February 9, 2023 • 47 mins
Here's a little bit about my friend Nancy from her "Psychology Today" profile:"I specialize in helping individuals and families on the sex offense registry succeed in re-entry. I fully recognize the difficulties of how stressful this can be for all involved. I am equally passionate about helping anyone effectively reenter after incarceration. No judgment of the past, as we build a positive future."Contact Nancy:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/nancy-k-miller-des-moines-ia/1011769Contact Dave:www.survivingthesystem.orgwww.facebook.com/survivingthesystemwww.twitter.com/STSthePodcast
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The thirteenth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as
a punishment for a crime. Everwondered how we ended up with the largest
prison population of any country. Haveyou noticed that those whose jobs it is
to protect and serve seem to bedemanding more and more blind obedient. You
didn't think it just happened by chance, did you. It's time to call
(00:23):
attention to the fact our government asthe most prolific slave owner on the planet.
This is Surviving the System. Thankyou for joining me today on Surviving
the System. This is Dance andDave. And if you are joining us
on Fringe FM, thank you verymuch for listening. We're glad to have
you. If you are listening tothis on podcast, please don't forget to
(00:45):
subscribe to the show, Leave mea comment, leave me a rating.
You know, I'm not going toget any help from the algorithms at all
with the topics that we talk abouthere. So the only way really that
we're going to be able to getthe word out and that I can get
tinue to get this show in frontof other people is with your assistance.
So please take that extra step toshare this with your community. Tonight,
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I am going to be bringing ona guest. This is a friend of
mine who we've just been waiting forthe right time. We were introduced through
a mutual organization. She and herfamily went through a very similar situation to
what I and my family did,so we instantly had that bit of a
(01:29):
connection, that rapport, and herstory is again similar to mine. It's
taking something that could potentially be tragicand has ruined the lives of many other
people and turning it into a triumph, turning it into something productive and constructive.
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And that's what I try to dohere. So we will bring her
on in just a moment before wedo a couple of quick housekeeping items.
Don't forget to check out the websiteSurviving the System dot org. I've got
an archive of all the shows onthere if you prefer to listen through your
laptop or your PC computer. I'vealso got the message me section down at
(02:13):
the bottom. I'd love to hearfrom you. Shoot me a message,
let me know what you think,especially if you have a story to tell.
I would love the opportunity to speakwith you and see what we can
do to help you to tell thatstory on Facebook, dot com, slash
Surviving the System on Twitter at STS, the podcast, same thing. I
keep those open. I've got thoseinstant messages. The dms are open for
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you to reach out to me.I get back within twenty four hours.
I want to hear from you.I love the interaction and I'd love to
be able to help you tell yourstory. You know, this is the
this is the platform to do it. Now, before we get going,
I always want to start the showwith a quick moment of gratitude as we
can get into some topics that aresometimes a little deeper and darker and if
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not handled with the proper care,can really just leave you feeling frustrated and
angry and just in a much lowervibrational state at the end of it.
And so we're not going to haveany of that here. We're going to
start off with that moment of gratitudethat helps us to keep the show the
vibration high, keep that energy levelhigh, and it allows us to really
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tackle these topics without without it draggingus down into the mud, so we
can handle it in a productive andconstructive manner and hopefully at the end of
it we'll have a plan and somethingthat we can do now that we know
better. So with that said,I just want to take a quick moment
to say that I am I am. I'm so grateful to be here with
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you, allowing me to live outmy purpose to help to remind you of
who you really are and what you'retruly capable of. Now that said,
I am going to be bringing onmy guest, Nan C. Miller.
So, Nancy and I met throughNebraska's Unafraid years ago when I was still
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in the early stages of my reentry. Nancy was doing a project for school
and was specifically looking to speak withpeople who were on the registry to talk
about some of the challenges in theissues that they face. And I had
plenty to talk about, plenty totalk about. So I had the honored
of helping her to complete her educationby allowing her to tell my story,
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and today I want to return thefavor. So we're going to turn this
over to Nancy, and I reallywant to learn more about what happened with
her and her husband, what shedid to get through that, and then
where she's at now, like whatshe's doing to handle this in that constructive
manner. And really to help otherpeople through this, and we'll see what
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she has to say. Nancy,thank you very much for joining me today
on Surviving the System. Hi,Dave, it's great to be here.
Thanks for having me on. Yeah, absolutely, I'm glad we could finally
make this happen. Yeah, it'sbeen a long time coming. But it's
been a very long time coming.But that's I'd rather wait for the right
time than try to force it andhave it just go badly and not leave
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that good taste in your mouth.So we will. Well, let's just
get right to it. I wantto make sure because you've got a lot
to talk about, but I wantto make sure to give you as much
time as I can. So thereason that you and I are speaking is
because you and your husband wound upgoing through an encounter with the system and
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kind of led you down the pathto where you're at right now. If
you don't mind, and whatever you'recomfortable sharing, tell us a little bit
about what happened in those initial phases, Like what happened when that when the
first came down our story started.Um, it's been eleven and a half
(06:03):
years ago with quiet Tuesday morning,nothing really going on m My husband and
I worked on hours, so wewere both home in the morning with our
one and a half year old daughter, and all of a sudden, there
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was pounding at the front door andthe back door, and my husband went
to the front door and I wentto the back door, and we opened
the doors, and all of asudden, a bunch of cops came streaming
through into our home. They werewearing um bulletproof vests and their uniforms said
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ice on it. Yeah they yeah, exactly. They were all squatted out,
they they had their hands on theirguns. Nobody pulled one, but
my dog was barking, so Iwas worried about my dog, and I
was thinking, this is probably ajoke or something right wrong house. The
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only person I recognized was our citychief of police. I live in a
small town in Iowa. So Isaw our chief of police, which I
knew him, we'd known each otherfor probably twenty years. And I'm like,
Jim, what's going on? What'shappening here? And he said I
don't know, And I said,do you want me? I said,
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do you think I should call mylawyer? Which I don't have a criminal
lawyer. I have a business lawyer. Right, he said, well,
why don't you just wait? SoI sat down. I want to preface
a little bit about our family.UM. At that time, my husband
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and I had been married for almosttwenty years, and we had been through
all kinds of uppisode and downs withfamily members having cancer, um, just
falling out with family, just wewent through infertility together. We adopted three
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children together. So we had beenthrough a homesteady process with social workers in
our house and all up in ourbusiness. We had just gone through all
this stuff. Sure together, you'llgo through a lot in twenty years.
Yes, And UM, so yeah, I was like, what what's going
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on? H terrified, feeling youknow that nobody showed me a warrant,
nobody told me what they were doingthere until an hour and a half later.
Yeah, they had been interviewing myhusband in our dining room while they
kept me secluded in my daughter's bedroom. And then they finally brought my husband
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into my daughter's bedroom and told methat they were there looking for child pornography.
