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Committing to Change and Rebuilding a Life: The Portia Louder Story · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:04
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
• 0:07
  Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:11
  nightmares that set yourself free.
• 0:13
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:20
  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
• 0:24
  humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
• 0:27
  something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
• 0:29
  built up in your own mind. All right.
• 0:33
  Welcome back. Name your success in and out,
• 0:35
  listeners. I'm so excited for this episode.
• 0:40
  I've been waiting for this. This is where you come from.
• 0:43
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:46
  How do you adapt, survive, overcome, set yourself free,
• 0:49
  don't forget to follow and subscribe, share, do all that
• 0:52
  stuff. It helps the show.
• 0:54
  OK, so I was at this is like a couple weeks ago and Julie, my
• 1:03
  wife, she's she's playing with the TV, see what's on TV and and
• 1:06
  I was going through my LinkedIn and I ran across Jeff Grant.
• 1:11
  A friend of mine had reposted something and this post from
• 1:15
  Porsche louder, who I had not met.
• 1:18
  Don't know. I mean, I just get like she's
• 1:21
  done this post about and it was it was a just a deep feeling
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  post about the hard the hard feelings of a prison visit and
• 1:32
  how you feel so great and warm inside.
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  And then that moment when they get up and they leave and and
• 1:40
  you have this empty feeling and you know, you're on the other
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  side of the world. I mean, I felt it down to my
• 1:45
  toes because, you know, the three years that I served, it
• 1:49
  was every time that visit happened.
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  I'm those few minutes you had right before the end of the
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  visit, you knew it was all going to break up again.
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  But anyway, as I do, I love good stories and I thought I got to
• 2:01
  know more about this Porsche. So I then I got into her Ted
• 2:04
  talk and I love Ted talks. I've, I've listened to him all
• 2:08
  the time. But Porsche's Ted talk was so
• 2:13
  good. I mean, I said, Julie, whatever
• 2:15
  you do, and I said, stop, you got to, and I rewound the, the
• 2:20
  Ted talk and we listened to Porsche and her story and she
• 2:23
  told it so well. And so I reached out to her and
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  she, she had, she has one heck of a story.
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  She's because she does have a story.
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  She's written a couple of books. She's an author of Born, Born to
• 2:37
  be Brave. That's that came out April 15th,
• 2:40
  2024. Living Louder was her first
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  book. She's probably going to write
• 2:45
  more books because she's so good at, at writing.
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  She went to, she went to prison for mortgage fraud.
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  And we were just talking about she got an incredibly long
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  sentence. She got 7 years on a plea
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  bargain and I think they were telling her she would have
• 2:59
  getting, she would have maybe gotten eight years or so if she
• 3:01
  would have gone to trial. So, you know, it was in the time
• 3:05
  period where they were really handing out strong sentences.
• 3:07
  And, and I can't wait to get into all this.
• 3:10
  I can't wait to unpack this. But before we do, I want to
• 3:12
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  Auto Plaza direct. Tell them Brent from Nightmare
• 3:48
  Success sent you Portia Louder. Thank you for being here.
• 3:54
  It's super cool to be with you, Brent.
• 3:57
  Well, I'm glad we got everything worked out because about a
• 3:59
  minute before we got on, I could, my camera was just dark
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  black. And then we, I got it to work
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  because one of my little things was it plugged in, right?
• 4:09
  And then Portia said she couldn't hear me.
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  And all of a sudden, what was it like a minute or so?
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  We figured it out. So we can hear and see each
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  other. So you guys can hear and see us
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  too. Portia.
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  Wow. Where should we start?
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  Let's let's just start at the beginning because I know you
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  were the oldest of seven kids. Kind of walk us through that
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  life that you live because I think you lived kind of an
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  eclectic life with your parents and growing up and walk us
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  through that a little bit. Yeah.
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  So my parents were pretty non traditional.
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  We grew up out in the country, like on a dirt Rd. where I don't
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  think anyone, we might have had one or two neighbors within 5
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  miles. And my mom was a super hippie
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  before it was even a thing to be a hippie.
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  Like it was all natural foods. And she just didn't believe in
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  structure or rules. And so she would read us these
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  stories about cultures that didn't have those rules, you
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  know, and we were a family that didn't have rules.
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  But my. When you say you didn't have
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  rules, what is that like? I think about like as a kid,
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  like I could come home anytime I don't want.
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  I could play outside it for however long I want to go.
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  All those things, yeah. We go to bed anytime I want.
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  Correct. We went to bed when we wanted.
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  We got up when we wanted. We didn't have to brush our
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  teeth if we didn't want. Everything was just do what you
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  want. Also, though, in the winter, we
• 5:35
  would go outside and jump on the trampoline barefoot or naked,
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  run through the snow like it was just kind of wild.
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  The kids were running the house. And since I'm the oldest, yeah,
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  I become the leader, the gang leader.
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  I would tell people I'm prison. Of course you're the organizer.
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  I was my. I got that.
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  I got that enhancement too. I'm like that.
• 5:58
  Sounds really take that as a compliment.
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  Yeah, but my dad, my dad's this very strong, pretty stubborn
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  person. He went to Vietnam, had his own
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  trauma as a kid, but he just was, had had to figure out how
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  to do life himself. And so he was frustrated, I
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  guess there was a lot of chaos, even though, I mean, my dad
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  loved my mom and I, but I think for him, he was really
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  structured. So he was up at 4:00 and 5:00 in
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  the morning because we had animals that he would take care
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  of. And then he had a regular job
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  and he had a side hustle. Always have businesses on the
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  side. So he was very structured.
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  So you lived in an unstructured house with a dad that was a very
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  structured military man? Yeah.
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  Wow. Opposites attract.
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  Yeah. And I, I think my dad and I
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  really butted heads when I was younger because he would try to
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  set boundaries. And I'm like, yeah, right.
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  Yeah, we don't. Well, by the time I'm 12 and 13
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  years old, good luck trying to tell me what to do.
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  And so my first struggle was definitely relationships.
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  I thought that what boys thought of me was the most important
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  thing. I wanted attention from older
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  boys that would come around and drive my dad crazy.
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  But if my dad told me I couldn't go, I would just.
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  Have him that really was on. Yeah, it yeah.
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  I'd come home, he'd get in my face, I'd get in his face, and
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  it just never ended very well. So difficult.
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  Did you have like a pretty normal like school world that
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  you lived in or like what was that like?
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  Well, like my my siblings, my mom pulled all my siblings out
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  of school because she just thought it was too mean, you
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  know? And so their education was very
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  non traditional, but they learned to read because my
• 7:45
  parents are both readers. So they, I mean, they valued
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  education, just not structure. I would say they were anti
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  establishment. My dad too, like they kind of
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  wanted to do life their own way. Me as the oldest, I liked school
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  because I liked the social, you know, and so I chose to stay in
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  school and. That was your decision it.
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  Was my choice, yeah. But by the time I was in my
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  teenage years, I just didn't go to school most of the time.
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  I went when I wanted to go, mostly for social.
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  Social. Yeah, I never considered I would
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  go to college or anything. I mean, it just I knew I'd get a
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  job because that's what my parents did.
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  They worked hard. And so I just, I'll just go
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  start a company. I think I started my first
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  company when I was 16. No kidding.
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  What? Was that?
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  My mom was a photographer and it was an invitation like I sold
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  announcements and other accessories to people that were
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  getting married and my business. I started making more money than
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  she did like I was making back in the 80s, like a couple
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  thousand a month selling invitations is that's.
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  Crazy. But I do know.
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  I mean, having three daughters, I know what a big world that is.
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  The wedding world is, is its whole universe to itself.
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  And there's a lot of people that make a really good living in
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  that world. Well, yeah.
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  And it ended up that, I mean, it's a small town, so I drive to
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  people's houses. And they didn't.
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  And we didn't have the Internet back then, so people didn't know
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  how to buy except for this. And so my mom bought that
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  company back from me. You.
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  Got it going. Yeah, built it up.
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  Yeah, I mean later, you know, my, that kind of ended abruptly
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  when I ended up pregnant young my, you know. 17 right?
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  17 Yeah. Can you imagine?
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  No. I still can't imagine.
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  Well, and I mean, there's so many things as a young teenager
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  that you're dealing with. And then, you know, I always
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  think about the the unfortunate girl that gets pregnant in high
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  school because that wasn't the only girl that should have
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  gotten pregnant. You were the one where the
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  feather landed on you and the bad.
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  Bugs. I mean, that's kind of that's
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  just really the way it happens. You know, it's kind of like we
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  were having this discussion the other night.
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  You know, they were talking about, you know, how bad people,
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  you know, can go to prison. But we were talking about, well,
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  it's like a couple goes out with another couple to dinner and
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  they have some drinks and, and they leave in separate cars and
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  one couple gets a DWI and the other person just goes home and
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  goes to bed and, and they go on with their life.
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  That's just, you know, one of those things that happens that,
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  you know, you got pregnant at 17.
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  But how did you deal with that? Well, you know, it's interesting
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  because I look at my kids, every one of them is they've turned 17
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  and I'm just looking at them going, I was pregnant at your
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  age. I mean, they're just children,
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  you know? Yeah.
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  Children having children. Right.
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  But, and fortunately none of my kids have have gone through
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  that. In fact, I think my son was 35
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  and he had his first child. So.
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  But for me, I don't think it was.
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  I mean, I didn't have any plans to go to college.
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  I hadn't really ever left that small town.
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  My mom had seven kids, so I was used to babies being around.
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  It was like, OK, well I better figure this out.
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  So I went and found a low income apt.
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  I got on welfare. I did what somebody would do to
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  take care of their child. And then I moved out into low
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  income housing and started babysitting other kids in the
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  low income housing. And I guess I just figured I
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  need to find a man to marry. Everything will be fine.
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  That's how it'll all work out for me.
