June 18, 2024 • 59 mins
What would you do if faced with a 24-year prison sentence for a crime you didn't fully understand? This episode features the extraordinary Amy Povah, an advocate in prison and marijuana reform, and founder of the Can-Do Foundation. Her story begins Dallas and Arkansas, weaving through a complicated legal journey involving MDMA that dramatically changed her life. Amy's candid recounting of naivety and manipulation offers a gripping exploration of the legal system's complexities and the harsh realities faced by many caught in its net.
We transport you back to a pivotal moment in 1989, where a federal raid on a Hollywood Hills home turns lives upside down. The vivid narrative captures the chaos, fear, and emotional turmoil experienced during the raid, contrasting the different approaches of law enforcement officers involved. Amy's personal reflections on her 24-year sentence, the disparities in judicial outcomes, and the profound impact of media and political advocacy will leave you questioning the fairness of our justice system. Hear how a Glamour magazine article and influential politicians played crucial roles in her eventual clemency effort.
Amy's tireless work through the Can-Do Foundation is nothing short of inspiring. In this episode, she sheds light on the foundation's advocacy for nonviolent drug offenders, especially women, and shares poignant success stories that underscore the power of collaborative campaigning. We'll also delve into the broader landscape of criminal justice reform, including significant efforts like the First Step Act and the recent closure of the Dublin facility. Amy's commitment to justice and reform provides a compelling case for continued advocacy and shines a light on the ongoing challenges within the prison system.
Produced by: Citrustream, LLC
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, it's my privilege today to have Ms Amy
Pova on Justice Then Justice Now.
Amy is quite a remarkableindividual that I've gotten to
know very, very well over thelast couple of years due to very
unforeseen circumstances thatoccurred not only with me
(00:24):
professionally but in my life.
Amy is a role model to manypeople in society.
She has had the attention ofthe White House, she's been
there, she's a prison reformactivist and also a marijuana
(00:46):
reform activist.
She has met with Gerald Kushnerand the First Step Act.
Involved in that, she has anorganization called the Can Do
Foundation which is made up, andshe will be a very valuable
(01:06):
friend and asset to this podcastand will periodically be on
because she's referring peoplethat have outstanding stories to
tell as far as second chancesthat were given to them and how
they've succeeded.
And Amy has the most respectfor law enforcement and the
(01:30):
respect for everybody thatfollows the rules in the
criminal justice system.
Okay, and we all know that thereare problems in the criminal
justice system.
That's the purpose of thispodcast and what we're trying to
do is discuss them and come upwith some ideas.
This show is not a bunch oftalking heads with no experience
(01:53):
or political people that get onand have no idea about it.
We'll be covering everything,from the border to everything
the current drug problem, therehabilitation that we have
going on nationwide.
So I'd like to welcome you, amy, to the premiere editions of
(02:18):
this podcast and I look forwardto us working together in the
future, my friend.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Thank you, Tobias.
It's really been nice workingwith you and looking forward to
working together in the future.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your
background and where you grew up, and your story on what you've
accomplished?
Your story on what you'veaccomplished.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well, I was born in Dallas, texas, and raised in
Arkansas.
From the time I was about fiveyears old and my parents moved
to Arkansas because there was amoment in time back in the 60s
(03:07):
when my grandfather there was alittle surge of growth in
Arkansas and he got a plasteringjob for the downtown post
office in Little Rock.
And the more that my parentscame out to visit, the more they
loved the topography Because,as a lot of people know, dallas
(03:31):
is very flat and Arkansas hasgorgeous Ouachita Mountains,
gorgeous lakes.
And although I moved to, Imoved back to Dallas after one
year college and then moved toCalifornia in 88,.
I recently returned to Arkansasthis last year because, well,
(03:58):
frankly, a lot of people arefleeing California.
So so, anyway, uh, right nowI'm looking at a gorgeous view
of the washington mountainforestry and I feel like I'm
back to my roots.
But in the interim, uh, when Iwas in dallas, I met somebody
(04:20):
and fell in love with a guy whowas a Stanford Law School
graduate and owned numerousbusinesses.
But one of the things that Iwasn't privy to was that he was
getting into the.
He was very interested in MDMAas a drug that had medicinal
(04:47):
properties.
We now know it has medicinalproperties for PTSD and a number
of other things.
But it was legal back then andI tried Ecstasy it was the
street name for it and it kindof gives you a euphoria.
But long story short, I wasworking for one of his companies
(05:08):
, commonwealth bank corp.
That provided, uh, secondmortgage, home improvement loans
, but they were mostly, um,swimming pool loans, and it
didn't take long for me torealize that there was a lot of
secrecy in his life, there was alot of things that I wasn't
privy to, and he also had adrinking issue and still quite
(05:32):
the womanizer.
And so after three years Imoved to California to sever
myself from the manipulation Ididn't ask for a divorce,
because anytime I tried that,there was a lot of begging and
(05:54):
promises and I was just 20.
I think I was 24 when I met him,but we got married when I was
25.
And I just didn't have theskills.
I was raised in a very smalltown called Charleston, arkansas
.
Everybody was wholesome, workedhard.
We eventually moved out to afarm I call it a farm, but it
(06:18):
was more like a raised cattleand um, so, uh, I just really
maybe wasn't prepared for umlife out in the big world the
way some people might be,although I think when you're
young, you just you're notlooking for signs of deception
(06:42):
and you have a tendency to justsee things through rose-colored
glasses and you assume that oryou give people the benefit of
the doubt that that everybody'spretty honest, because that's
how it was in my community.
Everybody went to church.
So, uh, you know, after I movedto California, he got in trouble
(07:06):
.
He was arrested in Germany formanufacturing MDMA and I was
still sort of tender-hearted forhim.
I cared about him as anindividual and he wanted me to
come visit him, which was a baddecision I made to go and see
(07:31):
what was going on.
I was getting information thatit was a big mistake.
But long story short, becausehopefully I don't know if the
public is very well versed inthe conspiracy law, but the
conspiracy law is sort of acatch-all.
It ensnares people so that ifyou do one thing, they call it
(07:55):
one overt act, then you'reresponsible for the actions of
an entire group of people thatyou may or may not have known or
known about.
And so by traveling to Germanyand I hired an attorney for him
(08:16):
and he asked me to retrieve somefunds to pay for legal fees,
and he thought he was going toget bail.
Well, you don't get bail inGermany if you're a foreigner.
So I did what was asked of me.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I have this tendency and it's a character flaw that I
really need to understand whatI'm saying yes to before
agreeing to do something,because before you know it, even
if you think you're not doingsomething illegal yourself,
(08:56):
you're definitely crossing aline into the nefarious zone.
And I was convinced that he wasin trouble and he was still
being cagey and dishonest abouthe wasn't being forthcoming
(09:20):
about what had exactlytranspired, about what had
exactly transpired.
But I did know that he wassomebody who had access to MDMA
and that he could get as muchMDMA as he wanted.
So that honestly didn't botherme because anal you know,
(09:43):
christian person, that isperfect, I may be Christian, but
I had tried many recreationaldrugs in my youth.
That was the end of the 70s and80s.
About the time that thishappened was coincidentally
about the same time that theReagan-Bush administration
(10:06):
decided to resurrect the war ondrugs.
I tend to push back when I hearthat this is Nixon's drug war,
because I don't believe thatduring a Nixon administration or
era that women and people whohad a very ancillary role say
(10:30):
maybe being married, being agirlfriend, being somebody on a
low level participation werebeing indicted by the conspiracy
statute.
I think that came into playmore in the late 80s.
There also weren't mandatoryminimums, which was passed in
the 80s, and the mandatorysentencing guidelines, which
(10:58):
mandates that if somebody goesto trial and if they will not
cooperate and give what iscalled substantial assistance,
which means aiding thegovernment and the conviction of
other people, then now there'sa term for it called the trial
penalty phase.
So I was living in Los Angeles.
(11:20):
I did run around and collectsome money.
The money was not all.
The money was not kosher.
A lot of it was drug proceedsthat he had put into some lock
boxes that were at differentlocations and he was writing
messages to me trying to lead meto these lock boxes and I, you
(11:47):
know I collected this money.
So that put me smack dab intothe conspiracy statute and I
knew when I was doing it thatthis didn't seem very kosher.
And yet at the same time therewas not a lot of information.
Back then I really had no cluethat what I was doing could land
(12:09):
me in prison for 20 to life.
But I found out pretty quickly.
In 89, the feds busted into myhome.
I was living in the HollywoodHills.
I had a very successfulbusiness back then called
Primetime Promotions, and so Iwas gone when the feds busted
(12:39):
into my home and in fact I wasgoing interviewing for another
job that I had just inked a dealon.
And when I pulled into mydriveway I it was just, it was
like a shock that two men withguns drawn raced my car.
But this was before SWAT wasbeing used used mostly in drug
(13:02):
cases and so they had on bluejeans and not that it hadn't
been that long before a neighborhad had the same thing happen
to her.
But it was some thugs that hadraced her car to rob her and
(13:24):
they actually, I think, kind ofpistol, whipped her for her
purse.
And helicopters came and it wasso loud and I had seen some cops
running up the hills, so thatwas fresh in my mind and I
thought at first that's what washappening to me.
But I was given a command to.
(13:46):
First it was like freeze, don'tmove, then raise your hands,
and that's a little bitcontradictory, so it was kind of
like ah, so they flanked me andushered me out of the car and
into the house and I justremember seeing my kitchen.
(14:10):
There was there's a lot ofpeople in my house.
I think ultimately there wasabout 10 people some most of
them were from Texas and acouple of local cops that were
raiding my home.
And, um, just the noise, theyou know the visuals of seeing
(14:34):
everything in your kitchen onthe floor and drawers being
pulled out and all thesilverware, the containers of
the drawer just falling into thefloor.
I don't know what.
The theory is there, maybe kindof like you're trying to shock
somebody and that way maybethey'll be more apt to to
cooperate or scared straight.
(14:55):
But for me it was so shocking.
I think it would have beenbetter if the feds had maybe
just knocked on my door andasked to come in and ask some
questions, kind of like thehorny 5-0 approach, because I'm
the kind of person that, if youknow, if I think somebody is
acting appropriately, then Ihave a.