And I was taken aback, surprise, shocked, disgusted, terrified,
everything all at once. Yeah.I had no idea. I did not
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I didn't even know really what thatwas or what that meant. I didn't
know it existed. I knew thatmy my husband would probably have been using
pornography, but I had no ideawhat he was looking at. And um
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so meanwhile, our two older childrenwere at school. And so it was
Homeland Security that actually raided our house. And um, exactly, yes,
Homeland Security. They had. Uh, I guess usually it's the marshals US
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marshals to do that, but sureor something, but Homeland Security raided our
house. They took our laptop,our desktop, phones, they did not
take phones. Um, they tooka box of VHS porn that I wanted
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out of our house anyway before ourboys found it. So they did me
a favor there. Um. Theythey took one memory card that my husband
had used too, because he wasselling things on eBay and that's where he
kept his photos. So they tookthat. They said, well, well
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we'll be in touch, see youlater and now they yeah, and I
had all of my we own asmall business. We were, I mean,
we were very involved in our communityat the time. My husband was
on committee for city council. UM. I had always been involved with our
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local government and stuff like that.But um, we we were just shocked.
They left us standing there in shock, and they said, I don't
know. The chief detective said,do you think you're gonna hurt each other,
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because I'm gonna let the local policeknow that, you know, keep
an eye on you, because youknow, we don't want you to hurt
each other. Sure, And Ijust stood in my dining room and I
took my husband's hand. I said, well, well, we're gonna be
okay because God is with us.We had a very strong faith at the
time. We were very involved inour church at the time. And so
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they left and left us just shellshocked. And I couldn't believe that.
The detective said that my husband couldgo to prison for four years and maybe
longer. And I was like,that just blows your whole world apart in
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your day. But my husband said, I'm so glad that they came because
I wanted to quit doing what Iwas doing. I wanted to quit looking
at porn. He said, everyweek he'd it promised that he'd quit looking
at porn, and then he'd thevery next night he'd be back on looking
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at more porn. That's and that'sfunny. Because I think I said I
said something similar. I remember sayingsomething similar to my attorney at the time,
because I wound up through that processmeeting a lot of a lot of
other men who were in similar situations, but the result was much worse for
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them where it was. And youhear stories like this all the time where
it's it gets blown away out ofproportion when it's put out into the media
when you actually dig down and findout what's going on. A lot of
time it's federal because they tag theseimages or these videos, and sometimes it
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can wind up on someone's computer inadvertentlyand they don't care if you've got it,
well, too bad, it's it'son your computer proof you didn't want
it, you know, that kindof a thing. And so many people
were five, ten, fifteen,twenty years in federal prison, like their
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lives just completely ruined. And Ihad the same sentiment where I just said,
man, I'm I'm glad this happenednow, to stop me before that
ever happened, right, And theytold us how he got caught. He
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he had visited a website that hadbeen commandeered by an Italian police force,
and they instead of shutting the websitedown immediately yep, and keeping anymore child
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sex abuse images from going out inthere. They chose to run it for
two weeks and tag everybody's IP addressesthat visited that website. Ye. Well,
evidently somehow my husband got on thatwebsite at some point in that two
weeks and had looked at twelve pictures, and that's how they got a search
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warrant for our house. It justtook twelve pictures. And you hear about
stories of people collecting tons and tonsof images, and he wasn't saving any
he was deleting everything right away.Sure, So just to know that somehow
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my life got wrapped up in somethingso far away, yeah yeah, so
close. I mean, I mean, the crime took place in my basement
with the computer, and but yetsomehow my life gets tagged into all that
other stuff. But U so,yeah, we we we're left to process
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all this on our own. I'ma person. I have to talk,
I have to process things with otherpeople. So I told I immediately went
and found somebody to talk to afriend, and I told my husband he
needed to find a therapist to goto right away and deal with what was
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going on. So you know hewent to a psychologist. I think it
was a psychologist, and as faras I know, was pretty honest with
that person. And that person said, you know, this is the way
pornograph he works is you start outlooking at people, your own age people,
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you know, what they would callnormal porn whatever that is anymore.
And then eventually your your brain getstired of that kind of image and needs
a little bit more to get stimulatedand to have that same release. So
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your neurons and your pathways are beingmade and those grooves are being dug deep
inside your brain. Get bored withsomething, so you move on to something
a little bit more novel. Sopretty soon my husband's out there looking at
everything, all kinds of things,and he wasn't necessarily fixated on underage pornography
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or child sex abuse images is whatwe call them now, and the and
the perfect rational world. Um,so that's kind of how the progress went.
He started using pornography when he wasa teenage, well when he was
a teenager using magazines, and thenas soon as we got the Internet,
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he was hooked. Um. AndI'd like to I'd like to jump on
that a little bit and expound,because that was. I mean that was
that was part of my story too. Um, It's it's an addiction just
like any other, but because ithas that that taboo attached to it,
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because for whatever reason, in thiscountry, we don't we love to talk
about sex, but we don't liketo talk about sex. It's like a
forbidden topic that everybody knows we're alltalking about anyway. But it's if you
think about those people who if you'veever seen anyone an alcoholic or someone that
unfortunately got hung up in drug abuse, it always escalates because the body gets
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used to whatever that is and itneeds more or it needs something different.
You hear these stories of people whenthey're doing drugs where they're like, oh,
I started out with just this littlemount but I needed more and more
and more, And it's it's thesame thing. And I think you touched
on it. And I don't wantto go too far down the rabbit hole
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because I really want to. Iwant to let you tell your story.
But they the system. And whenI in this particular context, when I
say the system, I'm talking aboutgovernment authorities. They're they're pushing all of
this stuff out on the internet sothat they can win more cases and look
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like they're tough on crime, they'rethey're helping to perpetuate the cycle of addiction.
Just if we you know, ifyou you listen to a lot of
the documents and a lot of thetheories and u stories from people who have
exposed the CIA's involvement with with cocainetrafficking in the United States, Like they're
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they're allowing it to happen so theycan try to catch more people. And
I I know from myself it tookthat to realize that it was even a
real thing. Yeah. Yeah,it's so common for law enforcement to take
over a website and instead of shuttingit down or um turning it into a
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helping thing where you know, weknow you came, they could change the
format of the website to say,we know you came here looking for this,
but let's offer some assistance with youraddiction. Yeah, and they don't
just want to catch the low hangingfruit because of people that are visiting the
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websites are easy to find because therethey have an eye he address that will
take you right to their home right, so it's easy to make a good
bus And it's it's funny too,you know, not funny haha, by
any by any stretch of the imagination. But you know, if I was
to do that, if I wasto set up shop and open up a
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website like that, oh they'd comebeat my door down. And yeah,
I could sit there and say,oh no, I was doing it because
I was trying to catch people tocome on. Now, we all know,
we all know how that works.But all of a sudden, when
the quote unquote authorities do it,it's a mental shift that we've been programmed
in this country to to just shutoff logic and to miss that part that
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they're contributing. They're contributing to thatperson's addiction. Yes, and they're also
perpetuating the images that they're allowing tobe seen, absolutely, the same ones
that they can claim are so heinous, exactly exactly. Well, we're gonna
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we're gonna push pause right there.We are gonna take a break. We
will be back in just a fewminutes and we'll pick the story back up.
All right, thank you for comingback. We are live on Fringe
FM. If you would like tojoin in, if you have a question
for myself, for for Nancy,don't forget, you can call in at
(22:30):
one eight hundred and five eight eightzero three three five eight hundred and five
eight eight zero three three five.But I want to make sure that we
get right back into it because wedo have a lot more to talk about.
So, Nancy, when we've cutout, we had just left off
with the authorities leaving your home andyou and your husband basically trying to figure
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out what to do with with lifeas you now know it completely being changed.
So how did things progress from there? And just for the sake of
time, Well, we'll try toI want to go into as much detail
as we can, but I wantto try to hit the high points.
