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"My Life is Over" but it wasn't: The Tanya Pierce Story · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:01
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
0:04
Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
0:07
Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
0:11
nightmares that set yourself free.
0:13
We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
0:15
Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
0:20
These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
0:24
humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
0:27
something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
0:29
built up in your own mind. All right, welcome back
0:34
nightmare success in and out. Listeners, This is where you
0:36
come from. What happens when your worst
0:38
fear becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
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overcome? Set yourself free, folks.
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Don't forget to subscribe, share this thing out, like it up.
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It really helps the show. I just want to say I've got a, a
0:54
guest here today. We're part of the white collar
0:56
support group that Jeff Grant, who's both a friend of of Tanya
1:01
Pearce's and mine. And we do it every Monday night.
1:05
And Tanya was on the other night and I thought I just, I need to
1:09
ask her to be on. She'd be a great guest and she
1:12
she agreed. She's got a, she's got an
1:15
incredible story. She spent 25 years in the real
1:19
estate business, real estate world.
1:23
She did 20 months in prison in the federal system.
1:27
And then she got out and she found out it's real hard in re
1:31
entry. It's a, it's a tough, tough
1:32
world. And instead of just letting that
1:35
be, she became an advocate. She founded a nonprofit company
1:40
called Unbolted that helps people, especially federal
1:44
people returning home through the things that they need and,
1:49
and helps them walk through the things that they're looking for
1:52
that'll help them. She's a big vocal voice for
1:56
restitution and it's one of the things I want to talk to her
1:58
about because hardly anybody talks about it 'cause they're
2:00
scared to talk about it. But I can't wait to jump into
2:04
all this with Tanya today. Before we do, I want to
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Tell them, Brent, for Nightmare Success sent to you.
2:44
Tanya Pierce, welcome in. How are you?
2:48
Good, Brent. I'm glad to be here.
2:50
Thank you. Thank you for the invite.
2:52
Thank you to the. Listeners, thank you everyone.
2:55
I'm glad you're here. Your dad?
2:57
Yeah, we're in Missouri. You're down in Arkansas.
3:00
So we're not that far away from each other.
3:01
So welcome to the Midwest. So Tanya, maybe the best thing
3:09
is, is to kind of go back a little ways to take us back,
3:12
take the audience back of where are you from, mom and dad,
3:17
siblings, what life was like for you growing up?
3:20
Well, I was, I was raised, I was raised in North Carolina.
3:24
I came to New York at 16 and I went to John Jay College in New
3:31
York, you know, started my life, went to college, normal life,
3:38
found out that there was something, I'm, I'm going to
3:41
share my age here without sharing my age.
3:44
There was something called HIV and AIDS that I grew up in that
3:49
era. 80s. Yes, and I saw people in my
3:53
family and people that were close to me past and I noticed
3:57
that they didn't have housing options, people straight away
4:01
from them. So when I got out of college, I
4:05
decided that I wanted to help people living with AIDS have
4:10
housing and permanent housing. So I decided with my godfather,
4:15
who was a retired detective, we would buy properties in Brooklyn
4:19
and fix them up and give them to people who were living with
4:23
AIDS. And then also people who just
4:26
couldn't afford to have their own housing without credit
4:30
checks at that time. So that's how I got into real
4:33
estate. My, you know, grandmother owned
4:35
buildings in Bed Stuy as I was growing up.
4:38
So I had knew about properties. But as far as my commitment to
4:43
helping people, and that's where we will speed up my career.
4:48
I, I work for nonprofit organizations and then I left to
4:52
start this housing initiative with my godfather buying
4:55
properties, speed up a few years.
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I had an attorney who was my Co defended.
5:03
I was always a buyer and fixing properties.
5:05
I never did loans or knew anything.
5:08
I contacted for my attorney said, oh, Tanya, there's a
5:11
property that would fit your family's portfolio.
5:14
This is how much you need. This is the application.
5:17
And, you know, this is the process.
5:19
I shouldn't say application, This is the process.
5:21
OK, no problem. Share my godfather.
5:23
We buy the property, speed up. Years later, my godfather dies
5:27
of a heart attack in 2000 and nine, 2012, I get a knock at the
5:33
door from the US Attorney's office of Manhattan.
5:38
I've been indicted for conspiracy to commit bank fraud,
5:43
wire fraud, you know. Was this like Tanya?
5:48
Did this just come as a complete shock knock at the door?
5:52
From a complete shock out of nowhere to me.
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And I was like, well, OK, And like, really, really.
6:02
What does that mean? Like I, I didn't do loans.
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I, I, I didn't know about loans. I mean, my attorney, he's the Co
6:09
defendant. I'm like, hey, you know, did I
6:11
sign something or do something that I wasn't supposed to or,
6:15
you know, fix it? I mean.
6:18
Right fix this. I I don't know.
