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Pamela Winn: Prison to Presidential Lifetime Award Winner · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:04
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
• 0:07
  Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:11
  nightmares to set yourself free. We're going to be exploring this
• 0:14
  topic with guys that was in Leavenworth with and others who
• 0:17
  survived their own nightmare. These stories can be inspiring,
• 0:22
  sometimes sad. There's some humor, but
• 0:25
  hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something that'll
• 0:27
  help you knock down some of the prisons you built up in your own
• 0:30
  mind. All right, welcome back,
• 0:34
  Nightmare success in our listeners, where you come for
• 0:36
  what happens when your worst fear becomes your reality.
• 0:38
  How do you adapt, survive, overcome?
• 0:40
  Set yourself free, folks. I know I sound like a broken
• 0:44
  record, but it really does help when you follow, subscribe,
• 0:47
  share, like this thing up. It helps the show and I
• 0:51
  appreciate it. So who are we talking to today?
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  Well, I want to 1st give a, a big shout out to Jessica O'Brien
• 0:58
  of, of those who listen to the show week in week out.
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  Jessica O'Brien was actually the guest last week on Nightmare
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  Success. She introduced me to my guest
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  this week, Pamela Nguyen. And wow, I started doing and as
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  I always do, like, you know, get into the research of who I'm
• 1:19
  talking to and, and what they've done.
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  And, and Oh my gosh, this, what Pamela has done is nothing short
• 1:28
  of absolutely remarkable, which you would think, well, there
• 1:31
  should probably be a movie made. Well, there is, there's, there's
• 1:33
  some short, short films that have been made and she's won
• 1:36
  these short films. One was called the win movie.
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  There was another one called The Box or the other one called
• 1:40
  counted. That's just a very small
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  fraction of, of, of what this woman has been able to
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  accomplish. But just to give you a little
• 1:48
  bit of background, she's a single mother with two sons from
• 1:50
  Atlanta, grew up in Georgia. She has numerous degrees, mostly
• 1:56
  in nursing, but in other things. In 2009, when then a registered
• 2:02
  nurse was convicted of bank fraud and sentenced to 78 months
• 2:07
  in federal prison. She was six weeks pregnant at
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  the time. This is just took my breath away
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  when I was reading through this. But she fell when she was
• 2:17
  shackled and she miscarried. I mean, I can't even imagine
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  what kind of trauma that was for her to go through at that time.
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  After getting released, Pamela founded Restore Her to advocate
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  for women who have been or are currently incarcerated.
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  And she's pushed for legislation successfully for banning
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  shackling and solitary confinement for pregnant people.
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  And she's, she's assisted in passing dignity legislation in
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  more than 12 states. It's funny because I just had
• 2:54
  somebody on Tyler Foster who was part of this organization that
• 2:57
  she Co founded, the formerly incarcerated College graduates
• 3:00
  Network. He's a great guy.
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  He's in law school and very, very involved.
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  And this is something that Pamela founded.
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  So it's very cool. The, the other thing that I
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  think is amazing, the awards, you know, I'm talking about, you
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  know, the, the Film Festival winter stuff.
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  But Forbes listed the 50 / 50. Pamela Wynn was on that impact
• 3:22
  list in 2021. She has been featured in Rolling
• 3:28
  Stones, Essence magazine. She's been she got the
• 3:31
  Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.
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  She's been at the White House for the Criminal Justice Reform
• 3:37
  Summit to speak on women's issues on and on and on and on.
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  Pamela Wynn. And she keeps winning with what
• 3:44
  she's doing with re entry. I can't wait to unpack all that.
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  I can't wait to talk to Pamela because her story is absolutely
• 3:53
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  Autoplaza direct telling Brent from nightmare success sent you
• 4:30
  Pamela Wynn welcome in. How are you?
• 4:35
  Well, I am so glad we we, before we got started here, Pamela had
• 4:39
  some contractors that were coming.
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  She had to rustle up the dogs. And I think that we've got
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  everything settled now so that we're we're.
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  Good to go. We're a good spot.
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  Yeah, well, Pamela, I want to go back because some of the things
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  I just mentioned, it didn't go back into the young Pamela when?
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  Right, the growing up Pamela Wynn.
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  Can you take everybody back to the young Pamela Wynn?
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  What was going on in your life then?
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  Sure. So as you mentioned, I am born,
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  raised, bred, I am all things ATL, Atlanta, GA proud to be
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  from Atlanta. Grady baby.
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  All of the things that make, you know, me an authentic Atlantean.
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  And as I was saying, being from the South, being from Georgia,
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  you know, where the cradle of the civil rights movement.
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  So basically it's like, I feel like I was born fighting, you
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  know, because of where I come from.
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  And my family is what's considered a typical Southern
• 5:47
  family, meaning that they were low income and uneducated.
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  The highest level education was eighth grade for my family.
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  And your family at that time, Pamela, that was the highest.
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  That was the achievement level. Wow.
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  So I grew up with an aspiration to change my generational
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  dynamics, and education was the first bullet on the list, which
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  is why I have such a number of degrees, because education is
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  important to me. And what I learned through
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  education is that knowledge is power.
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  You know knowledge can take you wherever you want to go if you
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  know things despite the types because they can be stripped.
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  But what you got right here can. I take away your brain.
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  Exactly. So that was always a key thing
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  for me. So growing up, I did well in
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  school. I've always been a creative.
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  I enjoy drawing, painting, writing.
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  You were just showing me the paintings before we started.
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  I it was and you were painting it, I think for your mom or your
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  grandmother while you were. Yes.
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  I mean really good paintings. Do you do you paint?
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  Do you paint Pamela like as a hobby or do you do it like once
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  a week? How often do you do your
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  painting? So I would love to do it all the
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  time, every day. You're really good at it.
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  That. So that's my goal in life right
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  now, to get to a point where I just have that kind of time.
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  Yeah. That I can just draw pain and
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  write 'cause that's what I enjoy doing.
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  But right now I do it in my free time, you know, whenever I got
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  some extra time, which is not often lazy, but I'm working
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  toward it. So going into you did good in
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  school, you're outperforming. High School graduate, college
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  graduate, home owner, all of the things that you know, we are
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  taught that these are the things that you aspire to that makes
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  you a successful adult, right? Those things were on my list and
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  I completed all of those things first generation.
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  What, what part of in your education were you thinking
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  nursing did it? Was it always there?
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  Did it grow as you were getting into college?
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  Like because that's a profession takes a lot of you know, you
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  know, they think doctors have a lot of of education that has to
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  be done. So did nurses.
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  So. Right.
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  How did how did that come into play for you?
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  It wasn't my first choice. So as I said, you know, with my
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  background growing up during the, I guess the crack epidemic
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  or whatever, unfortunately, you know, my mother fell subject to
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  that. And you know, I had a drug
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  dependency and already I have a brother that's four years
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  younger. And because of my mother's
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  criminal background, because my mother had been incarcerated a
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  number of times when I was growing up, because of that, I
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  have always been like the caretaker of my brother and kind
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  of like a an adult kid per SE and, and.
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  And I've Pamela, just not to gloss over that because it's
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  that's a traumatic thing when parents go to prison.
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  How old would you have been when your mom was going First time,
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  second time, whenever? As early as I remember, As early
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  as I remember being about 5 or 6 years old.
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  So you were young, really young. And during those times, you
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  know, as I say, I would be responsible for looking after my
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  brother. You know, we would stay with
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  different relatives when we were younger and something happened.
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  But then we got to a point where I did not like staying at, you
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  know, in other places because, you know, after a while, you
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  kind of over, you wear out your welcome and you don't.
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  It's not a comfortable feeling. Yeah.
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  It's not as easy. And so I, I think about 8 years
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  old, I was like, we just want to stay home.
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  We did have a family member that would come during the summer and
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  stayed there with us. But, you know, we opted to stay
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  home. I was about in my teens when my
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  mother developed her drug dependency.
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  And during that time, eventually my mom ended up losing
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  everything. So at about 15, my brother and I
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  were pretty much on our own. Yeah.
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  And making sure. So I was making sure.
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  That they had to grow up fast. Yesterday and you know, we had
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  what we needed and then there was also a point where we didn't
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  have anywhere to stay. And so that was included in the
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  day. Now where we're going to sleep
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  tonight. Fortunately, this was during my
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  senior year in high school. And as I said, I was always very
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  smart in school. I I was working 2 jobs as a
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  senior in high school. I was getting out of school at
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  noon because I had more than enough credits to graduate.
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  And so that was very helpful. You know, with the situation, it
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  wasn't as great for my brother because during this time he was
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  about 1213, my brother ended up dropping out of school and
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  selling drugs to help take care of us.
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  And his outcome has not been like mine.
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  My brother's currently serving a 65 year sentence and not because
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  he did. You know, when you think
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  somebody got sentenced to 65 years, he did something
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  horrific. It was because he had a number
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  of the same charges, possession charges.
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  And they can sentence you on the state charge under something
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  called the recidivist where you hit, they consider you a
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  habitual violator of the same crime.
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  And that's how he got that amount of time.
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  So nonviolent you know nothing of the sort but serving time as
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  if he, you know, has. Lifetime.
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  You know, like he was a mass murderer.
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  And so, you know, of course the biggest part about my work that
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  bothers me the most is the fact that I do this work.
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  But thus far, I have not been able to be successful in getting
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  my brother home, although I am, you know, working towards that
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  every day. So yeah, some, that was pretty
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  much, you know, my upbringing. So I managed to get a
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  scholarship to Spelman during that time.
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  This was the first year Spelman had initiated a dual degree
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  program in partnership with Georgia Tech.
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  And I got selected for it. So I started out with my major
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  being aeronautical engineering. My gosh, Pamela, that doesn't
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  surprise me. Yeah, so Spellman I was.
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  So the way it went, you attend Spellman for three years and my
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  major there was biology. And then the last two years I
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  would follow up with the engineering at Georgia Tech.
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  However, when the three years were up, it was expensive.