So what was the like, whatwas the legal process like for you folks?
And I'm curious for myself too becausemine was state, not at federal.
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I know it's it's much different betweenthe two. Yeah, they read
in our house at the beginning ofApril in twenty eleven, and we didn't
hear anything back from them. Theyhad my computer that had all my business
stuff on it. I couldn't FortunatelyI had a backup, but we didn't
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hear anything through this bizarre tail.I met a woman who had gone through
something very similar and she was ableto direct me to get ahold of the
Federal Public Defender's office. So wemade contact with them and got set up
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to you know, got to proveto have a public defender for my husband
should they come back and arrest him, because at this time he's not under
arrest, he's not under supervision oranything. They finally came back at the
end of October with an arrest lawrant. They had found thirteen images in the
cash buried in the cash of ourdesktypes computer. There was nothing on the
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laptop, there was nothing on them. The drive that they took, yeah,
the memory card, thank you,And so it took thirteen images.
Some of them we found out latersome of them were duplicated images, something
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he hadn't looked at at all.Um, So how they get there?
How? I don't I don't know. I don't understand all that stuff.
Yeah, if you if you clickon a web page, it comes up
with a bunch of images. Ifyou don't, I don't know. I
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don't want to get into a cause. And I asked that almost rhetoric,
because that is Yeah, I askedthat rhetorically because a lot of times,
like I said, these guys,these these guys didn't. That's not what
they were looking for at all.I mean, in full disclosure and full
honesty, my husband did. Yeah, he was down the rabbit hole looking
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at all kinds of things. Sosure, um, he knew he was
guilty, and he confessed to itwhen they when they were here investigating.
Um, so they came back andarrested him. He had to go to
the They took him to the federalcourthouse in Des Moines and he was had
his first appearance in friend of thejudge that same day. I had to
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figure out how to get to thefederal courthouse because I had no idea what.
I didn't know where to go.This is not my world. So
fortunately we have a good friend who'sa bail bondsman, and he just dropped
everything for me that day and tookme down there, and he did.
He had no idea what was goingon. We hadn't told very many people
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at all, and so he gotto find out that day what we were
facing and then he went down therewith me and that was comforting. But
yeah, he appeared before the judge. My husband appeared before the judge.
The judge said, Okay, Isee you're under arrest for possession of child
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pornography one count. Uh. Thenhe said, I'm gonna let you go
on your on your own, butyou'll you'll be under present pre trial um
supervision. So he was given aprobation officer that day. Um, he
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was fitted with an ankle monitor thatday. He was given restrictions on where
he could go and what he coulddo. He wasn't allowed to be around
anybody's anybody else's kids but ours,and um, there was some other stuff
like he couldn't take pictures of anybodyelse's kids. Sure, not that he
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ever did. Yeah, he wasn'tinterested in doing that. Um. Yeah,
So he came home that day.Yeah, he just came home that
day. And then we had to, you know, go through that process
of holy crap, now what youknow? Right? So how long did
that legal process take until they finallyit sounds like a pority of course spoiler
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alert only end. But if heconfessed, it sounds like he is going
to be sentenced at some point.And why once once the Feds get a
hold of your computer and you haveany evidence at all, you're screwed.
Um, there's no there's no fightingit. They've got the evidence right there.
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We we kind of joke that thefederal um prosecutor has the easiest job
ever because he doesn't even have todo any of the hard work to try
to prove somebody's guilty because it's rightthere on your computer. Right. Um.
The reason ours went federal is becauseI don't know, they said that
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because our computer was made in adifferent state. Wow that it's yeah,
And a lot of times it's Idon't know, a lot of times it's
like if an image originates from overthe state lines to that interstate commerce as
we like, there's all kinds ofit's a big they made up this whole
big gray area out of it,I think, to to just take more
(29:23):
jurisdiction. But that's again besides thepoints. I mean that even the charge
of possession of child pornography is notthat old. There's not there's not a
huge history of that in the legalsystem. Yeah. Um, so anyway,
Um, we had some child datesthat are you know, like hearings
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that were set, but we canjust kept postponing and tell um the they
wanted us to get all of ourducks in a row for him to be
because we knew that as soon ashe took a guilty plea, Um,
they would incarcerate him right away rightSo, owning our own business, we
(30:10):
needed to get We needed to alertour customers that this was going to happen,
um and give them the chance toso they you know, we didn't
know if it was going to everhit the news. It never did.
My husband's not a boy Scout leaderwhich I met. I met one of
(30:30):
those along this same that was alsobusted in this same m bus. He
was arrested in the same kind ofsting it's almost a stingy, practically a
sting us well. I ended upmeeting him or his wife around the same
(30:52):
time. So, um, wewaited about six months or so before he
took his plea so that he couldturn himself in, and as soon as
we had that, he became incarceratedas a federal inmate in the county jail,
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and he spent about seven more monthsthere waiting for a sentencing hearing.
We chose to go with. Hedidn't take a plea. He took a
plea deal, but he said hewanted to let the judge come up with
(31:37):
the sentence because he only had sofew images and he didn't have a receipt
charge. Usually when when the guyswere getting busted back then, they were
getting charged with possession and receipt.Got it. Possession has no mandatory minimum,
(32:01):
but the receipt charge has a fiveyear mandatory minimum. Well, my
husband only got the one charge becausehe had such few images. I don't
know why he didn't get the otherone. But so most guys were taking
a plea deal for forty eight monthsat that time, and we wanted to
(32:22):
see if the judge would give himless time because he had so few.
He overwhelmingly took responsibility for his actions. I was advocating for our family and
him, but mostly our family,Yeah, you know, And so we
(32:44):
shared our story a lot at thattime while he was waiting to change his
plea and um, you know,it's like coming out of the closet saying,
here's our here's what our life hasturned into. Would you please write
a character letter from my husband,because you know who he really is,
(33:08):
who he is outside of this addiction. Sure. And so we had about
thirty people right in to the judgeand when it came time for him to
while the day of his sentencing,we had thirty people come to witness and
(33:30):
show support for him and us.At his sentencing hearing, and the judge
gave him thirty months instead of theforty eight. Yeah, and having gone
through that myself, like thirty months, if you've never been through it and
(33:51):
you don't understand what could potentially happen, that's really not that bad. That's
it's it's pretty it's pretty light overall. That's the best case scenario. And
yeah, looking back on it now, it's it was a good thing.