6:20
I fix it. Yeah, like, you know, I do
6:24
properties, I help people have housing options that couldn't
6:29
afford it. I don't do, I don't do anything
6:32
else. So lo and behold, down comes we
6:37
had the first indictment that got dismissed and they came with
6:41
a superseded indictment and we went through three tiers of
6:45
superseding indictments. So we got to the S3 and that
6:50
that May of the S3. The judge didn't allow us to
6:55
defend it. The judge made us go to trial in
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July. So we had like 8 weeks.
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So I'm still like, OK. And I'm I'm in mind you all of
7:05
this for me is out of pocket with lawyers disappointing me.
7:10
Lawyers get my retainer cursing me out, lawyers calling me all
7:16
sorts of liars. So I didn't need anything else
7:20
from the Department of Justice. I was already called everything
7:23
in with the people who was supposed to be protected.
7:26
Representing you, I, I got to ask you though, Tanya, because
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it's in a federal case, it's always unusual because you know,
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97% of the people that get indicted, they end up plea
7:38
bargaining out and you didn't, was that always your path
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forward that you were going to trial?
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Well, yes, because I had understood enough, because I did
7:52
have ABA in criminal justice. I understood enough about white
7:56
collar that your imprisonment had to do with the dollar amount
8:02
that you stole or that the government proved that you
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stole. So when I'm going through my
8:08
trial and I'm looking at the indictment, I'm like, well, you
8:12
saying that I ripped off Fremont Loan, you saying I ripped off
8:17
Long Beach, and you're saying that I rob Wamu now even though
8:22
I didn't have anything to do with those loans, those losses
8:27
were 0MM. Hmm.
8:29
So even if you convict me, the amount of loss is 0.
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So even if you convict me, I'm looking at zero to six months.
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But I'm also thinking about are they really going to take me to
8:44
trial and waste the taxpayers money taking me to trial for a
8:49
case that is at most 0? So that's, that's my logic.
8:58
You know, I had understood, you know, Anton Scalia said that the
9:01
feds can indict a ham sandwich and that they can do what they
9:04
want. But that was never my thought.
9:07
The only thing I wasn't off. Well, I, I, I don't want to, I
9:10
don't want to just gloss over that what you just said, Tanya,
9:13
because in the federal system, when they do an indictment and
9:17
they take it to a grand jury, a lot of people assume that in a
9:21
grand jury that the prosecutor presents his charges and then
9:26
the defense defends those charges.
9:29
That's not what happens in a grand jury.
9:31
It's only the prosecutor that presents their charges and they
9:34
decide if that can be done or not.
9:36
That's why they say you can indict a ham sandwich, because
9:38
the other side is not presented at all.
9:40
Correct. So I just went with the lost
9:44
amount and I said, you know, evidently I was already
9:48
traumatized from attorneys and really treated harshly by my
9:54
legal, by my legal staff. I have four sets of different
9:57
attorneys. And then to, to, to cap it, when
10:03
I got to trial, my attorney did not do anything that he said he
10:08
would do. He would call witnesses, he
10:10
would find bank experts, he would do this.
10:13
He would do this. And he told me that every day
10:15
that we leave this trial for this $150,000 trial fee, which
10:21
lasted 3 weeks, every day we leave, we're going to have a
10:24
strategy and come back tomorrow and hit them hard.
10:27
Well, I learned every day at 5:00 when we left 500 Pearl St.,
10:32
he went home and I went home and the only thing I could do was
10:38
brace for what was going to happen to me.
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Now I went to trial without letting a family member in my
10:47
family know that I was in trial for three weeks.
10:50
Oh my gosh, Tonya, how did you do that?
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How? How did you how did you
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accomplish that feat? You know it through stress and I
11:01
had and I had a son that was one years old, OK.
11:04
And I was lying like I was going to work, but I was going to
11:08
trial. And even at the last second, my
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attorney looks at me and says, I need you to testify today.
11:16
You didn't prep me. We didn't do anything.
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And then he gets into a verbal altercation with me in the
11:22
courtroom. And then the judge says that if
11:26
I was high, I wouldn't testify. So this was really a kangaroo
11:32
courtroom that I was faced in troubled with.
11:37
Wow. So this is a three-week trial.
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Everything that you thought was going to happen, all the
11:43
strategies, everything that you hoped for didn't happen.
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You get into an argument with your attorney in front of
11:51
everyone and the judge says I wouldn't do it if I was you.
11:56
When it all is said and done, Tanya, what did you think there
12:02
was any hope of that jury going back into the room and saying I
12:07
think everything is OK, it's not guilty?
12:10
No, yeah, because for the simple fact of the three questions that
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I had going into this case that I told my attorney to have
12:19
answers for was the three questions that the jury asked.
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I'm a layperson from the community.
12:26
These are the questions and he did not answer peer, peer and
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answer for those questions. The only thing I could do is
12:34
what you know a semi normal person would do is when it all
12:39
came you just throw up and almost fall out because there's
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nothing else left. Completely deflated Completely.