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  And, you know, there wasn't any shortage of older men in the
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  town that would date me. I mean, there's always, you
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  know, so I ended up meeting someone who was ten years older
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  than me. And I remember we'd gone out on
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  a couple dates. And he's like, you know, I'm
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  your best option. You should probably marry me
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  because I can take care of you. True love, right?
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  He still lives in the town and he's a nice guy.
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  That was, but we didn't even know each other.
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  So we got married and it wasn't. Yarded his house.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wasn't going great, as you can
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  imagine. So my life took a shift, though,
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  because my parents, my dad was transferred for the job that he
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  had to Salt Lake, which is the city in Utah.
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  And I had never been to Salt Lake.
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  It was a big deal for me for my family to leave because this
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  was, you know, our family was a tribe.
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  And so, yeah. So I had to go see my parents,
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  took my son to visit. And it was such a shock for me
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  to see the city. It was just like, wow.
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  Like it was almost like there's a whole world I never knew
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  existed. I could have something more than
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  this little town. I could get a job.
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  But, you know, other than McDonald's and.
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  Possibilities. Yeah, I'll be.
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  It just was it felt that way. I remember telling my ex-husband
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  when I drove back, I said I I want to move to the city, I want
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  to have a job. And he was just blown away.
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  He's like, why would you ever want to leave this town?
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  I'm never leaving this town. I was like, I have to go, I
• 12:58
  can't stay. And he was just, OK, we'll go.
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  You know, we don't really even get along.
• 13:04
  Let's just get divorced and you can go.
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  Easy decision. Yeah, yeah.
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  Easy to get married. Yeah.
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  Well, so that's what we did. And then I moved to Salt Lake,
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  got a job working for my uncle as a photographer.
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  And I found out I was pregnant with my daughter shortly after I
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  moved. And I remember, I mean, I was 21
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  when my second child was born. So you can imagine I was
• 13:27
  probably about 20 when I found out I was pregnant.
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  I mean, my, I just remember feeling alone during that time,
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  just really alone. But I had a job and I was
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  working and my parents were helping with, with my son.
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  And then when my daughter was born, you know my dad.
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  Was the photography at that point in your life, Was that
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  centered around the wedding? Yeah, my mom.
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  My mom was a photographer. My grandpa was a photographer,
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  My uncle. So it.
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  Runs within the. Yeah, yeah.
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  It was like a family thing. So.
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  So I mean that I had grown up watching, but when I found out
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  or when after I had my daughter, My dad's knows how stubborn I
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  am, right? He just knows he's never going
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  to tell me. Yeah, he's never going to tell
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  me what to do. But my parents were religious,
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  but not like, again, they're very anti establishment.
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  So we would go to church, but we kind of marched to our own drum.
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  Anyone from the town that I grew up in will say your family was
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  so different than everybody else's.
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  I was like, yeah, well, but anyway, he recommended that I go
• 14:33
  to church and I tried that. I went to church and.
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  And there we sat in church and I look around and I see all these
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  other people that are married with families.
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  And I think I just have to get married.
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  Yeah. That's the, that's the, the, you
• 14:45
  know, that's the ticket to happiness and.
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  But I can see how that could happen.
• 14:50
  I mean, it's very normal. Porsche, you're going to church.
• 14:53
  You see everybody's, they have kids and they're married and
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  they're like, well then that's what I should do.
• 14:58
  Right. Yeah, Just follow the crowd
• 15:00
  here. But the problem was I just
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  wasn't in a place where I, you know, I was picking the right
• 15:06
  people to date or anything else. And so I started dating again
• 15:11
  and I got pregnant again. Now the thing about me, the
• 15:15
  thing about me is that I get pregnant really easy.
• 15:17
  I've tried one time to have a kid once and the rest of it just
• 15:20
  happened. So talent.
• 15:24
  That was a pretty, you know, I, I like, I don't think I ever
• 15:28
  felt scared until that pregnancy.
• 15:30
  What do you think scared you? Like what would you just be?
• 15:32
  Just the sheer number of kids that you had and you were on
• 15:36
  your own. No, because that never really
• 15:38
  scared me. What scared me?
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  What was it? That scared you?
• 15:40
  That I was mature enough. I had a job.
• 15:43
  I was a little older. What scared me is that I thought
• 15:46
  I'm taking hostages. Like I can't doing this to my
• 15:50
  children. I have.
• 15:52
  Yeah. No father, no child support.
• 15:54
  No. It's like my kids deserve
• 15:56
  better. I'm looking at these two
• 15:58
  children that I already have and thinking they don't have what
• 16:01
  they deserve. They deserve more.
• 16:04
  And my parents were really supportive.
• 16:05
  You know, my kids grew up. They love my parents because
• 16:08
  they were such a part of their lives.
• 16:09
  But I just thought, how am I ever going to even provide for
• 16:12
  these two, let alone another one?
• 16:14
  It just felt unfair. And you know, my mom, when I
• 16:19
  told my mom, I, I actually said my first prayer out of
• 16:23
  desperation, you know, I'm like, and it was just, please help me
• 16:27
  God know what to do. And I clearly remember feeling a
• 16:31
  strength that I hadn't felt before.
• 16:33
  I don't know how else to describe it other than just
• 16:35
  stronger than I I knew I and I'm a pretty strong person, but
• 16:38
  very. Yeah, all you got to do is read,
• 16:40
  go to go, just look up force you louder and you can find out
• 16:43
  Strong's there. Too, I'm a pretty strong.
• 16:45
  Resilient is also part of the dictionary terms.
• 16:48
  Right. So but I, I felt stronger than I
• 16:51
  had and I knew I needed to place my son for adoption.
• 16:55
  And I let my mother know. And my mom said, no, Portia, it
• 16:58
  would be too hard for you to do that.
• 17:00
  Let me raise the child. And I said, mom, we're not even
• 17:02
  that good at raising kids. Seriously.
• 17:04
  No, you know, and my dad was like, Portia, you can do this.
• 17:08
  I believe in you. So I found a family and they
• 17:11
  were wonderful. And they were with me through
• 17:14
  all my doctor appointments. And then the day he was born,
• 17:17
  they were there with me in the hospital and I watched them hold
• 17:20
  him for the first time. And then they walked out to go,
• 17:23
  you know, to go in the other room.
• 17:24
  And I just was like, I feel something really wrong inside
• 17:27
  me. And I didn't understand it
• 17:29
  because I had prepared. Like I imagined them taking this
• 17:32
  child home who wasn't mine to keep.
• 17:34
  I, you know, I just kept thinking that I could power
• 17:37
  through it, but it didn't work. I just felt empty.
• 17:41
  And I can't imagine. Yeah, it they didn't talk about
• 17:45
  trauma or therapy or anything. I just thought, I'll go back to
• 17:47
  work. Everything will be fine.
• 17:48
  And it wasn't like that. I I felt totally empty inside.
• 17:53
  My doctor had prescribed Percocet, and I started using a
• 17:57
  lot of Percocet. I used that whole prescription
• 17:59
  and asked for more. Back then they gave you what you
• 18:02
  wanted in terms of pills. Yeah.
• 18:05
  And then I thought, I just need more drugs.
• 18:07
  I just need more Percocet. My life will be OK if I can just
• 18:10
  take enough Percocet and I'm trying to work.
• 18:13
  And eventually, you know, my addiction just gets the best of
• 18:16
  me. And I went from Percocet to St.
• 18:19
  Drugs and lost my job. Did you feel like you were
• 18:22
  falling into it, Porsche, or was it just something that was all
• 18:25
  of a sudden there you are? Because I think it's comes
• 18:31
  different from different people. Yeah, I just was running away
• 18:36
  from the pain, you know, and it gets difficult to keep getting
• 18:41
  pain pills and so. You can get into dangerous
• 18:45
  situations too with that. Yeah.
• 18:47
  If you go to St. drugs then you're.
• 18:49
  I did get into. Dangerous world that's.
• 18:51
  Yeah, I was surprised that I went places that I never thought
• 18:57
  I would go and. Hungarian.
• 18:59
  I never thought I would see. Or not.
• 19:04
  I'm not. I don't scare easily.
• 19:05
  I was going to say when I asked you that question, I was
• 19:07
  thinking Porsche, that's another thing not scared.
• 19:09
  I don't scare that easily and that that can be good and bad
• 19:12
  because but I think what it was is it it sickened me because I I
• 19:19
  saw, I saw a young drug dealer who was pimping out his mom who
• 19:24
  was drug addicted. I saw children running around in
• 19:26
  places they never should because I left my parents home and I
• 19:29
  would go to these drug neighborhoods.
• 19:32
  And they know, Porsche, that you were getting into this.
• 19:35
  It got it got pretty bad. In fact, my dad said he was
• 19:39
  really mad because that's how he approaches things, you know?
• 19:41
  And he would try to fight with me and I'm like, yeah, good
• 19:44
  luck. And the, the smartest thing my
• 19:46
  my dad ever did was he let go. And I remember when I when the
• 19:52
  time came for me and I wanted to climb out of this hole, I went
• 19:55
  to my dad and I said, dad, I don't know what to do.
• 19:57
  And he goes, I already let you go.
• 19:59
  This is yours to figure out. I figured you would probably
• 20:02
  die. He's like, I can't.
• 20:03
  Yeah, he just had, there was nothing he could do.
• 20:06
  So he he just let go. And I I was gone all the time.
• 20:11
  My kids, my parents were raising my kids.
• 20:13
  I think that a counselor told my parents take custody of the
• 20:16
  kids, but my mom isn't the type to ever do that.
• 20:19
  Like she would have never kicked me out.
• 20:21
  They just wouldn't. You know, they probably should
• 20:23
  have but it I reached the bottom.