At that time, I was Ihad high hopes thinking that we were going
(34:14):
to get off easier. But sure, you know, he'd already done about
seven months at the county jail,so, um, you take that time
off. Um with federal time,there's no m good time, right really,
(34:35):
and they give you good time.It's like fifteen percent off of your
total sentence. And then if ifyou're not a good inmate, then they're
going to add that time back on. But so he got We asked that
he would get placed close to ourhome, while the closest place is Leavenworth,
(34:58):
Kansas. But my husband had nocriminal record. He had very very
low points, which is what theyused to determine where you're going to get
sent how big of a risk youare? You know? And he had
very low points he could have hequalified to go to a camp, but
(35:22):
at that time the FEDS weren't allowinganybody with a sex crime to go to
a camp. Sure, so heended up at Leavenworth USP. And it's
a medium facility and there were noguys there with a sex crime, nobody
(35:52):
that you knew of. You know, if you had a sex crime,
you were hiding it really good fromum the other inmates and as if you
could hide it from the staff,you were doing good. So he got
sent there. Um, he fearedfor his life every day. Sure he
(36:20):
was supposed to. They wanted himto show his papers and what he was
in there for, but he couldn't. He just kept putting it off and
kept his head down, kept tohimself. Yeah, eventually he got a
job inside the prison and um,he was able to survive until three days
(36:45):
before he got out. And that'swhen he was confronted by a white supremacist
from another area in the prison.Another inmate got into his pod and physically
assaulted him. Fortunately it didn't turninto it was no big deal, but
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they both got sent to protected custodyand there was an investigation. He was
worried that he would get disciplined forit, yeah, when he wasn't the
one that started it. But hespent his last three days in the hole
Leavenworth. Yeah, all of hisproperty and everything. And I want to,
(37:35):
I really want to to ask youthe question here. We've got We've
got about ten minutes left, sowe've got enough time, but I still
want to make sure to to coverat least this last part. You know,
I, especially on my end,I talked a lot about what it's
like inside. But part of whyI do the show and why I bring
guests on, especially like yourself,is the families are never talked about after
(38:04):
the fact unless you're unless you're inthere. And when I say that,
I mean like through the media.The politicians they just like, oh,
look how tough we are on crime, and they have no consideration for the
wake of destruction that they have justleft in their path. So what what
was that like for you? Andhow how did you handle things running the
(38:27):
business? What was your community like? Like? What was that overall like
for you and your family? AndI am a person who struggles with depression,
and anxiety among other mental health issues. So this just absolutely exacerbated my
mental health issues. I spent alot of time sleeping, and my three
(38:52):
kids just kind of survived without mesomehow. Yeah, I checked out a
lot, but I still managed todo the things that I had to do.
But I was really a hot mess. And even when even after my
husband got out and got home,I the anxiety of him being on supervision
(39:15):
and having to entertain um, thesefederal probation officers that came into our house
use twice a month. I hadPTSD from the raid, sure, so
bad that I had anxiety. Youknow, I would just be on the
(39:36):
ceiling anytime they stopped by and UMI had. I would rage at them.
I would swear at them. Sure, and then I'd call him the
next day and say, I'm sosorry. That's not how I usually speak.
I'm not usually like that. YeahI have. And I told him
straight up before they before my husbandever got to move home, said I've
(40:00):
got PTSD, and you guys beinghere is not good for me. Sure,
I still if I get like ifsomebody if I'm driving down the road
and like I've got a broken taillight or something, and those lights turn
on behind me. That sets meoff still to this day. Yeah,
you're guts just crawl up into yourchest, absolutely so with just a few
(40:22):
minutes left, though, I wantto I always want to end on that
on that high note. With thosechallenges and with everything that you and your
family went through, and with thedepression, the anxiety, the PTSD,
you were still able to take thisand turn this into something something productive.
(40:43):
What are you doing with your lifenow? After I had a complete mental
breakdown and when to the hospital forfive days. When I got out,
over the next few months, Iwas able to recover and eventually there's so
(41:05):
much more of this story. Butmy husband, his mandatory therapist, said
to me, after seeing me advocateso strongly for my family, she said,
why don't you go to school andbecome a social worker so that you
can do this and help other families. And I was like, I'm forty
five years old. At that time, I had no intention of going to
(41:28):
school. I didn't know how todo it. She told me how I
started out at community college seven yearsago, and I just finished my master's
degree in May of this year,and I am now working as a therapist,
and I My ideal client is somebodywho has been through this system,
(41:55):
and I want to help people gothrough this. Be there for somebody,
because I didn't feel like anybody knewwhat I was going through. Sure,
and I know this is happening toso many people all over the place.
So I've got a great boss thattook me under his wing and is helping
(42:16):
me get started. I've been Istudy all kinds of pornography related issues,
sexual type of issues. I've justspent the last seven years just really learning
(42:40):
all those things and learning about whatthe sex offender registry does to people,
how it ostracizes people. I becameostracized in my community, but in the
families exactly, and it could havebeen a lot worse. But boy,
sure would be a lot better ifwe didn't have to have our name plastered
(43:01):
all over Sure. I know inthe meantime, you know, my husband
did great on supervision. Yeah,we had five years of supervision. He
was able to appeal to the judgeand asked to get off that early and
he was granted that about eight monthsearly. And then Iowa has a mechanism
(43:22):
where you can apply for a modificationfor your your registry requirement. Yeah,
and we went through that about ayear ago. We started that and he
was able to get a modification.So my husband got off the registry in
Iowa two years early. That's awesome. Yes, it's wonderful. That's great.
(43:47):
And you know, I think justone thing to kind of add on
to to what you were saying there, that you you didn't feel like anyone
knew what you were going through.If you if you just look at statistics,
and I've talked about this on theshow depending depending Right now it's a
little bit up in the air,but somewhere between twenty five percent to thirty
(44:07):
three percent of the population has somethingsignificant on their record, meaning they've they've
gone through something like this. That'sa quarter to a third of the population.
So if you're in a room withten people, odds are I had
(44:30):
two or three of them have probablyalso been through something similar to what you
have. That's a pretty astounding number. But it's interesting that it carries such
a stigma that nope, we justnobody talks about it. It's still carries
that that scarlet letter, oh mygosh, you've been through the system,
(44:51):
not even talking about being on theregistry just if you've been arrested for anything,
it just all of a sudden,people tend to look at you with
a different filter over their eyes.And it takes people advocating like yourself to
get them to realize, Oh,that's not what I thought it was.
(45:14):
Yeah, And I'm not afraid totalk about it. I would rather own
my story and my family's story.Yeah, And I want to present it
in the way that I want itto be presented. I don't want people
to make up their own reality aboutit. Oh no, So I've always
(45:38):
taken control of that. So we'vegot just just a little over a minute
left, and with that minute,what I want to do is I want
to give people the opportunity if theywant to reach out to you, if
they've got a question, or maybeif they're in the Iowa area and are
looking for some help or some guidance. What's the best way for people to
(46:00):
each out and contact you right now? Probably the best way is through my
Psychology Today page. If you goto the Psychology Today website and search Nancy
Miller in Des Moines, you'll comeup with my profile. And I mentioned
(46:20):
a little bit on there about beingopen to helping people who are on the
registry, who are in reentry,helping them find resources, find a job,
find a place to live, bethere for a support. That's where
you can find me perfect. Iwill make sure to put that on the
(46:44):
show notes, so if you arelistening to this on podcast, make sure
you check that description. I willhave that information on there for you as
well. And Nancy were we arewinding down, so I want to I
want to thank you very much foryour time and we'll we'll have you back
on for another time. I knowthere was a lot more to tell,
but we'll get back into it.So thank you, thank you again.
(47:07):
Thank you all for tuning me today. No, no, thank you,
thank you, And as always,remember keep your head up, don't let
them get you. It may beeasy to look at all the corruption and
manipulation and the system and feel hopeless. You're at surviving the system. We
hold to the belief that greatness isborn in the midst of extraordinary struggles.
You were created with a purpose,with infinite potential, and many have lost
(47:30):
sight of that back We're here toremind you of who you are. The
best revenge is success.