I don't keep secrets very well,I'm kind of transparent, maybe
(15:19):
a little bit too open, and Ithink they would have gotten a
lot further with questioning ifthey had just knocked on my door
and asked me a few questions.
But I remember being usheredthrough the kitchen, past the
dining room table and then intothe living room where the front
door was missing.
(15:39):
So my mind was kind of stuck onthe fact that there was a hole
in my house where I could justsee out into the courtyard.
And at first I couldn'tunderstand that the door was on
the floor.
I just knew that there was awide open hole in my house.
(16:00):
So all the furniture was upsidedown and I was tossed into the
to a I'll never forget.
It was like a green um huntergreen kind of velvety chair that
had to be uprighted and at thatpoint I just kind of froze up.
(16:21):
It was so shocking and sofrightening and so scary that I
couldn't, I couldn't process, Icouldn't process what was
happening to me so I had, I justyou had, like the deer in the
headlights.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Look what we call.
Like you know, here it is.
You thought it was like a homeinvasion.
When you pulled up, the policewere investigating.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Okay, go ahead I just wanted to make it clear, yeah
okay, well, pretty quickly, youknow, I did realize that this is
something very different.
And you know, you startprocessing and, um, somebody
emerged from the crowd and kindof started hollering at me that
(17:06):
I was in hot water.
This was a federalinvestigation, they knew.
They said we know your husbandis in trouble, we know that you
visited him and you better starttalking because you're looking
at 20 to life.
And so at that point I kind ofjust focused on the floor.
(17:33):
I remember just sort of lookingat my feet and I just I had to
kind of block out all the noisebecause my mind I don't think
people really understand but mymind just kept trying to process
what had happened just fiveminutes ago.
(17:53):
You know, it's just too muchfor the brain to process.
I couldn't process what hadjust transpired, that there was
a racket going on not only in mykitchen but downstairs.
I could hear a lot of voices,and it's just too much for one
little brain to process.
I couldn't.
I was just like then I startedthinking about my cats.
(18:16):
Where are my cats?
You know, if there's a dooropen, that means the cats are
probably gone and I just I shutdown, are probably gone and I
just I shut down.
I do remember somebody emergingthen, because there was one guy
who was screaming and he wasnot particularly pleasant to the
(18:36):
eye.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
pardon, you know that no we, I've worked with those
kind of guys.
They're like the good guy, badguy type cops.
You know, everybody has a role.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Well, that's what I was about to say.
So the good guy emerged and hewas sort of handsome, blonde-ish
, and he hollered at everybody.
He was just like back up, backup, you know.
And then he was sort ofsympathetic to me and my
(19:11):
situation and wanted to know ifI wanted a glass of water.
And then he kind of squatteddown so that he could make eye
contact with me, kind ofsquatted down so that he could
make eye contact with me.
And I remember he said, look,we're your friends.
And that was a strange thing tosay to me because I'm I'm like
(19:38):
you're my friends.
And he said look, you know,you're in a situation.
All we want is information, weneed you to talk to us.
And he just kept referring tous.
As you know, your husband isthe bad guy, we know your
husband is the bad guy and weneed information.
(20:13):
But by that time I had seen apicture of me and my parents and
my brother and it was on thefloor and the glass was broken,
kind of like a Shattered Liveslooking portrait at this stage,
kind of like a shattered liveslooking portrait at this stage,
and I just thought this is thethis is the irony of saying
where your friends was just toomuch of a leap for me,
(20:35):
especially when I could hearbanging and my house was being
destroyed and I felt likeeverybody feels like their home
is their sanctuary.
That's your one safe placewhere you can pull into your
garage and go into your home andknow that when you shut the
door, that that's you know oneplace, that's your own personal
(20:56):
space.
And this was the opposite.
So I kind of, after a while Isort of meet out, you know, kind
of squeaked that I would.
You know, can I call myattorney?
By this stage I had, I hadsurmised that I might get a
(21:19):
visit because my husband was inin legal jeopardy and a lot of
things were going on and I hadhired an attorney for him and
the chemist had also beenarrested, which was somebody I
knew through him and so on.
(21:39):
A very small retainer, I think,maybe two thousand $2,000.
I had just hired an attorneythat had come recommended in the
event that somebody ever didcome and talk to me, but they
said no, you're not making anyphone calls, because I don't
know if they gave a reason then,but later it was, like you know
(21:59):
, you could call one of yourassociates.
And so I remember a friend, afriend of mine, who I was
thinking about making a partnerin primetime promotions, had
pulled in behind me and she hadbeen interrogated outside,
unbeknownst to me, and she, shestuck her head in the hole where
(22:23):
the front door used to be, andGod bless her that she did that.
She could have just likehightailed it out of there.
But she said I'm leaving andshe said is there anything I can
do?
And we didn't have the kind ofwe had.
There were cell phones backthen, but not like today.
(22:44):
And there was no, was nointernet, believe it or not, for
all the young people who maywatch this.
So it wasn't like she couldlook up his name.
But I rattled off his name andI said you know, could you
please call information and callmy attorney?
And so I just continued to justsort of block everything out and
(23:06):
my attorney did come and Ididn't know it, but the
prosecutor was there, the numberone, there was a number one and
a number two chair prosecutorat my ultimately at my trial
later and he singled himself outand had a conversation with my
attorney and they said I couldleave.
(23:26):
Well, they had Mirandized meand I thought I was under arrest
, but later when I left with myattorney, come to find out.
My attorney said they're reallynot that interested in you,
they're interested in yourhusband.
But he did explain that I was,you know, in legal jeopardy.
(23:47):
So not to dwell on this so much, because we probably want to
move on into the what ultimatelyhappened to me, which was after
two years of following me, Ithink there were two more raids.
There were several raids in theDallas area, which is where my
husband was from.
They eventually indicted me andI was arrested in Los Angeles
(24:18):
and they said that they hadfound a white powdery substance
in my house that they thoughtmight be a controlled substance,
which was not the case.
Everybody has a white powderysubstance in their house.
They have flour, baby powder,all those things, and I had no
(24:44):
illegal substance in my home.
That was a white powderysubstance, but that made the
judge not allow me to have bailand I was what do they call it?
Diesel therapy or Conair.
I was put on Conair later andshipped to Waco, texas, where I
sat there for one year and I didget a 24 year sentence because
I took my case to trial.
(25:04):
So, oh, I went to prison inDublin and spent nine years,
three months.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Dublin.
Tell them where Dublin is,because to most people it's a
pub over in across the pond.
You know things like that, soyou can explain.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Well, thank you.
Yeah, it's called FCI FederalCorrectional Institution in
Dublin in Dublin, and Dublin isoutside the San Francisco area,
in the tri-state valley kind of,you know, a little bit south of
(25:43):
Oakland, and so thatinstitution right now is in a
world of hurt because there'ssome scandals going on there and
there were scandals going onwhen I was there.
There's a lot of sexualpredators and there was just
recently a situation where FBIDublin went into receivership
due to the warden and manypeople being walked off and
(26:06):
later arrested for sexualmisconduct with the prisoners.
So that's where I served nineyears and three months and
Glamour magazine had an interestin my story in the late 90s and
this was back when nobody wasreally sympathetic to anybody
who was in prison for drugs.
(26:29):
We were the scourge of thenation thanks to, I tend to
think, president Bush handledthe drug war during his vice
presidency under Reagan.
History Channel did a reallygood three-part series on that
(26:52):
and then later, when he ran foroffice, everybody remembers that
he held up to crack cocaine andwanted stiffer punishments for
anyone even associated with adrug case.
But thanks to Glamour Magazine,two senators in Arkansas one of
whom was from my little bittycommunity of Charleston,
(27:13):
arkansas, that I mentionedearlier.
Senator Dale Bumpers andSenator Pryor were shocked when
they read the article, because Itold the journalist, david
France, if you're going to do anarticle on me, I want it to be
about the conspiracy law,because everybody was blaming
mandatory minimums and I didn'tget a mandatory minimum, I just
got mandatory sentence.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
What was your sentence Amy?
How much?
What was your sentence?
The original?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
24 years.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And what did your husband receive?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Well, the press always gets this wrong because
they think he served four yearson the same case.
He did not.
When he was arrested in Germanyit was because he had said this
was this all happened after Ileft him.
He was setting up distributionin Europe and not one MDMA
(28:06):
tablet ever came to the US andhe was just getting it rolling.
Mdma tablet ever came to the USand he was just getting it
rolling.
So I to this day I really don'tknow whether any ecstasy was
sold over there, but there was apharmaceutical.
He always used pharmaceuticalcompanies, so it's
pharmaceutical grade, and thatone was called called M Hausen,
(28:28):
and M Hausen was thepharmaceutical plant that in
Europe.
The other, unifarm, was thepharmaceutical plant that he
used in Guatemala, which iswhere all the ecstasy came from
that came into the United States.
So these were two totallyseparate cases and the US had no
jurisdiction over.
(28:49):
In the European case that hedid four years, for Germany
actually doesn't have theconspiracy statute and they did
a fairly honest investigation.
If you read their summary, itreads that he was walking in the
gray and M Hausen agreed to doit.
They knew what they were doingand so he served four years.
Then he came back to the US.
(29:10):
He cooperated fully andsnitched on everyone, including
me, and he got three yearsprobation.
So, to answer your question, Igot 24 and a half years based on
all the MDMA that hemanufactured in Unifarm that
came to the US and he got threeyears probation because if you
(29:32):
cooperate you get the benefit.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, as we say in the business, the first dog that
eats at the bowl gets fed thebest, and that was a speech that
I used with with defendants,telling him that it's quite a
discrepancy.
It's quite a discrepancy how wegot connected, which we'll go
into.
The second half of this isEvelyn Bazone.
(29:59):
Papa received double lifesentences and 240 years for
money laundering, which I wasthe co-case agent on, and her
husband remained a fugitiveuntil he was assassinated down
in Barranquilla, columbia, in2006.
So, you know, it seems likethat the discretion, the
(30:22):
direction of the court is sowidespread.
I mean, from what you said,you've come honest, forward what
you did.