• 20:27
  I came home late one night after using drugs and my mom was
• 20:30
  standing there with my son who was about 8 and he had been
• 20:33
  crying waiting for me for hours. And I remember when I walked in,
• 20:39
  my mom just looked at me and she goes and and I already knew my
• 20:41
  dad had let me go, right? But my mom would never ever give
• 20:44
  up on her kids. And she just said, I can't
• 20:47
  imagine what it would take for you to change your life because
• 20:50
  this little boy loves you so much and he's been sitting here
• 20:52
  for hours waiting for you. Little boy is hungry, yeah.
• 20:57
  She just said then nothing would ever changed your life if this
• 20:59
  little boy isn't enough. It was like, yeah, it was such a
• 21:05
  shock to me. I just grabbed my son and walked
• 21:07
  downstairs and laid on the floor and sobbed and begged God to
• 21:11
  take it from me. I just said I can't do it
• 21:13
  anymore. I'm so tired of hurting my
• 21:15
  children and I, And I was just lit at that point.
• 21:19
  And my sweet son, he and he's the sweetest.
• 21:23
  He came over and he said, mom, why are you crying, mom?
• 21:26
  It's OK, mom. And I said, no, Jace, it's not.
• 21:30
  I am such an ugly person. And he's like, no, mom, you're
• 21:33
  beautiful. And he pulled me over to the
• 21:35
  mirror and he goes, see, mom, you're so beautiful.
• 21:38
  And I I knew that. How would he have been at that
• 21:42
  time? He was probably 7 to 8 years
• 21:45
  old. Yeah.
• 21:48
  So I I just knew I would go to any length at that point to
• 21:52
  change my life. And I was really in a deep hole.
• 21:55
  There's been a few times that I've been in that deep hole, but
• 21:58
  this was one of them for sure. And the next day I went across
• 22:03
  the street and knocked on a a guy in our neighborhood's door
• 22:07
  who I knew was a counselor and could and I didn't want anything
• 22:10
  to do with it. My parents have been talking to
• 22:12
  him, but I was like, and I said, I'm Cliff and Chris's daughter
• 22:15
  and I'm a drug addict. I need help.
• 22:17
  You know, he's like, OK, that's. Your elevator pitch.
• 22:20
  Yeah. Oh, I didn't care.
• 22:22
  I was desperate so. And he was a really good guy
• 22:26
  because he did a couple of things.
• 22:29
  First, he called somebody who was an addict who was going to
• 22:33
  12 set meetings to a A and he had him come take me to my first
• 22:36
  meeting, which was so eye opening for me to be in a room
• 22:40
  where everybody's open and honest with each other and
• 22:42
  vulnerable. And I'm like, I just thought
• 22:45
  that I had to get rid, you know, get the pills out of my system
• 22:47
  or whatever the drugs. It wasn't that at all there.
• 22:50
  There's a it's, it's an internal thing.
• 22:54
  It's a spiritual thing. The solution is basically a
• 22:57
  principle centered solution. And when I saw that there were
• 23:00
  people that had sobriety, I just walked up after the meeting and
• 23:04
  I said, how did you do it? And this man that's all lit up.
• 23:08
  He goes, but you got to become a good person.
• 23:10
  And the way to do that is this book.
• 23:12
  And he handed me the a, a big book.
• 23:14
  And he said, you got to learn how to live a principle centered
• 23:16
  life. You got to start being nice to
• 23:18
  people. I'm like, whoa, this is way out
• 23:22
  there. So, so I started down that path.
• 23:27
  The counselor was very helpful for me.
• 23:30
  I, I remember him telling me he wanted me to figure out why I
• 23:34
  had done all the things I had done.
• 23:36
  And I just kept thinking, well, it's my ex-husband, it's my dad,
• 23:39
  it's my mom. And he goes, keep thinking about
• 23:43
  it. Portia, let me know what you
• 23:44
  think come up with next week. And then it occurred to me.
• 23:47
  I remember I called him at work and I said, I think I figured
• 23:50
  out why I did all the things I did.
• 23:52
  And he said, why is that? I said, because I wanted to.
• 23:56
  And that was such an important lesson for me because power,
• 24:00
  there's power in accountability. That's where you begin building
• 24:04
  something new. And so he's like, yes, yes,
• 24:08
  you're on the right path. And so I I remember thinking
• 24:14
  this would be the hardest thing I ever had to do.
• 24:16
  I've learned never to say that because there's always harder,
• 24:19
  but it really was hard. The basic steps that I took to
• 24:23
  change my life and keep my word with my children, everything
• 24:28
  felt uncomfortable. I felt very insecure.
• 24:30
  I wouldn't got a job as a telemarketer.
• 24:32
  And that was hard for me to do because I had just lost.
• 24:35
  You're probably a good telemarketer.
• 24:38
  I don't know about that. It's not my favorite, but I did
• 24:41
  it and I took pride in it, you know, and but I mean, my
• 24:45
  photography background, I just my uncle actually, I mean, I was
• 24:51
  so broke. This was a long time ago.
• 24:52
  And he goes, Portia, if you buy a pager, any weddings that we
• 24:55
  can't photograph, we'll send you their phone number and you can
• 24:58
  reach out to them and see if they'll let you, you know, take
• 25:00
  their pictures. And that's what I did.
• 25:03
  I went and got a pager and I was doing telemarketing.
• 25:05
  And when somebody when the pager went off, I'd go call from the
• 25:08
  pay phone because I didn't afford a cell phone.
• 25:10
  And this is a long time ago. And, and I started booking
• 25:13
  weddings and, and once I got to the point where I was booking
• 25:17
  enough weddings, I could let go of the other job, you know, but
• 25:21
  my now the cool part about all this is that I had accepted 100%
• 25:25
  that I was not looking for a man to solve my problems anymore.
• 25:30
  But I ended up meeting my husband, who is really such a
• 25:35
  great man. And so my sister, I have a
• 25:40
  sister that went to college and it still shocks me because my
• 25:43
  parents didn't take her up there.
• 25:45
  My parents didn't encourage it. In fact, she never got any like
• 25:48
  kudos for going to college or anything.
• 25:51
  But it's like, I need to go to college.
• 25:52
  Like we're all just looking. What were you thinking?
• 25:56
  I think she had to go get student loans and she had one of
• 25:58
  her friends parents take her up for her.
• 26:00
  I know, oh, she's amazing that she figured all that out.
• 26:04
  She actually made, we moved to a great, you know, up to the city
• 26:07
  to this great big high school and she went and tried out for
• 26:09
  cheerleader and made cheerleader her first year there because
• 26:11
  she's just very, you know. How much younger is she than
• 26:14
  you? She's a few years younger.
• 26:16
  There's one other sister between every 18 months.
• 26:19
  My mom had kids, yeah. She was good at having kids
• 26:22
  also, yeah. Yeah, it's something we do
• 26:26
  really well. Yep.
• 26:28
  So but Kira went to college and then she was dating my husband's
• 26:33
  really good friend. In fact, they were engaged and
• 26:35
  they came down to the house with my husband, who was hanging out
• 26:38
  with him and. And we met and.
• 26:42
  And I remember the first time I met Chad thinking, I wish my
• 26:46
  life were different because you're such a great person.
• 26:48
  I mean, he has these amazing blue eyes and a really great
• 26:51
  smile and he's kind and good and, and.
• 26:54
  If you read about him, he sounds like an incredible person.
• 26:56
  He's an incredible man. Yeah.
• 26:58
  I don't know what I did to deserve being married to him,
• 27:01
  but he's great. And but we went out on our first
• 27:05
  date, actually, what kind of happened was my sister's
• 27:10
  boyfriend felt really bad. He was there when I placed my
• 27:14
  son for adoption. And it just kind of broke his
• 27:16
  heart to see me go through all that.
• 27:17
  And he he's like, I want to set her up with Chad, you know, and
• 27:22
  but he warned Chad, He goes, she's really wild.
• 27:24
  You got to be so careful with her.
• 27:26
  She'll eat you out like you don't know.
• 27:28
  Sign. Me.
• 27:30
  Up. Yeah, I know.
• 27:31
  I didn't know what he was in for, but yeah, I our first date
• 27:35
  I asked him what scares you the most about me, Chad?
• 27:37
  And he's like everything, everything.
• 27:40
  Which makes sense because I scare myself quite often so.
• 27:44
  But yeah, he's great. We got married and he adopted
• 27:49
  the kids and started building this new life.
• 27:52
  And I was grateful. I was grateful because I knew
• 27:55
  the difference. I knew what it was like to live
• 27:58
  differently. And you know the thing, I look
• 28:02
  back on that time and I'm like, our life got too good too fast.
• 28:05
  I started my own photography business, really grew.
• 28:07
  Like I think I went from like 20 or 30 weddings a year to 200 /
• 28:13
  A. Oh my gosh, Portia.
• 28:14
  Yeah, so I had like full calendar.
• 28:16
  I'm I'm photographing from morning to night and I have
• 28:19
  employees now and, and I did what I always do and I had two
• 28:24
  more kids 18 months apart and the old.
• 28:26
  Yeah, the only one I've ever tried for was Jackson, which had
• 28:30
  a nice. Which I love that name.
• 28:31
  Jackson. That's such a cool.
• 28:32
  Name he's a really cool kid too. But and then we had Sadie.
• 28:36
  Like I got pregnant right away. In fact, I I started building a
• 28:40
  home, I bought a studio. My business is going wild.
• 28:46
  Jacksons born and I find out I'm pregnant with Sadie all in the
• 28:48
  same time. And after Sadie, I had to have
• 28:52
  back surgery. I'd been in a car wrecked years
• 28:54
  ago, and it just went out. I couldn't walk.
• 28:56
  And so I didn't tell the doctor not to prescribe the Percocet,
• 29:00
  you know, and he prescribed it. I started using it again.
• 29:04
  And, and in my mind, I'm like, I'm not using illegal drugs.
• 29:07
  I'm not, yeah, I'm just running. I just my back and I need to, I
• 29:11
  get up early and I have a nanny now that's taking care of my
• 29:14
  kids and I'm just so busy. And, and that's about the time
• 29:18
  real estate just was going wild. You know, I bought my first lot
• 29:24
  and flipped it. I think I made 30,000 on the 1st
• 29:26
  lot and I thought this is great that would be a.