The thirteenth Amendment to the United StatesConstitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as
a punishment for a crime. Everwondered how we ended up with the largest
prison population of any country. Haveyou noticed that those whose jobs it is
to protect and serve seem to bedemanding more and more blind obedient. You
didn't think it just happened by chance, did you. It's time to call
(00:23):
attention to the fact our government asthe most prolific slave owner on the planet.
This is Surviving the System. Thankyou for joining me today on Surviving
the System. This is Dance andDave. And if you are joining us
on Fringe FM, thank you verymuch for listening. We're glad to have
you. If you are listening tothis on podcast, please don't forget to
(00:45):
subscribe to the show, Leave mea comment, leave me a rating.
You know, I'm not going toget any help from the algorithms at all
with the topics that we talk abouthere. So the only way really that
we're going to be able to getthe word out and that I can get
tinue to get this show in frontof other people is with your assistance.
So please take that extra step toshare this with your community. Tonight,
(01:08):
I am going to be bringing ona guest. This is a friend of
mine who we've just been waiting forthe right time. We were introduced through
a mutual organization. She and herfamily went through a very similar situation to
what I and my family did,so we instantly had that bit of a
(01:29):
connection, that rapport, and herstory is again similar to mine. It's
taking something that could potentially be tragicand has ruined the lives of many other
people and turning it into a triumph, turning it into something productive and constructive.
(01:51):
And that's what I try to dohere. So we will bring her
on in just a moment before wedo a couple of quick housekeeping items.
Don't forget to check out the websiteSurviving the System dot org. I've got
an archive of all the shows onthere if you prefer to listen through your
laptop or your PC computer. I'vealso got the message me section down at
(02:13):
the bottom. I'd love to hearfrom you. Shoot me a message,
let me know what you think,especially if you have a story to tell.
I would love the opportunity to speakwith you and see what we can
do to help you to tell thatstory on Facebook, dot com, slash
Surviving the System on Twitter at STS, the podcast, same thing. I
keep those open. I've got thoseinstant messages. The dms are open for
(02:36):
you to reach out to me.I get back within twenty four hours.
I want to hear from you.I love the interaction and I'd love to
be able to help you tell yourstory. You know, this is the
this is the platform to do it. Now, before we get going,
I always want to start the showwith a quick moment of gratitude as we
can get into some topics that aresometimes a little deeper and darker and if
(03:01):
not handled with the proper care,can really just leave you feeling frustrated and
angry and just in a much lowervibrational state at the end of it.
And so we're not going to haveany of that here. We're going to
start off with that moment of gratitudethat helps us to keep the show the
vibration high, keep that energy levelhigh, and it allows us to really
(03:23):
tackle these topics without without it draggingus down into the mud, so we
can handle it in a productive andconstructive manner and hopefully at the end of
it we'll have a plan and somethingthat we can do now that we know
better. So with that said,I just want to take a quick moment
to say that I am I am. I'm so grateful to be here with
(03:45):
you, allowing me to live outmy purpose to help to remind you of
who you really are and what you'retruly capable of. Now that said,
I am going to be bringing onmy guest, Nan C. Miller.
So, Nancy and I met throughNebraska's Unafraid years ago when I was still
(04:08):
in the early stages of my reentry. Nancy was doing a project for school
and was specifically looking to speak withpeople who were on the registry to talk
about some of the challenges in theissues that they face. And I had
plenty to talk about, plenty totalk about. So I had the honored
of helping her to complete her educationby allowing her to tell my story,
(04:32):
and today I want to return thefavor. So we're going to turn this
over to Nancy, and I reallywant to learn more about what happened with
her and her husband, what shedid to get through that, and then
where she's at now, like whatshe's doing to handle this in that constructive
manner. And really to help otherpeople through this, and we'll see what
(04:55):
she has to say. Nancy,thank you very much for joining me today
on Surviving the System. Hi,Dave, it's great to be here.
Thanks for having me on. Yeah, absolutely, I'm glad we could finally
make this happen. Yeah, it'sbeen a long time coming. But it's
been a very long time coming.But that's I'd rather wait for the right
time than try to force it andhave it just go badly and not leave
(05:18):
that good taste in your mouth.So we will. Well, let's just
get right to it. I wantto make sure because you've got a lot
to talk about, but I wantto make sure to give you as much
time as I can. So thereason that you and I are speaking is
because you and your husband wound upgoing through an encounter with the system and
(05:42):
kind of led you down the pathto where you're at right now. If
you don't mind, and whatever you'recomfortable sharing, tell us a little bit
about what happened in those initial phases, Like what happened when that when the
first came down our story started.Um, it's been eleven and a half
(06:03):
years ago with quiet Tuesday morning,nothing really going on m My husband and
I worked on hours, so wewere both home in the morning with our
one and a half year old daughter, and all of a sudden, there
(06:23):
was pounding at the front door andthe back door, and my husband went
to the front door and I wentto the back door, and we opened
the doors, and all of asudden, a bunch of cops came streaming
through into our home. They werewearing um bulletproof vests and their uniforms said
(06:48):
ice on it. Yeah they yeah, exactly. They were all squatted out,
they they had their hands on theirguns. Nobody pulled one, but
my dog was barking, so Iwas worried about my dog, and I
was thinking, this is probably ajoke or something right wrong house. The
(07:15):
only person I recognized was our citychief of police. I live in a
small town in Iowa. So Isaw our chief of police, which I
knew him, we'd known each otherfor probably twenty years. And I'm like,
Jim, what's going on? What'shappening here? And he said I
don't know, And I said,do you want me? I said,
(07:40):
do you think I should call mylawyer? Which I don't have a criminal
lawyer. I have a business lawyer. Right, he said, well,
why don't you just wait? SoI sat down. I want to preface
a little bit about our family.UM. At that time, my husband
(08:03):
and I had been married for almosttwenty years, and we had been through
all kinds of uppisode and downs withfamily members having cancer, um, just
falling out with family, just wewent through infertility together. We adopted three
(08:24):
children together. So we had beenthrough a homesteady process with social workers in
our house and all up in ourbusiness. We had just gone through all
this stuff. Sure together, you'llgo through a lot in twenty years.
Yes, And UM, so yeah, I was like, what what's going
(08:48):
on? H terrified, feeling youknow that nobody showed me a warrant,
nobody told me what they were doingthere until an hour and a half later.
Yeah, they had been interviewing myhusband in our dining room while they
kept me secluded in my daughter's bedroom. And then they finally brought my husband
(09:15):
into my daughter's bedroom and told methat they were there looking for child pornography.
And I was taken aback, surprise, shocked, disgusted, terrified,
everything all at once. Yeah.I had no idea. I did not
(09:39):
I didn't even know really what thatwas or what that meant. I didn't
know it existed. I knew thatmy my husband would probably have been using
pornography, but I had no ideawhat he was looking at. And um
(10:00):
so meanwhile, our two older childrenwere at school. And so it was
Homeland Security that actually raided our house. And um, exactly, yes,
Homeland Security. They had. Uh, I guess usually it's the marshals US
(10:26):
marshals to do that, but sureor something, but Homeland Security raided our
house. They took our laptop,our desktop, phones, they did not
take phones. Um, they tooka box of VHS porn that I wanted
(10:50):
out of our house anyway before ourboys found it. So they did me
a favor there. Um. Theythey took one memory card that my husband
had used too, because he wasselling things on eBay and that's where he
kept his photos. So they tookthat. They said, well, well
(11:15):
we'll be in touch, see youlater and now they yeah, and I
had all of my we own asmall business. We were, I mean,
we were very involved in our communityat the time. My husband was
on committee for city council. UM. I had always been involved with our
(11:35):
local government and stuff like that.But um, we we were just shocked.