12:48
And yet. So what happens?
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I mean, you know, a lot of people don't go to trial.
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You're sitting there. I mean, people see it on TV, in
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the movies. The jury walks back in.
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Could you tell, could you tell by the looks on their faces that
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it wasn't going your way? Oh, I I knew it wasn't going my
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way while it was gone because I didn't have a defense.
13:13
My Co defendant, who he was the attorney, his lawyers didn't
13:18
have a defense for him. It surely wasn't going to be a
13:21
defense for me when I'm a collateral to him.
13:24
This was his case and I'm his Co defendant.
13:29
If the lead attorney in the lead didn't have anything, surely
13:33
this person here didn't have anything.
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I didn't have an answer to the to the US Attorney's questions
13:40
for anything. So they come in, they say
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guilty. Yes.
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What is your What goes in in your world, in your mind, with
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all that surrounding you? Well, he had at least said to me
13:55
that, oh, if when they find you guilty, you're not going to go
13:58
to prison today. You're going to be sentenced and
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you're going to be remained on bond.
14:04
So the only thing I did was just brace for that. the US Marshals
14:10
did come and take my Co defendant and I just braced
14:13
myself for today. And then I started to prepare
14:19
myself for, you know, probation because this is a white collar.
14:26
There's no money lost. I can't go to jail if I'm
14:29
convicted of robbing 3 people or three entities that already
14:35
submitted documents that they had no loss.
14:38
Right, right. So this is so so.
14:42
What happened? What happened?
14:44
So about about maybe 6-7 months later.
14:49
OK. We now the US Attorney now turns
14:53
and comes up with something called relevant conduct.
14:56
OK. And then of course, that team of
15:01
lawyers that I have for my trial conveniently gets off the case.
15:07
Now I'm penniless and have to go to CJA.
15:10
They pick up the case to do nothing and now I'm saddled with
15:16
the restitution and this relevant conduct and I'm like,
15:20
how is this possible? Where is the documentation to
15:25
support that this money was actually taken, whether it be by
15:29
the Co defendant or myself? Where is real documentation that
15:34
shows that dollar A went to dollar B?
15:38
None of it. Absolutely none of it.
15:43
Is this also when you got sentenced for the time?
15:48
I had, I had, I had already, I had already yes, yes, because
15:54
now the sentence comes because of this, this money amount,
15:58
these ghost numbers. So now I'm a level 27 and I'm
16:03
like, wait a minute, I supposed to be like a level 7 and I look
16:07
and that's when it hit me. A level 27, you're facing 78 to
16:12
84 months and then that's when I said my life is over, my life is
16:20
over. So what happens when that
16:26
happens? I I'll be, I'll be honest, a few
16:31
times I stopped in the middle of the George Washington Bridge to
16:34
just jump. But I had the one year old son,
16:38
Yeah. Now what?
16:40
I mean, there's all kinds. Of things that go through.
16:42
Your mind when you think everything's out of control.
16:45
So Tanya, you, you get this, this, they lay it down.
16:50
You, you, you're, you're given the bad news and you tell me
16:55
that you're thinking about going and jumping off the George
16:58
Washington Bridge. What?
17:01
How did you how did you step forward?
17:04
I thought. I thought about my I thought
17:06
about my small son. I thought about I had just lost
17:11
everything and I couldn't be another burden on my family.
17:17
Because now even if I fly off the bridge, that's a course to
17:22
my family, not only, you know, emotionally, but financially.
17:27
And we're completely wiped out. Yeah, yeah.
17:30
We're, we're completely, we're completely wiped out.
17:36
So when you end up getting your place, the prison, the federal
17:42
prison you're supposed to go to, was it in close proximity to you
17:45
or was it a long ways away? It was as close as a woman's
17:49
facility gets to New York. Danbury myself surrendered on
17:55
August 17th of 2015. It was I had to go to the camp.
18:03
I actually thought the camp, you know, they process you the most
18:09
degraded thing in the entire world.
18:11
And that's why I freely speak today because I say, listen,
18:15
there's nothing more degraded than coughing and squatting for
18:19
a complete stranger. There's nothing more degraded
18:24
than that process of being stripped really to nothing.
18:29
We. Oh, I would agree.
18:30
It's, it's, it's, and I almost feel like, and I've said this a
18:33
lot, is it you can feel the freedom like shutting off your
18:37
skin when you're being processed.
18:39
Yes, it's, it's like it's coming off of you, your freedom.
18:42
So if you if you have survived that and made it through the
18:48
walls, the food, you can survive anything.
18:55
And that's what, once I made it up the hill, I actually thought
18:59
that because when in Danbury, they give you your, your blanket
19:04
and the whatever that care package that they call and they
19:08
tell you to walk up the hill on your own to the camp.
