They
were after money owed for drugs. Lulu said they knocked
her out and when she came to, she saw her
partner had been stabbed. Lulu ended up being arrested and
charged for his death, and apparently, just like Kelly, had
(16:07):
given police statements while extremely intoxicated. Terrified at the prospect
of serving twenty five years, Lulu took a plea deal.
Back in twenty twelve, she pled guilty to first agree
manslaughter and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
When I heard that she took a plea bargain, I
realized she did not have effective representation of counsel because
this was a clear defense.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Kelly believes that Lulu should have had the chance to
speak in court about what she'd been through.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I believe that if they heard lu story that they
would have found her not guilty.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
She should not be here.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
This is not right.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
By the time Kelly starts working on her case, Lulu's
being locked up for over seven years. Kelly's heartbroken by
Lulu's story and impressed with her dedication despite all her challenges.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Lulu she was struggling as far as her education. I
don't think she went very far in school because she
had so many things that she had to do at
home for her family.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
After bumping Lulu up her list, Kellyan was to file
something called a four forty ten. It's a motion that
challenges the fairness or legality of a conviction, and if successful,
it can overturn a court judgment. But first they need
to check in with Lulu's original lawyer. Kelly wants to
ask him to sign an affi david, which is another
word for a written statement. The aim is to find
(17:39):
out if and why he advised Lulu to plead out.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I did not want the four forty to be denied,
but if I could get an effort David from him,
that's a piece of evidence.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
But it all comes too late, because it's now March
twenty twenty and the entire world is shutting down as
a global pandemic is on the rampage. On the sixteenth
of March, Bedford Hills locks down from COVID nineteen. The
(18:13):
inmates are kept in their cells for twenty three hours
a day. The work Kelly and Lulu are doing comes
to an abrupt stop. On March twentieth, Lulu sends a
message to her sister. She thanks her for sending a
care package and asks her to make sure her kids
are continuously washing their hands and face. COVID nineteen tears
(18:37):
through Bedford Hills. As infection rates surge all around her,
Lulu starts to panic. Lulu has chronic kidney disease and
an underlying heart condition. She's recently had open heart surgery.
On March twenty eighth, Lulu sends another message to her sister,
begging her to do all she can to raise the
(19:00):
alarm with the higher ups in the prison. She says,
I cannot afford to get this virus. It may kill me.
Please help. Lulu tests positive for COVID in early April
twenty twenty. Fellow inmates say she's been lying in her
(19:20):
cell for days, barely able to move. On April seventh,
she's taken to the Bedford Infirmary and then to the hospital,
where she's placed on a ventilator. One of Lulu's friends
says her family requests a video call, but that the
on duty officer guarding Lulu in the hospital refuses. Her
(19:42):
family eventually convinced the doctor to hold the phone to
her ear so they can say goodbye. Lulu dies alone
in hospital on April twenty eighth, twenty twenty, sixty one
years old. She's the first incarcerated woman in the state
(20:05):
of New York to die from COVID nineteen and if
you ask Kelly, she shouldn't have even been there in
the first place. Do you remember the first time you
learned that she had died.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I don't remember the date, but we cried like babies
the usual circumstances when somebody passes away. We have like
a memorial for them in the church, but because of COVID,
we couldn't even have that. I'm not gonna say I
(20:38):
was her best friend, but I mean that hit home
because I felt guilty. I felt like the way.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
She died in a hospital, she couldn't even talk to
her family. That it just breaks my heart. If I
got routes, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
What all those times that she came there, like, why
didn't I take her first?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Maybe she could have been all before COVID, and maybe
she would have still been alive. You'd think that seeing
Lulu pass away from COVID would have made Kelly a
hundred times more hyper vigilant about staying safe, but if anything,
(21:32):
it's the opposite. Due to the lockdown, the law library
is closed. They've also taken away access to the computer
tablets that the inmates can use to work on their cases.