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  And again, I was taking care of myself.
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  My brother and I couldn't afford it.
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  And one of my best girlfriends was like, she came, gave me this
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  pamphlet. She said have you ever thought
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  about nursing? And I was like, no, I haven't.
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  So my second choice of career path if I couldn't be an
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  aeronautical engineer was to be a surgeon.
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  So I said, well, it's not quite a surgeon, but it is in the
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  medical field. So I looked at the brochure.
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  She was like, this is only a 18 month program.
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  You know, you can get licensed as a practical nurse, you can
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  make decent money where you could be able to afford to take
• 14:04
  care of you and your brother. And I was like, bet, let's do
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  it. And so that's what I did.
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  I completed that, but then I just went straight back in, got
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  my license as a licensed practical nurse.
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  So now I was working as a nurse and also still in school, went
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  back, got my RN, and then I just kept going from there, you know,
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  because each program I completed bridged over into something
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  else. And so that's how I got a number
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  of degrees. And of course, since I've been
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  home, I've been involved in a number, you know, of, of, of
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  curriculums, completed a number of things that I'm proud of, a
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  couple of things, certificates from Harvard, I see it
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  graduated. What was it?
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  What was it? From Yale last yeah.
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  So what was the thing from Harvard?
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  In fact, there was a whole educational.
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  Program course at the Harvard Kennedy School around policy and
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  politics to reinforce the work that I do.
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  And then the second one was from the Harvard Business School, and
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  it also was around, it was called around policy and power
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  and influence. So the things that I do now
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  basically reinforce my work and kind of, you know, give me more
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  knowledge to do things that I'm doing.
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  That's. Awesome.
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  Well, talking about all the things that you're doing now,
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  when you go back to where things went bad, when it, when you had
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  a nightmare land on you. Yes.
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  What happened? So I look back on that time and
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  I think of it often now, you know, when I'm doing things.
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  Because in the midst of it happening, I was completely
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  black. I didn't understand what was
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  going on. Well, it it, it's, it reads like
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  it just pops off the page, Pamela, because you read all
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  this stuff of everything that you you are so accomplished and
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  you always have been so driven. And I was talking to my wife
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  last night. I said I'm really excited to
• 16:11
  interview Pamela. When?
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  And she said why did she go to prison?
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  I said as bank fraud. She said she was a nurse.
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  I said yeah, but yes, I was I. Think it makes sense for you?
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  Yeah. OK.
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  So again, you know, it's part of my growing up and seeing my mom,
• 16:29
  you know, be incarcerated and not being able to get, you know,
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  a career or a job because of her background.
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  You know, of course, that was also on my list that I would not
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  do those things. And then having my brother end
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  up go the same direction. So, you know, now I'm a nurse,
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  not just a nurse. I have a number of
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  certifications as a nurse. I specialized in Women's Health.
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  So I've done OBGYN, I've done labor delivery, I've done
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  newborn, I've done the whole gamut under Women's Health as a
• 17:03
  nurse. And the last things that I I did
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  as a nurse, I was a surgical nurse.
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  So I was able to get as close as I could to being that surgeon as
• 17:14
  a surgical nurse and an assist in surgery.
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  And I was like, OK, this is all great.
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  Now it's time for me to check another thing off my list and
• 17:25
  that was to be an entrepreneur. So I started my first business.
• 17:30
  The business was a perinatal service.
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  And what that did was I basically worked with
• 17:38
  obstetricians to care for the my business, care for the socio
• 17:44
  economic issues of the women while he focused on the maternal
• 17:49
  health of the woman. So basically.
• 17:52
  Sounds like a great idea for starting.
• 17:54
  Business because during my studies as a nurse specializing
• 17:57
  in Women's Health, Georgia has always been one of the top
• 18:01
  states for a horrible maternal infant mortality.
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  And so I had studied that. And what I knew from my own
• 18:10
  background and what I was reading in my, in my studies and
• 18:14
  research was that it was mostly because of marginalized women of
• 18:19
  color lacking socio economic resources that caused them to
• 18:25
  not focus on their pregnancy. But like I was saying, where am
• 18:29
  I going to sleep at night? How am I going to eat today?
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  And if you have those concerns, the last thing you're worried
• 18:35
  about is going to AOB appointment for them to measure
• 18:38
  your belly. That's at the bottom of the
• 18:41
  list. But what we did was we, we
• 18:45
  assisted the physicians in addressing those concerns.
• 18:49
  Because another thing as a marginal from marginalized
• 18:53
  communities, if this woman is seeing her doctor monthly for
• 18:58
  maternal checkup, then that's the person that she's going to
• 19:01
  look to for help. So these women would be telling
• 19:05
  their doctors, oh, I don't have anywhere to live.
• 19:08
  Can you help me with that? You know, and they didn't want
• 19:10
  to be bogged down with those issues.
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  They just want to be concerned about medical care.
• 19:16
  So when I brought this to them, of course they were, you know,
• 19:21
  they were on board for it. And the thing about it is
• 19:25
  because I came from that community, I knew those women.
• 19:30
  I knew those areas. To.
• 19:32
  The doctors, and because I was a nurse, I knew the doctors that
• 19:35
  work with these women, so it was easy for me to generate, you
• 19:40
  know, a, a population of clients.
• 19:42
  Sure. Well, the health department also
• 19:47
  decided to do this. So that labeled me as a private
• 19:52
  provider. And during my so when we would
• 19:56
  get our billing statements back, sometimes there would be clients
• 20:02
  that we were not paid for. And so when I would call in
• 20:05
  about it and tell them what the we didn't get paid for this
• 20:08
  person, they would say the health department got paid.
• 20:11
  And I would say, but this is my client, you know, I have
• 20:14
  documentation to show I have a referral.
• 20:18
  And they would say to me, we don't have time to figure out
• 20:22
  who belongs to who. We pay whoever bills first.
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  So in my naivety and my ignorance of you know, and being
• 20:31
  a first time business owner and not having like a foundation or
• 20:36
  guidance when I was having issues, I did what I had done
• 20:40
  all my life. I figure it out on my own.
• 20:43
  And what I figured out was I told my staff, well, instead of
• 20:47
  waiting until we see the latest to bill when we get our weekly
• 20:51
  referrals, just go ahead and build in so that way we'll build
• 20:56
  1st and help you know, and not miss out on getting paid for our
• 21:01
  patients. What I didn't anticipate was
• 21:05
  what if that woman didn't make her appointment?
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  Now she hasn't been seen. Now it we are obligated to
• 21:12
  follow up to make sure that we see her.
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  And that was the part that I didn't think about.
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  In the meantime, the health department was getting
• 21:22
  frustrated because we had. All you were taking all the
• 21:25
  people. And the only time that they were
• 21:27
  seeing these women is when they went into the, the health
• 21:31
  department to get their WIC and that's when they were built for
• 21:34
  these women. So they complained to the state
• 21:39
  about my. Your business?
• 21:42
  Yeah. Who is this?
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  First, you know, who is this business?
• 21:45
  So my business was called Silver Spoons Perinatal Service and our
• 21:50
  motto was all babies should be born with the silver spoon in
• 21:53
  their mouth. And so of course, they checked
• 21:55
  us out. I was the only person listed
• 21:58
  there. It was my business.
• 21:59
  So it wasn't like it was a group or a coalition of folks.
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  It was just me. I had been in business a year
• 22:08
  and a half now and there was nobody else, you know, just.
• 22:16
  You were at the buck stopped on your desk.
• 22:19
  And so there was a knock at the door one day and it was the
• 22:23
  state standard. They were coming to do an audit.
• 22:26
  I was puzzled by that because the contract that I had with the
• 22:31
  state stated that I wasn't due for an audit until I had been in
• 22:34
  business at least three years and I was only a year and a half
• 22:39
  old. So I didn't feel comfortable
• 22:43
  with it. But at the same time, I didn't
• 22:45
  feel like I had anything to hide.
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  So I let them in One of the other things that I had done
• 22:52
  because like I told you, I've always been very studious.
• 22:55
  I had a friend that was into data technology and as my
• 23:02
  patient list start growing, it was kind of challenging to keep
• 23:06
  up with everybody. At this time, Microsoft had just
• 23:09
  come out with this Access software.
• 23:12
  And so we sat down and we created a database for my
• 23:16
  patients where I could pull them up by name, due date, however I
• 23:21
  wanted. And so that may things so much
• 23:24
  easier for me. So we started putting all the
• 23:27
  women in the database and when we would complete a person's
• 23:33
  care, we would print out, you know, there and that would be
• 23:36
  their file. So when they came to audit me,
• 23:40
  they were like, oh, we need to see your patient files.
• 23:43
  You know, I was like, sure, they're here.
• 23:47
  Valcat. We had 2500 patients and of the
• 23:52
  2500 patients there were only 20 that we had not seen.
• 23:58
  And of course, they don't say that in the indictment.
• 24:00
  Of course not. 500, they only missed 20.
• 24:03
  You don't hear that part. All you hear is 20 counts of
• 24:07
  healthcare fraud. And so they find me.
• 24:14
  Oh, so they asked me. And this is another thing that's
• 24:18
  tricky about the criminal legal system.
• 24:21
  They kept saying to me, so if mind you, I'm still working full
• 24:23
  time as a surgical nurse and I've hired people to run the
• 24:28
  distance. They're saying, if we ask this
• 24:31
  woman, does she know you? Does she know you?
• 24:34
  And I'm like, she won't know me. But if you ask her if she knows
• 24:38
  my staff, she'll know them. No, we're not talking about your
• 24:42
  staff. We're talking about you.
• 24:44
  And I said, I don't see patients.
• 24:47
  I work every day at Emory Hospital.
• 24:51
  I have a staff that sees patients.
• 24:55
  They didn't want to hear any. It was all about me.
• 24:58
  This is your business, you're accountable.
• 25:01
  You know, if they and I was like, well, I didn't, you know,
• 25:04
  then they showed me documentation.