19:12
So I'm like, OK, this is it now, because a firing squad must go
19:18
in to come and get me because how do I check myself into
19:21
prison? You give me this pillowcase full
19:24
of things and tell me to walk out and walk up the hill.
19:28
I'm like this. I'm like, I'm dead for sure now.
19:34
I'm like, God forgive me for all my sins.
19:37
Anyone. Any transgressions I have?
19:39
OK, yes. So I said, you know, you know,
19:42
forgive me for my transgressions.
19:43
And then I go up the hill and then I, you know, meet the women
19:48
in Danbury and be. Let's take a break right there
19:52
because I want to, I want to talk about how you walked into
19:55
that world, that unfamiliar world that you know that you're
19:59
not just going to be there for a week or a month.
20:01
You're going to be there for a while and how you adapted to it.
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And I just want to say that Nightmare Success is sponsored
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by the White Collar Support Group.
20:57
It's the world's first support group devoted to people
21:00
navigating the white collar criminal justice system.
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I'm a member of the White Collar Support Group, and I can tell
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You can join us on Zoom Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
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For more information, go to prisonness.org.
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It's prisonness.org. Start here.
21:28
So Tanya, you walk in to the world of Danbury and you tell
21:37
us, tell us what it was like walking into prison of some
21:40
place you never thought you'd be.
21:45
I was afraid I was humiliated. But the same time I was already
21:50
beaten down at at this particular junction, like I had
21:58
told my family when they dropped me off at Danbury.
22:01
I says, listen, don't drive in front of me, just back up and
22:06
back out of here because I don't even think I have the breath in
22:10
my body to take two more steps. And so going into the prison,
22:18
you know, people will come up to you.
22:21
I mean, let's face it, once you're there, you're no longer,
22:25
you know, black, white, rich, poor, any religion.
22:32
You are a person that's stepping into a place that's familiar to
22:36
the people that are there. And they know pretty much that
22:41
you have broken down. So you walk in there and, you
22:46
know, you hand your piece of paper and they assign you the
22:49
bed. And at that point I was just
22:57
afraid of everything, afraid of living, afraid of breathing,
23:02
afraid of speaking, afraid to not speak because you don't, you
23:07
don't know this environment. If someone say hello to you,
23:09
don't say hello back. Will they attack you?
23:12
So every fear from, you know, from my pinky toe to the top of
23:18
my head, every vertebrae, every vessel, everything in me was
23:23
completely mush. But I just helped myself.
23:31
So how did you start stepping through it?
23:32
How did you adapt what? How did you do your time while
23:35
you were in? Well, the, the way that I did my
23:39
time that I was there, which is something that I shared with the
23:44
warden a few, you know, months into my sentence where I told
23:50
the judge, I told the warden, the judge sent me here on a
23:54
staycation, not a vacation. And I'm here to stay until the
23:59
judge or whoever says I'm time for me to go.
24:02
And I just went there with that mentality.
24:06
I just listened a lot. I didn't engage at 1st.
24:11
And some of the people that I'm with, friends with today will
24:14
say that not one day for the 20 months that I was there did I
24:18
ever watch TV with general population.
24:23
After the last meal at 4:00 or 5:00, you never saw me.
24:27
I went back to the room and read the morning time.
24:30
I got up at the 6:00 count. I did my little workout and I
24:35
read. I didn't interact with much
24:38
people. But what I did learn was to knit
24:42
into crochet. OK, but there was a huge
24:45
programs. So let me tell you something.
24:49
My son and my family had the best knitted outfits, OK?
24:56
I still have a black. I'm matter of fact, I wore a
24:59
poncho that I made me the other day and shot some people.
25:04
OK. I like that.
25:07
You know, so I, I really took the time to think about myself,
25:13
what I was going through. But then at a point I did wake
25:17
up and say, and then I started to challenge the administration
25:20
around legal. They had switched to the
25:23
LexisNexis program, the law library inside the computer.
25:28
They didn't teach anyone. They didn't have classes for it.
25:31
It was just there if you go on it and blow your 13 cent a copy
25:37
printing out something that you didn't know, people were burning
25:40
through copy cards not knowing how to access it.
25:43
So I kept on the administration till one day the education
25:48
director just slammed me with the LexisNexis manual that they
25:52
received and said if you want to take this on, take it on and
25:55
leave me the hell alone. And that's what I did.
25:58
I read the manual, I learned how to use the system, I trained
26:02
other people how to use the system.
26:04
I opened up the legal secretary apprenticeship at the Danbury
26:07
camp and I believe that it's still going on today.
26:11
And after that, other women started receiving the 2000 hours
26:15
that are transferable with the Department of Labor to be legal
26:19
secretary apprentice. And that's what I did with the
26:23
time. I was angry majority of it.
26:29
But then at a point I had to start looking at no longer being
26:35
angry and start looking at the next chapter.
26:41
That's that's and doing something like that.