The only place where you can still use these tablets
is in the infirmary. I can only imagine that after
seeing so many people die, not just those connected to
(21:52):
her own case but beyond, Kelly just becomes even more
desperate to secure her freedom before her own time runs out,
no matter the cost. So she does something extremely reckless.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I said, I have to catch COVID. I was telling
people to cough in my face. I was purposely telling people,
like after they're drinking something, I said, can you just
leave me a little sip of the drink out of
your cup? And finally, I actually really didn't feel well.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
She takes a test just to be sure.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Of course it was positive.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Now that she successfully infected herself, Kelly has her ticket
to the infirmary, but before that, she heads back to
herself to pick up the stuff she wants to take
in with her.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I had two enormous garbage bags worth of paperwork. Right away,
they stopped me and they want to know where the
hell I think I'm going with two bags of paperwork,
And I said, I'm going to the infirmary because I
(23:00):
tested positive. And they're trying to say I'm not allowed
to bring the paperwork, which is a lie, because I
clearly I have the directive memorize you are allowed to
bring paperwork. I threw the paperwork down and I just
laid across. I put one arm on one big and
one arm on the other. I said, I'm not going
(23:21):
into my cell. I'm pulling my mask off. You stay
the hell away from me. Anybody comes near me and
I'm going to go off all over all of you,
all of you. And it was so scared.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
It was scared to death.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
This went on for eight hours. So because of the
fact that it went on for eight hours, somebody finally
said just let her take it, so thank god. So
I took the paperwork eight hours later, and god, it
was so heavy, and I realized I was like, I was.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Like Jesus, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. Now, the
infirmary is quite a walk away, so you always know
who has COVID when they're being escorted.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Especially with their property.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So I have half the yard run up to me. Esquire, Esquire,
oh no, esqt library, all the library.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
But I couldn't even look at them.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I was watching the cracks in the grounds and like
I was starting to get tunnel vision because it was
so heavy and I couldn't breathe. And I remember looking
at the cracks in the grounds and saying, I think
I'm gonna die here. And I said, if I die here,
you know what. I died fighting.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Obviously, Kelly did not die from COVID nineteen, she makes
a full recovery and as for the work she's doing,
paying off her friend, Tasha is being resentenced.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
I was, oh my god.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
I was happy and scared and nervous. I think I
was maybe the third person in Bedford to get resentencing.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
This resentencing means that Tasha is getting out. She's one
of at least four people Kelly says she's helped regain
their freedom. The night before Tasha's resentencing in July twenty
twenty one, her and Kelly are hanging out in one
of the yards.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
She said, Kelly, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't
be walking out of these doors tomorrow. I said, oh,
you probably would at some point she said no, no,
I'm telling you I'd be doing I don't know, twenty
years or whatever.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
They got old Kelly the most everything with my every being,
because if it wasn't for her, I probably would never
have gone back to the lower Library.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
To try to find, you know, fight my way out.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
A lord is say they're supposed to have your faith
in God, but I had nothing but faith in her.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
The next morning, Kelly watches from her cell as her
friendly Spadford.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Behind standing on my window. I looked up and I
saw her going up the hill. I watched and I
started to cry. I was happy for her, but I
was like, I wish that was me. I wish that
(26:42):
was me, And I guess God heard that.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Kelly Hannett was officially removed from her job in the
Bedford Hills Law Library in April twenty twenty. She's still
allowed to go in there, but she's not allowed to
give legal help with cases anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
The law library was like driven into the ground after
I left.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
After losing the battle to keep working in the law library,
Kelly finally admits defeat. She stops taking clients and hangs
up her jailhouse lawyer boots for good. Now I'm only
taking the piss. The law is the true love of
(27:44):
Kelly Harnett's life, and she's not going to give it
up for anyone. And so, dear listener, I'm excited to
welcome you to Kelly Hannett's underground law library.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I just helping people on the unit. I started helping
people in the yards. I helped people, no joke, in snowstorms,
and I'm not even.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Kidding it was it got bared one rainy day Kelly's
in the prison yard doing some secrets prison rule breaking
door work for one of her inmate clients.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
They sold ponchos in the commissary. We had girls holding
two ponchos over us because the girl whose federal habeist
I didn't finish, she had like two days left, so
they held it over us so that we could finish it.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
While I was boring. I mean, if I was an
officer and I saw that, I would have thought much
worse things were happening underneath.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Oh that yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well they checked it out though, and they said, oh,
that's just Harnett, that's little library. Then they started searching
my cell, ripping it apart, looking for other people's law papers.
But I was never stupid enough to keep anyone's legal papers.
Every time I finished helping them, I get them right
back to them and say go ahead, I'll meet you
on another day.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Kelly's jail house lawyer reputation is so secure that even
when she's not in the law library anymore, people know
she's the person to come to. And now with the
vital tool of the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act in
her back pocket, it seems like she's unstoppable. One day,
Kelly heads into a place called the day Room. It's
(29:34):
on the on a floor where Kelly stays. It's a
section of the prison you get access to if you
have consistent good behavior or if you keep your clandesign
Law Library operation under wraps. And in there she finds
someone we're calling Tina, who's playing cards with some of
the other women on the floor. Tina has been in
prison since twenty sixteen. She suffered a lifetime of abuse
(29:57):
from family members, previous partner, and others. One terrible night,
following a drug relapse, she violently attacked her then boyfriend.
She was found guilty of attempted murder. Kelly and Tina
get to talking about what Kelly's been up to in
and out of the law library.
