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Wrongful Conviction, Freed 13 years later: The Walter Dunn 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
• 0:10
  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.
• 0:19
  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
• 0:23
  humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
• 0:26
  something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
• 0:29
  built up in your own mind. All right, welcome back,
• 0:34
  nightmare success in and out, listeners.
• 0:37
  This is where you come for what happens when your worst fear
• 0:39
  becomes your reality. How do you adapt, survive,
• 0:41
  overcome? Set yourself free, folks.
• 0:43
  Don't forget to follow, subscribe, share this thing out,
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  like it up. It helps the show and I
• 0:47
  appreciate that really helps the show.
• 0:50
  So who are we talking to today? Well, I've, I've been excited to
• 0:53
  be able to connect with my guests here because I've, I've
• 0:57
  watched him from afar and I think his story is absolutely
• 1:00
  fascinating, nightmarish, but then he overcomes it.
• 1:04
  So we're, we're talking to Walter Dunn and Walter Dunn is a
• 1:09
  national speaker. He's an author.
• 1:10
  He's got two books, one of them being through Innocent Eyes,
• 1:13
  which kind of gives away what we're talking about today.
• 1:16
  He's a criminal justice advocate.
• 1:18
  He when, when, when I'm talking about being a criminal justice
• 1:22
  advocate, he, he served 13 years in prison being wrongly, wrongly
• 1:27
  convicted of attempted murder. So this is big stuff.
• 1:31
  And, and, and he was, he was given 27 years.
• 1:34
  So it took him 13 years to overturn and and be released
• 1:41
  from that conviction. And one of the things he says is
• 1:43
  my journey from being wrongfully convicted to successfully
• 1:46
  overturning the verdict has given me a unique perspective on
• 1:50
  the flaws and shortcomings within the criminal justice
• 1:52
  system. This experience serves as a
• 1:54
  powerful catalyst for my dedication to raising awareness
• 1:58
  about issues such as wrongful convictions, false guilty pleas,
• 2:02
  juvenile statistics, and urgent need for a fair and impartial
• 2:05
  legal process. And he's walked the walk.
• 2:08
  I mean, when he was in prison, he, he did, he, he wasn't an
• 2:13
  attorney, but he, he went to the law books and he started
• 2:19
  understanding the law and he started releasing other people
• 2:22
  from prison while he was in prison because he really got
• 2:26
  good at it. And then he released himself.
• 2:29
  So I can't wait to unpack all this with Walter.
• 2:32
  But before we do, I want to recognize our show sponsor, Auto
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  Autoplaza direct. Tell them Brent from Nightmare
• 3:07
  Success sent you folks. Check out this book Doctor Not
• 3:11
  Guilty by exonerated psychiatrist and internist
• 3:15
  Muhammad Ali Rafi. It's the battle cry and
• 3:18
  blueprint for anyone misjudged by a system that should protect
• 3:21
  the innocent. The book takes you inside the
• 3:24
  investigation, the courtroom, the hard nights when faith and
• 3:27
  courage remain. You will meet the prosecutors
• 3:30
  and agents who failed and the physicians, families, and
• 3:33
  patients who refused to surrender.
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  This book reveals the truth about how power can destroy
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  rule of the law. Doctor not guilty.
• 3:51
  Check it out. Welcome in.
• 3:54
  Walter Dunn, my man. How are you?
• 3:56
  Hey, I'm doing pretty good today.
• 3:58
  Extremely excited to be able to share this this, this stage with
• 4:01
  you and looking for a great conversation.
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  It's always an honor to, you know, be given a platform to be
• 4:09
  able to get a message out there to, to reach to one of the
• 4:12
  family members who are going through a similar crisis or
• 4:15
  people who are searching for answers or the depression when,
• 4:19
  when they leave somebody to the justice system.
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  So when I get these opportunities, I try to, you
• 4:25
  know, really be open, transparent and available to, to
• 4:29
  help people to, you know, offer kind words of advice all the way
• 4:33
  down to, you know, buying my book off of Amazon on how to
• 4:37
  navigate through the criminal justice system.