• 25:06
  I didn't document that. Someone on my staff did, but I
• 25:09
  was still here responsible for whatever was being documented
• 25:13
  because again, it was my business.
• 25:16
  And basically that's how my case went.
• 25:18
  Everything was on me whether it was done or not done.
• 25:22
  And I'm sitting there confused because I'm like, we hear about
• 25:25
  companies all day where folks own businesses, but they have no
• 25:29
  part in the day-to-day because they are people to do that.
• 25:33
  But yet it's still here I am. I'm getting, you know, just
• 25:37
  raked over the colds because I don't know these women, because
• 25:41
  these women, you know, all of the things.
• 25:44
  And so they told me that they didn't expect for me to have any
• 25:50
  files. What they thought was I just had
• 25:53
  a list of names and I was billing insurance companies.
• 25:57
  So they were surprised to see that it was actually a
• 25:59
  legitimate business. They asked to take my files with
• 26:05
  them because they had not been prepared to look at files and
• 26:10
  definitely not 2500 files. So that was the second mistake
• 26:13
  that I made. And you probably at this time,
• 26:17
  Pamela, you probably hadn't talked to an attorney or
• 26:19
  anything. You were just kind of just
• 26:20
  letting them go. Just kind of letting them do
• 26:22
  whatever they want to do, thinking.
• 26:24
  Yeah, you're helping them out. I got nothing to hide.
• 26:27
  Here it is. Not knowing that all I was doing
• 26:30
  was helping them to build a case against.
• 26:32
  Them exactly. And as my lawyer explained to me
• 26:35
  when I got 1, he said, Miss Wynn, you seem to be a very
• 26:39
  brilliant young lady. He said what is going on with
• 26:42
  you right now is the fact that you have generated about half
• 26:46
  $1,000,000 in a year and a half. But the only person when you
• 26:50
  look up your business that's benefiting from this money is
• 26:54
  you, he said. If you had been in touch with
• 26:59
  the powers that be in this space and they were receiving some
• 27:04
  type of compensation, you would not be sitting here.
• 27:07
  You are sitting here because you were very smart and they want
• 27:11
  what you have created and that's the reason that they refusing to
• 27:15
  give you probation because you can still run your business on.
• 27:18
  Right, right. So.
• 27:19
  It's not really you that they care about, they want the
• 27:21
  business. They want the business shut
• 27:23
  down. Yes, and so he said.
• 27:26
  So when you come home, he says, since you seem to be a very
• 27:29
  smart young lady, whatever you come up with next, just make
• 27:33
  sure you know all of the major players involved and include
• 27:36
  them, be inclusive of them and you won't have to worry about
• 27:40
  having this problem again. I never forget him telling me
• 27:43
  that. And when he said that and I sat
• 27:45
  down and I thought about it, it made sense on a lot of levels to
• 27:49
  me because even my judge, my judge was like, I don't
• 27:53
  understand. I thought this was about the
• 27:55
  money that you say she owes. So why do you want her to go to
• 27:59
  prison, you know? How long a process did all that
• 28:03
  take Pamela with you? It took years.
• 28:06
  Years. Years, yeah, it took some years,
• 28:09
  but, you know, the major blow was like, so then when I was on
• 28:15
  probation, and so this was like the first stint of it.
• 28:20
  So you saw bank fraud, but it's really healthcare and bank
• 28:25
  fraud. Yeah, but this was the
• 28:26
  healthcare part. I did the year and a half.
• 28:30
  I had three years on supervision.
• 28:33
  I came home. Now, what was different about my
• 28:36
  case, that's not like most federal cases, is I didn't have
• 28:43
  the forfeiture. My judge had ruled that
• 28:46
  everything that I owned, a major value I had purchased prior to
• 28:51
  my business, my home, my cars, all of those things.
• 28:54
  So he instructed them on whatever they removed out of my
• 28:57
  house. When they searched it, they had
• 29:00
  to return it to me. They were not happy with that.
• 29:04
  So the three years on supervised release, I was instructed to pay
• 29:10
  $100 a month, 10%, no 25% of anything.
• 29:15
  I made over $1000 and that was it.
• 29:21
  Well, the probation, not my probation officer, but the
• 29:26
  supervisor. She was, for lack of a better
• 29:31
  words than just being real, a racist woman.
• 29:35
  So when she saw, you know, all of the things that I had and saw
• 29:39
  that they were not able to take anything from me.
• 29:41
  And I came home, back to my house, to my to my life, even my
• 29:47
  nursing license. So you were able to get back
• 29:50
  into nursing? Yeah, even everything was still
• 29:52
  intact. She was not happy about that.
• 29:56
  About close to a year as I got home, you know, first they
• 30:01
  attacked my nursing license, telling me I had to surrender
• 30:04
  it. And I was like, I will not.
• 30:06
  I worked hard to get it. So if you want it, you're going
• 30:09
  to have to take it. I will not surrender it.
• 30:11
  Then she wanted me to sell things that I owned.
• 30:17
  She wanted me to refinance my home, you know, do all of these
• 30:21
  things to pay the restitution, which of course was like trumped
• 30:26
  up to the Max. It was like, what, for 20 people
• 30:32
  that I owe back times 100, basically, you know, hundreds of
• 30:37
  thousands of dollars, which was the other reason that I really
• 30:40
  didn't take it seriously when they say I was like, it's no way
• 30:44
  I'm going to give you that kind of money, you know, And then the
• 30:47
  next thing I know, I had been indicted.
• 30:49
  And the other thing I never understood is it started off
• 30:52
  with the state. I never understood how it became
• 30:55
  federal. Right.
• 30:58
  You know so, but you know it did.
• 31:02
  And then when I was in there, I was also fine.
• 31:05
  That database that I told you about, Yeah, I was fine for that
• 31:08
  because I was told that I was supposed to maintain a paper
• 31:12
  file and like I told you, I was. Creative.
• 31:15
  You were too efficient, Pamela. Yes.
• 31:18
  So why? I'm incarcerated and I call home
• 31:22
  and I'm talking to my best girlfriend.
• 31:24
  She says, are you sitting down? And I was like, no, you have to
• 31:28
  stand up on this phone. She says, well, I have something
• 31:32
  to tell you. I said what?
• 31:34
  She said I'm taking some classes.
• 31:36
  I said, OK, that's good. She said, yeah, but it's whether
• 31:39
  it's what the classes are for. I said, what are they for?
• 31:42
  She said, well, there's going to be a new law.
• 31:44
  There's a new law that just came out that says that all medical
• 31:49
  facilities have to have their files computerized.
• 31:54
  I said do what? She said yes.
• 31:56
  What you're sitting there for, it's the law down that everybody
• 32:00
  has. Everybody's got to do it, but
• 32:02
  you get to sit in jail over it. Yes, so it just remind it made
• 32:06
  me feel like people sitting in jail for marijuana charges, but
• 32:11
  marijuana is legal in the state. That's right.
• 32:13
  That would be horrible, and there's a lot of people that
• 32:16
  are. Yes, yeah.
• 32:18
  OK, so. Bank fraud came.
• 32:20
  From Yeah how did how? So the bank fraud came from when
• 32:24
  this supervisor, this probation, she just kept pressing me and
• 32:28
  pressing me. You know, when you get your
• 32:30
  income taxes, you need to come back here and let me allocate
• 32:34
  where your money goes. I said, oh, you're going to give
• 32:36
  me my taxes If you're going to give me my money, I'm an adult.
• 32:41
  I can allocate where my money goes.
• 32:44
  I know what my judgement and commuter says I'll make sure you
• 32:47
  get what you're supposed to get, which I did when I got it, I
• 32:52
  gave them the 25% and I allocated my funds where I
• 32:55
  wanted them to go. She was not happy about that.
• 32:59
  She petitioned the judge to have me arrested at that time, but he
• 33:04
  refused. He was like, she's paying, she's
• 33:06
  doing like she's supposed to do. Not going to do that, right.
• 33:10
  So the bank fraud came in because they were pressing me so
• 33:15
  hard that I did not. I started another business.
• 33:18
  It was a towing and transporting company, but I was not
• 33:21
  comfortable with sharing anything with them because of
• 33:25
  the way that they were handling me.
• 33:27
  So I just put things in friends and family's name that belonged
• 33:33
  to me. And so that's where the bank
• 33:37
  fraud came from, because all of the money I had under my
• 33:40
  grandmother's name, and they said that it was fraud because I
• 33:45
  made it, the bank assumed that my grandmother was.
• 33:48
  There was her business. And had her name on, you know,
• 33:52
  the business accounts. So that's what a bank fraud
• 33:56
  came. But that 1 ended up.
• 33:59
  Because they felt like I was too smart for my own good.
• 34:04
  Yeah, it labeled me as a criminal mastermind, which my
• 34:07
  book, which my sons thought was the coolest thing ever.
• 34:10
  Yeah, I mean that should be the name of your your book.
• 34:13
  But I mastermind. Just mastermind.
• 34:15
  Yeah, I was like, that's not the coolest thing ever because it
• 34:18
  comes with more time. Right.
• 34:21
  So that's how I ended up with 78 and. 78 months.
• 34:26
  So Pamela, my gosh, that's a lot of time.
• 34:28
  I mean, what, what did you say I'm was that your plea bargain
• 34:33
  or did you go to trial? You went to trial?
• 34:36
  I didn't go to trial. I did I I plan to.
• 34:41
  It wasn't what was it they call it?
• 34:47
  I forgot the term they used for it.
• 34:49
  So, but in general, you didn't go to trial, so you ended up
• 34:53
  with the judge having to determine on.
• 34:56
  Yourself for 90 something months.
• 34:58
  OK, that was again, that was my judge saying I'll go in the
• 35:02
  middle. Yeah, you get 78 months.
• 35:07
  What is going through your mind? Because I, I mean, obviously you
• 35:11
  went through this, this piece before this bit, before that
• 35:15
  was, you know, a year and a half or whatever.
• 35:17
  Now you're looking at 78 months. Yes, Pamela, What?