Speaker 7 (30:17):
She started telling me, you know how many people she's
helped along the way in how many you know appeals
she has put in for individuals.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And I'm just listening to her. Tina is a little
different from most of the other women Kelly deals with.
She doesn't need Kelly's help. She already has a lawyer
fighting her corner.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
I'm not thinking of her helping me. I'm thinking of
me helping her, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna reach
out to the lawyer that's helping me, is you know,
see what she can do or if she's willing to
take on this case.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
The lawyer's name is Kate Mogolescu.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
Kate was more than willing, and she was like, yeah, sure,
i'll you know, I'll look it up.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
I'll see what I can do.
Speaker 7 (31:02):
And eventually she did that and she took on Kelly's case.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I had a phone call with Kate mogula school and
Kate asked me, Kelly, would you like to write your
own motion? And I thought that was so cool and
I would love to write my own motion and I
said yes, absolutely. It wasn't until after she asked me
(31:33):
that that I realized, wait a minute, I can't just
jump on this like every single other statute and motion
and case. This is very different. This is where emotions
meet the law.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Kelly writes and writes, pouring her heart into each page.
She's constructing what's called the narrative, sharing the abuses and
trauma she suffered throughout her life, making the court see
how all built up to the one final catastrophic event
that put her behind bars. Once she's done, she hands
(32:15):
it over to Kate, who tweaks it and submits it,
and then they wait a few months. After their submission,
a response comes through.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Keith said to me, they're allowing you to replee. She
said fifteen years, but I was at thirteen.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I said no.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I said, it's time serves or nothing.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Kelly's lost too many years already, so she tells Kate
to go back and fight.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I just felt it.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
One day, Kelly practically leaps out of her cell and
starts booking it to the law library.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
I ran so that I could be the first one
in the kiask. I jumped on, I put my numbers in.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
She has a message.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And I was from Kate. She said, Kelly, they gave
you time served. You got it, Congratulations And I just
started screaming.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
I was like.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
And my best friends knew what was going on, so
they were like, you got it.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I was like, I got it. I'm going home.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
People started pounding on their doors.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Let me out, Let me out, so.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
That everybody came out from inside. They all just stood
there and clacked for me. We ran into the phone
(34:09):
room and I said, here's the phone call for years
I've been going over this phone call in my head.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
The phone called her brother, Ronnie and their mother.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I get to call them up and scream on coming on.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Kelly dials the number, her fingers shaking.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I said Hi, Ronnie, and he's like hi, and I said, right,
I'm coming on. He said, oh my god, Kelly, thank god.
But I'm like, why is he sounding like you? Normally
Ronnie would be screaming, but he's whispering.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
So I said till I.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
And he said, no, Oh, I can't Kelly.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
She's sleeping.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
And I said, Ronnie, I'm coming home from prison.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Wake her up.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
And he was like, Kelly, she can't talk. And I said,
what do you mean she can't talk. I just spoke
to her Ronnie the day before last. He said, I know,
I don't know what's wrong with her. She cannot speak.
I don't know what to do with her. Every time
I tell her I'm gonna call nine one one, she
(35:28):
shakes it. No, no, no, So I don't know what
to do. So I told Ronnie put me on speaker
and wake her up, and he did that, and I said.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Mom, I'm coming home. I'm coming home.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Kelly's mom doesn't reply.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I said, Ronnie, is she reacting? What is she doing?
He said, she gave a thumbs up and like that
broke my hell. I said, oh my god, my mother's dying.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
After serving twelve years helping at least four other women
get out of prison, Kelly Harnett has finally finally won
her own freedom. The day she'll get to walk out
of Bedford Prison is just around the corner. But it
might have come too late for her mother, Kathleen.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I needed to get out. It was a race against time, now.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Next time. On the final episode of The Girlfriend's Gel
House Lawyer.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
And when it came out of the yeats, I remember
a screaming and going and putting my arms in the air.
When I looked at her eyes, I said, that's my mother.
I couldn't believe for our scene and Sam stated, I
don't know where I stand with anything.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Will they put me in prison?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
They put everybody in prison. Really, it's over, It's over?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Is it over? The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by
Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel
(37:41):
dot Audio. The show is hosted by me Anasinfield 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. The editors are Georgia Moody and
me Annasinfield. Production management from Sarie Houston, Joe Savage and
(38:03):
Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman. Sound design,
mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music
supervision by me alis Infield, Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander.
Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.
Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative
(38:27):
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 Carrie Lieberman and the
whole team at WME
Hey, girlfriends, it's Anna here to let you know what
to expect in this episode. Like with the last episode,
this one takes place inside prison. That'll be mentions of
murder as well as domestic and sexual abuse, plus some
distressing scenes. But you'll also hear how Kelly makes a
real difference for some of the women of Bedford Hills
in true Gailhouse lawyer style, and there's going to be
(00:22):
some bad language. Enjoy. Kelly Harnett's life changed forever on
July seventh, twenty ten, with the death of one man,
Reuben Angel Vargas, but his wouldn't be the last death
connected to her case.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The amount of people they have pairsd away within my case,
it's just it's very eerie. First, my trial attorney, who
was in his fifties, pairs to away.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
David Epstein. He died in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
My call Defennin's ex girlfriend who used to start fistfightsing
me every single day in Rikers passed away. There was
a man who was going to write an affid David
for me. He actually physically saw Tommy beating me up
all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I called.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
One night he passed away.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
You can't make these things up. It's eerie, Yeah, it is. Arie.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's twenty seventeen. Kelly's been in Bedford Hill's maximum security
prison for over two years. She has ten years left
of her sentence. It's a normal day. Kelly's in the
law library. She's going through the legal mail when she
sees something addressed to her. It's from a guy called Dan,
another house lawyer who Kelly refers to as the male
(02:02):
version of her. The two of them talk on the
phone sometimes abouts ideas, around formotions, test their legal arguments
on each other, that kind of thing. Kelly's curious about
what Dan sent her. She rips open the envelope.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Something pulled the ground from under me.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's about her co defendant, an ex boyfriend, Tommy Donovan.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
He died.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Tommy's died from an overdose in prison. He was thirty
eight years old. Kelly doesn't know how to feel. Part
of her is relieved the man who terrorized and abused
her is dead and can't hurt her anymore. But she's
also pretty fucking furious. Tommy killed someone in front of
her and then helped make sure she got dragged down
(02:57):
for it too, and now he's dead. Never able to
give evidence and take back what he said, while she
still has ten more years to rot behind bars.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
He got the easy way out. I did all the suffering.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
One good thing that Tommy did for Kelly, and there
aren't a lot of those to choose from, was when
he wrote that letter, the one he sent to Kelly's
trial lawyer David Epstein, that said he alone killed Angel
and that he had only incriminated Kelly out of anger
and jealousy. But now that Tommy's dead, that letter is
worth less than the paper it's written on, because now
(03:41):
that Tommy's dead, there's nobody else alive who is there
on the night of the murder who can attest to
Kelly's story in open court.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Why are people dying? Why are people dying?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I'm Anisonfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts.
This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer, Episode seven, Going Underground.
(04:41):
People are particular about their birthdays. Some of my friends
are determined to let theirs pass without so much as
a hint of fuss. And then I've got other friends
who claim the entire month for celebrations. I'll probably put
myself somewhere in the middle of those two. However, you
spend yours, I think it's fair to say, but it's
unlikely you'll be doing it behind bars. It's the twelfth
(05:08):
of August twenty nineteen, Kelly's birthday. This is the tenth
she's had while locked up. Kelly's thirty eight today, about
the same age Tommy Donovan was when he died two
years earlier. There's only so much you can do to
celebrate whilst you're in prison. It's not like you can
quickly nip out to Costco for a big cake, and
even if you could, the guards would probably end up
(05:29):
tearing it apart looking for rogue nail files. But Kelly's
Bedford family does try and make things special for her.
One year, one of Kelly's friends goes around the prison
and gets loads of women to write down some nice
things about Kelly. Then they put all the notes into
a hot pink, sparkly folder and give it to Kelly
as a present. They bake her a cake and throw
(05:51):
her a party. Kelly says it's the best birthday she's
ever had in or out of prison. Something special about
this birthday, her thirty eighth. For years, Kelly's been fighting
for her clients with one arm tied behind her back,
two arms. Sometimes getting verdicts overturned, cases reopened, and women
(06:14):
out of prison, even for an established lawyer on the
outside is extremely hard and very rare. For the women
of Bedford, the law just isn't always on their side.
But here's the thing. Laws change and a new one
has just come into effect. It's called the DVSJA, also
(06:36):
known as.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
The Domestic Violence Survivor is Justice Act. So I had
been studying this bill for ten years since Ryker's Island.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
The DVSJA, or an early version of it, was dreamt
up by the women of Bedford Penitentiary all the way
back in the eighties and now in twenty nineteen. It's
law is designed to be applied in resentencing motions. It's
meant to be used for the people who are already
in prison. In practice, it gets judges more opportunities to
(07:06):
consider how domestic abuse might have factored into someone's crime
in a way that wasn't considered at an earlier trial,
and then that judge can give out a new sentence.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
In order to submit a DVSJA, you had to be
incarcerated for at least eight years you had to be
a victim of domestic violence, the domestic violence had to
have been a significant kinshiputing factor of the crime, and
the third prong is based on the history of the
(07:37):
character and the condition of the defendant that this sentence
imposed wasn't Julie Harsh.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Kelly was really lost when she first got removed from
her job in the law library in late twenty eighteen.