• 4:39
  So instead of having to pay thousands of dollars to an
• 4:42
  attorney, they can get the real information they need.
• 4:44
  And that is your other book by the.
• 4:46
  Way, Yeah. Both of them are on Amazon.
• 4:49
  And you know, one of the things I love about this show is, is
• 4:53
  that people get to hear stories that they would never hear
• 4:57
  otherwise because there's a narrative that's built through,
• 5:00
  you know, the, the talking indictments and, and, and then
• 5:03
  the media. And it's, it's nice to be able
• 5:06
  to have people get on and to be able to talk about how they went
• 5:09
  through their journey, how they survived, how they got out on
• 5:12
  the other side. And, and your story checks all
• 5:14
  those boxes off because Walter, your life up until this happened
• 5:20
  that night. Take us back into your journey
• 5:24
  as a kid, where you grew up, your mom, dad.
• 5:27
  What was life like for Little Walter growing up?
• 5:31
  Well, that's back when I had hair you.
• 5:35
  Were not a bald head five year. Old.
• 5:36
  Yeah. I wasn't a bald head child.
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  You know, I grew up in Tampa, FL.
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  You know, I had a single mom who was, you know, a very strong
• 5:45
  woman. You know, she raised my sister
• 5:48
  and I, you know, the best she possibly could.
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  You know, I felt like I had a two parent household because of
• 5:53
  how much she provided. You know, never, never had a bad
• 5:58
  childhood. You know, I can't say I came
• 6:00
  from a bad neighborhood or anything like that.
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  I had a great family and you know, I had always been in the
• 6:05
  sports. So sports kind of dominated, you
• 6:07
  know, my childhood where I would play baseball and football and
• 6:10
  you know, it's something that, you know, it's very passionate
• 6:13
  to me. Baseball is like always been my
• 6:15
  favorite sport. So I played baseball and
• 6:17
  football and high school, and then I went on to college to
• 6:19
  play baseball in California at a school called Los Angeles
• 6:22
  Harbor. And then I came home and became
• 6:26
  a, a, a father and, you know, a present parent.
• 6:30
  You know there's. Some Yeah.
• 6:31
  Well, I, I know from your story that you had to make a sacrifice
• 6:37
  with that doing baseball and and you had to your son got sick and
• 6:44
  you had to make a choice of, you know, what am I going to do?
• 6:48
  I I've got baseball here. That your hopes obviously was to
• 6:51
  be a Major League player or I got to get back home And, and,
• 6:57
  and I don't know how old your son was at the time, but you
• 7:02
  went home. Yeah, he was one.
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  And he he got infected with bacteria, meningitis.
• 7:09
  And, you know, as a young child, as a one year old, you know that
• 7:13
  that infection has the ability to take children's lives, and it
• 7:17
  often does every single day. I had a conversation with my
• 7:21
  grandmother and she was like, well, like you've been chasing
• 7:24
  this dream of being a professional baseball player.
• 7:26
  You've made it all the way to college.
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  You even got some pro teams that you've worked out for.
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  But if your child passes away, you'll never have that moment
• 7:34
  back. So it was a difficult decision,
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  one that I don't regret. You know, I think that if a man
• 7:41
  fathers a child, he should take care of that child.
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  He should raise that child. I never wanted to leave my child
• 7:50
  without a father because I grew up without a father.
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  So I never wanted that to repeat itself.
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  So I gave up my baseball dream. I came home and got a job at
• 8:00
  Florida Metropolitan University, which turned into Everest
• 8:03
  University and worked for university for six years and,
• 8:07
  you know, became a great father, a Little League baseball coach,
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  You know, just just enjoy being a father, you know, getting,
• 8:15
  getting the chance to see and live something that I didn't,
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  you know, it was a great feeling.
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  Yeah, so you were living the American thing that you read
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  about, you know, you got a good job, You you had a house, got a
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  family. That's what I think is so
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  startling about your your story is then you know something
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  happens that changes everything for you and you have to deal
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  with this nightmare that's given to you, that's handed to you.