• 35:21
  What are you thinking? Well, initially I was thinking
• 35:27
  that when I got there that this is not going to last too long
• 35:30
  because I only had 10 days left on supervised release.
• 35:35
  So I was like, So what? You know, I was like, what are
• 35:38
  they going to do to me? I only got 10 days left but they
• 35:41
  held me for 18 months investigating me for any
• 35:44
  charges. You were you were in county jail
• 35:49
  for 18 months while they were investigating.
• 35:51
  This, it was a private facility. They held me for 18 months while
• 35:57
  they investigated. They took me back to court four
• 35:59
  times because every time they thought they had something, they
• 36:03
  brought me back to court and then I would be like, oh, that's
• 36:06
  not anything. Like for example, remember I
• 36:09
  told you I put everything in friends and families thing.
• 36:11
  They brought me back to court and was trying to charge me with
• 36:14
  identity theft as a new charge, But then my friends and family
• 36:17
  were like, we know that she has that information, used that.
• 36:21
  It's not theft when you know that you're you're actually
• 36:23
  using each other's names like. Oh, we need a continuance.
• 36:26
  Send me back, you know, till they find.
• 36:29
  Lord, 18 months is a long time in in jail when.
• 36:33
  I asked my attorney how long can they investigate?
• 36:36
  He said there's no statue of limitations.
• 36:38
  They can investigate you as long as they want to.
• 36:41
  So that wasn't a help. Of course, they were refusing to
• 36:44
  allow me to be out on bond. And so all of the things that
• 36:48
  happened to me with my baby, I hadn't even been convicted yet.
• 36:51
  I was just being yelled. So, and I'm trying to think when
• 36:57
  we're talking about time spances here, how old would you have
• 37:00
  been when you were going through this nightmare of a
• 37:04
  circumstance? Started in my mid my my mid
• 37:08
  late. I want to say I was about 3738.
• 37:13
  And did you know at that time, Pamela, that you were pregnant
• 37:17
  as all this was going on? Wow.
• 37:20
  Not at all. I found out there when they were
• 37:23
  doing. It shackled you.
• 37:25
  Intake and they asked me when was my last menstrual cycle and
• 37:31
  I told them, oh, it was probably about a couple of months ago.
• 37:34
  They were like a couple of months.
• 37:35
  I was like, yeah, but that was an alarming to me because I was,
• 37:40
  it was normal for me to be late. So I didn't panic whenever I
• 37:43
  would be late. I was like, yeah, a couple of
• 37:45
  months ago. And then so they were like,
• 37:46
  well, we have to give you a pregnancy test, you know, if
• 37:49
  it's been more than a month to be sure.
• 37:52
  And I was like, sure, fine. And so I took the test.
• 37:57
  And like I said, when when they gave me the test at the time,
• 38:02
  the room was just full of chatter, laughter, you know, of
• 38:07
  the staff talking. But then the room got dead
• 38:10
  silent. And it was just a lot of
• 38:12
  tension. But I didn't know what was going
• 38:14
  on because no one had said anything to me.
• 38:17
  And so then she said to me, So what pregnancy is this for you?
• 38:22
  I said, excuse me, She said, what pregnancy is this?
• 38:25
  I said, what do you mean? I said, what did that test say?
• 38:29
  She said the test said positive. And my mind just went all
• 38:37
  different kind of directions, I mean.
• 38:39
  Did you have your two boys at that time?
• 38:41
  Yes, I had. My boys that were 14 and 16, OK.
• 38:46
  And at that time I had been involved in a three-year
• 38:50
  relationship with someone, a very loving relationship.
• 38:53
  We have been discussing a future to get, you know, getting
• 38:57
  married and all the things. So there was a part of me that
• 39:00
  was so happy and excited. You know we have created some a
• 39:04
  life out of love and I was happy like can't wait to tell him.
• 39:10
  But then as soon as my mind said can't wait to tell him the other
• 39:13
  part yet them look where you are.
• 39:16
  Reality. Yeah.
• 39:17
  Yes. I didn't know at this point.
• 39:19
  I didn't know how long I was going to be there.
• 39:22
  I didn't even know what was going to go on.
• 39:24
  I'm still thinking about the I only had 10 days left on
• 39:28
  supervised release. So in my mind, I'm like, well,
• 39:31
  maybe I won't, you know, I shouldn't be here long, you
• 39:34
  know? And so I'm telling myself just
• 39:36
  relax and, you know, deal with this.
• 39:40
  And when I, you know, when I get out of here, you know, I can
• 39:43
  discuss it with him. And but that they didn't come,
• 39:47
  OK. So was it shortly after that
• 39:50
  when you were shackled and and fell and had the?
• 39:52
  Shackled the entire time because mind you, I was still I was
• 39:56
  going back and forth to court. Right.
• 39:58
  So they were shackling. I was.
• 40:00
  Going to court, I was shackled, but prior it was like whatever,
• 40:03
  this is what they do. But now I knew that I was
• 40:06
  pregnant. So the next time they took me
• 40:07
  out, I was saying to them, you know, if I'm pregnant, right?
• 40:11
  And their response to me was it doesn't matter our this is our
• 40:17
  contract. Our contract says we shackle
• 40:19
  everyone, regardless of who they are and what the situation is.
• 40:25
  Wow, so you find out how does this how does this information
• 40:32
  when you fall down, do you know when you shackled that you've do
• 40:36
  you feel like this has been the type of fall that would cause a
• 40:39
  miscarriage? What I knew is that the fall was
• 40:43
  hard as hell. So mind you shackling looked
• 40:48
  like a chain double wrapped around my belly.
• 40:51
  That was black box to my wrist cuffs and then chains down to.
• 40:56
  Your ankles, Yeah. A chain in between.
• 40:59
  So when I fell it was no way to break the fall.
• 41:03
  So it's like a tree. Fall, yeah, some people break
• 41:06
  their teeth and stuff, you know, that, that I've had people on
• 41:08
  here that have talked about being transferred, you know,
• 41:11
  and, and older people that have fallen and there's no way to
• 41:14
  break the fall. It was a very hard fall.
• 41:17
  I remember laying there, I could just hear my ears ring, you
• 41:22
  know, and everything was kind of blurry for the first, you know,
• 41:25
  few seconds. That's how hard the fall was.
• 41:29
  And then I just felt, you know, someone touched me.
• 41:33
  But it was two officers pick two of them picking me up on both
• 41:38
  sides. And they just set me on the van.
• 41:40
  And when they set me on the van, I was waiting for them to say we
• 41:44
  need to take her to medical. They said nothing.
• 41:47
  They didn't even ask me if I was OK.
• 41:49
  They just went on. We just went on to court.
• 41:52
  When I got down to the federal building, I'm thinking
• 41:55
  somebody's going to check me. Didn't happen.
• 41:59
  Even when I got back, no one still checked me.
• 42:01
  No one still asked me. Was I OK?
• 42:04
  Wow. What year would that have what?
• 42:07
  Problem shortly after. How long ago would that have
• 42:10
  been? That this happened yeah, 2008.
• 42:14
  2008 so we're not talking about 1955.
• 42:18
  This is 2008, present day 21st century and they're walking
• 42:22
  around like cattle and not checking to see if you're OK
• 42:27
  and, and knowing that you're pregnant because you've been
• 42:29
  tested in their facility. Wow.
• 42:33
  Well, I want to get into how you ate your time and, and did your
• 42:39
  time. Before we do that, I want to
• 42:42
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• 42:45
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• 42:48
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• 42:54
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• 42:56
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• 42:58
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• 43:26
  And I want to recognize that. The Nightmare Success Podcast is
• 43:29
  sponsored by the White Collar Support Group, world's first
• 43:31
  support group devoted people navigating the white collar
• 43:34
  criminal justice system. I'm a member of the White Collar
• 43:37
  Support Group and I can tell you this is a bunch of people who
• 43:39
  help each other through the criminal justice journey for
• 43:41
  free. Whether you're just starting
• 43:43
  your journey or you made it through to the other side, this
• 43:44
  is great space for you. You can join us on Zoom Monday,
• 43:47
  7:00 PM Eastern Time. And I want to say that we're
• 43:50
  working on a federal expungement initiative.
• 43:53
  So go to prisoners.org to find out more, or you can go to the
• 43:57
  federal expungementinitiative.com and
• 44:00
  and find out more. So Pamela, yes, you get this
• 44:07
  horrendous, awful sentence of 78 months.
• 44:12
  Yes. What do you So what happens?
• 44:17
  Like where do you go? What like in a situation like
• 44:20
  that, that's that's being taken away for a while, Where do they,
• 44:25
  where do they ship you off to? They ship me to Coleman.
• 44:30
  OK. Yeah, I had requested to go to
• 44:33
  Marianna, but they sent me to Coleman and that's where I was
• 44:37
  until like the last couple of years.
• 44:40
  And then the last couple of years I was sent to arson,
• 44:45
  finished up. How did you handle your time?
• 44:48
  A lot of people do their time in different ways.
• 44:50
  How did you do yours? Well, mind you, prior to being
• 44:56
  sent to Coleman, the last eight months of going to court and
• 45:02
  being convicted and sentenced and all the things I spent in
• 45:06
  solitaire confinement. So for me, the hard.
• 45:11
  It's a long time. Had, you know, I had already
• 45:15
  completed When I got to Coleman, I was a very angry woman.
• 45:22
  Very angry because of all the things that.
• 45:25
  Happened everything that had gone on, Yeah.
• 45:29
  I was very isolated. I didn't want to talk to anyone.
• 45:33
  I didn't want to be bothered. I just wanted to be to myself
• 45:37
  and, you know, serve my time so I can get back home.
• 45:41
  I ended up choosing. So of course, you know, at the
• 45:46
  camp, everybody has to have a job.
• 45:50
  And so going through the orientation and hearing all of
• 45:54
  the things that were available, I chose to do welding.
