Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Voice Silenced, Stifled, Taken Away: Shocking Story of Saffron Gustafson

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Voice Silenced, Stifled, Taken Away: Shocking Story of Saffron Gustafson · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:00
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:03
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
• 0:07
  Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:10
  nightmares and set yourself free.
• 0:12
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:19
  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
• 0:23
  humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
• 0:26
  something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
• 0:29
  built up in your own mind. All right.
• 0:36
  Welcome back, nightmare success, In-n-out listeners.
• 0:38
  This is where you come from. What happens when your worst
• 0:40
  fear becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
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  overcome, set yourself free? Well, I know you guys hear this
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  all the time, but don't forget to follow.
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  Subscribe, share this thing out, like it up.
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  It really helps the show and I really appreciate it.
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  So who are we talking to today? Well, I always love it when I
• 0:59
  can get referrals from a previous guest and Los Dada, who
• 1:05
  is episode 92, he actually met my guest in the halfway house.
• 1:11
  And so Saffron Gustafon, son, I can't say her name, Gustafson
• 1:19
  Gustafson. We're just going to go by
• 1:24
  Saffron because it's just a really confusing and I really
• 1:26
  like her name. And Saffron's such a cool name.
• 1:29
  And she just, she just told me that she was named after the
• 1:31
  Mellow Yellow song, late 60s popular song.
• 1:35
  And it's, it's also a spice, I think.
• 1:37
  And, and over in Asia somewhere cool, cool name.
• 1:42
  So Saffron's got one of those stories where, you know, this is
• 1:46
  a smart girl. She, she's got dual degrees,
• 1:49
  she's got an MBA. She grew up in Oregon and then
• 1:54
  she was really good in the field of she got into medical sales
• 1:57
  and then she ended up owning her own medical business that was in
• 2:01
  multiple locations. And one day she just gets a
• 2:05
  knock on the door or a phone call.
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  She's out, she's actually out of town and, and it's the FBI and
• 2:11
  they're raiding her places. And it's one of the, I've heard
• 2:14
  this so many different times where a business owner is just
• 2:19
  going through life and all of a sudden and, and Seth Ronson was,
• 2:23
  it was like, well, can I just correct whatever it is, you
• 2:27
  know, I, I don't know what you're doing or what you're
• 2:29
  looking for as it comes out. There was a whole long thing
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  that went on with a, she wasn't getting payment from this
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  insurance company and went back and forth.
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  And then it ended up to be a huge thing that they referred to
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  her to the FBI. And then there was a lot of
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  pressure tactics and everything else.
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  And she ends up serving prison time in Dublin, which Dublin's
• 2:48
  gotten a lot of it got closed down.
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  And I think the warden went to prison.
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  There were all kinds of rape allegations from all kinds of
• 2:56
  different people. I can't wait to jump into this
• 2:59
  whole thing and unpack it with Saffron.
• 3:02
  Before we do, I want to recognize show sponsor Auto
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  Auto pleasant direct. Tell them Brent from Nightmare
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  Success sent you folks. Check out this book, Doctor Not
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  and the rule of the law. Doctor not guilty.
• 4:24
  Check it out. Saffron, welcome in.
• 4:28
  Hi, glad to be here. Gustafson.
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  Gustafson, Yeah. Gustafson.
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  Gustafson. It's a difficult one,
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  definitely. Gustafson, Gustafson.
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  Saffron Gustafson. You have my first name with that
• 4:42
  last name and it's it's a lot, I know.
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  So Saffron, I know we, we talked on the phone about your
• 4:50
  situation and it's just, you know, one of those fascinating
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  things of somebody who's doing really well and all of a sudden
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  they're not. And then they get turned into
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  the spin cycle that they never thought they were going to be
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  in. And you know, the, the naive way
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  that someone goes into this because you know nothing about
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  it. Everything's like a new frontier
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  to try to figure out. But take us back a little bit.
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  Who was Saffron growing up? Where, where were you living
• 5:19
  parents, siblings, all that? Where was all?
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  That yeah. So I I was born in Cottage
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  Grove, OR, and yeah, it's a very, very small, middle of
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  nowhere place. I grew up in a town called
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  Springfield, OR It's, oh, roughly about 20 minutes east of
• 5:42
  Eugene, OR. A lot of people know where
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  Eugene is. Yeah.
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  Yeah. So Springfield is a very also a
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  very, very small milltown. And I grew up there with my
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  parents. They were young parents and, and
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  they started a janitorial, a cleaning business.
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  And so I grew up working that and understanding business first
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  hand my entire life and. So your parents were
• 6:15
  entrepreneurs? Yes, yeah, yeah.
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  It's funny how that happens. I you, you, you see people a lot
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  of times that get in and they build big businesses and you
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  say, well, like how did you learn how to do it?
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  Well, I worked in my parents business and they started it and
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  then I started my own and it's funny.
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  How you learned? My entire life, yeah, my entire
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  life. I was around business and, and
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  seeing how that worked and so my mind just automatically things
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  like that's very hard for me to work for other people.
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  I usually end up turning it into something of my own.
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  And it's hard It it's just, that's just how I I grew up.
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  But I have a, a younger brother. We're roughly about 18 months
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  apart, so not too much younger. Yeah, but.
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  My, my middle daughter Carly is pregnant right now and her
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  Olivia and the new baby boy are going to be 17 months apart.
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  And that's, that's really close. I mean, that's it's like almost,
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  you know? It's.
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  It's within a time period that's pretty close.
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  Yeah. So growing up, I mean, I, I'm,
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  it was only like a grade above him and you know, like we were
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  pretty much, you know, the, the same growing up, exactly the
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  same. And he's in the, in the legal
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  industry and he has a family now and all of that.
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  I never did the family route and I just I, I was always very much
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  into business and wanting to go more that route, which I was
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  very happy with and I like doing.
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  That, yeah. So when, when you were in high
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  school and then went to college, were you thinking when I get out
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  because you, you went into a sales field, very competitive,
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  but people could do really, really well with medical.
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  So, so when you were when you were in high school, were you a
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  good student high school? In college, I was a very good
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  student. I was on the Dean's list and I
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  wasn't like the best student, but I definitely did well,
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  always studied and made sure everything was was done.
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  And then I ended up going to University of Oregon in Eugene
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  and I, I loved school. I loved learning.
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  And I didn't know off the bat that I was going to go into
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  owning my own business, although I knew that was, you know, came
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  second nature to me. Just like, yeah, my, at that
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  time being young, I was, you know, oh, I want to get into
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  pharmaceutical cells. I want to get into medical cells
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  because I knew that was a really good industry at that time as a
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  young person to get into and be able to work your way up and
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  make a decent, you know, living. And my, my whole thing was I
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  always wanted to, you know, be very independent and never have
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  to count on anyone. And so I was like, this is my
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  ticket. This is what I'm going to get
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  into pharmaceutical cells or medical cells.
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  And so all through college, that was my initial goal was was to
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  do that. And I got my first degree in
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  general science and that was actually very difficult for me,
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  but I did it. And then I went back and got a
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  second degree in social science did very well on that was on the
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  Dean's list for that one. That was much easier for me to
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  do and then I, I was like, I can't be done with school.
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  I'm still a kid. And so I ended up going, yeah,
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  yeah, I was working when I went to grad school, but and I was in
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  cell. I was I did copy and like fax
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  machine type cells when I was in grad school and I did nights and
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  weekends to get through grad school.
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  So you. Roll.
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  So you roll out of grad school. What?
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  What do you roll into? What do you what's what's what's
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  the big plan? Yeah, so I right away get into
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  medical cells and I worked for a company that we sold like a
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  different types of orthopedics, knees for amputees, legs for
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  amputees. I did a lot of like compression
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  type garments because with amputees there can be a lot of
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  swelling and, and what's called lymphedema and, and things of
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  that nature, venous insufficiency, a lot of that.
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  So I, I would sell different types of medical garments,
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  compression type garments and I, I had a pretty right away.
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  I did pretty well in that and they, the company I was working
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  for started a brand new type of a garment and it they were
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  custom made and they were very popular in the European market,
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  but newer to the US market. And so they wanted to get into
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  that. And so once I learned that part,
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  I ended up being in the top five out of the whole entire company.
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  Nationwide sales reps for the Lymphedema custom made garment.
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  Wow. Yes.
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  And so that's and. When you and when you were, we
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  were doing that, I'm assuming in that in that world of sales, you
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  get a region and it's one of those things where you've got to
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  figure out how to get past the gatekeeper and talk to the right
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  person and and there's a whole technique to being able to get
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  the sale. So my region was Oregon, parts
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  of Washington, Idaho, and it's. A big region.
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  Yeah. And Northern California and so
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  and I just jumped, jumped into it and it was really natural for
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  me and it was very easy for me and I had a lot of fun.
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  And that's, so that's that's how I kind of got started in that.
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  So when you was it, was it the time that you got to the top of
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  the the top of the country or the country the top of the
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  company that you were thinking about?
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  Maybe I could do this on my own? Well, so sort of so the
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  lymphedema garments were the custom made garments and that's
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  what I really, really did very well in and what I would do is
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  that. For like circulation?
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  Yeah. So it, it's not specifically for
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  patients who have had cancer, but it a lot of the patients
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  were wound care and cancer patients.
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  And that's because the lymph glands, a lot of the times
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  during treatment for cancer, different cancer treatments,
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  they can be damaged or even removed.
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  And now that causes a lot of excess swelling and the lymph
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  fluid isn't able to metabolize and so it has to be moved to
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  other lymph glands that are. And so these garments, I would
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  design them and the manufacturer would make them.
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  And we would always work with vascular surgeons and lymphedema
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  therapists on their treatment plans so that we could make a
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  garment or design A garment that would move the lymph fluid to
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  the stagnant lymph fluid to other lymph glands that were
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  working so the body can metabolize it.
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  Then the swelling would eventually start going down.
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  That's explained in real simple terms.
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  Well, no, it sounds like a great product.
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  Yeah, oh, yeah. And it worked really, really it,
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  it, it does work very well. And so I would, I would go
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  through all my accounts and, and the ones that seen a lot of
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  patients coming in that did that, I would schedule full days
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  with them where I would just design garments for the really
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  complicated cases that the normal compression garment that
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  was already available wasn't working for.
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  And a lot of these patients, their next resort was going to
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  have to have surgery, maybe even amputation.
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  I mean, it was like I was seeing like the worst case scenarios,
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  but the, the my clients, their patients, they were like, well,
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  if this works great because we can prevent them having to
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  possibly get surgery or something more extreme.
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  And if it doesn't work, Oh well, it doesn't hurt anyone.
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  That's kind of how they looked at it in the beginning when I
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  was trying to come in and do that.
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  It ended up becoming really successful and a lot of my
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  accounts, they would call the days that I came in Saffron
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  Days, not the company's name, but Saffron Days because I would
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  spend literally, if they opened at 8:00 in the morning, I was
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  there from 8:00 to 8:00 at night when they closed or whatever, I
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  was there, you know, seven days a week if needed to make sure
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  that we've seen as many of these patients as possible to get them
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  in these garments and see if they were, they would work.
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  And the success success rate was really, really high.
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  Of course, it doesn't work for everyone.
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  It's you know, but the majority of the patients we were able to
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  get them where in a spot where they wouldn't have to now go get
• 16:19
  extreme surgery or be on extreme medication or anything like
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  really super extreme to help their condition.
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  A lot of them we were able to help just with the properly
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  designed compression garment. And so that was.
• 16:34
  Really cool. So this becomes a big deal.
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  You get known for it. Yeah.
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  For helping these people, What happens next?
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  So what my background obviously wasn't being an orthotist, so I
• 16:49
  didn't really talk to them about wanting to own a business, but I
• 16:52
  definitely talked to a lot of my DME accounts that worked with
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  more the breast prosthesis and the compression garments and
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  that sort of thing because I didn't have to have, you know,
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  schooling and orthopedics to be able to do that.
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  And so I was like, I would tell all of my DME accounts that I
• 17:16
  was comfortable with that someday I would love to own a
• 17:21
  similar type of DMEI could help a lot of people.
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  And eventually one of the accounts that I had had a small
• 17:32
  satellite business. They, their main one was in
• 17:36
  Portland, OR, but they had a small satellite one in
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  Vancouver, WA, which is just over a bridge.
• 17:43
  It's basically Portland, but it is in Washington.
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  And it, it was failing and they wanted to sell it so they could
• 17:51
  get some extra capital for their main one in, in Portland.
• 17:56
  And so I had talked to them many times over the years and I would
• 18:00
  love to own something like this. And so they came to me and they
• 18:04
  said, are you still interested? We're we're looking to sell our
• 18:10
  satellite one in Vancouver, WA. It was in the red by I think
• 18:16
  around 40,000 something like that.
• 18:19
  It it was not successful, but it what it wasn't because it didn't
• 18:23
  have potentially. Somebody came in and could do a
• 18:26
  good job. Yeah.
• 18:27
  And like it. It just needs some attention.
• 18:29
  It needs some good marketing to the medical community.
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  And that was part of my, of my route that I did as a sales Rep.
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  So I knew all the medical community in that area.
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  And I had A at that time, I had an extremely good relationship
• 18:46
  with the hospitals, with the main surgeons, with the
• 18:49
  lymphedema therapist, with everyone that I would be going
• 18:53
  to, to get their prescriptions to get them to send patients to
• 18:58
  me. I already had a really good
• 19:00
  relationship with them and they already trusted me pretty well
• 19:03
  with with this particular type of garment.
• 19:08
  So that's kind of how I got into.
• 19:10
  It you take over this little satellite deal and it does well.
• 19:14
  Yeah, yeah, it it took it, it the initial was so there again,
• 19:19
  you know, just super naive to it, right.
• 19:22
  But I knew I was, I'm like, I know business, I know this
• 19:26
  industry. I don't know how to run a
• 19:29
  business and I don't know how to run a medical business, but I
• 19:34
  was confident that I could figure it out with the
• 19:37
  background that I had. And so I have a master's in
• 19:43
  business. And although that school and not
• 19:46
  real life and real life is very different than school, I'm like,
• 19:49
  I very, I was like, you know, my naive mind, I'm like, I've got
• 19:56
  this, I can do this. And, and I did, I had, I was
• 20:00
  able to do most of it pretty quickly.
• 20:02
  The the initial thing that was like, Oh my gosh, I didn't
• 20:08
  realize this is getting contracted with the medical
• 20:12
  insurances. That's how you get paid so the
• 20:17
  the medical community can send you.
• 20:20
  All their patients all day long. But if you don't have a, If
• 20:26
  you're not a preferred provider, If you're not a.
• 20:29
  Contractor at work. Yep, If Yep, you can.
• 20:33
  I mean, you can of course bill the insurance company, but
• 20:36
  they're not going to pay you. So you're not going to get paid.
• 20:40
  And these patients can't afford these garments.
• 20:43
  They're, they're, you know, very expensive because they're custom
• 20:47
  made. There's a lot to it.
• 20:48
  So you, you want these medical insurances, you want these
• 20:53
  contracts. And that was a huge part of the
• 20:57
  business that initially I did not understand.
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  And I, I understood it real quick.
• 21:04
  It didn't take me long to really understand that.
• 21:09
  Yes, exactly, exactly. And the, the people that I've
• 21:14
  that I purchased the business from, they did explain it to me,
• 21:20
  but I don't, they didn't explain it to me in real detail 'cause I
• 21:23
  think they just want, they wanted me to buy it so they
• 21:25
  could. That's not a bad thing.
• 21:27
  I'm just, but they could have explained it a little bit more
• 21:30
  knowing I didn't know. However, they were willing to to
• 21:34
  help me stay afloat and help me out a little bit with all of
• 21:41
  that until I got the medical contracts, medical insurance
• 21:47
  contracts. But that took that was a huge
• 21:50
  process. Everyone told me no because I
• 21:52
  was new. I was a kid.
• 21:55
  I was like in my early how, how? Old would you have been at this
• 21:57
  time? When you I at 30, I started it
• 21:59
  when I was 30 years old. Yeah, Yeah.
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  Now, I, I had a lot of background, you know, but they
• 22:03
  just looked at me as a kid and what do you know?
• 22:07
  And no, we're not going to give you this medical insurance
• 22:11
  contract. Are you kidding me?
• 22:12
  And so it took a lot, a lot of work and inviting the medical
• 22:20
  insurance like contract managers, I would invite them to
• 22:25
  come and spend full days with me so they could just see what I
• 22:27
  was doing and how I would be helping their members.
• 22:31
  And long story, super short, and it was, it was a little bit of a
• 22:36
  nightmare, but it it did, I did end up getting them and that it
• 22:42
  was because they seen what I was doing for their members and they
• 22:48
  didn't realize that's what I was doing.