• 29:30
  Dictate. Yeah, it was.
• 29:31
  It was. It was.
• 29:33
  Yeah. And so then I was buying lots
• 29:36
  and flipping lots and thought, well, I should buy a whole
• 29:39
  subdivision, you know, did. You know anything like Portia
• 29:43
  before you got into it because you'd already built.
• 29:44
  I've noticed you you, you are an entrepreneur because I mean, 16
• 29:48
  years old. Most kids don't start their own
• 29:49
  business, but did you know anybody around that was doing
• 29:53
  like what you were getting ready to do with the with the real
• 29:56
  estate stuff or did you just kind of think this is the time,
• 29:59
  the place, the opportunity I'm going in?
• 30:01
  Well, what happened was there were a couple lots that behind
• 30:06
  our home that I wanted to put under contract and Chad was
• 30:08
  like, you can't do that. It was like 2500 bucks to lock
• 30:11
  them up and they went up in value, like doubled in value.
• 30:15
  I think I would have put them under contract for 60,000 and
• 30:18
  they went up to 120. And then I was really mad about
• 30:20
  it because my husband's so conservative.
• 30:22
  You know, I was like, I am not listening to you anymore.
• 30:27
  Yeah, I'm doing it. So I, I didn't, I mean, I knew
• 30:31
  people, we lived in a pretty upscale neighborhood.
• 30:34
  So there were people build building spec homes.
• 30:36
  Nobody that I just started learning.
• 30:39
  I mean, I just started learning everything I could.
• 30:42
  My parents were always entrepreneurs, so they bought
• 30:44
  and sold homes and stuff. But there was also at that time,
• 30:49
  if you recall, the whole equity deal where people buy a house
• 30:52
  and, you know, pull equity out of it and invest it in something
• 30:55
  else. And at first that's not what I
• 30:57
  was doing. I was just buying and selling
• 30:59
  lots. But then I got myself into hard
• 31:01
  money, you know, so I put a whole neighborhood under
• 31:05
  contract and my payments were fifty to 100,000 a month on the
• 31:08
  hard money. And I was supposed to get
• 31:10
  construction loans and build spec homes, but construction
• 31:12
  loans took a lot longer than, you know, a year later, I'm
• 31:16
  still making payments. And so and so I just started
• 31:19
  buying houses, putting them under contract.
• 31:23
  We'd get an appraisal and you know, I sent the appraisal to
• 31:26
  the banks and the purchase price.
• 31:28
  So the banks were aware they. Disclosed that.
• 31:30
  Yeah, I was all disclosed, which was what my big fight was that
• 31:33
  with the government, I'm like, it can't be a fraud against the
• 31:35
  bank if the bank knows what they're lending, they know the
• 31:37
  value. And but they said that I
• 31:40
  couldn't even use that defense, you know, like you can't, you
• 31:43
  can't bring that up. And I'm like so frustrating.
• 31:46
  But but anyway, the truth is my integrity was lacking.
• 31:51
  You know, I got involved in these deals and borrowed money I
• 31:53
  couldn't pay back and a lot of people.
• 31:56
  Did a lot of. People did, yeah.
• 31:58
  But I was one. That was, you know, and the
• 32:01
  problem for me was that when the FBI showed up, I had powered
• 32:04
  through so many hard things in my life.
• 32:07
  Now I'm like, there is no way I'm going to prison.
• 32:11
  That's not happening. I will go to the death before I
• 32:13
  go to prison. I just.
• 32:15
  Shocked though, when the FBI showed up or like, was that a
• 32:19
  surprise or were you thinking that they were coming down on
• 32:21
  you and they were around the the perimeter edges looking and or
• 32:26
  did you just open the door and there they were?
• 32:28
  No, I, I had heard. So a couple of things.
• 32:32
  I really, I'm just going to say I pissed off a lot of Realtors
• 32:36
  in town because I wasn't buying with Realtors.
• 32:38
  I would just go lock things up on my own.
• 32:40
  I'm like, why do I need to do that?
• 32:41
  So I just was investing and I heard that the Division of Real
• 32:46
  Estate that people were filing complaints with the Division of
• 32:49
  Real Estate. And I thought, I don't care
• 32:50
  because I'm not, I'm not licensed.
• 32:53
  Yeah, I'm not licensed. That's their problem.
• 32:56
  And that's not a good thing either.
• 32:57
  Like humility, I have learned, is a really great quality.
• 33:01
  And so I went and hired an attorney and my attorney's like,
• 33:05
  you think you're more important than you are.
• 33:06
  I'm like, no, I don't want to be important at all.
• 33:08
  Like, but at first my attorney said, this is brilliant, like
• 33:12
  the way that you're pulling this equity out and how you're doing
• 33:15
  it. But then the next day they
• 33:16
  called back and said, Hey, you probably better come in.
• 33:18
  You know, this could be, there could be some problems here.
• 33:21
  And so I had an attorney hired and they told me again, just
• 33:24
  stay under the radar. You're probably fine.
• 33:26
  And then title companies started saying that the FBI was coming
• 33:30
  to the title company and pulling some of my documents.
• 33:33
  And then I got a title company showed me a request from a grand
• 33:37
  jury investigation. But in about that time, the FBI
• 33:40
  showed up. So it all kind of came down.
• 33:41
  And but that was years, you know, it was years of this going
• 33:44
  on. As you know, it's terrible.
• 33:46
  And I just my, I went through several attorneys too, and
• 33:53
  pretty much drained us financially.
• 33:56
  But when the FBI showed up, that was, you know, I, I had just had
• 34:00
  another baby because again, we just have kids.
• 34:04
  And my husband at that point, our marriage was not going very
• 34:07
  well. Like my husband's in way over
• 34:09
  his head. I had had him quit his job to
• 34:12
  take care of kids. And so he and I and I did, I
• 34:16
  would, he didn't really know everything that I was doing, but
• 34:18
  I would call him and say, I need you to wire 200,000 to title.
• 34:20
  I need you to do this or do that.
• 34:22
  Well, that makes him a conspirator, you know, And at
• 34:26
  first, it was just me. And they basically said, you
• 34:28
  know, they looked at Chad as a victim of me and said, well, are
• 34:32
  you going to leave her or are you going to stand by her?
• 34:35
  And that just made me crazy angry because I'm like, how dare
• 34:39
  you, you know? But they do what they want to
• 34:41
  do. They called my son in for a
• 34:43
  grand jury interview, too. That really made me mad, too.
• 34:46
  But, you know, it doesn't help to get mad.
• 34:48
  Like, all I was up against my own weaknesses, my own pride and
• 34:52
  arrogance and all the things that I thought had made me
• 34:55
  successful were all my things that were killing me in this
• 34:58
  case. And yeah, I remember the FBI
• 35:01
  saying this is going to be OK, it'll be over soon.
• 35:04
  And I go, does that really work for you guys?
• 35:05
  It's like, what are you talking about?
• 35:11
  And then I drove to the FBI building and asked and gave them
• 35:14
  a request to take a lie detector test.
• 35:16
  I'm like, you're all just full of crap.
• 35:17
  And he looks at me. He's like, who do you think you
• 35:19
  are? You know, so I made everybody so
• 35:22
  mad. And yeah, I again, the best
• 35:26
  thing for me to do when they showed up is to say, yes, I made
• 35:29
  some mistakes. How can I make it right?
• 35:30
  Like that would have been the power for me.
• 35:33
  And it would have been probably A2.
• 35:35
  It might have been a five year sentence, but initially my my
• 35:37
  lawyers like it would have been two years, Portia, like you
• 35:40
  could have made this a lot better for yourself, which is
• 35:42
  true. So.
• 35:44
  So how long did that whole process take from the point
• 35:46
  where they the FB is at your doorstep to your standing?
• 35:52
  That was seven years. My baby was three months old and
• 35:55
  it and she was 7 when I was standing.
• 35:57
  Yeah, that's. A long time.
• 36:00
  Yeah, and that wasn't I mean it. When did you, when did you
• 36:03
  decide for she that you weren't going to fight and go to trial?
• 36:09
  So, you know, I I was still I was addicted to pills at the
• 36:14
  time and they actually knew that so of.
• 36:18
  Course they did. They know everything.
• 36:20
  Well, I, you know, I was at that point, I was buying a lot of
• 36:25
  prescription drugs from from other people involved in real
• 36:29
  estate. And one, this one particular
• 36:32
  person had a large quantity of prescription drugs coming
• 36:36
  through and he called and offered them to me at a really
• 36:40
  low price. And it freaked me out.
• 36:42
  Like I said, I don't get scared that often, but I knew my
• 36:44
  addiction was serious and so I told my attorney, hey, I I'm my
• 36:50
  attorney and the lawyer's kind of new.
• 36:51
  And I said I am going to, I'm going to get clean somehow and
• 36:55
  I'm going to turn this guy in like I'm done.
• 36:57
  You know, So I ended up doing an undercover drug deal with the
• 37:03
  DEA and bought the drugs, which I think that guy got nine
• 37:07
  months. Like lucky dude.
• 37:08
  You know, I got nothing for it other than sober, which counts,
• 37:12
  I mean, but they put me on Suboxone, which to me I hate at
• 37:17
  this point in my life because that was worst.
• 37:19
  And then the government knew that.
• 37:21
  And so three weeks before I went to trial, I was still planning
• 37:24
  on going to trial. They were both, they say.
• 37:27
  That they were going to give you any cooperation points or
• 37:31
  anything towards the The Wire. No, I didn't sign an agreement
• 37:33
  for any of that. I.
• 37:34
  Just did it. I just did it, but my attorney
• 37:37
  tried to bring it up when I was sentenced and they said yeah, we
• 37:40
  we already are giving her a deal.
