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From Judge to Prison: Jessica O'Brien's Fall and Rise · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:00
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:03
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
• 0:07
  Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:10
  nightmares that set yourself free.
• 0:12
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:19
  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad.
• 0:23
  There's some humor, but hopefully you can come away with
• 0:26
  a nugget of something that'll help you knock down some of the
• 0:28
  prisons you built up in your own mind.
• 0:32
  All right, welcome back, Nightmare Success.
• 0:34
  In and out. Listeners, this is where you
• 0:36
  come from. What happens when your worst
• 0:38
  fear becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
• 0:40
  overcome? Set yourself free, folks, Don't
• 0:43
  forget to follow. Follow this thing up, subscribe,
• 0:48
  share it out. Like it up.
• 0:49
  It helps the show. So who are we talking to today
• 0:52
  on Nightmare Success? Well, we're talking to Jessica
• 0:55
  O'Brien and Jessica and I have been talking probably for over a
• 1:00
  year. And it's come a friend of mine.
• 1:01
  We we share a lot of things like I love to bounce things off of
• 1:05
  her. What's going on in the criminal
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  legal world and and re entry. And so I was telling her before
• 1:12
  we started, I've had an FBI, I've had two FBI agents on and
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  I've had a warden, but I have never had a a judge.
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  And Jessica was a judge from 2012, 2018.
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  Before that she was, and she was the first Filipino American
• 1:30
  judge elected in the Cook County area.
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  And before that, she was a special assistant attorney
• 1:36
  general for the Illinois Department of Revenue.
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  And she's just got a fascinating story.
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  She went to trial, she fought. That doesn't surprise me.
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  I mean, 97% of us, we, we, we plea out.
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  Not Jessica. She went to trial and she lost
• 1:55
  and she ended up going to the through the federal prison
• 1:59
  system of I think she got a year and a day and she still hasn't
• 2:03
  given up. One of the reasons I've I've,
• 2:05
  I've been, I think you would call it persistent because I've,
• 2:08
  I've wanted Jessica on for a long time, but she's been
• 2:11
  working on her case and she's trying to get a vacated, trying
• 2:13
  to get the conviction vacated. But I want to talk to her.
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  She, she came over for the Philippines when she graduated
• 2:21
  high school. I think that whole thing's just
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  fascinating how she, you know, assimilated over here and then
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  became an attorney and, and then and really getting to the point
• 2:30
  of being a judge is, is something that's rare in our, in
• 2:33
  our society. But I also want to talk to her
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  about, as we get into it, her opinions of like what she thinks
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  where we are with our criminal justice system, what are things
• 2:46
  that could be done and the whole re entry process of, of how
• 2:50
  things could be better. So before we do jump into all
• 2:54
  that, I want to recognize our show sponsor, Auto Plaza Direct.
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  deserve. Auto Plaza Direct telling Brent
• 3:32
  from nightmare success sent you. All right, Jessica, Brian, here
• 3:36
  we are. We finally made it happen.
• 3:37
  Yes, thank you for having me. And I told you this before, I
• 3:43
  don't know there's anything interesting.
• 3:46
  I can say you've had super interesting people on your
• 3:49
  podcast and congratulations on a very successful podcast.
• 3:54
  So I. Appreciate that.
• 3:55
  And we, you know, sometimes I say, you know, I'm, I could be
• 4:00
  smarter and hit the record button when we're having these
• 4:03
  really interesting conversations before we start.
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  But I think it's really interesting, Jessica, when
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  somebody comes from another country and comes over,
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  assimilates into this United States of America, but also has
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  success and figuring all that out.
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  Can you take us back a ways to what it was like for you, you
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  know, as a young girl growing up in the Philippines?
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  And I know your mom came over, so she was in the United States
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  as a doctor and you stayed back with your father and I think
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  your grandmother helped out. But can you kind of walk us into
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  that world of yours as as a kid growing up?
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  Yeah, sure. My mom had me very young.
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  She was, I think in the middle of medical school while she was
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  in the Philippines. And so that was really, you
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  know, I was a gift. I wasn't planned.
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  And so that's kind of a big deal in in the Philippines,
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  especially back then. My mom is turning 79 this year,
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  and I'm, you know, 57. So she was very young.
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  I'm turning 7. Oh my God, I just gave you my
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  age. That's OK.
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  My mom's 20 years older than me. Oh, really?
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  Yeah, yeah, she was young too. Yeah.
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  So, you know, she was very busy with medical school, so it was
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  really probably other people racing me already.
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  But my mom was very ambitious and wanted to make a better life
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  for herself and for her family. She did get married because she
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  got pregnant because that was a big deal in the Philippines.
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  And her father, who actually was a lawyer, of course, disowned
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  her apparently, like, you know, was, was really angry with her
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  because she was the apple of his eye.
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  She was a valedictorian. She was just the oldest child
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  daughter that had eight kids and right.
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  And she was very smart. And when she got pregnant in the
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  in the middle of medical school, he was very disappointed.
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  So kind of disowned her. So she ended up with my father's
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  family, but then my father's family did not really embrace
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  her either. So she really had a hard time.
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  So then she pursued coming to America and she did get into one
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  of the, I think she went through a different country, I can't
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  remember where now, Indonesia, I think she was a research
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  assistant there first. And then she eventually came to
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  America and she thinks she came in AJ1 visa, but I don't quote
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  in that one. But part of her stay here was
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  she had to, Sir, she had to work in an underserved community,
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  which she did in the Bronx. And at that time she was allowed
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  to actually bring her family. But my father wanted to stay in
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  the Philippines because he had a business.
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  And I was closer to my father and my sister was closer to my
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  mom. So then my sister came here to
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  America and I stayed behind. And what happened was my mom was
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  very busy with her medical residency that she couldn't
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  really take care of her. So my sister ended up staying
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  with a family in Long Island who raised her.
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  But eventually my my paternal, A maternal grandfather died.
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  So my mom went home and brought my sister back.
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  So she finished school in in the Philippines.
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  She actually went to an International School because she
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  could not speak the language anymore at that time.
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  And then she also went to high school and we lived together.
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  Towards the end of my high school, she was staying with my
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  mom's parents. I'm sorry.
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  Yeah. My mom's mom and I was staying
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  with my father. We were literally separated.
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  Eventually, they, my parents annulled their marriage.
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  Eventually, my sister and I lived together for two years,
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  and then we moved to America. This is where I pursued college.
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  So what made you think after that time?
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  Because I'm, you know, at that age, kids don't even like to
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  move from schools, I mean, to move to the United States.
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  What did you think about that? You know, I kind of resisted it
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  for the longest time. I was afraid.
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  I remember when I was in school, my English teacher criticized me
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  for my English. I remember one day when she's
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  like, in my English class, they had us like read something or
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  speak about something. And I remember said, and you're
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  going to America. You have a horrible English.
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  You will never succeed in America.
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  You'll be nobody. And I still remember that to
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  this day. And so I was really afraid to
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  come to America. But I also knew that if I stayed
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  in the Philippines, I wasn't going anywhere.
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  I didn't come from a wealthy family.
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  We were average at best. You know, I went to school with
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  rich people. I went to Catholic school, but
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  my family was not wealthy at all.
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  We were OK. But in the Philippines, you can
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  really tell the difference between the rich, super rich
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  people, you know, who can, who own hospitals, who own shipping
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  lines. And my dad had his little
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  business. My mother's side, they were a
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  little well off because of her father and my grandmother also
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  own land. They inherited land, but we were
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  far from being super rich, you know?
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  So I knew that I wasn't going anywhere if I stayed in the
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  Philippines. So I sucked it up and I came to
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  America. Wow.
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  What was it like? What was when you got here?
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  What was your, what were your thoughts?
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  What were you? What were you thinking about how
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  life was going to be? So I have to say that have you
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  ever heard of this? I think it's called Cinderella
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  syndrome. Yeah.
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  I kind of went through that. You know, I went through some
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  difficult time. I was sexually molested, which
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  was really awful. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm saying
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  this because this could happen to a lot of people and it
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  happens in the dark, you know, and so, but.
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  Were you able to tell anything about that, or was that
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  something that you kept? To yourself.
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  I kept to myself like my mother didn't even believe me, but I
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  knew that I just had to and and that was the motivation, right
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  to, to do well so that I can be on my own and I don't have to
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  depend on my mother. Although my mother has really
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  been very supportive throughout my life, you know, but that was
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  the goal, to be on my own to, to live, you know.
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  You would have only been what, 17161718 and when you came over.
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  I was 16. 16. So that was like summer of 84
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  and I turned 17. I remember my first day in
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  college, I went to a Community College 1st and I turned 17.
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  So it was I had to overcome that.
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  And that was probably the most difficult part.
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  But then I started making friends and, you know, start
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  staying out of the house, you know, most of the time.
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  And, and so it got better and then I went away for college.
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  I went to Boston University. So that was a nice and then I
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  traveled in Europe as part of study abroad program.
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  So that helped a lot. Did you, Jessica, know when you
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  went to Boston University, did did you have it in your mind
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  that you wanted to be an attorney?
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  No, no. So that was the thing too is
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  that I really had low self esteem growing up.
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  I was more the volleyball player you know I was.
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  I was known for playing volleyball, but not for Let me
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  tell you, what's really crazy is that volleyball saved me in
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  prison. Yeah, I mean, volleyball's
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  serious in prison. Yes, yes.
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  And that was the only thing that saved me in prison.
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  So it's kind of interesting how my first love in the Philippines
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  saved me in prison, which was volleyball.
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  It almost created this filter that everything's OK, you're in
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  heaven. It really wasn't, but you know,
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  it kept my mind occupied. Well, it's that's a that's a
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  funny that you bring that up because I think sports in prison
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  is, is one of the great escapes. You know, it makes you feel in
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  that moment when you're playing whatever it is, volleyball or
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  whatever it may be. I remember we we played a lot of
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  volleyball and there was also this crazy tennis court.
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  I'd never seen anything like it. Jessica's It had been given to
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  the prison by Fort Leavenworth because it wasn't any good
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  anymore and it was a sport court.
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  So what they did is they had this like asphalt that was kind
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  of crumbling and they put this sport court on top of it.
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  And these little squares that were attached.
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  Well, they had gotten so old that the the little block, the
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  little block squares would come apart and then we would get
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  paper clips and tie underneath the sport court so that it was
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  the craziest tennis court I've ever seen in my life.
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  And we played on it and it was easily the most dangerous place
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  to play because at any given point that your court spreads on
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  you and and then there you are. But.
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  You had fun, right? It was fun, yeah.
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  Did you win? Oh yeah, yeah.
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  See, I won. It was, I was so competitive.
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  So we had teams and everything. And let me tell you, every team
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  that I was on, we had to win it and we became champions.
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  Big deal. I know it was a big deal, it was
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  a big deal. So you were a volleyball person?
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  Believe it or not, I was a spiker.
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  A spiker, which is is huge. It's like dunking the
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  basketball, right? Exactly.
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  For a short person, yeah, did. You play volleyball in college.
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  I did, but not not for. But recreationally.
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  Right. Yes, of course, yeah.
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  When did it come to you that you thought, hey, Jessica O'Brien
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  might want to be an attorney? So I worked my first career was
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  in the hotel and restaurant industry.
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  And so I, I worked at Caesars as soon as I got out of school and
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  while I was there, you know, I'm so hyper.
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  I started out as entry level management physician.
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  It was called lounge host and I got promoted to assistant
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  manager. And while being an assistant
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  manager is like, you know, they see me so hyper and I'm capable
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  of different things. I'm like, yeah, I'll do that.
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  I'll do whatever, you know what I mean?
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  Oh, then you can do this food and beverage trainers.
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  I was doing that and then I became a divisional food and
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  beverage trainer, which was a big deal because you're, you're
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  supervising the training of managers, including the vice
• 14:31
  president and even the president of the food and beverage
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  division. And you're dealing with so many
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  different departments. Like you're dealing, you know,
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  because it's a casino, right? So you're dealing with thousands
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  of. People of food.
• 14:44
  Right. Yeah, exactly.
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  And you're dealing with like literally 1000 employees.
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  So I also had to deal with human resources and the vice president
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  of legal. And I think there was the vice
• 14:55
  president at that time for legal.
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  I had to meet with her from time to time and a woman and I was
• 15:02
  really admiring her and I would listen to her and I'd said I can
• 15:06
  do that job. And so it was that time.
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  And my mother was like, what are you doing?
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  You're in the hotel and restaurant industry.
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  You're not making anything. And really, they were exploiting
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  me. I mean you think about it here I
• 15:18
  am doing multiple jobs working literally 5055 hours a week.
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  You can. I was making 27,900.
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  I still remember that right. It was crazy, but it didn't
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  matter to me because I was living in my mom's.
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  She had a A practice medical. Practice.
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  So you did have a lot of expenses.
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  I, I had no expenses. She paid for everything.
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  That's why I was so lucky. But at the same time, she's
• 15:43
  like, what do you want to do? You got to do something.
• 15:46
  You got to go back to school, you know, get a professional
• 15:48
  license or something. That sounds like a doctor that
• 15:51
  would say exactly. I'm like, OK, so I, I thought to
• 15:56
  myself, OK, maybe I can. And it was at that time I think
• 16:00
  that I was building my confidence to I can do this.
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  So I went to law school. So, and here, here we are.
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  Well. There's a lot more to it than
• 16:12
  that. So if you did, you like it, I
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  mean, or because a lot of people when they, they pick law, they
• 16:18
  just think that that's something that'll be useful whenever they
• 16:23
  go into business or they do this or that.
• 16:25
  And then there's other people that want to be in the courtroom
• 16:29
  and they want to, you know, talk to the jury and, and, and tell
• 16:32
  the story and, and move people. How did you fit into that?
• 16:39
  So it's kind of interesting I talking about my immigration
• 16:44
  status because I had my green card, right?
• 16:46
  I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I did not apply
• 16:51
  for citizenship for the longest time because I always felt out
• 16:55
  of place. I didn't feel like I belong
• 16:57
  anywhere, even in Atlantic City. But when I went to law school,
• 17:00
  I. Felt Why do you think you felt
• 17:02
  like that though, Jessica? Because I mean your your
• 17:03
  personality is 1 where I've known you long enough.
• 17:06
  You you have a personality where you whatever that is, you kind
• 17:10
  of roll with it and fit into it. Was I?
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  Don't know, I was just. Because you came from a
• 17:15
  different country and and he didn't feel like it was all
• 17:19
  yours. Yes.
• 17:21
  I didn't feel like I really belonged for whatever reason.
• 17:25
  I just felt. Do you?