So when you go into it, telleverybody, after the senators
got interested, what the happyending in your case was and
bring it up to 2023, please.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Right, right.
Well, just a little footnotebefore I do.
That is, I said when I waswaiting for them to indict me
through an attorney and alsolater in Waco I got a court
appointed attorney, because bythis time they had seized every
all funds I said that, look, Idon't have a problem admitting
(31:09):
to what I did, which wascollecting money.
I said that, look, I don't havea problem admitting to what I
did, which was collecting money.
But the answer, the messagecame back that that wasn't
enough.
They wanted to know where allthe MDMA was, where there was
more funds, and they wanted meto testify against other people.
Initially, my attorney told methat they wanted me to cooperate
(31:33):
and the definition was youdon't get to write the rules of
your cooperation Once you startcooperating.
If they want you to wear a wire, if they want you to infiltrate
his organization, you'll youknow you have to do what they
request.
Because he, being in Germany,couldn't do his own dirty work,
he couldn't go around and set uppeople.
But after the Glamour Magazinearticle, I got 16 politicians
(31:56):
who wrote supporting my clemency, because this was sort of the
first story that explained whatwas happening to girlfriends and
wives and people who were kindof the low hanging fruit, and
even Nancy Pelosi wrote sayingthis was not our intention.
We didn't pass these laws sothat the kingpin could go free
(32:18):
and that the women or mules orpeople who are in that category
could end up serving time foreverything that the kingpin did,
or ringleader or whatever.
So you know, the senators wentto Roger Adams, who was the
pardon attorney at that time.
A lot of people think that, oh,you know, you had, you had
(32:41):
favor with politicians and youknow it was easy.
This was not easy becausenobody's going to ask the
president of the United Statesfor a favor, especially back
then.
And my senator was like I votedfor these laws and until the
Glamour magazine article cameout, he knew my mother, so he
(33:03):
told my mother I can't getinvolved in this because I'm I.
I voted for the mandatoryminimums and until Glamour
explained that the ringleaderwas free, he'd even come to the
US and married an attorney andwe were still married.
We had not even divorced yet.
So he's a bit of a scoundrel.
(33:24):
So they took my case to RogerAdams, who was the pardon
attorney at the time, and whenthey left there they knew that
it was.
They had not made a very goodimpression.
He didn't seem, he didn't seeminterested and he didn't engage.
(33:46):
It just seemed like he was sortof like, just because they were
senators, kind of giving themthe courtesy of talking about my
case.
So then it got to the pointwhere they were like, well,
we're going to take thisdirectly to President Clinton
and he was in Little Rock for aspecial event and they had
dinner with him and they pulleda package on me including the
(34:07):
Glamour magazine article andasked him if he'd please look
into it, including the Glamourmagazine article, and asked him
if he'd please look into it.
Just to collapse the story.
We kept waiting and waiting anda lot of letters went in again
from politicians who weresupporting my clemency and it
ultimately took 60 minutes.
(34:28):
They became interested in mystory and Senator Pryor was
getting a little frustrated Restin peace.
He recently passed and he toldBob Anderson of 60 Minutes, who
said they weren't filming at thetime, they were on break.
But they said how can we help?
And they said, well, call theWhite House and ask why she's
(34:49):
still sitting in prison.
And he did and I think, um,about two weeks later, uh, I got
called over the loudspeaker andI thought it was in trouble
Cause anytime your name is onloudspeaker.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yes, of course.
Report to R and D.
Yeah, Everybody's like okay.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well, or the lieutenant or your caseworker.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
SIS lieutenant yes.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, it's either a loved one is dead, in which case
the chapel normally calls you,and in this situation I thought,
you know, maybe they found alittle contraband in my locker
or something.
And so I was very nervous andwent to the unit and she was in
(35:35):
a state of stress, but shedidn't say what had happened.
She just kept barking orders atme.
She wanted to know where I wasgoing to live and I was just
like I'm parents, I guess Idon't have a place to live, why?
And she just said I've got tofocus here, sit down.
She said you know, I've got alot to do.
(35:56):
And then she's kind ofhollering at me and I was just
like, well, what is this about?
I kept asking her why, what'sgoing on?
And then she kind of turned tome and squared me eye to eye she
was actually a pretty nicewoman and she said you're going
home.
And so I was like I always.
I was in shock, I was just likewhat?
(36:16):
And she said President Clintonhas commuted your sentence and I
have to have you out of here byfive o'clock.
That's back when it had to allbe done the same day.
And I remember jumping, poppingup out of the seat like a
jack-in-the-box and all I wantedto do was call somebody.
I wanted to call my parents, Iwanted to call a friend,
(36:37):
especially somebody who couldcome pick me up, and she said no
.
She said I have to do thispaperwork and get you out of
here before 5 o'clock and so Icouldn't concentrate.
I just kept answering herquestions.
She had to set up contact,probation, get me set up.
And I just kept saying, can Iplease make a call?
(37:00):
And I would sit back down andthen I'd pop back up because I
was so excited.
You know you can't containyourself.
And she finally let me make aphone call.
And so when I got home, youvery quickly realized that
you're never free.
You just want to go free.
That's your goal.
And I was in the law libraryconstantly.
(37:21):
Everybody made fun of me.
They thought I was crazy.
They never dreamed anybodywould get clemency, because no
one had even heard of it backthen.
Clemency because no one hadeven heard of it back then.
And so when you get, when youget out, you're carrying all
this heaviness in your heart,because my roommate was still in
there, my best friends werestill in there.
(37:42):
That becomes your familybecause, believe you me, when
you go to prison, most of yourfriends kind of just just peter
out or really disappear andyou're kind of left with your
family.
I had a few friends who cameand visited me and were hardcore
supporters, but the people thatyou serve time with are the
(38:03):
people who become your families,especially in the law library.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
So I decided to start the can do foundation let me
ask you a couple questions thatI think are relevant.
Um, when Evelyn got out, firstthing she wanted was a shamrock
shake and I remember, likeEvelyn, it's it's April.
They may not have any.
(38:27):
So I went into McDonald's andthere was one packet in the back
and I said how do you knowabout shamrock shakes?
And she said, toby, when youwatch television for 30 years
and you see a shamrock shake,you never tasted it.
You want that.
So my question is you is, whenyou got released, what's, what's
(38:47):
the first mealcooked meal youhad back home in Arkansas and
what year was this?
96, right Late 90s, no 2000.
It was 2000.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I'll never forget July 7, 2000.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Okay 7-7-0-0.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Okay, what was funny was a few things is when you're
on a patch of land for nineyears, you're just like a cow or
something.
You're just walking around.
So a lot of people get carsickwhen they get out.
(39:26):
But what was interesting for meis that nobody had told me that
the when I went to prison thespeed limit was 55.
Remember that arrow?
When they choked down the limit.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Save on gas.
Yeah, we're doing that now yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
So now it's 70, but I didn't.
I didn't notice any, any speedlimit signs.
I just remembered, like holdingon and just thinking we're
going so fast, we're going sofast.
And after a while I said, canwe just stop?
And I just wanted to get asnack or something or have an
(40:05):
opportunity, like at a quickpick, to pick out something.
And so my friend was like mygod, I'm so sorry, I should have
thought of that.
Nobody thinks like we think.
And so we went in and it was.
It was so overwhelming, youdon't, your eye can't focus
because there's so many choices.
And I saw the little freezerthing there full of Dove bars
(40:31):
and ice cream, and so I was like, oh, I want a Dove bar.
Maybe you know that was mychoice to get a Dove bar.
But I really missed of allthings in prison, I missed Thai
food, and we would sit aroundand we would all ask one another
when you get home, what do youmiss most?
(40:53):
What do you want to have?
First, to kind of answer yourquestion, and I remember we'd go
around in a circle and somebodywanted a chocolate cake or
chocolate lava cake, and when itwould come to me I'd be like I
want a margarita, I just wanteda margarita, I just wanted a
margarita.
So I had some friends gottogether and we went to a Thai
(41:16):
restaurant.
But after I got home and I waswith my parents and they
actually picked me up at theairport, we went and had Chinese
food.
I love, I love ethnic food alot.
I just love ethnic food.
But the first home-cooked mealis I wanted a pot roast, I
wanted a really good pot roast.
(41:36):
So that's multiple answers toyour question.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
And did you manage to fit a Jose Cuervo in between
there?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Okay, yeah, okay, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
And, to this day, margaritas are my favorite drink
.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
That brought that out in California.
I'm sure you know you get ataste for that out there.
We'll talk about the prison andthe abuse.
I think that's important, butpeople don't realize that you've
produced movies, you're amentor to other federal inmates
(42:14):
and have led the charge withthis case.
And I'm very grateful becausewhen I found out about Evelyn
Bazan-Papa that you know Ialways check the prisoners
because I did put people in jailwith the US Attorney's Office
and they got released, theyeither lot deported back to
(42:35):
Colombia, venezuela, and Ineeded to check and I saw that
she was there and I know youknow this story but a lot of
people don't.
On the right side of the screenI hit a mouse click.
It was your foundation, the cando foundation, with her
daughter's, martha's plea, andit was a very organized video
(42:55):
and I read it and I'm like andwe had a, let's say, an
adversarial relationship and itwas very adversarial in Spanish,
back and forth with us.
So I looked and I says guardsare writing letters, prison
officials and all this so when?
But I'm saying it was yourfoundation that brought my
(43:17):
attention, that led that.
That's.
Everybody knows the story andin the book that pete throne
wrote.
I gave you full credit for thatbecause that was what triggered
the release.
But why don't?
Why don't you talk about andI'm more interested in what
you've done since you went backand you got your clemency and
(43:38):
how it led up to a wonderfulevent that happened to you under
a different president and adifferent political party.
So go ahead go ahead.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Well, I was pretty much, uh, kind of a lone wolf,
if you for lack of a better term, I just worked out of my house.
I really was not plugged intoback then.
I really frankly, there reallywasn't a criminal justice reform
advocacy arena like themagnitude that we have now, and
all I knew when I started theCan Do Foundation is that I
really needed to help bring someof my friends home.