They left us standing there in shock, and they said, I don't
know. The chief detective said,do you think you're gonna hurt each other,
(11:56):
because I'm gonna let the local policeknow that, you know, keep
an eye on you, because youknow, we don't want you to hurt
each other. Sure, And Ijust stood in my dining room and I
took my husband's hand. I said, well, well, we're gonna be
okay because God is with us.We had a very strong faith at the
time. We were very involved inour church at the time. And so
(12:24):
they left and left us just shellshocked. And I couldn't believe that.
The detective said that my husband couldgo to prison for four years and maybe
longer. And I was like,that just blows your whole world apart in
(12:46):
your day. But my husband said, I'm so glad that they came because
I wanted to quit doing what Iwas doing. I wanted to quit looking
at porn. He said, everyweek he'd it promised that he'd quit looking
at porn, and then he'd thevery next night he'd be back on looking
(13:09):
at more porn. That's and that'sfunny. Because I think I said I
said something similar. I remember sayingsomething similar to my attorney at the time,
because I wound up through that processmeeting a lot of a lot of
other men who were in similar situations, but the result was much worse for
(13:30):
them where it was. And youhear stories like this all the time where
it's it gets blown away out ofproportion when it's put out into the media
when you actually dig down and findout what's going on. A lot of
time it's federal because they tag theseimages or these videos, and sometimes it
(13:52):
can wind up on someone's computer inadvertentlyand they don't care if you've got it,
well, too bad, it's it'son your computer proof you didn't want
it, you know, that kindof a thing. And so many people
were five, ten, fifteen,twenty years in federal prison, like their
(14:13):
lives just completely ruined. And Ihad the same sentiment where I just said,
man, I'm I'm glad this happenednow, to stop me before that
ever happened, right, And theytold us how he got caught. He
(14:33):
he had visited a website that hadbeen commandeered by an Italian police force,
and they instead of shutting the websitedown immediately yep, and keeping anymore child
(14:58):
sex abuse images from going out inthere. They chose to run it for
two weeks and tag everybody's IP addressesthat visited that website. Ye. Well,
evidently somehow my husband got on thatwebsite at some point in that two
weeks and had looked at twelve pictures, and that's how they got a search
(15:28):
warrant for our house. It justtook twelve pictures. And you hear about
stories of people collecting tons and tonsof images, and he wasn't saving any
he was deleting everything right away.Sure, So just to know that somehow
(15:54):
my life got wrapped up in somethingso far away, yeah yeah, so
close. I mean, I mean, the crime took place in my basement
with the computer, and but yetsomehow my life gets tagged into all that
other stuff. But U so,yeah, we we we're left to process
(16:18):
all this on our own. I'ma person. I have to talk,
I have to process things with otherpeople. So I told I immediately went
and found somebody to talk to afriend, and I told my husband he
needed to find a therapist to goto right away and deal with what was
(16:45):
going on. So you know hewent to a psychologist. I think it
was a psychologist, and as faras I know, was pretty honest with
that person. And that person said, you know, this is the way
pornograph he works is you start outlooking at people, your own age people,
(17:07):
you know, what they would callnormal porn whatever that is anymore.
And then eventually your your brain getstired of that kind of image and needs
a little bit more to get stimulatedand to have that same release. So
(17:30):
your neurons and your pathways are beingmade and those grooves are being dug deep
inside your brain. Get bored withsomething, so you move on to something
a little bit more novel. Sopretty soon my husband's out there looking at
everything, all kinds of things,and he wasn't necessarily fixated on underage pornography
(17:52):
or child sex abuse images is whatwe call them now, and the and
the perfect rational world. Um,so that's kind of how the progress went.
He started using pornography when he wasa teenage, well when he was
a teenager using magazines, and thenas soon as we got the Internet,
(18:15):
he was hooked. Um. AndI'd like to I'd like to jump on
that a little bit and expound,because that was. I mean that was
that was part of my story too. Um, It's it's an addiction just
like any other, but because ithas that that taboo attached to it,
(18:37):
because for whatever reason, in thiscountry, we don't we love to talk
about sex, but we don't liketo talk about sex. It's like a
forbidden topic that everybody knows we're alltalking about anyway. But it's if you
think about those people who if you'veever seen anyone an alcoholic or someone that
unfortunately got hung up in drug abuse, it always escalates because the body gets
(19:02):
used to whatever that is and itneeds more or it needs something different.
You hear these stories of people whenthey're doing drugs where they're like, oh,
I started out with just this littlemount but I needed more and more
and more, And it's it's thesame thing. And I think you touched
on it. And I don't wantto go too far down the rabbit hole
(19:23):
because I really want to. Iwant to let you tell your story.
But they the system. And whenI in this particular context, when I
say the system, I'm talking aboutgovernment authorities. They're they're pushing all of
this stuff out on the internet sothat they can win more cases and look
(19:44):
like they're tough on crime, they'rethey're helping to perpetuate the cycle of addiction.
Just if we you know, ifyou you listen to a lot of
the documents and a lot of thetheories and u stories from people who have
exposed the CIA's involvement with with cocainetrafficking in the United States, Like they're
(20:08):
they're allowing it to happen so theycan try to catch more people. And
I I know from myself it tookthat to realize that it was even a
real thing. Yeah. Yeah,it's so common for law enforcement to take
over a website and instead of shuttingit down or um turning it into a
(20:36):
helping thing where you know, weknow you came, they could change the
format of the website to say,we know you came here looking for this,
but let's offer some assistance with youraddiction. Yeah, and they don't
just want to catch the low hangingfruit because of people that are visiting the
(20:56):
websites are easy to find because therethey have an eye he address that will
take you right to their home right, so it's easy to make a good
bus And it's it's funny too,you know, not funny haha, by
any by any stretch of the imagination. But you know, if I was
to do that, if I wasto set up shop and open up a
(21:17):
website like that, oh they'd comebeat my door down. And yeah,
I could sit there and say,oh no, I was doing it because
I was trying to catch people tocome on. Now, we all know,
we all know how that works.But all of a sudden, when
the quote unquote authorities do it,it's a mental shift that we've been programmed
in this country to to just shutoff logic and to miss that part that
(21:42):
they're contributing. They're contributing to thatperson's addiction. Yes, and they're also
perpetuating the images that they're allowing tobe seen, absolutely, the same ones
that they can claim are so heinous, exactly exactly. Well, we're gonna
(22:07):
we're gonna push pause right there.We are gonna take a break. We
will be back in just a fewminutes and we'll pick the story back up.
All right, thank you for comingback. We are live on Fringe
FM. If you would like tojoin in, if you have a question
for myself, for for Nancy,don't forget, you can call in at
(22:30):
one eight hundred and five eight eightzero three three five eight hundred and five
eight eight zero three three five.But I want to make sure that we
get right back into it because wedo have a lot more to talk about.
So, Nancy, when we've cutout, we had just left off
with the authorities leaving your home andyou and your husband basically trying to figure
(22:52):
out what to do with with lifeas you now know it completely being changed.
So how did things progress from there? And just for the sake of
time, Well, we'll try toI want to go into as much detail
as we can, but I wantto try to hit the high points.