• 17:27
  Think you would go back to the Philippines?
• 17:29
  No. No, no.
• 17:30
  Wasn't that OK? Wasn't that I, I, I knew that
• 17:33
  this is the country that I could do well.
• 17:36
  I just didn't. I just felt that I wasn't in the
• 17:39
  right profession. Hotel and restaurant industry is
• 17:41
  a hard profession and if you can survive in that profession, not
• 17:46
  that I didn't survive, but my point is that you have to really
• 17:50
  love it. Oh yeah, it's hard work, but at
• 17:54
  the. Same time.
• 17:55
  I felt like I wasn't really using my brain either.
• 17:58
  I'm not trying to insult people in this industry because trust
• 18:00
  me, it's a very difficult profession, but I felt that I
• 18:04
  could do something you. Want to make an impact
• 18:06
  somewhere? Exactly.
• 18:08
  Like I didn't have purpose. I felt like I was just making
• 18:10
  money. And it was it always, I always
• 18:13
  felt like there was something else that I wanted to do, you
• 18:15
  know. So when I went to law school, I
• 18:18
  fell in love with the law. And while in law school, I
• 18:21
  applied for my American citizenship.
• 18:24
  Yeah. So I became an American citizen
• 18:26
  like I think my first year or second year of law school.
• 18:29
  And I even fell more in love with the country.
• 18:31
  You know, it was just this. When you when you take the oath
• 18:35
  with just different people from all walks of life.
• 18:39
  I've seen that. I think it's, I think it's
• 18:42
  inspiring for Americans to see people take the oath, you know,
• 18:45
  because it means so much for those people who are standing
• 18:48
  there and becoming Americans. It's it's.
• 18:52
  It's amazing. It's like inspiring for
• 18:54
  everybody of different cultures, you know, and, and you just want
• 18:58
  to you want to be the best that you can be, you know, And it was
• 19:01
  really after I took that oath that I said, you know what I
• 19:05
  want to give back to this country.
• 19:06
  And I know that sounds cliche, but it's this pride, you know,
• 19:11
  you're taking on a different citizenship.
• 19:13
  And see, I think one of the reasons why I also did not apply
• 19:16
  was when I was in high school in the Philippines, we had a
• 19:21
  teacher who used to say to us, if you become, if you give up
• 19:24
  your citizenship, then you're a traitor to your country.
• 19:27
  And that always stuck with me. You know, it was like things
• 19:31
  stick with me when I hear things.
• 19:33
  But then at the same time, when I was travelling overseas, you
• 19:36
  know, when when I was doing my study abroad program, I remember
• 19:40
  I was in France and I remember this French boys that we've met.
• 19:45
  One of them said, you know, you Americans are funny.
• 19:48
  You criticize your president and your presidents represents you.
• 19:53
  You're criticizing yourself. You're an idiot.
• 19:56
  You're an idiot. And it always stuck with me.
• 20:00
  So when I listen to people criticizing our president,
• 20:03
  whether it's Democratic president or Republican, I'm
• 20:07
  always like, I cringe. Like why are you saying that?
• 20:10
  It's terrible, like. You know, give them a chance,
• 20:12
  you know what I mean, Right, right.
• 20:15
  Whether it's Biden or President Trump, you know, it's like.
• 20:19
  Oh, it takes a lot to get there. I'm always amazed at, you know,
• 20:21
  I, I did political science and, and college and I just, I
• 20:25
  thought it was always fascinating how what the
• 20:27
  personality types were and, and whether, you know, regardless of
• 20:31
  where they come from and, and how they get there.
• 20:34
  Because I mean, that's a, one of the most unique positions that
• 20:38
  you could ever get to is come from wherever you come from and,
• 20:43
  and be elected by the United States of America citizenship,
• 20:48
  citizens of the, you know, you are the most elected person.
• 20:53
  I mean, it's crazy. It is crazy.
• 20:56
  And and what really is fascinating too is like when
• 20:59
  and, and I know both sides do this, when you're criticizing
• 21:03
  the president and you're criticizing the people who
• 21:05
  elected them, like the people who elected this person is
• 21:07
  stupid, this and that. And it's like really you're just
• 21:11
  insulting half of the country. Why would you want to do that?
• 21:15
  You know what I mean? You're not better than them, you
• 21:18
  know, and and just because one issue is so important to you
• 21:21
  doesn't mean that other issues are important to other people.
• 21:25
  Like for us, I mean, criminal justice reform to me, maybe I'm
• 21:29
  a one issue person, but quite frankly, this is what we went
• 21:32
  through. Don't change that experience.
• 21:34
  You know, it's our our lived experience.
• 21:36
  Right. And it's what moves you.
• 21:38
  It's your passion. You know, it might change,
• 21:41
  right? Yeah.
• 21:43
  When you when you got out of law school, what did you think you
• 21:47
  were? Where did you think you were
• 21:48
  going to go? How were you going to pursue
• 21:50
  that? So when I was in law school, I
• 21:52
  actually interned with the public defender's office.
• 21:55
  I was so pregnant, I I got pregnant in the middle of law
• 21:58
  school on top of it. What?
• 22:00
  Happened to your mom. Exactly.
• 22:02
  It's kind of crazy, isn't it? And my daughter is a gift.
• 22:07
  She's the best thing that's ever happened to me because honestly,
• 22:10
  after I gave birth to her, I was like straight A's, Dean's list.
• 22:14
  I was struggling before that, but after I gave birth to my
• 22:18
  daughter, literally I was on the Dean's list.
• 22:21
  And I even did a joint program. I did AJD and an LLM Masters in
• 22:27
  Law, and I did it in three years.
• 22:28
  I was the first student to graduate with both degrees in
• 22:31
  just three years, having a kid in the middle of it.
• 22:33
  But she was my gift. She was my inspiration.
• 22:35
  But I interned with the public defender's office with my 711
• 22:39
  license. So, you know, you can actually
• 22:41
  go before the court. I even argued for this guy and
• 22:45
  he was so awful. I was so pregnant and my client,
• 22:49
  you know, was a pedophile and I was pregnant and here was
• 22:53
  arguing to dismiss the case because of a violation of the
• 22:57
  Speedy Trial Act. And this man was so smart.
• 23:00
  He did the research for me. And he was right.
• 23:03
  And honestly, it was from that experience I was thinking to
• 23:06
  myself, Oh my God, I don't ever want to deal with criminal law.
• 23:09
  And how crazy that here I am dealing with criminal law,
• 23:14
  right? Yeah.
• 23:15
  So I ended up basically specializing in tax law.
• 23:19
  I figured nobody's going to go to prison with tax, although
• 23:22
  that's been naive. I, you know, because obviously
• 23:24
  people go to prison for tax law. But I figured it will be civil.
• 23:28
  And that's the end of it, you know?
• 23:32
  So you were you were in Atlanta, went to school in Boston.
• 23:37
  I was in Atlantic City, NJ. Atlantic City.
• 23:39
  Atlantic City, right? Because that's where the casino
• 23:41
  was. How did you make your way to
• 23:45
  Chicago? I went to law school here.
• 23:48
  Got it. Yeah.
• 23:49
  I went to John Marshall Law School.
• 23:52
  It was funny because I didn't even apply anywhere else.
• 23:55
  I had got gone to a New York, it was called, I think the law firm
• 24:00
  in New York. And there was a table for John
• 24:03
  Marshall Law School. You know, it's, it's
• 24:05
  overwhelming. There's so many schools that are
• 24:07
  trying to talk to you. And this table for the John
• 24:11
  Marshall Law School, the lady was so nice.
• 24:13
  She's like, you got to come visit.
• 24:16
  We'll give you a hotel room and blah, blah, blah.
• 24:18
  I'm like, sure. And, and I came and I fell in
• 24:20
  love with the city. It was during the summer.
• 24:23
  Chicago is so beautiful and I just fell in love with the city.
• 24:28
  And this is where I wanted to go.
• 24:29
  I didn't apply to any other schools here, but that's the
• 24:32
  John Marshall Law School and you know, it's, it's now University
• 24:37
  of Illinois, think in Chicago or something like that School of
• 24:40
  Law. So I was, it's a very good
• 24:43
  school, although it wasn't ranked top of the schools here,
• 24:47
  but I was happy with my education there and people are
• 24:50
  really very supportive. You get out and you do well.
• 24:54
  I mean you, you know, from what I can read, you were a really
• 25:00
  good attorney and promoted yourself, I think what 2000 to
• 25:05
  2000 was it? What was it, 2012?
• 25:10
  You know the doing well is such a relative dumb.
• 25:15
  Let me tell you, I remember you. Had a big title.
• 25:18
  Well, I, I, I ended up working for the Illinois Department of
• 25:21
  Revenue. Yeah, the.
• 25:22
  Title was Special assistant attorney General.
• 25:25
  Yes, and I actually also my hyper self, I'm all there.
• 25:28
  I was also doing different positions and I actually ended
• 25:31
  up also doing a joint position. I was the acting general counsel
• 25:35
  for the Illinois Lottery. I guess I'd probably give this
• 25:38
  aura of like so much energy. Yeah, let her do that.
• 25:43
  Let her do that. Let her do we would.
• 25:45
  I was hired to be a special assistant attorney general doing
• 25:49
  income tax litigation. But then I was so hyper, I was
• 25:52
  bored with just doing income tax.
• 25:53
  I volunteered to the sales department.
• 25:56
  I'm like, I, I can do that too. So I'm like, OK, you can do
• 25:59
  both. And then when, you know,
• 26:02
  Governor Blagojevich, when he was elected, he merged to
• 26:06
  different agencies. And so by merging different
• 26:08
  agencies, for some reason they lost a lot of staff members like
• 26:12
  attorneys. So they needed attorneys in the
• 26:14
  racing board. They needed attorneys in the
• 26:18
  liquor Commission, they needed attorneys in the Board of
• 26:21
  Appeals. So believe it or not, I
• 26:23
  volunteered those 3. So I was doing all those five
• 26:26
  different agencies and I fell in love with litigation while I was
• 26:30
  working with the Illinois Department of Revenue.
• 26:32
  And that's how I really learned to litigate because prior to
• 26:36
  that I was working for a law firm for two years and all I did
• 26:40
  was transactional law doing it was like you're, you know,
• 26:43
  although we were doing mergers and acquisitions, tax law,
• 26:46
  employee benefits, he was really boring.
• 26:49
  I mean, you know, it's you're, you're pushing paper.
• 26:51
  You're. Drafting paper.
• 26:53
  Around, right and for a while I was just bored and one of the
• 26:57
  attorneys actually sent me to court, right the first time
• 27:02
  after so many years and I froze. I froze.
• 27:06
  Brent. I was, I remember the attorney
• 27:08
  just said just ask for an extension and really the reason
• 27:11
  why he sent me to court was because he wanted an extension
• 27:15
  and he didn't want to go himself.
• 27:17
  So he figured a new face can ask for this and the judge might
• 27:21
  feel bad and give it to her. Well, when the case was called
• 27:25
  and there were multiple defendants, I just stood there
• 27:29
  and the judge never looked at me.
• 27:31
  So I figured you don't speak when you're not spoken to.
• 27:34
  So I didn't say what he asked me to say because he never looked
• 27:38
  at me. And so I was just, I just froze,
• 27:41
  right. And when I went back to my firm,
• 27:43
  my the attorney was sent and he was, oh, how come it's not not
• 27:46
  the order what it is? I'm like, the judge didn't look
• 27:49
  at me. Didn't.
• 27:50
  Look at me. He's like never sent me back,
• 27:53
  but I felt so bad. I said I got to learn
• 27:57
  litigation. I got to learn litigation.
• 27:59
  So somebody advised me that the Illinois Department of Revenue
• 28:02
  that you can, they will assign you a case and you can, you
• 28:06
  know, try the case right away. It's administrative, but we we
• 28:09
  went to trial. So I went to trial a lot.
• 28:13
  They enjoyed it. So you start going to trial, but
• 28:15
  out of just plopped into your story is, is real estate and you
• 28:20
  were doing real estate even we're kind of a part time loan
• 28:24
  officer deal like how does that how do you how does that
• 28:28
  transition into what you were doing?
• 28:31
  Again, my hyper self, right? I can't sit still.
• 28:34
  And that's really what happened. I was in maternity leave.
• 28:38
  OK, so here I am on maternity leave.
• 28:41
  I'm hyper. I'm like, let me, let me study
• 28:44
  the to take the test or whatever it was for to get your broker's
• 28:47
  license, right? Let me make myself useful while
• 28:50
  my baby's sleeping. Why not?
• 28:53
  And, and here in Illinois, you don't have to take classes
• 28:56
  because, you know, if you're a lawyer, you can just take the
• 28:58
  test. So I'm like, oh, I can do this.
• 29:01
  So I took the exam, I passed it. And then it just so happened I
• 29:05
  was attending one event and, and it was a broker.
• 29:08
  He was a manager of a mortgage company.
• 29:10
  And if you remember in 2003, they were a lot of mortgage
• 29:14
  companies. And so he's like, Hey, why don't
• 29:18
  you work for me? You know, I'm like, oh, I can
• 29:20
  work part time. I can, I bring the baby.
• 29:22
  Sure. So then it was a, and it was
• 29:25
  that time they were offering those loan origination.
• 29:29
  I go, I can try it. So I took the test, I passed it.
• 29:31
  It was, it was simple. It was just loan origination,
• 29:34
  right? And while I was in maternity
• 29:36
  leave, I started a company and it was really just selling for
• 29:41
  myself really. I mean, buying for myself mostly
• 29:44
  and helping some of my friends. So it's kind of interesting
• 29:48
  because during my trial, my prosecutor made me out to be
• 29:51
  this this expert in real estate. She had a company she she was
• 29:55
  loan officer. Mind you, I was a loan
• 29:57
  originating officer who was just really referring case or files,
• 30:02
  right applications to right, because I was so involved in the
• 30:08
  bar organizations, I knew a lot of people.
• 30:10
  So I would refer them. I didn't even take their
• 30:12
  applications. They had a loan processor who I
• 30:15
  would give the number to and they would call them.
• 30:18
  So making me to be this, you know, this expert in this and I
• 30:22
  really wasn't. But you know, it's hard to say
• 30:25
  that when they said, well, you're an attorney, of course,
• 30:27
  you're an ex an expert. It's so crazy, but that's
• 30:30
  basically. Not about attorneys that they
• 30:33
  just know everything about everything.
• 30:35
  And a lot of times, you know, attorneys really specialize in
• 30:37
  certain things and they know a lot about that specialty.
• 30:40
  And then they talk to other attorneys about things that they
• 30:42
  don't really know a lot about and collaborate and do those
• 30:45
  things. But.