• 37:41
  Kind of they, I just need everyone mad and, and whatever,
• 37:44
  I get it. So, but anyway, three weeks
• 37:48
  before trial, they revoked my pretrial release and locked me
• 37:53
  up in a county jail. And the date the day before they
• 37:56
  revoked my pretrial release, I was at the federal courthouse.
• 37:59
  And then they shot someone that day.
• 38:01
  There was a guy in the courtroom next to us that stood up with a
• 38:03
  pencil in his hand and it was a gang case and they just the
• 38:07
  Marshall shot him and killed him.
• 38:09
  And so, I mean, a lot is going on, right?
• 38:12
  I'm getting ready to go to trial.
• 38:13
  My husband is is facing incarceration.
• 38:17
  I'm facing incarceration. Everybody's looking at me like,
• 38:20
  what are you going to do, Portia?
• 38:21
  What are you going to do? I had my husband's dad came to
• 38:23
  my house, you know, and said, please, please just take the
• 38:26
  bullet so Chad doesn't have to go to prison.
• 38:28
  My everyone's just looking at me like, what is she going to do?
• 38:31
  And it, it was a lot of pressure.
• 38:33
  And so the day after that shooting, they revoked my
• 38:38
  pretrial release and put me in jail.
• 38:40
  And when I went to jail, it was a shock to me because I hadn't
• 38:44
  been there before, but also. Did they revoke it?
• 38:47
  They revoked it. They knew that I was using
• 38:52
  Suboxone and they basically I was doctor shopping.
• 38:56
  I was getting more than I should.
• 38:57
  I got it OK, That's why they revoked.
• 38:58
  OK, they saw that as a violation.
• 39:00
  It was a violation, correct? Got it.
• 39:02
  It was a violation, but also the day before.
• 39:05
  When? When the Marshall shot this guy.
• 39:09
  You haven't read my book, have you?
• 39:11
  I know I've got it on order. I'm getting it.
• 39:13
  Okay, so the day before when the murder.
• 39:15
  A lot of stuff about you though, yeah.
• 39:17
  I know there's a lot. There's a lot out there.
• 39:21
  I walked out of the courthouse and they locked it down.
• 39:24
  My husband and everyone else was locked down, right?
• 39:26
  And the news is all outside waiting.
• 39:27
  And I walked out and and the news came running up and I just
• 39:31
  said, well, the Marshall shot a guy because he stood up in the
• 39:33
  courtroom. And so that made everybody mad,
• 39:35
  you know? So that was like the that was
• 39:38
  the final straw with the government.
• 39:39
  And my lawyers called and said, what were you doing on the news?
• 39:46
  Oh, yeah, no, my husband walked out when he finally got out and
• 39:49
  I'm standing there talking the news and he walks over and he
• 39:51
  goes, I will pick you up and carry you off this grounds if
• 39:54
  you don't take my hand to walk away.
• 39:56
  Now he's like, what is she doing out there?
• 39:58
  So. Yeah, I know.
• 40:01
  So stubborn. So I get a call from my lawyers
• 40:05
  and they're like, you have made the government mad.
• 40:08
  And I said, well, I'm mad too. We're all mad.
• 40:10
  Yeah, we're guys mad. Yeah.
• 40:12
  Oh well, but they're they're like, yeah, but they're not
• 40:14
  facing incarceration. You are.
• 40:16
  So the next day they did, they revoked my pretrial release,
• 40:19
  which they. I mean, I think that that had.
• 40:22
  Something that's everybody's fear.
• 40:23
  I mean, I was on for three years, pretrial and and.
• 40:26
  Yeah, yeah, I think it was five years for me.
• 40:29
  I mean, I had been on trial release, so but they knew I'd
• 40:33
  get sick too because I was on Suboxone.
• 40:37
  And so I detoxed and I just got really, really sick.
• 40:41
  And also I in jail. But on top of that I had a
• 40:44
  mental breakdown. Like I literally the weight
• 40:47
  seeing a guy get shot, the fear, the weight of all of the my
• 40:51
  family. I couldn't even speak like for.
• 40:55
  And you're in jail, which is a horrible place.
• 40:56
  It's. Just so yuck.
• 40:58
  And so they kept me there for a week.
• 41:01
  They let me out my lawyers and my husband's attorney because he
• 41:05
  had an attorney too. At this point.
• 41:06
  Had a big meeting and wanted and we both showed up and they
• 41:10
  started trying to tell us how we had to plead and I just got up
• 41:12
  and walked out of the room and they're all like Portia, we're
• 41:15
  here for this meeting. And I was like, you got no, I'm
• 41:17
  not. And so they locked me back up
• 41:21
  and they said that they want to do a mental evaluation to
• 41:23
  determine if I was confident to stand trial.
• 41:26
  And then they kept me locked up for about 3 months until.
• 41:28
  And it was interesting because the day that I pled guilty, my
• 41:33
  lawyers had argued with the judge that she's not a danger to
• 41:37
  society. She's not a flight risk.
• 41:39
  You know, why are you keeping her?
• 41:41
  And the judge, I don't remember what the judge said, but I
• 41:43
  literally walked in with my attorneys after.
• 41:46
  And I said, will they let me out if I plead guilty today?
• 41:48
  And they said, yeah, we'll go make the deal.
• 41:51
  My lawyers didn't want to go to church.
• 41:52
  Nobody wanted to go to church. Well, goodness, I made this
• 41:55
  deal. Because it's probably, it's
• 41:57
  probably a good time to say, you know, 97% of the people indicted
• 42:01
  do a plea bargain. Well, the FBI told. 98%.
• 42:04
  He said. And and I've seen him do this.
• 42:06
  He goes, you will go to prison, he said.
• 42:09
  And here's the thing, if you don't get, if we don't get you
• 42:13
  on this one, because I had a pretty good lawyer at the time
• 42:15
  out of Boston, if we don't get you on this one, we'll get you
• 42:17
  on something else. You should just accept that
• 42:19
  you're in denial if you don't think you're going to prison.
• 42:21
  Well, I just couldn't. I was so frustrated, you know, I
• 42:25
  couldn't. Wrap your mind around it.
• 42:26
  I couldn't but but he was right. And but not just that, like I
• 42:31
  was in the wrong, like I, I, you know, I know this.
• 42:34
  And it was by the grace of God that I pled guilty that day.
• 42:37
  So I didn't decide until literally I had been pushed to
• 42:41
  the, you know, the end of the year.
• 42:43
  I mean, I snapped before I would plead guilty, but I did plead
• 42:46
  guilty. And then, but at that point,
• 42:49
  again, I had made everybody mad. My range was zero to seven years
• 42:55
  and I got 7. Mine was zero to five years and
• 42:58
  I got five. I mean, it's funny how they put
• 43:00
  because your your hope is, is that because it's.
• 43:02
  Zero, yeah. There's be like two or three or
• 43:05
  whatever that you know, well, I want before we get into, I want
• 43:08
  to get into how you're walking into the world of prison.
• 43:11
  Before we do. I want to recognize the White
• 43:13
  Collar Support Group, their sponsor here and, and Portia and
• 43:18
  I are both going to be the, the October White Collar Conference.
• 43:23
  And it's, it's Porsche's going to be on one of the panels.
• 43:26
  She'll be excellent. So White Collar Support Group,
• 43:29
  the world's first support group, devoted people navigating the
• 43:32
  white collar criminal justice system.
• 43:34
  I'm a member of the White Collar Support Group and I can tell you
• 43:36
  that this is a bunch of people who help each other through the
• 43:38
  criminal justice journey for free.
• 43:41
  Whether you're just starting your journey or you made it
• 43:43
  through to the other side, this is a great space for you.
• 43:45
  You can join us on Zoom Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 4:00 PM
• 43:48
  Pacific. For information, go to
• 43:50
  prisonist.org. That's prisonist.org.
• 43:53
  Start here. So Portia, you, you.
• 43:56
  You finally say you got me. I'm at.
• 43:59
  I'm tagged. Yeah.
• 44:02
  Mentally. Where are you?
• 44:07
  I mean, I'm still in some denial after I plead guilty.
• 44:10
  I'm heartbroken and devastated. I mean, I plead guilty.
• 44:13
  I go home. I'm pretty traumatized because
• 44:17
  I've, you know, I, he's going. On with the kids.
• 44:18
  I've I've not even. Thinking about.
• 44:20
  What's, what's that whole world going on there?
• 44:22
  Dad so much. Mom and dad.
• 44:24
  Yeah, so much, so much. Yeah.
• 44:27
  After I pled guilty, Chad hadn't pled guilty yet.
• 44:30
  And my little 12 year old daughter, sweet Sadie, she says.
• 44:35
  I said, Sadie, it's OK, we'll work this out.
• 44:37
  You know, I probably won't have to do that much time and we'll
• 44:40
  work out a deal for dad. And she just looks at me and
• 44:42
  goes, Mom, I don't trust anything you say anymore that
• 44:45
  this wouldn't happen and that and you're wrong.
• 44:47
  And I and I said, you're right, you know, And then I told Chad,
• 44:51
  you have to plead guilty. Like, well, no, no, I didn't do
• 44:54
  that yet. So the day of my sentencing,
• 44:58
  that was when things just it just shook me.
• 45:02
  You know, my lawyers, everybody's like, oh, you're
• 45:04
  going to get a year or two. You're no criminal history.
• 45:07
  The same old dance that you hear.
• 45:09
  But when I walked in that courtroom, I mean, you've been
• 45:12
  there. It's such a sterile place to be.
• 45:14
  There's no mercy. And I knew right when I walked
• 45:17
  in, the reality of my situation, what I had done to myself in
• 45:20
  large degree became very clear. And I could see that I was going
• 45:24
  to get the maximum sentence, which was seven years.
• 45:27
  And I, I remember looking back at my husband and my children
• 45:30
  and just feeling devastated for everybody.