She saw it as a retaliation from the prison Service
for reporting the officer she'd been having that secret inappropriate
relationship with. Kelly does get her job back at one point,
but then she's told that she's going to be removed again,
this time because of a new rule saying that an
(08:05):
inmate can't be in the same job for more than
thirty six months and that you need to wait a
full calendar year before getting that job back again. Kelly's
furious about it, and she's not alone. Her fellow inmates
really don't want her to be removed either. They rally
behind her, sending letters of support to the prison.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I have some of the letters myself, and some of
them are heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I've seen some of these letters. There's so many, and
you do really get the sense of how much Kelly
means to the women she's been helping. One of them says,
I'd lost all hope in the judicial system until Kelly
Harnett arrived. Miss Harnette has given me hope towards the future.
I fully trust Miss Harnette with my life, and her
possible removal will, in all likelihood take any hope that
(08:54):
I have left. As Kelly runs out the clock on
her job, she's studying the new Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act.
Because this is a brand new law, there's no existing
template to follow when it comes to filing motions, so
Kelly makes one.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
When I made this template, I started asking people if
they were victims of domestic violence. It was on my birthday,
on the very first day that it passed, there was
a girl that came into pick up meal.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
We'll call this girl Jessica. On Kelly's birthday in August
twenty nineteen, which of course she's spending in the law
library while she still can. She bumps into Jessica.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
She was like, hi, Kelly, And when she was walking out,
I said, wait, Kim, here, were you a victim of
domestic violence? And she was like yeah, And then I
said listen, this new lawg just pissed.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Kelly breaks down the workings of the DVSJA. Next, she
works up a motion for Jessica and it struckt her
on how to submit it.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Now, before you know it, the girl has a court date. Yeah,
she's screaming, I'm.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Going a court.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I was so happy because you never really saw people
go to court in Bedford. Like when someone went to court,
the whole place would know about it because it's such
big news. And she went to court. She came back
(10:37):
for like a day and she was gone.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
She went home. When Kelly first came to Bedford, she
promised herself that she would be the first jailhouse lawyer
to get someone out of prison. And now, finally, after
years and years of graft, she's done it. But why
(11:06):
stop at just one? In addition to Jessica, Kelly says
that she helps at least two more women get out.
One will called Stacy and the other will call Mikayla.
Another of the many women that Kelly helps is an
old friend from Rikers, Tasha. It's not her real name,
but it's what we're calling her. You first met her
back in episode four. Like Kelly, Tasha had witnessed her
(11:29):
then boyfriend commit a murder, but she ended up in
prison for it as well. She came to Bedford from
Rikers in twenty eighteen without much hope for her future.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
So I just have been I've seen her one day
in a walk week and I've seen I was like,
oh my.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
God, Kelly Tasha had just received some bad news about
her case.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
He said, I can appeal it. She said, yes, you can.
She told me what to do, she wrote it down.
I did it.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
I submitted it and it was accepted. And these people
told me I could doing a pill. That letter got
me the legal aid lawyer.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Now I'm excited. I got a lawyer. My first time
sitting with him.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
He's going very impressed on you know your pill people
broke you stay in low library alert and said, nope,
somebody did it for me.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Kelly has an inmate client waiting list as long as
her arm. She's getting through each of them as quick
as she can. But she's not prepared to do a
rush job. Firstly because Kelly is nothing if not a perfectionist,
but also because she knows how high the stakes are.
One of the next thing makes Kelly helps is a
woman called Lulu.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
We started out Lulu and I very slowly because I
had so many other people that I was assisting. However,
what made me put like bump her up on the
list was her perseverance. Lulu came to the law library
more often than anyone that I knew, and she stayed
(13:11):
for what they called the whole module, because some people
go and within an hour they say movement, and everybody
gets up and they can leave if they want. But
she would stay for the entire module. We were in
the process of actually reaching out to her attorney.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
But just as Kelly is starting to make progress, and
as Lulu must allow herself to imagine the light at
the end of the tunnel, there's a dark shadow growing
outside the walls of Bedford Hills. This shadow will morph
and swell, and neither Lulu, Kelly, or even the justice
(13:50):
system itself will be powerful enough to stop it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I didn't even get to finish the latter, and there was.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It before we go any further. There's some things I
(14:25):
want to tell you about Lulu. Her real name is Darlene,
but she's Lulu to her friends. She was born in Buffalo,
New York, in nineteen fifty eight and she was one
of thirteen children. Her story is like a really tragic case.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It really is.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Lulu was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and then
when she was around just eight years old, her mother
was murdered.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I started getting acquainted first with her story. It was
complete heartbreaking. She kind of had to play the mother
role for many of her siblings. She had suffered throughout
her childhood just to eat a regular meal, and when
(15:21):
she got older, unfortunately, she had gotten into drugs. However,
the person that she was in a relationship with was abusing.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Her and.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
She felt that she was trapped in this abusive relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
According to Lulu, one night, a group of men turned
up at the house she shared with her partner. They
were after money owed for drugs. Lulu said they knocked
her out and when she came to, she saw her
partner had been stabbed. Lulu ended up being arrested and
charged for his death, and apparently, just like Kelly, had
(16:07):
given police statements while extremely intoxicated. Terrified at the prospect
of serving twenty five years, Lulu took a plea deal.