(44:19):
So at first, I only focused onwomen and, um, you know all the
women that I assisted uh, out ofDublin, our home, not
necessarily because of me, someof them just did their time, but
there were several JosephineLedesma, who was serving life,
(44:40):
and Obama kicked off ClemencyProject 2014 in his second term,
and I was the only organizationin the nation where my mission
statement was clemency for allnonviolent drug offenders.
That's what can do stands for.
And so this wonderful woman,nikichi Taifa, in Washington DC.
(45:05):
She had inroads with the Obamaadministration.
She's amazing and, um, she andshe had the Justice Roundtable
and she also was president ofanother organization and she's
the one who floated the idea tothe Obama administration to do a
clemency summit, and he hadalready kicked off Clemency
(45:25):
Project 2014.
So I had already.
I used to do vigils in front ofthe White House, including the
Bush administration which cameinto.
Bush Jr came in after um, afterI was released, after Clinton
and I.
I would just one personstanding out there and I would
stack the little posters upagainst the the uh fence and
(45:49):
take, get back and take picturesso I could send it into.
Danielle Metz, who has a movieout right now.
She was serving triple lifewith me in prison and uh, jos,
she was serving triple life withme in prison and Josie was
serving life and I just wantedthem to know that somebody was
trying out here.
And then, when Obama kicked offhis clemency project, there was
(46:12):
a guy who worked for USA Todayand he reached out to me and he
said I want you to create thetop 25 women.
I know you focus on women andso I started trying to find all
the lifers because I wanted toprioritize women who were
serving life and put them at thetop of the top 25.
What's strange is I wascommunicating with a lot of
(46:35):
people in a lot of differentprisons and Evelyn's name was
not floated to me even by people.
That later I was very surprisedbecause I was in communication
with them and they knew ofEvelyn, but somehow she fell
through the cracks and so it waskind of late in the game.
Nearly all the lifers on my top25 came home.
(46:56):
Alice Marie Johnson was numberone on my top 25 came home.
Alice Marie Johnson was numberone on the top 25.
She didn't come home untilTrump and Michelle West is still
in there who's serving live butEvelyn?
When I heard about her andeverybody loved her and you know
Demarius and some other peoplewho were like her best friends,
(47:18):
somehow I got in touch with themafter this, I think that's one
woman's name was Billy, whoasked me why don't I have Evelyn
on there?
And I was like Evelyn who?
And so I was just shocked thatshe had served as long as she
had and that the sentence was assevere as it was.
And then, thanks to you andthank you, tobias, you're a huge
(47:42):
hero.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I'm not the hero.
That was a team effort.
It always is.
It always is.
Amy, the prosecutor, got onboard.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Oh well, I say that too.
Even when people sometimescredit can do, I'm like it takes
a village and it also startswith the person serving time,
because those people aren'tgoing to come home if they were
troublemakers in prison.
So I give first credit to theperson who served that time and
did it properly and um was veryinvested in their rehab and.
(48:17):
But what was kind of adeterrent that was not in
Evelyn's favor was that theObama administration did not
grant a single clemency toanybody who was not an American
citizen.
And we started becoming veryconcerned about that because on
(48:37):
the denial list oh my God, youjust go down the list and it
would be Martinez Rodriguez, youknow all these Hispanic names
were who were not Americancitizens, weren't?
And we inquired.
It was like, are they not goingto grant any to anybody who's
going to be deported?
And we never could get a clearanswer.
(49:01):
So you came flying in out ofstage, left and if it weren't
for Paul Peltier who was herprosecutor, that was huge
because that's rare whosupported her clemency or
compassionate release.
But if she hadn't come home theway she did, which was through
(49:23):
your efforts of getting adetective involved, and I know
there were other organizationsthat were suddenly kind of hyper
focused when they found out theprosecutor was willing to write
a letter.
I think the, the, the think thebiggest you know contribution
(49:45):
was you finding a detective who,as you know and I don't want to
tell parts of her story thatare, you know, I had nothing to
do with that, so I take nocredit, please, no.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Well, you're getting that detector the only cool, the
only cool part that we I reallyI was amazed with is she was
released to me and I we didn'tgo through ice detain we had.
We had the detainer lifted.
But I picked her up and lizmendoza, her husband, and and
(50:17):
that, and we went from there tothe Colombian consulate and got
her visa for 30 days and senther home.
And you know, and I was, when Iwent to the airport, customs
and border protections likewhere's the escort team?
I go, it's me.
And they kind of looked at melike I said yeah, here's the
(50:39):
deportation order and uh andthat.
And they read the JNC andthey're like, are you kidding me
?
I said yeah, so I I give a lotof credit to the judge because
she was bound by what thesentencing guidelines were and
we had told her what they were,but she didn't cooperate and she
(51:02):
had an attorney who now isresting way down with a bunch of
fire, who was representing thecartel, not representing the
client, and that was somethingthat we found out years, or I
found out years later in thisprocess.
So but let's talk about you.
Let's talk about you.
(51:23):
So take us up to what happenedto you in 2021 as you move
forward with your foundationsand everything that you started
and progress to what it is now,with a movement.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Gosh.
Well, good Lord.
I went to the Obama White Housethree times.
I went to the Trump White Housefour times and, believe me, the
first time that some of uscrossed that line, the community
what I call the criminaljustice reform community just
(52:02):
went on attack.
It was all over Facebook and wewere just vilified for crossing
that line.
I'm prisoners over politics andI I don't care who's in the Oval
Office.
I may care from you know aperspective of policy and who's
(52:26):
best suited to govern ourcountry, but as far as I was
concerned, the Trumpadministration was trying,
through Jared Kushner, to getfirst step back past.
I threw all my weight into thatand I went over and, like you
said, I talked to Jared.
In fact I talked to him aboutAlice's case, but I was all in
(52:50):
with the first step back andmore people came home with under
first step back, Especially thereduction of sentences for
crack cocaine by all thelayovers that were still in
there, because we did change itfrom 100 to 1 ratio.
A lot of listeners may notunderstand what we're talking
about, but the African communitywas severely punished 100 times
(53:15):
more for crack cocaine thanpowder cocaine, and so, even
though that law had been tweakedseveral times.
There's still some, and evennow there's people in for crack
cocaine who never got any relief, but under the Trump
administration they were walkingout in droves, mostly African
(53:38):
American.
And then we had thecompassionate release, where
people are still coming home oncompassionate release and Evelyn
, you know, benefited from, andthen elderly release.
Just a whole lot of people havebenefited from the First Step
Act and I got a full pardon.
Pardon because I was soparticipatory and worked very
(54:02):
hard.
I even got my own congressman,Ted Lieu, to change his mind
because I was there when theyvoted on whether the House would
pass it so that it could go onto the Senate, and he was a no,
and I was in the for lack of abetter word the voting room
(54:22):
chamber, whatever you want tocall it, and I walked up to him.
He happened to walk in early,thank God, because a lot of
people walked in at the lastsecond, voted and left, and I
asked him what he was going tovote and he said well, I got a.
I got a letter from a lot oforganizations saying to not vote
yes, and I said, well, that's abig mistake, and I'm your
(54:43):
constituent and I was at hisinauguration at UCLA and I
explained.
He said well, help meunderstand what what's?
I don't think most of them readthe bills.
So I explained how thecompassionate release is
normally up to the warden, andthe wardens always deny
compassionate releases, theynever grant any and that this
(55:04):
would give people the right,after a warden deny a
compassionate release, to takeit to their judge.
And I also talked about womenbeing shackled during labor and
that it was going to help on thecrack cocaine.
And he, he, I convinced him andso he voted yes.
(55:25):
As we know, it passed.
And then we had a big job and Iwent to Kamala Harris's Kamala,
excuse me, Harris's office whenshe was senator, spoke with her
staff.
Harris's office when she wasSenator, spoke with her staff.
But I was up on Capitol Hillwalking the halls, speaking also
(55:47):
to Tom Cotton, a Senator herein Arkansas who to this day is
one of the biggest critics ofthe First Step Act because he's
kind of very narrow minded, butanyway.
So I got a full pardon throughTrump because he did things in
an unorthodox way.
He was convinced by a lot of uswho told him that the office of
the pardon attorney is sort ofcontrolled by Department of
(56:09):
Justice.
So the office of the pardonattorney has to send all
petitions to the Department ofJustice and then your prosecutor
has the loudest voice as towhich cases travel over to the
White House.
So he, then your prosecutor,has the loudest voice as to
which cases travel over to theWhite House, so he was willing
to work with some of us.
It wasn't a perfect system.
In fact I wish he had justbrought OPA and made it separate
(56:31):
from DOJ.
The Office of the PartnerAttorney can give their
recommendations, the Departmentof Justice can give their
recommendations and then I thinkthe White House counsel can
take those two considerationsand come to a conclusion that a
president you know president maywant to give clemency to
certain types of cases, justlike Obama focused on crack
(56:54):
cocaine, and they have thatprerogative.
And Trump wanted to grant manymore than what were actually
granted, but because I helpedget first step act passed, he
decided to grant some fullpardon for people who helped
with that.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah, no, that's wonderful and you know I was and
I congratulate you on on thatand well deserved.
You did 16 years in federalprison and when we get, when I
when we get, I'm sorry when weget back on another topic.
(57:30):
I'd like to talk another dayabout the Dublin prison
situation.
Amy, you brought guests for myshow upcoming.
I don't want to.
I want people to listen in, sothe names will be out.
They have to do with drugsmugglers during Carlos Slater's
(57:51):
day, the cocaine cowboy days inMiami women, a lady that was a
gang member in Mexico, and so Ithink it's great and the whole
point of this is to show allperspectives of the criminal
justice system.
So again, thank you so much,thank you so much and I hope to
(58:18):
see you soon.
And, you know, enjoy thebeautiful view of the lake and
Jeff hasn't said much.
Jeff really is veryknowledgeable on this and I'm
sure he'll have a lot ofquestions next time we're going
to talk, but we're going to talkabout the women in prison and
(58:39):
and the abuse now.
Dublin was closed.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
right, it was closed by bop yeah, they wanted to ship
the women out of there and I'mcommunicating with several of
them.
Many of them are in wasika,some are in hazleton and they
are literally being there, isretaliation going on and anyone
who was part of that classaction lawsuit is really there.