• 22:49
  So how soon was it, Saffron that you thought, hey, I think I've
• 22:54
  got this down to where I understand it that you went into
• 22:57
  multiple locations? So that took, it took a probably
• 23:03
  a couple years of really. Yeah.
• 23:07
  I mean, you know, but in my mind at the time, I'm, you know,
• 23:10
  seven days a week, you know, I'm putting in as, you know, seven
• 23:15
  days a week putting in. Like literally there were days
• 23:18
  I'm like, I I'm just going to sleep here because there's no
• 23:22
  point for me even to drive back because I have to be here so
• 23:25
  early and do it all over again. And, and I was fine with that.
• 23:29
  I loved it. I'm like, this is so exciting.
• 23:31
  I was like, I literally would have to pinch myself sometimes.
• 23:35
  It'd be like, I am doing this, this is real.
• 23:37
  This is amazing. And so it took a couple years.
• 23:42
  I was in in the very small little satellite place.
• 23:46
  I remodeled it so that it looked more like a medical clinic.
• 23:50
  It was a little bit more designed as like an older lady's
• 23:57
  dress shop. And they did that because when
• 24:03
  they started it, it was in the 70s and breast cancer was, you
• 24:08
  just didn't talk about it. And so they designed it so that
• 24:12
  if women were coming into that location, people would just
• 24:16
  think they were coming in there to buy a sweatshirt or a dress
• 24:19
  or something, not that they were going in there because they had
• 24:22
  breast cancer. So I understand why they did
• 24:24
  that. But me coming in, I was like, Oh
• 24:26
  no, no. It has to look different.
• 24:29
  Let's bring this. Stuff.
• 24:30
  Let's bring it up to the 21st century or.
• 24:32
  The 21st century, yeah. And, you know, and views had
• 24:35
  changed. You know, it wasn't shameful to
• 24:37
  have breast cancer. Nobody wants it, of course, but
• 24:40
  it's definitely it. It's not shameful to to have it.
• 24:43
  And it's just different views, you know, and.
• 24:45
  And different times. I understood that, but I was
• 24:48
  like, this is how? Many people?
• 24:49
  How many people, when you started expanding out Saffron in
• 24:53
  these multiple locations, how many people did you have that
• 24:57
  were working with you or for you?
• 24:59
  Yeah. So it started off.
• 25:00
  So when I first started it was just me and it the the the
• 25:07
  company that I bought the business from, they did have two
• 25:12
  employees, but that just that didn't work.
• 25:16
  So pretty pretty quickly it was just me.
• 25:20
  And so I did that probably for Goodyear and it was, it was just
• 25:28
  me. But then started getting, once I
• 25:31
  had the medical insurance contracts started getting busier
• 25:34
  and busier and busier and I was missing, you know, at that time
• 25:40
  faxes were a big thing. So a lot of, you know, medical
• 25:44
  clinics and hospitals and doctors were sending me
• 25:47
  prescriptions and, and things on through fax and I was missing a
• 25:51
  lot of, I mean, I'd eventually get it, but I was missing them.
• 25:53
  I was missing phone calls. Of course I would return phone
• 25:56
  calls, but it might be way later in the day.
• 25:58
  And now that doctor's not in anymore and they needed to call
• 26:01
  me immediately on a patient they had in their office right then
• 26:05
  things like that. And so I was like, OK, I need to
• 26:09
  get a receptionist. And so I started off with a
• 26:13
  receptionist, but I trained even the receptionist how, how to do
• 26:17
  pretty much everything. So it wasn't just a
• 26:19
  receptionist, it was someone that, yeah, that would do what I
• 26:23
  do, but also, but answer the phones and stuff.
• 26:26
  And so I ended up, not everyone had a, had a medical background
• 26:34
  that worked for me, but many of who I hired had nursing
• 26:39
  backgrounds, medical assistant backgrounds, CNA backgrounds,
• 26:43
  and, or they had worked in the hospital and medical environment
• 26:47
  for a long time. So it wasn't, it wasn't like a
• 26:52
  different environment for them. They could pick up on things
• 26:55
  pretty quickly. And if I sent them into training
• 26:59
  and, and that sort of thing with the different companies I worked
• 27:01
  with, they learned it pretty, pretty quickly and were able to
• 27:05
  help patients. So I had there, again, not
• 27:10
  everyone, but a lot of the people that worked for me had
• 27:12
  medical background and medical experiences, so that was pretty
• 27:16
  cool too. So on on, how many of the
• 27:19
  locations did you end up having? I ended up having five locations
• 27:26
  in three different states. OK.
• 27:29
  I. So of that, how many people
• 27:32
  would be at a location? 3 or 4 people at a location.
• 27:36
  Yeah. So anywhere from probably 3 to
• 27:39
  4, just depending on how busy that particular location was,
• 27:45
  that's always, that's always a juggling game because you want
• 27:49
  to make sure that you have enough employees to see
• 27:51
  patients. But you as a business, you know,
• 27:54
  running the business, you'd, you want to make, try to make sure
• 27:58
  that you're not spending out a lot that you don't need to
• 28:01
  spend. And so it was a real juggling
• 28:04
  act to figure. Out they control your expenses,
• 28:06
  yeah. So, so you end up going along
• 28:08
  here, you you're, you're expanding out and then you have
• 28:12
  some issues with a particular insurance company that's not
• 28:17
  paying you. Yeah.
• 28:18
  And they continue to not pay you and you have to go the court,
• 28:23
  right? Yeah.
• 28:24
  What happened? Yeah, So it, it's a very big
• 28:29
  insurance company. I don't really want to say the
• 28:31
  name, but it's a very big one that everyone would be very
• 28:35
  familiar with. And they, they had warned me,
• 28:41
  cautioned me to not open up any more clinics.
• 28:45
  They, they were not happy that I was billing them for so many
• 28:50
  claims for the very specifically the custom made lymphedema
• 28:55
  garments. And, and I said, well, I am only
• 29:01
  opening up clinics due to the demand that I'm getting from the
• 29:04
  medical community. So sorry, you know, I was there
• 29:08
  again. I was very naive to how scary
• 29:13
  insurance companies can be. No insurance companies can be to
• 29:16
  the point like it's very known now.
• 29:18
  I mean if. Now it is.
• 29:20
  Well, I mean, an insurance company, they don't like a
• 29:23
  certain amount of claims you've made.
• 29:24
  They'll send you a letter and say, hey, if you file any more
• 29:27
  claims with us, we're gonna drop you.
• 29:28
  Yep, that's very absolutely. That's part of the the world of
• 29:33
  insurance is about making money, not necessarily anything else.
• 29:37
  It's not about helping, yeah, helping their members.
• 29:39
  And at least in my experience, I can only speak from my
• 29:42
  experience, but in my experience that they, they were not in the
• 29:48
  business of helping their members.
• 29:50
  So I was naive and I was basically like, well, too bad,
• 29:58
  you know, do whatever. I'm, I'm opening up as many as I
• 30:02
  need based on the demand from the medical community.
• 30:04
  That's who I, that's who I serve.
• 30:06
  You know, that's why I'm here. And so I was, I was in the
• 30:10
  middle of opening up a brand new location in Portland, OR a
• 30:14
  really well known spot at a really, really big, huge, well
• 30:18
  known hospital. And the medical community was
• 30:21
  that I worked with was really excited for me to be there
• 30:23
  because the more locations I had, it was easier for their
• 30:27
  patients who were not very mobile.
• 30:29
  To find you. Yeah, to be able to get seen
• 30:31
  otherwise, if I was spread out with only a couple locations, it
• 30:35
  was very difficult for the majority of their patients to
• 30:38
  see me because they were not where they could just jump in a
• 30:42
  car and drive over it. You know, there's a lot of
• 30:46
  transportation issues and mobility issues and that sort of
• 30:49
  thing. So anyways that that particular
• 30:53
  insurance company said, well, if you're going to be opening up
• 30:56
  this new location, because I had to let them know every time I
• 30:59
  opened up a new location to be able to be contracted for that
• 31:03
  particular location. Just because I was contracted
• 31:06
  with them, that doesn't mean no, I can bill out of another
• 31:10
  location. They have to approve each
• 31:12
  location saying that I can be a preferred provider at that
• 31:16
  particular location. So that's how they knew and they
• 31:22
  were, they were like, well, we're going to come in and do a
• 31:26
  full audit then. And I'm like, well, okay, as if
• 31:30
  I care, you know, do whatever. I okay.
• 31:34
  And so I, I called my business lawyers because by this time I
• 31:40
  was always on the phone with my business lawyers just because
• 31:44
  insurance companies never wanted to pay.
• 31:46
  And there was a whole process, big, huge process and having to
• 31:50
  get approval before you even submitted the claim.
• 31:53
  And then you'd submit the claim with the approval and everything
• 31:55
  else. And they still deny it was a
• 31:57
  delay tax. Yeah, tons for every single, so
• 32:03
  in every single location. So it it, I was, my business
• 32:07
  lawyers at this time were very much involved in helping me get
• 32:10
  paid because it was just crazy dealing with these medical
• 32:14
  insurance companies. Anyways, so this one particular
• 32:17
  very large medical insurance company, it threatened to audit
• 32:22
  me thinking that like, I was going to think that was a
• 32:24
  horrible thing, but I didn't care.
• 32:26
  I'm like, well, audit me all you want there.
• 32:28
  I mean, I'm playing by the rules, you know, like what?
• 32:32
  And so I let my business lawyers know and they were also were
• 32:37
  like, yeah, let them, who cares, right?
• 32:39
  You know, like it's not you don't really want them to do
• 32:42
  that. It's not convenient, but also
• 32:44
  who cares? So I was like, yeah, come on in,
• 32:50
  whatever. So they ended up coming in to
• 32:56
  my, all my locations. They did a, a full audit and
• 33:02
  their findings were that they didn't find anything, but they
• 33:05
  were holding at least they were telling me they didn't find
• 33:07
  anything. And they were supposed to tell
• 33:08
  me if there was anything that they found.
• 33:10
  Because technically if they find something, you're given a
• 33:14
  certain amount of time in writing yeah, to correct it.
• 33:17
  And then like they would come back and if that wasn't
• 33:19
  corrected, then you could get in trouble.
• 33:21
  And I mean, they pull your contract and you could get in
• 33:24
  legal trouble too. So, so I, they never gave me any
• 33:29
  findings, never anything. But they were holding my
• 33:32
  payments. So I was still getting
• 33:34
  authorization to bill them from them, but then they were not
• 33:39
  paying me. And this went on for months.
• 33:41
  And with how many patients I've seen, with how many locations I
• 33:44
  had, that started to really add up.
• 33:46
  And that was hard on the cash flow to keep a business open
• 33:50
  'cause I had, you know, payrolls and rents and buying product,
• 33:55
  you know, all this stuff. So my lawyers contacted them to
• 34:00
  their lawyers and it, it was not getting resolved.
• 34:03
  So we decided to sue them and it I won and they they were ordered
• 34:11
  to pay me. It wasn't paid anything for the
• 34:15
  amount of time or how long it took for them to pay me.
• 34:18
  It was literally to pay me for what they had already agreed to
• 34:22
  pay me that they didn't. So I wasn't asking for anything
• 34:25
  extra or anything like that for all the hassle that they caused
• 34:28
  me or anything. It was just simply pay me for
• 34:30
  what you had authorized to pay me.
• 34:33
  So that took them forever. They made that a really slow
• 34:36
  process and but I did end up getting paid and they did.
• 34:43
  Eventually, after they slowed, they slowed everything.
• 34:45
  They did pay you. Yes, yeah.
• 34:47
  And they were legally ordered to so so they did.
• 34:52
  But it was not fast. They would just pay me like a
• 34:55
  little bit like per month. It was ridiculous.
• 34:58
  But hey, at least I was getting paid.
• 35:00
  So the final, the final payment came through.
• 35:04
  And so my business lawyers wanted to do a final, you know,
• 35:11
  closure meeting with their business lawyers.
• 35:13
  And my business lawyers suggested that I'm, I would be
• 35:16
  in on that meeting. So I, I was in their office,
• 35:19
  they were out of Portland, OR. So I was in their office and we
• 35:23
  had the final meeting with this particular medical insurance
• 35:27
  company lawyers. And, you know, it was just your
• 35:32
  typical, you know, thank you. OK.
• 35:34
  We're just finalizing anything that needed to be signed on
• 35:37
  either side. You know, that was getting
• 35:39
  resolved so that it was just done.
• 35:41
  And one of the one of the lawyers said in the meeting at
• 35:48
  the end that Saffron did not learn.
• 35:51
  Learn her lesson and she better watch her back.
• 35:55
  And me and my lawyers were like instantly like what?
• 35:59
  What? And I think one of my lawyers
• 36:02
  were even like what? Like what?
• 36:04
  What? Sounds like a.
• 36:06
  Yeah, like what are you talking about?
• 36:09
  What did I hear you right? I'm not heard you right.
• 36:12
  And so one of my lawyers said, you, you do understand that this
• 36:16
  money that you have paid did not go to Saffron as an individual,
• 36:20
  but Saffron the business because it was Saffron specialized
• 36:24
  medical. And that that particular lawyer
• 36:30
  from the insurance company just like was like, yeah, whatever.
• 36:33
  Like totally, really unprofessional.
• 36:36
  And was just like, yeah, right, right.
• 36:38
  And me and my lawyers are like, what?
• 36:41
  I mean, legally I, I couldn't as a person take it anyway.
• 36:44
  It was strictly through the business to the business, only
• 36:47
  the business back. And And so we were just like,
• 36:53
  like, that's weird, right? And so when we got off off of
• 36:56
  the call, off the conference call, my lawyers were like, you
• 36:58
  know, they're going to pull your contract.
• 37:00
  And I was like, yeah, I mean, clearly they're not going to
• 37:04
  work with. They'll take the contract.
• 37:06
  Right. Yeah, Yeah, obviously they're
• 37:07
  going, they're going to. And so we kind of laughed about
• 37:10
  that because we were all prepared for that.
• 37:12
  And I had since found out with that particular insurance
• 37:16
  company, I could still build them for the custom garments.
• 37:21
  There were some loopholes and I found them where I could still
• 37:24
  build them even if I wasn't a preferred provider.
• 37:27
  They wouldn't market me as a preferred provider that it would
• 37:30
  be a little bit harder to find if a patient was just looking
• 37:33
  for a location, but the medical community already had a really
• 37:36
  good relationship with. So they were going to send to me
• 37:38
  anyways. Like me and my lawyers were just
• 37:40
  like whatever, we don't need them anyways, it's fine.
• 37:44
  We collectively never thought that was the end like done.
• 37:50
  And I got AI got a certified letter like, I don't know, a
• 37:54
  week later or whatever saying that they immediately were
• 37:58
  terminating my contract with them, which but I was prepared
• 38:01
  for yeah. And I, I let my lawyers know and
• 38:04
  we all kind of laughed and I was like, ha, ha, ha, having no idea
• 38:09
  what they were actually doing Well and.
• 38:13
  Let's take a break there because I want to get big.
• 38:15
  I want to get into the nightmare part of this when it all comes
• 38:18
  down because there's a lot that comes down and how you find out
• 38:22
  about all this as a business owner, thinking that you're just
• 38:26
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• 38:30
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• 38:33
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• 38:36
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• 38:42
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• 38:46
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• 38:49
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• 38:56
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• 38:59
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• 39:04
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  Nightmare Success. And the Nightmare Success
• 39:17
  podcast is sponsored by the White Collar Support Group, the
• 39:21
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• 39:23
  white collar criminal justice system.
• 39:26
  I'm a member of the White Collar Support Group, and I can tell
• 39:28
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• 39:31
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• 39:32
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• 39:34
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• 39:37
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• 39:41
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• 39:44
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• 39:48
  expungement statute that is badly needed in the federal
• 39:53
  system. So for anybody who's interested
• 39:55
  in that, go to prisoners.org. So Saffron, you think
• 40:01
  everything's done? They've paid, they've cancelled
• 40:03
  your contract, which you thought was going to happen.
• 40:06
  Now what happens? Yeah, So I'm just going about my
• 40:11
  life, you know, No, no really further issues.
• 40:17
  They were much harder to get payment from, but that was
• 40:21
  expected. So I'm not thinking anything
• 40:24
  drastically, you know, like, oh, you know, they're coming after
• 40:28
  me. I, I never thought that I, me
• 40:30
  and my lawyers were prepared for them to really fight any future
• 40:33
  payment, but they did have to pay me and I was, so I just
• 40:37
  wasn't bothered or alerted by the difficulty in getting paid
• 40:42
  from that particular insurance company going forward.
• 40:46
  So time, time goes on and it's probably roughly about a year
• 40:52
  later and I have a great opportunity presented to me to
• 40:57
  open up a location in Northern California.