26:43
I think, you know, whenever you make that, that effort, when
26:49
you're trying to figure out how to get into adapting and then
26:56
you start helping people like you did Tanya, it, it feels
26:59
good. It almost feels like you're
27:02
you're, they haven't taken your brain, You know, they've taken
27:04
all these other things, but you're still able to be
27:06
yourself. And that I, I think that's such
27:08
a big deal when you're in prison is, is, is not to lose yourself
27:11
in there, not, not to become, you know, prison Tanya or prison
27:16
Brent. You still are yourself doing
27:17
things that you would do on the outside, even if you're in
27:21
prison. And those are things that you
27:22
would do on the outside, Tanya, because you are doing those
27:25
things helping people as you were before you were going in.
27:28
So you start getting close to your out date.
27:34
What are you thinking? OK, there's, there's, there's,
27:37
there's, there's a good side and that there's a good side to.
27:41
And I'm, I'm a proponent of both sides.
27:43
But I think for me, having video calls was a good thing.
27:50
But also it motivated me to want to get myself together and be
27:55
all that I can be. Because inside it was killing me
27:59
that I was watching my home situation change without me for
28:04
me going and missing to Christmas when I left.
28:09
You know, I'm I'm, I'm a girl from the South.
28:12
I'm used to the big Christmas trees and all of that live
28:15
trees. Year 2015, my family had the big
28:19
Christmas tree the same way I left things 2016 because
28:24
remember, we are on video. Seeing that they had a Charlie
28:28
Brown tree on there literally almost killed me because in a
28:33
way I'm watching life go on at home without me, but yet I'm
28:38
having family visits. I'm on these videos and I'm
28:42
living in almost like a dual world.
28:46
You know, I'm one way with my family visits, but it's killing
28:49
me that I'm here because life is changing without me.
28:53
And I says, Tanya, when the time you're gonna get out of here,
28:56
you have to bring those things back together because this
29:01
trauma is overtaking you. And I was keeping like a journal
29:06
that I end up trashing because it was filled with so much
29:09
bitter and anger as I watched the wall, my house, my family
29:13
changed without me that it, it scared me.
29:16
And I said, no, I can't go down that pipe.
29:20
I have to change. So as I now get the date, that's
29:24
what you're talking about the date that you're going home.
29:27
You find out, Oh, you know, you know, in the abyss because
29:32
probation have come to your house.
29:34
People have started talking, but the BOP doesn't give it.
29:38
But you know that you're on that that line.
29:40
Like when they going to give me halfway house.
29:43
This one got nine months. I'm I'm 7 1/2 months.
29:46
I could be called next month. Well, I ended up getting six
29:51
months halfway house, so I left out in April.
29:55
And as I got my date, which is always, you know, things happen
30:00
to me and in a very astute way. I'm on a visit.
30:05
Remember I'm always in jail seven days a week, 24/7.
30:10
They wait until the Sunday that my family is visiting to come
30:14
out and give me my date with this a month and a half away.
30:19
So as embarrassing as that is, it's also joy filled.
30:24
But it's like you could have told me not on my visit with my
30:27
family. Like damn it, I'm finishing 30
30:30
minutes. Like come on, have some respect
30:33
on a Sunday. My God.
30:35
But the VOP don't doesn't care. So as I face, I'm looking at the
30:40
date and I'm saying what you know, I'm going to leave the
30:46
people here go into a new transition.
30:49
I didn't know exactly enough about the halfway house to have
30:53
a concern, which I should have had a concern.
30:56
Now that I know what I know they need to train us about that
31:00
halfway house. And, and I had spoke and I'm
31:05
speaking at the halfway house this week, but that transition.
31:10
Don't you think, don't you think, Tam Tanya, that that
31:12
might be one of the biggest surprises because I mean, you
31:16
think about like a lot of people think the worst thing is
31:19
stepping into prison. It is bad.
31:21
I mean, there's nothing more degrading, dehumanizing, all
31:26
those things like you talked about.
31:28
I think the biggest surprise though, is re entry.
31:31
I think we were so geared up to hopefully get back into society
31:36
and that re entry process is so much more difficult than we
31:41
know. Yes, and that's where I had my
31:45
biggest defeat. Every door, every no was just
31:52
horrible. I lived at the halfway house for
31:54
five months. It was shameful.
31:59
I wanted to probably not even go back to prison, but just just
32:06
not not even exist because I assume that the reentry world,
32:11
if nobody else would let me in, I had a safe space there.
32:17
But then I came back to New York and all the programs you go,
32:20
they say, oh, we're from, if you're from Wreckers, Taconic,
32:24
Sing Sing, all of these places we don't know about, you know,
32:30
returning from federal prison. And that hurt me so much, not
32:37
knowing, not being able to find employment and then all of the
32:41
hurdles. And you know, I spent most of my
32:44
time trying to get a pass and when I'm out on my past, trying
32:47
to get back in time for my past. And and then the home
32:52
confinement with the ankle monitor and adjusting there was
32:56
very difficult. Just having people here white
33:02
collar and close the door on you was so hurtful.