So what was the like, whatwas the legal process like for you folks?
And I'm curious for myself too becausemine was state, not at federal.
(23:17):
I know it's it's much different betweenthe two. Yeah, they read
in our house at the beginning ofApril in twenty eleven, and we didn't
hear anything back from them. Theyhad my computer that had all my business
stuff on it. I couldn't FortunatelyI had a backup, but we didn't
(23:42):
hear anything through this bizarre tail.I met a woman who had gone through
something very similar and she was ableto direct me to get ahold of the
Federal Public Defender's office. So wemade contact with them and got set up
(24:10):
to you know, got to proveto have a public defender for my husband
should they come back and arrest him, because at this time he's not under
arrest, he's not under supervision oranything. They finally came back at the
end of October with an arrest lawrant. They had found thirteen images in the
cash buried in the cash of ourdesktypes computer. There was nothing on the
(24:38):
laptop, there was nothing on them. The drive that they took, yeah,
the memory card, thank you,And so it took thirteen images.
Some of them we found out latersome of them were duplicated images, something
(25:00):
he hadn't looked at at all.Um, So how they get there?
How? I don't I don't know. I don't understand all that stuff.
Yeah, if you if you clickon a web page, it comes up
with a bunch of images. Ifyou don't, I don't know. I
(25:23):
don't want to get into a cause. And I asked that almost rhetoric,
because that is Yeah, I askedthat rhetorically because a lot of times,
like I said, these guys,these these guys didn't. That's not what
they were looking for at all.I mean, in full disclosure and full
honesty, my husband did. Yeah, he was down the rabbit hole looking
(25:48):
at all kinds of things. Sosure, um, he knew he was
guilty, and he confessed to itwhen they when they were here investigating.
Um, so they came back andarrested him. He had to go to
the They took him to the federalcourthouse in Des Moines and he was had
his first appearance in friend of thejudge that same day. I had to
(26:14):
figure out how to get to thefederal courthouse because I had no idea what.
I didn't know where to go.This is not my world. So
fortunately we have a good friend who'sa bail bondsman, and he just dropped
everything for me that day and tookme down there, and he did.
He had no idea what was goingon. We hadn't told very many people
(26:36):
at all, and so he gotto find out that day what we were
facing and then he went down therewith me and that was comforting. But
yeah, he appeared before the judge. My husband appeared before the judge.
The judge said, Okay, Isee you're under arrest for possession of child
(26:57):
pornography one count. Uh. Thenhe said, I'm gonna let you go
on your on your own, butyou'll you'll be under present pre trial um
supervision. So he was given aprobation officer that day. Um, he
(27:21):
was fitted with an ankle monitor thatday. He was given restrictions on where
he could go and what he coulddo. He wasn't allowed to be around
anybody's anybody else's kids but ours,and um, there was some other stuff
like he couldn't take pictures of anybodyelse's kids. Sure, not that he
(27:44):
ever did. Yeah, he wasn'tinterested in doing that. Um. Yeah,
So he came home that day.Yeah, he just came home that
day. And then we had to, you know, go through that process
of holy crap, now what youknow? Right? So how long did
that legal process take until they finallyit sounds like a pority of course spoiler
(28:12):
alert only end. But if heconfessed, it sounds like he is going
to be sentenced at some point.And why once once the Feds get a
hold of your computer and you haveany evidence at all, you're screwed.
Um, there's no there's no fightingit. They've got the evidence right there.
(28:33):
We we kind of joke that thefederal um prosecutor has the easiest job
ever because he doesn't even have todo any of the hard work to try
to prove somebody's guilty because it's rightthere on your computer. Right. Um.
The reason ours went federal is becauseI don't know, they said that
(29:00):
because our computer was made in adifferent state. Wow that it's yeah,
And a lot of times it's Idon't know, a lot of times it's
like if an image originates from overthe state lines to that interstate commerce as
we like, there's all kinds ofit's a big they made up this whole
big gray area out of it,I think, to to just take more
(29:23):
jurisdiction. But that's again besides thepoints. I mean that even the charge
of possession of child pornography is notthat old. There's not there's not a
huge history of that in the legalsystem. Yeah. Um, so anyway,
Um, we had some child datesthat are you know, like hearings
(29:48):
that were set, but we canjust kept postponing and tell um the they
wanted us to get all of ourducks in a row for him to be
because we knew that as soon ashe took a guilty plea, Um,
they would incarcerate him right away rightSo, owning our own business, we
(30:10):
needed to get We needed to alertour customers that this was going to happen,
um and give them the chance toso they you know, we didn't
know if it was going to everhit the news. It never did.
My husband's not a boy Scout leaderwhich I met. I met one of
(30:30):
those along this same that was alsobusted in this same m bus. He
was arrested in the same kind ofsting it's almost a stingy, practically a
sting us well. I ended upmeeting him or his wife around the same
(30:52):
time. So, um, wewaited about six months or so before he
took his plea so that he couldturn himself in, and as soon as
we had that, he became incarceratedas a federal inmate in the county jail,
(31:12):
and he spent about seven more monthsthere waiting for a sentencing hearing.
We chose to go with. Hedidn't take a plea. He took a
plea deal, but he said hewanted to let the judge come up with
(31:37):
the sentence because he only had sofew images and he didn't have a receipt
charge. Usually when when the guyswere getting busted back then, they were
getting charged with possession and receipt.Got it. Possession has no mandatory minimum,
(32:01):
but the receipt charge has a fiveyear mandatory minimum. Well, my
husband only got the one charge becausehe had such few images. I don't
know why he didn't get the otherone. But so most guys were taking
a plea deal for forty eight monthsat that time, and we wanted to
(32:22):
see if the judge would give himless time because he had so few.
He overwhelmingly took responsibility for his actions. I was advocating for our family and
him, but mostly our family,Yeah, you know, And so we
(32:44):
shared our story a lot at thattime while he was waiting to change his
plea and um, you know,it's like coming out of the closet saying,
here's our here's what our life hasturned into. Would you please write
a character letter from my husband,because you know who he really is,
(33:08):
who he is outside of this addiction. Sure. And so we had about
thirty people right in to the judgeand when it came time for him to
while the day of his sentencing,we had thirty people come to witness and
(33:30):
show support for him and us.At his sentencing hearing, and the judge
gave him thirty months instead of theforty eight. Yeah, and having gone
through that myself, like thirty months, if you've never been through it and
(33:51):
you don't understand what could potentially happen, that's really not that bad. That's
it's it's pretty it's pretty light overall. That's the best case scenario. And
yeah, looking back on it now, it's it was a good thing.