• 30:45
  Sure, the lesson is like stick your stay on your lane.
• 30:51
  You know, a lot of attorneys get into business because they know
• 30:53
  the contracts and they can figure it out and their mind
• 30:57
  thinks that way. But I think it's fascinating how
• 31:02
  as you evolved, you know, I think attorneys, you know, if
• 31:06
  you put them in a dark room and you know, the lights are off to
• 31:09
  say, wouldn't it be cool to be a judge?
• 31:11
  Like wouldn't it be cool like you're the you're the person
• 31:14
  that they come and see you? How did that come about,
• 31:18
  Jessica? Like what?
• 31:19
  What happened in your world that because you have to run for
• 31:24
  that, you have to actually stand out in front of yourself and be
• 31:29
  a person that people say, OK, yeah, I'll vote for Jessica.
• 31:32
  Yeah. So it's interesting.
• 31:34
  When I transitioned to working for the government, all of a
• 31:38
  sudden my work was from, you know, 7:30 to 5:30 or whatever
• 31:44
  it is. But when you're working for a
• 31:46
  law firm, especially when you're just starting out, sometimes,
• 31:50
  you know what? I had a, a supervising attorney
• 31:54
  who like to go to work at 4:00 in the morning.
• 31:57
  I mean, she was, it was really kind of crazy, but she was to
• 32:01
  pick me up from, from home, you know, and we would go to work
• 32:04
  because of course you, you want to please her, right?
• 32:06
  And she was very smart, but she was very hardworking.
• 32:09
  She was single. She didn't have any kids.
• 32:10
  And and really I should have been like, no, but I mean,
• 32:12
  although she always acted like she was very understanding of
• 32:16
  it, no matter how understanding they are, they you want to be
• 32:20
  want to follow their lead, right.
• 32:22
  So I really didn't have time to do any outside of activities.
• 32:28
  And so when I work for the Department of Revenue, I had
• 32:30
  more time the hyper me, although I probably should have just gone
• 32:34
  home and hang out with my kids. I wanted to give back.
• 32:38
  I wanted to make a difference. So I became involved in
• 32:43
  different organizations and one of the things that I was leading
• 32:47
  was I became the Co chair for judicial evaluation.
• 32:52
  So we were reviewing candidates, you know, judges who, who wanted
• 32:57
  to be, well, candidates to be judges.
• 32:59
  Wanted to be judges, yeah. We were evaluating their
• 33:02
  credentials to be judges and whether or not we would
• 33:06
  recommend them. And it was a coalition of
• 33:08
  different organizations, different bar organ.
• 33:11
  When I say bar organizations like legal bar organizations,
• 33:13
  that we would interview them together, you know, the
• 33:15
  different representatives and then we would give our
• 33:19
  individual recommendations. But it was during that time when
• 33:23
  we were interviewing all these candidates that I said to
• 33:26
  myself, I can do that. You know what I mean?
• 33:29
  Do better. Better could.
• 33:30
  Do that. Right.
• 33:32
  Exactly. And it was the time that I
• 33:34
  really was encouraged to to run for judge was I became the
• 33:39
  president of the Asian American Bar Association.
• 33:43
  I was. Talking about that, that was a
• 33:45
  pretty big deal. That was a big deal.
• 33:47
  You remember I told you like the the person that I invited to be
• 33:50
  my keynote speaker. I don't know if President Trump
• 33:53
  would remember this, but he was the first person that I asked to
• 33:58
  be my keynote speaker in 2008 because I had my I had my
• 34:04
  installation to be president in Trump Towers.
• 34:07
  So my theme was basically merging law and business and
• 34:13
  coming from Atlantic City because because of course, I
• 34:15
  heard so much about him when I was working at Atlantic City.
• 34:17
  And you know, everybody, I don't know if everybody, but I know
• 34:20
  that the people around me loved him.
• 34:23
  He had a very good reputation. Everybody looked up to him and
• 34:26
  so I wanted him to be my keynote speaker before he was even in
• 34:31
  politics. It's funny to think back,
• 34:34
  Jessica, because we're around the same age that how long it's
• 34:38
  been that he's been known. You know, like I remember, I
• 34:42
  think I was a junior in college and I read his book, The Art of
• 34:45
  the Deal. I think it was like an 88.
• 34:47
  I mean, it's a long time ago. It was an 88.
• 34:49
  Yeah, and he's been around for a long time, known a long time.
• 34:54
  And the Democrats loved him then.
• 34:56
  Well, yeah, if you remember that Oprah actually interviewed him
• 35:00
  and asked him if he was going to run for judge.
• 35:02
  President. Yeah.
• 35:03
  I mean, Judge President, right? Yeah.
• 35:05
  I mean I, you know. Anyway, so I lost my train of I.
• 35:12
  Was I was thinking that it makes sense now that you explain it in
• 35:17
  that time sequence that you were in these organizations, you were
• 35:22
  looking at qualifications and you're thinking, Oh my gosh,
• 35:24
  well, I could, I could do that. Actually, that just reminded me.
• 35:29
  So what happened was so I I became president of the Asian
• 35:32
  American Bar Association and my mentor, her name was Judge
• 35:35
  Sandra Otaka, she actually helped me put together my
• 35:38
  installation. She died in the middle of my
• 35:40
  presidency. Oh wow.
• 35:42
  And Judge Ataka, who everybody loved, She was the first Asian
• 35:48
  American to ever be appointed judge of the Circuit Court of
• 35:52
  Cook County and then later to be elected judge.
• 35:56
  OK, so she died and what happened was the Illinois
• 36:00
  Supreme Court appointed a non Asian to her seat.
• 36:04
  OK. And the Asian American community
• 36:07
  was upset about that. And they came to me.
• 36:11
  They looked to me and said you need to do a press release, do a
• 36:15
  press conference and condemn what the Illinois Supreme Court
• 36:19
  did because there's an average time of the Supreme Court to
• 36:23
  appoint somebody to a seat. And interestingly, it took them
• 36:27
  only like, I think 30 days. Don't put me in that one.
• 36:30
  But it was a very short period of time.
• 36:32
  Did it very quickly. And he wasn't an Asian.
• 36:35
  And so they wanted me as the president of the Asian American
• 36:38
  bar to condemn this, right? And so my point is that my
• 36:44
  position is that, look, there's no seat.
• 36:46
  There's no Asian seat. There's no, I just don't believe
• 36:49
  in that. If you want to be considered to
• 36:53
  be appointed, then run for put yourself on a list to be
• 36:57
  appointed. Wouldn't have anybody on the
• 36:59
  list to be appointed. So I refuse to do this.
• 37:02
  Mind you, I was cancelled for not doing that.
• 37:05
  And then it turned out now the, the immediate past president
• 37:09
  took the lead on that. But I I really believe that
• 37:12
  there's no seat, there's no agency, there's no.
• 37:15
  Best person should be the person that.
• 37:17
  Gets it on the merit. That's the reasonable way to
• 37:20
  think of it, right? And and if you want to to be
• 37:23
  considered, then then run, run. And so I wanted to walk the
• 37:29
  talk, so I ran. I figured.
• 37:32
  That's quite a story. I, I didn't know how that all
• 37:34
  came about. So again, you step into
• 37:39
  something because you, you feel like that you can be that
• 37:44
  person. What was it like to be in a
• 37:48
  position where you're running and people have to vote for you?
• 37:52
  Well, it was interesting. So when I decided to run, it was
• 37:55
  a last minute vacancy that I ran for, but I kind of did it last
• 37:58
  minute. You know, people were calling me
• 38:00
  and saying you got to run, you got to run, you got to run.
• 38:02
  I'm like, I don't know, I'm not ready, You know, I'm not, I
• 38:05
  haven't been out for 12 years. We have this rule of like, you
• 38:08
  have to be out for 12 years in order to be considered to be, to
• 38:11
  be even recommended. And at that point I had only
• 38:14
  been practicing, you know, license for it was less than 12
• 38:18
  years. And but then I then I just said,
• 38:23
  OK, fine, I'll do it, you know, again, you know.
• 38:26
  Off the chocolate. Right.
• 38:28
  But then when I got my signatures, I didn't have enough
• 38:30
  signatures, so I had to withdraw.
• 38:35
  So that was the first time. And then, you know, two years
• 38:38
  later, well, in between there, the Illinois Supreme Court, the
• 38:43
  chief judge, actually justice who appointed me, asked me if I
• 38:47
  want to be considered to be appointed.
• 38:49
  And again, I wasn't 12 years. So I said, you know what,
• 38:52
  Justice, I'm really not 12 years yet.
• 38:54
  Why don't I help you find somebody, you know, And it was
• 38:58
  interesting because he actually was diagnosed with, I think it
• 39:02
  was cancer. So, but it was, it was after
• 39:05
  that. And I'm like, oh, maybe I should
• 39:06
  consider it because I was closer to 12 years.
• 39:08
  But then I said, you know what, I'm just going to run.
• 39:10
  So then I, I, I ran two years later.
• 39:14
  And at that time here in Cook County, you have to go before
• 39:17
  the Democratic Party. And so, of course, the
• 39:20
  Democratic Party, the members, they were mad at me because
• 39:23
  remember, I ran that two years before against the party.
• 39:28
  And they're like, we're not, we're not endorsing you, you
• 39:31
  know, you ran against us, you know, so you got to wait your
• 39:34
  turn. And I'm kind of like, you know,
• 39:36
  you know what that means? I'm like, really?
• 39:38
  Yeah, not that Jessica, right? But me.
• 39:40
  So I just thought that was so insulting, you know, it's.
• 39:43
  Almost a motivation for you. It was and so I ran against the
• 39:46
  party and probably I I shouldn't have because you make so many
• 39:51
  enemies, but I ran and I won. And you made it.
• 39:57
  I made it. It was tough.
• 39:58
  The, you know, going against the powerful.
• 40:02
  Machine is. Very.
• 40:03
  I think it's fascinating that you were able to do that because
• 40:07
  that's something that. I did it.
• 40:09
  I didn't do it on my own. Well, but a lot of people when
• 40:12
  they're told that they do step aside and it takes people that
• 40:16
  just think I need to do this. I know I want to do this.
• 40:19
  You you take it on and and you had a motivation for or to show,
• 40:25
  hey, I can make this happen. Yeah.
• 40:28
  What is that? But I, you know, Jessica, what
• 40:31
  is that like though, to be somebody, you know, you've gone
• 40:36
  into the courtroom, you've been an attorney.
• 40:38
  What is it like to actually put the robe on and be that person
• 40:42
  who comes in, everybody stands up and you are the judge.
• 40:45
  Like what? How does that?
• 40:48
  How? What is it like?
• 40:50
  You know, I'd like to think that I really was the same person.
• 40:57
  One of the things that so my husband, well, he's now a judge,
• 41:02
  but his father was a judge when I was a judge.
• 41:05
  My husband at that time wasn't a judge yet.
• 41:06
  And one of the things that he told me is like, don't be, don't
• 41:10
  have Robitus. Robitus or something like have
• 41:14
  this ego, you know, because you're a judge.
• 41:16
  And I always just thought to myself, you know, you're an
• 41:21
  elected person. You serve the people.
• 41:24
  And so I had a different philosophy with taking, with
• 41:26
  becoming a judge. Like I really viewed the bench
• 41:30
  as the judiciary's customer service.
• 41:34
  You know, you're serving the people.
• 41:36
  And again, I'm coming from the hospitality industry, so I
• 41:39
  figured the judge is the manager of the customer service in my
• 41:42
  courtroom, right? They want to look at it.
• 41:44
  Right. And so I, I kind of viewed it
• 41:46
  that way. Interesting.
• 41:51
  I was sometimes I was uncomfortable with people when
• 41:53
  they, people get up because it's just like so unnecessary.
• 41:56
  You know, it's like, I'm just here to settle this.
• 42:00
  I'm. The biggest referee you got?
• 42:02
  Right. I'm a servant.
• 42:04
  I'm I'm really working for all of you and I always kept that in
• 42:08
  mind. I think it's nice, but really
• 42:11
  it's a humbling experience. Actually it's, I mean it's, it's
• 42:14
  a unique experience because an opportunity.
• 42:17
  To be fair, yeah. And then one of the things that
• 42:20
  I also kept in mind was I remember that first time when I
• 42:23
  went to court when the judge didn't even look at me.
• 42:27
  So when I became a judge, I always made it a point like
• 42:30
  whenever people came before me. Good morning.
• 42:33
  You know, even the the pro SE litigants, especially the pro SE
• 42:36
  litigants, right? How are you, Mr. So and so?
• 42:38
  I wanted them to feel comfortable and not be nervous.
• 42:41
  I was nervous when I went before a judge, so I didn't want them
• 42:45
  to be nervous. You know, I went out of my way
• 42:48
  because I had that experience. And I think it's a big deal when
• 42:51
  a judge does do that. I, I had a unique experience,
• 42:54
  Jessica, when we had two cases, you know, I had the criminal
• 42:59
  case and then we had the civil case and the civil case was
• 43:03
  stayed while the criminal case was going on.
• 43:05
  So while I was in, while I was at Leavenworth, I was pulled
• 43:08
  back in as a witness. Even though I was dismissed from
• 43:11
  the civil case, I was pulled back in as a hostile witness for
• 43:13
  the other side, which was a real pain to be, you know, any types
• 43:17
  of travel as an inmate you don't ever want to do.
• 43:21
  But I remember Judge Weber because he really helped me
• 43:25
  because I was in this program where you could get a year off
• 43:28
  if you were in this program, but you couldn't be gone for more
• 43:30
  than 10 days or you had to start over.
• 43:32
  You weren't in the program anymore.
• 43:34
  And so Judge Weber actually made sure he rearranged the schedule
• 43:39
  and he put me at the very front, but I walked in.
• 43:43
  It was the most humbling experience I've ever had
• 43:46
  walking. And I I had a suit on and my
• 43:49
  wife had brought me I'd lost 35 lbs to this thing.
• 43:52
  I looked like the from the kid from big.
• 43:53
  You know, it's like with this gigantic suit on and.
• 43:57
  But I was shackled and it was so.
• 43:59
  Oh. My.
• 44:00
  Gosh, humbling. I've been shackling my ankles
• 44:04
  and and I've got this, you know, Marshall, that's sitting behind
• 44:07
  me. And anyway, there's a break that
• 44:10
  happens and Judge Weber comes off the bench and comes down in
• 44:15
  front of me and he said, Brent, he said, I know this has been
• 44:19
  hard because he was handling our civil case before I ever went to
• 44:23
  prison. It's, and he said, I, I, I want
• 44:27
  to know. He said, I recommend a lot of
• 44:29
  people for this program that there's something called the
• 44:32
  RDAP program. And he said, can you tell me a
• 44:36
  little bit about it? And do you think it's worth, you
• 44:39
  know, what, what the prison system is trying to do with it?