• 46:00
  And I chose welding because prior to me going anywhere, I
• 46:04
  owned race cars. So I used to do in my spare time
• 46:09
  and whenever something would break on my car and I would need
• 46:12
  it welded, they would charge me 85,000 an hour.
• 46:16
  So I. There's a lot of money in
• 46:18
  welding when you said that. So I was like, OK, I can learn
• 46:21
  how to Weld. I'm going to do welding, you
• 46:24
  know, then I can fix on my own car.
• 46:27
  So that's what I did. I chose to Weld.
• 46:31
  And the officer that was the supervisor over welding, Mr.
• 46:37
  Fred Case, was actually a pastor.
• 46:42
  And there was a young woman that I served my time with, an older
• 46:49
  lady, Miss Elaine Pittman, who's very special to me, that worked
• 46:55
  there as well. And she was a very religious
• 46:58
  woman. She had been sentenced to a lot
• 47:00
  of time, so much time. She wouldn't even tell you what
• 47:03
  the number was. She would just say, I'm not
• 47:05
  going to be here that amount of time.
• 47:08
  And so every day when I would come into work, you know, they
• 47:11
  would be in there and they would do like like a little small
• 47:14
  Bible study type thing. And Mr. Case, he was very tall.
• 47:19
  He Mr. Case, had to be about 6-7, maybe 6.
• 47:22
  That is tall, yeah. Had a very deep, deep bellowing
• 47:26
  voice, you know, And he would Call My Name when, you know, he
• 47:30
  was like, how are you this morning?
• 47:32
  And I would just be like, fine, but again, I'm angry.
• 47:35
  I don't want to talk. But every morning he would just
• 47:37
  always ask me some type of question.
• 47:40
  And even though I would never answer him, I would think about
• 47:44
  it. You know, during the day I would
• 47:46
  listen to them, you know, talking back and forth, but I
• 47:50
  would never, you know, indulge eventually.
• 47:55
  So then he found out that I like to draw and paint.
• 47:59
  And he found out because when I would be in the day room, that's
• 48:05
  what I would sit in there and do.
• 48:07
  And one of the ladies sing that I could draw and she approached
• 48:10
  me and told me the holidays was coming up and they would
• 48:14
  decorate the unit and she wanted to know would I help them.
• 48:18
  So I was like, sure, because it would give me something to do
• 48:21
  that led to me doing stuff for people's birthdays and
• 48:25
  decorating their queue. Yeah, big deal.
• 48:28
  Yes. So Mr. Case had found out, you
• 48:31
  know, that this was something that I like to do because when
• 48:34
  we weren't working, that's what I would be doing there.
• 48:37
  And he went and got me paint from maintenance, whatever paint
• 48:42
  that they weren't using anymore. So I had like a whole locker of
• 48:45
  paint in there to the point where when they would shake
• 48:48
  down, he would put the paint in his office so we can get taken
• 48:52
  away. And so, and we had.
• 48:55
  So Coleman, for those that don't know, it's the largest federal
• 49:00
  complex in the United States. It it has two men's
• 49:04
  penitentiaries, a medium for men, a low, and it had a camp
• 49:08
  for women. So the welding that I did was
• 49:12
  for the men's institutions. And because it was so big, I had
• 49:18
  a pickup truck that I drove every day.
• 49:20
  But we had also gotten a easy cart.
• 49:24
  And the thing on the complex was everybody had the painting easy
• 49:28
  carts with their teams or whoever, you know, on it.
• 49:34
  So Mr. Case, I was was yellow beat up, just it was not in the
• 49:40
  mix. And so for Mr. Case's birthday.
• 49:43
  So once I finally opened up, you know, I started talking with
• 49:47
  them, you know, and they started helping me to really deal with
• 49:51
  the anger. I still hadn't.
• 49:54
  I did never tell them what I had went through.
• 49:56
  So they didn't even know about that.
• 49:57
  They just do. I was angry.
• 50:00
  And so I wanted to do something nice for him.
• 50:02
  For his birthday. He had a son that was attending
• 50:06
  playing football for Florida State University.
• 50:08
  And Mr. Case was a former Marine.
• 50:11
  So I painted ours easy cart. I did it in camouflage, burgundy
• 50:18
  and gold, black camouflage, and then I put the Seminole Indian
• 50:23
  on the front of it so we had the best.
• 50:27
  I bet the best ride. Complex.
• 50:29
  I remember some of the other officers coming in to see it and
• 50:33
  talking to Mr. Case and saying which one of the guys painted
• 50:36
  your car? And he laughed.
• 50:38
  You know, like I say, he had a very deep voice.
• 50:40
  He bellowed out for a real deep laugh.
• 50:42
  He said one of the guys, he said, Pamela, when come in here,
• 50:46
  he said this is who painted my car.
• 50:48
  And they couldn't, they didn't want to believe that a female
• 50:51
  had painted the car and it looked better than all the other
• 50:54
  car. That's great.
• 50:56
  Yeah. So that's how I spent my time
• 50:57
  welding. I had said to myself, well, when
• 51:01
  I get home, I can make one-of-a-kind furniture pieces.
• 51:05
  But Mr. Case was like, no, you're going to learn how to
• 51:07
  make a grill. I said I don't want to make a
• 51:10
  grill. He said grills go for 3000 and
• 51:14
  up these customized grills. He said you can make one grill a
• 51:18
  month and live comfortably. So you're going to learn how to
• 51:21
  make a grill. So he taught me how to make a
• 51:24
  grill out of propane tank. That was the first grill that I
• 51:27
  learned to make. And then he taught me to make a
• 51:31
  grill onto a trailer because he said when he retired he was
• 51:36
  going to do what do they do for the tailgates, the big grills?
• 51:43
  For dating, huge deal. If you need a job when you get
• 51:46
  home, you contact me. I'm going to have you paint all
• 51:49
  the college decals that are going to go on the trailers.
• 51:52
  Perfect. And yeah, so that's how I spent
• 51:55
  my time the last couple of years.
• 51:58
  I went to Audison. I was accepted in the drug
• 52:00
  program, although I didn't have a drug case or any drug use
• 52:05
  history. They accepted me.
• 52:07
  My attorney told me to ask for it when I got there.
• 52:10
  And I'm glad I did because they, although I didn't have it, they
• 52:14
  said because of my mother's addiction family and, you know,
• 52:20
  other family, that I was high risk for addictive behavior.
• 52:27
  So they allowed me to join. And so I was sent to Alderson
• 52:31
  for the drug program. OK, so Pamela, you get close to
• 52:35
  about 6 months of you know this 6 1/2 years you're in, what are
• 52:42
  you thinking about getting out re entry?
• 52:45
  What? What's like in your mind about
• 52:47
  how you're going to re enter society?
• 52:51
  Coming home, that was that was hard for me.
• 52:54
  I lost my house like the last few months of my incarceration.
• 52:59
  So now I was wondering where I was going to live.
• 53:03
  He's taking care of the boys. My son so another another issue
• 53:08
  I had to deal with. I didn't have family support so
• 53:13
  and when they took me away, they didn't let me speak to my sons
• 53:16
  who were asleep. So for two days I didn't even
• 53:19
  know where my sons were. I didn't know if they had gave
• 53:23
  them the family children services, they left them at home
• 53:25
  or what. But they had left them at home.
• 53:29
  So I spent time being concerned because they were 14 to 16 of
• 53:33
  somebody finding out they were home alone and, you know, taking
• 53:37
  them. But what ended up happening was
• 53:41
  the third year that I was gone, my house ended up getting broken
• 53:45
  into. So when I called home that
• 53:48
  evening, my sons told me that when they got home from practice
• 53:52
  and work that literally someone had backed up a truck to the
• 53:56
  house and moved us. They had killed my dogs.
• 54:00
  I've always had dogs. They had killed a dog.
• 54:03
  So now I was afraid of what would have happened if my sons
• 54:07
  had been there and I could not phantom anything happening to my
• 54:13
  sons where I was gone on my watch.
• 54:16
  And I say my watch because I left them home alone.
• 54:20
  So at that point, my younger son, when it stayed with his
• 54:24
  coach, my older son, which is actually my brother's son, but
• 54:29
  I've raised him from a month old.
• 54:31
  My brother had other kids so he went and lived with one of his
• 54:34
  siblings. And so that's what they were.
• 54:39
  But coming home, but while I was gone, they did well.
• 54:44
  They graduated from high school, they got scholarships.
• 54:47
  You know, they were in college when I came home.
• 54:50
  They were doing well. Your boys graduated from
• 54:52
  college. You get home, they were in.
• 54:55
  College when I came home. Right, they were.
• 54:56
  They were in college when you came home.
• 54:59
  And then how are things when you get home?
• 55:04
  When I get home, things are not good.
• 55:12
  Which I, you know, and I don't, I don't want to gloss over this,
• 55:15
  Pamela. I don't want to gloss over that
• 55:17
  because people listening to your story would assume that you just
• 55:22
  hit the ground running. Everything happened for you and
• 55:25
  it was all good that. Was not true.
• 55:27
  And I think it's important because this goes into 1100
• 55:30
  prisons, for people to understand that re entry is one
• 55:33
  of the hardest things you've got to do and you can't quit on it.
• 55:38
  You have to figure it out, and it's a hard thing to figure out.
• 55:42
  It is. And so I had a number of things
• 55:46
  that made it challenging for me. One those degrees that I had
• 55:50
  before I left because now looking for a job, people were
• 55:54
  like, you know, I got to fill out an application.
• 55:57
  I got to say what my credentials are, and they're looking at me
• 56:00
  like, you're overqualified, why do you want this job?
• 56:03
  And then I have to explain, which leads me to explain why.
• 56:07
  And then, of course, I'm not hearing from them anymore.
• 56:10
  So I went through a period of more than two years just trying
• 56:15
  to find a job. Yeah, I was almost right at
• 56:18
  three years before I found a job.
• 56:21
  And then that job was at the AutoZone in the neighborhood
• 56:25
  that I grew up in, making $8 an hour working with.