• 45:33
  Like, what have I done? And thinking it's going to take
• 45:36
  a really long time for this to be OK, you know?
• 45:41
  Yeah, it was. That day was heartbreaking.
• 45:44
  And if I remember right, there was some commotion about the
• 45:50
  fact that they they got up and the the prosecution got up and
• 45:54
  said that she she could be a flight risk.
• 45:56
  She could, you know, be a suicide potential whatever,
• 46:00
  whatever, whatever because of the link.
• 46:02
  And but Chad, if I if I read this right, he got up and spoke
• 46:07
  on your behalf to the judge that you needed this time as a family
• 46:13
  and the judge, if I'm not mistaken, I might be wrong about
• 46:16
  this, the judge backed off and didn't take you into custody.
• 46:20
  Yeah, So what happened was my it was actually the judge, like the
• 46:25
  judge he he's like 7 years and then some.
• 46:28
  If he could have given me more, you know, he was pretty
• 46:31
  frustrated. And then he said, and Miss
• 46:33
  Otter, I'm taking you into custody today.
• 46:35
  And that was a shock because, you know, Yeah, you're white
• 46:39
  collar. You've been on mortgage fraud.
• 46:41
  Yeah, you you can self surrender.
• 46:43
  I have a family. I'm and I just said, your honor,
• 46:46
  no, the prosecution even said we're we're not asking for that
• 46:49
  and my lawyer started trying to argue it, but the judge was dead
• 46:52
  set. The judge was dead set on we're
• 46:55
  taking her into custody. Marshall's and and I remember
• 46:58
  feel that's the first time in the whole thing.
• 46:59
  I felt some panic like I'm going to freaking lose it on you right
• 47:03
  now, judge, because because I'm thinking my kids, you know, my
• 47:06
  children don't deserve this. Do what you have to me, but at
• 47:09
  least let everybody go for a minute and figure this out.
• 47:12
  But that's when Chad stood up and he said, please don't do
• 47:16
  this to her. Please don't, don't do this to
• 47:19
  our family. She needs this time to say
• 47:20
  goodbye to to her children. And that was the probably one of
• 47:25
  the more tender moments of my life because of all that I had
• 47:28
  put Chad through to see him stand there and the judge on my
• 47:32
  behalf. I think that day I knew that we
• 47:35
  would get through it because I could see, you know, what we had
• 47:38
  was stronger than anything they could do to divide us.
• 47:43
  But it was not easy. I mean, we walked.
• 47:45
  The judge gave us 8 weeks. I always say Chad was worth more
• 47:48
  than any lawyer because the lawyer couldn't get the deal
• 47:51
  done, but he did. But.
• 47:52
  Chad did. Chad did.
• 47:54
  And the good news is after that Chad pled guilty.
• 47:57
  That was when I, I just looked at him and I said you have to
• 48:00
  plead. We can't take any chance because
• 48:03
  they had said if we, if Chad goes, you know, if Chad goes to
• 48:07
  trial, and obviously I would plead or I would testify that it
• 48:10
  was 100% me, But if Chad goes to trial, we will put you both in
• 48:15
  prison at the same time. And the deal that was on the
• 48:17
  table was if he'll plead guilty and take the felony, then we'll
• 48:21
  put him in prison after you get home.
• 48:23
  And even though that's a real shizzy deal, you know, it still
• 48:27
  seemed like a better solution. The good news was that I got
• 48:31
  such a heavy hit that in the end they didn't give him any time.
• 48:34
  He took the felony, but they didn't give him time and he got
• 48:36
  to stay home and raise our children.
• 48:39
  Wow, what a deal. And so you step into something
• 48:45
  that's just not right down the street, you know, you, you got
• 48:48
  the kids, you got your husband, and there's no prison close.
• 48:54
  No, yeah. So 14 hours away is the closest
• 48:57
  prison in basically Oakland, CA and I walked into a high
• 49:02
  security prison, which I didn't. Well, I thought they put a
• 49:07
  management variable on me. So I ended up walking into a
• 49:09
  high security prison and you know, I was mad about that.
• 49:13
  I was still mad when I got to. Prison for those that don't know
• 49:15
  you what what that is? What's the management variable?
• 49:19
  Oh well, they can just say she's watch her.
• 49:23
  Yeah, I mean, I, I know what it is.
• 49:25
  I just and it can be tagged on anybody.
• 49:28
  Yeah, it can, Yeah. Yeah, because my security level
• 49:30
  was so low, you know, but so I'd ask, why am I here?
• 49:34
  Why am I here? So what was your thoughts about
• 49:36
  that Porsche being tagged and going into a high security
• 49:40
  prison? Well, I mean, I didn't know
• 49:43
  that. I didn't know what a low
• 49:44
  security prison. I mean, I knew what a camp was.
• 49:45
  That's where I thought I was going, right?
• 49:47
  I guess. I mean, now I'm grateful because
• 49:51
  it worked out the right way for me.
• 49:53
  But at the time I was mad. I was mad about everything for a
• 49:55
  while. I mean, yeah, you know, when I
• 49:58
  walked in, I think I was so heartbroken.
• 50:01
  Just the feeling of devastation, of leaving my children and
• 50:05
  looking around and everything is cinder block and everyone's
• 50:08
  wearing khaki and nobody's happy that I'm there.
• 50:10
  And no, it's just heartbreaking. I couldn't.
• 50:13
  All I could do is lay in my cell and cry for days.
• 50:16
  It was just devastating. But and I, I shared this when I
• 50:21
  did my Ted talk too, you know, I kind of had this moment where I
• 50:25
  got on my knees and I just said a really heartfelt prayer of
• 50:28
  listen, I feel like the biggest failure.
• 50:31
  I have failed everyone in my life, my children, my husband,
• 50:34
  myself, you, my community. I am in such a deep hole here.
• 50:38
  And I mean, it takes a lot for me to think I'm lit, but I am.
• 50:41
  I'm lit like I can't get out of this.
• 50:43
  I can't see my way forward. Please help me know who I am.
• 50:47
  I just need to know who I am to you.
• 50:50
  And in that, in that prison, I felt I had this moment of
• 50:55
  unbelievable clarity where I could see how valuable I am, and
• 51:00
  I could see how valuable everyone else in that prison is.
• 51:04
  And I could see that I have an important purpose on this earth,
• 51:06
  even in my weakest state. And that's when I knew I never
• 51:11
  did need a man or money or drugs or anything.
• 51:14
  Here I am completely broken and I am incredibly valuable.
• 51:19
  And I also felt this connection, this love and connection to
• 51:24
  everything on this earth. And it was, you know, I have
• 51:28
  learned that when you know who you are, you can do really hard
• 51:31
  things. And I've done really hard
• 51:32
  things. But this was different.
• 51:34
  Being torn from my children. It had the ability to make me
• 51:38
  crazy. I mean, there are people in
• 51:39
  prison that are kind of crazy. And I, I've been crazy before.
• 51:43
  So I was like, there's a lot at stake here, but I chose a
• 51:47
  different path. You know, it took a minute for
• 51:50
  me to get humble enough that I could take complete ownership of
• 51:53
  why I was there and how I'd hurt my family.
• 51:56
  But that was the path I chose and it's made all the
• 51:58
  difference. I defined the first year in
• 52:02
  prison is denial for me. I would sit around with other
• 52:05
  people and talk about how done dirty I was, you know, and
• 52:08
  there's lots of smart people in prison.
• 52:09
  There is. A lot of smart people in prison.
• 52:12
  But I, I started to see that I could get really stuck, like if
• 52:14
  I didn't find a different way forward and I had to find
• 52:18
  meaning. So I went and wrote AI, wrote a
• 52:20
  curriculum for a photography class.
• 52:22
  I went to education and started teaching GED 'cause I actually
• 52:26
  got my GED, I. Like that?
• 52:29
  When other people showed their letters, I showed them GED, you
• 52:32
  know. But anyway, that's, that's my
• 52:37
  acronym. But yeah, it was really cool
• 52:40
  because I started connecting with people that that were so
• 52:43
  much more disadvantaged than me, like thinking that I had been
• 52:47
  done dirty. Looking around, all of a sudden
• 52:49
  I could see real quickly how privileged my life had been.
• 52:51
  MMM. And my I, I still was angry at
• 52:56
  the government. I was writing on a blog and it
• 52:59
  was in posting. I'd send it to my husband,
• 53:01
  Heaven post it, and I get called over to the lieutenant's office.
• 53:04
  They weren't. Happy with it.
• 53:06
  Oh, so unhappy. And the Lieutenant, one day he
• 53:08
  goes louder. Do you like coming to my office?
• 53:11
  And I said, I don't mind it. You have AC and a bathroom over
• 53:14
  here. He's like, I'm going to lock you
• 53:17
  up in the show. I'm so done with you.
• 53:19
  You know, I said, you can just open the door and let me out.
• 53:22
  And he's like, yeah, right. He was.
• 53:23
  Here's the thing. We didn't do this to you.
• 53:25
  I don't know why you're so angry at us.
• 53:26
  And I was just angry because I was hurting, you know?
• 53:30
  But so they did put me in the shoe and then I spent a few
• 53:34
  months in the shoe and getting transferred.
• 53:36
  You spent a few months in the shoe.
• 53:38
  Yeah, yeah. That's something because I mean,
• 53:43
  I, I the only time I was ever in there is when I first went in,
• 53:47
  You know, that's just kind of, I think it was just shock therapy
• 53:49
  when that you they take you Leavenworth and there was this,
• 53:51
  you know, it looked like Shawshank Redemption.
• 53:53
  I think it's 1879 building and they put you in the bottom
• 53:57
  there. And, and you know, it's funny
• 54:00
  when that happens it because I don't talk about this a lot, but
• 54:04
  my mind was, is that OK? So I just voluntarily
• 54:07
  surrendered. I went into this place and they
• 54:09
  put me in this. And what difference would it
• 54:12
  make if I said I'm not supposed to be here?
