Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Pageant Queen to Drug QueenPin to Purpose — Jennifer Rogers’ Fenced In No More

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Pageant Queen to Drug QueenPin to Purpose — Jennifer Rogers’ Fenced In No More · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:00
I had made a decision that my life was about to start over and
0:03
I get in there and I'm in this interview and it's going well.
0:07
He's in a suit and a tie and I interrupt the interview.
0:11
I just need to interrupt this interview because I want to be
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honest with you about who I am. He was like, OK, I just got out
0:17
of a maximum security federal prison.
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I was a drug dealer and a drug addict and I'm not that person
0:22
anymore. And I said nothing else.
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His mouth is closed and it's like he don't know what to say.
0:26
I definitely don't know what to say.
0:28
I just got out of a maximum security federal prison.
0:30
And so he finally breaks the silence and he said, holy shit,
0:33
I wasn't expecting that. And so we laugh and he was like,
0:37
let me talk to the owner of the company at this time and they.
0:42
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
0:45
Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
0:48
Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
0:51
nightmares and set yourself free.
0:54
We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
0:56
Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
1:00
These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad.
1:04
There's some humor, but hopefully you can come away with
1:07
a nugget of something that'll help you knock down some of the
1:09
prisons you built up in your own mind.
1:14
All right, welcome back. Now I'm going to assess in about
1:16
listeners. This is where you come from.
1:17
What happens when your work sure becomes your reality.
1:19
How do you adapt, survive, overcome?
1:21
Set yourself free, folks. Don't forget to follow,
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subscribe, share this thing out, like it up.
1:26
It really helps the show. I really appreciate it.
1:29
So who are we talking to today? Well, Jennifer Rogers, and I've
1:34
got to give a shout out to Jeremy Harrell because he
1:37
connected us and Jeremy's one of my favorite people.
1:40
And Jennifer, wow, does she have a story.
1:44
She has quite the story. I was talking to her the other
1:47
day and and I mean, she went from this popular cheerleader
1:51
homecoming queen to being the popular drug dealer in town.
1:56
And it's it's just like it takes you on a ride.
1:58
She could also probably teach us a lot about sales, which we'll
2:03
get into in her story. But she she is now the founder
2:09
of National Women's Prison Reform Coalition.
2:13
She's the visionary behind Rise Up Media.
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She's the host of the powerful new podcast called Fenced In,
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and she also does a lot of sales training.
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She's a keynote speaker and she's the author of the book The
2:25
You Within. I cannot wait to jump into all
2:29
this with her. Before we do, I want to
2:32
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3:03
Success sent you folks. I want to share with you a
3:06
powerful and moving new book you won't want to miss.
3:09
My name is Saffron Voices. Silence stifled and taken away
3:13
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Trust me, you'll be moved, challenged and changed by her
3:55
story. Jennifer, welcome in How are.
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You. Thank you.
4:00
I'm amazing. How are you?
4:03
I'm doing great. We were just talking about how
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cold we are. I think it's like 5° today with
4:09
the wind chill and you're, you're in like Georgia, which I
4:14
always just assumed that South. So it's supposed to be warm, but
4:16
you're just saying it's snow. It's it's cold.
4:18
No, it's cold. It's cold here too.
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Not 5°, but it's cold. Nobody likes 5°.
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I don't. Think no, I couldn't imagine.
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So Jennifer, you've been busy doing all your stuff and I've
4:36
checked out some of your new podcasts and and they're
4:40
excellent. You got great guests, a great
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interviewer. But let's go into this
4:45
incredible story that we talked about on the phone because it's
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one where I was sitting in my car.
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They're talking, just going wow, wow.
4:54
And then that happened and then wow, take us back.
4:58
How did all this get started? What was it like growing up in
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that town when you were just appeared to be like everybody
5:06
else? Yeah, So I grew up in a very
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small town called Summerville, GA.
5:12
Not a lot going on there. I mean, there was no mall, no
5:15
movie theater. We had maybe like one or two
5:18
restaurants. They didn't get a Super Walmart
5:21
till, you know, 10-15 years ago, I think.
5:23
I mean, it's very small town. Everyone knows your business and
5:28
you're either in church or you're in sports or both.
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I mean, that's pretty much what there was to do in a town like
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that. So I grew up very sheltered two
5:37
parent household. You know, we went to church
5:40
every Sunday, went to my grandmother's house after church
5:43
and had lunch every Sunday. And you know, our lives were
5:48
they were good. You know, we didn't have we
5:50
didn't have a lot of experience with much.
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And so we lived in this house on a lot of land.
5:55
We were always outside my dear dad would go deer hunting and
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that was kind of our day-to-day life.
6:01
I played softball, basketball, soccer.
6:03
I did cheer. There wasn't much we weren't
6:06
involved in. We were on the children's
6:08
choirs, at the churches and multiple children's choirs.
6:11
We did beauty pageants. So, you know, we were heavily
6:14
involved in just about anything and everything that you could be
6:19
involved in. And you know, I was the second
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born out of four of us. And my older sister, she was the
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rule follower. She was quiet, she was neat.
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You know, she was everything I think that most first children
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are. She was easy.
6:38
And I came in second born just on fire.
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Can't tell me anything. I've got this larger than life,
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you know, personality and vision.
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I never met a stranger and because of that, I think it was
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pretty difficult on my mom to like really know how to parent
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me because I represented something that she was never
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allowed to be in her own strict environment upbringing.
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So it kind of created this dynamic where I was always
7:10
getting in trouble and, you know, and that planted a seed in
7:13
me at a very young age of am I just not good enough or am I
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worthy? Like, as the person that I am
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because who I am and how I show up, it's not acceptable.
7:24
And so that seed started to take root.
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And over a period of years and years and years, it began to
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grow and grow and grow. Well, Fast forward to my early
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teenage years. My parents ended up getting
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divorced and when that happened, it really wrecked all of our
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lives. And it wrecked mine I think the
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most because my older sister, she was 17 years old, she was
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kind of on her way out of the house in another year.
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My younger siblings were too young to really understand what
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was going on. And you know, they, they didn't
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get the parents that me and my older sister got because we got
8:04
them the longest together. And so when they divorced, it
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created this void within me and I became did.
8:12
You see it coming, Jennifer, like sometimes when parents get
8:16
divorced, the kids are kind of off on another island and they
8:19
don't know that this is going to happen.
8:21
And then other times there's just a lot of just unsettled
8:25
household and you know that maybe something's going down.
8:29
Did you kind of have an idea or not?
8:32
No, no. You know, we would see our
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parents fight on occasion. But I mean, parents fight, you
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know, that's a normal thing, I think in a relationship.
8:41
But outside of that, absolutely not.
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I remember a girlfriend of mine when I was young, her parents
8:47
that got divorced. And I said to her, we were
8:51
talking about it. She had spent the night.
8:52
And I was like, you know, I could never imagine going
8:56
through that. And she was like, yeah, I could
8:57
never see your parents getting divorced.
8:59
Y'all have like the perfect family.
9:01
And so, you know, it was years of, I think, unhappiness in
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their own marriage that we did not see.
9:10
And so when it did come down the pipeline, it was shocking.
9:16
And, you know, kind to us. It felt like it kind of happened
9:19
out of nowhere because we didn't have a front row seat to what
9:23
they had going on within their marriage.
9:27
So how did because I mean, you were, from what everything that
9:32
I've read, Jennifer, your high school, you were in that world
9:38
where you were popular and, and things were happening.
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Was that kind of your escape or were you just overachieving
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because that's just what you did?
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What? What was going on with you when
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all this was going on? So I had actually the high
9:53
school in the town that I grew up in, I moved from that high
9:57
school when I was 16 years old. I had actually got into some
10:03
trouble summer of my going into junior year.
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There was this big fight that broke out between me and a
10:10
couple of girls. And when that happened, my mom
10:14
made me quit cheerleading. And that was what had been
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holding me together because I was doing competition cheer in
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high school and it was my outlet.
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When I lost my outlet, that's when I really started to spiral.
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And I had already, the spiral had already began years ago, but
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that was kind of the pivoting point of it.
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And so I moved schools. And when I changed schools, I
10:37
changed from Chatuchuga High School, which is the town I grew
10:40
up in, and I moved to our Merchi High School.
10:43
So I moved to the school. I'm the New Girl and, you know,
10:47
didn't really know anyone. And at first I felt very
10:51
unhappy, happy there because I had grown up with everybody at
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the other school. And so I ended up going back to
10:55
Chattooga for a couple of days. And then I was like, this isn't
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the same. I'm not cheering anymore.
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I'm not in the same crowd of people.
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So I ended up going back to our merchi.
11:05
When I got back there, they were having the Miss Armarchy
11:09
pageant, and I entered and I won that pageant at the school.
11:14
It's a huge stink because you know, the girls that had grown
11:17
up going to Armarchy, they had this dream, you know, of being
11:21
Miss Armarchy High School. And then here I come in and I
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win. This pageant.
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Yeah, the New Girl. And so, you know, the people
11:29
that I was close with, they were happy for me.
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But the other people that I were not close, that I was not close
11:34
with, they were not. And so I hung out with the guys
11:37
at that high school. At that point, I had already
11:39
been partying. We were partying at Chattooga
11:42
High School on the weekends. You know, there was this one
11:45
house where we would all hang out with the parents and the
11:47
parents would drink with us and, you know, we would smoke weed.
11:51
And so the, the foundation had already kind of been set for
11:54
that. And so when I got to our merchy,
11:57
I, you know, LinkedIn with the, the crew of guys, you know, that
12:02
were the country boys. And here we are.
12:03
We're doing the same thing. You know, we're on the weekends,
12:06
we're bringing out or drinking. And it was, it was innocent
12:11
outside of the fact that we were drinking at that age and smoking
12:14
weed on occasion. But outside of that, we weren't
12:16
like doing drugs or, you know, like real drugs or anything like
12:19
that. And so that was kind of my life
12:22
that I was living. And eventually as time started
12:27
to grow on this void, this hole that I was living with on the
12:31
inside, it was just there and it was like permeating, just
12:34
waiting to suck me into it basically.
12:38
And you know, I had been to come very good at being two different
12:42
people at at all times. And it was the person that I
12:44
presented myself and that representative, she had it all
12:47
together. And the person that was on the
12:50
inside, I was very broken and I was very hurt and I was angry.
12:54
And no one really knew. They didn't recognize the signs
12:58
of that. And I think, yes, I was an
13:00
overachiever because there was that part of me that felt like I
13:04
was unworthy of love and acceptance to be who I really
13:09
felt like I was. And so I had to present this
13:13
person that had it all together and in order to be accepted and,
13:18
you know, to be loved. And so that within itself kind
13:22
of created this environment within me that was setting the
13:25
stage for everything that was going to come after that.
13:30
So what happens next? So I am working at a store in
13:34
the mall, it's called Claire's and I'm, you know, just working
13:39
there part time. I'm still at the All Star Cheer
13:41
gym and I'm cheering there and I also work there.
13:45
So I've got 2 jobs and I'm in my senior year of high school.
13:48
So I leave early after second period and I've got these two
13:51
jobs. Life is good, you know?
13:54
And this store manager, her name is Tracy, and my best friend
13:59
Amber, she had just moved to Armour G2.
14:01
So we became friends because we moved there at the same time and
14:04
she had been experimenting with drugs.
14:07
And I remember the first time that she told me that she had
14:10
been high on meth. I was so mad at her.
14:13
Like I could not believe that she had done that.
14:16
And then here I am a couple of months later, I'm working at the
14:20
store in the mall and my manager, she is the craziest
14:23
person to this day I think I've ever met.
14:25
Like we had this inside joke. We would call her The Who from
14:28
Whoville because her bangs were like up to here.
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And she would like stack these scrunchies on top of her head
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and her hair would like be cascading everywhere.
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I just never met anyone like her.
14:40
And there were these three women that would come into the store
14:43
consistently and I noticed they would like kind of go around and
14:48
be pointing things out. Well, one night when we were
14:51
closing down the store, she confided in me that she was
14:56
stealing the store merchandise and trading it for
15:00
methamphetamines with these women.
15:03
And so she begins to talk to me about how it makes you feel and
15:08
what it does. And, you know, I should have
15:11
known better, but I was also curious.
15:15
So she brings this guy down from Atlanta.