33:10
Well, when you went through all that, you just didn't let it
33:13
sit. I mean, you actually took
33:16
finding out that there's not a whole lot out there in the
33:20
federal world of being a, a, a, an ex felon.
33:25
As a federal ex felon, you actually took it upon yourself
33:30
to create a nonprofit and, and do something that a lot of
33:35
people don't do. I mean, you created Unbolted,
33:36
which started helping people in that arena.
33:42
How did you even know how to do that?
33:44
Well, I I used my own experience and then I used the experience
33:49
of the people that I knew that was federally impacted that will
33:52
go into groups that will go into community organizations and
33:56
being turned away. And so, and that's why I named
34:00
it life on both it because we have a life that have to be on
34:03
both it on the restitution side and even on the re entry side.
34:08
We deserve the same equity and inclusion as anyone else.
34:14
Returning to whatever jurisdiction you belong to the
34:19
94 districts, we are every community.
34:22
We are people that are federally impacted are millions of people,
34:27
60,000 people a year across the country.
34:30
But yet there's no or we're we're unhoused, right?
34:35
We're unhoused as a collective. You can't say right now anyone
34:42
that's listening that's federally impacted, where would
34:46
I call right now if I have a question?
34:51
Luckily in New York and now that I started this organization like
34:55
2 years into this now people are now call me and say, you know, I
34:59
heard about your organization, my son like, you know, yesterday
35:03
I got a call, a woman said my, my son is in cost isn't, is on
35:07
pretrial in North Carolina. You know, I need support.
35:11
So now I'm starting to generate calls like that and, and that's
35:16
what I would love to do with life on both.
35:19
It is to be a community hub for everyone across the country.
35:24
Because I can tell you one thing, if you are in prison
35:28
right now and you know that your community doesn't have anything,
35:33
you may tell those people to make your destination somewhere
35:36
else because you don't want to go back.
35:40
Well, I'll tell you this there. There was a a gentleman I'm
35:44
going to be speaking to Thursday that he created the IT was
35:48
called 70 million jobs. It was Richard Bronson and and
35:52
they did this gigantic survey and the top three things that
35:57
came back were obviously somebody wanted to get a job,
36:00
somebody needed housing. The third thing is something
36:03
you're talking about, Tanya, they were looking for community,
36:07
looking for community. What where could they find
36:09
community of, of like people? And what you're talking about it
36:14
is, is, is the top three things that makes it so hard to get
36:19
back in because people don't want to go back to where they
36:23
came from in prison. They they want to make it work
36:25
on the outside. They also found out that the
36:27
the, the people that you hire that are just as impacted people
36:32
and this survey make fantastic employees because they're just
36:35
looking for a real opportunity, a real wage to get back in so
36:39
that they can be a part of the society through the re entry.
36:43
And I think it's fascinating that you've done these things,
36:48
you've stepped back in, but I'm now speaking to somebody who's
36:52
in law school. So I mean, you've taken these
36:56
steps and you've done these things that a lot of people
37:00
would say, I, I'm just, I'm just going to curl up and, and give
37:04
up. And each, every time that you've
37:06
been presented with a barrier, you've actually put your, your
37:11
shoulder to it and, and pushed it through.
37:13
Even though it's hard talk, talk to me about the law school
37:17
thing. Was it hard to get into law
37:18
school? How do people perceive you in
37:20
your law school? How did it come about?
37:23
Well, my, my law school journey came for, you know, 2 reasons.
37:31
One is the unjust with people that are federally impacted.
37:36
And 2nd is policies around restitution.
37:40
Most people who that I've met have enormous restitutions.
37:45
They never receive the money. And also the public perception
37:51
of people on restitution is that everyone is thieves that are
37:57
trying to get over and finally got caught.
37:59
Goody gutty gun drop. I'm glad this has happened to
38:02
them and it's farthest from the truth.
38:07
Furthest. From so how did you, how did you
38:08
walk into the restitution thing 'cause you and I talked and I, I
38:11
wanted to talk a little bit about this because a lot of
38:15
people are afraid to talk about restitution because there's,
38:17
there's so much around it. This is this big dark cloud that
38:22
that follows you. Yeah, I think it has a tail on
38:25
it for 20 years. But talk to me a little bit
38:30
about how you became this reform minded person in the restitution
38:35
world, because there's not a lot of people that even have the
38:38
courage to speak out about it. Correct it.
38:42
It became because of my restitution, I went to trial and
38:47
I was convicted. When I got to Danbury, I went, I
38:51
had went to trial, I was convicted of defrauding 3
38:55
lenders. We won't even go to the
38:57
conviction part. But the amount of loss on my
38:59
conviction was $36,000. I got based on the lenders, on
39:06
my trial, on my judgment, on my conviction.