(59:07):
It's heartbreaking what's goingon.
And, yeah, they were allshipped out Last moment's notice
.
They were promised that theywould be able to move closer to
where their relatives were, butthat they just had to get them
wherever and not to worry.
Well, guess what?
Now that they're the ones inWasika are saying that Wasika is
(59:28):
saying you have to stay herefor 18 months, which is a policy
that when you arrive at aprison, you can't transfer for
18 months, and they're very farfrom home arrive at a prison you
can't transfer for 18 monthsand they're very far from home,
okay again, thank you very much.
Um, like I said, real pleasureto see you take care well, thank
(59:49):
you, and thank you for the workyou do.
I really appreciate.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
Jeff and Tabar.
Thank you, bye-bye, thank you.
Okay, it's my privilege today to have Ms Amy
Pova on Justice Then Justice Now.
Amy is quite a remarkableindividual that I've gotten to
know very, very well over thelast couple of years due to very
unforeseen circumstances thatoccurred not only with me
(00:24):
professionally but in my life.
Amy is a role model to manypeople in society.
She has had the attention ofthe White House, she's been
there, she's a prison reformactivist and also a marijuana
(00:46):
reform activist.
She has met with Gerald Kushnerand the First Step Act.
Involved in that, she has anorganization called the Can Do
Foundation which is made up, andshe will be a very valuable
(01:06):
friend and asset to this podcastand will periodically be on
because she's referring peoplethat have outstanding stories to
tell as far as second chancesthat were given to them and how
they've succeeded.
And Amy has the most respectfor law enforcement and the
(01:30):
respect for everybody thatfollows the rules in the
criminal justice system.
Okay, and we all know that thereare problems in the criminal
justice system.
That's the purpose of thispodcast and what we're trying to
do is discuss them and come upwith some ideas.
This show is not a bunch oftalking heads with no experience
(01:53):
or political people that get onand have no idea about it.
We'll be covering everything,from the border to everything
the current drug problem, therehabilitation that we have
going on nationwide.
So I'd like to welcome you, amy, to the premiere editions of
(02:18):
this podcast and I look forwardto us working together in the
future, my friend.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Thank you, Tobias.
It's really been nice workingwith you and looking forward to
working together in the future.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your
background and where you grew up, and your story on what you've
accomplished?
Your story on what you'veaccomplished.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well, I was born in Dallas, texas, and raised in
Arkansas.
From the time I was about fiveyears old and my parents moved
to Arkansas because there was amoment in time back in the 60s
(03:07):
when my grandfather there was alittle surge of growth in
Arkansas and he got a plasteringjob for the downtown post
office in Little Rock.
And the more that my parentscame out to visit, the more they
loved the topography Because,as a lot of people know, dallas
(03:31):
is very flat and Arkansas hasgorgeous Ouachita Mountains,
gorgeous lakes.
And although I moved to, Imoved back to Dallas after one
year college and then moved toCalifornia in 88,.
I recently returned to Arkansasthis last year because, well,
(03:58):
frankly, a lot of people arefleeing California.
So so, anyway, uh, right nowI'm looking at a gorgeous view
of the washington mountainforestry and I feel like I'm
back to my roots.
But in the interim, uh, when Iwas in dallas, I met somebody
(04:20):
and fell in love with a guy whowas a Stanford Law School
graduate and owned numerousbusinesses.
But one of the things that Iwasn't privy to was that he was
getting into the.
He was very interested in MDMAas a drug that had medicinal
(04:47):
properties.
We now know it has medicinalproperties for PTSD and a number
of other things.
But it was legal back then andI tried Ecstasy it was the
street name for it and it kindof gives you a euphoria.
But long story short, I wasworking for one of his companies
(05:08):
, commonwealth bank corp.
That provided, uh, secondmortgage, home improvement loans
, but they were mostly, um,swimming pool loans, and it
didn't take long for me torealize that there was a lot of
secrecy in his life, there was alot of things that I wasn't
privy to, and he also had adrinking issue and still quite
(05:32):
the womanizer.
And so after three years Imoved to California to sever
myself from the manipulation Ididn't ask for a divorce,
because anytime I tried that,there was a lot of begging and
(05:54):
promises and I was just 20.
I think I was 24 when I met him,but we got married when I was
25.
And I just didn't have theskills.
I was raised in a very smalltown called Charleston, arkansas
.
Everybody was wholesome, workedhard.
We eventually moved out to afarm I call it a farm, but it
(06:18):
was more like a raised cattleand um, so, uh, I just really
maybe wasn't prepared for umlife out in the big world the
way some people might be,although I think when you're
young, you just you're notlooking for signs of deception
(06:42):
and you have a tendency to justsee things through rose-colored
glasses and you assume that oryou give people the benefit of
the doubt that that everybody'spretty honest, because that's
how it was in my community.
Everybody went to church.
So, uh, you know, after I movedto California, he got in trouble
(07:06):
.
He was arrested in Germany formanufacturing MDMA and I was
still sort of tender-hearted forhim.
I cared about him as anindividual and he wanted me to
come visit him, which was a baddecision I made to go and see
(07:31):
what was going on.
I was getting information thatit was a big mistake.
But long story short, becausehopefully I don't know if the
public is very well versed inthe conspiracy law, but the
conspiracy law is sort of acatch-all.
It ensnares people so that ifyou do one thing, they call it
(07:55):
one overt act, then you'reresponsible for the actions of
an entire group of people thatyou may or may not have known or
known about.
And so by traveling to Germanyand I hired an attorney for him
(08:16):
and he asked me to retrieve somefunds to pay for legal fees,
and he thought he was going toget bail.
Well, you don't get bail inGermany if you're a foreigner.
So I did what was asked of me.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I have this tendency and it's a character flaw that I
really need to understand whatI'm saying yes to before
agreeing to do something,because before you know it, even
if you think you're not doingsomething illegal yourself,
(08:56):
you're definitely crossing aline into the nefarious zone.
And I was convinced that he wasin trouble and he was still
being cagey and dishonest abouthe wasn't being forthcoming
(09:20):
about what had exactlytranspired, about what had
exactly transpired.
But I did know that he wassomebody who had access to MDMA
and that he could get as muchMDMA as he wanted.
So that honestly didn't botherme because anal you know,
(09:43):
christian person, that isperfect, I may be Christian, but
I had tried many recreationaldrugs in my youth.
That was the end of the 70s and80s.
About the time that thishappened was coincidentally
about the same time that theReagan-Bush administration
(10:06):
decided to resurrect the war ondrugs.
I tend to push back when I hearthat this is Nixon's drug war,
because I don't believe thatduring a Nixon administration or
era that women and people whohad a very ancillary role say
(10:30):
maybe being married, being agirlfriend, being somebody on a
low level participation werebeing indicted by the conspiracy
statute.
I think that came into playmore in the late 80s.
There also weren't mandatoryminimums, which was passed in
the 80s, and the mandatorysentencing guidelines, which
(10:58):
mandates that if somebody goesto trial and if they will not
cooperate and give what iscalled substantial assistance,
which means aiding thegovernment and the conviction of
other people, then now there'sa term for it called the trial
penalty phase.
So I was living in Los Angeles.
(11:20):
I did run around and collectsome money.
The money was not all.
The money was not kosher.
A lot of it was drug proceedsthat he had put into some lock
boxes that were at differentlocations and he was writing
messages to me trying to lead meto these lock boxes and I, you
(11:47):
know I collected this money.
So that put me smack dab intothe conspiracy statute and I
knew when I was doing it thatthis didn't seem very kosher.
And yet at the same time therewas not a lot of information.
Back then I really had no cluethat what I was doing could land
(12:09):
me in prison for 20 to life.
But I found out pretty quickly.
In 89, the feds busted into myhome.
I was living in the HollywoodHills.
I had a very successfulbusiness back then called
Primetime Promotions, and so Iwas gone when the feds busted
(12:39):
into my home and in fact I wasgoing interviewing for another
job that I had just inked a dealon.
And when I pulled into mydriveway I it was just, it was
like a shock that two men withguns drawn raced my car.
But this was before SWAT wasbeing used used mostly in drug
(13:02):
cases and so they had on bluejeans and not that it hadn't
been that long before a neighborhad had the same thing happen
to her.
But it was some thugs that hadraced her car to rob her and
(13:24):
they actually, I think, kind ofpistol, whipped her for her
purse.
And helicopters came and it wasso loud and I had seen some cops
running up the hills, so thatwas fresh in my mind and I
thought at first that's what washappening to me.
But I was given a command to.
(13:46):
First it was like freeze, don'tmove, then raise your hands,
and that's a little bitcontradictory, so it was kind of
like ah, so they flanked me andushered me out of the car and
into the house and I justremember seeing my kitchen.
(14:10):
There was there's a lot ofpeople in my house.
I think ultimately there wasabout 10 people some most of
them were from Texas and acouple of local cops that were
raiding my home.
And, um, just the noise, theyou know the visuals of seeing
(14:34):
everything in your kitchen onthe floor and drawers being
pulled out and all thesilverware, the containers of
the drawer just falling into thefloor.
I don't know what.
The theory is there, maybe kindof like you're trying to shock
somebody and that way maybethey'll be more apt to to
cooperate or scared straight.
(14:55):
But for me it was so shocking.
I think it would have beenbetter if the feds had maybe
just knocked on my door andasked to come in and ask some
questions, kind of like thehorny 5-0 approach, because I'm
the kind of person that, if youknow, if I think somebody is
acting appropriately, then Ihave a.
I don't keep secrets very well,I'm kind of transparent, maybe
(15:19):
a little bit too open, and Ithink they would have gotten a
lot further with questioning ifthey had just knocked on my door
and asked me a few questions.
But I remember being usheredthrough the kitchen, past the
dining room table and then intothe living room where the front
door was missing.
(15:39):
So my mind was kind of stuck onthe fact that there was a hole
in my house where I could justsee out into the courtyard.
And at first I couldn'tunderstand that the door was on
the floor.
I just knew that there was awide open hole in my house.
(16:00):
So all the furniture was upsidedown and I was tossed into the
to a I'll never forget.
It was like a green um huntergreen kind of velvety chair that
had to be uprighted and at thatpoint I just kind of froze up.