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  What can you kind of walk us through when that nightmare
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  landed on you, Walter? And and what?
• 8:58
  Happened most how? Yeah, sure, most times.
• 9:02
  And I really wish I could maybe get with Netflix or Hulu because
• 9:06
  sometimes I watch the Netflix series and I and I often like my
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  mind goes and says like, wow. Like I think like if I could
• 9:12
  just just take my story and give it to Netflix or Hulu or Prime
• 9:16
  that they can make a awesome little six part series, that
• 9:20
  would be pretty cool. But you know, my story is is it
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  is a lot different because I had never been arrested.
• 9:28
  I had never been, the police had never been called on me.
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  I've, you know, I have law enforcement on my family.
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  So, you know, doing something that would shame myself, my
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  family, my character that that never occurred that, you know,
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  up until this night there, I had never been in contact with law
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  enforcement unless I was coaching their child on a Little
• 9:45
  League baseball team. Yeah.
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  So prior to this incident happening, you know, I was going
• 9:53
  through a bad a bad marriage and I decided the respectful thing
• 9:58
  would to do is, you know, step away from this marriage, you
• 10:01
  know, file for divorce. You know, I wasn't happy, you
• 10:04
  know, we had just grew apart and that's what I did.
• 10:09
  And in between the time that I got arrested and the time that I
• 10:12
  filed for divorce, there was a suicide attempt by my ex-wife.
• 10:17
  And she did that in the custody or she did it while she had
• 10:21
  custody of the children while they were in her care.
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  And it raised a lot of flags. You know, I put a emergency
• 10:29
  motion in with the court system. You know, I was able to get in
• 10:31
  front of the judge. The judge was able to see for
• 10:34
  what it was that, you know, this person was mentally unstable.
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  And back in 2009, they didn't have the mental health awareness
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  things. They didn't, you know, that was
• 10:43
  not a talked about issue. There wasn't, you know, reals
• 10:47
  going on your phone that you could, you know, seek help.
• 10:50
  You know, that was kind of a quiet issue.
• 10:52
  And this person decided to to have a suicide attempt in the
• 10:57
  presence of our children. And the judge ended up ruling in
• 11:01
  my favor, giving me full custody of the children, marital home,
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  you know, all the assets. And then outpatient Baker acted
• 11:09
  her and gave her like a restraining order, like a no
• 11:13
  contact order with me and the children.
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  So when this took place, you know, I became a full time
• 11:18
  father. You know, I started learning how
• 11:20
  to to do hair. I learned how to start getting
• 11:22
  up in the morning and stopping at 711 for doughnuts and orange
• 11:27
  juice before school. Like, you know, I really took.
• 11:29
  How? How old were the kids at this
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  time, Walter? The children at the time were
• 11:32
  seven and four, so my son was 7 and my daughter was 4.
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  Kids. So, you know, I became the full
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  time parent and you know, I enjoyed every minute of it, You
• 11:42
  know, to be able to be involved with my children, to be able to
• 11:45
  provide for them, you know, to continue to give them the
• 11:49
  lifestyle that they were living and not having to change it.
• 11:51
  You know, that was important to me and when this took place, you
• 11:57
  know, the judge made a real strict order that I and the
• 12:00
  children weren't to have any contact with her.
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  And often I would hear my children on car rides home and
• 12:07
  ask when his mommy coming home or when can we see her, can we
• 12:10
  talk to her. And against the judges orders I
• 12:14
  would receive those phone calls and May provisions for her to be
• 12:17
  able to meet me at the local ice cream parlor, McDonald's, just
• 12:21
  just so the children can give her a hug and kiss.
• 12:23
  Yeah, I'm sure it had to be really tough on the kids 'cause
• 12:25
  they wouldn't understand. I felt, you know, as a man, it
• 12:28
  wasn't right to punish the children, right?
• 12:30
  You know, you know, the courts have made their decision.