39:10
My girlfriend who I met in Danbury, she had the same
39:14
attorneys that I had. Her trial was three months after
39:17
my trial, her case, same strategy.
39:21
She was convicted but her Co defendant, who had taken a plea,
39:28
had asked for a MVRA hearing, Mandatory Victims Restitution
39:33
Act hearing, and even though he had taken a plea, the Court of
39:37
Appeals granted his motion. And nobody knows about this.
39:42
No one knows about this. I didn't know about it.
39:45
OK, me neither. And he and they restitution was
39:50
reduced to $200,000 from in the millions.
39:54
Now if you take someone who went to trial and someone who had a
39:59
plea. So now we need to move away from
40:02
that terminology. Who takes the plea?
40:04
Who went to trial? We're looking at the royal
40:07
figures of restitution and the unjust and those ghost numbers.
40:11
And that's where we come together and we say that if
40:15
every person doesn't have a MVRA, mandatory Victims
40:21
Restitution Act hearing where the alleged victim produces
40:27
proof that they gave you or your Co defendant this money, you
40:34
shouldn't be paying restitution for it.
40:37
And that's where I started to do my research as soon as I came
40:41
home because I believe that I have restitution for money I
40:46
didn't receive and so many others.
40:48
And then fast forwarded to 2019 where the Congressional Research
40:55
Service does a report and says that the restitution is in these
40:59
billions of dollars. And they know that they are only
41:02
going to collect $1.00 off of every 100.
41:06
So what are we doing here? Policies are wrong for people to
41:12
be given a life sentence for restitution, especially for
41:16
monies they didn't receive. Don't try and make me a poster
41:21
child for your resume. So what happens when you go and
41:26
talk to people about this? Well, most times at first people
41:32
didn't really want to believe that this could happen to you
41:36
because, you know, the, the federal, the federal, you know,
41:41
you know, conviction rates are so high, the plea rates are so
41:45
high that it's just believed that if you had a fed case, you
41:52
were guilty just by association in any way.
41:55
You got a slap on your wrist and, you know, you went to some
41:59
plush place anyway that had pool, that had pool tables, golf
42:03
carts, and you also had, you know, a pool and a maid.
42:07
And it's not true. And so when I started going
42:12
around sharing my story in the real deal about the federally
42:17
impacted community and now so happen that, you know, life
42:22
would have it that all of these things would take place where
42:26
you would start seeing the dilapidation of federal prisons.
42:30
And now it becomes in the news. So it's people are starting to
42:34
say, well, yeah, this is something a little different.
42:37
I want to hear more. Wow.
42:39
But didn't you take that money from, didn't you do that SBA or
42:44
that mortgage loan or now the PPP?
42:47
So, and now I ask each person and I go to law schools as well,
42:53
and I tell the students, if you're going to be the next
42:55
judge or prosecutor, I could be, I could be your mother, I could
43:00
be your neighbor. Make sure the numbers are
43:03
actual. And then I have some, I have
43:07
some students from Columbia who have made a commitment to me
43:11
that in 10 years. Other thing, the other thing
43:15
that I was wanting to to get to is when you are a student, as a
43:21
law school student, is it like you're just like every other law
43:25
school student or did the do they know your story?
43:29
Like how are you accepted into that world?
43:31
Well, in in the law school, the law school on my application,
43:34
they do know my story very upfront.
43:38
They do know my story. The law students do not know my
43:41
story. I'm a one.
43:44
I'm a 1L struggling just like everyone else I am here.
43:50
I mean my professors, some of them know and they also know
43:54
that my purpose, like I'm from New York, I'm not taking it in,
43:58
the school is based in Minnesota.
44:00
I'm not, I'm not taking the extra classes for the New York
44:04
bar. I'm going to take the Minnesota
44:06
bar because my goal is to get to federal court.
44:10
And as long as I'm licensed in any jurisdiction, I can get to
44:13
federal court. And that's where my practice
44:16
will be, only around habeas petitions and finding a way to
44:22
help people impacted by this horrible restitution and other
44:28
things of, you know, compassionate releases.
44:32
Yeah, well, in the, you know, the, the, the and I know people
44:38
who have gone through. I've had some people on Casey
44:44
early and some other people that have gone and have had, you
44:47
know, their past experience being prison experience and
44:49
being incredible attorneys. And like Casey is, she's an
44:54
incredible defense attorney down in Florida because she's, she's
44:57
walked through it. So she knows I, I would love to
45:01
have a criminal defense attorney that had gone through the whole
45:04
process and knows everything on the other side because they
45:07
become that much more of an advocate for you.
45:11
How do you see your world stepping forward?
45:14
Well, I, I see my world as stepping forward with building
45:20
a, you know, a coalition of people who even if they cannot
45:24
give their face, but give me their network to work to meet
45:30
legislators and senators that will help us with.