• 54:14
  I mean, it's like everybody would say that.
• 54:17
  So then, then your mind starts to wander, like maybe this is
• 54:20
  just where I'm going to be. And, and so I think that's what
• 54:23
  they do to like when at Leavenworth is they put people
• 54:26
  in there and then they take them down to the camp to just show
• 54:29
  them that, listen, this is what it feels like and let your mind
• 54:34
  go for a while, for hours. And and it's just you were in
• 54:38
  the shoe for months. I, I tell me about that Porsche
• 54:41
  because I, I don't even, I can't, I can't wrap my mind
• 54:44
  around. That Yeah, and I write about
• 54:46
  that, too in my book. You know, at first it was a
• 54:49
  panicky feeling because you know, just the small space and
• 54:52
  being enclosed in because you. Only get out of what's what Is
• 54:56
  it 23 hours a day that you're lucky?
• 54:58
  Hours a day and and it's really not even every day that you get
• 55:01
  out for an hour and when you get out for an hour, you go.
• 55:03
  I wouldn't do that to my dogs. Right.
• 55:06
  Yeah, well, I mean, it was refining for me.
• 55:11
  I mean, it got I got to a place where I got very structured, my
• 55:14
  own, you know, my dad kicked in for me.
• 55:16
  It's like, OK, morning time is this.
• 55:18
  I get up. I, you know, and I have my list
• 55:21
  of things that I did. And I told me I had a book I
• 55:24
  would write my goals. My goals were very simple, the
• 55:26
  things that I would do in there, but exercise it this time.
• 55:30
  And because, I mean, the thing about prison is you learn pretty
• 55:33
  quick that you get to decide your feelings, your thoughts,
• 55:38
  your responses. Like though, that's your power,
• 55:40
  right? And so I like your power.
• 55:42
  That's the power you have. Right.
• 55:43
  Yeah. And so I just.
• 55:45
  They have everything else. They have everything else you.
• 55:46
  Decide how you want to handle that.
• 55:48
  You know what though? How beautiful is that?
• 55:50
  I mean, yeah, how many people ever get to a place where they
• 55:53
  understand what their power is? And your power is your response
• 55:56
  in almost every situation? You know, so I really got a lot
• 56:00
  better at. I I wrote a mission statement
• 56:02
  and I would recite it over and over and over in the shoe.
• 56:05
  And I would write out these goals of things that I wanted to
• 56:07
  change my life and do you know, and I ended.
• 56:10
  Up. That gives you power and you
• 56:11
  know, I think that resets you. You know, I had a similar
• 56:15
  experience, Portia, where it was the first night I was at
• 56:17
  Leavenworth and I was on the bunk bed.
• 56:19
  I'm looking up the Hill's all lit up with the the medium
• 56:22
  security Leavenworth and I'm thinking, wow, it's been 6 years
• 56:25
  and I'm I'm I'm here after all this time.
• 56:29
  I'm top buck Leavenworth A2. What am I going to do?
• 56:34
  And I got up and my buck mate had given me a piece of paper
• 56:37
  and pen that kind of telling me where you know, the rules.
• 56:41
  And I started there. There was some light coming in
• 56:44
  from the bathroom over there. And I just decided, you know
• 56:46
  what, I'm going to do what I always do.
• 56:47
  I'm just going to write down things, goals of what do I need
• 56:50
  to do while I'm in here. When I put that down the pen, I
• 56:53
  thought, I feel better. Like I, I don't know if any of
• 56:57
  this is going to happen, but I feel like somehow I took back
• 57:00
  control of, of whatever. And that really wasn't in
• 57:03
  control of anything, but it felt better and different.
• 57:05
  I, I use that technique all the time because I work in mental
• 57:08
  health now and when people are really depressed or struggling,
• 57:11
  I'm like, OK, I'm tasking you with writing 100 goals and they
• 57:14
  can be anything because just by focusing on what your power is
• 57:18
  just, and I got to the point I wrote those same goals.
• 57:22
  I've written them for close to 10 years now.
• 57:24
  Every morning. It's how I start my day because
• 57:26
  it feels so good. Looks.
• 57:27
  Like affirmations? Too.
• 57:28
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 57:29
  So I mean, there's a lot of things that you can do that are
• 57:31
  within your control, and prison's a great place to learn
• 57:34
  how to strengthen those, you know, those powers that you
• 57:38
  have. But I feel different.
• 57:39
  When you got it, how long were you in?
• 57:42
  Three months. The shoe, OK, long time because
• 57:44
  a lot of times guys have been in for like a month or two, they
• 57:46
  came back looking a little bit different, but.
• 57:49
  Oh yeah, I was a little crazy. I mean, I got transferred to,
• 57:53
  but it was worse after I ended up getting, I mean, I went on
• 57:57
  Conair, which is a terrible experience.
• 58:00
  I've. Never heard anybody ever say
• 58:01
  anything good about Conair. Did you go through Oklahoma?
• 58:05
  Yeah, I went through Oklahoma. I went to the worst place in
• 58:07
  Oklahoma, which is some backwards backwoods county jail.
• 58:10
  But before that I got transferred to Pahrump, NV and I
• 58:14
  was there for like a month and they just, they call it diesel
• 58:17
  therapy. They oh.
• 58:18
  It is, yeah. You never and plus you never
• 58:20
  know as a prisoner because you never want.
• 58:21
  To You never know when you're because you don't know.
• 58:22
  We're going to end up. I didn't know where I was going.
• 58:24
  So for months I'm on the I'm on the go calling my husband at any
• 58:27
  county jungle and I don't know where they're taking me now, you
• 58:29
  know, so and I got shipped on a management variable, right?
• 58:33
  I didn't do anything. I didn't break any rules, but it
• 58:35
  was just so I was. But it was actually, it was a
• 58:38
  really good thing because I got transferred to Wasika,
• 58:41
  Minnesota, and I really loved it there.
• 58:44
  You know, it's beautiful. A lot of the officers are
• 58:48
  Christians, so I go in in the morning.
• 58:49
  I had a great job there and in Wasika.
• 58:52
  I mean by the time I left Wasika, where?
• 58:54
  Was your job? I was the re entry director.
• 58:58
  That's great. Yeah, I I have my own office.
• 59:01
  That's that is incredible. I feel like I had the best job
• 59:05
  in the prison, you know, and, and I worked, here's the best
• 59:08
  part. I worked in the rec department
• 59:10
  because they had a library. And so I was in this room behind
• 59:12
  the library and the rec officers are so much easier to work with,
• 59:16
  you know, so people come in and complain about me and they're
• 59:18
  like, oh, no, louder runs that department.
• 59:21
  And they let me come and go as I please.
• 59:22
  So I was outside a lot. That's awesome.
• 59:25
  Yeah. It was a great.
• 59:26
  It was a great job. And I read the whole library out
• 59:28
  because I'd get up early. I'd go down to be alone in the
• 59:30
  morning, you know. So I had a good job there.
• 59:33
  I mean, my heart was so broken because I left my children and
• 59:36
  family and they were so far away.
• 59:38
  But Wasika is really where I came to know who I am, like, in
• 59:41
  such a deep way and connected with the other women, heard
• 59:44
  their stories. When I left Wasika, I did art
• 59:49
  out there. They made me a leader in the
• 59:50
  program. And I surprised me.
• 59:54
  Yeah. Oh, I had this girl.
• 59:57
  I mean, girls get in relationships in prison.
• 59:59
  And so I had this. I don't know why they put her in
• 1:00:01
  art out, but she was she was in for life.
• 1:00:04
  And her girlfriend was in the program too, right.
• 1:00:08
  Well, how hard is it to call up? And her girlfriend was one of my
• 1:00:11
  bunkmates. So she got in a fight with
• 1:00:13
  another girl. So I called.
• 1:00:14
  I pulled them up and and. This gal that's doing life, just
• 1:00:18
  a great big black girl. She looks at me and she goes,
• 1:00:20
  You're dead. Louder.
• 1:00:22
  That's. Nice.
• 1:00:23
  Yeah, it was awesome. I said there's nothing like
• 1:00:25
  doing an art program in prison. So what I did was I sat in my
• 1:00:29
  bunk for about 5 minutes and I thought about it.
• 1:00:31
  I thought, you know, that is such crap that she just said
• 1:00:34
  that. So I walked downstairs and I
• 1:00:36
  looked at her and I said, you said you were my friend.
• 1:00:41
  I said I pulled your girlfriend up because I'm a leader in this
• 1:00:45
  program and I take my integrity seriously.
• 1:00:48
  And she looks at me and she goes and I said, so do what you have
• 1:00:51
  to do right now if that's what you need to do.
• 1:00:52
  And she goes louder. No, she goes, she goes, you pull
• 1:00:59
  up anyone you want in this program.
• 1:01:00
  And from that point on, she had my back.
• 1:01:02
  Like literally I could call anyone out for anything.
• 1:01:04
  And she's like, Nope, she's off limits.
• 1:01:07
  So I mean I. Have respect and stuff works.
• 1:01:10
  And it's so different. But yeah, I grew a lot in RDAP
• 1:01:14
  and then they shipped me after and I finally went to a camp and
• 1:01:17
  I'll. Explain real quick for those
• 1:01:18
  down in the Cayman Islands that are listening.
• 1:01:21
  RDAP is a program you get into. It's a nine month program.
• 1:01:24
  A lot of people get a year off and you go every day.
• 1:01:29
  You live in a a different part of the prison and it's kind of
• 1:01:33
  cult like it's kind of cult like and, but, but there's there's,
• 1:01:38
  you know, it's behavioral thinking.
• 1:01:41
  I'm I'm a believer in it. I think that there's, we had
• 1:01:44
  some people that were teaching it that probably shouldn't have
• 1:01:46
  been teaching it because they want to be CEOs, but the idea of
• 1:01:50
  it was very good. And I it should probably be
• 1:01:53
  something that's even taught in high school.