• 12:32
  We respect their decisions. But as a parent, you know, I, I
• 12:36
  want to make sure that my children got the happiness that
• 12:38
  they seek. And on this particular night I
• 12:43
  have made concessions to always meet her in the area that we
• 12:46
  lived in for her to see them. But on this particular night I
• 12:49
  was given an address. I was told that it was a parent
• 12:53
  on the baseball team and back then we didn't have GPSS on the
• 12:57
  phone. So as I was a address, can you
• 12:59
  stop by? It was on the way home.
• 13:00
  It made sense and I had did this maybe countless times before.
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  And on this night, I was told I was going to a baseball parents
• 13:07
  home. And I end up going to a home,
• 13:11
  you know, my children in the front seat of the car.
• 13:13
  I thought this would be quick. I pulled up, I knocked on the
• 13:17
  front door. And a man came to the door that
• 13:21
  you know, I know or, you know, knew of and, you know, had a
• 13:25
  decent relationship with. And he came to the door, you
• 13:27
  know, under the influence of alcohol.
• 13:29
  And words got exchanged. And before I knew it, you know,
• 13:33
  I had been struck and I was in the midst of a fight.
• 13:36
  And this all happened at the doorway basically.
• 13:38
  This this all happened at the doorway.
• 13:40
  So it's like, you know, I guess as a man, you know, I became
• 13:45
  reactive and, you know, I said it in court.
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  I said it the day I got arrested.
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  I, you know, I did get in a fight.
• 13:52
  You know, I didn't start it, you know, but I did get in the
• 13:55
  fight. And from there, you know, it
• 13:58
  just snowballed into a nightmare.
• 14:02
  You know, in the midst of fighting the guy, you know, my
• 14:05
  ex-wife came and tried to break up the fight.
• 14:07
  And this guy said I'm going to get a gun and he yells some
• 14:10
  obscenities. I was going to kill me.
• 14:12
  And my mind said for me to get out there and I needed to get my
• 14:16
  children to safety. And when I was able to get out
• 14:19
  of there, you know, my ex-wife ran to the car with me, you
• 14:23
  know, not not side by side, but like, as I was trying to get out
• 14:25
  of there, she ran in the car, jump in the car.
• 14:28
  And, you know, in my mind, it was about getting my children to
• 14:32
  safety, not asking for her to get out of the car or what are
• 14:35
  you doing? It was just get out of there.
• 14:36
  This guy's going to get a gun. You know, this could, you know,
• 14:40
  go from bad to worse. And in the midst of just driving
• 14:43
  home, just, you know, maybe 4 minutes down the street to my
• 14:46
  house, you know, I start to, to really look at the fear of my
• 14:51
  children. You know, not that they got a
• 14:54
  chance to see the fight, but, you know, at that time, I was
• 14:56
  bleeding. I was, you know, very upset and
• 15:00
  when I get home, my reaction was paranoia because this guy's
• 15:04
  mother's house was 3 houses down from mine.
• 15:07
  So he had been to my house. He knew exactly where I stayed
• 15:10
  at. My fear was that I needed to get
• 15:12
  my children out of the car and get them upstairs to safety.
• 15:16
  And that's exactly what I did. So when I got home, you know, I
• 15:19
  just left the door open. I ran to their door.
• 15:22
  I picked both of them up and took him upstairs into the to
• 15:24
  the house and just told my son to just remain here.
• 15:28
  Dad will be back. And when I went back downstairs,
• 15:31
  my ex-wife was walking in the garage and I closed the garage
• 15:35
  door button and at that moment I felt secure.
• 15:38
  Not that I I've never had a firearm.
• 15:40
  I'm not a registered carrier. I didn't have, I don't have
• 15:43
  guns, you know, but I just felt a sense of peace that at least I
• 15:47
  got everybody to safe. Home safe.
• 15:51
  And then, you know, while I was in the house sitting down, just
• 15:56
  trying to like, calm down and get myself together, you know,
• 16:00
  my ex-wife was in the garage pouring gasoline on herself.
• 16:03
  And she was just saying, I just want to die.
• 16:05
  You're never going to want me. You know, my life is over.
• 16:08
  And she was going through another episode.