Back in twenty twelve, she pled guilty to first agree
manslaughter and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
When I heard that she took a plea bargain, I
realized she did not have effective representation of counsel because
this was a clear defense.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Kelly believes that Lulu should have had the chance to
speak in court about what she'd been through.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I believe that if they heard lu story that they
would have found her not guilty.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
She should not be here.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
This is not right.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
By the time Kelly starts working on her case, Lulu's
being locked up for over seven years. Kelly's heartbroken by
Lulu's story and impressed with her dedication despite all her challenges.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Lulu she was struggling as far as her education. I
don't think she went very far in school because she
had so many things that she had to do at
home for her family.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
After bumping Lulu up her list, Kellyan was to file
something called a four forty ten. It's a motion that
challenges the fairness or legality of a conviction, and if successful,
it can overturn a court judgment. But first they need
to check in with Lulu's original lawyer. Kelly wants to
ask him to sign an affi david, which is another
word for a written statement. The aim is to find
(17:39):
out if and why he advised Lulu to plead out.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I did not want the four forty to be denied,
but if I could get an effort David from him,
that's a piece of evidence.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
But it all comes too late, because it's now March
twenty twenty and the entire world is shutting down as
a global pandemic is on the rampage. On the sixteenth
of March, Bedford Hills locks down from COVID nineteen. The
(18:13):
inmates are kept in their cells for twenty three hours
a day. The work Kelly and Lulu are doing comes
to an abrupt stop. On March twentieth, Lulu sends a
message to her sister. She thanks her for sending a
care package and asks her to make sure her kids
are continuously washing their hands and face. COVID nineteen tears
(18:37):
through Bedford Hills. As infection rates surge all around her,
Lulu starts to panic. Lulu has chronic kidney disease and
an underlying heart condition. She's recently had open heart surgery.
On March twenty eighth, Lulu sends another message to her sister,
begging her to do all she can to raise the
(19:00):
alarm with the higher ups in the prison. She says,
I cannot afford to get this virus. It may kill me.
Please help. Lulu tests positive for COVID in early April
twenty twenty. Fellow inmates say she's been lying in her
(19:20):
cell for days, barely able to move. On April seventh,
she's taken to the Bedford Infirmary and then to the hospital,
where she's placed on a ventilator. One of Lulu's friends
says her family requests a video call, but that the
on duty officer guarding Lulu in the hospital refuses. Her
(19:42):
family eventually convinced the doctor to hold the phone to
her ear so they can say goodbye. Lulu dies alone
in hospital on April twenty eighth, twenty twenty, sixty one
years old. She's the first incarcerated woman in the state
(20:05):
of New York to die from COVID nineteen and if
you ask Kelly, she shouldn't have even been there in
the first place. Do you remember the first time you
learned that she had died.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I don't remember the date, but we cried like babies
the usual circumstances when somebody passes away. We have like
a memorial for them in the church, but because of COVID,
we couldn't even have that. I'm not gonna say I
(20:38):
was her best friend, but I mean that hit home
because I felt guilty. I felt like the way.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
She died in a hospital, she couldn't even talk to
her family. That it just breaks my heart. If I
got routes, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
What all those times that she came there, like, why
didn't I take her first?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Maybe she could have been all before COVID, and maybe
she would have still been alive. You'd think that seeing
Lulu pass away from COVID would have made Kelly a
hundred times more hyper vigilant about staying safe, but if anything,
(21:32):
it's the opposite. Due to the lockdown, the law library
is closed. They've also taken away access to the computer
tablets that the inmates can use to work on their cases.