• 41:01
  The medical community. We're we're starting to send me
• 41:05
  people from Northern California to my Portland locations, but it
• 41:09
  was getting really difficult. And so I there was a there
• 41:16
  again, ADMA location that was looking to sell and it fit right
• 41:23
  into what what I did already. And so I ended up opening a
• 41:28
  location in Northern California. It was in Santa Rosa, and the
• 41:33
  medical community in San Francisco also was interested.
• 41:37
  But you know, you can only to be successful.
• 41:41
  You can't just open everything that you.
• 41:43
  Have right? Well, you still have expenses.
• 41:45
  It, it, it yes. And insurance companies not
• 41:47
  paying on time, so you know, you had to go slow.
• 41:51
  And so I first was like, well, I'll open the one because it's a
• 41:54
  great opportunity in Santa Rosa. And at first I was traveling
• 42:00
  there a lot and living out of hotels and that sort of thing.
• 42:06
  But I'm like that getting really expensive.
• 42:09
  I'm spending more money than, believe it or not, what rent
• 42:12
  would be in San Francisco, which is extremely expensive, but the
• 42:15
  hotel stays were very expensive. So I ended up just getting a
• 42:21
  renting a, a condo in San Francisco knowing that I was
• 42:27
  going to be eventually opening in San Francisco.
• 42:32
  But then I would just go to that condo and then I would drive to
• 42:35
  Santa Rosa and get that one built up and started and then
• 42:39
  work on the San Francisco 1. So I was in San Francisco at my
• 42:45
  condo. I had a house in Portland, OR
• 42:49
  that I bought. I purchased when I was a medical
• 42:51
  sales Rep. So I would go back and forth.
• 42:53
  And so I just happen to be in my condo in San Francisco and I'm
• 43:01
  getting these calls really early in the morning, just non-stop.
• 43:05
  And I, it like wakes me up. It's like really early.
• 43:09
  And I'm like, you know, like what, who's calling me?
• 43:14
  Oh my goodness. And I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe
• 43:16
  someone, one of my managers, maybe he's calling in sick or,
• 43:20
  you know, maybe, maybe it's a hospital that has an urgent, you
• 43:23
  know, case or something, I don't know.
• 43:26
  So I, I look at my phone and it's a Oregon, Oregon area code.
• 43:31
  And so I'm like, huh. And there's multiple messages
• 43:35
  and I'm like, what in the world, right.
• 43:37
  So I listened to the first message and it is, I had a
• 43:40
  location in a hospital in Oregon.
• 43:46
  It was actually inside the hospital and that the hospital
• 43:50
  was calling me, leaving me messages that they were sure I
• 43:54
  already was aware, but the FBI was in the hospital raiding my
• 44:01
  clinic and it looked really bad on that particular hospital and
• 44:05
  could I please take care of it immediately?
• 44:09
  And I'm like, oh, I didn't hear that right.
• 44:11
  I listened to the message again. I'm just like, my body goes cold
• 44:15
  and no, I heard it right. And I'm like, what?
• 44:20
  So I called the administration office to that particular
• 44:23
  hospital, and they're like, I can't talk to you, you need to
• 44:26
  take care of this. But I'm told I can't talk to
• 44:28
  you. And I'm like, wait, what?
• 44:29
  I just got a message saying there's FBI like, what?
• 44:32
  And they're like, yeah, they're all over and you need to take
• 44:35
  care of. I can't talk to you.
• 44:37
  And they hang up. And I'm like, what?
• 44:39
  What? And so I'm even shocked at that
• 44:42
  because I have a really good reputation and really, really
• 44:45
  good relationship with, like, everybody.
• 44:48
  And they usually be like, well, hey, Saffron, what's that?
• 44:50
  You know, And they're just like, I can't talk to you.
• 44:52
  Like scared to even like, like they're going to get in trouble,
• 44:55
  just even like answering the phone.
• 44:56
  And I happen to be calling kind of thing.
• 44:58
  And I'm like, what? So I, I'm like, well, I'm just
• 45:02
  going to call the FBI. Like, I don't know who else to
• 45:04
  call. And so I, I call, well, actually
• 45:09
  I first contact, try to contact my managers, right?
• 45:12
  No one, no one is answering their nobody.
• 45:16
  So I'm like, OK, so I'm like, I'm just going to call the FBI
• 45:19
  and I don't even I'm like, is there an FBI in Oregon?
• 45:21
  There must be, right? I don't know.
• 45:23
  There was one in Portland. And so I call just have no idea.
• 45:27
  Just googled it and yeah. And so I call and I the answer
• 45:33
  and I tell them like, this is really weird.
• 45:35
  But you know, I'm, I'm in shock, right?
• 45:38
  So I'm not even upset. I'm just like, this is weird and
• 45:42
  I don't know what's going on. Can you tell me?
• 45:44
  And so they were like, well, let me reach out to one of my agents
• 45:48
  and we'll get back to you. And I'm like, OK, so I sit there
• 45:51
  and my condo in San Francisco just like stunned.
• 45:54
  Like I don't even like what? And I'm expecting, very naively,
• 45:58
  I'm expecting a call back saying, oh, big mistake.
• 46:02
  It has nothing to do with you. We don't even know why the
• 46:05
  hospital said that to you. I mean, I'm like, I don't know,
• 46:07
  right. And so an FBI agent calls me.
• 46:12
  I don't know. It's an FBI agent at first,
• 46:14
  right? And so I'm like, hi, you know,
• 46:16
  I'm thinking it's someone from the administration office and,
• 46:19
  and from the FBI place in Portland.
• 46:22
  So I'm explaining, you know, I got this call and like, I don't
• 46:25
  know, and can I just talk to someone?
• 46:27
  And then they were like, Oh, well, I'm the, I actually am
• 46:30
  here in the hospital. I am the lead FBI agent doing
• 46:34
  this raid. And yes, we're taking everything
• 46:37
  of yours, absolutely everything of yours and every clinic you
• 46:40
  own. And I'm like, Oh, what?
• 46:44
  Yeah. And I'm just like, super in
• 46:46
  shock. And I'm like, well, what do you
• 46:48
  need? You don't need to take
• 46:49
  everything. I'll just give it to you, you
• 46:51
  know, like, what do you need? I will right now.
• 46:54
  I'll send it to you, like or tell you where it's at or
• 46:56
  whatever. And and I'm like you.
• 47:00
  Haven't any at this time, Saffron, you haven't made a
• 47:02
  phone call to your attorney, right?
• 47:05
  No, because I didn't, I mean, I'm super like, what's going on?
• 47:08
  Why would I call my, my lawyer? This must be a mistake.
• 47:11
  This isn't any like, I don't know, right?
• 47:14
  And I mean, just, it's a normal day and I get this really weird
• 47:18
  phone call. So I'm like in shock and I'm
• 47:21
  like, well, what I and I'm super like, I don't even know what
• 47:25
  you're saying, like literally. And like I hear the words right,
• 47:30
  but I'm not computing what they're saying.
• 47:32
  You're rating my I don't know what that means.
• 47:35
  Like in my head. Did I tell you?
• 47:36
  Saffron did the did the agent tell you why they were rating or
• 47:40
  they just said we're we've got a warrant to raid your places?
• 47:44
  Exactly. Have no idea, right?
• 47:45
  And that's why I'm like, what do you need?
• 47:48
  I I will just give it to you. We don't need to make this big
• 47:50
  scene. Like, this is silly.
• 47:51
  You're probably scaring my employees.
• 47:52
  You're scaring the hospital, like, and like, just tell me
• 47:55
  what you need. I'll be more than happy to give
• 47:56
  it to you. And they're like, well, would
• 47:59
  you talk to us? And I'm like, innocently, like,
• 48:01
  yeah, sure. And they're like, will you come
• 48:03
  come in and talk to us? Yeah, I'll give you and tell me
• 48:07
  what you need. I'll just bring it.
• 48:09
  Like, sure, I'll talk to you and let's get this resolved.
• 48:13
  It's a mistake. And and then they so this is the
• 48:18
  FBI agent that's in a hospital in Portland.
• 48:21
  I'm in my condo in San Francisco when this is happening and the
• 48:26
  agent says, well, since you're in your condo in San Francisco
• 48:31
  right now, I'm sure you could book a flight to Portland.
• 48:35
  We're right next to the airport in Portland.
• 48:37
  We'd love to talk to you today. And I just was like, excuse me,
• 48:45
  you know that I am in San Francisco in my condo.
• 48:48
  And they're like, yeah, we know right where you're at.
• 48:52
  I freak. I said immediately.
• 48:54
  I'm calling my lawyer. Thanks.
• 48:55
  Bye. I hang up.
• 48:56
  I am like shaking. I feel like I'm going to throw
• 48:59
  up. I'm, I'm cold.
• 49:01
  Like, I've never felt this before.
• 49:02
  I thought I was going to literally die.
• 49:04
  And I'm like, freaked out. I'm in a condo that has these,
• 49:08
  you know, floor to ceiling windows everywhere.
• 49:10
  I always have the blinds open because San Francisco's
• 49:12
  beautiful and I was in a really pretty place and the weather's
• 49:14
  always like sunny and nice. And I'm just like, they're
• 49:18
  watching me. They, they literally know right
• 49:21
  this second where I, they're like watching me.
• 49:23
  And I freak out. I call my, my, I shut the blinds
• 49:26
  and I, I call the, my business lawyer and they're thinking that
• 49:30
  I'm, I'm calling because of, but I would always call them on like
• 49:34
  some insurance company not paying me, you know, And so
• 49:36
  they're kind of initially like making a joke like, oh, which
• 49:39
  insurance? Company they had, they hadn't
• 49:41
  been alerted at all. They didn't know anything about
• 49:43
  it. OK, not at all nothing.
• 49:45
  And and so I'm freaked out, but I'm not like I'm not
• 49:50
  understanding how serious this is because I just have no
• 49:53
  reference to how serious it is. And so I'm like, well, gosh,
• 49:59
  something really horrible just happened.
• 50:01
  And I explain and they freak out.
• 50:04
  They're like, do not talk to me. Do not say one more word.
• 50:08
  How dare you call the FBI. Do not talk to anybody.
• 50:11
  Do not say what did you say? No, don't tell me what you said.
• 50:14
  I mean, it was like that. They're like, we're business
• 50:17
  lawyers. We could be called in.
• 50:19
  Like we don't like no dude, don't talk to anybody.
• 50:22
  Don't even talk to us. We work with a criminal lawyer
• 50:24
  here in Portland. We're going to call them, see if
• 50:26
  they're available. And I'm like a criminal lawyer.
• 50:29
  Why would I talk to a criminal? Safran?
• 50:31
  Don't even talk to me. Like they were like blunt.
• 50:34
  And I'm like freaked. I'm like, what's going on?
• 50:38
  They're like, we'll be in touch and I'm like, OK, And they're
• 50:42
  like, stay by your phone. And I'm like, OK, they hang up
• 50:45
  and I'm like, I'm just sitting there like in shock.
• 50:49
  Like literally just like I don't even, I don't know, I'm just
• 50:52
  like literally sitting there and probably 10 minutes goes by.
• 50:55
  I'm not sure, seems like a million years, but I'm sure it
• 50:57
  was 10 minutes. And my business lawyer calls me
• 51:00
  back and again says do not talk. I am just letting you know, stay
• 51:04
  by your phone. I talk to a criminal lawyer.
• 51:06
  This is their name, and they will be calling you.
• 51:09
  And I'm like, thanks. I mean, I like, I, I don't, I
• 51:13
  don't even understand what's happening.
• 51:15
  I, I, my brain could not compute what was happening.
• 51:20
  And so there again, probably 10 minutes later, I don't know,
• 51:23
  seemed like forever. The I got a phone call and it
• 51:26
  was the criminal lawyer and they were very cold, cool, collected,
• 51:31
  acted like I was a criminal. What did you do?
• 51:34
  Why don't you just tell me now so that I can help you, because
• 51:36
  the longer we wait, you know, I can't help you.
• 51:39
  So just tell me what you did. I wish I knew.
• 51:42
  I don't know. I don't think I did anything.
• 51:44
  I think this is a mistake. They're like, well, it's not a
• 51:47
  mistake because they wouldn't have done this unless they had a
• 51:50
  warrant. And to get a warrant, they would
• 51:52
  have been following you for a long time.
• 51:54
  And so they obviously have evidence on something.
• 51:56
  So why don't you just tell me, Safran, what did you do so that
• 51:59
  we can get this, you know, moving forward basically is what
• 52:02
  they said. And I'm like, I literally don't
• 52:06
  understand what's even happening.
• 52:11
  And that's how it started. Wow.
• 52:14
  So that's that sends chills down a lot of people's spines who who
• 52:21
  have had to deal anything with that because you know, there's
• 52:25
  the raid that happens at people's houses.
• 52:28
  I've talked to a lot of people that had that happen.
• 52:30
  I didn't have have that happen to me, but they they made sure
• 52:34
  you were out of town so that you could be away, so that they
• 52:38
  could go in and raid all those places.
• 52:40
  And So what happens next? Well, crazy scenario is.
• 52:47
  Tough. Oh, I just, I mean I, I your.
• 52:52
  Brother, is he an attorney? Yeah, yeah, did.
• 52:56
  You talk to him about it being this.
• 52:58
  Oh, no, because I, I was scared to talk to anybody because what
• 53:04
  the heck is going on? What are they going to do?
• 53:06
  Like I don't want anybody to be feeling what I'm feeling right
• 53:09
  now and I don't, I don't even know.
• 53:12
  So I guess your business is at this point, are they effectively
• 53:15
  shut down? So what I found out is so I
• 53:21
  eventually heard from one of my main managers that kind of
• 53:24
  managed all the stores and it was on a group text and they
• 53:30
  were basically said, don't ever contact us again.
• 53:35
  I can't believe you did this to us.
• 53:39
  And it was, I later learned verbiage from the FBI because
• 53:43
  I'd never heard this before. But you're a mastermind in this
• 53:47
  fraudulent activity that you got us involved in.
• 53:49
  And I'm like, mastermind and fraudulent activity, like what
• 53:52
  are you talking about? So they were told not to talk to
• 53:56
  me anymore. And and that there was, you
• 53:59
  know, obviously this big, you know, I was a ringleader or
• 54:02
  something. I don't.
• 54:03
  Have did you Saffron, have any clue at all about what, because
• 54:09
  I mean, what I think when you and I talked previously, this
• 54:13
  ended up running back around to that insurance company that ran
• 54:16
  back around to the FBI that that started as a referral and
• 54:20
  investigation. But did you think of any of that
• 54:23
  when this was all happening? No, I literally was like, I'm
• 54:28
  thinking even though this is horrible, it's a mistake and
• 54:34
  I'll be able to fix it, right? What did?
• 54:37
  They. Get wrong that I need to
• 54:40
  correct. Yep.
• 54:41
  And and so until I talk further with the criminal lawyer and
• 54:49
  they're like, no, it doesn't matter if it was a mistake,
• 54:52
  you're screwed. You are officially screwed.
• 54:56
  They're the system. Now and, and they, they were
• 55:02
  like, be prepared. And this was later in the day
• 55:05
  when, because I talked to the criminal lawyer a couple times
• 55:08
  that day and they were like, you know, it was the whole, you
• 55:14
  know, semi a retainer so that I can get to work on this.
• 55:17
  Well, I'm gonna reach out to the FBI.
• 55:22
  You don't ever talk to them again.
• 55:23
  I will. I'll find out what this is about
• 55:25
  since you're not telling me. And I'm like, I don't know.
• 55:28
  I would tell you if I knew this was on This happened on a
• 55:32
  Friday. So they were my criminal
• 55:35
  lawyers. Like, you know, I'll, I'll see
• 55:37
  what I can find out. We'll be in touch on Monday.
• 55:40
  Wire me over the, the funds so that I can get working on this
• 55:44
  and we'll be in touch on on Monday.
• 55:47
  And so when, when I did find out, I, so they, the criminal
• 55:57
  lawyer eventually found out like what happened that I was
• 56:01
  reported to that 'cause I'm like, how did, how did this
• 56:04
  happen? I was reported to the FBA by
• 56:08
  this one particular company that goes by a couple different
• 56:11
  names. Now, my, my criminal lawyer
• 56:14
  didn't, didn't know. I mean, they're not from the
• 56:16
  medical industry. And so they were like, I think
• 56:20
  this is an insurance company, but they had two names.
• 56:23
  I'm like, oh, they go by two names.
• 56:24
  I know exactly who this is. And so I explained the whole,
• 56:27
  the whole situation, you know, like they didn't pay me, I sued
• 56:31
  them, I won, they threatened me, blah, blah.
• 56:33
  So I'm thinking this is easily going to be cleared up.
• 56:35
  They threatened me in front of my lawyers.