• 16:10
  And to me, it was like Deja vu because, you know, 40 days prior
• 16:14
  to this, she had the same almost identical suicide attempt, you
• 16:18
  know, by carbon monoxide poison, sitting in the car running it to
• 16:22
  like it was, you know, smoke high trying to take her life,
• 16:25
  you know, 40 days prior. So to see the unstable this
• 16:28
  happen again, you know, I immediately, you know, started
• 16:31
  yelling snap out of it. And in the process of trying to
• 16:34
  get her attention, you know, there was a noise outside.
• 16:37
  And my fear was that this guy had came back and he was going
• 16:40
  to finish the job, shoot me, you know, maybe shoot my children.
• 16:45
  And I had a decision to make, either stay in the house and
• 16:49
  maybe call 91 or wait for him to break in or whatever, or just
• 16:53
  open the garage door and go out there and face him because I
• 16:55
  know that in my mind, he's here for me and me only.
• 16:59
  And in the process of opening the garage door, Brent, that
• 17:01
  day, there was probably 19/18/19 law enforcement agents all over
• 17:05
  my front yard. They had the helicopter in the
• 17:08
  sky. You know, it was like a moment
• 17:12
  in time where I walked out and I fell in a daze.
• 17:15
  Like I couldn't understand. Like I was seeing law
• 17:18
  enforcement agents running around my front yard like if it
• 17:20
  was a movie, like if SWAT had been called and I was just
• 17:25
  getting yelled to get down. You know, officers had draw
• 17:28
  their service weapon. They were screaming, get down,
• 17:31
  get down. And for a moment I couldn't
• 17:33
  comply because I was literally frozen in time.
• 17:36
  In the process of them screaming get down, my ex-wife runs out of
• 17:41
  the garage and tells them that oh, he's trying to kill me.
• 17:44
  And she starts screaming. An officer tackles her in the
• 17:47
  front yard, you know, Shields her.
• 17:49
  And then seconds later I'm slammed on the ground and
• 17:53
  handcuffed. And and they just, it just
• 17:56
  became a nightmare from there. Wow, what a, what a moment in
• 18:00
  time. And I, I think, you know, for
• 18:03
  the listeners that the guy that was at the door, you later
• 18:08
  understand or, or maybe you knew at the time that they that that
• 18:12
  was somebody that she was seeing.
• 18:15
  And I'm assuming that that altercation was probably his
• 18:19
  drunken stupor of possibly being a, you know, a boyfriend in a
• 18:24
  drunken rage of jealousy or whatever.
• 18:28
  So what's the next thing that happens?
• 18:34
  The next thing you know, I was arrested on November 2nd, 2009
• 18:39
  and I'm, I'm in Florida and I'm taken down to the hospital to,
• 18:45
  to be evaluated, you know, to make sure that I don't have any
• 18:49
  broken bones or injuries. And after I make my hospital
• 18:54
  run, they take me to jail. I'm boat, you know, I'm not told
• 18:58
  exactly. I kept asking on the car ride,
• 19:00
  what was I being arrested for? You know, the transporting
• 19:03
  officer couldn't, you know, disclose what I was being
• 19:06
  arrested for. He was unsure himself.
• 19:08
  And he just told me that when they get to jail, you know,
• 19:12
  we'll figure it all out, but you're going to jail.
• 19:14
  And, you know, he was very, you know, he was very cordial.
• 19:18
  You know, he wasn't like, you know, nasty officer or, you
• 19:22
  know, he was just, you know, from a mature standpoint.
• 19:25
  I realized he was just doing his job, you know, in that moment,
• 19:28
  You know, I kept, you know, wanting to know why was I being
• 19:31
  arrested? You know, what crime had I
• 19:32
  committed? Because, you know, up until that
• 19:34
  moment I was unsure, other than getting into a fight that I had
• 19:39
  did anything wrong. Well, the other thing that that
• 19:42
  I'm thinking with all this happening is that your kids are
• 19:46
  in the house. Yeah, prior to me being taken
• 19:49
  away by that law enforcement agent, you know, the Sheriff's
• 19:54
  Department went into my home. They asked me where my children
• 19:56
  were. They asked me did I have any
• 19:59
  guns? And they started asking me
• 20:00
  general questions. And they were able to take my
• 20:03
  children out of there, out of the home.