• 56:32
  All those degrees. Yes, with all those degrees, 17
• 56:36
  hours a week, they weren't even giving me 20 hours.
• 56:40
  So trying to figure that thing out, you know, having to see
• 56:45
  childhood friends, people that I grew up with, you know, having
• 56:48
  to eat that humble pie. Oh yeah, it's very humbling.
• 56:51
  Yes, very humbling. And you know what?
• 56:54
  People knew me as being. Oh yeah, the one that was
• 56:56
  accomplishing everything. Right, right.
• 56:59
  So, you know, so mentally and emotionally having to, you know,
• 57:04
  deal with those things. My sons, although they had
• 57:09
  completed school and were in college, there was so much at 19
• 57:13
  and 21 that I felt like as young men, they would have known if I
• 57:18
  had been home. But they didn't have a clue
• 57:19
  about the main thing being financial literacy.
• 57:24
  They were young adults now, but they had no clue about, you
• 57:29
  know, credit, you know, maintaining their own home.
• 57:33
  They had no idea about any of the things that they should have
• 57:38
  been entering into at this age. So basically, and I couldn't be
• 57:43
  mad because it was nobody else's obligation to teach them
• 57:48
  anything. I just had to be thankful that
• 57:50
  they housed them. You know, everything else was on
• 57:53
  me. So now I was feeling urgency to
• 57:58
  to educate my boys and put them in the space that I felt like
• 58:03
  they should have been at at 19 and 21.
• 58:06
  So I was dealing with that. So, you know, I'm trying to and
• 58:10
  having them with me now because now that I'm home, and that's
• 58:14
  another thing that happens to women when we get home is like
• 58:17
  you're here now here, your kids, you know, time's up.
• 58:23
  So, you know, we stayed and trying to figure out where we're
• 58:28
  going to live because again, I had lost my house here in
• 58:33
  Georgia. It was very difficult to get a
• 58:36
  place, rent a place if you have a criminal background.
• 58:40
  Trying to get a place in my son's names was even more
• 58:43
  challenging because they were 19 and 21, so people were expecting
• 58:47
  them to be young and partying and didn't want to rent to them.
• 58:52
  So that was a challenge. So then I had to turn to friends
• 58:55
  to do it for me and and that when something happened at the
• 59:00
  house, I couldn't pick up the phone and call the landlord or
• 59:04
  the property management cup because it's I'm not on the
• 59:08
  lease. So I would have to wait for them
• 59:10
  to do it. They're not living there, so
• 59:13
  it's not urgent to them. They're going to get around to
• 59:16
  it when they get around to it, but I'm living in it.
• 59:19
  So it was urgent for me. So that was hard.
• 59:24
  Everything you just said is, is something that I think a lot of
• 59:28
  people don't know. Like the jaw-dropping statistics
• 59:32
  of like, like unemployment for people that are returning from
• 59:36
  prison is at 27 percent, 27 percent is higher than the
• 59:43
  unemployment rate in the Great Depression.
• 59:46
  So we live in a world of in re entry where that and then
• 59:51
  somebody who's returning from out of prison is 10 times more
• 59:56
  likely to be homeless than anyone else.
• 1:00:00
  So those are shocking statistics that.
• 1:00:05
  That's just something that you are dealt at hand when you get
• 1:00:08
  home and you have to get really creative on how you get past
• 1:00:12
  these 44,000 barriers of laws that are on the books that allow
• 1:00:17
  someone to legally discriminate against you.
• 1:00:20
  So you did it, though. When did you start feeling like
• 1:00:24
  Pamela, that you were kind of catching your second win because
• 1:00:29
  it started happening for you, you know, two or three years you
• 1:00:34
  got the job and then when did you when did you start feeling
• 1:00:37
  like, wait, I'm doing this, I can do something here and make
• 1:00:41
  change and impact and how did that come?
• 1:00:44
  To you. OK.
• 1:00:44
  So I think this part is important for folks to know so
• 1:00:49
  they don't get confused because I know we all have ideas about
• 1:00:53
  how we're going to move and what we're going to do when we come
• 1:00:55
  home. Because for me, I felt like with
• 1:00:58
  everything that I know when I get home in a year or two, I
• 1:01:01
  should. Snap.
• 1:01:03
  Right. So what I want to say about that
• 1:01:06
  is this, there were things, there are going to be things,
• 1:01:11
  there are things that are going to pop up that as much as you
• 1:01:15
  plan, I don't care how much of a planner you are, they're going
• 1:01:19
  to be some things that pop up that you didn't plan for, that
• 1:01:22
  you weren't expecting. And you're going to have to
• 1:01:25
  figure that thing out. Something as simple as
• 1:01:28
  relationships, you know, seeing people that you might have been
• 1:01:32
  very close to before you left and now when you come home, you
• 1:01:37
  still feel that same closest, but they're going to be looking
• 1:01:40
  at you sideways and having to, you know, come to terms with
• 1:01:46
  that and deal with that and know that everybody is not going to
• 1:01:50
  receive you in the same way. That's not something that I had
• 1:01:54
  planned for, but that was something that came up that I
• 1:01:57
  had to navigate through. Like we're saying now, those
• 1:02:01
  collateral consequences, you know, it's so many of them, you
• 1:02:05
  don't even know them all until you start trying to do things
• 1:02:08
  like even get an insurance policy.
• 1:02:11
  There are some insurance companies that won't allow you
• 1:02:14
  because you have a background. Right.
• 1:02:17
  Or a bank. Or even with me with one of the
• 1:02:21
  jobs that I had, I was hurt on the job and had a settlement.
• 1:02:25
  And my attorney told me, let's just settle with them.
• 1:02:29
  Because by you having a background, if we take it to
• 1:02:32
  court, we have to, you know, the the jury has to agree that you
• 1:02:37
  deserve what we're asking. And if they hear you got a
• 1:02:40
  background, you know, people's opinion might be, oh, you know,
• 1:02:44
  she's a criminal. She don't deserve anything.
• 1:02:46
  And you might not get nothing. So, you know, just things that
• 1:02:50
  you don't think about, you know, that come up that you have to
• 1:02:53
  deal with. And yeah, it's it's going to be
• 1:02:58
  hard for me. I had special conditions of my
• 1:03:02
  supervisor released. They were I could not use my
• 1:03:06
  credit. I could not get any loans and I
• 1:03:10
  could not spend more than $500.00 at one time.
• 1:03:13
  So coming home with nowhere to live, I couldn't even get my
• 1:03:17
  credit ran to get a place and I had five years on supervised
• 1:03:23
  release this time. So I had to figure out how to
• 1:03:27
  maneuver without doing those things.
• 1:03:31
  And when I tell you they are like seriously on it.
• 1:03:36
  When I came home, I decided that I would go back to school to
• 1:03:40
  get, you know, some more skills because again, now I'm 40 in my
• 1:03:44
  40s, early 40s, and I'm trying to figure out what is my new
• 1:03:49
  career path going to be. So I decided to go back to
• 1:03:52
  school and because of student loans or something, you know,
• 1:04:01
  that was already, they reconstructed everything for me
• 1:04:06
  to go back to school. So I didn't use my credit.
• 1:04:08
  I didn't get anything new. These were loans that had
• 1:04:11
  already been on my credit report. 10:00 at night, my
• 1:04:15
  probation officer called me and said, Miss Winn, I see you use
• 1:04:19
  your credit and you're not. And I was like, I did not use my
• 1:04:22
  credit. Please go back and look at that.
• 1:04:25
  That was something that was already on my credit.
• 1:04:28
  Yeah. So that's how serious.
• 1:04:30
  Try to do something for education which would be a
• 1:04:32
  positive. Any reason to bring you back the
• 1:04:36
  2 1/2 years that I didn't work? Well, how are you taking care of
• 1:04:40
  yourself? Where is the money coming from?
• 1:04:43
  You know what, How did you get that phone?
• 1:04:46
  I said it's on my son's account. Oh, we need your son's
• 1:04:49
  information. I'm like, no, my sons don't give
• 1:04:52
  me money. They don't take care of me.
• 1:04:54
  I am on their account. They're not going to let their
• 1:04:57
  account lapse because I don't have my part of the phone bill.
• 1:05:01
  So they're going to pay their phone bill.
• 1:05:04
  Not my phone bill, stair phone bill.
• 1:05:06
  So no, what kept me around those 2 1/2 years?
• 1:05:14
  I had learned how to crochet. When I was gone, I was
• 1:05:18
  crocheting and selling things. And anyone you got.
• 1:05:22
  Real creative. I've always had.
• 1:05:26
  I grew up with Rottweilers. My dad was a trainer and a
• 1:05:29
  breeder. I've always had one.
• 1:05:31
  And when I came home, one of my very close friends gifted me
• 1:05:35
  with a Rottweiler for Mother's Day.
• 1:05:37
  She was having puppies. OK.
• 1:05:41
  She took care of me. I got to give her some credit.
• 1:05:45
  Her name is Karma. She's not here anymore, but she
• 1:05:49
  took care. She took care her first.
• 1:05:51
  She had 12 puppies. Yeah, we were selling them for
• 1:05:55
  $500 a pup. Yeah, she took care of me.
• 1:06:00
  That's correct. Between the litter of pup
• 1:06:01
  litters of pups and crocheting items and 1 of this ring right
• 1:06:08
  here, my sons kept this ring while I was gone and I pawned it
• 1:06:13
  for $1200. So that's how I basically took
• 1:06:17
  care of myself. Wow.
• 1:06:19
  I was in a rut though, you know, emotionally, mentally, you know,
• 1:06:25
  just feeling like, because here I am like it with all these
• 1:06:27
  degrees, all this knowledge, and I can't even sufficiently take
• 1:06:31
  care of myself. So what kind of woke me up was
• 1:06:38
  my best girlfriend said to me one day she called me and I
• 1:06:41
  hadn't talked to her in a while. And I was like, you know, where
• 1:06:44
  you been? What have you been up to?
• 1:06:46
  I haven't talked to you in a while.