15:18
He comes in the store one day, and it's who she's getting drugs
15:21
from out of Atlanta. And he's this young, buff,
15:24
attractive, you know, white man. And I'm like, well, if he's
15:27
doing it, it can't be that bad if he looks like that.
15:31
And so I eventually decided that I was going to try it.
15:35
So Amber and I, we do the whole, we're spending the night at each
15:40
other's houses. And we end up going to Tracy's
15:44
house that night. And the guy from Atlanta comes
15:46
over and we do meth for the first time.
15:50
And I remember, you know, she gets it out and she shows me,
15:54
you know, she's got this tinfoil and she's like, you put it on
15:57
here and you light the ladder and she's showing me how to use
16:00
it. And so here I am at 17 years
16:04
old, you know, doing meth in this woman's house for the first
16:08
time. No, I've never really been
16:11
scared of much of anything, to be honest.
16:14
Like fear was never something that I've really ever dealt
16:17
with. So what happens?
16:21
So we do the math. Excuse me, We do the math and it
16:27
like, makes my stomach hurt. So Amber and I are like in the
16:31
bathroom for it's what would have seemed like hours.
16:34
And we're in there and she's sitting on the floor and we're
16:38
just talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking,
16:40
talking. Because that's what it does to
16:42
you, you know, it speeds you up. And so after that, we come out
16:46
of the bathroom and then we watch this independent made film
16:49
called Requiem of a Dream. Have you ever heard of it?
16:52
I've I've heard of I haven't seen it.
16:55
It is the craziest movie to this day that I've probably ever
16:58
seen. And they're like doing drugs in
17:00
the movie. And so we're so high at one
17:03
point, it feels like we're in the movie, you know, with them.
17:07
And when we finally left, we stay up all night long.
17:11
We get up the next morning and we go our separate ways.
17:14
Well, I had driven over to this guy's house that I had been
17:17
dating. And his mom, he had graduated.
17:21
He was older than I was. He still lives at home.
17:23
But his mom never left us at, you know, there alone while she
17:27
was leaving to go to church. And he tried to force himself on
17:32
me. And I had to, like, fight him
17:34
off of me. So when I got out of that
17:37
scenario, it scared me a little bit.
17:40
And so I left there and I went to my dad's house and I just
17:43
walked in, went to my room and shut the door.
17:46
And I just laid there. And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
17:49
Like I didn't really love it the first time that I did it.
17:53
And a little bit of time went on.
17:56
I began to talk with one of our other friends and she had been
18:00
doing it also, and I found it out in that conversation.
18:03
Well, she was raised in an environment where the adults
18:07
around her were using. So we ended up going and getting
18:11
high with these adults that she would get high with.
18:15
And from that moment on, I was hooked.
18:18
It was like exhilarating, honestly, because it would give
18:22
you this feeling that you could just do anything, that you could
18:25
conquer anything. And you weren't sleeping, so you
18:27
were getting more things done. And, you know, initially, in the
18:30
beginning, it was fun. And, you know, I'm still living
18:34
this double life and Amber and I have these fake IDs and we're
18:38
going out to like bars and stuff at night.
18:41
And I mean, my parents, they just have no idea what's going
18:44
on. And so the snowball is starting
18:47
to get a little bit bigger and bigger at a slow roll because I
18:51
had not had, you know, any type of trouble.
18:54
The signs really weren't showing themselves.
18:56
And I started to lose a significant amount of weight.
18:59
And so that's kind of where people were like, you know,
19:03
what's going on with you. And I deal with lies, say, well,
19:06
I've been taking Yellow jackets out of the gas station.
19:09
So we had went out one night to this dance club and I met a guy
19:15
there that was actually from Somerville.
19:17
I knew who he was. When I saw him, he didn't
19:19
recognize me because the last time he had seen me, I was just,
19:21
you know, a little chubby girl. Now I'm like this woman, and I
19:26
think at this point I'm 18 years old.
19:28
And we go. He gets me tells, like suggests
19:33
that I should come work at Up the Creek, which is this
19:35
restaurant in Rome. And so I get a job there.
19:39
I'm waitressing, You know, things are going great.
19:43
And I'm getting high on meth frequently at this point.
19:47
And I'm not going to school when I'm supposed to go.
19:50
I'm laying out because I'm hanging out with all these drug
19:53
addicts. And still, you know, my parents
19:55
didn't know back then, and they didn't do the whole, we're
19:57
calling home to alert your parents that you've missed
20:00
school. And so I'm living this life that
20:03
no one knows about. And, you know, and that's kind
20:06
of what it was. And I had gotten so good at
20:08
hiding it that there would be mornings where my pupils would
20:14
be so enlarged. You know, dilated that you could
20:17
barely see the color in my eyes and so I would put these brown
20:21
contacts in so you couldn't tell by looking at me that I was
20:25
high. And one night the guy that I was
20:30
dating, we actually went and stayed at our manager's house
20:34
and I didn't have any drugs and I had would stay up for like
20:38
weeks at a time. And I had fallen asleep there.
20:43
And first time that I had probably been asleep in at least
20:47
a week. And so we had to get up early
20:50
that next morning for him to go wash his clothes for work.
20:53
And when the alarm went off, I remember our manager, he looked
20:58
at me and he was like, you know, man, she can stay here and like
21:02
just get up. When she gets up, she seems kind
21:04
of out of it. And he was like, no, she's fine,
21:05
She's fine. So I get in my car and he
21:08
doesn't know that I'm using. So I get in my car and I leave
21:12
and I'm going literally 5 minutes up the road to where we
21:16
one of the houses that we hang out and we go do dope.
21:18
I knew they'd be up. I knew there'd be drugs there.
21:21
And I turn right onto the road to get to his house and the next
21:27
thing I remember is I'm my head hits the ceiling of my car and
21:32
my I had felt fallen asleep and my car goes over the curb and
21:36
takes this hits this privacy fence head on.
21:39
And I mean, it just takes the fence up out of the ground.
21:44
And it Jarred me awake, caved in my windshield.
21:48
I couldn't get out of the car. I couldn't find my phone.
21:51
I'm laying on the horn 'cause I can see these people.
21:54
It's if they've clearly heard what's going on and they've got
21:57
their lamp on there. They probably called 911.
22:00
And eventually the police get there and they asked me, where
22:06
are you going so early in the morning?
22:08
And I could not remember, I did not know where I was going.
22:13
And so I'm like, where am I going?
22:14
Where am I going? And I said the first thing that
22:17
would that came to my mind, like, where would I be going
22:20
this early in the morning? I was like, I'm going to get
22:22
ready for school. And so he starts to write it and
22:26
he said any pauses? And he looks at me and he was
22:28
like, you're going to school on a Sunday.
22:32
And when he said that, it triggered it.
22:34
And I remembered, I remembered, no, I'm going to this place.
22:37
I'm going to wash my clothes for work.
22:38
And I was like, no, no, no, no. I'm actually going to my
22:40
friend's house. I have to work a double today.
22:42
I'm going to wash my clothes. So they Get Me Out of the car.
22:47
I'm in the back of the ambulance.
22:48
The ambulance is checking me out.
22:50
They're like, you probably need to go, you know, be checked out
22:52
in the hospital. You may have a concussion.
22:53
I was like, no, I just want to go home.
22:56
Well, at this point, I had found my phone before I got out of the
23:00
car. And so they put me in the back
23:03
of the police car while they're searching it.
23:05
And I had called Amber. So Amber was actually dating a
23:09
Rome City police officer at the time that they lived together.
23:13
And she had friends. And she was listening to it on
23:16
the scanner. And she was like, you're about
23:17
to get arrested. And I was like, for what?
23:20
And she said they found meth in your car.
23:23
So I get arrested. I am 45 days out for my senior
23:27
graduation and I have been arrested for possession of
23:31
methamphetamines. So I get there and I get a bond.
23:36
In a small town. In a small town, I get a bond.
23:40
I call Brent, my best friend who's a drug dealer.
23:43
I cannot get him on the phone to come Get Me Out.
23:46
I'm calling Amber, she can't get him on the phone.
23:49
So I'm like to him and I'm going to have to call my parents.
23:52
So I didn't call my dad. I called my mom and, and I was
23:56
like, you know, hey, what are you doing?
23:59
And she was like, I'm just sitting here, what are you
24:02
doing? I was like, well, can you come
24:03
and get me? And she was like, well, where
24:06
are you? And I was like, well, what had
24:09
happened was I got, I fell asleep driving, wrecked my car.
24:13
They found meth in the car. It was not mine.
24:15
Can you come and get me? So she was like dead silent for
24:19
a second. She was like, I'll think about
24:21
it, hangs up the phone. Couple hours later, her and my
24:24
dad show up together, this united front, something that I
24:28
had not seen in years because they didn't have a great
24:33
parenting situation. And so the here they are on the
24:36
other side of this glass and they're like, you're you have a
24:39
problem. You're a drug addict and we're
24:41
not getting you out unless you agree to go to Wynwood.
24:43
Well, Wynwood. Let me ask you something at that
24:46
time, Jennifer, did they have any idea that this was going on
24:51
with you or? In that moment, I think that
24:56
they realized in that moment when they heard that the, when
25:00
they heard that I had been arrested, it all I think made
25:03
sense to them because at then they, there had been a meeting
25:08
at the school at this point that I was not going to graduate
25:12
because I had missed too many days and I had to start coming
25:14
back to school. So there were signs that they
25:16
had, I lost all this weight, but I don't think there was ever
25:20
they hadn't. Put it all together.
25:23
Yet and they would have never put that together because that
25:25
just wasn't something, it just wasn't a thing.
25:29
You know, it's a big thing now. People are like, oh, you know,
25:31
it's that's normal. But back then, absolutely not.
25:35
I mean, we're talking about Rome, GA in 2003.
25:38
So no, they did not. But in that moment, they did.
25:43
So they're like, we're not getting you out unless you agree
25:45
to go to Wynwood. Well, Wynwood is like this
25:48
place, the psychiatric hospital. It wasn't even a drug rehab.
25:52
And so, Oh no, I am screamed at them at the top of their lungs.
25:57
I was like drug problem. And so that of course only
26:03
further proved that I had a drug problem, how I was acting.
26:06
And so they left me there and they take me back to the back
26:11
and I'm in medical. They dress me out and the nurse
26:14
is like honey, I do not know if you have a drug problem or not,
26:19
but you are a very young and beautiful young woman and at
26:23
least if you go to Wynwood, you will be a person here.
26:28
You are nothing but a number and someone back there is going to
26:31
try to make you their bitch. And I just started crying
26:34
because I what does that even mean?
26:36
You know, my even though I had been around doing drugs, my
26:40
level of exposure to things was still very limited.
26:44
So I get to the back and I'm like, I cannot stay here.
26:48
And so I I'm like, I know if I can get my dad on the phone,
26:51
he'll come Get Me Out. But I needed him by himself.
26:54
So I called my dad and I was like daddy like please drug test
27:00
me and if I fail the drug test I'll go to Wynwood, but just
27:03
please come Get Me Out. So he and my mom end up showing
27:08
up a couple hours later and my mom signs the bond and they Get
27:11
Me Out. Well, I had a plan.
27:13
I went to my mom's house and the plan was I was going to go to
27:17
school the next day, Brent was going to bring me something to
27:20
flush my system. I was going to pass the drug
27:22
test, and I'm just going to go back to business as usual.
27:26
Well, by this point, it was all over the radio, front page of
27:30
the newspaper. Miss R Merchi High School,
27:34
arrested for felony possession of methamphetamine, says she's
27:37
going to school on a Sunday. It was chaos.
27:40
So I end up not going to school. My mom and I get into this big
27:44
knockdown drag out argument. She takes my phone and we they
27:48
take me to the emergency room to do a drug test.
27:52
So I knew that I was 18 years old.
27:54
I knew that I could say y'all aren't coming back here because
27:58
I knew my HIPAA rights. And so they're getting ready to
28:01
take us all back. And I said I don't want them in
28:03
the room. So they couldn't allow them to
28:05
come back. So I'm back there.
28:07
I know I'm about to fail this drug test.
28:09
There's a phone on the wall out side of my room because you
28:14
remember, my mom had my cell phone.
28:15
So I'm I called Amber, I called Brent.
28:19
I'm like, listen, I'm going to fail this drug test.