• 20:05
  And they placed them in the care of the grandmother of my
• 20:11
  ex-wife. You know, somehow, I don't know
• 20:13
  how she got notified, but she was there and they were given to
• 20:18
  her. And you know, that's, that's the
• 20:20
  last time I saw them. Wow, so do you get interrogated
• 20:26
  once you get booked and. Oh, yeah, immediately after,
• 20:29
  after I, I go to the hospital and I go through the checks and
• 20:34
  balances of, you know, making sure there's no injuries.
• 20:37
  I'm immediately taken down to our interrogation department
• 20:41
  here with our detectives and it's videotaped.
• 20:46
  You know, I sit in the room for maybe 3 hours answering
• 20:48
  questions back and forth about what took place.
• 20:51
  You know, I kept addressing what I did.
• 20:54
  They kept trying to paint a narrative for paint, you know,
• 20:56
  what they thought had took place.
• 20:59
  And I just told them that, you know, I got into a fight, I got
• 21:03
  LED over here. You know, things happen pretty
• 21:06
  quickly. You know, I got my family to
• 21:08
  safety and now I'm in front of them being questioned.
• 21:12
  And you know, the good cop, bad cop scenario took place.
• 21:16
  But for the, for me, for the life of me, I couldn't, I
• 21:18
  couldn't understand why I was sitting here.
• 21:21
  And then I was told even from even in like even if you was to
• 21:24
  watch my interrogation video, they none of them tell me what
• 21:28
  I'm being arrested for. So like you can watch it for two
• 21:30
  hours and you'll, you'll, they're never going to say you
• 21:33
  have been arrested for this, this, this and this.
• 21:35
  Like that never happened. They just accused me of doing
• 21:38
  certain crimes and I kept telling them that no, I never
• 21:41
  did it. Well, I just had Doctor Rafi on
• 21:45
  actually his his show or his episodes out this week.
• 21:48
  And one of the things that he says he actually was successful
• 21:52
  of one of the few 186 episodes of this show that he went to
• 21:57
  trial and he was successful. But one of the things that he
• 21:59
  says as a tip forever in a day is if you're in a situation like
• 22:04
  this, they're building a case against you.
• 22:07
  Don't talk. Get an attorney because these
• 22:10
  are professionals and they you need to have a professional
• 22:12
  talking to a professional. But so many people in your
• 22:16
  situation, Walter, you're in a nightmare and all you're trying
• 22:23
  to do is tell them what happened.
• 22:24
  And what they're doing with that interrogation is, is try to find
• 22:27
  bits and pieces of things that they can use to build their own
• 22:31
  case out. And for the most part, people
• 22:35
  think that they're helping because they just think if I can
• 22:38
  tell them what happened, then it it'll all be OK.
• 22:42
  And what's happening is, is that they're using anything and
• 22:45
  everything that you're saying to use into their narrative of what
• 22:51
  they're building. And, and you don't really know
• 22:52
  that at the time. You're just so you're stunned
• 22:56
  into thinking, OK, now it's time to talk.
• 22:58
  Now it's time to, you know, tell them what I know.
• 23:00
  And it can be the most harmful thing that you do because you
• 23:04
  being helpful can help them. Yeah, it's so true.
• 23:09
  You know, I literally had the detectives tell me, you know,
• 23:13
  hey, just answer these questions and you'll go home.
• 23:15
  Like, I mean, like literally just, you know, and then, you
• 23:19
  know, now looking back at it, it was one trying to make me feel
• 23:22
  comfortable, one trying to be, you know, the tough one.
• 23:25
  And it is true because anything that you say can and will be
• 23:29
  used against you. And usually after an
• 23:31
  interrogation, you know, they transcribe it and they put it in
• 23:34
  a discovery. So any bits and pieces they can
• 23:36
  twist to maybe support, you know, you know, their arrest or
• 23:43
  there are charges against you, They definitely going to do it.