(16:21):
It was so shocking and sofrightening and so scary that I
couldn't, I couldn't process, Icouldn't process what was
happening to me so I had, I justyou had, like the deer in the
headlights.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Look what we call.
Like you know, here it is.
You thought it was like a homeinvasion.
When you pulled up, the policewere investigating.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Okay, go ahead I just wanted to make it clear, yeah
okay, well, pretty quickly, youknow, I did realize that this is
something very different.
And you know, you startprocessing and, um, somebody
emerged from the crowd and kindof started hollering at me that
(17:06):
I was in hot water.
This was a federalinvestigation, they knew.
They said we know your husbandis in trouble, we know that you
visited him and you better starttalking because you're looking
at 20 to life.
And so at that point I kind ofjust focused on the floor.
(17:33):
I remember just sort of lookingat my feet and I just I had to
kind of block out all the noisebecause my mind I don't think
people really understand but mymind just kept trying to process
what had happened just fiveminutes ago.
(17:53):
You know, it's just too muchfor the brain to process.
I couldn't process what hadjust transpired, that there was
a racket going on not only in mykitchen but downstairs.
I could hear a lot of voices,and it's just too much for one
little brain to process.
I couldn't.
I was just like then I startedthinking about my cats.
(18:16):
Where are my cats?
You know, if there's a dooropen, that means the cats are
probably gone and I just I shutdown, are probably gone and I
just I shut down.
I do remember somebody emergingthen, because there was one guy
who was screaming and he wasnot particularly pleasant to the
(18:36):
eye.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
pardon, you know that no we, I've worked with those
kind of guys.
They're like the good guy, badguy type cops.
You know, everybody has a role.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Well, that's what I was about to say.
So the good guy emerged and hewas sort of handsome, blonde-ish
, and he hollered at everybody.
He was just like back up, backup, you know.
And then he was sort ofsympathetic to me and my
(19:11):
situation and wanted to know ifI wanted a glass of water.
And then he kind of squatteddown so that he could make eye
contact with me, kind ofsquatted down so that he could
make eye contact with me.
And I remember he said, look,we're your friends.
And that was a strange thing tosay to me because I'm I'm like
(19:38):
you're my friends.
And he said look, you know,you're in a situation.
All we want is information, weneed you to talk to us.
And he just kept referring tous.
As you know, your husband isthe bad guy, we know your
husband is the bad guy and weneed information.
(20:13):
But by that time I had seen apicture of me and my parents and
my brother and it was on thefloor and the glass was broken,
kind of like a Shattered Liveslooking portrait at this stage,
kind of like a shattered liveslooking portrait at this stage,
and I just thought this is thethis is the irony of saying
where your friends was just toomuch of a leap for me,
(20:35):
especially when I could hearbanging and my house was being
destroyed and I felt likeeverybody feels like their home
is their sanctuary.
That's your one safe placewhere you can pull into your
garage and go into your home andknow that when you shut the
door, that that's you know oneplace, that's your own personal
(20:56):
space.
And this was the opposite.
So I kind of, after a while Isort of meet out, you know, kind
of squeaked that I would.
You know, can I call myattorney?
By this stage I had, I hadsurmised that I might get a
(21:19):
visit because my husband was inin legal jeopardy and a lot of
things were going on and I hadhired an attorney for him and
the chemist had also beenarrested, which was somebody I
knew through him and so on.
(21:39):
A very small retainer, I think,maybe two thousand $2,000.
I had just hired an attorneythat had come recommended in the
event that somebody ever didcome and talk to me, but they
said no, you're not making anyphone calls, because I don't
know if they gave a reason then,but later it was, like you know
(21:59):
, you could call one of yourassociates.
And so I remember a friend, afriend of mine, who I was
thinking about making a partnerin primetime promotions, had
pulled in behind me and she hadbeen interrogated outside,
unbeknownst to me, and she, shestuck her head in the hole where
(22:23):
the front door used to be, andGod bless her that she did that.
She could have just likehightailed it out of there.
But she said I'm leaving andshe said is there anything I can
do?
And we didn't have the kind ofwe had.
There were cell phones backthen, but not like today.
(22:44):
And there was no, was nointernet, believe it or not, for
all the young people who maywatch this.
So it wasn't like she couldlook up his name.
But I rattled off his name andI said you know, could you
please call information and callmy attorney?
And so I just continued to justsort of block everything out and
(23:06):
my attorney did come and Ididn't know it, but the
prosecutor was there, the numberone, there was a number one and
a number two chair prosecutorat my ultimately at my trial
later and he singled himself outand had a conversation with my
attorney and they said I couldleave.
(23:26):
Well, they had Mirandized meand I thought I was under arrest
, but later when I left with myattorney, come to find out.
My attorney said they're reallynot that interested in you,
they're interested in yourhusband.
But he did explain that I was,you know, in legal jeopardy.
(23:47):
So not to dwell on this so much, because we probably want to
move on into the what ultimatelyhappened to me, which was after
two years of following me, Ithink there were two more raids.
There were several raids in theDallas area, which is where my
husband was from.
They eventually indicted me andI was arrested in Los Angeles
(24:18):
and they said that they hadfound a white powdery substance
in my house that they thoughtmight be a controlled substance,
which was not the case.
Everybody has a white powderysubstance in their house.
They have flour, baby powder,all those things, and I had no
(24:44):
illegal substance in my home.
That was a white powderysubstance, but that made the
judge not allow me to have bailand I was what do they call it?
Diesel therapy or Conair.
I was put on Conair later andshipped to Waco, texas, where I
sat there for one year and I didget a 24 year sentence because
I took my case to trial.
(25:04):
So, oh, I went to prison inDublin and spent nine years,
three months.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Dublin.
Tell them where Dublin is,because to most people it's a
pub over in across the pond.
You know things like that, soyou can explain.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Well, thank you.
Yeah, it's called FCI FederalCorrectional Institution in
Dublin in Dublin, and Dublin isoutside the San Francisco area,
in the tri-state valley kind of,you know, a little bit south of
(25:43):
Oakland, and so thatinstitution right now is in a
world of hurt because there'ssome scandals going on there and
there were scandals going onwhen I was there.
There's a lot of sexualpredators and there was just
recently a situation where FBIDublin went into receivership
due to the warden and manypeople being walked off and
(26:06):
later arrested for sexualmisconduct with the prisoners.
So that's where I served nineyears and three months and
Glamour magazine had an interestin my story in the late 90s and
this was back when nobody wasreally sympathetic to anybody
who was in prison for drugs.
(26:29):
We were the scourge of thenation thanks to, I tend to
think, president Bush handledthe drug war during his vice
presidency under Reagan.
History Channel did a reallygood three-part series on that
(26:52):
and then later, when he ran foroffice, everybody remembers that
he held up to crack cocaine andwanted stiffer punishments for
anyone even associated with adrug case.
But thanks to Glamour Magazine,two senators in Arkansas one of
whom was from my little bittycommunity of Charleston,
(27:13):
arkansas, that I mentionedearlier.
Senator Dale Bumpers andSenator Pryor were shocked when
they read the article, because Itold the journalist, david
France, if you're going to do anarticle on me, I want it to be
about the conspiracy law,because everybody was blaming
mandatory minimums and I didn'tget a mandatory minimum, I just
got mandatory sentence.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
What was your sentence Amy?
How much?
What was your sentence?
The original?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
24 years.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And what did your husband receive?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Well, the press always gets this wrong because
they think he served four yearson the same case.
He did not.
When he was arrested in Germanyit was because he had said this
was this all happened after Ileft him.
He was setting up distributionin Europe and not one MDMA
(28:06):
tablet ever came to the US andhe was just getting it rolling.
Mdma tablet ever came to the USand he was just getting it
rolling.
So I to this day I really don'tknow whether any ecstasy was
sold over there, but there was apharmaceutical.
He always used pharmaceuticalcompanies, so it's
pharmaceutical grade, and thatone was called called M Hausen,
(28:28):
and M Hausen was thepharmaceutical plant that in
Europe.
The other, unifarm, was thepharmaceutical plant that he
used in Guatemala, which iswhere all the ecstasy came from
that came into the United States.
So these were two totallyseparate cases and the US had no
jurisdiction over.
(28:49):
In the European case that hedid four years, for Germany
actually doesn't have theconspiracy statute and they did
a fairly honest investigation.
If you read their summary, itreads that he was walking in the
gray and M Hausen agreed to doit.
They knew what they were doingand so he served four years.
Then he came back to the US.
(29:10):
He cooperated fully andsnitched on everyone, including
me, and he got three yearsprobation.
So, to answer your question, Igot 24 and a half years based on
all the MDMA that hemanufactured in Unifarm that
came to the US and he got threeyears probation because if you
(29:32):
cooperate you get the benefit.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, as we say in the business, the first dog that
eats at the bowl gets fed thebest, and that was a speech that
I used with with defendants,telling him that it's quite a
discrepancy.
It's quite a discrepancy how wegot connected, which we'll go
into.
The second half of this isEvelyn Bazone.
(29:59):
Papa received double lifesentences and 240 years for
money laundering, which I wasthe co-case agent on, and her
husband remained a fugitiveuntil he was assassinated down
in Barranquilla, columbia, in2006.
So, you know, it seems likethat the discretion, the
(30:22):
direction of the court is sowidespread.
I mean, from what you said,you've come honest, forward what
you did.
So when you go into it, telleverybody, after the senators
got interested, what the happyending in your case was and
bring it up to 2023, please.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Right, right.
Well, just a little footnotebefore I do.
That is, I said when I waswaiting for them to indict me
through an attorney and alsolater in Waco I got a court
appointed attorney, because bythis time they had seized every
all funds I said that, look, Idon't have a problem admitting
(31:09):
to what I did, which wascollecting money.
I said that, look, I don't havea problem admitting to what I
did, which was collecting money.
But the answer, the messagecame back that that wasn't
enough.
They wanted to know where allthe MDMA was, where there was
more funds, and they wanted meto testify against other people.
Initially, my attorney told methat they wanted me to cooperate
(31:33):
and the definition was youdon't get to write the rules of
your cooperation Once you startcooperating.