28:21
I'm not going to Winwood and I need y'all to come Get Me Out of
28:24
jail because they're going to come off my bond.
28:27
So it's taking forever for that test to come back.
28:30
And of course it comes back that I failed it.
28:33
Positive for methamphetamines. Well, I've got a question
28:37
though, Jennifer, like why Wynwood?
28:39
Why? Why do you not go to why is a
28:41
rehab not an option? It's like a psychiatric ward.
28:45
That just sounds like that's way far off the off the bubble of
28:48
where you should go. Is that the only thing around?
28:52
Yes, it was. It was.
28:54
And then you got to understand they had no knowledge of
28:58
anything like this, no experience.
29:01
They're just looking at what's local, what has a bed and where
29:05
can we put her because they're scared to death.
29:07
They don't know. They think that I have lost my
29:09
mind like. OK, well, I think that when was
29:12
the right place then? Yes, they do.
29:16
So I I failed the drug test. I go out for it.
29:20
My, my mom, my dad, my older sister, my mom's sister, they're
29:24
all there. And I walk out and I was like,
29:27
well, I passed it. They were like, we want to see
29:32
the results. And so I said, OK, I failed it
29:35
with traces of methamphetamines. Like what does that even mean?
29:39
I just thought that if I could downplay the situation using my
29:43
words that it would make it better.
29:45
It did not. And they were like, no, it did
29:48
not. And I was like, you know, I do
29:50
not have a drug problem. I'm not a drug addict.
29:52
And I'm not going to Winwood And my dad, they're all just crying.
29:56
And I'm just, I'm being defiant because I'm mad.
30:00
And my dad puts his hand around my arm and his whole hand fit
30:05
around my arm. That's how thin I was.
30:08
And he was like, look at you, Look at what you're doing to
30:11
yourself. And I had always had a weight
30:13
complex and the drugs made me skinny.
30:16
And that was another reason why I was addicted to with them.
30:18
And I was like, I look good like this.
30:20
And so, you know, I'm I'm not going to Winwood.
30:25
So we get out to the car and my dad is like, should we put her
30:29
in the middle of the back seat so that she doesn't jump out of
30:34
the car? And I'm like, jump out of the
30:37
car, Like, I'm not crazy. I'm not going to jump out of a
30:41
moving car. So we get back to the jail.
30:44
My mom, you know, buzzes in. I'm coming off of her bond and
30:50
my stepmom was there and she whispers in my ear and she was
30:53
like, I know you can do this, just go to Winwood.
30:56
So I had decided in that moment because it felt like someone was
31:01
for me. In that moment when everybody in
31:03
this group is like against me, it felt I had someone on my
31:06
side. So I said, OK, I'll go to
31:08
Winwood. And my mom was like, call me
31:11
when you're serious. And so they took me in the jail.
31:15
The jailer came out and took me in and I called Brent and he
31:19
sends somebody up there to bond me out.
31:22
So my parents had that jail on such lockdown because my mom
31:27
worked in the court system that they knew when I bonded out who
31:31
it was that bonded me out. They called them like, we are
31:34
her parents. She has a drug problem.
31:36
Why did you get her out? And they told her, they said,
31:40
you know what, She may have a drug problem, but Floyd County
31:44
Jail is not the place to fix it. So I went to their house that
31:49
night. I snorted a line.
31:51
It did nothing for me. And I went to sleep and I got up
31:54
the next morning and I went home to my dad's house.
31:57
Well, the high school that I was enrolled in at our merchy, they
32:01
wouldn't let me come back because I was an out of area
32:04
student and I've been charged with this felony drug charge.
32:08
And it was too late in the year for me to go anywhere else
32:12
without having to do an entire another year here to graduate.
32:15
So I ended up having to drop out of school.
32:17
I went and got my GED. And not long after that, the guy
32:22
that I was dating, he and I ended up getting pregnant and he
32:29
signs up to go into the military.
32:30
So I'm clean in this moment, but at the baseline of it, I'm still
32:35
an addict. So here I am.
32:37
I'm pregnant. Are you at that time and all
32:42
this realm of things? Are you thinking I'm an addict,
32:44
that I really have a problem? Or are you thinking everybody
32:45
around you is crazy? I think everybody else is the
32:49
problem. Yep.
32:50
And so now I'm pregnant. My whole life is falling apart.
32:54
Now I've got this baby on the way and he signs up to go into
32:58
the military. And so off he goes, which leaves
33:02
me here, you know, by myself. And so now I go back and I'm
33:06
hanging around my drug addict friends and I'm just so
33:09
depressed because it's my my life, you know, I have this
33:13
trajectory. I had this path.
33:14
And just like that, it's gone. So I go back to work and I'm
33:19
working in the restaurant and I'm pregnant and, you know, I
33:23
end up having Madison. And when I had her and I held
33:28
her for the first time, it was the love that I felt.
33:32
It was like what I had searched for my whole life to be loved
33:36
and feel that feeling. And I vowed in that moment that
33:39
I would and get high again. But the reality is, is that I
33:44
was an addict and it didn't take long, maybe two months that I
33:49
was going back and getting high again and not all the time, not
33:52
consistently but occasionally. So I end up having to go to
33:57
court for that drug charge and they dropped it to possession of
34:02
drug related objects. I played out to a misdemeanor
34:06
charge first offender. Will they give me 12 months of
34:10
unsupervised probation and a fine?
34:13
And at this point I'm living in Columbus, GA, working in this
34:18
cheer gym. But I'm driving back and forth
34:20
from Columbus to Rome, getting high like occasionally on the
34:24
weekends. So Madison's dad and I ended up
34:27
getting married. He's stationed down there for
34:30
the moment. And I go and I go to court and I
34:34
have and I get a call that I have to go report for probation.
34:38
So I go in and I was on unsupervised but I had to report
34:42
one time. So I go in that one time and I
34:44
report and I pay the fine and she drug tests me and I fail it
34:50
for methamphetamines. Now at this point no one even
34:55
had a clue because I looked like I look now you know, I, I wasn't
35:01
doing it all the time. I knew how to manage it.
35:04
So I fail it for meth and now she's like she tells me she was
35:08
like the judge may revoke you. And so I had to wait about a
35:13
week and she called me and said the judge is revoking your
35:16
probation for 60 days. You're going to get a 2 for one,
35:20
but you got to serve 30 days in county jail.
35:23
So now I have to go tell my family that I failed this drug
35:27
test. I have to tell my new husband
35:30
that I failed this drug test. So I come up with the story.
35:33
I went to a party, I messed up, I got high.
35:37
I'm sorry. You know, I won't do it again.
35:40
And so, you know, my mom kept Madison while I was in jail.
35:46
They ended up letting me break it up into two week segments.
35:49
So I did it for two weeks. I came home and then I, I think
35:52
for a weekend and then I went back.
35:53
So my husband, he gets his stationing orders and we are
35:58
actually getting sent to the state of Washington to out there
36:03
because he's a Ranger. So he goes out there while I'm
36:07
in jail. I end up getting out and I had
36:10
they were allowing me to move to the state of Washington, but I
36:14
still had to call in and report. I still had to take drug tests
36:18
and send them in. And so for I move out there and
36:21
I stay out there for about 9 months.
36:23
My life is good. I'm running this all search
36:25
here, Jim, I'm clean. Things are going well, but our
36:29
marriage is miserably, miserably failing.
36:33
And in the failure of that marriage, I ended up coming home
36:39
for Easter and I went and got high again for the first time in
36:43
almost a year. And when I did that, I felt like
36:47
I was missing out on the world's.
36:50
And it wasn't long after that that I ended up moving me and my
36:53
daughter back to Georgia, which restarted just the catalyst of
36:59
everything that would come for the next couple years.
37:03
So you moved back. Do you guys get a divorce?
37:08
We were separated. We did not get divorced
37:11
initially, so our marriage together lasted about a year and
37:17
we stayed married legally and we divorced officially at the
37:21
three-year mark due to me getting arrested again.
37:27
Wow, that's a lot. What just you just shared,
37:31
Jennifer, that's just a lot that happens.
37:33
So you get back with Madison and now you feel like that you're
37:38
you're back on your home turf. How does this evolve?
37:43
So I get back and, you know, hanging out looking for a job
37:48
and didn't initially go straight back to drugs.
37:51
I was getting high, but not all the time.
37:53
And I ended up meeting this police officer and I met him
37:59
because I got caught with a fake Idi, was 20, about to turn 21.
38:04
I got caught with a fake ID and they called the police and it
38:08
was him and another officer. They didn't arrest me.
38:11
They gave me a warning, you know, confiscated the fake ID
38:14
and he actually gave me his phone number.
38:17
So he and I. So he and I started talking to
38:23
each other and then we started dating.
38:25
And so here I am once again. I'm living this double life.
38:29
I get a job working for a telemarketing company in
38:33
Adairsville, GA, and I am just killing and I'm very good at it.
38:36
Well, all of the women in there, not all of them, but some of
38:40
them had drug problems. And so eventually my drug usage
38:46
starts to increase a little more over a period of time.
38:50
And so here I am. You know, this man is Madison
38:54
and and I'm getting high when she's asleep in the bed at night
38:57
and I'm getting up and I'm dropping her off at school and
38:59
I'm going to work and I'm seeing him and I'm doing all these
39:02
things. But on the behind this veil, you
39:05
know, I'm an addict once again. But I don't believe still that
39:09
I'm an addict. So I end up losing my job at
39:15
that telemarketing company. And when that happened, it was
39:18
right at Christmas time. And you know all my I'm using
39:23
more frequently at this point because.
39:25
Now he asked you something, Jennifer, because I know that
39:28
you're really good at sales and you're really good at Telemark.
39:30
How did you lose your job there? I called in an order that so our
39:35
calls were recorded and on Fridays or on like holidays, if
39:41
you hit your like quota for the day, you would go home.
39:44
Well, I was like the only person in the office.
39:46
So I had one person, he's a friend of mine and every time I
39:50
called he would pick up and buy it was degreaser.
39:54
He would pick up and buy the degreaser.
39:56
So I call him, he don't answer and I write the order up and
40:00
turn it in. And so the manager.
40:03
Pulls the call. She sees that he never answered
40:06
and that I wrote up the order and that was basically.
40:09
What was the end of that? That was the end of it.
40:12
And she was like, you know, I hate to do this to you.
40:15
You're a great salesperson, but I can't, you know, I can't keep
40:18
you. So now here I am.
40:21
I've got rent, I've got a child, I've got to do Christmas and all
40:25
the things. And so I'm like, what am I going
40:28
to do? And so I went and got a job in a
40:32
nightclub in Atlanta. Never had even stepped foot in
40:35
one a day in my life. OK, let let, let because I've
40:39
I've followed all this because it's it's one of the highlight
40:42
parts of your VH1, my true Crime Story.
40:47
How in the world? Because I know that you're an
40:51
addict, You're talking about that.
40:52
Yeah. But you've never been around
40:55
this situation at all. How does someone think?
40:59
Was it just thinking that, OK, I need money, I'm an attractive
41:03
person, this has got to work. And I know I can dance, yes.
41:09
OK. Because when we were partying in
41:11
the basement and high school, that's what we were down there,
41:14
not stripping, but we were, you know, Dirty Dancing just with
41:18
our clothes on, right? So I'm like, OK, I'm going to
41:21
go. I'm going to go to the strip
41:22
club. I walk in the door.
41:24
I was like, I need a job. They hire me on the spot.
41:27
Now, mind you, I've never even been in a topless bar at this
41:31
point in my life. And so I have to go and like buy
41:35
the outfit, buy the shoes, and I start the next day.
41:39
So I get a babysitter for Madison and I go in and I start
41:45
my first day on the day shift and the manager, he buys a table
41:50
dance for me. Why don't even know what that
41:52
means. Like, that's how naive I am.
41:55
Like, am I supposed to dance on top of the table?
41:58
Like what is it that I don't know what to do?
42:00
And then I'm embarrassed like I cannot.
42:03
So I asked one of the girls, you know, what is it?
42:05
She was like, it's a lap dance. I was like, Oh my gosh, I, I
42:07
cannot give this man a lap dance and like, look him in his face,
42:12
like I just cannot do that. So it's like, I just, I need a
42:15
minute. I need a minute.