45:33
We have a bill that I'm trying to get sponsored called the
45:36
Fairness and Restitution Act that I've worked on with the
45:39
NACDL. And mind you, that was a tough
45:42
cookie right there, getting an NACDL to understand restitution.
45:46
And they went and hired their experts to write a bill for us.
45:49
We just haven't. Had.
45:50
For those that don't know the acronym, can you tell them what
45:52
that is? The National Association of
45:54
Criminal Defense Attorneys. Which is huge.
45:57
I wanted you to say that because that's a big deal.
45:59
That's a huge organization. Yes.
46:01
And so we're looking for a sponsor to sponsor our bill.
46:06
And I'm looking really at it's called fairness and restitution.
46:10
It's around settling restitutions, having it end in
46:13
10 years, you know, not attacking people's Social
46:16
Security, about accountability, about settlement and really
46:21
having that tough discussion around money, which we have to
46:24
be able. People want you to.
46:26
They have literacy classes and all of these other classes but
46:29
no one is talking about ghost numbers.
46:32
And where is the money and restitution going since most
46:36
cases there there are no victims.
46:40
That's I mean, it's, it's, it's quite a thing, Donnie, and I am
46:44
so happy that you are doing this and being the voice and, and,
46:48
and putting these organizations together that are not easy to
46:51
put together. You know, and I think it's
46:55
inspiring for people, especially who listen to this, who, who
46:59
have been through what we've gone through our nightmare and
47:02
in the re entry world, that things are still possible.
47:06
Things you, what you've done is you're not just a hopeful
47:09
person, you're putting action to it.
47:12
You're you're taking steps, you're advocating, you know it.
47:16
And, and when you are able to sit down with somebody, whether
47:19
it's criminal defense attorneys or whatever the organizations
47:22
are, they know that you know what you're talking about.
47:24
It's just getting in front of them to be able to advocate.
47:27
And I love that you're doing it. I was going to ask you, you
47:33
know, of all the things that you've gone through and where
47:37
you are today, what do you think's your biggest take away
47:39
through all of it? My, my biggest take away is the
47:45
family in the network that I've made that are not blood related,
47:49
being able to talk to you in Missouri that in my old world
47:53
could have never happened. You know, and, and just having,
47:57
you know, this horrible experience to just be able to
48:01
share with the public and say, even if you don't have a voice,
48:07
reach out with an e-mail and let us let people like me and others
48:12
that work with me. Let us be your legs.
48:16
Let us be your mouthpiece because each and every one of
48:20
our stories, it may not happen today, but if we stick together,
48:25
we are going to crack this case. And it always takes a village
48:32
and we are the village for restitution reform.
48:36
It cannot continue to have ghost numbers.
48:40
Look, look at these people. They fought drugs all of these
48:43
years. People fought marijuana all of
48:47
these years. Let's take the other money and
48:53
say you cannot impoverish make a dentist prison here on our
49:00
watch. Tony, how do people get a hold
49:03
of you? Well, you can get a hold of me
49:06
at you can, you can e-mail me at mylastnamepierce@lifeunbolted.org
49:16
or you can call us AT and, and you, you're going to have to
49:21
know this number is going to be pretty.
49:24
It's going to be pretty easy. It's 929 fed, which was
49:29
333-3494. And we are everything about the
49:37
feds. I love it.
49:40
Yes, I love it. I'll make sure I put that in the
49:42
show notes. And for those who you know, I I
49:46
want to give a shout out to Homestead financial home
49:49
Mortgage. I use this Etsy studio here with
49:53
and and I appreciate it. For those who have home mortgage
49:57
needs, get a hold of Greg after you.
49:58
If he knows everything about it, he'll walk you through the
50:01
process. If anybody's looking for a book
50:04
out there, I've got one nightmare success.
50:07
It's on. You can get it Amazon, Barnes
50:09
and Noble, and if you got time, leave a review on Spotify or or
50:14
Apple reviews. If you want to know anything
50:17
about me, go to brentcassidy.com.
50:19
That I spell it wrong. I spell it with ATY, not a DY.
50:23
And as I used to say when I was writing my emails back and forth
50:27
from Leavenworth, stay strong. I'll do the same.
50:31
Pierce, stay going. I just hope you have enough gas
50:35
in the fuel tank to make it all happen, because I'm with you.
50:37
I'm 100% for you. Well, as long as restitution is
50:41
in front of me, I will be here. Now, once we fix restitution,
50:46
then the gas will be on east and you will find me.
50:50
You will find me in Maldives somewhere.
50:52
But until then, you will find me all over really fighting for any
50:59
person that's impacted by the 94 districts with restitution and
51:05
federally impact in federal criminal situations.
51:11
I love it. I love it.
51:13
Nightmare success in and out. Thank you, Tanya Pierce.
51:16
Thank you. Bye.