• 56:38
  There's record of that. So I think there was even an
• 56:41
  e-mail threat. I'm like, so not only was it in
• 56:44
  a meeting with my lawyers, but I think they emailed that to my
• 56:47
  lawyers too. So there's record of it.
• 56:49
  So this can all be cleared, right?
• 56:51
  And that's my thinking. And, and that was literally my
• 56:55
  conversation and the criminal lawyers like, no, no, once
• 56:59
  they're involved, it, it does not matter what you did, you
• 57:04
  could do nothing. If they are involved, they will
• 57:06
  find something and you will be going to prison.
• 57:09
  And I'm like, Oh, no, I mean, I'm like, I don't even have a,
• 57:12
  a, a speeding ticket. Like literally I'm like prison.
• 57:16
  But it what? And still that had not crossed
• 57:18
  my mind. Why would I be thinking I would
• 57:20
  be going to prison? Why would I be thinking I was
• 57:22
  actually going to get in legal trouble?
• 57:24
  You know, I'm like I how like I am.
• 57:27
  This is not vocabulary in my world.
• 57:30
  This is not talk. I would have I don't that's I
• 57:34
  what? And and they were like, yeah to
• 57:37
  your. Parents and when all this was
• 57:38
  happening so. When I got off, when I, when I
• 57:43
  ended up getting off the phone with them on that Friday when
• 57:47
  this all went down, I, I called my parents and they were driving
• 57:53
  to see my, my brother and his family.
• 57:57
  And so they were out of town too.
• 58:00
  And they were freaking out. But I tried to calm him down and
• 58:05
  was like, Oh no, I just talked to a lawyer.
• 58:07
  It's going to get all fixed. I had no idea.
• 58:08
  I was just trying to not like freak them out, right?
• 58:11
  And so that my mom's crying and you know, they're just freaking,
• 58:16
  but I'm like trying to be like, no, it's fine.
• 58:18
  I don't like this. This is a mistake.
• 58:20
  I've contacted a lawyer. We're going to, we're going to
• 58:23
  get it. Like don't freak out.
• 58:24
  Go visit, you know, my brother and his family and go have fun
• 58:29
  and, and I'll get this figured out.
• 58:32
  Well, it was maybe, I don't know, five hours later because
• 58:38
  it was in the evening, I get a call and it's an FBI agent and
• 58:44
  they're like, we're at your parents house and we're going to
• 58:48
  break down the door if you don't tell us where the key is to get
• 58:50
  in. And I'm like, what were?
• 58:53
  Your parents in business with you.
• 58:55
  No, but my, my dad would help me in paying bills.
• 59:04
  And so they had record of that. And so they, they thought, I
• 59:07
  have later learned, they thought that, you know, they would find
• 59:12
  some major scheme somewhere in my dad's office or something
• 59:17
  that I was doing and yes, stupid.
• 59:21
  And so I'm like, well, I don't know where the key is.
• 59:24
  I don't live at my parents house.
• 59:25
  I don't know. And they're like, well you have
• 59:28
  5 minutes and if you don't tell us we're knocking down their
• 59:30
  door. I freak out 'cause my parents
• 59:32
  would, how do we freak out if their door got busted open,
• 59:36
  right And they're out of town and not nowhere close.
• 59:38
  So I, I call my mom and I'm like, you need to, where's the
• 59:43
  key there? FB is at your house are going to
• 59:45
  do a raid there, but they're going to knock down the door.
• 59:46
  If you don't tell me where the key is, my mom freaks out.
• 59:48
  I'm not telling you where the key is.
• 59:50
  I don't want them in there and you know, and I'm like, tell me
• 59:53
  where the key is. So I, she eventually tells me, I
• 59:56
  call, I call the agent back. I tell them I stayed on the
• 1:00:00
  phone to make sure that they find the key so they don't knock
• 1:00:02
  down my parents. Front door and and they are in
• 1:00:07
  the when they found the key because I was still on the line
• 1:00:10
  they in the background there were multiple of them and they
• 1:00:14
  were in the background you know like woo Hoo, we found it let
• 1:00:19
  the fun begin like they thought this was fun and I'm like, this
• 1:00:23
  is disgusting. And so they ended up, yeah, they
• 1:00:27
  ended up raiding, literally raiding my, my parents house,
• 1:00:29
  turning couches upside down, going through drawers,
• 1:00:33
  everything, everything. And because they weren't, they
• 1:00:37
  also knew they weren't home and that they weren't going to be
• 1:00:40
  home. So.
• 1:00:42
  What happens next? So they so my parents end up
• 1:00:49
  coming back, they don't go visit my brother and I end up the
• 1:00:55
  following Monday. I talked with a criminal lawyer.
• 1:00:59
  I find out that they have something like it was 13
• 1:01:06
  different charges against me, federal charges that would be
• 1:01:10
  equivalent to about 30 years. And I lost my mind because I
• 1:01:18
  don't. I'm still not even comprehending
• 1:01:21
  what's happening and I have no clue what I could have possibly
• 1:01:26
  have done wrong and. Are they calling it insurance
• 1:01:31
  fraud? What are they charging?
• 1:01:32
  You so the big one, and it's so crazy.
• 1:01:38
  The big one was money laundering.
• 1:01:41
  Money laundering cuz. I didn't even know what.
• 1:01:43
  That enterprise is deemed to be illegal.
• 1:01:47
  Than anything you do with that money is money laundering.
• 1:01:50
  Yeah, and I didn't even know what that meant.
• 1:01:52
  They had mail fraud. They had wire fraud.
• 1:01:55
  Anything you put in the once they deem your organization
• 1:01:59
  criminal. Anything that you wire is wire
• 1:02:02
  fraud. Anything you put in the mail is
• 1:02:04
  mail fraud. Anything that you buy or expand
• 1:02:07
  your business with is money laundering.
• 1:02:10
  Yeah, yeah. Or those down.
• 1:02:11
  In the Cayman Islands listening to this.
• 1:02:14
  Right. Well, I didn't even know what
• 1:02:16
  any of that meant. I'm like, I just have a medical
• 1:02:20
  business where I'm helping people all day long.
• 1:02:21
  I work seven days a week. Like what?
• 1:02:23
  What are you, what are you talking about?
• 1:02:25
  Like what? And I would, I remember I told
• 1:02:29
  my criminal lawyer, I'm like, it sounds so silly, but I meant it.
• 1:02:35
  And at the time, because I was not comprehending what was
• 1:02:38
  happening, I was like, well, I mean, I could spend like one
• 1:02:41
  night in prison, but wait, I can't like go to prison.
• 1:02:45
  What are you? I'd be, I'd be killed.
• 1:02:47
  For one thing, I am not a prison like what you know, And my
• 1:02:51
  lawyer did not think it was funny.
• 1:02:52
  They were very sad. I mean, I wasn't trying to be
• 1:02:54
  funny, but I'm just like, you know, like what?
• 1:02:57
  And my lawyer is like, no, this is very serious.
• 1:03:00
  So be very prepared that you will be going to prison because
• 1:03:04
  they you don't have these kind of charges without you going to
• 1:03:07
  federal prison. Because I was like jail.
• 1:03:09
  I was like, oh, I could do jail. And she was like, no, it's
• 1:03:12
  prison and this. All this last saffron with with
• 1:03:15
  you finally getting with your attorney, them telling you what
• 1:03:19
  these charges are you you're seeing.
• 1:03:21
  And and the other thing that I think people might or might not
• 1:03:25
  know is, you know, one kind of mail fraud could be 10 to 20
• 1:03:29
  years. Yeah, they can stack those and
• 1:03:32
  and those become over hundreds of years.
• 1:03:35
  So what was the time frame of you getting with your criminal
• 1:03:40
  attorney? He him telling you've got
• 1:03:41
  thirteen of these charges. How long does this last to the
• 1:03:46
  point where you are put in a in a firing line of having to make
• 1:03:50
  a decision of a plea bargain. Yep.
• 1:03:53
  So it was roughly probably about 2 to 2 1/2 years that my.
• 1:04:05
  What do you what do you do in that time frame because your
• 1:04:08
  businesses have been disabled? Yep.
• 1:04:11
  So how do? You survive.
• 1:04:12
  My criminal lawyer was like in the beginning told me my
• 1:04:20
  businesses and the life that I knew were done with right then
• 1:04:23
  bye. You can't go back, go empty out
• 1:04:26
  your stores, go figure it out. And I'm like, and, and then they
• 1:04:31
  told me, so you'll probably want to get a job for your mental
• 1:04:36
  health because you're going to lose your mind.
• 1:04:40
  And but I advise you not to do anything that that you're going
• 1:04:48
  to take too seriously because you could be arrested at any
• 1:04:50
  time. So they were like, don't, don't
• 1:04:53
  do anything that you can that you'll be traveling 'cause they
• 1:04:57
  knew my background was like medical cells.
• 1:04:59
  They're like, you know, you don't have any official charges.
• 1:05:01
  So you can still do that. But I wouldn't do anything where
• 1:05:04
  you're traveling. And I wouldn't do anything that
• 1:05:08
  you would be really upset if they walked in and arrested you
• 1:05:13
  'cause they could do that literally at any time.
• 1:05:15
  And if you are traveling, they will look at that as a red flag
• 1:05:18
  and they'll probably arrest you and you don't want that.
• 1:05:22
  So I'm like, I was like, what the heck.
• 1:05:26
  So I all I knew was my business, right?
• 1:05:29
  And then you're telling me I can't like even do what I did
• 1:05:32
  straight out of like, what? What the heck, right.
• 1:05:35
  So I did in depth. I found a, a medical company.
• 1:05:41
  I did medical cells, but it was local.
• 1:05:44
  I so I didn't travel. I stayed within very, very
• 1:05:48
  local. I didn't even travel within
• 1:05:49
  Oregon. It was.
• 1:05:50
  It was a local position. And I meant to ask you when,
• 1:05:56
  when they when they let you know what these charges were, did,
• 1:06:00
  did they immediately serve you an indictment or were they
• 1:06:03
  saying that they were just going to continue to investigate and
• 1:06:06
  they could come up? With more Yep, they didn't serve
• 1:06:09
  me with anything. They they said they gave me a
• 1:06:12
  copy of the warrant, but it didn't.
• 1:06:15
  To me it didn't show anything like why?
• 1:06:17
  I still had no idea why they were.
• 1:06:18
  Going to they just continued to investigate because sometimes
• 1:06:20
  what they do is they'll indict somebody and then they'll do a
• 1:06:22
  superseding indictment because they continue to investigate.
• 1:06:25
  But in your case they just said, hey, we think you're cooked and
• 1:06:29
  we're not your your businesses are cooked.
• 1:06:31
  But in the meantime, we're going to let you live in limbo,
• 1:06:35
  Purgatory. It's.
• 1:06:37
  Purgatory. It's purgatory here on Earth.
• 1:06:39
  It literally, and I know you know this, you know the feeling
• 1:06:43
  it I've never experienced anything quite like it and I
• 1:06:46
  don't know the words to explain it.
• 1:06:47
  I try to explain it, but it does not it doesn't give the IT
• 1:06:53
  doesn't give the feelings that you feel justice.
• 1:06:55
  I I, there are not human words that I know to describe the
• 1:06:59
  actual feeling of being in purgatory.
• 1:07:02
  Literally, you are waiting. You know that there.
• 1:07:05
  So this is I explained this in in my writings is I I knew that
• 1:07:12
  I was being hunted and I knew I was going to get shot.
• 1:07:16
  I just didn't know when. And so that feeling analogy,
• 1:07:20
  Yep, that feeling of I'm being hunted every day and at any
• 1:07:24
  given time they're going to start shooting at me, but I
• 1:07:27
  don't know when that's going to be.
• 1:07:29
  And do you? Ever have a sit down
• 1:07:31
  conversation with the people that were investigating you?
• 1:07:36
  Yes, eventually I did and it was when.
• 1:07:41
  Surprisingly, a lot of people don't.
• 1:07:44
  Well, I didn't want to, if I were to have gotten that 30 plus
• 1:07:48
  year sentence, I, I was 40 when this happened.
• 1:07:50
  So I would be dead because you don't live that long in prison.
• 1:07:54
  I do know that. And and so I'm like, what?
• 1:07:59
  Why would I want to meet these people?
• 1:08:00
  Well, so they came to me with the a plea deal and I didn't
• 1:08:05
  want to do a plea deal. I said that is the most
• 1:08:07
  ridiculous thing. I did not do anything wrong.
• 1:08:10
  I will fight this. And so my lawyer said, of course
• 1:08:14
  they would back me in whatever I wanted to do.
• 1:08:17
  However, they highly, highly, highly suggested with their
• 1:08:21
  experience as this is what they do that I take the plea deal
• 1:08:26
  because if I were to fight it now, I'm going to piss them off
• 1:08:29
  more and they're going, chances are, I mean, they were like
• 1:08:34
  nobody wins ever, ever. I mean, 99.99% of the time
• 1:08:41
  you're going to lose. Even if you think you're the
• 1:08:44
  most innocent person in the world, they're, they're coming
• 1:08:46
  after you. You are going to lose.
• 1:08:49
  It's their game and they have the rules and they, it goes by
• 1:08:52
  their rules and they're going to win.
• 1:08:54
  So my lawyer was like, you have to take a plea deal because I'm
• 1:09:00
  telling you, if you don't, it's going to be real bad.
• 1:09:03
  You think this is bad, It's going to be real bad because now
• 1:09:06
  you've pissed them off. If you take the plea deal, you
• 1:09:09
  make them happy, they're willing to work, we'll be able to
• 1:09:11
  negotiate. You fight them on it, There's no
• 1:09:14
  negotiation. And they're going to go for the
• 1:09:16
  highest. Like you were saying, you know,
• 1:09:18
  one thing could be two years or it could be 50 years, right?
• 1:09:22
  Well, they're going to go for the 50 years if I fight it on
• 1:09:25
  each thing, you know? And so I wasn't aware that
• 1:09:29
  that's how that works either. So I was like, OK, fine, I guess
• 1:09:34
  I will take your advice even though I do not agree with this.
• 1:09:37
  And I felt like I was being a criminal by literally lying
• 1:09:41
  saying I agree to this plea deal because I did not I did not
• 1:09:45
  agree to this at all and I was forced to do it.
• 1:09:48
  And they also said prosecution said that they were going to
• 1:09:51
  come after family and even friends if I didn't sign this.
• 1:09:56
  Like they were adamant about it and, and they were going to come
• 1:10:01
  after me with more charges and conspiracy that was just going
• 1:10:06
  to tack on so many years. And I just, you know, you're,
• 1:10:10
  you're playing Russian roulette and you're pretty certain that
• 1:10:14
  the bullet's going to discharge. So you got to go with it.
• 1:10:18
  And it, it was sickening. And I absolutely, it was the
• 1:10:26
  worst horrible thing ever to have to sign that because it was
• 1:10:29
  a complete lie. And anyways, but I signed it
• 1:10:34
  because out of two horrible, horrible situations, that was
• 1:10:38
  the best situation of. The well, I mean, you'd already
• 1:10:40
  experienced your your parents house getting raided, yeah.
• 1:10:44
  Yeah. And I, and I couldn't imagine
• 1:10:47
  them doing this to more family coming out even after my parents
• 1:10:53
  for something coming after friends that had nothing to do
• 1:10:56
  with the business. But they they told me, they told
• 1:10:59
  me even who they'd go after. And I was, I was sickened by
• 1:11:03
  this. I'm like, how is this legal?
• 1:11:04
  This is organized crime. Like this is like flat out mafia
• 1:11:09
  stuff that you see in the movies, but this is real in real
• 1:11:12
  life. It was actually really happening
• 1:11:14
  to me and it was insane. It was a lot to.
• 1:11:18
  Deal. It's a lot to deal with, so you
• 1:11:20
  sign that. Do you have in there a cap of
• 1:11:24
  what you know you're dealing with for prison time?
• 1:11:27
  So they they had like worst case scenario and best case scenario.
• 1:11:33
  And so get this, I know you won't be surprised.
• 1:11:37
  So in the plea deal, they were not going to fight for the, the
• 1:11:42
  highest amount of time if I were to meet with them.
• 1:11:47
  And they were investigating my colleagues in the industry.
• 1:11:53
  They were investigating other DME locations that I knew.
• 1:11:57
  And, and they wanted me to talk about what I knew about those
• 1:12:02
  people and about their business practices.
• 1:12:06
  And I told my lawyer, well, I don't know.
• 1:12:08
  I don't know anything. I, I really didn't.
• 1:12:10
  I, I mean, I know them and I, I personally know them and I know
• 1:12:14
  what they do for business, but I don't know their bookkeeping.
• 1:12:18
  I don't know anything. As far as I know, they'd be in
• 1:12:21
  the same situation that I am that they, as far as they know,
• 1:12:24
  they're doing everything right. I don't have anything to tell
• 1:12:27
  them other than I know them and I can explain what their
• 1:12:30
  business is maybe in more detail.