• 1:01:54
  You know, it's, it's very useful thing, I think for behavioral
• 1:01:57
  therapy, but. Yeah, yeah, well, what I learned
• 1:02:02
  in art app what now I've lost you.
• 1:02:04
  Where are you? Sorry, trying to send an e-mail
• 1:02:07
  saying I'm going to be late for my next meeting.
• 1:02:09
  But anyway, I we're going to have to wrap it up here in the
• 1:02:12
  next 5 minutes. But yeah, what I learned in art
• 1:02:16
  app was that communication is a huge deal.
• 1:02:20
  I taught, you know, assertive communication.
• 1:02:23
  I remember coming into the unit 1 day with the books that was
• 1:02:25
  titled, you know, assertive communication.
• 1:02:27
  And the girls looked at me and said, don't read that.
• 1:02:29
  You're already, you know, I, I mean, in terms of setting
• 1:02:32
  boundaries and assertive communication, it was really
• 1:02:34
  helpful for me. They made me stay a year because
• 1:02:38
  they had me stay on. I mean, I graduated in three
• 1:02:41
  months, but they had me stay on and continue to mentor other
• 1:02:43
  girls. And I loved that.
• 1:02:44
  I loved that role. I ended up getting shipped to to
• 1:02:49
  California to do my last little time at a camp.
• 1:02:52
  And that was that was interesting.
• 1:02:56
  I was so low security. They just put me on a plane, you
• 1:02:58
  know, and I flew out and I remember walking into the camp
• 1:03:02
  and going whoa, like I was happy to be there.
• 1:03:04
  They had palm trees there and it was California.
• 1:03:07
  So I left in January in Minnesota.
• 1:03:10
  It's freezing cold and I love the sun.
• 1:03:11
  So I just, I enjoyed that. But by the end of my sentence,
• 1:03:16
  you know, my life was so beautiful.
• 1:03:18
  I felt very free. And I mean, you know what it's
• 1:03:22
  like to wait for them to call your name.
• 1:03:25
  That was an incredible experience for me because I had
• 1:03:29
  really gotten close to every prison I went to.
• 1:03:32
  I got close to the women there. And when they called my name,
• 1:03:35
  all the women came running out cheering for me.
• 1:03:37
  We love you, Miss Portia. We love you, you know, and my
• 1:03:40
  heart was so full because of who I had become and the connections
• 1:03:45
  that I built. And man, it was unbelievable
• 1:03:49
  just to hold my husband's hand after, you know, almost five
• 1:03:53
  years. I got in the car, he's waiting
• 1:03:55
  for me with flowers. And we drove away and, and I, I
• 1:03:59
  had no idea what my life would look like.
• 1:04:01
  I didn't know I would be speaking about this, that I'd
• 1:04:04
  write books. I didn't know what my what would
• 1:04:07
  become of my life. What were you thinking after
• 1:04:09
  that amount of time? You know, the five years, Yeah.
• 1:04:14
  Going back out to re entry, you knew your husband was there,
• 1:04:16
  he'd been supportive and but what what were you thinking as
• 1:04:19
  far as like, what am I going to do now?
• 1:04:21
  I mean, I was nervous, you know, I didn't want to ever have to be
• 1:04:25
  the main provider again, you know?
• 1:04:27
  And Chad had been doing a good job kind of rebuilding.
• 1:04:30
  We were financially devastated, like most people.
• 1:04:32
  But I went to work as a photographer, and then I went to
• 1:04:36
  work in drug treatment because that's where my heart was.
• 1:04:39
  And while I was in drug treatment, the girls in the
• 1:04:41
  treatment center loved my prison stories.
• 1:04:43
  So that's when I wrote my first book, and I really wrote it for
• 1:04:46
  the women I left behind. I sent it in to them and they
• 1:04:49
  loved it. And then I started.
• 1:04:51
  That book is in the prisons. Yeah, it's in the prisons.
• 1:04:54
  Living louder. If you're in prison, read it.
• 1:04:57
  But also, when I came back to Utah, I started getting requests
• 1:05:02
  to share my experiences, and so I speak a lot about it.
• 1:05:06
  You're such a good speaker. I mean, it's so hard to get up
• 1:05:09
  on a on a stage as you do it with the Ted Talk and, and you
• 1:05:15
  did such a great job. And I'm sure that the people
• 1:05:18
  that you go and speak to and you speak a lot, you're so authentic
• 1:05:23
  and, and, and your story, you know, the, the humbleness and
• 1:05:27
  all those things that draw people in.
• 1:05:28
  I think that's why probably why you speak a lot because people
• 1:05:33
  like to feel like they get and you're using your journey to
• 1:05:38
  help people and what a great thing to make you feel fill you
• 1:05:42
  up to be able to use all that. I appreciate that.
• 1:05:48
  I don't know that I had any idea that I would.
• 1:05:52
  I mean, I did a lot of speaking in art out, you know, I guess.
• 1:05:57
  I mean, I was in front of a Group A lot, but I think just
• 1:06:00
  that my heart was so full that I was willing to do, you know,
• 1:06:04
  whatever they asked me to do. And one of the things that I
• 1:06:07
  thought was interesting, and I know we're running short on
• 1:06:09
  time, the the one of the people that was there for your Ted
• 1:06:13
  talk, yeah. Who was filming you was the son
• 1:06:17
  that you gave away to adoption and so you have a relationship
• 1:06:22
  with him? Yeah, and he's what's so neat
• 1:06:24
  about that. So I had been home for about a
• 1:06:26
  year and his adoptive mother reached out because I do a lot
• 1:06:29
  on social media, too. And she says he wants to get to
• 1:06:32
  know you. And that's been so beautiful.
• 1:06:35
  What's amazing about him, his name's David, is that he's a
• 1:06:39
  talented videographer. And I mean, but I mean, I he
• 1:06:44
  didn't grow up with me. Didn't even really know.
• 1:06:47
  That's really neat and that's been beautiful.
• 1:06:49
  And him reconnecting with our whole family's been beautiful.
• 1:06:53
  I love that. Yeah.
• 1:06:55
  Well, Portia I, what do you think?
• 1:06:59
  Out of all the things that you've been through, what do you
• 1:07:01
  think's your greatest take away through all this?
• 1:07:04
  You can't imagine how beautiful your life can become when you're
• 1:07:09
  in the thick of the hard moment. I call it the middle.
• 1:07:12
  When you're in the middle, my take away is don't ever give up.
• 1:07:17
  If you're in the grit, you know, if you're in the grit, man,
• 1:07:21
  something beautiful is coming. And when when you get there,
• 1:07:26
  you'll see how everything you went through, it was important
• 1:07:29
  to get you here. It gave you the perspective, the
• 1:07:32
  compassion, the understanding. How could my greatest purpose in
• 1:07:35
  life come through going to prison?
• 1:07:37
  If somebody would have told me before when I was fighting my
• 1:07:40
  case, hey, you're going to go to prison, but your life's going to
• 1:07:43
  be beautiful, I would have said heck no, not going to prison.
• 1:07:46
  I'm not. I don't care if my life's going
• 1:07:48
  to be beautiful. I couldn't make sure.
• 1:07:49
  This life that I have, man, am I grateful for it.
• 1:07:53
  The view that I got walking through a prison has changed my
• 1:07:57
  whole life, my relationships, my integrity, and I feel the
• 1:08:02
  restoration that came through that process.
• 1:08:04
  When people ask me, you know, what do you think needs to
• 1:08:08
  change? And I say the only thing that
• 1:08:09
  needs to change is that people out here need to know how
• 1:08:11
  amazing people in prison are because we're going to figure
• 1:08:15
  our way out. Like we don't need a. 46 million
• 1:08:17
  people out there that have. Yeah, and there's, you know, I
• 1:08:24
  believe in the people. I don't believe in the system,
• 1:08:26
  but I believe in the people that are in prison.
• 1:08:28
  The people that I met. I believe in their strength and
• 1:08:30
  their grit and their compassion because I lived with them and I
• 1:08:33
  know them and the people. If you want to do something for
• 1:08:37
  people, then cheer us on. Cheer us on because that's what
• 1:08:40
  we need. And.
• 1:08:43
  I love that. So yeah, that's.
• 1:08:45
  It well, if you're that's a good, I mean, what a great take
• 1:08:47
  away. I knew you'd have a great take
• 1:08:49
  away. And for those out there looking
• 1:08:52
  trying to find anything more about Porsche, go to
• 1:08:55
  porschelouder.com. You can and you can find her
• 1:08:57
  books Born, born to be brave and Living louder.
• 1:09:01
  Is it born? Is it born to brave?
• 1:09:03
  Born or born to be brave? Yep.
• 1:09:05
  OK, and I've got mine on order. So I've I'm I'm all in talking
• 1:09:13
  about being grateful. I'm grateful for Homestead
• 1:09:15
  financial letting me use all this fancy equipment in here.
• 1:09:18
  If you've got home mortgage needs to call Greg Gaftia if he
• 1:09:21
  knows all that stuff. Please leave a review on Apple
• 1:09:25
  if you got time. I know it's a hassle, but it
• 1:09:27
  really helps to show I've got a new website
• 1:09:30
  outtherebrentcassidy.com went live last week.
• 1:09:32
  It's not the old one, it's the new one.
• 1:09:34
  I spell it wrong. It's Ty not a DY as I used to
• 1:09:38
  say when I was leaving my sending my emails back and forth
• 1:09:42
  from Leavenworth. Stay strong.
• 1:09:43
  I'll do the same. Porsche louder.
• 1:09:46
  What a great story, great person.
• 1:09:48
  I love what you're doing and it's inspiring.
• 1:09:51
  So thank you so much for being here today and and sharing your
• 1:09:54
  story. Thank you, Brent.
• 1:09:56
  We'll do it again. We'll.
• 1:09:57
  Do it again. All right, nightmare success in
• 1:10:00
  and out.