42:16
So the bartender gave me a Valium and once she gave me that
42:20
Valium, it was over with. I danced all around that strip
42:25
club for the rest of the day and walked out of there and I had
42:28
made $700 in one shift and that was it.
42:35
That was it. So how long?
42:39
How long were you there? To the point where the real
42:43
nightmare lands on you. I was there on and off for a
42:48
year and a half. So I didn't go consistently
42:51
because the thing about that, that life is, you know, you make
42:54
such a high amount of money that you don't have to go every day
42:59
unless you just have. Every day they know that you're
43:01
doing that. My very few circle of friends
43:06
know, but that's it. So I'm driving back and forth
43:11
from Rome. I moved Madison and I into this
43:13
luxury high end apartment in Rome, GA.
43:17
And now I'm starting to use drugs more frequently.
43:21
I'm starting to be around a different group of addicts more
43:24
frequently. And you know, I've got the
43:27
babysitter keeping mass and I'm driving back and forth to
43:29
Atlanta and I'm living this life.
43:31
Well I ended up telling the police officer he and I were on
43:36
and off but we were more so off at this point.
43:38
But I ended up telling him that I was working in the strip club.
43:42
So one night or one day I should say I am going to work and he
43:49
calls my mom and he tells my mom that I am allowing drug addicts
43:55
to watch Madison and that I am stripping in the strip club.
44:01
So I had gotten off work and I had had all these missed calls
44:05
from my mom and so I call her and she was like where are you?
44:08
And I was like I'm on my way home and she was like what is
44:12
going on with you? Lee called me and he said that
44:15
you were had all these drug addicts keeping Madison and that
44:18
you are stripping in the strip club.
44:23
Now, mind you, in my family, this is like it went from black
44:28
sheep to like you're in hell at this point, you know.
44:31
And so I was like, yes, I am stripping in the strip club, as
44:35
a matter of fact. And I was like, y'all haven't
44:37
been a part of my life. You don't help me pay my bills.
44:40
You're not going to tell me how to live my life and you're not
44:43
involved with anything. And no, I do not have drug
44:46
addicts keeping Madison. So we get off the phone and the
44:50
next day her dad or her and my dad do a surprise pop up on me
44:55
at my apartment and they come in with an at home drug test and
45:01
try to like force me to take the drug test.
45:05
So I go into the bathroom and I pour orange Listerine in it and
45:09
I hand it back to him. And so my mom's like this is
45:12
mouthwash because she takes the lid off of it and smells it and
45:16
it this huge I ensues and I mean, I'm screaming at them and
45:21
I I've never cussed at my parents, but in this moment I
45:24
did. I was like, get the F out of my
45:26
house. You have you cannot tell me what
45:28
to do. They were trying to take
45:30
Madison. I wouldn't let him take her.
45:31
It was just chaos. So they leave and that was so
45:38
right after that, I get somebody alerts the management office and
45:44
tells them if there's drug activity going on in my
45:47
apartment and they evict me. So they evicted me and when that
45:52
happened my ex mother-in-law gets D fax involved.
45:58
It's just this mess of a situation.
46:01
So from there I found somewhere else to live and I start because
46:06
D fax is involved, I'm having to do these random drugs tests.
46:09
So I get clean momentarily. During this time, I'm passing
46:12
the drug test and I end up just taking Madison back because at
46:18
that point I'm like, you don't have a core order, you don't
46:22
have legal custody. So I went and I just, I took
46:24
Madison and I was like, if you want to fight me for custody,
46:26
you can fight me for custody. But this is my daughter and she
46:29
is coming back with me. So it was in that time period
46:33
that I realized for the first time that I was an addict
46:37
because at about Week 2 of me being off of drugs, I just felt
46:42
like I had the base. Best way I can describe it as I
46:47
felt like I had just demons coming out of me.
46:49
It was like the worst feeling, the worst physically, mentally,
46:53
spiritually. I was just in a really dark
46:56
place. And so that was the first time
46:59
that I realized that I was an addict.
47:03
And during the midst of all of that, I went to the club and I
47:08
worked on my 21st birthday and I worked the day shift.
47:12
And so my friend, my girlfriend was supposed to come and meet me
47:15
and pick me up and we were going out for our birthday.
47:17
She didn't show. Well, I had drank too much to go
47:20
home and to drive home. And so I had to call a friend of
47:25
mine and he came was coming to pick me up.
47:27
So I went on to the night shift to work while I was waiting on
47:31
him to get there. And this guy end up putting date
47:34
rate in my drink on my 21st birthday and I was violently
47:39
sick throwing up in the bathroom all night.
47:41
My friend never made it cuz he could never find where I was at.
47:44
So I ended up driving myself home at about 5:30 that morning.
47:48
And that was my last time that I worked in the club.
47:51
So I end up going to the same friend who I had also had a
47:55
relationship with off and on. And he was dealing drugs and I
47:58
went to him and I asked him, I need you to front me 1/4 ounce.
48:02
And he didn't want to do it cuz he was like, I don't want you in
48:05
this. I don't want you in in this
48:06
lifestyle. And I was like, listen, I trust
48:08
you. I'm going to get it from
48:09
somebody else if I don't get it from you.
48:11
So he finally agreed and he fronted me the quarter oz and I
48:16
broke it down and I sold it. And the next day I came back to
48:19
him and I paid for that and I bought 1/2 ounce and I still had
48:23
money leftover. And it was in that moment that I
48:25
realized how much money and how easy it was to do that.
48:29
And then that is the moment that I became a drug dealer.
48:33
OK, so that's, I was trying to remember how all that chapter by
48:37
chapter here. So you left the the nightclub
48:42
and you you get fronted and then you pay that off or no, you you
48:46
sell it and then all of a sudden this hits you like, and by the
48:51
way, part of your story is, is you're really good at sales.
48:55
So yes, somehow the the light goes on.
48:59
Oh my gosh, I'm using this stuff.
49:01
I could sell this stuff. So what happens next?
49:06
So I. Ask you, Jennifer, by the way,
49:09
the police officer that you are dating and he makes the phone
49:13
call to your mom, what happens with that relationship?
49:17
Yeah, it was over after that. OK, so that was that, yeah.
49:21
That was that. Don't call me, don't text me.
49:23
Yep, you're you're done for. OK, so now let's put that into
49:27
the new the Queen pen is born. So I start realizing, and here's
49:36
the thing, everybody that I hung out with did drugs.
49:38
They would always call me and ask me did I have anything?
49:40
And so I was like, yes, I do as a matter of fact.
49:43
And so now from 1/2 ounce, it starts at 1 oz and then 2 oz and
49:48
then 8 oz and you know, and it just keeps growing and growing
49:51
and growing. And so now I'm just like a full
49:54
time drug dealer and I'm, I got more money now than I've ever
49:58
had before. And so I'm just blowing money
50:00
because when you get money fast, you blow it fast.
50:02
And you know, I'm living this high life and I'm buying Madison
50:06
thousands of dollars worth of stuff at Walmart, whatever she
50:09
wants. And I'm just living this drugged
50:12
out drug dealer lifestyle. And eventually the person that I
50:19
got it from, he ends up getting, he violates his probation.
50:24
So when he violated his probation, all of his clientele
50:28
starts coming to me. And that's when I became like
50:32
the real like dope man, dope dealer.
50:35
Because now I'm going from just selling, you know, an ounce or
50:37
two here and there. So I'm getting 8 oz and I'm
50:41
selling half a pound of meth. I'm making runs to Atlanta with
50:45
someone else. We're picking up a pound or two.
50:47
We're bringing it back. And so now I'm like running this
50:50
drug, you know, these drug runs and, and it got to the point
50:54
where I wasn't really breaking it down anymore.
50:57
I was splitting it up into two large quantities.
50:59
I'm dropping it to two guys. They're selling it, they're
51:01
giving me the money. And I'm just doing that over and
51:04
over and over again. But I'm also still using.
51:07
So he ends up getting out of jail, we get back together and
51:13
he wants to do the right thing. He doesn't want to be on drugs
51:16
anymore. He doesn't want to sell.
51:17
He wants us to get our life together.
51:19
And in the midst of that, actually before he got out,
51:25
while he was still locked up, I had, I was paranoid, you know,
51:30
I, I knew they were watching me and everybody around me because
51:33
they knew what we had going on. And I end up going and I drop 8
51:38
ounces of meth off at one of the houses that I would always drop
51:41
dope off at. And I told him, I said, this is
51:43
it. I'm not doing this anymore.
51:45
You need to make this last. I'm going to pick Madison up.
51:48
We're going to Florida. I just need to get out of here
51:50
for a little while. So I leave there and I know my
51:54
license are suspended, so I pass.
51:57
A Rome City police officer will remember the person that I
52:00
dated. He was part of Rome City Police
52:02
Department and so they all knew who I was.
52:05
He had it out for me. And this police officer pulls
52:10
out behind me and I'm like, shit, you know, I knew I didn't
52:13
have anything, but I also knew my license were suspended.
52:16
So I pull into this parking lot where this hair salon is that a
52:19
friend of mine's mother owns. The police officer goes down the
52:23
road. I cut the car off.
52:24
I cut the lights off and I just sit there for a minute.
52:27
He ends up coming back and pulling in behind me and hitting
52:30
his lights. He comes up to the window.
52:32
He says license and registration, please.
52:34
Well, I knew that I hadn't broken any law.
52:38
He hadn't ran my tag. He didn't know like I knew my
52:41
rights enough to know that what he was doing was illegal.
52:45
And so I was like, why? And so we did that song and
52:48
dance for a second and finally he was like, your license are
52:50
suspended. Step out of the car.
52:53
I am arresting you for driving on a suspended license.
52:56
So I'm sitting in the back of his cop car, he's searching my
52:59
car. He's just sure he's going to
53:01
find meth in my car, but I don't have anything.
53:05
So he's searching, searching, searching, searching.
53:07
And earlier that day I had actually, a girlfriend of mine
53:12
had called me because there have been this big federal indictment
53:14
in Rome and for money laundering.
53:17
And she was like, hey girl, like I've got all these sex toys from
53:21
the sex shop are over here where they ran in on it.
53:24
She was like, they're brand new, like body paint, body putter,
53:27
like come get it. You can fill it, you can give it
53:29
away, just do whatever you want. But I've got so much about
53:32
needing on. So I go over there.
53:33
She had like grocery bags filled up of this stuff.
53:36
So it's all in my trunk while this cop is searching my car.
53:41
They're like taking stuff apart, convinced that they're going to
53:44
like find drugs. He picks that back one of those
53:47
bags up and the bottom falls out of it and dildos just go all
53:52
over the he's scrambling, his face is red, he's trying to pick
53:58
everything up. And I'm in the back of the cop
54:00
part like, yeah, remember that's what you get.
54:02
You know, I'm talking all the crap because I know I don't have
54:06
drugs on me. So finally we get to the jail.
54:10
I know I'm about to cash mind out because I have the cash in
54:12
my pocket for a driving on suspended license charge.
54:15
And they said, what are you booking her for?
54:17
And he says possession of meth, possession with intent to
54:21
distribute pills, not an original container, theft, buy
54:23
services, singular ghost phone, concealed tag, altar tag, no
54:27
proof of insurance and driving on a suspended license.
54:30
And I was like, what? And he said, And make sure you
54:33
check her prior because I don't want her to bat her Pretty
54:36
Little blue eyes and get out of this one.
54:39
Wow. So now here I am with all these
54:43
charges and I had made a phone call and I called, you know,
54:49
someone that was going to sign my bond to Get Me Out when I had
54:51
a bond. So I'm in first appearance the
54:54
next morning and they give me the bond.
54:57
Well, while I'm in first appearance, they call me out of
55:00
the courtroom and back to the Sheriff's Office.
55:03
And my mom is sitting there and she was like, I want to know
55:06
where Madison is. I was like, I'm not telling you
55:08
where she is. Like it's none of your business.
55:11
She's safe. I'm about to get out.
55:13
She's like, these are serious charges.
55:15
You are not going to get a bond. I said I already have a bond and
55:19
it's about to be signed and I'm getting out and I'm going to get
55:22
her. So they wouldn't let me leave
55:25
until I told her where Madison was.
55:28
So I finally told her where Madison was and I go back.
55:32
My bond gets signed and they hold me in jail for three days
55:35
on a signed bond and till they can get me into juvenile court
55:40
for my mom to take temporary custody of my daughter away.