• 1:12:33
  And my lawyer said we're not going to tell them that.
• 1:12:36
  We're just going to say we're agreeing because if you agree,
• 1:12:40
  they're not saying you have to have proof.
• 1:12:42
  They're just saying you have to tell the truth because if you
• 1:12:44
  don't, that will be more felony charges on you.
• 1:12:47
  So you have to tell the truth on what they ask you about these
• 1:12:50
  people. But if you cooperate, they, they
• 1:12:55
  are not saying how much they're going to lower what they're
• 1:12:59
  asking for, but they're going to lower it.
• 1:13:01
  So I highly advise you doing this.
• 1:13:03
  And I'm like, this just gets worse and worse and worse.
• 1:13:07
  So it gets worse. And worse, Oh, it's just like
• 1:13:10
  you can't make this stuff up you in your worst nightmare, you
• 1:13:13
  wouldn't think of this because in a nightmare you have to
• 1:13:16
  actually have a concept of something like this happening.
• 1:13:19
  And this was just like, I would have never like, what are you
• 1:13:22
  talking about? My gosh.
• 1:13:25
  So I have to meet with the people that are wanting to
• 1:13:29
  destroy me. I have to meet with them in
• 1:13:32
  person. This wasn't over Zoom.
• 1:13:33
  This was in person. And oh, to breathe the same air.
• 1:13:38
  It was sickening. You know, this is this is the
• 1:13:41
  worst of the worst. And so they, they had like, this
• 1:13:45
  is like out of a movie. They literally had surveillance
• 1:13:48
  photos of these people that I knew with other DME locations
• 1:13:54
  and they wanted me to identify who they were, if I knew who
• 1:13:59
  they were and what name I knew them to go by like crazy.
• 1:14:04
  And then some of them I knew. Some of them I did.
• 1:14:06
  I'm like, I don't know who that is.
• 1:14:08
  I can't give you a name because I literally don't.
• 1:14:09
  I've never seen that person before in my life.
• 1:14:12
  But some of them I did know and I could tell them the name I
• 1:14:14
  knew them by, I mean, but I don't, I didn't have any other
• 1:14:18
  information. They kept asking me, pressing me
• 1:14:20
  on their business practices and what I knew and I could tell
• 1:14:24
  them what I knew, but it wasn't anything incriminating by any
• 1:14:27
  means. So I don't think they were real
• 1:14:29
  happy with that meeting, but I did, I, I definitely
• 1:14:33
  participated and I wasn't lying on any of it.
• 1:14:37
  So they, they did at that time have another meeting, I don't
• 1:14:45
  know, like a month later or something with my lawyer and
• 1:14:48
  they came up with a lower, much, much lower time, time that they
• 1:14:57
  wanted me to go to prison for. And a lot of the charges were
• 1:15:00
  dropped because they didn't, they didn't have proof on it.
• 1:15:04
  And the, there were two charges that were in the plea agreement
• 1:15:08
  that I had that I know they didn't have proof on either.
• 1:15:11
  But once you sign that plea agreement, you're saying that
• 1:15:14
  you agree to those charges. And I did not agree to it.
• 1:15:17
  And I knew they didn't have proof on it because they
• 1:15:20
  couldn't ever show the proof on it because my lawyer would ask,
• 1:15:23
  we'll show, show us the proof. Well, but they were going to get
• 1:15:26
  me anyways. So I, I had to agree to that
• 1:15:30
  plea deal. So I knew.
• 1:15:31
  So they dropped it down to just the, the two charges that they
• 1:15:34
  had in the plea agreement and, and they were asking for the
• 1:15:39
  minimum. They, so they did, they did
• 1:15:41
  follow through with their commitment on that for me
• 1:15:44
  meeting with them, even though I wasn't able to give them the
• 1:15:47
  information that they wanted. And I'm like, you're just sick
• 1:15:51
  people to wake up in the morning and be like, Hey, this is a
• 1:15:54
  great day. I'm going to go try to destroy
• 1:15:56
  someone's life. Here we go.
• 1:15:58
  And that's literally what they do.
• 1:16:01
  And I'm like, wow, my, my whole, I get up in the morning and I'm
• 1:16:05
  like, how can I help somebody today?
• 1:16:06
  Right. So what's the amount of time
• 1:16:09
  that you eventually get? So they they were asking for a
• 1:16:15
  minimum of three years. There was a maximum, but
• 1:16:20
  honestly, I have voided that out of my mind.
• 1:16:22
  I don't remember there was a maximum, but they were asking
• 1:16:26
  for the minimum of three years. The charges were medical fraud
• 1:16:31
  and tax evasion, which just in my mind are completely made-up.
• 1:16:37
  I don't even know there's I still don't know how they came
• 1:16:40
  up with literally, I still don't know how they came up with
• 1:16:42
  those. Like I've never seen anything
• 1:16:44
  that would be like, Oh yes, that is tax evasion.
• 1:16:46
  Oh yes, that's medical fraud. But whatever.
• 1:16:49
  So it doesn't matter because I, I signed the plea agreement.
• 1:16:52
  They don't have to come up with anything.
• 1:16:54
  So my lawyer was, you know, adamant that we're going to, you
• 1:16:59
  know, try to fight for even less than the minimum because, you
• 1:17:02
  know, you, I did, I did all these things, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:17:05
  So we did, I had to go in front of a judge.
• 1:17:10
  It was very scary. The courtroom was very much like
• 1:17:14
  the courtroom out of A Few Good men.
• 1:17:17
  It really was. It looked like that.
• 1:17:19
  And I made some jokes about that to my lawyer.
• 1:17:22
  There again, they didn't think it was funny, but I'm like, you
• 1:17:25
  have to find humor in this absolutely insane, you know,
• 1:17:28
  condition. Yeah.
• 1:17:31
  And anyways, so the the prosecution, you know, I was
• 1:17:37
  advised not to say anything. And I only say yes or no to the
• 1:17:41
  judge unless they asked me to elaborate.
• 1:17:43
  But don't elaborate too much. Don't show emotion that the
• 1:17:48
  prosecution was going to say a lot of horrible things about me
• 1:17:50
  and I have to just sit there blank face, which was very hard
• 1:17:53
  for me to do because I'm not that type of person.
• 1:17:56
  So they did they the prosecution said a whole lot of really
• 1:17:59
  horrible things about me and that I was this, you know,
• 1:18:02
  criminal mind, you know, criminal mastermind ringleader,
• 1:18:06
  like I don't even know. I'm like, you guys just throw
• 1:18:08
  these words then you don't even what does that even mean?
• 1:18:12
  So anyways, the judge ended up, I was hopeful that the judge
• 1:18:18
  would say, I knew this wasn't going to be the case, but I was
• 1:18:22
  like hoping because legally they could have, they could have
• 1:18:25
  said, you know, you've, you've basically been in purgatory for
• 1:18:29
  three, at this time three years. I I was just in purgatory, not
• 1:18:33
  knowing what was ever going to happen.
• 1:18:35
  To me. Yeah, and I, my whole business,
• 1:18:38
  my whole life got destroyed. I was starting from scratch.
• 1:18:41
  I was in medical cells again. I was successful.
• 1:18:44
  I I was looking to start another business in that if, if I didn't
• 1:18:48
  have criminal charges, then I could do that.
• 1:18:52
  And so I was, I would had a whole plan on that.
• 1:18:55
  And that was written to the judge, you know, like I was
• 1:18:58
  still going to be a really proactive, you know, person in
• 1:19:02
  the community. If, if you do not charge me on
• 1:19:05
  these and you do not send me to federal prison, I will be a good
• 1:19:08
  person in the world and the community.
• 1:19:10
  And, and the, the judge, I mean, obviously didn't care.
• 1:19:16
  It's, it's a whole game. I didn't know that at the time.
• 1:19:18
  I do know that now. And so, but the judge actually
• 1:19:23
  sentenced me to less than the minimum.
• 1:19:26
  So they did see that some of it was probably not, not 100%.
• 1:19:33
  And I ended up getting sentenced to 22 months out of the minimum.
• 1:19:38
  It was a minimum of three, but the judge rolled for 22 months
• 1:19:43
  and in federal prison and that just literally knocked the wind
• 1:19:49
  out of me. I knew a deep down, I knew that
• 1:19:53
  I was going to go to prison, but I was hopeful that the judge
• 1:19:57
  would see that would just be silly and absolutely it would
• 1:20:00
  not help anyone in the world, especially since I already had
• 1:20:03
  another business plan to help people and all this and I would
• 1:20:06
  not be able to do that business. I cannot go into that type of
• 1:20:10
  medical field if I had these charges, felonies and so, but
• 1:20:16
  they don't care. So that's not how they get paid.
• 1:20:20
  They get paid by making sure that you're charged so.
• 1:20:25
  Anyways, I got sentenced to 2222 months.
• 1:20:29
  I was told by my lawyer after the fact that it I could get 18
• 1:20:35
  months if it if I, you know, didn't get in trouble or you
• 1:20:39
  know, was was not guaranteed but that I could possibly serve 18
• 1:20:44
  out of the 22 but be prepared for 22.
• 1:20:47
  And so in my mind that's basically 2 years.
• 1:20:50
  I could not comprehend. I just went numb.
• 1:20:54
  I don't even know what a prison is.
• 1:20:58
  I mean I do. I don't mean it sounds like how.
• 1:21:00
  Much time Saffron, did you have? Yeah.
• 1:21:03
  So I I. You found that out to that you
• 1:21:05
  had to be at Dublin. Oh, so it they said within a
• 1:21:10
  month they would be sending me information of where to report
• 1:21:16
  to. I didn't know they could have
• 1:21:18
  sent me to any place in the United States.
• 1:21:21
  I had no idea where I was going. They didn't have any of that
• 1:21:26
  figured out. So and then that letter never
• 1:21:29
  came. But I would have, it would have
• 1:21:31
  been another federal charge if I didn't show up on time.
• 1:21:34
  So my lawyer had to end up actually contacting the judge
• 1:21:38
  and be like prosecution never. Ever since this information,
• 1:21:44
  Saffron only has a few days. She's not wanting to be in
• 1:21:47
  violation. So where is she supposed to
• 1:21:49
  report to, you know? So I ended up getting officially
• 1:21:55
  through my lawyer, I never got the letter, but through my
• 1:21:57
  lawyer saying that they were going to send me to Dublin.
• 1:22:01
  He gave me the information and I had to go check myself in, which
• 1:22:07
  was just an absolute. Well, tell me, there's a lot of,
• 1:22:11
  there's a lot of stories about Dublin, Yeah.
• 1:22:14
  Did you know? Did you know stories about
• 1:22:16
  Dublin before you went? I had no idea.
• 1:22:19
  I knew nothing. I didn't know anything about any
• 1:22:21
  prison anywhere. I, I was like, I have no idea.
• 1:22:26
  I just knew it was in California and it wasn't too far away from
• 1:22:29
  San Francisco. So I'm like, well, that was my
• 1:22:31
  home, you know, so one of my homes.
• 1:22:34
  I can't be too bad. I love San Francisco, you know,
• 1:22:37
  trying to be positive. So, so I, I show up to check
• 1:22:42
  myself in and they immediate. This was right when COVID had I
• 1:22:50
  think it was it well, it was in 2020 and I think like at the end
• 1:22:53
  of March or something, don't quote me on this 2020 or COVID
• 1:22:57
  was was announced A pandemic. This was this would have been in
• 1:23:04
  October. So not.
• 1:23:07
  After after they shut everything down in 2020, so.
• 1:23:10
  You went. In in October when I think March
• 1:23:14
  17th is when they shut all the airports and everything down.
• 1:23:17
  So you went in in October of 2020?
• 1:23:20
  Yep, to the federal prison in Dublin and they immediately put
• 1:23:27
  me in solitary confinement. I didn't.
• 1:23:32
  I was of COVID. I was.
• 1:23:34
  Supposed to reason. Yeah, I was supposed to go to
• 1:23:39
  what's called the camp for low violent offenders.
• 1:23:45
  Basically. I, I learned after the fact, I
• 1:23:47
  didn't know at the time, but camp typically houses drug
• 1:23:50
  offenders and paper crime. I was considered a paper crime
• 1:23:56
  typically. I mean, they do see others, but
• 1:23:58
  that's typically who you're going to find in a camp.
• 1:24:01
  And my lawyer actually like was like, oh, it's not going to be
• 1:24:06
  that bad. There's yoga.
• 1:24:10
  Yeah, there's there's libraries. I mean, you just, you get, you
• 1:24:14
  know, it will be a time of reflection.
• 1:24:16
  I remember that being said. Like you'll be able to work out
• 1:24:19
  and just kind of reflect on things and it won't be that bad.
• 1:24:22
  I was literally told that now I knew it wasn't going to be that
• 1:24:24
  good, but I had a false reality of what I was going to be
• 1:24:28
  stepping into. Right, so I, I step into to
• 1:24:33
  Dublin. It is a former military prison.
• 1:24:38
  This was no swimming pool in yoga.
• 1:24:42
  This was hardcore federal prison.
• 1:24:44
  This is this is what you see on TV.
• 1:24:46
  It was a third world looking place.
• 1:24:49
  It it had brown water that came out of the sinks.
• 1:24:57
  It had literally ship flies coming out of the sinks and
• 1:25:05
  showers because the sewer line was not taken care of and it
• 1:25:11
  smelt like shit. And it was just very unkept,
• 1:25:17
  very dirty. Very much like if what you would
• 1:25:20
  think when you see there's a show and I don't know the exact
• 1:25:24
  name, but it's like, you know, prison abroad or something.
• 1:25:27
  Like before people travel and they get thrown into some pit
• 1:25:30
  basically in some unknown country.
• 1:25:32
  That's what I felt like I was getting thrown into.
• 1:25:33
  And I'm not even joking. That's what it looked like and
• 1:25:36
  that's what it smelt like. And I'm like where am I?
• 1:25:40
  I'm like this is a mistake they told.
• 1:25:42
  Me. What were your like first few
• 1:25:44
  days like? Because how long were you in
• 1:25:46
  solitary? Well, so they didn't tell me
• 1:25:48
  that they were going to put me in solitary.
• 1:25:50
  They just put me in there. And I thought, oh, OK, in my
• 1:25:52
  mind, I'm thinking they're just they're checking me in.
• 1:25:57
  They have to put me in here. They're going to Take Me Out
• 1:25:59
  probably within the next day or a few hours or, you know, like,
• 1:26:02
  you know, no one would tell me anything.
• 1:26:04
  They just literally put me in there and slam the door like.
• 1:26:07
  That's one of the things that you learn really quickly,
• 1:26:10
  immediately is your is your processed is you don't, you're
• 1:26:13
  not told anything. No.
• 1:26:15
  Nothing. You're not human, so why would
• 1:26:18
  you be told anything? Right.
• 1:26:20
  Yeah. And they do mostly put people in
• 1:26:23
  solitary to kind of as they're processing them through, you
• 1:26:27
  know, some people are only in there for a few hours.
• 1:26:29
  But it's more for shock therapies.
• 1:26:31
  Like, wonder how long I could be here.
• 1:26:33
  Maybe this is where I'm. Maybe this is where I'm going to
• 1:26:36
  be. And there's nothing you can do
• 1:26:37
  about it. No, and literally.
• 1:26:40
  And so that's I, I thought in the like the first couple hours
• 1:26:45
  I'm like, well, they're going to come and get me.
• 1:26:47
  They just put me in here because they're processing stuff.
• 1:26:48
  You know, I'm being trying to be super positive.
• 1:26:50
  Like, wow, I'm in a prison, OK. And, and so a couple days go by,
• 1:26:59
  but no one, no one's telling me anything, right?
• 1:27:02
  And, and I have, I suffer from complex migraines and you can
• 1:27:09
  get stroke like symptoms and stuff if it's not taken care of
• 1:27:12
  right away. And that started happening to
• 1:27:14
  me. And so I tried to get one of the
• 1:27:16
  guards attention. Long story super shortened.
• 1:27:19
  It took them like something like 36 or 38 hours to get me some
• 1:27:23
  medical strength ibuprofen. I thought I was going to die.
• 1:27:26
  They didn't care. And so the I, I found out really
• 1:27:31
  quickly that the there's no medical care here.
• 1:27:34
  I mean, once you've experience that prison, I mean, you know
• 1:27:39
  that you're like, duh. But I didn't know that.
• 1:27:41
  I didn't know anything about prison.
• 1:27:42
  So they don't care about you. They don't treat you like a
• 1:27:44
  human. You definitely don't get medical
• 1:27:46
  care at all. And nobody would tell me why I
• 1:27:51
  was locked up. Eventually I was told.
• 1:27:54
  So it was a, the camp I was at is a working camp.