If they want you to wear a wire, if they want you to infiltrate
his organization, you'll youknow you have to do what they
request.
Because he, being in Germany,couldn't do his own dirty work,
he couldn't go around and set uppeople.
But after the Glamour Magazinearticle, I got 16 politicians
(31:56):
who wrote supporting my clemency, because this was sort of the
first story that explained whatwas happening to girlfriends and
wives and people who were kindof the low hanging fruit, and
even Nancy Pelosi wrote sayingthis was not our intention.
We didn't pass these laws sothat the kingpin could go free
(32:18):
and that the women or mules orpeople who are in that category
could end up serving time foreverything that the kingpin did,
or ringleader or whatever.
So you know, the senators wentto Roger Adams, who was the
pardon attorney at that time.
A lot of people think that, oh,you know, you had, you had
(32:41):
favor with politicians and youknow it was easy.
This was not easy becausenobody's going to ask the
president of the United Statesfor a favor, especially back
then.
And my senator was like I votedfor these laws and until the
Glamour magazine article cameout, he knew my mother, so he
(33:03):
told my mother I can't getinvolved in this because I'm I.
I voted for the mandatoryminimums and until Glamour
explained that the ringleaderwas free, he'd even come to the
US and married an attorney andwe were still married.
We had not even divorced yet.
So he's a bit of a scoundrel.
(33:24):
So they took my case to RogerAdams, who was the pardon
attorney at the time, and whenthey left there they knew that
it was.
They had not made a very goodimpression.
He didn't seem, he didn't seeminterested and he didn't engage.
(33:46):
It just seemed like he was sortof like, just because they were
senators, kind of giving themthe courtesy of talking about my
case.
So then it got to the pointwhere they were like, well,
we're going to take thisdirectly to President Clinton
and he was in Little Rock for aspecial event and they had
dinner with him and they pulleda package on me including the
(34:07):
Glamour magazine article andasked him if he'd please look
into it, including the Glamourmagazine article, and asked him
if he'd please look into it.
Just to collapse the story.
We kept waiting and waiting anda lot of letters went in again
from politicians who weresupporting my clemency and it
ultimately took 60 minutes.
(34:28):
They became interested in mystory and Senator Pryor was
getting a little frustrated Restin peace.
He recently passed and he toldBob Anderson of 60 Minutes, who
said they weren't filming at thetime, they were on break.
But they said how can we help?
And they said, well, call theWhite House and ask why she's
(34:49):
still sitting in prison.
And he did and I think, um,about two weeks later, uh, I got
called over the loudspeaker andI thought it was in trouble
Cause anytime your name is onloudspeaker.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yes, of course.
Report to R and D.
Yeah, Everybody's like okay.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well, or the lieutenant or your caseworker.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
SIS lieutenant yes.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, it's either a loved one is dead, in which case
the chapel normally calls you,and in this situation I thought,
you know, maybe they found alittle contraband in my locker
or something.
And so I was very nervous andwent to the unit and she was in
(35:35):
a state of stress, but shedidn't say what had happened.
She just kept barking orders atme.
She wanted to know where I wasgoing to live and I was just
like I'm parents, I guess Idon't have a place to live, why?
And she just said I've got tofocus here, sit down.
She said you know, I've got alot to do.
(35:56):
And then she's kind ofhollering at me and I was just
like, well, what is this about?
I kept asking her why, what'sgoing on?
And then she kind of turned tome and squared me eye to eye she
was actually a pretty nicewoman and she said you're going
home.
And so I was like I always.
I was in shock, I was just likewhat?
(36:16):
And she said President Clintonhas commuted your sentence and I
have to have you out of here byfive o'clock.
That's back when it had to allbe done the same day.
And I remember jumping, poppingup out of the seat like a
jack-in-the-box and all I wantedto do was call somebody.
I wanted to call my parents, Iwanted to call a friend,
(36:37):
especially somebody who couldcome pick me up, and she said no
.
She said I have to do thispaperwork and get you out of
here before 5 o'clock and so Icouldn't concentrate.
I just kept answering herquestions.
She had to set up contact,probation, get me set up.
And I just kept saying, can Iplease make a call?
(37:00):
And I would sit back down andthen I'd pop back up because I
was so excited.
You know you can't containyourself.
And she finally let me make aphone call.
And so when I got home, youvery quickly realized that
you're never free.
You just want to go free.
That's your goal.
And I was in the law libraryconstantly.
(37:21):
Everybody made fun of me.
They thought I was crazy.
They never dreamed anybodywould get clemency, because no
one had even heard of it backthen.
Clemency because no one hadeven heard of it back then.
And so when you get, when youget out, you're carrying all
this heaviness in your heart,because my roommate was still in
there, my best friends werestill in there.
(37:42):
That becomes your familybecause, believe you me, when
you go to prison, most of yourfriends kind of just just peter
out or really disappear andyou're kind of left with your
family.
I had a few friends who cameand visited me and were hardcore
supporters, but the people thatyou serve time with are the
(38:03):
people who become your families,especially in the law library.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
So I decided to start the can do foundation let me
ask you a couple questions thatI think are relevant.
Um, when Evelyn got out, firstthing she wanted was a shamrock
shake and I remember, likeEvelyn, it's it's April.
They may not have any.
(38:27):
So I went into McDonald's andthere was one packet in the back
and I said how do you knowabout shamrock shakes?
And she said, toby, when youwatch television for 30 years
and you see a shamrock shake,you never tasted it.
You want that.
So my question is you is, whenyou got released, what's, what's
(38:47):
the first mealcooked meal youhad back home in Arkansas and
what year was this?
96, right Late 90s, no 2000.
It was 2000.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I'll never forget July 7, 2000.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Okay 7-7-0-0.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Okay, what was funny was a few things is when you're
on a patch of land for nineyears, you're just like a cow or
something.
You're just walking around.
So a lot of people get carsickwhen they get out.
(39:26):
But what was interesting for meis that nobody had told me that
the when I went to prison thespeed limit was 55.
Remember that arrow?
When they choked down the limit.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Save on gas.
Yeah, we're doing that now yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
So now it's 70, but I didn't.
I didn't notice any, any speedlimit signs.
I just remembered, like holdingon and just thinking we're
going so fast, we're going sofast.
And after a while I said, canwe just stop?
And I just wanted to get asnack or something or have an
(40:05):
opportunity, like at a quickpick, to pick out something.
And so my friend was like mygod, I'm so sorry, I should have
thought of that.
Nobody thinks like we think.
And so we went in and it was.
It was so overwhelming, youdon't, your eye can't focus
because there's so many choices.
And I saw the little freezerthing there full of Dove bars
(40:31):
and ice cream, and so I was like, oh, I want a Dove bar.
Maybe you know that was mychoice to get a Dove bar.
But I really missed of allthings in prison, I missed Thai
food, and we would sit aroundand we would all ask one another
when you get home, what do youmiss most?
(40:53):
What do you want to have?
First, to kind of answer yourquestion, and I remember we'd go
around in a circle and somebodywanted a chocolate cake or
chocolate lava cake, and when itwould come to me I'd be like I
want a margarita, I just wanteda margarita, I just wanted a
margarita.
So I had some friends gottogether and we went to a Thai
(41:16):
restaurant.
But after I got home and I waswith my parents and they
actually picked me up at theairport, we went and had Chinese
food.
I love, I love ethnic food alot.
I just love ethnic food.
But the first home-cooked mealis I wanted a pot roast, I
wanted a really good pot roast.
(41:36):
So that's multiple answers toyour question.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
And did you manage to fit a Jose Cuervo in between
there?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Okay, yeah, okay, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
And, to this day, margaritas are my favorite drink
.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
That brought that out in California.
I'm sure you know you get ataste for that out there.
We'll talk about the prison andthe abuse.
I think that's important, butpeople don't realize that you've
produced movies, you're amentor to other federal inmates
(42:14):
and have led the charge withthis case.
And I'm very grateful becausewhen I found out about Evelyn
Bazan-Papa that you know Ialways check the prisoners
because I did put people in jailwith the US Attorney's Office
and they got released, theyeither lot deported back to
(42:35):
Colombia, venezuela, and Ineeded to check and I saw that
she was there and I know youknow this story but a lot of
people don't.
On the right side of the screenI hit a mouse click.
It was your foundation, the cando foundation, with her
daughter's, martha's plea, andit was a very organized video
(42:55):
and I read it and I'm like andwe had a, let's say, an
adversarial relationship and itwas very adversarial in Spanish,
back and forth with us.
So I looked and I says guardsare writing letters, prison
officials and all this so when?
But I'm saying it was yourfoundation that brought my
(43:17):
attention, that led that.
That's.
Everybody knows the story andin the book that pete throne
wrote.
I gave you full credit for thatbecause that was what triggered
the release.
But why don't?
Why don't you talk about andI'm more interested in what
you've done since you went backand you got your clemency and
(43:38):
how it led up to a wonderfulevent that happened to you under
a different president and adifferent political party.
So go ahead go ahead.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Well, I was pretty much, uh, kind of a lone wolf,
if you for lack of a better term, I just worked out of my house.
I really was not plugged intoback then.
I really frankly, there reallywasn't a criminal justice reform
advocacy arena like themagnitude that we have now, and
all I knew when I started theCan Do Foundation is that I
really needed to help bring someof my friends home.
(44:19):
So at first, I only focused onwomen and, um, you know all the
women that I assisted uh, out ofDublin, our home, not
necessarily because of me, someof them just did their time, but
there were several JosephineLedesma, who was serving life,
(44:40):
and Obama kicked off ClemencyProject 2014 in his second term,
and I was the only organizationin the nation where my mission
statement was clemency for allnonviolent drug offenders.
That's what can do stands for.
And so this wonderful woman,nikichi Taifa, in Washington DC.
(45:05):
She had inroads with the Obamaadministration.
She's amazing and, um, she andshe had the Justice Roundtable
and she also was president ofanother organization and she's
the one who floated the idea tothe Obama administration to do a
clemency summit, and he hadalready kicked off Clemency
(45:25):
Project 2014.
So I had already.
I used to do vigils in front ofthe White House, including the
Bush administration which cameinto.