The only place where you can still use these tablets
is in the infirmary. I can only imagine that after
seeing so many people die, not just those connected to
(21:52):
her own case but beyond, Kelly just becomes even more
desperate to secure her freedom before her own time runs out,
no matter the cost. So she does something extremely reckless.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I said, I have to catch COVID. I was telling
people to cough in my face. I was purposely telling people,
like after they're drinking something, I said, can you just
leave me a little sip of the drink out of
your cup? And finally, I actually really didn't feel well.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
She takes a test just to be sure.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Of course it was positive.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Now that she successfully infected herself, Kelly has her ticket
to the infirmary, but before that, she heads back to
herself to pick up the stuff she wants to take
in with her.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I had two enormous garbage bags worth of paperwork. Right away,
they stopped me and they want to know where the
hell I think I'm going with two bags of paperwork,
And I said, I'm going to the infirmary because I
(23:00):
tested positive. And they're trying to say I'm not allowed
to bring the paperwork, which is a lie, because I
clearly I have the directive memorize you are allowed to
bring paperwork. I threw the paperwork down and I just
laid across. I put one arm on one big and
one arm on the other. I said, I'm not going
(23:21):
into my cell. I'm pulling my mask off. You stay
the hell away from me. Anybody comes near me and
I'm going to go off all over all of you,
all of you. And it was so scared.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
It was scared to death.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
This went on for eight hours. So because of the
fact that it went on for eight hours, somebody finally
said just let her take it, so thank god. So
I took the paperwork eight hours later, and god, it
was so heavy, and I realized I was like, I was.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Like Jesus, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. Now, the
infirmary is quite a walk away, so you always know
who has COVID when they're being escorted.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Especially with their property.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So I have half the yard run up to me. Esquire, Esquire,
oh no, esqt library, all the library.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
But I couldn't even look at them.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I was watching the cracks in the grounds and like
I was starting to get tunnel vision because it was
so heavy and I couldn't breathe. And I remember looking
at the cracks in the grounds and saying, I think
I'm gonna die here. And I said, if I die here,
you know what. I died fighting.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Obviously, Kelly did not die from COVID nineteen, she makes
a full recovery and as for the work she's doing,
paying off her friend, Tasha is being resentenced.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
I was, oh my god.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
I was happy and scared and nervous. I think I
was maybe the third person in Bedford to get resentencing.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
This resentencing means that Tasha is getting out. She's one
of at least four people Kelly says she's helped regain
their freedom. The night before Tasha's resentencing in July twenty
twenty one, her and Kelly are hanging out in one
of the yards.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
She said, Kelly, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't
be walking out of these doors tomorrow. I said, oh,
you probably would at some point she said no, no,
I'm telling you I'd be doing I don't know, twenty
years or whatever.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
They got old Kelly the most everything with my every being,
because if it wasn't for her, I probably would never
have gone back to the lower Library.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
To try to find, you know, fight my way out.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
A lord is say they're supposed to have your faith
in God, but I had nothing but faith in her.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
The next morning, Kelly watches from her cell as her
friendly Spadford.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Behind standing on my window. I looked up and I
saw her going up the hill. I watched and I
started to cry. I was happy for her, but I
was like, I wish that was me. I wish that
(26:42):
was me, And I guess God heard that.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Kelly Hannett was officially removed from her job in the
Bedford Hills Law Library in April twenty twenty. She's still
allowed to go in there, but she's not allowed to
give legal help with cases anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
The law library was like driven into the ground after
I left.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
After losing the battle to keep working in the law library,
Kelly finally admits defeat. She stops taking clients and hangs
up her jailhouse lawyer boots for good. Now I'm only
taking the piss. The law is the true love of
(27:44):
Kelly Harnett's life, and she's not going to give it
up for anyone. And so, dear listener, I'm excited to
welcome you to Kelly Hannett's underground law library.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I just helping people on the unit. I started helping
people in the yards. I helped people, no joke, in snowstorms,
and I'm not even.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Kidding it was it got bared one rainy day Kelly's
in the prison yard doing some secrets prison rule breaking
door work for one of her inmate clients.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
They sold ponchos in the commissary. We had girls holding
two ponchos over us because the girl whose federal habeist
I didn't finish, she had like two days left, so
they held it over us so that we could finish it.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
While I was boring. I mean, if I was an
officer and I saw that, I would have thought much
worse things were happening underneath.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Oh that yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well they checked it out though, and they said, oh,
that's just Harnett, that's little library. Then they started searching
my cell, ripping it apart, looking for other people's law papers.
But I was never stupid enough to keep anyone's legal papers.
Every time I finished helping them, I get them right
back to them and say go ahead, I'll meet you
on another day.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Kelly's jail house lawyer reputation is so secure that even
when she's not in the law library anymore, people know
she's the person to come to. And now with the
vital tool of the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act in
her back pocket, it seems like she's unstoppable. One day,
Kelly heads into a place called the day Room. It's
(29:34):
on the on a floor where Kelly stays. It's a
section of the prison you get access to if you
have consistent good behavior or if you keep your clandesign
Law Library operation under wraps. And in there she finds
someone we're calling Tina, who's playing cards with some of
the other women on the floor. Tina has been in
prison since twenty sixteen. She suffered a lifetime of abuse
(29:57):
from family members, previous partner, and others. One terrible night,
following a drug relapse, she violently attacked her then boyfriend.