• 1:27:58
  And so one of the campers, so one of the inmates, their job
• 1:28:03
  was to go around people in the solitary confinement and, you
• 1:28:08
  know, take their trash or, you know, give them toothpaste or
• 1:28:12
  something or whatever. I don't know.
• 1:28:14
  And, and so they weren't allowed to talk to us, but I, I asked
• 1:28:20
  very quickly, you know, I'm not supposed to be here.
• 1:28:22
  I'm, I'm locked up. I'm supposed to be in a camp.
• 1:28:25
  I mean, I don't know anything, right?
• 1:28:26
  And she's like, oh, I'm from the camp and you're in here, I think
• 1:28:30
  because of COVID. And she's like, oh, there's
• 1:28:33
  something on your door here. And it, it looks like maybe in a
• 1:28:36
  couple weeks, something like that.
• 1:28:38
  And she was like, but I'm not sure, you know.
• 1:28:40
  And I'm like, OK, so that gave me a little bit like, because I
• 1:28:43
  just didn't even know. I was like, am I in the wrong
• 1:28:45
  place? Am I 'cause I'm in a prison,
• 1:28:48
  this isn't camp. And now I'm in solitary
• 1:28:50
  confinement. No one's telling me anything.
• 1:28:52
  I'm like, I, I'm not supposed to be locked up.
• 1:28:54
  I was told like, like it was something completely different.
• 1:28:58
  And so she's like, you'll, if you're, if you are going to be
• 1:29:03
  going into camp, then I'll see you when you get out of here.
• 1:29:05
  And I was like, OK, and then, but I didn't even know what that
• 1:29:08
  meant. Anyways, I ended up, they ended
• 1:29:11
  up without telling me anything. They ended up keeping me in
• 1:29:14
  solitary confinement for over 3 weeks.
• 1:29:17
  And, and that was the first experience that it wasn't like I
• 1:29:22
  went to camp and then they put me in there.
• 1:29:24
  I, I was by my, I have never experienced something like that.
• 1:29:28
  And I don't think people understand it's, you're being
• 1:29:30
  thrown in a, in a dirty, disgusting closet basically.
• 1:29:35
  And was not talked to. And I'm somebody that just
• 1:29:38
  talked and you know, so for me literally not to talk to
• 1:29:42
  anybody, not to see anybody except for guards that were
• 1:29:45
  yelling profanities most of the time to us besides that just to
• 1:29:51
  be locked up. And we didn't get showers.
• 1:29:53
  We got showers. I think it was like once a week
• 1:29:55
  or something. And then the whole time it was
• 1:29:57
  only 10 minutes. It was cold water.
• 1:29:58
  They didn't provide soap or shampoo or anything.
• 1:30:02
  And they were yelling at us the whole time to fucking get out
• 1:30:04
  and blah, blah, blah. And it was, it was really,
• 1:30:06
  really horrible. And so I have never experienced
• 1:30:11
  something like that where I was literally thrown in a closet for
• 1:30:13
  three weeks. I mean, for most people, three
• 1:30:17
  hours would be hard, right? But three weeks, nothing.
• 1:30:21
  And it and it, yeah. And it would be something, it
• 1:30:23
  would be different. Like if I was told that because
• 1:30:25
  mentally you can prepare for anything.
• 1:30:27
  And if I knew it was 3 weeks, that would be hard.
• 1:30:31
  But but yeah, I could, I could mentally be like, no, OK, it's
• 1:30:34
  three weeks, I can get through this.
• 1:30:36
  And so I made myself a calendar. They did give us like these
• 1:30:41
  bendable pencils because I guess you could hurt yourself with
• 1:30:43
  like a real pencil and like a piece of paper.
• 1:30:47
  And so I just made like, I know I knew when I checked in what
• 1:30:52
  day it was. And so from that, I just made a
• 1:30:54
  calendar and I mark it off every day because I had no access to a
• 1:30:59
  watch. I had no access to a clock.
• 1:31:02
  There was nothing. So and then the whole time, you
• 1:31:07
  know, people are, you know, screaming and crying and, and
• 1:31:14
  yeah, no as hell. And then, you know, guards
• 1:31:17
  walking around and as you know, all you hear are those big
• 1:31:19
  clunky chains. And I'm just like, Oh my good,
• 1:31:24
  where am I? Those clunky chains that sound
• 1:31:29
  can give you a little bit of PTSD when you get out.
• 1:31:31
  Here's somebody to walk around with chains.
• 1:31:33
  Oh, I can't and even like dogs barking, I just can't take it
• 1:31:37
  because the the guards they barked at us basically.
• 1:31:41
  I mean, I associate that and it was like dogs barking like wild
• 1:31:46
  crazy bad dogs barking at us all the time and the chains just
• 1:31:50
  clinking and clinking like all the 24/7.
• 1:31:53
  So. Saffron, you After three weeks,
• 1:31:56
  they open the door, you get out. What happens?
• 1:31:59
  Like how do you assimilate? Yeah, I, oh, I am like just, I
• 1:32:06
  can't even, I, oh, so I was also told that.
• 1:32:10
  So I was never handcuffed. I never was arrested, even
• 1:32:13
  though I was told I could be at any time.
• 1:32:15
  But I had never been handcuffed. I had in my life and I had never
• 1:32:19
  been arrested. And so they, they take and I was
• 1:32:22
  told that I wouldn't be because now I'm in prison.
• 1:32:25
  So why would you be handcuffed? And so they, they Take Me Out of
• 1:32:31
  the solitary confinement and I am just like, I can't even
• 1:32:35
  because now it's noisy and people are talking and there's
• 1:32:39
  bright lights and I'm just like, I've been in a closet for three
• 1:32:42
  weeks, right? So I'm just mentally not even
• 1:32:44
  and I'm being yelled at by different guards and just crazy,
• 1:32:48
  right? I'm like, I, Oh my gosh, I don't
• 1:32:51
  even know how to respond and I haven't taken a shower and I'm
• 1:32:53
  just like gross and I'm itchy and just like that.
• 1:32:56
  And so they get us, they take the, the people they were taking
• 1:32:59
  out on that particular day, they had us like get in a line.
• 1:33:02
  And right away, that's when I seen other other people.
• 1:33:05
  And I'm like, and this is no judgement at all, but I was like
• 1:33:10
  scared because I'm like, these people are these women here are
• 1:33:14
  clearly here for other reasons than what I'm here for.
• 1:33:18
  Wow. I, what am I going to do?
• 1:33:20
  I'm going to be killed. Like this is not where I'm
• 1:33:22
  supposed to be. And, and, and I, my assumptions
• 1:33:27
  were right. Nobody there was from camp.
• 1:33:30
  It was from the main, main prison, right?
• 1:33:33
  But I didn't know that, right. And so and so they, they put us
• 1:33:37
  in a line and then they handcuffed us, all of us.
• 1:33:42
  And I was freaking out. I've never been handcuffed.
• 1:33:45
  And it was not like a polite handcuffed.
• 1:33:47
  It was super tight. And my, my circulation is
• 1:33:51
  starting to get cut off right away.
• 1:33:53
  It hurt. You know, your hands are behind
• 1:33:55
  your back. Like I'm like, what is what in
• 1:33:57
  the world is going on? And so they shuffle us out and
• 1:34:03
  they took us to the main prison to check us in because most of
• 1:34:06
  them were going to the main prison and, you know, but then
• 1:34:09
  when I got checked in, then they knew I was going to camp.
• 1:34:14
  But the whole experience is like super scary.
• 1:34:16
  And so I get to camp and and that was just like, I'm like,
• 1:34:21
  oh, I'm in a prison. This is wow, OK.
• 1:34:26
  And when I showed up, a lot of the women weren't there because
• 1:34:30
  it's a working camp. So a lot of them were were gone.
• 1:34:33
  It was kind of in the middle of the day.
• 1:34:35
  And so there was a a moment there that, oh, they showed me
• 1:34:39
  like where my cell was at and I, I didn't have a bunky or a
• 1:34:43
  roommate at that time. They were going to be having one
• 1:34:46
  come in, but at that time there wasn't.
• 1:34:48
  So I just remember I sat there and the the cell door was open
• 1:34:54
  and I was just like just in shock.
• 1:34:56
  One I was I was grateful that I wasn't locked up in solitary.
• 1:35:01
  But also it was a new reality to even though they weren't a lot
• 1:35:05
  of women there because most of them were working in the working
• 1:35:09
  camp, Some of them were there, right.
• 1:35:11
  And I'm like, I'm actually, that was the first time that I was
• 1:35:15
  like, I'm actually around other inmates.
• 1:35:18
  I'm in a real effing federal prison.
• 1:35:21
  Yeah. After all this time, here I am.
• 1:35:23
  Yeah, and I'm I'm literally here with other federal prisoner.
• 1:35:28
  Like it was just mind blowing to me and it was just a reality
• 1:35:33
  shock because up to that point I was just by myself, which is
• 1:35:37
  torture in itself with that. But now I'm like, Oh my God, now
• 1:35:42
  I'm here with like actual and you don't know.
• 1:35:44
  I didn't, I didn't know. Are these people nice?
• 1:35:46
  Are they mean, are they going to kill me?
• 1:35:49
  I mean, I don't know, right? You don't.
• 1:35:53
  So that that was just just sitting there and waiting it,
• 1:35:57
  but not not knowing what you're waiting for.
• 1:35:59
  And I it was, yeah. Three weeks of the fear of the
• 1:36:04
  unknown and then and they let you out and there you are and
• 1:36:09
  then there I think there is a thing that happens.
• 1:36:13
  It's a reality shock that I've fought through all this this
• 1:36:15
  whole time and here I am I'm in this place and I'm going to be
• 1:36:20
  here for a while, not just for a week no.
• 1:36:23
  And and it it does really set in like that.
• 1:36:26
  So how do you, how do you end up moving Saffron through through
• 1:36:29
  this this prison? Because there's a lot of stories
• 1:36:33
  about Dublin, I think. I think the warden went to
• 1:36:36
  prison, possibly a chaplain went to prison and it all had to do
• 1:36:40
  with abuse on women. Yes.
• 1:36:43
  So I right away, when I was even in solitary confinement, I was
• 1:36:47
  like, wow, OK. And by the way, this place is
• 1:36:51
  shut down now. Yeah, completely shut down due
• 1:36:53
  to the abuse. I mean, so it was not bad.
• 1:36:56
  It's not. It's not me just saying it was
• 1:36:59
  bad. It was.
• 1:36:59
  There's, there's been a, a variety of stories, all of them
• 1:37:04
  being bad. And you know, if I, if I
• 1:37:07
  remember, there was like 70 months or something that the
• 1:37:10
  warden got. So it was significant.
• 1:37:13
  Yes. So the chaplain, the warden,
• 1:37:17
  multiple guards, some of the guards when they were being
• 1:37:22
  investigated actually committed suicide, which I'm, you know,
• 1:37:27
  would never wish that on anybody, but that they knew that
• 1:37:29
  that it was coming down. On it was coming down right.
• 1:37:32
  They were horrible, absolutely horrible to us, very, very, very
• 1:37:36
  abusive and in every way. So they were mentally abusive,
• 1:37:43
  verbally abusive, but what got them in big trouble is they were
• 1:37:48
  sexually abusive and did. You did you see or know any of
• 1:37:53
  that when that was happening? I did.
• 1:37:55
  And so I made a few really good friends.
• 1:38:02
  They're not a lot that they did. I was friendly with everyone,
• 1:38:07
  everyone there. I'm very glad I came across
• 1:38:09
  actually everybody there, but I actually made friends with two
• 1:38:14
  in particular that I will be lifelong friends with.
• 1:38:16
  I talked to them almost daily still and I probably always
• 1:38:20
  will. They're really wonderful people
• 1:38:21
  and they helped save me there, literally.
• 1:38:25
  But what they they both were definitely sexually abused.
• 1:38:31
  One of them was there for much longer and it was caught on
• 1:38:38
  video. And so she actually, because
• 1:38:43
  there was undeniable proof she was part of there's a huge,
• 1:38:49
  huge, huge lawsuit. I think something like, there
• 1:38:56
  again, don't quote me on this, but something like 116 million
• 1:38:59
  the Bureau of Prisons, the BOP had to pay out.
• 1:39:03
  In addition. To yeah, in, in addition to
• 1:39:06
  actually closing, permanently closing down the prison.
• 1:39:11
  And so one of one of those two really good friends of mine was
• 1:39:17
  involved in that because she was highly sexually abused.
• 1:39:24
  And a lot of it was caught actually on video and a lot of
• 1:39:28
  it wasn't, but enough was caught on video often enough that they
• 1:39:33
  when they came down on the prison to shut it down and to
• 1:39:38
  get the appropriate people in trouble there.
• 1:39:42
  There was there was definitely proof of that on video.
• 1:39:46
  And my other friend was definitely sexually abused and
• 1:39:53
  they called it training, but it was, it was really bad and that
• 1:40:00
  was not caught on video. And she actually, I told her she
• 1:40:03
  should have still reported that, but she didn't want to.
• 1:40:06
  She just wants to be done with it.
• 1:40:08
  And I, I respect and understand that too, but it happened to a
• 1:40:13
  lot of women. Those two were just ones that I
• 1:40:15
  personally, they were friends of mine and really helped me out in
• 1:40:20
  there and I'm still very good friends with them.
• 1:40:23
  But even a situation with me, I wasn't there that long, but
• 1:40:26
  there were enough situations where I could tell I was not
• 1:40:31
  sexually abused. I'll write out no.
• 1:40:34
  But I could tell that the things that were said and done to me,
• 1:40:39
  that it would not take too long for that they were conditioning
• 1:40:43
  you. It would not take too long for
• 1:40:46
  that to start happening. This was the culture at that
• 1:40:49
  particular prison. And I, I think that that's the
• 1:40:52
  culture probably in most prisons that house women, most of the
• 1:40:58
  guards were men and, and they were highly abusive towards the
• 1:41:05
  women and thought that they could get away with it.
• 1:41:09
  And they did for a very, very long time.
• 1:41:12
  So yeah, it, it, it was even even for not physically,
• 1:41:20
  sexually being abused, there was verbiage said daily and
• 1:41:28
  innuendos daily and things that made you feel extremely unsafe
• 1:41:34
  and extremely violated. And here you're you're in a
• 1:41:38
  situation that you cannot get out of.
• 1:41:41
  You're a prisoner, literally. And you have no voice.
• 1:41:45
  You cannot say anything to anybody.
• 1:41:48
  And if you did, there'd be retaliation on you.
• 1:41:51
  And you are being harassed and abused in many different ways
• 1:41:58
  all day long. And what I tell people, it's
• 1:42:00
  not, and you know, this, it's, it's not like, OK, you can be
• 1:42:04
  like, OK, that's really horrible, right?
• 1:42:06
  And it, but it's not like you can check in and check out.
• 1:42:08
  It's not like from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM every day.
• 1:42:11
  I'm highly abused. And but then I get a break,
• 1:42:14
  right? No, it's 24/7 forever.
• 1:42:18
  And that is something that I don't think people can
• 1:42:23
  comprehend. It's it's not, it's not even
• 1:42:26
  like an abusive relationship where, you know, you're
• 1:42:29
  obviously not around that person 24/7.
• 1:42:31
  This is you are around the abuser, multiple abusers 24/7
• 1:42:36
  and you cannot get away from them.
• 1:42:38
  And it's very scary. And that's awful.
• 1:42:41
  Yeah, it's horrible. Complete absolute nightmare did
• 1:42:47
  as you were nearing towards the end of everything Saffron, I'm
• 1:42:51
  I'm assuming that you pretty much assimilated in, got a job
• 1:42:56
  and probably worked out and read and did all those different
• 1:43:00
  things. But as time got closer to you,
• 1:43:06
  knowing you were getting out, what did you start thinking
• 1:43:10
  about? Cuz I know that's always kind of
• 1:43:12
  a weird time that you're like, I've almost kind of gotten
• 1:43:16
  strangely used to this routine, but I also know that I've got to
• 1:43:21
  move into society again. What were your thoughts?
• 1:43:25
  Absolutely. So my situation is a little bit
• 1:43:31
  different because of COVID. So there was huge COVID
• 1:43:35
  outbreaks where people were because you're all, you're
• 1:43:38
  confined, right. So one person gets it.
• 1:43:41
  And you guys weren't bringing it in.
• 1:43:42
  It had to be coming in from the. CEO from from the guards and
• 1:43:45
  stuff, yeah. And so a lot of women were being
• 1:43:49
  sent to the hospital and having severe conditions because they
• 1:43:51
  already had like, precondition asthma and stuff.
• 1:43:55
  And yeah. And so I never got COVID, thank
• 1:44:00
  goodness, but a lot of the women did.
• 1:44:03
  And so because of that, it was a huge health violation.