• 1:06:47
  She said to me, the reason you haven't talked to me is because
• 1:06:51
  every time I speak to you, you're talking so negatively
• 1:06:56
  about what you can't do, what you don't have, you know, having
• 1:07:00
  a background, all of that, that, that.
• 1:07:02
  And she said it'd just be so heavy, you know, And I don't
• 1:07:05
  want to be. I don't.
• 1:07:06
  Want to be drugged down? Yeah, every time I talk to you.
• 1:07:10
  And so, of course, you know, it hurt to hear her say that to me.
• 1:07:15
  It didn't feel good, but I knew she was right.
• 1:07:18
  And when I hung up with her, I decided that I needed to address
• 1:07:22
  that. What I did was, and this may be
• 1:07:25
  helpful to somebody out there, I sat down and I made a list of
• 1:07:30
  all the things that I could do. And I said, I'm going to focus
• 1:07:34
  on the things that I can do and stop talking about what I can't
• 1:07:37
  do. And on that list I put on that
• 1:07:41
  list, getting ACDLI was like, well, there's no collateral
• 1:07:46
  consequences over me getting ACDL.
• 1:07:49
  So if I get ACDL, that can help me get a better job.
• 1:07:53
  Because that AutoZone, the guy that used to deliver the, the
• 1:07:57
  products every week, he drove a tractor trailer and he was
• 1:08:00
  telling me that, you know, they had a training program that if
• 1:08:04
  you had ACDL, you could get in. And he made me some money.
• 1:08:08
  So I study and I know people take all these classes to get
• 1:08:14
  CDLS. You don't have to have a class.
• 1:08:18
  I read that manual three times when it took the test and I got
• 1:08:22
  my CDL permit and that landed me a job at the city of Atlanta.
• 1:08:27
  So now I was making $13 an hour. It was a long for me that
• 1:08:33
  doesn't, I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but it was a
• 1:08:36
  long jump from $8 an hour at 17 hours a week.
• 1:08:40
  Now I'm working full time. They're allowing me to work
• 1:08:43
  overtime. And now I could see a little
• 1:08:46
  light. You know, I was making enough
• 1:08:49
  money where I could do some things for myself.
• 1:08:51
  And so that was the term for me starting to focus on things that
• 1:08:55
  I could do and pursuing those things.
• 1:08:58
  And that's when things picked up for me.
• 1:09:00
  And so once I got to a point where I felt like as far as
• 1:09:05
  where I'm laying my head, you know, those basics, eating, you
• 1:09:10
  know, a place to live and all those were covered.
• 1:09:13
  Now I wanted to go back and focus on what I had went through
• 1:09:16
  when I was incarcerated. And that's when I started
• 1:09:19
  pursuing what had happened to me.
• 1:09:23
  And how did you get Who did you get in touch with when you
• 1:09:25
  decided you were going to enter that world?
• 1:09:27
  The first thing I did was I started contacting attorneys
• 1:09:31
  talking about a lawsuit and I was told that there was nothing
• 1:09:36
  I could do because the statue of limitations had passed.
• 1:09:40
  And so then I was like, OK, that was a no.
• 1:09:45
  I started hearing about different organizations, you
• 1:09:48
  know, they had that were advocating for things around
• 1:09:51
  women. I started talking to those
• 1:09:53
  organizations here in Georgia and one of them was called Spark
• 1:09:59
  Justice. They were the first ones I spoke
• 1:10:00
  to. They told me that they had been
• 1:10:03
  working on anti shackling legislation for about 12 years
• 1:10:06
  and never was able to get a committee hearing.
• 1:10:09
  So they had got exhausted from it and work wasn't doing it
• 1:10:14
  anymore. And they had given me the name
• 1:10:16
  of the legislator that was working for them.
• 1:10:19
  And her name was Keisha Waits. She's still in the political
• 1:10:22
  space here in Georgia. And so, you know, everywhere I
• 1:10:27
  was going, I was getting told no, no, there's nothing you can
• 1:10:29
  do. But fortunately for me and more
• 1:10:34
  help for folks out there, I'm not a person that accepts no as
• 1:10:38
  an answer. And you have to have that
• 1:10:41
  attitude because you're going to hear no.
• 1:10:44
  A lot of no's, right? So much you know it, that in
• 1:10:49
  itself can be discouraging for you and make sure you like
• 1:10:52
  forget about it, but you just have to hold on to I'm not
• 1:10:57
  accepting no, you know, and continue to exhaust all of your
• 1:11:01
  options. And that's what I did.
• 1:11:03
  So I joined just Leadership Fellowship.
• 1:11:09
  That was the first fellowship that I ever received, leadership
• 1:11:14
  organization that, you know, taught me leadership principles.
• 1:11:18
  I was able to connect with other folks across the country that
• 1:11:21
  were directly impacted, involved in the work.
• 1:11:24
  And that's when I started learning things.
• 1:11:26
  And that's when I met a guy named John Perry from Change.org
• 1:11:32
  that talked to me about getting my story out.
• 1:11:35
  At that time, Senator Cory Booker, former Vice President
• 1:11:39
  Harris, and Elizabeth Warren had a federal bill that they had
• 1:11:43
  been working with the National Council for Incarcerated and
• 1:11:47
  Formerly Incarcerated Women and girls on called the Dignity for
• 1:11:50
  Incarcerated Women's Act. When I did that petition, we got
• 1:11:55
  over 100,000 signatures in less than a year.
• 1:11:58
  I mean less than a month. I'm sorry.
• 1:12:00
  There's a lot of signatures, Pamela.
• 1:12:03
  Less than a month. Attention.
• 1:12:06
  He came on. He put a comment on the
• 1:12:07
  petition. He reached out to Change.org
• 1:12:11
  about getting in contact with me.
• 1:12:13
  He brought me to DC, to Capitol Hill to meet with me.
• 1:12:18
  What was that like? That was so mind you, I.
• 1:12:22
  Mean you had gone basically from a federal prison to trying to
• 1:12:26
  search for a job for 2 1/2 years and getting something in
• 1:12:30
  AutoZone, getting a full time job, and now you're meeting with
• 1:12:33
  a senator in Washington. And for me, it was even deeper
• 1:12:36
  than that. Again, I come from a family that
• 1:12:38
  was uneducated, low income. We didn't, you know, voting and
• 1:12:43
  politics were not a priority in. My that was secondary, then my
• 1:12:48
  just get by. Secondary, because I'm going to
• 1:12:51
  tell you how far fetched it was. Here I am, a woman in her 40s,
• 1:12:56
  and I wasn't aware of local or state elections.
• 1:13:00
  Yeah, I'm thinking all the time we needed to vote was for the
• 1:13:03
  president, right? But that's how far removed I was
• 1:13:06
  from. All of this, everything else
• 1:13:08
  that was going on, yeah. So yeah, it was like Capitol
• 1:13:13
  Hill, you know, what am I going there to do?
• 1:13:16
  You know, what is there? But I was going and, and yeah,
• 1:13:22
  it was. So it was very mind blowing.
• 1:13:24
  I didn't know what to expect. I was very nervous, very
• 1:13:28
  anxious, you know, about how, how was that going to fit in?
• 1:13:33
  What was that going to need to be saying?
• 1:13:34
  Am I going to be doing, you know, what I need to do?
• 1:13:37
  Because I wanted to make sure I got it right, because this was
• 1:13:39
  very important. Yeah, big moment.
• 1:13:41
  And yeah, so I got there. I met with Senator Booker.
• 1:13:45
  He gave me my first lesson in politics.
• 1:13:48
  And that is it is not is is politics over people, not people
• 1:13:54
  over politics. He explained to me that the
• 1:13:58
  Dignity for Incarcerated Women's Act federal bill was not going
• 1:14:02
  to move, It was going to die. And I said, well, why would it
• 1:14:06
  die? He said because the three of
• 1:14:07
  them were going to be on the next presidential ticket, which
• 1:14:10
  they were, and that they're not going to allow us to get any
• 1:14:14
  kind of momentum to go into that race.
• 1:14:18
  So it's going to die. And I said, but this is about
• 1:14:21
  the people, he said. It's always about politics
• 1:14:25
  before the people. So that was my first lesson in
• 1:14:28
  politics. Interesting, interesting.
• 1:14:31
  And also while I was there, I met Jessica Jackson and Van
• 1:14:36
  Jones, and they were very much interested in my story and I
• 1:14:44
  partnered up with them and began working with them.
• 1:14:46
  And I haven't looked back since. So I started learning quickly
• 1:14:51
  and soaking up everything I could from the two of them, from
• 1:14:56
  Senator Booker. And I've been full speed ahead
• 1:14:59
  from that point on. And that dignity bill that you
• 1:15:02
  talked about that we passed through the states, it's 26
• 1:15:06
  states curve. 26 states my My information is old.
• 1:15:09
  Yes, that's fine. Yeah, it's currently 26.
• 1:15:13
  That's double what I just said. I I said as more than 12 states,
• 1:15:18
  it's in 26 states. So and then you you got your
• 1:15:22
  your own organization, which is restore her.
• 1:15:26
  You've been able to be a part of a voice and big legislation
• 1:15:30
  that's happened with the first step Act, yes.
• 1:15:32
  And and then all of these, yeah. The First Step Act was it was,
• 1:15:40
  it was everything. I say that because I think about
• 1:15:45
  all of the turmoil and the angst around being involved in it, you
• 1:15:53
  know, from other directly impacted folks that didn't
• 1:15:56
  support it because it was the Trump administration and all of
• 1:16:00
  the things which I understood. But I also understood that I
• 1:16:04
  served federal time. I also understood that it's very
• 1:16:08
  hard to get anything passed. Yeah, criminal reform on a
• 1:16:13
  federal level. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's almost
• 1:16:17
  like impossible to think that that many people came together
• 1:16:21
  and got it passed. Yes, on as a bipartisan bill is
• 1:16:26
  unreal. Yes.