55:45
So I get into the courtroom, my mom is sitting there with all my
55:48
ex husbands family that's local and the judge is like you know
55:53
you can't take care of your daughter while you're in jail.
55:56
And I was like well The funny thing about that is, is I have a
55:59
sign bond and I know that I have been held on the sign bond for
56:03
three days for this court hearing to happen so that my
56:06
mother can take temporary custody of my daughter away.
56:09
So he grabs her temporary custody, I go back to the jail,
56:13
and they release me immediately when I get back.
56:16
So I get out. Yeah, I get out and I'm going to
56:21
see Madison at my mom's house, which was a very strained
56:25
relationship at this point between my mother and I.
56:29
And I'm still living this life and D fax is involved and I'm
56:33
having to do all these random drug tests and I'm passing the
56:36
drug test, but it's because I'm faking them.
56:38
And I and I would be there with Madison at night and I was all
56:42
she knew. And one night she would let she
56:45
lay there and her little hands on my face and she said, mommy,
56:48
I just want to go home with you. And I just couldn't, I couldn't,
56:53
I couldn't take her. I couldn't fix it.
56:55
And even if I tried to fix it, it wasn't going to be an
56:58
immediate fix because of this hearing that had happened.
57:01
And I would go there and I would get so high that I did not feel
57:06
the weight or the emotion of that time in both of our lives.
57:14
So what is the thing that the event that brings you down?
57:22
You just don't get high. Well, I understand that, but you
57:27
end up getting into this situation to where you get these
57:31
charges. But I if I remember right, there
57:35
were your, your charges ended up being federal, right?
57:40
Not these charges so. These charges were state, but
57:44
the evolved. These were state it does so with
57:48
this scenario. With this situation.
57:51
My ex-husband flies in, he files for emergency custody and they
57:56
deny it because he hadn't had enough day-to-day involvement in
57:59
her life and the judge and he filed for divorce and the judge
58:04
that sat on my divorce case also was sitting on my state case.
58:07
So he wanted to see what was going to happen in my state case
58:10
before he ruled in the custody in our divorce.
58:13
Well I lawyered up for obviously for both and my lawyer gets the
58:19
entire case thrown out because it was an illegal stop, illegal
58:23
search, illegal seizure regardless of the evidence.
58:26
Everything wiped OK. Everything gets wiped so.
58:29
You had to feel pretty good about that.
58:32
Yes, so now it's looking like I'm going to get custody of my
58:35
daughter back. Well, the same day that they
58:38
throw that case out, I'm in the car riding in the back seat with
58:42
someone in Cedartown. We go through a roadblock, his
58:45
license are suspended. They search the car, he has
58:49
marijuana and scales. They charge us basically the
58:52
same thing, meth, possession of meth with intent to distribute
58:55
marijuana. He doesn't claim the drugs.
58:58
I had $3500 cash on me. They asked me where the money
59:02
was from and I said the strip club.
59:03
Now in my hearing with the judge, my preliminary hearing on
59:08
our divorce, he said you I will not give you custody of your
59:13
daughter if you are dancing in a strip club.
59:15
You have to have a moral upstanding job.
59:18
So when that arrest happened and we go back to court, they pull
59:21
the transcript of that arrest. It says I got the money from the
59:24
strip club and he was like I told you that if you continue to
59:28
strip I would not give you custody of your daughter back.
59:30
So I lost full custody of Madison at that point.
59:33
And when that happened I lost my mind.
59:36
I sold more drugs and I got more high and I did everything that I
59:39
could to take my own life besides putting a gun to my head
59:42
and pulling the trigger. And eventually I ended up
59:47
getting federally indicted by the feds and they wanted my Co
59:53
defendant at the end of the day, they wanted him and I wouldn't
59:57
turn him in. I wouldn't tell on him.
59:59
And so they ended up indicting both of us.
1:00:03
And I in the midst of all of that, I had to serve 10 days in
1:00:08
county jail for driving on a suspended license.
1:00:10
Well, when that happened, my dad had came and visited me and he
1:00:14
was like, listen, you just need to go into the military.
1:00:17
Just go into the military, get away from here, like get a fresh
1:00:20
start in life. And so he took me when I got out
1:00:24
to the military. Military office, they agreed to
1:00:26
allow me to join the military, but I had to get my city
1:00:30
probation officer to release me from supervised city probation
1:00:34
so that I could go to boot camp. So I go in that day to ask them
1:00:38
to release me so that I could join the military and the it's
1:00:42
taking longer than I what I feel like it should take.
1:00:44
And the DEA walks in and I have been indicted.
1:00:50
So then what happens, Jennifer? Because I mean, you were, you
1:00:53
thought you were on the way out to go to the military so you
1:00:56
could escape all this and now you're indicted federally, which
1:00:59
is a lot different. Yes, What happens?
1:01:04
So I go to jail and I have a court hearing on that Monday.
1:01:07
This was a Friday. I go into the court hearing,
1:01:10
they give me a bond and it's an OR bond, but the condition of my
1:01:14
bond is that I have to go home to a safe environment.
1:01:17
Well, I didn't have that outside of my family and my family had
1:01:21
what had been watching me self destruct for years.
1:01:24
They for sure we're not going to let me come home and they're
1:01:27
scared to death because now I have a federal indictment.
1:01:29
They think I'm with the mafia or the mob.
1:01:32
They don't know the cartel. You know, they've, they're
1:01:35
thinking the worst of the worst. And so they leave me in there.
1:01:39
So for 10 days, the 1st 10 days I'm in there, really I was just
1:01:43
sleeping because I'm coming off of years of, you know, just
1:01:48
trauma and abuse and addiction. And after about that 10th or
1:01:53
11th day, I came out of the cell and there were these volunteers
1:01:57
that would come in with the church.
1:01:59
And I had been so angry at God at that point.
1:02:02
I grew up in church, but I did not want to hear anything about
1:02:05
God. My dad used to say, you know,
1:02:06
I'm praying for you. And I was like, don't pray for
1:02:09
me. You can save that for somebody
1:02:11
else because the God grew. I grew up believing in abandoned
1:02:15
me at 13 years old, like don't pray for me.
1:02:17
So this woman, she walks into the cell and you couldn't tell
1:02:21
by looking at me and she didn't know why I was in there.
1:02:24
And she walked straight up to me and she said, can I pray for
1:02:27
you? Well at this point I have
1:02:30
nothing left to lose except my life.
1:02:32
And you can take that because I've been asking you to take my
1:02:34
life for months, crying out to this God that I don't even
1:02:37
believe in to take my life. And she puts her hand on me and
1:02:42
she prays for me and she speaks in tongues.
1:02:44
And when she gets done, she looks me directly in my eyes.
1:02:47
And she said you will never go back to your addiction again.
1:02:50
And in that moment, I knew that I'd never go back, and I never
1:02:53
did. It was like I could breathe
1:02:56
again for the first time. And so over the course of the
1:02:59
next 4 1/2 months, I ended up getting transferred to a federal
1:03:03
holding facility in Fort Payne, AL.
1:03:05
And I totally turned my life around.
1:03:07
I got intentional about apologizing to the people that I
1:03:11
had wronged, writing letters, you know, getting to know
1:03:14
myself, getting to know my pain, getting to know my grief, and
1:03:18
getting back close to God again. And and I got baptized in the
1:03:22
jail in Fort Payne, AL and my dad was coming and visiting me
1:03:27
every week. He never missed a visitation.
1:03:29
So he was seeing the change in me.
1:03:32
And my mom ended up coming and visiting me and she said that
1:03:36
they were her and her husband were going to Get Me Out, but
1:03:39
that I had to agree to go to rehab.
1:03:43
And so they got me out. And I just asked her, I said
1:03:47
please do not make me go to rehab.
1:03:49
I am not an addict anymore. Give me an opportunity because
1:03:52
there is a high probability that I'm going to go to prison.
1:03:55
Let me take this time to spend without if I fail a drug test,
1:03:59
if I show any signs, I'll go to rehab.
1:04:02
So they agreed. I stayed out on pretrial turn,
1:04:04
totally turned my life around, had a job, I was clean, you
1:04:08
know, and I had moved forward and I was allowed no
1:04:13
communication with my daughter during this time.
1:04:15
They wouldn't let me talk to her.
1:04:16
And so I filed a motion with the court to let me, you know,
1:04:21
because I had rights to her. And so the courts had a hearing
1:04:26
scheduled and they were ordering them to bring her back to the
1:04:29
state of Georgia for me to have visitation with her.
1:04:32
And the same day that that hearing was scheduled, my
1:04:35
federal sentencing date was scheduled on that same day.
1:04:39
So the judge wanted to wait and see what happened.
1:04:42
And I knew that there was a probability that I would go to
1:04:46
prison. There was a chance that I
1:04:48
wouldn't, but there was a high probability that I would.
1:04:50
So we go into the courtroom. My mom's crying.
1:04:53
She stands up and speaks on my behalf.
1:04:55
Please don't make her go to prison.
1:04:56
I'm a court reporter. I see what this does to people.
1:04:59
The person standing in front of you today is not the same person
1:05:02
that she was a year ago. And the judge just very matter
1:05:05
of factly said she may not be the the same person she was a
1:05:08
year ago, but maybe she'll learn to have a little more respect
1:05:11
for the law. the US Attorney's office is asking for 30 months
1:05:14
in federal prison. I'm going to round the four
1:05:17
months that she did in county up to six.
1:05:19
And I'm going to give her 24 months in a federal prison
1:05:21
count. I felt nothing when I heard that
1:05:25
sentence. I was so numb, Brent, at that
1:05:29
point in my life that I just didn't have an emotion.
1:05:34
I was so detached. You had been through so much.
1:05:36
I mean, up to that point, I'm surprised you were alive.
1:05:41
You know, when I, when I got the indictment, at that point, I was
1:05:48
homeless. I was living, you know, off of
1:05:51
someone's couch. I had all my stuff in the back
1:05:53
of my car. I had no desire to live, none.
1:05:57
But I just, I was hopeless and even though I didn't believe in
1:06:02
God anymore, I still cried out to God to take my life.
1:06:06
And God took my life, just not in the way that I wanted, you
1:06:09
know, a different. Way.
1:06:11
Right. You know, I didn't believe that
1:06:14
I was good enough for my daughter.
1:06:16
I didn't believe that I was good for anybody because of all of
1:06:19
the wreckage that I had created. And I lost the one thing that
1:06:24
was holding me together, and that was her.
1:06:27
And so when he gave me that sentence, we walk out of the
1:06:32
courtroom and my dad is sobbing, crying, and my mob is mom is
1:06:36
sobbing, crying, and I'm just, I just nothing, I'm just, it'll be
1:06:41
OK. It's going to be OK.
1:06:44
So I finally get myself surrender letter and they have
1:06:48
actually sentenced me to and let me back up because in the midst
1:06:53
of that I had one prayer and my one prayer to God was no matter
1:06:59
what happens, I just want to see my daughter.
1:07:03
Please let me see my daughter. And so I get my federal
1:07:08
sentencing letter and they had sentenced me to Seatac Federal
1:07:13
Detention Center in like between Seattle and Tacoma, WA.
1:07:18
It was a maximum security facility.
1:07:20
It was not a minimum security camp, which is where I was
1:07:22
supposed to go, but that is where my daughter lives.
1:07:27
She lived out there and when the judge in Rome found out that
1:07:32
that is where I was sent sentenced to, he ordered them to
1:07:36
give me 4 days of supervised visitation with my mother before
1:07:40
I self surrendered to prison. And so the one prayer that I
1:07:44
asked for was answered and maybe not in the way that I, you know,
1:07:49
I didn't, I wasn't specific. I just said I want to see her.
1:07:51
And so we flew out to Washington and I saw her for the first time
1:07:56
in a year, year and a half at that point.
1:07:59
And then I took her back, you know, to her dad and her
1:08:03
stepmom. And I went to Federal Seatac
1:08:06
Detention Center and rang the buzzer and turn myself in and
1:08:11
walked into that prison and didn't see daylight till the day
1:08:13
I left. Wow.
1:08:17
So let's let's take a break there because I want to talk
1:08:19
about what happens to you going into this unknown place that
1:08:23
you're going federal prison and then how you made all this stuff
1:08:27
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white collar criminal justice system.