• 1:44:09
  And so they were the women that had did not have very much time
• 1:44:17
  to serve and were like 0 recidivism, which I was of
• 1:44:22
  course, you know, they were, they were taking those women, a
• 1:44:27
  lot of them, not all, but a lot of them and having them just go
• 1:44:31
  into a halfway house or some other prison that didn't have as
• 1:44:36
  many women in it, you know, due to COVID, I'll due to COVID.
• 1:44:40
  And so I, I still had a number of months left, so I wasn't
• 1:44:46
  thinking about that. And I literally just got called
• 1:44:49
  into an office and said within the next week, you won't have
• 1:44:54
  noticed. Your name will just be called
• 1:44:55
  over the overcome and be ready to pack up your stuff and go
• 1:45:00
  within 10 minutes because we're sending you to a halfway house
• 1:45:05
  due to due to that. And so I was in shock.
• 1:45:10
  I was not prepared for that. How long?
• 1:45:12
  Did you get in? At that time, seven months, OK.
• 1:45:17
  And so I had, I was, it was a working camp.
• 1:45:21
  So I was like doing 3 different jobs.
• 1:45:23
  I was doing everything just to take my mind off of where I was
• 1:45:26
  at. I was trying to help.
• 1:45:28
  A lot of the women also write legal letters and stuff to fight
• 1:45:35
  for. A lot of them didn't.
• 1:45:37
  English wasn't their first language and so I helped a lot
• 1:45:41
  of them. I was writing legal stuff that
• 1:45:44
  they could send in to help with their, with their sentencing and
• 1:45:49
  that, that sort of thing. And so I was pretty busy and I,
• 1:45:53
  I had friends in there and I accepted that, hey, this is just
• 1:45:57
  my life right now. And I had, like you were saying,
• 1:45:59
  I had a routine and I was really happy that I was able to help
• 1:46:04
  you play a part in helping a lot of the women.
• 1:46:07
  I was also, I worked in their education department and did a
• 1:46:11
  lot of, a lot of that and helping to tutor and stuff like
• 1:46:15
  that. And so I was, I did not like
• 1:46:18
  being there. Yeah, I, I hated being there.
• 1:46:21
  But for having to be there, I made it as pleasant as I could.
• 1:46:25
  And still, you know, I felt good about what I was doing.
• 1:46:29
  So I'm like, maybe I can make somewhat of a positive
• 1:46:32
  difference while I'm here. I don't know that I did, but
• 1:46:34
  that, you know, I was like, OK, I'm trying, right?
• 1:46:37
  So when I got called in for that, it was it.
• 1:46:42
  I had torn feelings. Yes, I wanted to get the heck
• 1:46:44
  out of there, right? But I also, I'm like, but I feel
• 1:46:48
  obligated because in my mind I was going to be helping.
• 1:46:52
  I was continuing to help a lot. So it kind of got word around
• 1:46:56
  that I could write and that I was educated and that I could
• 1:47:01
  help write these legal letters and so move in prison after.
• 1:47:05
  Your help with. People yeah, yeah.
• 1:47:07
  So there was like a waiting list for me to help with these
• 1:47:11
  letters so I yeah. So I felt a little like kind of
• 1:47:15
  guilty because I was like, I'm so oh, you know, I want out of
• 1:47:19
  here. Don't get me wrong, but I also
• 1:47:20
  want to help people that I've already committed.
• 1:47:23
  You know, I gave them my word. I would help them.
• 1:47:25
  They know it's not my fault if they take remove me, but I just
• 1:47:28
  kind of felt a little I didn't feel good about that.
• 1:47:31
  But I was also like, OK, I'm I'm ready to get out of here.
• 1:47:35
  So I was concerned about going to a halfway house, though I had
• 1:47:40
  heard in my previous life I would just like, I had no idea
• 1:47:44
  what prison was like. I didn't even know what a
• 1:47:46
  halfway house meant. But I was told by everyone, OK,
• 1:47:49
  well, it's usually like if you're a drug user or nothing
• 1:47:53
  against that, but they monitor you and make sure that you can
• 1:47:56
  go back into society. And I understood all that.
• 1:47:58
  But I'm like, that doesn't pertain to me.
• 1:48:00
  One ounce. Not even kind of like, you've
• 1:48:02
  got to be kidding me, right? I do not want to go there.
• 1:48:04
  I'd rather stay here. And so I talked with the camp
• 1:48:07
  manager about that and I said I'll sign anything.
• 1:48:09
  I'm fine with COVID being here. I haven't gotten it yet.
• 1:48:12
  I don't think I will. And if I do, I'll find something
• 1:48:14
  to say like that's my fault. I really want to continue
• 1:48:17
  helping these women, and I do not want to go to a halfway
• 1:48:20
  house if that's my two options. And she said it wasn't my choice
• 1:48:26
  and that I wouldn't be going to a halfway house to stay there,
• 1:48:31
  that I'd be going to home confinement.
• 1:48:34
  But I had to check in at a halfway house that they would do
• 1:48:37
  a check in. I might stay one.
• 1:48:40
  I know I might stay one night. Maybe, maybe, but probably not.
• 1:48:46
  They were just going to give me like a ankle monitor or some
• 1:48:49
  kind of monitoring device. Yes, exactly, exactly.
• 1:48:53
  And I was going home. So that made me not fight it,
• 1:48:57
  right? Because then I was like, whoa,
• 1:48:58
  oh, I thought when you said halfway house, like I was going
• 1:49:02
  to have to stay at a halfway house and I'd rather stay here
• 1:49:04
  because I, I explained I got my routine.
• 1:49:07
  I want to help these women. Like, you know, no, no, no, no.
• 1:49:11
  You're you're going to be going home.
• 1:49:12
  You just have to check in. Oh, OK.
• 1:49:15
  Well, I'm down for that. I knew within a week it could be
• 1:49:18
  at any time, but I knew within a week I was I was going to be
• 1:49:23
  getting called over the overcome.
• 1:49:24
  And they still were doing the COVID quarantine.
• 1:49:27
  So they already told me I'd be back in solitary confinement for
• 1:49:32
  a minimum of two weeks, which is just stupid, right?
• 1:49:36
  And I knew that was hell. But I'm like, hey, if that gets
• 1:49:39
  me out, I've already done it, I can say.
• 1:49:43
  That you know it. You know it.
• 1:49:45
  When you first did it, you didn't know anything.
• 1:49:47
  Right. And it was really scary and it
• 1:49:49
  was horrible because I knew the torture I was gonna be going
• 1:49:52
  into. But I was like, I can do it and
• 1:49:55
  I'm going home. I can see my cats.
• 1:49:58
  I really want. I miss my cats.
• 1:50:00
  You know, I missed my friends and I missed sounds so silly.
• 1:50:05
  I missed like a real blanket. I missed a real pillow.
• 1:50:09
  I missed texture because there's no texture every.
• 1:50:11
  Car, yeah. So I was like dreaming of a
• 1:50:15
  fuzzy blanket and my cat. So I was just like, I just, I
• 1:50:19
  just want to go home. I'll do the solitary confinement
• 1:50:21
  for two weeks if that means I, that's where I get to go.
• 1:50:24
  So, so they, I started giving away all my stuff that I had,
• 1:50:31
  you know, I had a tuna fish in a pouch and I had, you know, like
• 1:50:36
  stooped spam in a pouch that you could keep in your locker from
• 1:50:39
  commissary. I had diet soda and I had, you
• 1:50:45
  know, like a cup, which was prized because there were not
• 1:50:49
  cups there. And I had a cup that I acquired
• 1:50:53
  and it was funny because it had brass knuckles and diamonds on
• 1:50:57
  it, which is a reference to drugs.
• 1:50:58
  Yeah. Very nice.
• 1:51:00
  And that was my cup. And it was.
• 1:51:02
  There's a whole story behind that.
• 1:51:03
  But that was funny. That was my cup because I
• 1:51:05
  couldn't have been further from that.
• 1:51:07
  Yeah. So I started giving out all my
• 1:51:11
  prized cup and the food that I had that you could store in a
• 1:51:19
  locker and stuff like that because I figured that it's all
• 1:51:22
  going to get thrown away if they call me, they're just going to
• 1:51:25
  go through my stuff and throw it all out.
• 1:51:26
  So I wanted to make sure that people I knew that could use it
• 1:51:30
  got it. And within a handful of days, I
• 1:51:32
  got called over the overcome and just like they said, I had 10
• 1:51:35
  minutes to gather all my stuff. And so I did and and then I went
• 1:51:42
  into solitary confinement again, but I was I was at this time
• 1:51:50
  they did, which made no sense for it being COVID.
• 1:51:54
  They at this time they had you room with a bunky.
• 1:51:59
  So even though it was supposed to be solitary confinement
• 1:52:02
  because of COVID, but then they had you with somebody else.
• 1:52:05
  So that doesn't make sense. But they didn't do it for
• 1:52:08
  safety. They did it because they got
• 1:52:10
  paid extra to have a quarantine unit for COVID.
• 1:52:14
  So, so the more people they could stick in a in a cell, the
• 1:52:18
  more money they could make. So I thought I would be getting
• 1:52:23
  put in with a fellow camp person, but I wasn't.
• 1:52:27
  I was put in with somebody from the main prison and wow, that
• 1:52:33
  was a shocker. We ended up becoming friends
• 1:52:35
  because how can you not if you spend 2 weeks in a closet with
• 1:52:37
  somebody, right? But that, that was an experience
• 1:52:42
  for sure. And then so they gave me a plane
• 1:52:48
  ticket and I got on a flight in my prison.
• 1:52:54
  Grays and no makeup. Yeah.
• 1:52:58
  Oh, it's awesome, right? I had my my shower flip flops, I
• 1:53:02
  had my prison graze and then I had a clear trash bag and no
• 1:53:07
  makeup or anything like that. And that was my attire going
• 1:53:10
  into the San Francisco International Airport, SFO, an
• 1:53:15
  airport that I had flown out of many, many times, but looked
• 1:53:18
  quite a bit different. And it was I was just like, oh,
• 1:53:23
  wow, this is this is for the storybooks.
• 1:53:25
  Wow, this is, I can't even believe this, right?
• 1:53:28
  So, but I was excited to go home.
• 1:53:31
  So I get on the flight and I thought because I was told
• 1:53:35
  they're going to know that you're a federal prisoner.
• 1:53:38
  And I thought, oh, there might be some issues.
• 1:53:40
  And so I was really scared about that.
• 1:53:42
  There was no issues and I'm sure they knew, but nobody treated me
• 1:53:45
  any differently. The flight attendant was just as
• 1:53:47
  nice as anyone. No one said anything, nothing.
• 1:53:50
  I wasn't like I didn't have to sit in a special seat like it
• 1:53:53
  was normal. Right federal prisoner seat
• 1:53:54
  right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:53:56
  Big flashing lights yeah Nope. So I looked odd, but you know,
• 1:54:02
  but whatever. So so I, I get I end up Long
• 1:54:09
  story short, I end up getting to the re entry place and and I'm
• 1:54:15
  excited 'cause I'm like I'm just checking in and I let my parents
• 1:54:20
  yeah let my parents know and I'm like they can come pick me up
• 1:54:23
  because they didn't live that far away.
• 1:54:25
  I mean, they live like 2 hours away from the re entry place and
• 1:54:27
  I'm like either my parents or one of my friends, you know,
• 1:54:30
  they can come pick me up today. This is like I'm going home.
• 1:54:36
  And so I go to check in and I, I tell them that because I'm
• 1:54:40
  excited, because that's what I've been told.
• 1:54:42
  And they're going, they're looking at me very confused and
• 1:54:44
  they're not nice, of course. And it's just another prison and
• 1:54:48
  they're going through my paperwork and they're like,
• 1:54:50
  yeah, no, you're going to be here with us for a while.
• 1:54:52
  And I'm like, Oh, no, Oh, no, no, my camp manager like, and
• 1:54:55
  I'm super like, Oh, no, you know, Oh no, you got it wrong.
• 1:54:58
  You know, I got it right. And they're just like, no,
• 1:55:02
  they're you're checking in, but you're staying here.
• 1:55:06
  And I'm like, but I don't, and I literally was like, but I don't
• 1:55:09
  do drugs or anything. I wasn't, I wasn't sentenced by
• 1:55:14
  the judge to go to a halfway house.
• 1:55:16
  I was so sentenced to go out to home confinement.
• 1:55:18
  And if, if that were to happen, I was, I was sentenced to the
• 1:55:22
  home confinement and they're like, yeah, no, that's not it.
• 1:55:26
  So I was like, well, this is all wrong and I'm just going to call
• 1:55:30
  my lawyer in the morning. And I did.
• 1:55:33
  And there again, more things. I just how, how would you know?
• 1:55:38
  But they the, the federal, you know this, but the federal
• 1:55:41
  government, they have the right, they can, as long as they put
• 1:55:43
  you on federal land, they can put you anywhere.
• 1:55:46
  So even if it was judged that you go in home confinement, they
• 1:55:49
  still, if you still have a sentence to serve out, they
• 1:55:51
  don't have to put a can if they want to be nice, but they don't.
• 1:55:54
  So they just have to have you on federal land.
• 1:55:58
  And so federal re entry place is federal land.
• 1:56:03
  Regardless if I should have been there or not, it didn't matter.
• 1:56:06
  And I and the scary thing is I found out real quick, real,
• 1:56:11
  real, real quick that there again, don't quote me on the
• 1:56:17
  exact number, but out of like 300 people that were at this re
• 1:56:22
  entry place, only 10 now this that is right.
• 1:56:25
  The ten part is only 10, including myself were women.
• 1:56:30
  So these are all I was put into a re entry place where which I
• 1:56:36
  ended up calling the crack house because everybody was on some
• 1:56:39
  kind of drug. I shouldn't say everyone but
• 1:56:41
  majority and and the majority with only ten out of the 300
• 1:56:50
  being women. The majority of people there
• 1:56:52
  were men straight out of federal prison and these were all these
• 1:56:56
  were not people from camp. Some were, but we're talking.
• 1:56:59
  Halfway house has all all custody levels right?
• 1:57:02
  Yep, literally. But usually it doesn't have men
• 1:57:04
  and women, which when you told me that, I was really shocked
• 1:57:08
  about that. And it was very shocking because
• 1:57:12
  and it was like, what, What do you expect?
• 1:57:14
  So here we are, females right in a place with federal prison men
• 1:57:22
  that have not been around women for years, a while, a long time.
• 1:57:27
  And some of them were in there for rape.
• 1:57:29
  Some of them were pedophiles, a lot actually.
• 1:57:32
  And so when they seen us, I mean, you're talk about being,
• 1:57:40
  you know, prey to a predator and and OK, so they didn't come and
• 1:57:47
  physically attack us, right? But we were looked at that way.
• 1:57:51
  We were taught to that way. That energy around the there
• 1:57:55
  again is I escape in a highly abusive prison that got shut
• 1:57:59
  down due to the abuse, but they just put me in another prison
• 1:58:03
  that was more abusive and. I How long were you in there,
• 1:58:08
  Saffron? I don't remember.
• 1:58:09
  The months. Eight months.
• 1:58:13
  Eight months and it the only, the only section that you could
• 1:58:18
  go to as a woman there that you were not around all these
• 1:58:24
  federal prisoner men was they did have a very, very small,
• 1:58:28
  small section under a locked door, of course, where you could
• 1:58:32
  do your laundry, which where where the beds were and then
• 1:58:37
  which was just a prison cell. That's all it was.
• 1:58:40
  And literally and a bathroom, a very small bathroom that you had
• 1:58:46
  to share and that was it. Oh, oh, and it it did have a
• 1:58:52
  very small TV room, but it only fits like maybe three women in
• 1:58:57
  that room. But there was ATV and it was a
• 1:59:00
  room so. You never and you never knew how
• 1:59:06
  long you were going to be there. It was just an open-ended.
• 1:59:09
  You weren't supposed to be there.
• 1:59:10
  They told you you were going to just you don't.
• 1:59:12
  You don't have any choice. You're with us.
• 1:59:14
  But you never knew. So how did you how did you get
• 1:59:18
  alerted that you were finally leaving there?
• 1:59:21
  So I had gotten a job so that I could get out of there, so I
• 1:59:26
  could spend most of the day. Yeah, Yep, Yep.
• 1:59:29
  I was like, whatever I got to do to get out of this extremely
• 1:59:32
  scary and another extremely abusive situation that I did not
• 1:59:36
  feel safe at. So I was like, I'll go do
• 1:59:41
  anything, whatever that takes. Well, they were really strict,
• 1:59:45
  but they did let you work. So I got a job and I was
• 1:59:50
  actually at that job and I got a call from my manager from the
• 1:59:58
  the job and she was like someone at the halfway house that you're
• 2:00:04
  at is trying to get a hold of you.