Bush Jr came in after um, afterI was released, after Clinton
and I.
I would just one personstanding out there and I would
stack the little posters upagainst the the uh fence and
(45:49):
take, get back and take picturesso I could send it into.
Danielle Metz, who has a movieout right now.
She was serving triple lifewith me in prison and uh, jos,
she was serving triple life withme in prison and Josie was
serving life and I just wantedthem to know that somebody was
trying out here.
And then, when Obama kicked offhis clemency project, there was
(46:12):
a guy who worked for USA Todayand he reached out to me and he
said I want you to create thetop 25 women.
I know you focus on women andso I started trying to find all
the lifers because I wanted toprioritize women who were
serving life and put them at thetop of the top 25.
What's strange is I wascommunicating with a lot of
(46:35):
people in a lot of differentprisons and Evelyn's name was
not floated to me even by people.
That later I was very surprisedbecause I was in communication
with them and they knew ofEvelyn, but somehow she fell
through the cracks and so it waskind of late in the game.
Nearly all the lifers on my top25 came home.
(46:56):
Alice Marie Johnson was numberone on my top 25 came home.
Alice Marie Johnson was numberone on the top 25.
She didn't come home untilTrump and Michelle West is still
in there who's serving live butEvelyn?
When I heard about her andeverybody loved her and you know
Demarius and some other peoplewho were like her best friends,
(47:18):
somehow I got in touch with themafter this, I think that's one
woman's name was Billy, whoasked me why don't I have Evelyn
on there?
And I was like Evelyn who?
And so I was just shocked thatshe had served as long as she
had and that the sentence was assevere as it was.
And then, thanks to you andthank you, tobias, you're a huge
(47:42):
hero.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I'm not the hero.
That was a team effort.
It always is.
It always is.
Amy, the prosecutor, got onboard.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Oh well, I say that too.
Even when people sometimescredit can do, I'm like it takes
a village and it also startswith the person serving time,
because those people aren'tgoing to come home if they were
troublemakers in prison.
So I give first credit to theperson who served that time and
did it properly and um was veryinvested in their rehab and.
(48:17):
But what was kind of adeterrent that was not in
Evelyn's favor was that theObama administration did not
grant a single clemency toanybody who was not an American
citizen.
And we started becoming veryconcerned about that because on
(48:37):
the denial list oh my God, youjust go down the list and it
would be Martinez Rodriguez, youknow all these Hispanic names
were who were not Americancitizens, weren't?
And we inquired.
It was like, are they not goingto grant any to anybody who's
going to be deported?
And we never could get a clearanswer.
(49:01):
So you came flying in out ofstage, left and if it weren't
for Paul Peltier who was herprosecutor, that was huge
because that's rare whosupported her clemency or
compassionate release.
But if she hadn't come home theway she did, which was through
(49:23):
your efforts of getting adetective involved, and I know
there were other organizationsthat were suddenly kind of hyper
focused when they found out theprosecutor was willing to write
a letter.
I think the, the, the think thebiggest you know contribution
(49:45):
was you finding a detective who,as you know and I don't want to
tell parts of her story thatare, you know, I had nothing to
do with that, so I take nocredit, please, no.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Well, you're getting that detector the only cool, the
only cool part that we I reallyI was amazed with is she was
released to me and I we didn'tgo through ice detain we had.
We had the detainer lifted.
But I picked her up and lizmendoza, her husband, and and
(50:17):
that, and we went from there tothe Colombian consulate and got
her visa for 30 days and senther home.
And you know, and I was, when Iwent to the airport, customs
and border protections likewhere's the escort team?
I go, it's me.
And they kind of looked at melike I said yeah, here's the
(50:39):
deportation order and uh andthat.
And they read the JNC andthey're like, are you kidding me
?
I said yeah, so I I give a lotof credit to the judge because
she was bound by what thesentencing guidelines were and
we had told her what they were,but she didn't cooperate and she
(51:02):
had an attorney who now isresting way down with a bunch of
fire, who was representing thecartel, not representing the
client, and that was somethingthat we found out years, or I
found out years later in thisprocess.
So but let's talk about you.
Let's talk about you.
(51:23):
So take us up to what happenedto you in 2021 as you move
forward with your foundationsand everything that you started
and progress to what it is now,with a movement.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Gosh.
Well, good Lord.
I went to the Obama White Housethree times.
I went to the Trump White Housefour times and, believe me, the
first time that some of uscrossed that line, the community
what I call the criminaljustice reform community just
(52:02):
went on attack.
It was all over Facebook and wewere just vilified for crossing
that line.
I'm prisoners over politics andI I don't care who's in the Oval
Office.
I may care from you know aperspective of policy and who's
(52:26):
best suited to govern ourcountry, but as far as I was
concerned, the Trumpadministration was trying,
through Jared Kushner, to getfirst step back past.
I threw all my weight into thatand I went over and, like you
said, I talked to Jared.
In fact I talked to him aboutAlice's case, but I was all in
(52:50):
with the first step back andmore people came home with under
first step back, Especially thereduction of sentences for
crack cocaine by all thelayovers that were still in
there, because we did change itfrom 100 to 1 ratio.
A lot of listeners may notunderstand what we're talking
about, but the African communitywas severely punished 100 times
(53:15):
more for crack cocaine thanpowder cocaine, and so, even
though that law had been tweakedseveral times.
There's still some, and evennow there's people in for crack
cocaine who never got any relief, but under the Trump
administration they were walkingout in droves, mostly African
(53:38):
American.
And then we had thecompassionate release, where
people are still coming home oncompassionate release and Evelyn
, you know, benefited from, andthen elderly release.
Just a whole lot of people havebenefited from the First Step
Act and I got a full pardon.
Pardon because I was soparticipatory and worked very
(54:02):
hard.
I even got my own congressman,Ted Lieu, to change his mind
because I was there when theyvoted on whether the House would
pass it so that it could go onto the Senate, and he was a no,
and I was in the for lack of abetter word the voting room
(54:22):
chamber, whatever you want tocall it, and I walked up to him.
He happened to walk in early,thank God, because a lot of
people walked in at the lastsecond, voted and left, and I
asked him what he was going tovote and he said well, I got a.
I got a letter from a lot oforganizations saying to not vote
yes, and I said, well, that's abig mistake, and I'm your
(54:43):
constituent and I was at hisinauguration at UCLA and I
explained.
He said well, help meunderstand what what's?
I don't think most of them readthe bills.
So I explained how thecompassionate release is
normally up to the warden, andthe wardens always deny
compassionate releases, theynever grant any and that this
(55:04):
would give people the right,after a warden deny a
compassionate release, to takeit to their judge.
And I also talked about womenbeing shackled during labor and
that it was going to help on thecrack cocaine.
And he, he, I convinced him andso he voted yes.
(55:25):
As we know, it passed.
And then we had a big job and Iwent to Kamala Harris's Kamala,
excuse me, Harris's office whenshe was senator, spoke with her
staff.
Harris's office when she wasSenator, spoke with her staff.
But I was up on Capitol Hillwalking the halls, speaking also
(55:47):
to Tom Cotton, a Senator herein Arkansas who to this day is
one of the biggest critics ofthe First Step Act because he's
kind of very narrow minded, butanyway.
So I got a full pardon throughTrump because he did things in
an unorthodox way.
He was convinced by a lot of uswho told him that the office of
the pardon attorney is sort ofcontrolled by Department of
(56:09):
Justice.
So the office of the pardonattorney has to send all
petitions to the Department ofJustice and then your prosecutor
has the loudest voice as towhich cases travel over to the
White House.
So he, then your prosecutor,has the loudest voice as to
which cases travel over to theWhite House, so he was willing
to work with some of us.
It wasn't a perfect system.
In fact I wish he had justbrought OPA and made it separate
(56:31):
from DOJ.
The Office of the PartnerAttorney can give their
recommendations, the Departmentof Justice can give their
recommendations and then I thinkthe White House counsel can
take those two considerationsand come to a conclusion that a
president you know president maywant to give clemency to
certain types of cases, justlike Obama focused on crack
(56:54):
cocaine, and they have thatprerogative.
And Trump wanted to grant manymore than what were actually
granted, but because I helpedget first step act passed, he
decided to grant some fullpardon for people who helped
with that.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah, no, that's wonderful and you know I was and
I congratulate you on on thatand well deserved.
You did 16 years in federalprison and when we get, when I
when we get, I'm sorry when weget back on another topic.
(57:30):
I'd like to talk another dayabout the Dublin prison
situation.
Amy, you brought guests for myshow upcoming.
I don't want to.
I want people to listen in, sothe names will be out.
They have to do with drugsmugglers during Carlos Slater's
(57:51):
day, the cocaine cowboy days inMiami women, a lady that was a
gang member in Mexico, and so Ithink it's great and the whole
point of this is to show allperspectives of the criminal
justice system.
So again, thank you so much,thank you so much and I hope to
(58:18):
see you soon.
And, you know, enjoy thebeautiful view of the lake and
Jeff hasn't said much.
Jeff really is veryknowledgeable on this and I'm
sure he'll have a lot ofquestions next time we're going
to talk, but we're going to talkabout the women in prison and
(58:39):
and the abuse now.
Dublin was closed.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
right, it was closed by bop yeah, they wanted to ship
the women out of there and I'mcommunicating with several of
them.
Many of them are in wasika,some are in hazleton and they
are literally being there, isretaliation going on and anyone
who was part of that classaction lawsuit is really there.
(59:07):
It's heartbreaking what's goingon.
And, yeah, they were allshipped out Last moment's notice
.
They were promised that theywould be able to move closer to
where their relatives were, butthat they just had to get them
wherever and not to worry.
Well, guess what?
Now that they're the ones inWasika are saying that Wasika is
(59:28):
saying you have to stay herefor 18 months, which is a policy
that when you arrive at aprison, you can't transfer for
18 months, and they're very farfrom home arrive at a prison you
can't transfer for 18 monthsand they're very far from home,
okay again, thank you very much.
Um, like I said, real pleasureto see you take care well, thank
(59:49):
you, and thank you for the workyou do.
I really appreciate.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
Jeff and Tabar.
Thank you, bye-bye, thank you.
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