• 44:42
  We had this conversation. It was very like, and he was
• 44:45
  literally in front of me and with his back to the, to the,
• 44:49
  the people in the courtroom. And the Marshall said, I can't
• 44:52
  believe that the judge just came down and did that.
• 44:55
  And I think he was thinking like, why would a judge come
• 44:57
  down and talk to a prisoner, you know, off the bench and just
• 45:00
  have a conversation? What a great judge.
• 45:02
  And I, it stuck with me and the, and the crazy thing is I go down
• 45:07
  every month to pay my restitution at the same
• 45:09
  courthouse because I don't trust the mail.
• 45:11
  And he was coming in the doors and I was leaving and I said
• 45:15
  Judge Weber, Brent Cass, he's an old, much older man now.
• 45:19
  Is he still alive? Did he just pass away?
• 45:21
  No, he's still alive. Oh, OK.
• 45:23
  All right. And he saw Mr. Cassidy Brent, he
• 45:27
  said, I remember you. He said, how are you?
• 45:29
  And he was just, you know, that whole thing is stuck with me.
• 45:33
  You know, the judges can have a unique impact on people's lives
• 45:38
  and they can do things that will stick with somebody for years
• 45:43
  for their life if you had that type of interaction.
• 45:46
  So it's. Same way with a teacher, right?
• 45:49
  Like a teacher. Same thing with the teacher.
• 45:51
  My my youngest daughter's a teacher and, and I, I'm so
• 45:54
  always like brings tears in my eyes, like the notes that she
• 45:57
  gets, you know, from kids. You know that I wouldn't, I
• 45:59
  don't know what I would have done without you.
• 46:00
  I think it's the same kind of thing how people look up to that
• 46:03
  individual, whether it's good or bad.
• 46:06
  You know, you can have a bad experience with a judge, you can
• 46:08
  have a bad experience with a teacher, but.
• 46:10
  More so with judges though. I mean, that's interesting that
• 46:12
  you're mentioning that Brett, because I went to a conference
• 46:16
  in DCI, think he was last year in 2023 where they were honoring
• 46:20
  this judge who who passed away, but they wanted to give him an
• 46:23
  award and they were telling stories about that judge.
• 46:27
  And it's very similar to the story you're you're saying.
• 46:29
  I can't remember the name now, but I'm like, how amazing is
• 46:34
  that? You know it.
• 46:34
  Really, it really affects you to your your soul when that
• 46:38
  happens. And, and I walked away from
• 46:41
  that, you know, that day thinking that was really
• 46:43
  something that he wanted. To have all our judges can be
• 46:45
  that way. Yeah, right.
• 46:47
  Unfortunately, many of our judges are too sanctimonious and
• 46:53
  really wear a prosecutorial hat that many of them are former
• 46:57
  prosecutors. Most, I don't really believe
• 47:00
  they can take off. I mean, maybe there are some
• 47:02
  that are very good judges who are former prosecutors, but I'm
• 47:05
  telling you that I, I, I don't believe that they really removed
• 47:08
  that hat. Ever.
• 47:09
  I think it's almost, you know, and like you said, there's so
• 47:12
  many that are former prosecutors and it depends, I guess, how
• 47:16
  they took all that in when they were prosecuted you.
• 47:20
  Know exactly when, if they were really win at all costs, then
• 47:24
  they're never going to change. You know, I don't care what
• 47:26
  anybody says. I mean, they're going to tell
• 47:28
  you, you know, they're going to tell Congress what they want to
• 47:31
  hear. But I think you definitely walk
• 47:33
  into the courtroom where it's stacked differently because you
• 47:37
  have a judge that's usually comes from the prosecute.
• 47:40
  Prosecute was a prosecutor and then you got the prosecutor and
• 47:43
  then you got the defense. So it's almost 2 two against one
• 47:45
  before you ever walk in because of the way that the mindset is
• 47:48
  not to say that it always is a bad, but it it's very hard
• 47:51
  because I think the other thing and Jessica, you went to trial,
• 47:55
  which we'll get into. But.
• 47:58
  I think the other thing that's really tough is is that the
• 48:00
  narrative is already set before you get in there so that they
• 48:03
  they have a talking document from the United States of
• 48:06
  America to potential jury people out in the media.
• 48:10
  So you really don't walk into the courtroom where presumed
• 48:14
  innocent. No.
• 48:16
  You, you walked in the courtroom as Oh my gosh, they must have a
• 48:19
  case because why would the United States of America waste
• 48:23
  any of their time on Jessica O'Brien unless something's
• 48:26
  really big? Not bad.
• 48:28
  Everybody thinks that, myself included.
• 48:30
  Before I, I, I became just as impacted, I thought that too,
• 48:35
  you know, but you don't know how broken our system really is
• 48:40
  until you go through it, you know, and, and people are so
• 48:43
  sanctimonious, even especially people in the legal community.
• 48:47
  These are most of the people who go to laws will become lawyers.
• 48:50
  They will tell you that, oh, we want to, you know, we want to
• 48:53
  protect the due process and the people who can't defend
• 48:57
  themselves, but they forget about it when they're, you know,
• 49:00
  they're they become prosecutors. And don't take it from me.
• 49:03
  Read all the books. Oh yeah.
• 49:05
  Conviction machine. You got what, 3 felonies a day?
• 49:09
  I mean, Congress, both parties have been talking about this.
• 49:12
  How broken or? So many laws on the books and
• 49:15
  you can pull any of them out and then you have a grand jury that
• 49:18
  you only hear one side, you don't hear the defense side.
• 49:20
  So it's it's it's a fairly simple they.
• 49:22
  Have that instant credibility because they're the when when
• 49:25
  when they say my name is so and so I represent the United States
• 49:29
  of America pretty big deal immediately and then also when
• 49:32
  they say this is to my right is so and so from the FBI like all
• 49:36
  of a sudden you know they they they get instant credibility
• 49:40
  credibility. That's why when prosecutors
• 49:44
  engage in prosecutorial misconduct, such as making
• 49:47
  inappropriate closing statements that are not based on facts in
• 49:52
  the record, and if you think that you can just fix that by
• 49:56
  instructions, you have something else coming for you.
• 49:59
  But that's exactly how our system is set up to believe
• 50:01
  that. I know to believe that, but it's
• 50:04
  not true. And yeah, you have this case law
• 50:07
  that even would say that. That would say you can't just
• 50:10
  assume that because you have an instruction that says that
• 50:14
  closing argument is not evidence.
• 50:17
  It means that the jury is not going to take that into
• 50:20
  consideration. That's a following.
• 50:22
  It's like a movie, you're listening to a story.
• 50:25
  And especially in the white collar cases, nobody wants to go
• 50:29
  into this different change. Of law.
• 50:33
  The definitions of a financial institution like in my case, you
• 50:37
  know, do you really think they're going to go into that?
• 50:40
  And you want to think that, but it's, you know what?
• 50:43
  You want to know something. I didn't even understand my case
• 50:45
  until I took over my case. I didn't understand my case when
• 50:48
  I was going to trial. I really didn't.
• 50:51
  I just was relying on my attorney that I borrowed money
• 50:55
  so that I could pay him to come up with, you know, to defend me
• 51:00
  to the best of his abilities. But I don't think he understood
• 51:02
  my case. And it took me years to
• 51:05
  understand my case too. I want to get into all that.
• 51:08
  Before we do, I'll take a break here just because I want to talk
• 51:11
  about what we come back on the surprise of all this that
• 51:16
  happened way before you became a judge, how you handled it, how
• 51:20
  you decided to go to trial and the ramifications after that.
• 51:22
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• 51:25
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• 51:27
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• 52:03
  Nightmare Success and Jessica are both members of Nightmare
• 52:07
  Success Podcast, and it's sponsored by the white collar
• 52:11
  support group that we're both members of.
• 52:13
  None. We're not both members of the
• 52:14
  Nightmare Success Podcast, but we're both attend the White
• 52:19
  Collar Support Group, and it's the world's first support group
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  devoted to people navigating the white collar criminal justice
• 52:24
  system. I'm a member of the White Collar
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  Support Group and I can tell you this is a bunch of people who
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  free. Whether you're just starting
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  your journey or you've made it through the other side, this is
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  a great space for you. You can join us on Zoom Monday,
• 52:36
  7:00 PM Eastern Time. For more information, go to
• 52:39
  prisoners.org. That's prisoners.org.
• 52:43
  So Jessica, you're on the you're on the bench.
• 52:46
  Life is good. You've you've gotten elected and
• 52:49
  you're, you're doing something, you're doing good work.
• 52:53
  How does this come down on you on something that happened in
• 52:58
  like what was it 2007 or I can't even remember?
• 53:02
  The my indictment was dated April 11, 2017.
• 53:06
  Yeah. And the transaction that that
• 53:11
  was supposed to be the basis of their indictment was April 16,
• 53:16
  2007, which that let that that transaction.
• 53:21
  I was the seller of two real estate properties that I had and
• 53:27
  that I had nothing to do with. But it's interesting how to get.
• 53:34
  Notified on that, on something like that because something
• 53:37
  that's been 10 years, did you know that they were
• 53:39
  investigating you on on a transaction that happened that
• 53:42
  long ago? So they, they, they, they didn't
• 53:48
  notify me eventually actually the FBI called me.
• 53:52
  They called me in my chambers actually and normally.
• 53:57
  So I I called back and the agent answered the phone and then they
• 54:02
  said this is Agent Robert Jerk, who I think should also go to
• 54:07
  present and we want to talk to you about this two transactions
• 54:13
  that you you sold properties, blah, blah, blah.
• 54:16
  Do you have time to meet with it with us?
• 54:19
  Like sure, you know, like sure. I mean, you have to.
• 54:23
  Be like labricasted that. Well, I was telling.
• 54:26
  Called you in your chambers and they want to talk to you about a
• 54:29
  transaction that happened over 10 years ago.
• 54:31
  I, I think they called me on my phone line in, in my work, I
• 54:34
  think, or either my phone or I can't remember.
• 54:36
  But then and I said sure. And then we, I think we had set
• 54:40
  a date. But then I talked to an
• 54:43
  attorney. I mean, I'm not, he was just a
• 54:45
  friend and my friend's like, Jessica, you are not meeting
• 54:48
  with him. You and your husband are judges.
• 54:52
  And do you know what they would love to do just to get a name
• 54:55
  for themselves? I'm like, come on, that's not
• 54:58
  true. Yes, yes, Jessica, I'm like, no,
• 55:01
  I have nothing to hide, you know.
• 55:04
  But then the more I thought about it and just so happened to
• 55:06
  that, the time that I was supposed to meet with this
• 55:09
  agent, I actually had AI was I can't remember if I was ready.
• 55:16
  I'm trying to remember if I was ready presiding over jury trials
• 55:18
  at that time. But I had I wasn't in court for
• 55:22
  a while. I had, I think I had, I was
• 55:23
  presiding over a case that went over normal time and I ended up
• 55:27
  calling the agent saying you know what, I can't make it.
• 55:30
  And eventually I think that I said, I'm not sure if I informed
• 55:34
  them that I had an attorney because my friend insisted you
• 55:38
  are not doing it and I was going to.
• 55:40
  And I'm so glad I listened to him.
• 55:42
  I said, if you don't listen to me, at least talk to an
• 55:45
  attorney. I'm like, but I have nothing to
• 55:47
  hide. I mean, you know what I mean?
• 55:49
  It's like, trust me, they they're going to twist your
• 55:51
  words and they don't. I'm not like they.
• 55:54
  Don't record anything, they just write stuff.
• 55:55
  Down. That's what I said.
• 55:56
  I'm like, well, we can record it.
• 55:58
  They're not going to let you record it, which is kind of
• 56:01
  crazy. It's one thing I can think of
• 56:03
  that needs to be changed. Yeah, for sure.
• 56:06
  Why are you afraid to record it? Right.
• 56:08
  Why are three of these done without recording?
• 56:11
  Right, exactly. There's so many things that we
• 56:14
  can. Come on, that's just one thing I
• 56:15
  can think of. Right, just one.
• 56:17
  An easy one to fix. Very easy to fix and really, why
• 56:22
  don't we have laws that make prosecutorial misconduct
• 56:26
  criminal? Why is that?
• 56:29
  That's another good one that could be fixed.
• 56:31
  A high percentage of our representatives in Congress are
• 56:34
  former prosecutors. And it's kind of interesting
• 56:37
  talking about about that. Think about this.
• 56:40
  Why are they afraid to make that criminal?
• 56:44
  And one of the reasoning is that, well, if if you make it
• 56:48
  criminal, if you punish prosecutors, then they're not
• 56:51
  going to, they're not going to prosecute a case vigorously.
• 56:56
  Well, but that's why are you more concerned about that?
• 56:59
  You know, here we are. Listen to the narrative like
• 57:01
  about due process, due process. Why are you concerned about
• 57:04
  prosecuting at all 'cause when you are representatives of the
• 57:08
  people, you should be concerned about their due process.
• 57:12
  So you should be. And here we are.
• 57:14
  You know, everybody's talking about how much power prosecutors
• 57:17
  have. Then why don't we have a law
• 57:19
  that make it criminal if they engage in prosecutorial
• 57:22
  misconduct? I mean, that needs to be proven
• 57:25
  anyway, right? And if you have a same thing
• 57:28
  that like they have over the United Kingdom on the civil
• 57:30
  side, you bring a you bring a frivolous lawsuit, you have to
• 57:32
  pay for it. If if if you lose.
• 57:34
  And that makes people think about, you know, a frivolous
• 57:37
  lawsuit. What you're talking about is it
• 57:40
  makes them think a little bit more about just the railroad
• 57:43
  over someone. Do we have everything we need to
• 57:47
  have the way we need to have it so that we can move forward?
• 57:52
  But the the judiciary protects them too, right?
• 57:56
  The law says that it's. Almost impossible to bring an
• 58:00
  issue up that happens. If they're acting.
• 58:02
  As those people would have, but those people also get, you know,
• 58:06
  even if they get reprimanded by the bench, they they can get
• 58:10
  promoted and that's that's another problem that's.
• 58:12
  Exactly what happened in my case, I mean, six months before
• 58:16
  my trial, my prosecutor's case that went to the 7th Circuit was
• 58:21
  overturned because I mean, I'm assuming it's him and he led the
• 58:25
  case. He was the lead litigator.