• 2:00:06
  You might want to call them. And I'm like, well, that's
• 2:00:08
  weird. Like now what?
• 2:00:10
  Like my like what? Oh, because I can't be good.
• 2:00:14
  There's nothing ever good. Like what now?
• 2:00:17
  Geez, I'm not even there. Like I'm just working.
• 2:00:20
  So I call reluctantly thinking, oh, now what?
• 2:00:24
  And they said, hey, good news cares Act that I didn't know
• 2:00:30
  about when I was in prison. They're finally implementing it.
• 2:00:34
  And I knew it went through when I was in prison, but I'm like,
• 2:00:37
  it's never going to be implemented, right?
• 2:00:39
  And it was for low recidivism inmates that didn't have very
• 2:00:46
  much time that they could be released early.
• 2:00:50
  And if they, if they proved in prison that they did a lot of
• 2:00:54
  work. And I did a ton of work and like
• 2:00:56
  worked in the education department, which I did.
• 2:00:59
  And you know, all of this like proving like you're, you're
• 2:01:02
  trying to do good and all of that.
• 2:01:04
  So I, I, they had me on that. I guess it's nothing I applied
• 2:01:10
  for or anything. And anyway, so it went through
• 2:01:14
  and so I was granted that how exactly I'm not sure, but
• 2:01:19
  whatever, I'm not going to argue it either.
• 2:01:22
  So I, so the halfway house was like without any warning though,
• 2:01:27
  they're like you're, you got to come pick up your stuff now.
• 2:01:31
  And I'm like, well, I'm at work and they're like, we don't care.
• 2:01:34
  Like you're no longer here. Like you have to pick up your
• 2:01:37
  stuff, sign the paperwork and get out today.
• 2:01:40
  So I'm like, well, what? So I don't have any arrangements
• 2:01:45
  of where I'm going to go. Oh, and I had to check in with
• 2:01:48
  the probation officer the very next morning and I'm like, OK,
• 2:01:51
  but I don't have any arrangements of where to go.
• 2:01:55
  I had no warning. I'm at work.
• 2:01:58
  So if I were to leave right now, I could get fired.
• 2:02:01
  Like I'm just like. So I call my manager at work.
• 2:02:04
  I explained the situation and so I was like, can I leave early?
• 2:02:07
  Because I wasn't going to be like, oh, can I leave right now?
• 2:02:10
  Like, and so they let me leave early.
• 2:02:14
  And so I was able to get back to the halfway house.
• 2:02:20
  I just threw everything that I could.
• 2:02:22
  I had a car and I just threw everything I could in my car.
• 2:02:25
  There was no folding things. There was no nothing out.
• 2:02:28
  Of there. Yeah, just got out, signed
• 2:02:30
  whatever paper I had to sign. See you later.
• 2:02:34
  And I drove. Of course my parents were going
• 2:02:38
  to let me. They're like, Oh my gosh, of
• 2:02:39
  course. So it was there two hours away.
• 2:02:42
  So I drove two hours and had to check in with the probation
• 2:02:46
  officer the next morning and there you go.
• 2:02:52
  Wow, what a story. Yeah, yes.
• 2:02:55
  Then I started three years of probation.
• 2:02:58
  Three years of probation. Well, tell us about what you're
• 2:03:00
  doing now. So I I just finished a book.
• 2:03:05
  I wrote a book on on my whole experience.
• 2:03:11
  My name is. Salman Austin.
• 2:03:13
  Yes. Name is Saffron.
• 2:03:15
  Yes, and it's not available right now, but it should be.
• 2:03:19
  I don't have an exact. Release.
• 2:03:20
  So it's my name is Saffron Voice is silenced.
• 2:03:25
  What's this? What's this?
• 2:03:26
  Stifles and. Taken away, yeah.
• 2:03:29
  Because your, your voice is completely taken away when this
• 2:03:33
  happens to you. You have no voice.
• 2:03:35
  And what I really learned in being in prison is how fortunate
• 2:03:40
  I was that I'm a white educated female.
• 2:03:44
  You know, I never would have thought that.
• 2:03:47
  And the white privilege thing, I, I never understood that and
• 2:03:52
  never thought of myself as a white privilege person.
• 2:03:56
  I worked really hard for everything.
• 2:03:58
  I, I obtained that that was my previous thoughts going through
• 2:04:03
  the system and seeing that the majority of people that I were
• 2:04:07
  around were minorities. And you want to talk about being
• 2:04:12
  unfair, You know, I had access to good lawyers.
• 2:04:17
  I had access to having an education.
• 2:04:20
  I had access to being English, being my first language.
• 2:04:24
  People view me different because I'm white and and seeing the
• 2:04:29
  stark contrast of the women that I was there with, of how
• 2:04:34
  differently the system, even though I was treated horribly
• 2:04:38
  horrible, like, Oh my gosh, they were treated worse.
• 2:04:42
  And I could not comprehend that. So talk about voices being
• 2:04:48
  silenced, stifled and taken away.
• 2:04:50
  Yeah, mine was. But the majority of women's
• 2:04:54
  voices were much more taken away.
• 2:04:58
  The mine, the. Was that the genesis of the idea
• 2:05:01
  for your nonprofit? It sure is, yeah.
• 2:05:03
  So I'm working on putting a nonprofit together and it is
• 2:05:10
  specifically to provide many things.
• 2:05:16
  But I what I noticed that was drastically lacking for these
• 2:05:21
  women when they came out of the system, when they finally got
• 2:05:24
  out, many of them would get just turned right back in because
• 2:05:28
  there was no support. They don't have not all, but a
• 2:05:33
  lot. They don't have the the family
• 2:05:36
  backing that I have. They don't have the friends that
• 2:05:40
  I have. They don't, you know, I have
• 2:05:42
  friends that they own houses and have careers.
• 2:05:45
  And if I didn't have my family, I have friends that would take
• 2:05:47
  me in. So a lot of, a lot of these
• 2:05:51
  women that I've seen, you know, their friends were the friends
• 2:05:55
  that got them there in the 1st place.
• 2:05:57
  So, and they don't have, they didn't have the family and they
• 2:06:00
  don't, they don't have a resume, they don't have an education.
• 2:06:03
  They don't have anything to fall back on.
• 2:06:06
  So the nonprofit is through different ways, of course, but
• 2:06:12
  is providing one. The first thing that I found
• 2:06:16
  very important is job placement, to be able to provide a job for
• 2:06:22
  them because that that's the huge thing.
• 2:06:25
  I was able to get a job in a, in a medical office that did not
• 2:06:31
  take insurance. And that's unheard of.
• 2:06:36
  I have two felonies and medical fraud and tax evasion and it was
• 2:06:42
  approved of course through probation and everything because
• 2:06:45
  the place that I did. You go in when when you did that
• 2:06:49
  Saffron to to your interview, did you lead with that to tell
• 2:06:53
  him about Here's who I am, here's my experience.
• 2:06:57
  Yeah. Here's what's happened to me,
• 2:06:59
  and This is why I would be such a good candidate is because what
• 2:07:02
  I have been through in my lived experience.
• 2:07:04
  Yeah, so I I interviewed just like a normal person.
• 2:07:08
  I downplayed my resume, which was very hard for me to do.
• 2:07:12
  You have to give up your pride big, big time.
• 2:07:15
  And so I just made it sound on my resume like, you know, I just
• 2:07:19
  have good customer service skills and yay, can I be a
• 2:07:25
  receptionist, please? And, and so I got the interview
• 2:07:30
  because of that. And, and then I interviewed and
• 2:07:34
  I could tell that they liked me and I could tell that they were
• 2:07:36
  probably going to hire me. And so because of that, then I,
• 2:07:40
  and this has happened many times.
• 2:07:42
  I interviewed with a lot of people and then I would tell
• 2:07:45
  them, OK, this is my situation. I'm in a halfway house.
• 2:07:49
  I was in federal prison and you're going to be contacted and
• 2:07:54
  they're going to tell you I am a federal prisoner and that I'm
• 2:07:58
  in, you know, and so it's going to take a lot of, I can only be
• 2:08:00
  here for certain hours. And if I stay longer, you have
• 2:08:04
  to call and say that you were, you know, that I'm here.
• 2:08:08
  You know, I'm like, there's a lot that you have to do as an
• 2:08:12
  employer to even employ me. And so everyone has said no, but
• 2:08:16
  these people, they seem to be understanding somewhat, at least
• 2:08:20
  to my face. And they were like, well, you
• 2:08:24
  know, 'cause I was able to show like I had a lot of customer
• 2:08:28
  service and experience. And in medical, even though I
• 2:08:30
  super downplayed my, my resume, you know, it was very much, they
• 2:08:34
  knew I had experience in medical.
• 2:08:35
  And so they were like, well, wow, we weren't expecting that.
• 2:08:39
  Did you murder anybody? And I'm like, Oh, no, definitely
• 2:08:45
  not. Yeah, no, no.
• 2:08:47
  And so they said they would do a background check on me and get
• 2:08:51
  back in touch with me. And I thought I would never hear
• 2:08:53
  from them again. And they did get back in touch
• 2:08:55
  with me. And they actually said I passed
• 2:08:57
  the background check, which either again, I have no idea
• 2:08:59
  how. And they were willing to work
• 2:09:04
  with me, with the halfway house and probation officer and all of
• 2:09:08
  that. That's great.
• 2:09:09
  Yeah. Which never.
• 2:09:10
  Happened and I think there's AI think there's a threat of a of a
• 2:09:13
  really good nugget of of wisdom there for people who are
• 2:09:16
  listening to this is you're gonna get turned down because
• 2:09:21
  it's it's legal to discriminate against you.
• 2:09:24
  Yes, but not everybody is gonna discriminate against you.
• 2:09:27
  If no, you still gotta. Try, right?
• 2:09:30
  Present yourself in who you are and why you were who you were.
• 2:09:34
  They didn't take away your brain.
• 2:09:36
  So somebody's gonna see that. Yeah.
• 2:09:38
  And I think it's incredibly frustrating.
• 2:09:41
  It's the most humbling thing to be at a point and be down at the
• 2:09:47
  bottom. But there will be somebody
• 2:09:50
  eventually that sees you for who you are and and that person will
• 2:09:54
  be a great person for you because for whatever reason,
• 2:09:58
  they've chosen to walk with you and fight with.
• 2:10:01
  You. It's like you just said,
• 2:10:03
  Saffron, it's not easy to hire someone like us because they put
• 2:10:07
  a lot of conditions on us and make it hard for us to stay in a
• 2:10:10
  job because of the conditions that they put up on the
• 2:10:13
  employer. But you got through that.
• 2:10:15
  You got through that, yeah. Well, now I want to help others.
• 2:10:20
  And I think that's, I think lived experience is going to be
• 2:10:24
  going through an experience like this and not wasting it and
• 2:10:26
  using it. And that's what you were doing
• 2:10:28
  in prison. Too.
• 2:10:29
  Yep. You're using and and and
• 2:10:32
  helping. The best that I could for the
• 2:10:34
  situation. But that, that is something very
• 2:10:38
  rewarding out of that. And.
• 2:10:40
  It doesn't waste the the time and experience that you went
• 2:10:44
  through. No.
• 2:10:45
  And I try to look at it, if I have to go through this, let's
• 2:10:48
  turn it into a positive. Exactly.
• 2:10:51
  And you and in life you can do that.
• 2:10:53
  You can pretty much take any situation if you want to, and
• 2:10:57
  even if it really. Depends on it.
• 2:10:59
  Depends on a couple of things. It's your mindset, yeah.
• 2:11:03
  Your ability to humble yourself and ask somebody for help
• 2:11:08
  because you'll need help. Yep, and the the ability to just
• 2:11:14
  take action, you know, those things and and not to lose hope.
• 2:11:18
  You know, it's if you continue to those along that road, you
• 2:11:22
  you can kind of walk your way through.
• 2:11:26
  But I, I want to, I want to ask you Saffron, after this is this
• 2:11:30
  is like a, a wild, crazy story that you just told all of this a
• 2:11:36
  lot of really bad stuff that you had to walk through, but you
• 2:11:41
  also had a, a way that you did it that you didn't curl up in a
• 2:11:47
  corner and give up. What do you think is your
• 2:11:51
  biggest take away from everything that you've you've
• 2:11:54
  experienced along this journey of of this?
• 2:11:59
  The the biggest thing is, is being resilient in life and just
• 2:12:06
  no, no matter. And I think this can apply to so
• 2:12:09
  many people in so many different situations.
• 2:12:12
  It really can is no matter how bad it is, because we never know
• 2:12:17
  what that bad is. Because to someone else that
• 2:12:20
  might not seem that bad, but if you're living it, it's really
• 2:12:22
  bad. So whatever that is, you can
• 2:12:26
  still choose to look at it in a positive light and do positivity
• 2:12:31
  with it. So I've, I have known a lot of
• 2:12:35
  people and I do not judge them because I understand the
• 2:12:37
  situation that they went through is really horrible.
• 2:12:40
  Same situation that I got thrown into.
• 2:12:43
  But they look at it and more in a negative light, right?
• 2:12:47
  Because everything got destroyed.
• 2:12:49
  They can't do anything or they think they can't do anything.
• 2:12:52
  They can, but it's a lot harder. There's, there's more
• 2:12:56
  restrictions. You have to really think outside
• 2:12:59
  the box to be positive once you go through this type of
• 2:13:04
  situation. But my big thing is that you can
• 2:13:08
  if you choose. And I would always get in
• 2:13:11
  trouble in prison because I I would always be laughing.
• 2:13:16
  I'd always be like having fun. I had to work in the kitchen
• 2:13:19
  too, and I don't cook and at all.
• 2:13:23
  And it was hilarious that I was put there, but I still made it
• 2:13:27
  fun. And, you know, I greet everyone
• 2:13:30
  that came in and, you know, hey, how are you?
• 2:13:32
  You know, I remember their names and and you know, it's, it's the
• 2:13:36
  situation. Or I could, or I could stand
• 2:13:38
  there and be angry and bitter and mad and think how horrible
• 2:13:43
  this is. And it, that would all be true.
• 2:13:45
  So that I, I, I give validation to anyone that feels that I'm
• 2:13:48
  not, I'm not judging, but. But if you want to be positive,
• 2:13:52
  if you want to feel better, if you want to do good in the
• 2:13:57
  world, no matter what your situation is, you still can.
• 2:14:00
  And it is a choice. And yeah.
• 2:14:03
  And I think it's totally fine if you don't, if you don't want to
• 2:14:05
  do that because you're like, this sucks.
• 2:14:08
  And that because that's true. And so I, I don't judge anyone
• 2:14:12
  that that feels that and because I understand, but no matter what
• 2:14:16
  your situation is, if you still want to be positive and do good
• 2:14:20
  in the world, you can, it might be a little bit harder.
• 2:14:24
  I think it's a great take away from somebody who spent three
• 2:14:26
  weeks in the hole and spent another eight months at the
• 2:14:31
  halfway house. You were told that you weren't
• 2:14:33
  going to be at, but you figured out how to make it work.
• 2:14:36
  And now you're using your lived experience and and to helping
• 2:14:40
  people. You got a book coming out, and I
• 2:14:43
  think all those things are because you maintained the
• 2:14:47
  ability to choose. Yeah.
• 2:14:50
  To be positive and, and have the mindset that you were moving
• 2:14:53
  forward. And that's, that's, that's the
• 2:14:55
  difference maker. I think that's the secret sauce.
• 2:14:57
  Absolutely. Just in life.
• 2:15:00
  Yeah, just in life. Well, for those talking about
• 2:15:03
  gratitude, I want to thank Homestead Financial Home
• 2:15:06
  Mortgage for letting me use this podcast room.
• 2:15:11
  If you've got home mortgage needs out there, Greg Aftyev is
• 2:15:14
  your guy. He knows all the stuff.
• 2:15:17
  If you've got time, leave me a review on Apple.
• 2:15:19
  Go to brentcasty.com to find out what I'm doing on my website.
• 2:15:23
  I spell it wrong. It's with a Ty, not a DY, as I
• 2:15:27
  used to say to my people when I was writing my emails back and
• 2:15:30
  forth from Leavenworth. Stay strong, I'll do the same.
• 2:15:34
  Saffron, thank you so much for being here today.
• 2:15:38
  Quite a story. I can't wait to read the book,
• 2:15:40
  but I think I. Got.
• 2:15:41
  I'll let you know when it's available.
• 2:15:43
  I think, I think I got a lot of good ingredients out of it
• 2:15:47
  today, but thanks so much for being on it's.
• 2:15:50
  It's Yeah. Thank you.
• 2:15:51
  It's. It's you're, You're your mindset
• 2:15:55
  is inspiring for people to listen to because if you can get
• 2:15:59
  through that, you can get through a lot.
• 2:16:00
  Sure can. I'm your success in and out.