1:09:11
I'm a member of the White Collar Support Group, and I can tell
1:09:14
you this is a bunch of people who help each other through the
1:09:15
criminal justice journey for free.
1:09:18
Whether you're just starting your journey or you've made it
1:09:20
through to the other side, this is great space for you.
1:09:23
You can join us on Zoom Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
1:09:26
For more information, go to prisonist.org.
1:09:28
That's prisonist.org. OK, Jennifer, so you've all this
1:09:33
journey that you just talked about has LED you to hear you.
1:09:38
I know what it feels like to go up and hit that button and get
1:09:41
and walk yourself through what's going through your mind.
1:09:46
What are you thinking? You know, I didn't really have a
1:09:50
thought. It wasn't until I walk into the
1:09:53
pod and the door slams behind me that the weight of the situation
1:10:00
hit me. And knowing and understanding
1:10:03
that I'm in a place that doesn't have an outside yard.
1:10:06
It's all controlled movement. It's like a county jail on
1:10:10
steroids where you have to go to work and you return to your
1:10:13
door, your pod, and you return to your cell and the door shuts
1:10:17
behind you and it locks and you count 3 times a day.
1:10:20
So there's no freedom. And when I went in there and I
1:10:24
got into my cell, I just cried because I could not fathom that
1:10:31
this was going to be my life for two years.
1:10:32
Like, how am I going to survive this?
1:10:35
How? There's not even air in our rec
1:10:40
room that was in the pod. They had vents at the top that
1:10:43
air would come in, but that was the extent of it.
1:10:46
You couldn't even see the sunshine, you know?
1:10:49
So how am I expected to get through this?
1:10:53
What am I going to do? And so the first couple of weeks
1:10:58
I was depressed and I just cried and I called home.
1:11:02
Was there a reason, Jennifer, why you ended up because you
1:11:06
know, you people get put in different places all the time,
1:11:09
but I would be thinking that with 24 months, unless it had to
1:11:14
do with your record before that, why you would end up in a
1:11:17
maximum security detention center.
1:11:22
How does how does one end up there?
1:11:25
It wasn't my record because I had never been convicted of
1:11:27
anything except the misdemeanor and I played first defender on
1:11:31
that. So it wasn't on my record.
1:11:32
So I was the lowest level on the guidelines that you could be
1:11:37
right. And the case that was in Cedar
1:11:39
Town, it got thrown out when I was in prison.
1:11:42
So I had never had like a true conviction of a felony because
1:11:47
they dropped the other one to a misdemeanor.
1:11:50
So what the thing that I heard was on the inside is that they
1:11:55
were sending anyone that had three years or less to the
1:11:59
detention centers because the camps were overcrowded.
1:12:03
I don't know if that was the case, but that's what I heard
1:12:07
could be. So here I am.
1:12:11
I'm in this prison. And after the first couple of
1:12:14
weeks, I started to get into a little bit of a routine.
1:12:17
They gave me assigned me a job in the kitchen.
1:12:19
And so I'm going to work and, you know, I'm reading, I'm
1:12:22
writing letters, I'm journaling, I'm calling home, I'm going to
1:12:26
church, you know, with on Sundays.
1:12:29
And so you just kind of get into that routine where it's like,
1:12:32
you know, this is just my life. This is what I'm doing.
1:12:35
And you just kind of go with the flow.
1:12:37
And that's what it was for me for a really long time.
1:12:40
I read this book while I was in there and it's called the
1:12:43
Captivity series. It's by Katie Souza.
1:12:45
It's a very, she's very well known now all over the world.
1:12:49
Back then she was not. And that book really started to
1:12:53
speak to me. So I began to write a book in
1:12:55
prison and I and I went to therapy.
1:12:57
So every week I went to therapy with a licensed therapist.
1:13:02
And that was the best thing that I could have ever done for
1:13:06
myself because it allowed me to work through the childhood
1:13:10
traumas that I was dealing with, the pain that I had, the void
1:13:15
that I had, the unworthiness that I had, and also, you know,
1:13:19
the disappointment and shame that I had regarding what I had
1:13:22
caused in Madison's life. So that was the one positive
1:13:27
thing that I can say about that time in my life now.
1:13:31
I also got locked in solitary confinement for three weeks
1:13:36
under investigation for something that I did not do.
1:13:38
I go down to my job and veg prep and they show up and handcuff
1:13:43
me, put me in solitary confinement in a cell where the
1:13:47
lights stay on all day long, feed you through a hole in the
1:13:50
door. There's no shower.
1:13:52
You get out Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a cold shower and
1:13:54
then you go back in there. I thought that I would lose my
1:13:58
mind in there that first week that I was in there.
1:14:02
And then about after that 7th day, I just conquered myself
1:14:06
emotionally and mentally. And I was like, all the things
1:14:09
that you've been through in your life, you can survive this.
1:14:12
You know, this is nothing compared to the things that
1:14:15
you've overcome. And so it was in that moment,
1:14:18
once I realized that I could conquer myself fully in this
1:14:21
scenario, that there was nothing that I couldn't do in my life.
1:14:24
And I carried that with me in every single thing that I've
1:14:28
done in life. That's really interesting,
1:14:31
Jennifer, because IA lot of people, I think it's, it's
1:14:34
almost like binary. You either make it or you don't
1:14:37
when you get put down like that in solitary because some people
1:14:40
come back looking really different when they come back
1:14:42
from solitary. And then some people, and I've
1:14:47
had a lot of different people on this show that have been in
1:14:49
solid one. One person was in for 10 years
1:14:51
in solitary. The the confidence that someone
1:14:54
can gain knowing that I can do that.
1:14:59
So if I can do that, I can do this and I can do that.
1:15:02
And it gives you a whole new sense of belief in yourself.
1:15:06
And three weeks in solitaire, that's a while to be just locked
1:15:11
down. Yeah, Nothing.
1:15:13
Nothing. Yeah, and, and, and I'm telling
1:15:16
you, I was so mad the first week, like if I could have,
1:15:19
everything is bolted to the ground in the wall, but if I
1:15:21
could have picked something up and like beat that door to
1:15:23
death, I probably would have because I was just like enraged,
1:15:27
like I hadn't done anything to be in here.
1:15:29
And so the feds show up after that first week and there was an
1:15:33
officer that was having a sexual relationship with an inmate
1:15:37
there and he was really having that relationship.
1:15:41
And I ended up taking her job in veg prep and her friends told
1:15:48
the kitchen staff that I was having a relationship with him.
1:15:52
So the feds show up and they try.
1:15:55
They're like basically telling me, threatening me if you don't
1:16:00
admit to this and we find out you're lying, we are going to
1:16:04
give you 5 more years on your sentence.
1:16:07
And I was like, I don't care what threats you put on the
1:16:10
table. I you can go through everything
1:16:12
I have. I have not done that.
1:16:14
I am innocent and I'm not going to say that I did something that
1:16:17
I did not. So they come back after three
1:16:20
weeks. We apologize, sorry for the
1:16:23
inconvenience, is what they said.
1:16:26
You were telling the truth. We're going to let you back out
1:16:29
to general population. Well, about a couple weeks
1:16:32
later, they end up catching him putting money on the other girls
1:16:37
books from somewhere in Washington, the state of
1:16:39
Washington. He ends up getting fired.
1:16:43
Fired, not charged, just fired. And so it's just like when
1:16:50
you're in there, you are at the mercy.
1:16:53
Yeah, for sure. Of whatever they want to do.
1:16:57
Yeah. You are cattle.
1:16:59
You are cattle with a number. I use that time to get to know
1:17:05
me. I use that time to sit with
1:17:08
myself. I use that time to unpack things
1:17:13
that I had been carrying all my life.
1:17:17
I'm coming up on my federal halfway house date this December
1:17:20
17th, 2009. The counselor calls me and I
1:17:23
think I'm getting ready to sign my halfway house papers.
1:17:26
I'm excited. I'm going to be home for the
1:17:27
holidays. She says, oh, we denied your
1:17:31
halfway house time, and I said, why?
1:17:35
She said we have strong ties to the community.
1:17:37
You don't need that much halfway house time.
1:17:38
I was like, strong ties. I have no ties to the community.
1:17:42
I have burned every bridge. I know you see my fault.
1:17:46
Well, you have parents. You'll be OK.
1:17:48
So now I'm mad all over again because now here I am.
1:17:51
I'm going to be in here for like another 45 days in this prison
1:17:55
that I'm so ready to get out of. But in the midst of that 45
1:17:58
days, the chaplain had put a call sheet out for a speaker
1:18:02
that was coming in. So I sign up to go.
1:18:05
I get down there and it in walks Katie Souza, the lady that wrote
1:18:10
the book the Captivity Series. And she preached A sermon that
1:18:14
was, to this day, maybe the best sermons I've ever heard.
1:18:17
And at the end of it, she's got like kind of an altar call.
1:18:21
Everybody's coming up. She's giving people messages,
1:18:24
and she comes up to me. And she said, God spoke to me
1:18:26
about you. You're going to get out, Your
1:18:29
life is going to take off, and you will never be back here
1:18:32
again. You have a prison ministry in
1:18:35
you. And one day you will get your
1:18:37
daughter back and she will never forget a day that you lost with
1:18:40
her. I get out, a couple days later,
1:18:44
I fly back to the federal halfway house, and two weeks
1:18:49
later I have an illegal cell phone in the halfway house that
1:18:53
I'm not supposed to have. Because back then they didn't
1:18:55
let you have cell phones. We all have them hid in the
1:18:57
ceiling tiles and everywhere else.
1:18:59
There was an ad in the Atlanta Journal Constitution for
1:19:02
telemarketing. And I call on my legal cell
1:19:06
phone. I do a phone interview.
1:19:08
They want to bring me in for an in person interview.
1:19:10
So now I have to go convince the halfway house director, Mr.
1:19:13
Jones, to approve the move. And he's like, Miss Rogers, how
1:19:17
did you get that interview? And I was like, I called from
1:19:19
the pay phone. He was like, yeah, right.
1:19:22
He's like, but I'm going to approve this move.
1:19:24
So I go to this interview. Now, mind you, I'm having to
1:19:28
ride public transportation, the train, Marta, the buses.
1:19:33
I've never done that before. I don't have that where I'm
1:19:35
from. So I am big city.
1:19:37
You know, I am just I'm happy. I I'm happy to be alive.
1:19:41
There was nothing that you could have told me in that moment to
1:19:44
take the smile off my face. So and I walked to this
1:19:47
interview. I got my business suit on.
1:19:49
I got I got my heels in my hand because I wore tennis shoes
1:19:52
because it was a lot of walking. I get in there.
1:19:55
I know they're going to hire me because I had made a decision
1:19:59
that my life was about to start over.
1:20:01
And I get in there and I'm in this interview and it's going
1:20:05
well in this guy. He's in a suit and a tie and I
1:20:09
interrupt the interview. I said I just need to interrupt
1:20:13
this interview because I want to be honest with you about who I
1:20:15
am. He was like, OK.
1:20:19
And I said, I just got out of a maximum security federal prison.
1:20:22
I was a drug dealer, a drug addict, and I'm not that person
1:20:24
anymore. And I'm going to make somebody a
1:20:26
lot of money. And I said nothing else.
1:20:30
His, he's looking at me and his mouth like his mouth is closed
1:20:34
and it's like he don't know what to say.
1:20:39
I definitely don't know what to say because I'm
1:20:41
institutionalized. I just got out of a maximum
1:20:43
security federal prison. And so he finally breaks the
1:20:45
silence and he said, holy shit, I wasn't expecting that.
1:20:49
And so we laugh and he was like, let me talk to the owner of the
1:20:53
company, call me tomorrow at this time.
1:20:56
And they hired me and I started on February 22nd, 2010, which is
1:21:01
Madison's birthday. And six months later, I was on
1:21:05
federal probation, traveling the country, opening up offices for
1:21:08
that company, training people on how to sell over the phone.
1:21:12
Wow. Yes.
1:21:16
Yeah, when you, when you told me that earlier, I, you know, we
1:21:22
were on the phone, I that you had had success back early on
1:21:27
with the the whole telemarketing thing.
1:21:30
So now that you're doing this, what?
1:21:32
What's going on in the rest of your world?
1:21:35
So initially I was still in the halfway house.