• 58:28
  He engaged in Brady violation. It's that United States versus
• 58:32
  Walter and Bell. And he was even warned not to
• 58:36
  make improper closing arguments. It was six months before my
• 58:39
  trial and you know, and before that he, although you know, a
• 58:46
  lot of these, the opinions in 7th Circuit when you bring in a
• 58:51
  2255, which is a collateral motion or petition, it's they
• 58:58
  always say, well, even if they engage in misconduct, if it's
• 59:02
  not material, if it's not material, then it's OK.
• 59:06
  Then they excused it. They excused the misconduct and
• 59:09
  it was another case that again, he also LED.
• 59:13
  In that case. They de Casola, Michelle de
• 59:16
  Casola. That's the, I'm sorry, it's just
• 59:18
  in my mind right now where the defendants actually said that
• 59:24
  the witness in the grand jury said that he was bullied.
• 59:30
  But the 7th Circuit said that that didn't really affect the
• 59:33
  the verdict or the, the conviction and all that stuff.
• 59:36
  So they didn't overturn it, but still the attorney for the
• 59:39
  defendant in that case is a very well respected attorney.
• 59:42
  Actually he's one of those trust fund attorney who doesn't even
• 59:46
  need a job and he's doing it because he really believes in
• 59:49
  due process and for him to make that allegation.
• 59:53
  And again, my my prosecutor was the lead attorney in that case.
• 59:57
  Case wasn't overturned, but still he has a history of it.
• 1:00:02
  And yet when I presented. I think unrefuted prosecutorial
• 1:00:06
  misconduct. They didn't even give me an
• 1:00:09
  evidentiary hearing, which is the craziest thing, but that's
• 1:00:13
  the whole new story. Well, I mean, going back to
• 1:00:15
  where you know, your your attorney gave you good advice
• 1:00:18
  and so that you don't need to be sitting down with the FBI.
• 1:00:20
  And how did it proceed? Like how long did from the top?
• 1:00:25
  Well, I guess the easier question is from the time,
• 1:00:28
  Jessica, that you got that phone call and they said that they
• 1:00:31
  wanted to meet with you, how long was it until you were in a
• 1:00:36
  courtroom going to trial? So we actually invoked the
• 1:00:42
  Speedy Trial Act. So the call I think came in
• 1:00:45
  either October or November after I finished my presidency of the
• 1:00:49
  women's bar. I was the president of the
• 1:00:50
  women's bar at that time. Well, it was after I had really
• 1:00:55
  great projects that I was doing that was actually going to help
• 1:00:57
  the city of Chicago, you know, and I started this.
• 1:01:01
  I was asked by the Boy Scouts of America to lead this project.
• 1:01:05
  It was, we called it leadership and inclusion for violence
• 1:01:10
  eradication and it was a really great project that basically to
• 1:01:13
  address we're. Doing a lot of good work.
• 1:01:15
  I mean you can. I was doing a lot.
• 1:01:16
  Of stuff that you can read about the different things that you
• 1:01:19
  were doing we. Didn't even read about this
• 1:01:21
  because we started it right after my presidency and we
• 1:01:24
  literally we're putting together a think tank here in the city of
• 1:01:27
  Chicago, bring in leaders in the community, including
• 1:01:31
  corporations. And and we weren't even going to
• 1:01:33
  ask the mayor, the pastors, We were coming up with all kinds of
• 1:01:37
  stuff. And even I had a whole, a state
• 1:01:39
  senator who already agreed to be a part of this team and we
• 1:01:42
  really wanted to tackle the violence here in Chicago.
• 1:01:45
  And I was asked to lead that this, this project that we had.
• 1:01:50
  But when I was investigated, I said, I can't lead this anymore.
• 1:01:55
  But this is a great project. I will help you anywhere I can.
• 1:01:59
  Please find somebody else's. I don't want to smear this very
• 1:02:03
  good project. But nobody picked it up, you
• 1:02:05
  know. And so that was a really project
• 1:02:07
  that unfortunately never took off.
• 1:02:09
  Never got off the. Ground because of my indictment.
• 1:02:12
  How did this affect your family? Like when all of a sudden you've
• 1:02:16
  got your judge as Miss Judge kids.
• 1:02:20
  Like, how did this all? I know it gets crazy because I
• 1:02:23
  have a wife and three kids, but how did you, how did you survive
• 1:02:27
  going through that process? So it, it obviously, I mean, my
• 1:02:36
  marriage at that, I mean, you know, we had issues and it just
• 1:02:42
  made it worse, worse. It was so bad that during my
• 1:02:48
  sentencing, you know, my husband's always like, this is
• 1:02:53
  such a ridiculous case. Like I never thought that this
• 1:02:57
  would happen to you. You're the last person you know,
• 1:03:00
  my, my husband knew that this is BS.
• 1:03:03
  And of course, he, he knows that I'm innocent and he, he stands
• 1:03:07
  by me, but he didn't know how to handle the shame, the
• 1:03:11
  embarrassment and all of that. It was our marriage was
• 1:03:15
  crumbling. And it was, you know, I
• 1:03:18
  discovered things that was just even more hurtful.
• 1:03:22
  And so right before my sentencing, I actually told my
• 1:03:26
  husband, I'm like, I don't even want you in my sentencing.
• 1:03:29
  And quite frankly, Brent, when I went to prison, I, I thought I
• 1:03:32
  was coming back to a broken family, that I was going to get
• 1:03:36
  divorced. But my husband believes in my
• 1:03:41
  innocence and he feels terrible that this happened to me.
• 1:03:48
  And we feel terrible that this is happening at all in our
• 1:03:51
  criminal justice system. You know, he, he feels very
• 1:03:55
  strongly about it as well. But there has been.
• 1:03:58
  And he too, as, as I fight, he's also hoping that he will help
• 1:04:03
  somebody else that hopefully. Paving paving a way for someone
• 1:04:07
  for. Someone.
• 1:04:08
  Else, but for some other. People, right, right.
• 1:04:11
  And so which? I, you know, I don't want to
• 1:04:14
  skip over that because you're in a unique position because very,
• 1:04:18
  very few people go to your trial and when you plea, you give up
• 1:04:22
  all your rights and. I didn't plea.
• 1:04:25
  I know, yeah, when are you going to trial, You are still able to
• 1:04:31
  fight for that that you feel is needed.
• 1:04:35
  And I think that affects the overall whole of somebody that
• 1:04:39
  that doesn't give up to continue to fight.
• 1:04:42
  When you walked into the courtroom and it's time, you
• 1:04:46
  know it's go time. Were you confident or did you
• 1:04:51
  feel like you wanted to throw up?
• 1:04:54
  For my trial, you mean? Oh my gosh, When my attorney
• 1:05:01
  gave his opening statement, I looked.
• 1:05:06
  I turn around to my husband and I said I'm dead.
• 1:05:09
  Really, right? Off the bat, yeah, it was such a
• 1:05:13
  horrible opening statement. And I remember before we went to
• 1:05:18
  trial, I said to him, can I read your opening statement?
• 1:05:21
  You know, I never saw it. They're not required to, right?
• 1:05:27
  But he, it was like he came up with this theory that I don't
• 1:05:34
  remember him checking with me what the theory was.
• 1:05:37
  I mean, I, I remember him giving a theory to to the judge during
• 1:05:41
  the pretrial, but I didn't know what his theme was for his
• 1:05:45
  opening. And his theme was like, this was
• 1:05:48
  a mistake. He was like, what?
• 1:05:50
  This was not a mistake. You know what I mean?
• 1:05:52
  Like it was a mistake for this inflating the income because
• 1:05:56
  that was the big deal, right? It was like she inflated her
• 1:05:59
  income. You know, she only made $12,000
• 1:06:01
  and she said she made $89,000. And she really was just making
• 1:06:05
  this much money. She was in maternity leave.
• 1:06:07
  Well, what they're not telling you is back then, if you
• 1:06:10
  remember, the, the rules of the mortgage application was very
• 1:06:16
  relaxed. Oh yes, before.
• 1:06:17
  The big. Crash in 2008, right?
• 1:06:20
  This were like mortgage companies.
• 1:06:21
  They weren't financial institutions.
• 1:06:23
  No, it was the wild in the West until 2008 when it all crashed.
• 1:06:26
  As defined with in the statute, Yeah.
• 1:06:30
  So my income that I actually indicated in my application was
• 1:06:35
  my household income, which by the way, the underwriter
• 1:06:39
  accepted. As a matter of fact, they had my
• 1:06:41
  tax returns. And they're like, no, we'll just
• 1:06:43
  take your household income. You just give us a letter saying
• 1:06:46
  that this is your household income.
• 1:06:47
  So that was part of the application was a letter saying
• 1:06:50
  that my income is household income.
• 1:06:54
  So for them to say, oh, she lied, she lied.
• 1:06:57
  And it was like, and my attorney wasn't even focused on those
• 1:07:01
  expired transactions because really it was only they only had
• 1:07:05
  subject matter jurisdiction because of 1 transaction.
• 1:07:07
  And it was my buyer's whole equity line of credit, which was
• 1:07:11
  $73,000 that I had obviously didn't even know he took out
• 1:07:16
  because obviously he had to buy the property first before he
• 1:07:19
  could even get a home equity line of credit, right?
• 1:07:22
  That's the way I thought it worked.
• 1:07:24
  Exactly. So that was the only transaction
• 1:07:26
  that was the basis of my conviction was the $73,000 that
• 1:07:31
  he took out and so by by by bootstrapping this expired
• 1:07:37
  transaction. Remember my indictment was April
• 1:07:40
  11/20/17. They brought in my 2004 loan
• 1:07:46
  application, my 2005 refinance, my 2625 thousand.
• 1:07:54
  Attentions had already passed. My commercial line of credit,
• 1:07:58
  but by the way, did not involve any financial institution
• 1:08:01
  because back then the definition of financial institution had to
• 1:08:04
  be an FDIC insured. The lenders at that time were
• 1:08:07
  not FDIC insured. There were mortgage corporations
• 1:08:10
  that did not qualify. So again, you think the jury
• 1:08:13
  would really pay attention to that They're.
• 1:08:14
  Not going to get down in the weeds on that.
• 1:08:16
  Right. Well, not only that.
• 1:08:18
  So during my trial, they focused on the expired transactions.
• 1:08:23
  Now, their theory was 10 O1, which is a different statute.
• 1:08:26
  I wasn't charged with making false statement.
• 1:08:29
  This was bank fraud and this was mail fraud, right?
• 1:08:34
  But the thing that really was just that really got me is that
• 1:08:38
  they kept saying I lied. I lied, I lied.
• 1:08:40
  They had my tax returns. They basically, well, you know,
• 1:08:43
  I said this is my household's income.
• 1:08:45
  Well, your husband is not a borrower.
• 1:08:47
  You don't think they know that? They know he's not on the
• 1:08:50
  application, right? They specifically asked for a
• 1:08:55
  letter of that this is my household's income.
• 1:08:58
  But yet somehow I lied because he was not a Co borrower.
• 1:09:02
  But it's just crazy because that, you know, as you know,
• 1:09:04
  federal courts have limited jurisdiction.
• 1:09:08
  And by the definition of the financial institution, they
• 1:09:11
  really did not have subject matter jurisdiction at that
• 1:09:13
  time. Congress changed the law two
• 1:09:16
  years later to include mortgage corporations, but that's two
• 1:09:22
  years you can't apply law. You can.
• 1:09:25
  Make it up exactly. Two years later, right?
• 1:09:27
  Right. But that's exactly what
• 1:09:31
  happened. That's part of what happened.
• 1:09:32
  Yeah. So how long did that, how long
• 1:09:35
  did that last in the courtroom? How long did it go on?
• 1:09:41
  Long it was a week and a half. God, it's like it's it's, I
• 1:09:45
  think I blur it in my memory. I'm.
• 1:09:46
  Sure you do. I mean, I'm sure it was a real
• 1:09:48
  blur. So you already felt like from
• 1:09:51
  the from the get go, from the jump, from him making the
• 1:09:54
  opening statement, you thought I'm done.
• 1:09:58
  I'm done so. You then you sit there for a
• 1:09:59
  whole another week and 1/2. So this is gonna this is crazy.
• 1:10:04
  The first day, his opening was terrible, OK, but he did well in
• 1:10:08
  his, in his cross examination the first two days, but then it
• 1:10:13
  just and then he just didn't when, when we presented our
• 1:10:16
  case, I could tell that he just wasn't prepared.
• 1:10:19
  He didn't know what he was doing.
• 1:10:21
  I mean, I knew he didn't know what he was doing, but I also
• 1:10:24
  didn't know how to fix it. You know what I mean?
• 1:10:26
  Like, I'm not my my attorney. This is why you hire an
• 1:10:28
  attorney. Right.
• 1:10:30
  I would think it would be even harder to be a judge and an
• 1:10:34
  attorney to sit and listen to another attorney defend you.
• 1:10:39
  Yeah, because you know, it was good and it was not.
• 1:10:41
  And I know this one said a good one.
• 1:10:43
  That would be tough. On, on my, I think it was either
• 1:10:45
  my third day or my 4th day. I knew it was just, it was just
• 1:10:50
  terrible. We would because we were given a
• 1:10:52
  room for the defendant, right? We walked in the room and I
• 1:10:56
  started crying. I said I want to represent
• 1:10:59
  myself. I cried so hard, I said, I don't
• 1:11:03
  want you representing me anymore.
• 1:11:04
  I want to represent myself. I want you to tell the judge to
• 1:11:07
  I want to represent myself because I was just like, this is
• 1:11:10
  crazy. You're terrible.
• 1:11:11
  You don't know what you're doing.
• 1:11:13
  I'm just like, you're not even objecting.
• 1:11:15
  I mean, like, what the heck is going on here?
• 1:11:17
  You know, it was just craziest thing.
• 1:11:20
  And my husband heard me crying and screaming in the room that I
• 1:11:26
  think he knocked in the door and he's like, he, he, he spoke to
• 1:11:30
  my attorney and he said, you know, Judge Durkin is not going
• 1:11:36
  to let me out. He's not going to let you
• 1:11:39
  represent yourself. But I, I was telling my husband,
• 1:11:41
  I'm like, I'm dead. I'm dead, you know.
• 1:11:43
  And so after my outburst, he never talked to me.
• 1:11:47
  I didn't want to talk to him. So it was like the remainder of
• 1:11:50
  the trial, we were not talking at all and he would not talk to
• 1:11:54
  me. And I just sat there in silence.
• 1:11:57
  And he every screw up. It was just, what are you going
• 1:12:00
  to do? I, I was so disgusted, you know,
• 1:12:02
  with the whole thing. Sounds like torture.