• 1:16:27
  So when Jessica and Van, you know, approached me about being
• 1:16:33
  part of it and asked me would I like to include, you know, my
• 1:16:38
  language around women in the bill, Of course I did.
• 1:16:42
  These were the women that I was there with, you know, So I
• 1:16:46
  definitely wanted to offer something for them.
• 1:16:50
  So yeah. And in that, having to go to the
• 1:16:55
  White House. And see what, what was that
• 1:16:58
  like, Pamela? Because I mean, each and every
• 1:17:00
  step that we're talking about here is so many steps away from
• 1:17:04
  this federal prison you were at. Yes.
• 1:17:07
  You know what did that feel like walking in there?
• 1:17:10
  To the White House, I didn't go with anyone.
• 1:17:13
  I was by myself and when I got inside I didn't know where I was
• 1:17:18
  supposed to be going yet. And I just remember wandering
• 1:17:22
  the halls. It was empty, no one was there
• 1:17:25
  yet. I don't know if they were all in
• 1:17:27
  another room somewhere else, but where I was, it was only me.
• 1:17:31
  I just remember wandering through the halls, walking into
• 1:17:34
  each room. The rooms are massive, the
• 1:17:37
  ceilings are like so high. Looking at all of this old art
• 1:17:44
  and the architecture of the building.
• 1:17:48
  I was just, you know, overwhelmed with the wow that
• 1:17:53
  I'm actually here. I remember taking my phone out
• 1:17:57
  and just videoing, you know, the whole like 360 video, I'm here,
• 1:18:02
  I'm here. They, you know, I'm in here.
• 1:18:06
  And then when I got to where I was supposed to be, just walking
• 1:18:10
  into that room because the first time that I spoke, they had a
• 1:18:16
  gathering of all of the governors of all the states were
• 1:18:19
  there. And though that's why I dressed
• 1:18:23
  so having to address all the governors and.
• 1:18:26
  Of all the states. Setting the women governors to
• 1:18:30
  talk about women's issues. It was, it was like surreal, you
• 1:18:35
  know, it was. Really, it had to be surreal.
• 1:18:36
  I mean, and it's when you read your story and all the different
• 1:18:42
  things that have gone on with you, Pamela, you know, from the
• 1:18:45
  short story documentaries that have won awards from being in
• 1:18:50
  the White House and speaking to the governor's to to creating
• 1:18:53
  your own nonprofit to to being a Co founder of of the college
• 1:18:57
  graduate incarcerated that all these different things that
• 1:19:01
  you've done, you put your fingerprints on, but you've
• 1:19:05
  never assumed that you can't be there.
• 1:19:08
  And I think that's such an incredible message because
• 1:19:11
  you're not just an inspiration to the people in the reentry
• 1:19:13
  community. You're an inspiration of people
• 1:19:15
  who say I can instead of I can't.
• 1:19:19
  And when you say you can, and you take that step and start
• 1:19:24
  stepping and figuring it out, you didn't know what you were
• 1:19:27
  stepping into. I did.
• 1:19:28
  Those were the unknowns, the fear of things.
• 1:19:31
  But you met with these people, you know, you took their
• 1:19:34
  information and you educated yourself even more.
• 1:19:38
  I find it absolutely inspiring how you've done it because it's
• 1:19:43
  not easy. Everything that you talked about
• 1:19:46
  in the beginning, once you got out, so many people would have
• 1:19:50
  quit, you know, just to take a no after a no after a no of 2
• 1:19:55
  1/2, three years of trying just to get a job, being so qualified
• 1:20:01
  in all of that and that you've experienced because your story
• 1:20:05
  is something that you read about in books.
• 1:20:07
  What do you think Pamela is your greatest take away through your
• 1:20:11
  lived experience through this? My greatest take away, my
• 1:20:17
  greatest take away is that with persistence and perseverance,
• 1:20:25
  you can do anything that you set your mind to because through all
• 1:20:30
  of the things that I went through and right now, they're
• 1:20:34
  just going through my head like a, a real.
• 1:20:39
  And one of the thoughts I just had was about being evicted.
• 1:20:44
  You know, I got, I had a friend that was helping me out with a
• 1:20:49
  place to stay by introducing me to someone that had a nonprofit
• 1:20:55
  that helped people, homeless people, and they had a contract
• 1:20:58
  with an apartment complex. And our we had a studio, me,
• 1:21:03
  both of my sons and my dog Karma.
• 1:21:06
  We were all sleeping on the floor next to each other, paying
• 1:21:09
  this guy $300 a month and found out that he was not paying the
• 1:21:14
  apartment complex. And we get a knock at the door
• 1:21:17
  unexpectedly in the heat of summer, telling us we were being
• 1:21:21
  evicted. And I'm showing them money
• 1:21:24
  orders where we've been paying and they're saying, but he
• 1:21:27
  didn't pay us. So you got to go.
• 1:21:31
  So I mean, there was so, you know, just it was a lie.
• 1:21:34
  So no, it was not easy at all. But you.
• 1:21:39
  Didn't give up. I couldn't, you know, giving up
• 1:21:42
  with giving up is not ever, not ever an option.
• 1:21:46
  And the reason why it's not ever an option is because if you give
• 1:21:49
  up your day. It's over.
• 1:21:52
  Nothing else after that. It's over.
• 1:21:54
  I mean, I've always talked about people think that rock bottom is
• 1:21:57
  the end. It is unless you get up and
• 1:22:02
  there's there's really, it does become binary when you hit rock
• 1:22:05
  bottom, you can stay there and like you said, you'd die there,
• 1:22:09
  become stagnant there, or you just get up and start figuring
• 1:22:12
  out what that thing is that you don't know what you're walking
• 1:22:15
  into. And I think the other thing
• 1:22:17
  that's interesting about your story, Pamela, is that you
• 1:22:21
  didn't really know where you were going to end up.
• 1:22:23
  You went back to school. You thought maybe this could be
• 1:22:25
  helpful you used welding as something that maybe that could
• 1:22:30
  be something when you're in prison, all these different
• 1:22:32
  things that happened. You were always thinking, I'm
• 1:22:34
  not sure exactly, but I'm going to take these value pieces and
• 1:22:37
  and I'm going to put them in a backpack here they're.
• 1:22:39
  Trying to create more options options.
• 1:22:41
  Right. And and now look at where you
• 1:22:45
  are. You know, it's, it's nothing
• 1:22:48
  about standing where you are has been easy, but it is inspiring
• 1:22:52
  because it can be done. And I love how you talk about
• 1:22:55
  that. The mindset change happened from
• 1:22:57
  that friend. And it was almost like a light
• 1:23:00
  switch went on for you and you made that that list.
• 1:23:03
  And you're like, Oh my gosh, there is a lot of things I can
• 1:23:05
  do. We've got got the CDL license.
• 1:23:07
  And then all of a sudden, you know, things start changing.
• 1:23:10
  And that to me, all those things are so instructive, Pamela, for
• 1:23:14
  people who are listening, because it's not like a magic
• 1:23:17
  wand. You just you've, you took pieces
• 1:23:21
  and kept stepping forward with it.
• 1:23:23
  Not that you didn't get knocked down.
• 1:23:25
  You just kept getting back up. You just kept getting back up.
• 1:23:28
  I love it. Pamela, this has been a great
• 1:23:31
  conversation. If people want to get involved
• 1:23:34
  with Restore Her with you, what's the best way to go about
• 1:23:39
  that? So our website is
• 1:23:43
  www.restoreher.us They can follow us on social media
• 1:23:50
  Instagram, Facebook at restore her dot USA ex formerly Twitter
• 1:23:59
  is restore her under score USA. My personal social media pages
• 1:24:07
  are my name Pamela Winn Winn or at Winn ologist I.
• 1:24:13
  Like that? Yes, that's something that my
• 1:24:17
  son created. I like 1 ologist.
• 1:24:19
  That's that. That should be the name of your
• 1:24:21
  book. Yeah, and you know, so that's
• 1:24:27
  the best way e-mail info at restore her dot US.
• 1:24:32
  So those are the best ways to follow what we got going in and.
• 1:24:36
  Getting I love the fashion of way, the way where you lead this
• 1:24:39
  stuff and, and it's everything's action and nothing sits back and
• 1:24:42
  waits. And that's that's why your
• 1:24:44
  nonprofit's a lot different than a lot of those that are out
• 1:24:47
  there. Yeah.
• 1:24:47
  And that's my personality. I'm not big on talking.
• 1:24:51
  I'm let's make it happen. Go let's go yeah, let's go
• 1:24:58
  talking about humble and and gratitude.
• 1:25:00
  I want to thank Homestead Financial for allowing me to use
• 1:25:02
  this podcast room. The fancy lights.
• 1:25:04
  If anybody's got own mortgage needs out there, Greg Aftyev is
• 1:25:09
  your guy. He knows all that stuff.
• 1:25:11
  Anybody's looking for a book out there.
• 1:25:12
  I still have a book out. There's nightmare success,
• 1:25:14
  loyalty, betrayal, life behind bars, adapting, and finally
• 1:25:17
  breaking free. Check me out at
• 1:25:20
  brentcassidy.com. I spell it wrong.
• 1:25:23
  It's with ATY, not a DY, as I used to say to my people when I
• 1:25:28
  was writing my emails back and forth from Leavenworth.
• 1:25:31
  Stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 1:25:33
  Pamela Winn when ologist. I love it.
• 1:25:37
  I love your story. I love everything about what
• 1:25:39
  you're doing. And thanks so much for sharing.
• 1:25:41
  I think people are going to get a lot out of what you just
• 1:25:43
  talked about today. I appreciate you inviting me to
• 1:25:45
  be here. I hope that you know my journey
• 1:25:48
  is helpful to others and you know able to help them navigate
• 1:25:52
  and be as successful as they would like to be.
• 1:25:57
  Well, if they listen to any part of your story, Pamela, they'll
• 1:25:59
  get something to get you through it all out there.
• 1:26:02
  It's all out there night. More success in and out at.