1:21:38
So I'm just, you know, riding the bus, riding the train, all
1:21:41
that going back and forth. So there wasn't a lot going on
1:21:44
initially. And once I got released from the
1:21:47
halfway house, I'm living in Cartersville with my mom, and
1:21:53
she had this car that she let me drive.
1:21:56
It was this Mirage. It was the ugliest color, like
1:21:59
teal, fadish green that you could possibly imagine.
1:22:03
And it had no air conditioning. OK.
1:22:07
I would get up in the morning and I would drive.
1:22:09
So just for reference for the people that are watching from
1:22:11
Cartersville to East Atlanta with no traffic, it's about an
1:22:15
hour and 20 minutes. So I would get up at 5:00 in the
1:22:18
morning and I would drive in before traffic and by the time I
1:22:22
would get off at 5:00 in the evening, it's burning up hot and
1:22:27
there is traffic and it would take me sometimes 2 hours to get
1:22:31
home. So I've got all the windows down
1:22:34
in this car and I am just sweltering.
1:22:36
I'm like sweating my makeup off, sweating my hair out.
1:22:41
By the time I get to like Cherokee County, Georgia, where
1:22:46
the traffic opens up and I've got about 35 minutes left to go,
1:22:50
the wind is just blowing now, my soaking sweat hair.
1:22:54
So by the time I get home, my hair is just, it's everywhere.
1:22:58
I'm hot. I'm mad and my mom cannot
1:23:02
understand why I come home and I don't want to say anything.
1:23:06
And she's also not understanding that I'm also institutionalized
1:23:11
still. Like I've not lived a normal
1:23:14
life ever and as an adult. And so I'm trying to regain my
1:23:21
footing. I'm trying to figure out who I
1:23:23
am. I've got all these thoughts and
1:23:25
all these emotions I'm dealing with.
1:23:27
I'm still going away somewhere in my mind sometimes staring
1:23:31
off, not having much to say in conversation.
1:23:34
I don't want to sit in a restaurant once I'm done eating.
1:23:37
I want the check and I want to leave.
1:23:39
I don't want to just sit there. I'm programmed.
1:23:42
And she doesn't understand that. And she was like, why aren't you
1:23:45
talking? I was like, I'm hot and I'm mad
1:23:49
and I'm institutionalized and I'm having a heat stroke every
1:23:52
day when I come home. And so the owner of the company
1:23:58
ends up giving me the money to buy a car.
1:24:02
He loans it to me, and I pay it back out of my bonus check every
1:24:05
month. And so that solved that problem.
1:24:09
And eventually I ended up getting an apartment.
1:24:12
I move out of my mom's house. I'm living in Atlanta and I'm
1:24:15
doing well. I'm traveling for the, you know,
1:24:18
for the company and they're paying for everything and you
1:24:21
know, I'm winning these sales trips.
1:24:23
My life was amazing and I'm making at this point, I mean,
1:24:27
six months out of out of federal prison, I was making $75,000 a
1:24:31
year. By this time a couple years
1:24:33
later, I'm well into 150,000 and now I'm to a point where in that
1:24:42
first year actually I was desperate to talk to Madison
1:24:46
because they still were not letting me communicate with her.
1:24:48
So I hire an attorney. They end up allowing her to come
1:24:54
supervise to Georgia for six weeks.
1:24:56
I ended up sending her home early because after about the
1:24:59
first week she hated me and she had been just poisoned against
1:25:02
me in the worst way. And so she ends up going back
1:25:06
when this all happened. At that point she was 6.
1:25:15
OK. She was six years old and I lost
1:25:18
custody of her at 3:00 and everything that I did at that
1:25:24
point in my life was for the betterment of me, but also with
1:25:28
the end goal of getting her back.
1:25:30
I wanted her back and I knew that I was going to fight for
1:25:33
her at some point. So my life continues to get more
1:25:37
and more successful. I end up an opportunity comes
1:25:42
for me to fight custody for her, and I did not feel like I was
1:25:46
ready in that time. But I'm a firm believer that
1:25:49
when the door opens, you walk through it, and I had also asked
1:25:52
for it. So I walk through that door and
1:25:54
I fight for her. And I spent every dollar that I
1:25:57
had saved in my bank account fighting for custody of her and
1:26:00
I won. And at that point, she had been
1:26:03
staying with me temporarily for six months.
1:26:07
And when I came home and I told her, the judge decided that
1:26:13
you're going to be staying here with me.
1:26:15
I mean, she looked at me with the most disgusted look that she
1:26:19
could fathom at that little young age.
1:26:21
And she said, I can't believe that my dad let this happen.
1:26:24
And I went in my closet and I just had to cry because that was
1:26:28
not what I imagined the reunification of my family
1:26:31
looking like. We went to therapy, therapist
1:26:34
quit on us. And I parented from guilt for
1:26:39
the first year and a half. I was patient, I overgave, I
1:26:42
overbought. I did all the things.
1:26:44
And during that time, I was struggling financially because I
1:26:49
was still paying back child support there and I was having
1:26:52
to pay to put her in camp while she was there for me, you know,
1:26:56
with that summer. And I didn't know at times how I
1:26:58
was going to afford to feed her, but I just held on to the fact
1:27:04
that I believed that this was what was right for her based on
1:27:08
some circumstances that were going on.
1:27:10
And an opportunity presented itself for me to get the manager
1:27:15
position of the Atlanta office. And I ended up getting that in
1:27:19
my first month Commission check. I made $17,000 on top of my
1:27:26
$100,000 salary at that point. And through the difficulty of my
1:27:35
relationship with her and how hard it was sometimes to go home
1:27:39
to that environment, my work and my career became my outlet.
1:27:45
And so I made more money and I became more successful.
1:27:49
And I, you know, and I stayed on that path and I stayed on that
1:27:52
track. And eventually I ended up, I
1:27:55
stayed with that company for 8 1/2 years.
1:27:58
Eventually I left there and I got into fintech and same thing
1:28:04
there. I hit the ground running,
1:28:07
outsold the whole company, managed 2 teams on their
1:28:10
leadership team, and I just knew that there was something more
1:28:14
for me than that. I knew that I was called to
1:28:16
Prison Reform. I knew that I had a heart for
1:28:19
people coming out of incarceration.
1:28:20
I knew that I had been on a path that maybe not even 1% of people
1:28:26
will ever see coming out of incarceration.
1:28:29
And I wasn't ignorant to the fact that what I look like and
1:28:33
what I sound like contributed to that.
1:28:38
Yeah, I. Know, I think the other thing,
1:28:40
Jennifer, that that plays into all that is, is that each and
1:28:43
every step that you were taking was working and you were getting
1:28:47
better and you were getting even more confidence, which might
1:28:50
take us all the way back to that solitary confinement that you
1:28:53
conquered that. Yeah, but you walked into these
1:28:55
places and you just led and you just performed and you just were
1:28:59
doing better than everyone else. So yeah, you you get to that
1:29:03
point with the job and you're like, I've, I've got a another
1:29:09
passion. How?
1:29:10
How does this all like? How do you wrap your mind around
1:29:13
all of it? You know, I was going into work
1:29:16
every day. I'm managing these college
1:29:18
educated kids that had never experienced one ounce of hard
1:29:22
days that I had. And I was frustrated because I
1:29:26
knew tons of people who were desperate to sit in that seat,
1:29:33
but that company would not hire them.
1:29:34
I was the exception. And so I go home and I start
1:29:41
brainstorming one week and I'm like, what is it that I'm
1:29:43
passionate about? And it's women coming out of
1:29:46
prison. What is it that I'm good at?
1:29:48
And it's selling over the phone. How can I marry these two things
1:29:51
to create an opportunity for other women and women that I can
1:29:57
help? I can help help them get custody
1:29:59
of their kids back and I help them find housing.
1:30:01
I can teach them how to sell, Like, how can I do that?
1:30:04
And so I came up with National Association of Women's Prison
1:30:07
Reform. It's going to be a call center.
1:30:09
We're going to do advertising. I developed this advertising
1:30:12
product, but I knew I was going to need funding to do that.
1:30:15
So I go to one of the founders of cabbage.
1:30:18
She's the one that actually hired me.
1:30:19
She knew my story and I tell her I'm starting this company.
1:30:24
Is there any advice? And she was like, my gosh,
1:30:26
Jennifer, you don't need advice for me.
1:30:28
You have been through more things in your life than I could
1:30:30
ever even think of going through.
1:30:31
But if there's anything that I could do to help, please let me
1:30:34
know. Well, in the midst of my tenure
1:30:38
at Cabbage, when I first started there, I left a $200,000 a year
1:30:42
lifestyle at Benchcraft, which is what I was making there to a
1:30:45
30 no $32,000 a year salary. A cabbage.
1:30:49
I'm broke because I my lifestyle matches my previous career.
1:30:54
So I am blowing out of the water.
1:30:57
I'm hitting my quota. And so I'm like, have y'all
1:30:59
tried a cold call? And they're like, yeah, it
1:31:00
doesn't work. And I'm like, let me try it.
1:31:02
So they're like, well, you can try it, but it doesn't work.
1:31:04
First person I get on the phone, he answers, I get him to
1:31:08
qualify, he pulls the loan. They're like, how did you do
1:31:11
that? Was like, this is all I've ever
1:31:12
done. And so they come back to me with
1:31:16
a, with a challenge basically. And they're like, OK, we've got
1:31:19
an opportunity. You guys still got to hit your
1:31:20
quota. We're going to give you $500.00
1:31:24
for every lead that you call that you get to qualify.
1:31:27
They don't have to pull the money.
1:31:28
I was like, oh, say less. I think they ended up paying me
1:31:30
$15,000 that month and then they took the deal back, but they
1:31:35
built a cold call team and it failed and then they outsourced
1:31:39
it and it failed. And I got to thinking about
1:31:42
that. The only reason that y'all did
1:31:44
that is because you believe that it would work and you believe
1:31:46
that it would work because of me.
1:31:48
So I go to back to Catherine and I say all that and before I can
1:31:51
even ask her, she says yes, we'll give you a contract.
1:31:54
So they contracted my company, I'm hiring the women that they
1:31:59
can't hire or won't hire. And now I've got this call
1:32:03
center of women coming out of incarceration and we're calling
1:32:06
for this fintech product and we're qualifying loans for them.
1:32:10
And they knocked it out of the park.
1:32:13
So now I'm bringing the advertising room.
1:32:15
So now I've got this room running.
1:32:17
I've got this room running. We've got a bathtub walk in
1:32:20
bathtub contract. We have a voice over IP contract
1:32:23
and it's so much purpose, so much passion, so much I knew
1:32:29
that this is what I was made to do.
1:32:31
I'm speaking now inside of prisons.
1:32:34
I'm working with the Department of Justice, speaking to, you
1:32:36
know, disadvantaged youth and troubled kids.
1:32:39
And we're set to make $1,000,000 that year with how everything
1:32:46
was going. And then COVID happens and shut
1:32:49
us completely down. And when that happened, it just
1:32:54
took the wind out of my sails for a second because I.
1:32:58
Have a lot of people. Man, I knew that I was called to
1:33:02
this. I knew that this is what I was
1:33:04
supposed to do and we were on such a good run.
1:33:06
And how is it that we've went this far and this is how it's
1:33:09
just going to end? You know, cabbage cuts our
1:33:11
contract because they didn't secure funding for the year.
1:33:15
And so now I began to brainstorm and I bring the company back as
1:33:19
a national advertising company because I knew that was a good
1:33:21
product, but it was only in Georgia.
1:33:23
So. So because it's COVID and it's
1:33:25
shut down, it's a real estate agent product.
1:33:28
Realtors are at home. They're not out working because
1:33:30
the whole world's scared to death.
1:33:32
So now they're picking up their phones.
1:33:34
We come back with 60 new contracts.
1:33:36
I've got all these new hires. We start on a Wednesday and
1:33:39
Saturday, Madison wakes up at 16 years old, deathly ill, and she
1:33:44
ends up having a ruptured brain aneurysm.
1:33:49
So now here we are in Emory Nero ICU.
1:33:51
She's fighting for her life. And I have this company over
1:33:57
here that I've just started back and I couldn't bring.
1:34:00
I didn't have the heart to cut it out to just stop it at that
1:34:03
point because I didn't I didn't want to leave these women high
1:34:06
and dry. So the company is still running.