She was found guilty of attempted murder. Kelly and Tina
get to talking about what Kelly's been up to in
and out of the law library.
Speaker 7 (30:17):
She started telling me, you know how many people she's
helped along the way in how many you know appeals
she has put in for individuals.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And I'm just listening to her. Tina is a little
different from most of the other women Kelly deals with.
She doesn't need Kelly's help. She already has a lawyer
fighting her corner.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
I'm not thinking of her helping me. I'm thinking of
me helping her, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna reach
out to the lawyer that's helping me, is you know,
see what she can do or if she's willing to
take on this case.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
The lawyer's name is Kate Mogolescu.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
Kate was more than willing, and she was like, yeah, sure,
i'll you know, I'll look it up.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
I'll see what I can do.
Speaker 7 (31:02):
And eventually she did that and she took on Kelly's case.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I had a phone call with Kate mogula school and
Kate asked me, Kelly, would you like to write your
own motion? And I thought that was so cool and
I would love to write my own motion and I
said yes, absolutely. It wasn't until after she asked me
(31:33):
that that I realized, wait a minute, I can't just
jump on this like every single other statute and motion
and case. This is very different. This is where emotions
meet the law.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Kelly writes and writes, pouring her heart into each page.
She's constructing what's called the narrative, sharing the abuses and
trauma she suffered throughout her life, making the court see
how all built up to the one final catastrophic event
that put her behind bars. Once she's done, she hands
(32:15):
it over to Kate, who tweaks it and submits it,
and then they wait a few months. After their submission,
a response comes through.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Keith said to me, they're allowing you to replee. She
said fifteen years, but I was at thirteen.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I said no.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I said, it's time serves or nothing.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Kelly's lost too many years already, so she tells Kate
to go back and fight.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I just felt it.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
One day, Kelly practically leaps out of her cell and
starts booking it to the law library.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
I ran so that I could be the first one
in the kiask. I jumped on, I put my numbers in.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
She has a message.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
And I was from Kate. She said, Kelly, they gave
you time served. You got it, Congratulations And I just
started screaming.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
I was like.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
And my best friends knew what was going on, so
they were like, you got it.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I was like, I got it. I'm going home.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
People started pounding on their doors.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Let me out, Let me out, so.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
That everybody came out from inside. They all just stood
there and clacked for me. We ran into the phone
(34:09):
room and I said, here's the phone call for years
I've been going over this phone call in my head.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
The phone called her brother, Ronnie and their mother.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I get to call them up and scream on coming on.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Kelly dials the number, her fingers shaking.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I said Hi, Ronnie, and he's like hi, and I said, right,
I'm coming on. He said, oh my god, Kelly, thank god.
But I'm like, why is he sounding like you? Normally
Ronnie would be screaming, but he's whispering.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
So I said till I.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
And he said, no, Oh, I can't Kelly.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
She's sleeping.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
And I said, Ronnie, I'm coming home from prison.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Wake her up.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
And he was like, Kelly, she can't talk. And I said,
what do you mean she can't talk. I just spoke
to her Ronnie the day before last. He said, I know,
I don't know what's wrong with her. She cannot speak.
I don't know what to do with her. Every time
I tell her I'm gonna call nine one one, she
(35:28):
shakes it. No, no, no, So I don't know what
to do. So I told Ronnie put me on speaker
and wake her up, and he did that, and I said.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Mom, I'm coming home. I'm coming home.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Kelly's mom doesn't reply.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I said, Ronnie, is she reacting? What is she doing?
He said, she gave a thumbs up and like that
broke my hell. I said, oh my god, my mother's dying.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
After serving twelve years helping at least four other women
get out of prison, Kelly Harnett has finally finally won
her own freedom. The day she'll get to walk out
of Bedford Prison is just around the corner. But it
might have come too late for her mother, Kathleen.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I needed to get out. It was a race against time, now.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Next time. On the final episode of The Girlfriend's Gel
House Lawyer.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
And when it came out of the yeats, I remember
a screaming and going and putting my arms in the air.
When I looked at her eyes, I said, that's my mother.
I couldn't believe for our scene and Sam stated, I
don't know where I stand with anything.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Will they put me in prison?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
They put everybody in prison. Really, it's over, It's over?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Is it over? The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by
Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel
(37:41):
dot Audio. The show is hosted by me Anasinfield 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. The editors are Georgia Moody and
me Annasinfield. Production management from Sarie Houston, Joe Savage and
(38:03):
Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman. Sound design,
mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music
supervision by me alis Infield, Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander.
Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.
Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative
(38:27):
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 Carrie Lieberman and the
whole team at WME
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