• 1:12:05
  It was torture for days. I had to sit there and like, and
• 1:12:09
  the worst part about it is that I knew he was covering himself
• 1:12:14
  because every time, you know, like he would before he rested,
• 1:12:18
  like let me check with my client, didn't check with me.
• 1:12:21
  You, you know what I mean? Like, but, but he was covering
• 1:12:23
  himself because then he can, he can defend it and say, well, I
• 1:12:25
  checked with her. No, he didn't check with me.
• 1:12:27
  I, I didn't even know what his theory was.
• 1:12:30
  I mean, I, I, I really didn't know that that was what he was
• 1:12:33
  going to say, that this is a mistake.
• 1:12:35
  It's like a mistake really, that that's our theory, a mistake.
• 1:12:38
  Yeah, go on. I mean that that's.
• 1:12:41
  It was so awful. I'm telling you, I I was telling
• 1:12:43
  my husband like my clerk would have done a better job.
• 1:12:46
  Yeah. So when you when they come in,
• 1:12:50
  they give the bad news, I'm assuming.
• 1:12:54
  I wasn't surprised. Immediately remanded in that
• 1:12:56
  situation in. The Federal Court.
• 1:13:01
  So right, state court a lot of times, most of the time you are
• 1:13:07
  what's, what's what goes on after that.
• 1:13:11
  You know, I was more concerned about my kids because my kids
• 1:13:15
  were and I should, we shouldn't have brought them.
• 1:13:17
  Really. It was it was my attorneys idea
• 1:13:20
  to to have my kids there and I really didn't want my kids.
• 1:13:25
  There. So that was in 2018.
• 1:13:32
  So my youngest, she was born in 20, 14, right?
• 1:13:38
  Is that right? She's 18 right now.
• 1:13:40
  She's 18, so she's not in 2004. Wait, no, wait.
• 1:13:44
  I'm bad with math. I know I'm.
• 1:13:46
  I'm just. Say she's 14 years old.
• 1:13:48
  Yeah, she was very young. My oldest was there and she was
• 1:13:52
  bawling. It was just, you know, of course
• 1:13:55
  it's like the closing argument when when the prosecutor, she's
• 1:13:58
  a liar, she's a schemer, she's this and she's that.
• 1:14:00
  And I'm just like, oh, gosh, it's just like terrible.
• 1:14:05
  And it's just like they're talking about this, that I'm
• 1:14:09
  supposed to be this mastermind. And I'm like, yeah, honestly,
• 1:14:13
  that never happened. Real estate mogul.
• 1:14:16
  The straw buyer that they're talking about, you know, they're
• 1:14:18
  saying that the my, the Co buyers, the borrower was really
• 1:14:22
  a straw buyer. He wasn't a straw buyer.
• 1:14:24
  They were partners. They had, they had their bank
• 1:14:27
  account statements, you know what I mean?
• 1:14:29
  They bought properties together. Their quick claim is basically
• 1:14:33
  making it so that they're joint tenants, which by the way, my
• 1:14:36
  attorney never picked up. We never notice it until like I
• 1:14:40
  just, I just figured it out as I was doing my 2255 that the
• 1:14:45
  quitclaim deed that they said was basically giving the the
• 1:14:49
  property to my Co defendant. It said that it basically was
• 1:14:54
  they became joint tenants. It was conveying an interest of
• 1:14:57
  joint tenancy. And instead they were saying,
• 1:15:00
  see, he was just a straw buyer. He they, they did this, that
• 1:15:05
  claim deed. My attorney didn't even pick
• 1:15:07
  that up, and I didn't pick that up until, you know, years later.
• 1:15:12
  So, Jessica, when this all comes out, the bad news comes out, how
• 1:15:16
  long do you have to wait for sentencing?
• 1:15:20
  So my sentencing kept being postponed because, well,
• 1:15:24
  actually not my sentencing. It it it was, it was when I,
• 1:15:27
  when I had to report is what what was postponed.
• 1:15:31
  Yeah, I I hired a new attorney to take care of my sentence, my
• 1:15:35
  post conviction, my post trial. And I so wish that my post
• 1:15:41
  conviction attorney had represented because I think he
• 1:15:43
  would have done a better job. Yeah, but what are you gonna do
• 1:15:47
  anyway? Just.
• 1:15:50
  I just remember talking about. What your guidelines of the
• 1:15:54
  sentencing would be? And they kept saying that she
• 1:15:58
  could go to prison for seven years.
• 1:16:00
  And I can't remember what what he was.
• 1:16:02
  Yeah, I think that's. About a court penalty, you know,
• 1:16:05
  going to trial and then you get penalized for going to trial.
• 1:16:08
  Get a bigger sentence. I remember when you know a very
• 1:16:13
  good friend of mine who stood by me to this day, I remember he
• 1:16:16
  called me and he said, listen, I believe in your innocence.
• 1:16:19
  I will even pay for your appeal because I believe in you.
• 1:16:23
  But Jessica, you have to really consider this.
• 1:16:26
  You know, you have to consider, I'm sorry, that's not even the
• 1:16:29
  play before. You should just bleed because I
• 1:16:32
  don't want you to go to prison. You know, you're going to be in
• 1:16:35
  prison and somebody else is going to raise your kids.
• 1:16:37
  And I really, I'm like, I can't plead to something I didn't do.
• 1:16:41
  Like I just can't prostitute my innocence, you know what I mean?
• 1:16:45
  And I said, you know what, I got to take the chance because I
• 1:16:50
  can't. That's what I couldn't live
• 1:16:52
  with. I couldn't live with that.
• 1:16:54
  Like I was thinking to myself, what would I do if I would go to
• 1:16:59
  prison for something I didn't do right And and I will regret it
• 1:17:02
  like. It's a it's a life sentence and
• 1:17:04
  you know, you have to have to learn how to work with that.
• 1:17:08
  But it when they when they finally came down this
• 1:17:10
  sentencing and they gave you a year and a day which is not
• 1:17:15
  probation and one day in prison is is like a lot.
• 1:17:19
  Yeah. Your first day of going to
• 1:17:24
  prison, after going through this whole thing, you've gone from
• 1:17:29
  being, you know, a presiding judge to having to deal with all
• 1:17:34
  the media. Not presiding, just a regular
• 1:17:36
  judge, just a. Regular.
• 1:17:37
  Judge. Just a regular judge presiding
• 1:17:39
  over cases. So you, what was your, what was
• 1:17:45
  your mindset when you walk in? So super crazy.
• 1:17:51
  We had a documentarian that followed me actually to prison
• 1:17:56
  and it was crazy because when when I got to Alderson.
• 1:17:59
  What was that like? What was?
• 1:18:02
  That there there was this documentarian actually that
• 1:18:04
  followed me even before the whole thing.
• 1:18:08
  They, well, no, I, he, he stayed with me for a few days right
• 1:18:11
  before I was going to prison. Wanted to document it.
• 1:18:16
  Where did that footage go? Where's?
• 1:18:17
  That we never, We have so many things that we have not been
• 1:18:21
  published at all. There's so many good materials
• 1:18:24
  actually. But what happened was there's
• 1:18:27
  this little booth that you have to make the phone call, say I'm
• 1:18:30
  here like right at the gate. And my documentarian was
• 1:18:34
  documenting all of this while I was calling and documenting in
• 1:18:36
  the car and everything. But while we were I was making
• 1:18:39
  the phone call, there's a camera, right?
• 1:18:42
  As I was talking to the person who answered the call, the
• 1:18:48
  prison guards were driving in. So they were yelling at us, like
• 1:18:52
  yelling at the camera man, get get put that away, you know,
• 1:18:55
  whatever. And so that's how it started.
• 1:18:58
  And apparently they radioed into the place where I was supposed
• 1:19:01
  to report and saying, oh, there's somebody, you know, with
• 1:19:03
  a video camera. And what was funny was I was
• 1:19:06
  late. And what happened was some of
• 1:19:11
  the people who checked in that day were actually there waiting,
• 1:19:14
  right? And so they heard the radio
• 1:19:17
  saying, oh, there's somebody here with a, you know,
• 1:19:20
  important, whatever, whatever it was that they were saying.
• 1:19:24
  So when I walked in to the place where you're to report, all
• 1:19:29
  these women were looking at me like I'm like, oh, you know,
• 1:19:33
  it's kind of like after you, you take their picture and they
• 1:19:37
  inspect you and yeah, like, they, they rape you basically.
• 1:19:41
  And I'm just kidding. And it feels like that you go
• 1:19:46
  through a process where you. So invasive it is.
• 1:19:50
  Oh my God. It's like you have to cough like
• 1:19:53
  you, you take all your clothes off and you have to cough so
• 1:19:57
  that you make sure that you have no drugs inside of your vagina.
• 1:20:00
  It's it's terrible. It was just awful.
• 1:20:02
  Anyway, so we were put in a little cell.
• 1:20:05
  It wasn't closed. It was open, but the other women
• 1:20:07
  were sitting there and I said, oh, hi, how are you?
• 1:20:10
  I was trying to be, you know, jolly.
• 1:20:12
  I was trying to. And I'm like, oh, hi.
• 1:20:15
  You know, it was kind of crazy. I'm like, hi, you know.
• 1:20:17
  And it was, I'm like, wow. OK, So they were not friendly at
• 1:20:22
  all. And so I was just trying to
• 1:20:24
  talk. They really did not want to
• 1:20:26
  talk, you know, they were transferred from other prisons,
• 1:20:29
  basically. And so we were all, after we got
• 1:20:33
  our clothes and our uniform, I should say.
• 1:20:36
  Then we were told to go up to our the building where we were
• 1:20:40
  going to reside. But it was so far because you
• 1:20:42
  have to go up the hill and you have this big bag and
• 1:20:45
  everything, you know, and this, you know, I told you I was the
• 1:20:48
  acting general counsel for the Inland Lottery and the deputy
• 1:20:53
  director's wife was there. And so she was expecting me.
• 1:20:57
  And so as I was going up the hill, she was sitting on the
• 1:21:00
  bench. She's like, oh, Jessica, we have
• 1:21:03
  been waiting for you. And so the more this women were
• 1:21:06
  like thinking I was important because they had heard that
• 1:21:09
  there was a camera and I didn't, I was so oblivious to any of
• 1:21:12
  this. I was just happy to see her.
• 1:21:15
  And Alderson actually is beautiful because like, you go
• 1:21:18
  up the hill and then all of a sudden you're like on top of the
• 1:21:21
  hill and there's like volleyball, right?
• 1:21:25
  Like people were playing volleyball.
• 1:21:27
  But I have to tell you that something weird happened to me
• 1:21:31
  as soon as I got up that hill. I mean, it was almost like God
• 1:21:35
  gave me this filter. Like, it was almost like filter
• 1:21:39
  like you just went to heaven. It was this strangest.
• 1:21:43
  It was this piece that just enveloped me, you know, And it
• 1:21:46
  was just like, and I heard this voice, and I know you're
• 1:21:49
  probably think I'm crazy, but it was like this voice saying you
• 1:21:53
  wanted to experience this. You said you wanted to
• 1:21:57
  experience prison and it's why you're here.
• 1:22:00
  And I'm like, I, I was like looking to my side.
• 1:22:02
  I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 1:22:05
  He's like, you said you wanted to experience this.
• 1:22:08
  I'm like, no, I don't want to experience this, you know.
• 1:22:11
  And so we just started walking with my friend and my friend was
• 1:22:15
  really mentoring me. You know, I was very blessed.
• 1:22:18
  To that. And it was right before a
• 1:22:21
  holiday. And as you know, you can't go to
• 1:22:23
  the commissary for those days. And you don't have toothbrush.
• 1:22:28
  You don't have anything really, you know.
• 1:22:30
  So she had all the stuff for me. Yeah, she had all the stuff for
• 1:22:33
  me. And I was saying like, oh, my
• 1:22:35
  God, I want to play volleyball. And so she was introducing me to
• 1:22:38
  the captain, you know. And so the captain of the
• 1:22:42
  volleyball team happened to be in my unit.
• 1:22:45
  So then we went to my unit, and she was walking me to my unit.
• 1:22:50
  And everybody, I guess, thought she was very special, like she
• 1:22:53
  was so popular. And so I think that helped a
• 1:22:58
  little bit. Of course it did.
• 1:23:00
  Yeah. And having somebody help you,
• 1:23:02
  show you the ropes is huge. Did they know that you were who
• 1:23:10
  you were? You know, what's interesting is
• 1:23:12
  that came time when we had to meet with our case managers, the
• 1:23:18
  first thing that they wanted me to sign was, well, first of all,
• 1:23:21
  they asked me if I wanted to be secluded from the general
• 1:23:24
  public. Which would be awful.
• 1:23:25
  It'd be like solitary confinement forever.
• 1:23:28
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:23:28
  And I said, what? What are you talking about?
• 1:23:31
  And he's like, well, we have this letter from the Bill Barr.
• 1:23:35
  They want you to sign it because you have to waive being put in
• 1:23:40
  the general public. I'm like, why?
• 1:23:42
  Why? Why would I do that?
• 1:23:44
  She goes because if they find out that you're, you know, a
• 1:23:47
  judge or a former judge, they're gonna kill you.
• 1:23:49
  I'm like, come on. I, I will not say anything.
• 1:23:51
  I don't plan on telling anybody that I'm a former judge, you
• 1:23:54
  know, So no. And of course, in my head, I'm
• 1:23:56
  like, I'm playing volleyball, you know what I mean?
• 1:23:59
  If I'm on solitary confinement, I can't play you.
• 1:24:01
  Can't do that. Right.
• 1:24:02
  And so, no, I said, I don't plan on telling anybody.
• 1:24:05
  And my case managers, like you are so naive.
• 1:24:08
  People are going to talk to their family members and they're
• 1:24:11
  going to ask about you and they're going to find out sooner
• 1:24:13
  or later. I'm like, no, I, I, no, they're
• 1:24:15
  not. I'm not.
• 1:24:16
  I'm not going to tell anybody, you know?
• 1:24:19
  And she was right. Eventually they did find out.
• 1:24:21
  Oh, yeah. Thank God that he was towards
• 1:24:23
  the end of my incarceration. But they get a chance to know
• 1:24:27
  you and and and saw that you were a real person and you did
• 1:24:30
  just fine. Which?
• 1:24:31
  Yeah, at that time they were, they already knew.
• 1:24:34
  And I really acted. I didn't act like anything
• 1:24:37
  special. You know, I and I was also,
• 1:24:40
  there were days when I would be so grouchy.