1:34:10
One of my reps stood up and, you know, took a step up and she's
1:34:13
kind of running the day-to-day in the office.
1:34:14
I'm here with Madison. I'm watching her for her life.
1:34:17
It does not look like she's going to live.
1:34:20
And they come in there and they wake me up the first night that
1:34:26
I finally went to sleep. It was the third night that we
1:34:27
were in there. And they say she's showing signs
1:34:30
of a stroke. Had she had a stroke, it would
1:34:33
have killed her or she would have been a vegetable for the
1:34:35
rest of her life. They rush her out.
1:34:36
I'd go in that room. I slam the door and I scream at
1:34:39
God as loud as I could. Why are you doing this?
1:34:42
I've had enough. Because at that point, our lives
1:34:46
had been, it was just too much. It was too much.
1:34:49
And at this point, like, you can't tell me that all of this
1:34:53
that we've been through, it's going to come down to this final
1:34:57
moment. And they bring her back in and
1:35:00
the signs of the stroke are gone.
1:35:02
And she was normal for where we were in that moment.
1:35:04
And I'm holding her hand and she asked me am I going to die?
1:35:10
And I couldn't honestly tell her no.
1:35:12
And of course I lied and said no but I didn't even believe the no
1:35:16
myself because it looked like she was going to.
1:35:18
And I went and I FaceTime my mom.
1:35:21
It was like 4:00 in the morning. I'm crying.
1:35:22
And I said, if she dies in this hospital bed before I ever got
1:35:30
the chance to really know her, I will die with her.
1:35:35
And my mom was like, you can't you have another child you have
1:35:37
to live for? You have got to get it together.
1:35:40
You have to be strong for her. And up to that point, Brent, all
1:35:46
we could see was each other's pain.
1:35:49
Our backs were always against each other.
1:35:51
It didn't matter what we did. It didn't matter how far we
1:35:54
come. We never could just be and in
1:35:59
that moment, because it the fracture was too deep of a
1:36:02
wound, nobody could fix it. It had to be spiritual.
1:36:09
When your fate looking at death in the face, nothing else
1:36:13
matters in that moment. And I put my guard down and I
1:36:17
put my guilt down and I put my shame down and and my anger.
1:36:21
And she did the same thing. And for six weeks, I got to know
1:36:24
my daughter in a way that some parents may never know their
1:36:28
children. And after six weeks of watching
1:36:32
her fight for her life and almost not making it over and
1:36:36
over and over again, we walked out of that hospital.
1:36:38
And it was as if I had never spent a day without her.
1:36:43
And so that word that was given to me from Katie Souza inside of
1:36:49
federal prison, it took eleven years for that word to come to
1:36:56
fruition, but it did. And we walked out of that
1:37:00
hospital. And you would have thought that
1:37:03
that would just be, that's the end of this happy story.
1:37:06
But it's not. Because now I'm scared to death
1:37:11
that I'm going to walk in and find her dead in her bed.
1:37:15
My son is 4 and he is terrorized because I just disappeared out
1:37:21
of his life all of a sudden and he had never been away from me
1:37:23
more than one or two nights. So now if I leave the room, he's
1:37:28
having a scream and crying meltdown because he think I'm,
1:37:30
he thinks I'm just going to, he's not going to see me again.
1:37:34
And so we're going through all of these things and it was just
1:37:36
a lot, a lot, a lot. And I end up finding out that
1:37:41
I'm pregnant again. And it was not the best timing,
1:37:45
but I always wanted one more child and I always wanted one
1:37:48
more son. And it was a boy.
1:37:50
And it gave me kind of something to be hopeful about and to take
1:37:55
my attention off of all of these other things in the moment.
1:37:58
And I ended up losing the baby at 13 weeks pregnant.
1:38:02
And they gave me a medication to take at home to force my body to
1:38:06
release the child. And I hemorrhaged from that and
1:38:13
drove myself to the hospital and I'm hemorrhaging blood.
1:38:18
I just step out of the car and it was as if somebody had took a
1:38:21
5 gallon bucket of blood and dumped it on the ground.
1:38:23
They bring a wheelchair out, they whisk me in.
1:38:26
They've got a mask on me because it's still COVID times.
1:38:29
And when they put that mask on me, my blood pressure tanked and
1:38:32
my heart rate skyrocketed. I'm throwing up on myself and
1:38:35
I'm losing control of my bodily functions.
1:38:38
And they thought they were going to have to give me a blood
1:38:41
transfusion. And it was in that moment that I
1:38:43
had to really, like, look at my life and ask myself, did I know
1:38:50
me? If you stripped away Prison
1:38:54
Reform, if you stripped away the accolades, if you stripped away
1:38:57
my bank account, and if you stripped away the properties and
1:38:59
the cars and the nice things and, and the representative and
1:39:03
all this that I had built for myself, if you took all of that
1:39:06
away, did I know me? And the answer was no.
1:39:12
Couldn't tell you what brought me joy outside of work, making
1:39:16
money, my children. I couldn't tell you what my
1:39:19
hobbies were. I couldn't tell you what made me
1:39:22
happy. I didn't know me, and it was
1:39:25
because I was still ashamed to look at me.
1:39:31
I didn't, no matter what I had done back then and all the great
1:39:37
things that I had done at this point.
1:39:38
And I was doing Prison Reform and stuff inside of the women's
1:39:43
prisons, and I was hosting these parties every year for their
1:39:46
children. They hadn't seen their moms in
1:39:47
years. I had done great work, but I
1:39:50
still didn't feel worthy of the life that I was living.
1:39:54
And so it was in that moment that I decided to walk away from
1:39:57
everything. I walked away from Prison
1:40:00
Reform. I gave the women that still work
1:40:02
for me the ability to do that, what they were doing for me on
1:40:06
their own. You can go and work.
1:40:07
You can just do it. Do it for yourself.
1:40:09
This is how you set it up. This is how you run credit
1:40:11
cards. This is how you do all this.
1:40:13
And I went on a spiritual journey.
1:40:15
And in that spiritual journey, it was I was searching, I needed
1:40:20
to to find me, but I also needed to find God because I still
1:40:25
struggled. No matter the miracles that I
1:40:27
had witnessed and experienced in my own personal life, I still
1:40:31
didn't believe that I was good. And because I didn't believe
1:40:34
that I was good, I, I struggle with is God good?
1:40:38
Because there were still some things that I experienced in my
1:40:40
life as a child that I should have never had to experience.
1:40:44
And where was God at in those moments?
1:40:48
And so I went in search of that and I did these journeys and I
1:40:54
meditated and I sat with myself again.
1:40:56
And I and I found out who I was and I met God in the midst of
1:41:03
that. And I sat in the presence of
1:41:06
God. And I'm at 37 years old and I
1:41:08
realized for the first time that no matter what I had done in my
1:41:11
life, that I was a marvelous person.
1:41:16
That all of that stuff that I went through, I went through it
1:41:20
to become who I am today. So that I can sit in front of
1:41:23
other people and say, it doesn't matter what you've done.
1:41:27
It doesn't matter who you used to be.
1:41:31
You can literally walk away from all of that and make a choice to
1:41:36
show up as something different. And through all of that, that is
1:41:44
what I found. That is really something
1:41:47
Jennifer, I mean, what, what a what a journey you've been on
1:41:51
because you've been in every different type of facet there is
1:41:55
from rock bottom to getting out, getting confidence back business
1:41:59
wise, you know, leading, you know, growth and all this and
1:42:03
getting your your daughter back, getting the relationship, almost
1:42:07
losing her. I mean, this is like a roller
1:42:10
coaster ride of life. And then for you to finally say
1:42:12
that you are comfortable with yourself and that all is kind of
1:42:18
washed away from you. Feel good about yourself, which
1:42:22
is huge. Yeah.
1:42:24
What do you think out of all this is your biggest take away
1:42:28
from this roller coaster ride journey?
1:42:31
You know, for me, I believe that I came to this life and I chose
1:42:38
to go through all of that and experience it so that I could
1:42:44
one day wake up to enlightenment and who I really am.
1:42:50
Not just to heal me, but to facilitate other people to heal,
1:42:56
to heal some things generally, generationally in my family that
1:43:00
have been passed down and down and down and down.
1:43:05
And I just happened to be the person that was brave enough to
1:43:09
go to hell and dig my way out of it so that I could be strong
1:43:17
enough to sit on this podcast today and say, you know what?
1:43:21
All of that ends with me. That cup that I drank from as a
1:43:27
child that was forced upon me. My children will never drink
1:43:33
from that cup. And after I went through all of
1:43:37
that, I went and got certified and now I take people on
1:43:42
spiritual journeys and I'm a like, you know, spiritual life
1:43:46
coach and I do one-on-one mentoring.
1:43:48
And I've had people come to me from seeing me on podcasts and
1:43:51
active addiction and they give it up.
1:43:59
They give it up, they give up their addiction and they find
1:44:02
themselves and they're on the path and they're on a path of
1:44:05
purpose and finding them. And all it takes sometimes is to
1:44:08
sit in front of somebody and know that if they did it, I can
1:44:14
do it too. And so it's.
1:44:16
Such a big deal. It is.
1:44:19
And if it took me going through all of that to give one person
1:44:25
hope, for one person to say I've experienced some of the things
1:44:32
that she's experienced, I may be experiencing them now, but I
1:44:36
know if she can do it, I can do it too.
1:44:41
Because all it takes is a belief in yourself that no matter what
1:44:47
it is that I've done, no matter where I'm trying to go, there is
1:44:50
nothing that can stop me from getting there.
1:44:54
Nothing. It's you versus you.
1:44:57
That's it. Yeah, yeah.
1:44:59
And I have breakfast too, in myself, yes.
1:45:05
The you within, which is a great title because it is the you
1:45:10
within. And if you believe the you
1:45:12
within, then then hope and action can can actually conquer
1:45:17
just about anything that you can imagine, which I can see why,
1:45:22
Jennifer, when you sit down with people knowing that you've
1:45:27
walked the walk and know all the angles that you've been at that
1:45:32
somebody else can believe and have hope and then take action.
1:45:35
And that's that's, you know, the magic ingredients, I guess, to
1:45:39
to helping people is, is having them believe in themselves
1:45:42
again, but they have to believe that somebody else did it, which
1:45:46
I think is just it's an incredible story, an incredible
1:45:49
journey. Again, I want to say that the
1:45:53
book is the the you within. I'm assuming you get that Amazon
1:45:58
anywhere where you get your books?
1:45:59
Amazon the website is EU within also right?
1:46:03
So I do have EU within website. I also have another website
1:46:08
which is Fill your cup dot club or.
1:46:11
Your cup dot what? Fill your cup dot club.
1:46:15
Fill your cup dot club. Yep.
1:46:17
OK, great. And I want to I want to give a
1:46:21
shout out to Homestead Financial Lists.
1:46:23
We use this podcast room and all the fancy lights.
1:46:25
If you got home mortgage needs out there, Greg Afdev is your
1:46:28
guy. He knows all that stuff.
1:46:31
When you're checking out the You within, go ahead and get
1:46:33
Nightmare Success. My book.
1:46:36
They're both there. And if you got time, leave me a
1:46:40
review on Apple. Those things are so great to
1:46:42
read and I love it when people do that.
1:46:44
You want to check me out, go to brentcassidy.com.
1:46:46
I spell it wrong. I spell it with ATY, not a DY as
1:46:49
they say to my people when I was writing my emails back from
1:46:52
Levin where stay strong. I'll do the same, Jennifer.
1:46:58
Well, Jennifer Rogers has a story and it is a story that
1:47:01
will stick with you for sure. It's it's, it's one that that
1:47:05
just hits and I appreciate you sharing it with us today.
1:47:09
Yeah, no. Thank you so much for having me
1:47:12
on. And you know, listen, if you
1:47:13
guys, if you're going through it, just keep going, keep
1:47:16
moving, keep moving forward. You're going through hell.
1:47:20
Just keep. Moving just keep moving yes yeah
1:47:23
no darkness no darkness can outshine the light that you have
1:47:27
within you none I love it you just got to have reckless faith
1:47:32
in yourself yes have reckless faith in you because if you
1:47:35
don't have reckless faith in you, who else is no one that's.
1:47:40
Right. Nightmare success in and out.
1:47:43
Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate it.