At that time, I was Ihad high hopes thinking that we were going
(34:14):
to get off easier. But sure, you know, he'd already done about
seven months at the county jail,so, um, you take that time
off. Um with federal time,there's no m good time, right really,
(34:35):
and they give you good time.It's like fifteen percent off of your
total sentence. And then if ifyou're not a good inmate, then they're
going to add that time back on. But so he got We asked that
he would get placed close to ourhome, while the closest place is Leavenworth,
(34:58):
Kansas. But my husband had nocriminal record. He had very very
low points, which is what theyused to determine where you're going to get
sent how big of a risk youare? You know? And he had
very low points he could have hequalified to go to a camp, but
(35:22):
at that time the FEDS weren't allowinganybody with a sex crime to go to
a camp. Sure, so heended up at Leavenworth USP. And it's
a medium facility and there were noguys there with a sex crime, nobody
(35:52):
that you knew of. You know, if you had a sex crime,
you were hiding it really good fromum the other inmates and as if you
could hide it from the staff,you were doing good. So he got
sent there. Um, he fearedfor his life every day. Sure he
(36:20):
was supposed to. They wanted himto show his papers and what he was
in there for, but he couldn't. He just kept putting it off and
kept his head down, kept tohimself. Yeah, eventually he got a
job inside the prison and um,he was able to survive until three days
(36:45):
before he got out. And that'swhen he was confronted by a white supremacist
from another area in the prison.Another inmate got into his pod and physically
assaulted him. Fortunately it didn't turninto it was no big deal, but
(37:08):
they both got sent to protected custodyand there was an investigation. He was
worried that he would get disciplined forit, yeah, when he wasn't the
one that started it. But hespent his last three days in the hole
Leavenworth. Yeah, all of hisproperty and everything. And I want to,
(37:35):
I really want to to ask youthe question here. We've got We've
got about ten minutes left, sowe've got enough time, but I still
want to make sure to to coverat least this last part. You know,
I, especially on my end,I talked a lot about what it's
like inside. But part of whyI do the show and why I bring
guests on, especially like yourself,is the families are never talked about after
(38:04):
the fact unless you're unless you're inthere. And when I say that,
I mean like through the media.The politicians they just like, oh,
look how tough we are on crime, and they have no consideration for the
wake of destruction that they have justleft in their path. So what what
was that like for you? Andhow how did you handle things running the
(38:27):
business? What was your community like? Like? What was that overall like
for you and your family? AndI am a person who struggles with depression,
and anxiety among other mental health issues. So this just absolutely exacerbated my
mental health issues. I spent alot of time sleeping, and my three
(38:52):
kids just kind of survived without mesomehow. Yeah, I checked out a
lot, but I still managed todo the things that I had to do.
But I was really a hot mess. And even when even after my
husband got out and got home,I the anxiety of him being on supervision
(39:15):
and having to entertain um, thesefederal probation officers that came into our house
use twice a month. I hadPTSD from the raid, sure, so
bad that I had anxiety. Youknow, I would just be on the
(39:36):
ceiling anytime they stopped by and UMI had. I would rage at them.
I would swear at them. Sure, and then I'd call him the
next day and say, I'm sosorry. That's not how I usually speak.
I'm not usually like that. YeahI have. And I told him
straight up before they before my husbandever got to move home, said I've
(40:00):
got PTSD, and you guys beinghere is not good for me. Sure,
I still if I get like ifsomebody if I'm driving down the road
and like I've got a broken taillight or something, and those lights turn
on behind me. That sets meoff still to this day. Yeah,
you're guts just crawl up into yourchest, absolutely so with just a few
(40:22):
minutes left, though, I wantto I always want to end on that
on that high note. With thosechallenges and with everything that you and your
family went through, and with thedepression, the anxiety, the PTSD,
you were still able to take thisand turn this into something something productive.
(40:43):
What are you doing with your lifenow? After I had a complete mental
breakdown and when to the hospital forfive days. When I got out,
over the next few months, Iwas able to recover and eventually there's so
(41:05):
much more of this story. Butmy husband, his mandatory therapist, said
to me, after seeing me advocateso strongly for my family, she said,
why don't you go to school andbecome a social worker so that you
can do this and help other families. And I was like, I'm forty
five years old. At that time, I had no intention of going to
(41:28):
school. I didn't know how todo it. She told me how I
started out at community college seven yearsago, and I just finished my master's
degree in May of this year,and I am now working as a therapist,
and I My ideal client is somebodywho has been through this system,
(41:55):
and I want to help people gothrough this. Be there for somebody,
because I didn't feel like anybody knewwhat I was going through. Sure,
and I know this is happening toso many people all over the place.
So I've got a great boss thattook me under his wing and is helping
(42:16):
me get started. I've been Istudy all kinds of pornography related issues,
sexual type of issues. I've justspent the last seven years just really learning
(42:40):
all those things and learning about whatthe sex offender registry does to people,
how it ostracizes people. I becameostracized in my community, but in the
families exactly, and it could havebeen a lot worse. But boy,
sure would be a lot better ifwe didn't have to have our name plastered
(43:01):
all over Sure. I know inthe meantime, you know, my husband
did great on supervision. Yeah,we had five years of supervision. He
was able to appeal to the judgeand asked to get off that early and
he was granted that about eight monthsearly. And then Iowa has a mechanism
(43:22):
where you can apply for a modificationfor your your registry requirement. Yeah,
and we went through that about ayear ago. We started that and he
was able to get a modification.So my husband got off the registry in
Iowa two years early. That's awesome. Yes, it's wonderful. That's great.
(43:47):
And you know, I think justone thing to kind of add on
to to what you were saying there, that you you didn't feel like anyone
knew what you were going through.If you if you just look at statistics,
and I've talked about this on theshow depending depending Right now it's a
little bit up in the air,but somewhere between twenty five percent to thirty
(44:07):
three percent of the population has somethingsignificant on their record, meaning they've they've
gone through something like this. That'sa quarter to a third of the population.
So if you're in a room withten people, odds are I had
(44:30):
two or three of them have probablyalso been through something similar to what you
have. That's a pretty astounding number. But it's interesting that it carries such
a stigma that nope, we justnobody talks about it. It's still carries
that that scarlet letter, oh mygosh, you've been through the system,
(44:51):
not even talking about being on theregistry just if you've been arrested for anything,
it just all of a sudden,people tend to look at you with
a different filter over their eyes.And it takes people advocating like yourself to
get them to realize, Oh,that's not what I thought it was.
(45:14):
Yeah, And I'm not afraid totalk about it. I would rather own
my story and my family's story.Yeah, And I want to present it
in the way that I want itto be presented. I don't want people
to make up their own reality aboutit. Oh no, So I've always
(45:38):
taken control of that. So we'vegot just just a little over a minute
left, and with that minute,what I want to do is I want
to give people the opportunity if theywant to reach out to you, if
they've got a question, or maybeif they're in the Iowa area and are
looking for some help or some guidance. What's the best way for people to
(46:00):
each out and contact you right now? Probably the best way is through my
Psychology Today page. If you goto the Psychology Today website and search Nancy
Miller in Des Moines, you'll comeup with my profile. And I mentioned
(46:20):
a little bit on there about beingopen to helping people who are on the
registry, who are in reentry,helping them find resources, find a job,
find a place to live, bethere for a support. That's where
you can find me perfect. Iwill make sure to put that on the
(46:44):
show notes, so if you arelistening to this on podcast, make sure
you check that description. I willhave that information on there for you as
well. And Nancy were we arewinding down, so I want to I
want to thank you very much foryour time and we'll we'll have you back
on for another time. I knowthere was a lot more to tell,
but we'll get back into it.So thank you, thank you again.
(47:07):
Thank you all for tuning me today. No, no, thank you,
thank you, And as always,remember keep your head up, don't let
them get you. It may beeasy to look at all the corruption and
manipulation and the system and feel hopeless. You're at surviving the system. We
hold to the belief that greatness isborn in the midst of extraordinary struggles.
You were created with a purpose,with infinite potential, and many have lost
(47:30):
sight of that back We're here toremind you of who you are. The
best revenge is success.
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