• 1:24:43
  Like there were some women that would kind of try to bully me
• 1:24:46
  and and, you know, I remember and I think when you stand up to
• 1:24:50
  them, they know not to mess with you.
• 1:24:51
  Like I remember there was somebody that said something to
• 1:24:54
  me and I was like, and I just went up to her.
• 1:24:57
  I'm like, what did you say? What did you say?
• 1:24:59
  Brian. Right.
• 1:25:00
  I'm like, what did you say? I have not here wrongfully been
• 1:25:04
  wrongfully. I didn't say that, but I'm
• 1:25:06
  thinking it. I'm like, I shouldn't be here
• 1:25:09
  and you're not going to treat me like crap.
• 1:25:11
  I'm just not putting up with it. And so I think a lot of people
• 1:25:13
  saw that and I think nobody really messed with me.
• 1:25:18
  So with the the amount of time, was it like 8 or 9 months that
• 1:25:22
  you were in? I was actually there.
• 1:25:25
  This is another story. Like I was there for seven
• 1:25:28
  months and 10 days, but I actually asked to be because I,
• 1:25:31
  I read the First step Act and the first step Act was actually
• 1:25:34
  signed into law the day after I was sentenced.
• 1:25:36
  So I read that. Right around that same time.
• 1:25:39
  Yeah. And so I applied to go to
• 1:25:43
  because I was in West Virginia and you have to be away for a
• 1:25:46
  certain number of miles and you can ask to be closer to home.
• 1:25:51
  And then I, I applied for it. And mind you, before I applied,
• 1:25:56
  people were saying, you know, don't do it because it was
• 1:25:59
  denied, right. Well, at first I, I asked, you
• 1:26:02
  know, we had meetings and so I asked them if they would, you
• 1:26:05
  know, send me to a halfway house.
• 1:26:07
  And they basically said no, you know, but then I appealed it.
• 1:26:11
  Do you remember those forms that you had to fill out?
• 1:26:13
  And I remember my friends, including my mentor, you know,
• 1:26:16
  it was like, don't do it. They're going to plant something
• 1:26:19
  that, you know, you're just making problems for yourself.
• 1:26:22
  They're going to, if you appeal it.
• 1:26:24
  And I got to tell you, I had really struggled and I said to
• 1:26:27
  myself, you know what? If they're going to do
• 1:26:29
  something, then do be, so be it. And so I did it anyway.
• 1:26:34
  And you know what? I'm so glad that I did because
• 1:26:37
  COVID hit. And if I didn't, I would have
• 1:26:40
  experienced COVID longer. And that was the most horrible
• 1:26:45
  time when I was there, when we were locked up but we couldn't
• 1:26:50
  get out of our rooms. Total locked up.
• 1:26:53
  So many fights going on, it was crazy.
• 1:26:56
  I've heard so many bad stories about the whole thing with the
• 1:26:59
  pandemic is. Women cutting each.
• 1:27:01
  Other It's a terrible place to be, even worse if you have
• 1:27:04
  something where you're locked down in a pandemic.
• 1:27:06
  And and they say that in the camp there are no violent
• 1:27:09
  people. That's such AI mean literally
• 1:27:12
  there were women cutting each other off.
• 1:27:14
  That's what happened, at least towards the end of my stay
• 1:27:17
  there. So when you.
• 1:27:22
  I feel like I'm babbling. Oh no.
• 1:27:24
  I started to get to the point. This is very interesting that
• 1:27:27
  when you started to get to the point of of getting knowing that
• 1:27:31
  you're getting out, what were you thinking, Jessica?
• 1:27:34
  Because I mean, you're one of these people that you know, you
• 1:27:35
  want to go out, you want to accomplish and you want to do
• 1:27:37
  this. You want to do that.
• 1:27:39
  What was what was going through your Jessica's mind on going out
• 1:27:44
  into the society again? I was focused more on my family.
• 1:27:53
  I didn't know if I was still going to be married.
• 1:27:55
  You know when, when, when I got out.
• 1:27:57
  Did you guys stay in contact while you were in?
• 1:28:00
  Oh yeah, I mean, he came to visit.
• 1:28:01
  So there was all that normal stuff that was going on, You
• 1:28:04
  just didn't know what was going to happen when you got out.
• 1:28:05
  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that was kind of a
• 1:28:08
  big deal. I got to tell you a story.
• 1:28:10
  It was funny because my first month there, I really struggled
• 1:28:14
  with with my husband and I, you know, you can see a psychologist
• 1:28:18
  while you're there. And I did make an appointment
• 1:28:21
  and I I went to see this psychology.
• 1:28:24
  I don't even know if she was a psychologist, but anyway, I, I,
• 1:28:27
  I met with her and I was bawling.
• 1:28:30
  I'm like, please help me. Please help me keep, you know,
• 1:28:33
  keep my marriage and, you know, help with this, figure out
• 1:28:38
  something. But as soon as I left her
• 1:28:42
  office, she called the prison, you know, the prison guards to
• 1:28:46
  have me check for drugs because she thought that I was in drugs.
• 1:28:50
  God. And it was funny because I was
• 1:28:53
  walking back to, you know, we worked as soon as I got back at
• 1:28:56
  work and I was waiting because we, we, we were on break at that
• 1:28:59
  time after my meeting and we went on break.
• 1:29:02
  So anyway, all of a sudden the prison guards were looking for
• 1:29:05
  me. And so, you know, I got in the
• 1:29:09
  van, they picked me up. Everybody's like, oh, what's
• 1:29:11
  going on? I'm like, and here I am.
• 1:29:13
  I get in the van. And it was so funny.
• 1:29:15
  I'm like, what is it, officer? You know, you're getting a drug
• 1:29:19
  test. I'm like cool.
• 1:29:20
  Like I was like, cool, because I'm thinking to myself, OK, do a
• 1:29:23
  drug test on me because then I could use that to say that I'm
• 1:29:27
  clean, right? And they're like, you're weird.
• 1:29:30
  I'm like, yeah, but it's cool, you know, Anyway, they did this
• 1:29:32
  drug test. It was just crazy because of
• 1:29:35
  that. So anyway.
• 1:29:36
  It's the first but that you were there.
• 1:29:38
  But it was probably September, October.
• 1:29:42
  So that was a weird lesson. So anyway, that was kind of the
• 1:29:47
  issue for me. I didn't know whether I was
• 1:29:49
  going to stay married. And as a cradle Catholic, you
• 1:29:52
  know, I was always told you don't ever get divorced.
• 1:29:54
  And I struggled with that. But luckily, while I was there,
• 1:29:58
  I actually met with a priest because they came every every
• 1:30:02
  other Sunday. And I finally met with a priest
• 1:30:06
  and I was crying. I'm like, Father, I don't know
• 1:30:09
  if I should stay married, You know, this and that.
• 1:30:11
  And priest is like Jessica, you don't have to stay married.
• 1:30:15
  And if, if this is what's going on, you know, if you know, you
• 1:30:18
  can get divorced, you don't, you're not forced to stay in a
• 1:30:21
  marriage that's, you know, making you feel this way.
• 1:30:24
  But anyway, you know, so throughout that time, I was
• 1:30:27
  actually praying. I learned to give that up to
• 1:30:30
  God. And so I was more focused on
• 1:30:33
  that and I just kept praying that my family will be safe.
• 1:30:37
  So I was focused on my family. So I didn't know when I got out
• 1:30:41
  how my life was going to be. I didn't know how difficult it
• 1:30:44
  is to get a job. So that was an eye opener.
• 1:30:47
  I just thought that I was just going to get a job, find a job
• 1:30:51
  and work again and start all over again, right?
• 1:30:53
  But it's not easy like that. I was so naive to think that
• 1:30:58
  prison is supposed to be, you know, you're rehabilitated, so
• 1:31:01
  then you're accepted when you reenter and you're you're
• 1:31:04
  starting over. You paid your debt to society.
• 1:31:06
  Why was I? Received at the door.
• 1:31:08
  There you go, you're done. Right.
• 1:31:09
  It's, it's just, it's, it's, it's almost like it's worse when
• 1:31:13
  you get out. What do you really, what do you
• 1:31:15
  think 'cause you and I have talked about this, about re
• 1:31:18
  entry and the process and what do you think's the toughest
• 1:31:22
  thing? Getting a job, yeah, that is the
• 1:31:26
  toughest thing. And it's not so much people
• 1:31:30
  think it's always a shame. You you've already been shamed.
• 1:31:33
  You've lost everything. I've lost everything.
• 1:31:34
  Exactly. You know what I mean.
• 1:31:35
  And I I have a few friends who when I got back, they wanted to
• 1:31:39
  get together and. They Jessica, I meant to ask you
• 1:31:43
  that. I don't know how I passed over
• 1:31:44
  that when you went through all your stuff because you're in
• 1:31:46
  this legal community and you have people around there, you
• 1:31:49
  know, it's colleagues. And what was did that stay
• 1:31:53
  together or did it kind of spread like you had leprosy?
• 1:31:57
  You really find out who your friends are.
• 1:32:00
  And let me tell you, I've helped so many people in my career,
• 1:32:03
  mentored so many lawyers, even judges.
• 1:32:06
  You know, I can count with one hand now.
• 1:32:13
  Yeah, and that, but I mean, it's good to know, Good to know,
• 1:32:16
  right? Yeah, it's actually a gift.
• 1:32:19
  Yeah. When you know who your true
• 1:32:21
  friends are. Yeah.
• 1:32:22
  And you're really, you know what's amazing is you never know
• 1:32:25
  who's going to come through for you.
• 1:32:27
  It's not necessarily the people who you think will.
• 1:32:29
  Yes. Right.
• 1:32:31
  And it's the same when I was running, actually, I thought you
• 1:32:34
  were my good friends would help me.
• 1:32:36
  It's actually strangers that actually were like, give me your
• 1:32:40
  petition sheet. They'd come up with 1000 for
• 1:32:42
  free. You know, it's it's the same
• 1:32:44
  thing. Like you don't know, you don't
• 1:32:47
  know. And I always say you don't know
• 1:32:48
  who God sends you. Yeah.
• 1:32:51
  And it's really and, and I, I feel so blessed that I have my
• 1:32:57
  faith. Yeah, that that sounds like
• 1:32:59
  that's something that really has gotten you through and helped
• 1:33:02
  you. Let's see, how long has it been
• 1:33:04
  since you since you returned home?
• 1:33:08
  So it was in 2020, it was in during COVID.
• 1:33:12
  I was in a halfway house for a month and they sent me in a home
• 1:33:16
  confinement. So it's been since 20. 20 I was
• 1:33:19
  fine since about almost five years, so that the and I know
• 1:33:25
  that you've diligently been working on your case and nobody
• 1:33:30
  can do it like you can because you know it better than anyone
• 1:33:33
  else and you have the intelligence to do that.
• 1:33:36
  I don't have a choice. Well, I can't afford to get an
• 1:33:38
  attorney. I wish somebody.
• 1:33:39
  Would help me. At this point though, I think
• 1:33:41
  that you are the right person to to represent yourself because
• 1:33:45
  you know it better than anyone else.
• 1:33:47
  But you know what though, Brent? As a pro SE litigant, even if
• 1:33:50
  you're a lawyer, you don't have that credibility when an
• 1:33:53
  attorney who's known and credible will represent you.
• 1:33:57
  Unfortunately they the courts really treat pro SE litigants.
• 1:34:01
  I was pro SE in my civil case because I was couldn't do it and
• 1:34:05
  now you want. To change it should.
• 1:34:08
  I don't know if you remember that lockler who killed herself
• 1:34:11
  and wrote a note of how disgusted she was because they
• 1:34:16
  just basically throw out, you know, petitions for pro SE
• 1:34:19
  litigants. It's what she said in her
• 1:34:23
  letter. It's probably true, yeah, given
• 1:34:27
  the way my case is going. But I, I want to go into a
• 1:34:30
  little bit, just go on. You have been through all these
• 1:34:36
  different steps through the system.
• 1:34:38
  Literally, you've been an attorney, you've gone to law.
• 1:34:42
  Well, you've gone to law school, you've been an attorney.
• 1:34:44
  You, you've been in the attorney general's office.
• 1:34:46
  You've been a judge, you ran as or a judge and got elected.
• 1:34:50
  And then you go through the process of the criminal legal
• 1:34:53
  system. What do you think after you've
• 1:34:57
  experienced all that? What are your thoughts about all
• 1:35:01
  that and and what can is the way you see it on both sides now?
• 1:35:07
  Yeah, our system, our criminal justice system is definitely
• 1:35:12
  broken. But I'm not saying anything to
• 1:35:15
  you that people don't know. The Democrats and Republicans
• 1:35:19
  have been talking about this for decades.
• 1:35:22
  For, for, for. A long time now.
• 1:35:25
  And yes, they have. They have laws that are supposed
• 1:35:29
  to help, but they haven't really effectively reform our criminal
• 1:35:34
  justice system. For whatever reason, Congress
• 1:35:40
  seems to be afraid to enact laws to really address the core
• 1:35:46
  problem of a criminal justice system.
• 1:35:49
  And it's just not prosecutors. Yes, prosecutors need to be
• 1:35:54
  accountable, but it's also judicial accountability.
• 1:36:00
  We have laws that are supposed to help with when, when, when
• 1:36:05
  the courts have it wrong, when the juries have it wrong, when
• 1:36:08
  you discover evidence that is violating A defendant's due
• 1:36:12
  process. There is the 2255, but
• 1:36:15
  unfortunately, I can say this in the 7th Circuit.
• 1:36:18
  This is my opinion and based on what I went through.
• 1:36:21
  If, for example, my judge has never granted an evidentiary
• 1:36:24
  hearing to any defendant for the exception of 1 case, and I've
• 1:36:28
  looked at this a year or two ago for one case where the
• 1:36:33
  Department of Justice requested the evidentiary hearing.
• 1:36:37
  The evidentiary hearing is supposed to give that defendant
• 1:36:41
  the opportunity to present the evidence to the court and at the
• 1:36:46
  same time also allow that defendant to develop that
• 1:36:51
  evidence. You are able to do discovery.
• 1:36:55
  But in my case, my judge did not even give me an evidentiary
• 1:36:59
  hearing. And when you read his opinion,
• 1:37:01
  it sounds so thorough, but it's not.
• 1:37:04
  And when I say it's not, it's because his reasoning are all
• 1:37:08
  based on false facts. Like I'll give you an example.
• 1:37:14
  Again, I told you that my case really subject matter
• 1:37:18
  jurisdiction element of the crime was based on one
• 1:37:21
  transaction and that was my my buyer's home equity line of
• 1:37:26
  credit. It was the only one that had a
• 1:37:28
  financial institution with an FDIC insured entity which was
• 1:37:31
  Citibank. OK, that's it.
• 1:37:33
  The rest really should not have mattered at all.
• 1:37:36
  Should. Have been in the case.
• 1:37:37
  Should not have been in the case, but they allowed it so
• 1:37:39
  whatever. But The thing is that all of the
• 1:37:44
  misconduct and the evidence that I provided is everything that
• 1:37:49
  they were trying to prove this case, but they did it
• 1:37:53
  criminally. And, and, and I'm saying this
• 1:37:57
  and you can look at my filings, I've given the, the court with
• 1:38:02
  unrefuted documentary evidence that my, the prosecutor knew
• 1:38:06
  that the testimony he elicited from the key witness was false.
• 1:38:11
  His own e-mail is a document that basically demonstrate that
• 1:38:16
  he knew what he elicited was false.
• 1:38:19
  And there's another thing that needs to be investigated was
• 1:38:22
  even another e-mail that was sent before I was even indicted,
• 1:38:27
  information that was false that they used for the agent to go
• 1:38:32
  before the grand jury. It was the corporate structure
• 1:38:35
  to use it to based on this e-mail that they got from the
• 1:38:39
  General Council of Citibank, which was false.
• 1:38:42
  Which. Is that continues to project
• 1:38:43
  things forward to the next step and then the next step and it
• 1:38:46
  create it creates momentum. And even though that starts from
• 1:38:49
  a false premise, it continues to ride all the way through.
• 1:38:53
  You know the thing there's and let me.
• 1:38:55
  Just finish this part. What's up?
• 1:38:57
  Because what happened was that I brought that up during my 2255.
• 1:39:01
  That was an important, that was a material issue because it
• 1:39:04
  relates to Citibank, right? But you know how my judge
• 1:39:09
  rationalized it as to why I don't need an adventure hearing.
• 1:39:12
  Oh, the 7th Circuit already addressed that.
• 1:39:14
  The 7th Circuit did not address it from the perspective of
• 1:39:18
  prosecutorial misconduct. They did not, they did not
• 1:39:22
  address that from a sober nation of perjury, which is a crime, by
• 1:39:26
  the way, that he knew that what he elicited was false.
• 1:39:31
  So for for this judge to say, Oh well, And then I had a tampered
• 1:39:35
  exhibit. I had a tampered exhibit.
• 1:39:36
  Again, that HeLa, he was tampered.
• 1:39:39
  As far as I'm concerned, it's tampered because there's an
• 1:39:42
  extra page that was attached to it that made it a different, it
• 1:39:45
  created a different meaning. It almost implicated me as if I
• 1:39:49
  knew about it, which I didn't, Right.
• 1:39:52
  And you know how he rationalized that he said, oh, well, they
• 1:39:56
  would have seen both had one anyway.
• 1:39:58
  So in other words, it's it's not it didn't hurt you really.
• 1:40:02
  And then you know how he addressed this over nation of
• 1:40:04
  perjury. He never addressed it.
• 1:40:07
  He never addressed it. And that was the allegation that
• 1:40:10
  I had, that I had the e-mail that was unrefuted.
• 1:40:15
  He never even mentioned. Jessica that he's never allowed
• 1:40:19
  an evidentiary hearing except for the time that.
• 1:40:21
  It was, yes. I don't know since then, since
• 1:40:24
  I, I made that discovery. Never.
• 1:40:26
  Well, it's, you know, first of all, he was the first attorney
• 1:40:29
  general. He was AUS attorney.
• 1:40:32
  Not only was he a former AUSA, he was also the first assistant
• 1:40:38
  to the, you know, attorney general here in the Northern
• 1:40:40
  District of Illinois. The public were always afraid to
• 1:40:43
  expose the judiciary, but this is the reason why we have 3
• 1:40:49
  branches of the government. Right.
• 1:40:52
  There's supposed to be a check and balances.
• 1:40:54
  You have judges that are let let's just give an example with
• 1:40:56
  what's going on with President Trump.
• 1:40:58
  They they have, they have orders that are basically, you know,
• 1:41:02
  when the Republicans say it's impeding his policies, right?
• 1:41:05
  But that's a check, right? But who is checking the
• 1:41:09
  judiciary when they get it wrong, when you have evidence
• 1:41:12
  that they're ignoring case precedents, who is checking
• 1:41:15
  them? Who is fixing this?
• 1:41:17
  Nobody's fixing it. And they always talk about
• 1:41:19
  finality, finality, finality. Well, finality.
• 1:41:22
  But what about due process? We're talking about due process
• 1:41:25
  when it comes to the migrants. What about the citizens here in
• 1:41:28
  this country who actually are suffering?
• 1:41:30
  Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a very hot topic of what you're exactly
• 1:41:33
  talking about right now, Jessica it.
• 1:41:35
  Needs to be. Check on the judicial branch,
• 1:41:38
  there's obviously a check from legislative to executive and
• 1:41:41
  executive back and forth, but judicial?
• 1:41:46
  And. You've got you've got this this
• 1:41:48
  funnel that happens right now from the Supreme going to the
• 1:41:51
  Supreme Court, but you've got these individual people filing
• 1:41:54
  these injunctions. You know, one district federal
• 1:41:57
  court judge is doing this for the whole nation.
• 1:42:00
  And you know what if they're wrong?
• 1:42:04
  And they're wrong most of the time.
• 1:42:07
  But I mean, it it then you've got this whole process and that
• 1:42:09
  now all of this stuff that's going on politically within
• 1:42:13
  foreign policy and tariffs and everything else is having to run
• 1:42:16
  back through to the Supreme Court.
• 1:42:19
  And the whole thing is it's a test of the system of how it's
• 1:42:24
  all going to turn out because I'm not sure how it's all going
• 1:42:26
  to turn out. So I think it's I think it's
• 1:42:28
  fascinating. I think the other thing is
• 1:42:30
  fascinating and I'm enthused about is that you're in this in
• 1:42:36
  this world right now. You are a justice impacted
• 1:42:39
  person, Jessica. You know it, it's a lived
• 1:42:43
  experience of yours now. And you're going to be such an
• 1:42:45
  impactful voice. I mean, you and I are talking
• 1:42:47
  about doing things together on on things that we think we can
• 1:42:50
  make movement on. And the fact that you had to go
• 1:42:54
  through it all is is awful, absolutely awful.
• 1:42:57
  And you earned your way into a prominent position, then had to
• 1:43:01
  lose it all. And now here you are.
• 1:43:03
  But they didn't take your brain. You're very intelligent.
• 1:43:05
  Hopefully this ends up being a thing that we talked about.
• 1:43:10
  Jessica O'Brien, a few years from now that she's made this
• 1:43:14
  impact again because of what you've experienced.
• 1:43:18
  But I wanted to ask you, Jessica, on talking about your
• 1:43:24
  whole life story when we started from the Philippines and only
• 1:43:27
  we're at the, you know, you getting elected to the bench and
• 1:43:30
  then going to prison. What do you think's your
• 1:43:33
  greatest take away from all of it?
• 1:43:37
  Our criminal justice system is broken.
• 1:43:39
  That is my take away and and the there is an enormous and
• 1:43:50
  destructive indifference towards justice impacted individuals.
• 1:43:57
  And it's really sad because you don't know, you know, all these
• 1:44:00
  sanctimonious people saying, oh, you're a convict, you're this
• 1:44:03
  and that, which is very hurtful by the way.
• 1:44:05
  You don't know until you go through it and just read that
• 1:44:08
  book by what Silvergate, about 3 felonies a day, The conviction
• 1:44:13
  machine. It can happen to anybody.
• 1:44:15
  It can happen to anybody. It can happen to anybody.
• 1:44:17
  And if you don't believe this saying that, you know, the
• 1:44:22
  government can create any crime against you, they really can.
• 1:44:28
  And and I never believed that until it happened to me.
• 1:44:31
  And so if you're an attorney listening right now, you know, I
• 1:44:36
  hope that you will help somebody that is going through this, help
• 1:44:42
  them, you know, especially where you know that their due process
• 1:44:46
  rights are being violated. I mean, due process is overused
• 1:44:50
  and sometimes people just think it's just a cool thing to say,
• 1:44:53
  but it means something it. Sure does.
• 1:44:56
  Yeah, but you don't know when it's violated when you go
• 1:44:59
  through this process. And it really takes all of us.
• 1:45:04
  We have. This is what I'm really
• 1:45:06
  passionate about. I think we need to unite all of
• 1:45:09
  the re entry organizations because we as a group can be
• 1:45:13
  really powerful. I mean, this is an opportunity
• 1:45:15
  for either party to strengthen and unite this group because as
• 1:45:19
  a group we can, we can actually. That's where movement happens,
• 1:45:23
  Jessica is, is it, you know, we're like card carrying members
• 1:45:26
  of the ARPI think there's like whether you say it's there's
• 1:45:29
  26,000,000 of us or there's 80 million there.
• 1:45:32
  The the impacted people in the system is a lot of us, but we
• 1:45:37
  need to be able to have a voice that can create real movement
• 1:45:41
  and it's real fragmented. But one third, one third of this
• 1:45:45
  country's population, Yeah. And when you look at the swing
• 1:45:48
  states, many, like, for example, Pennsylvania people, once they
• 1:45:51
  get out of prison, they can vote.
• 1:45:53
  Yeah. So, you know, Congress or these
• 1:45:56
  people were running, They take us for granted.
• 1:45:59
  But what they don't know is we can actually affect elections.
• 1:46:03
  That's right. But we have to remember our
• 1:46:05
  worth and we have to unite. We really do.
• 1:46:08
  A. 100%. I hope we can do a. 100% agree
• 1:46:11
  with that and I think it can be done.
• 1:46:14
  It takes some effort, but I think it can be done.
• 1:46:17
  We can do it, I think, but we have to all do it together.
• 1:46:20
  We. Have to do it together and and
• 1:46:22
  make a an umbrella that takes in everybody and.
• 1:46:26
  Then, well, we need help from the administration too, and this
• 1:46:30
  is an opportunity for them. No, I.
• 1:46:32
  Think there's, I think there's ways that that all can unite.
• 1:46:35
  It's just got to be put together.
• 1:46:36
  It's like a puzzle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:39
  And and the business community as well and and especially in
• 1:46:42
  employment, you know, if you're ACEO as a company, don't
• 1:46:47
  disregard just as impacted. Individuals they could be.
• 1:46:49
  They could be the very best people, yes, because they're
• 1:46:53
  desperately wanting to show that they want to be back in this
• 1:46:56
  society as a full citizen with a real job and and.
• 1:47:00
  That's one of the things that I don't understand, Brent, because
• 1:47:04
  the way I look at this is that now that we've been through
• 1:47:06
  this, like we're, we're really being very careful, right?
• 1:47:11
  The people you're going to hire, they're going to, this is like
• 1:47:14
  their third leg of their lives, right?
• 1:47:17
  Like for me, the way I look at this is this, I'm in my last
• 1:47:20
  chapter and I want to leave this world having made a difference
• 1:47:24
  to this world, right? And if you hire me, I'm going to
• 1:47:28
  do really well. And with all our knowledge, we
• 1:47:31
  know how to avoid things. They could be your protector
• 1:47:34
  because they've been through the system.
• 1:47:37
  But yet instead of looking down at just as impacted candidates
• 1:47:42
  applying for a job in your corporation, you should view
• 1:47:45
  them differently. You should view them as an
• 1:47:47
  asset. They're going to be hard working
• 1:47:49
  because they've been through hell and you can give them
• 1:47:52
  heaven and they will give you back heaven.
• 1:47:55
  So. Like that, that's a good that's
• 1:47:57
  a good spot to end it there, Jessica, that is a great
• 1:47:59
  statement and that and that's the way we can change that, that
• 1:48:05
  whole paradigm of of how people look at that situation of
• 1:48:10
  somebody sitting there for a job and and look at them, they could
• 1:48:12
  be a great asset to. You the one thing that I also
• 1:48:14
  want to say, Brent, is that, you know, criminal justice reform.
• 1:48:20
  I know that for many people that might not mean so much because
• 1:48:24
  they haven't been through the system, but it could hit you at
• 1:48:28
  any time. But it's also a safety issue
• 1:48:31
  which effects you. And if you're not, if you don't
• 1:48:34
  want to think about yourself, think about your kids, your kids
• 1:48:37
  down the line can go through a broken system.
• 1:48:40
  Do you want that to happen? No, you don't.
• 1:48:43
  It's so painful when a person is just as impacted.
• 1:48:47
  It's just not that person. It's also that person's family
• 1:48:50
  and that person's community. And that could include you,
• 1:48:53
  right? Yeah, when somebody goes to
• 1:48:55
  prison, their family goes to prison and there's no way around
• 1:48:57
  that, it really effects them. Sorry, I've been.
• 1:49:02
  Well, no, it's, it's, it's there's a lot of good stuff that
• 1:49:04
  we've covered here, Jessica, and I'm so glad that you made the
• 1:49:07
  time to do this because I think so many different issues in your
• 1:49:10
  life experience means a lot to somebody that's out there.
• 1:49:12
  And and there's this not only goes out to all the people who
• 1:49:15
  listen in the podcast world, it goes into 1100 prisons here in
• 1:49:19
  the United. States So much for having me.
• 1:49:21
  It's, it's good stuff, Jessica. And Speaking of good stuff, I've
• 1:49:25
  I want to thank Homestead Financial who lets me use the
• 1:49:28
  podcast room here and all the fancy cameras and lights and
• 1:49:31
  everything. If you've got a home mortgage
• 1:49:33
  deeds, we've been talking about more mortgage stuff.
• 1:49:35
  Greg Aftiev is your guy. He knows his stuff.
• 1:49:38
  And if you're looking for a book out there, I've got one
• 1:49:40
  nightmare success, go to Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
• 1:49:44
  It's all about my life and. The book.
• 1:49:46
  It's and if you have anything that you want to know about me,
• 1:49:49
  go to brentcassidy.com. I spell it wrong.
• 1:49:51
  I spell it with ATY, not a DY. And as I used to say to my
• 1:49:55
  people when I was writing my emails back and forth from
• 1:49:57
  Leavenworth, stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 1:50:00
  Jessica O'Brien, you are quite the force.
• 1:50:03
  I can't wait to see what you do next, but I know it'll be
• 1:50:07
  impactful. Well, thank you.
• 1:50:09
  So will you. You are ready are impacting our
• 1:50:12
  community. So thank you for everything that
• 1:50:14
  you've done to make our world better.
• 1:50:17
  Thank you, Jessica. Nightmare success in and out.