• 23:45
  And for me, you know, just being arrested for the first time, I
• 23:49
  thought that just answering the questions would be enough and
• 23:53
  I'll go. I never, I never fathom that I
• 23:55
  would be going to jail. So once they do the
• 23:58
  interrogation, is that the last time that you see freedom?
• 24:03
  Are you released? No, that night on November 2nd,
• 24:08
  you know, I was arrested for the first time in my life.
• 24:12
  Nobody in my case was hospitalized or injured or
• 24:16
  overnight or something dismembered or life threatening.
• 24:20
  You know, nobody had a hospital stay.
• 24:23
  And for 32 months I was held with no bond.
• 24:27
  And you know, what I found interesting or disheartening
• 24:30
  about that is that, you know, it is a constitutional right.
• 24:34
  You know, that everybody is entitled to a bond.
• 24:36
  And if you were denied a bond at the circuit level, you know, you
• 24:40
  can have an attorney file a motion to the district courts of
• 24:43
  appeal and they can challenge that ruling and force the lower
• 24:48
  course to give you a bond. I never knew that.
• 24:50
  None of my attorneys that I ever had even thought about.
• 24:53
  Making that legal. That legal move, I actually
• 24:56
  learned that while I was incarcerated learning the law.
• 24:59
  But you know, I was denied bail under a clause of the victim
• 25:04
  safety. You know, the man and the woman
• 25:06
  in my case started coming to court and then basically told
• 25:09
  the the first judge, if you let him out, we fear he may hurt us.
• 25:14
  And that was enough under the protection of the victim for
• 25:18
  them to deny me a bail. You know, you know, I felt, I
• 25:24
  mean, I was egregious. A man who has never been in
• 25:26
  trouble, never been arrested, has no tide.
• 25:29
  I mean, no, has no ability to flee.
• 25:32
  It didn't have a passport. You know, I had community ties.
• 25:35
  I had a law enforcement, a law enforcement agent come to one of
• 25:38
  my bail hearings and say, hey, if you release him out on bail,
• 25:41
  he can stay with me. And nothing I presented in front
• 25:44
  of the system was able to give me bond.
• 25:46
  And like, I would see people I would see bring, I would see
• 25:49
  people that when I was in jail, people with murder charges and,
• 25:53
  you know, people that shot people were getting bailed and
• 25:56
  I, I couldn't. That's, that's really something
• 25:58
  and the other thing that's really hard about what you just
• 26:01
  said, 32 months in jail, which for those who have never
• 26:08
  experienced that jail is the very worst of incarceration.
• 26:12
  Once you get to prison, sometimes they try to do deals
• 26:14
  with people so that they can get out of jail to go to prison.
• 26:18
  But the trying to prepare your defense in jail had to have been
• 26:26
  just incredibly frustrating. Not frustrating.
• 26:31
  It was null and void. I mean, nobody.
• 26:33
  And these are statistics you can get from the Vera Institute of
• 26:36
  Justice, you can get from the Bureau Institute of Justice, you
• 26:39
  can get these statistics that, you know, defendant.
• 26:42
  And I think California, I can't remember where in California
• 26:45
  they ran this, but it's like 92% of the people who can't get bail
• 26:50
  go to prison. So when you don't let somebody
• 26:53
  else somebody out where they can help with adequate defense to
• 26:58
  try to work hand to hand with a lawyer or work on with an
• 27:01
  investigator, you know, the, the percentage is high that they're
• 27:05
  going to, to, to prison. And I always felt that if I
• 27:11
  couldn't get bail, that there is no way that I would be able to
• 27:14
  walk free unless I brought Michael Jordan as the attorney
• 27:19
  and he hit the game-winning shot and I was able to walk out of
• 27:22
  there. So like, somewhere around like
• 27:24
  2024 months, you know, the mindset changed from so much
• 27:30
  fighting for my innocence and then started changing towards,
• 27:34
  you know, how long of a prison sentence, you know, either am I
• 27:38
  going to plead out or I'm going to get, you know, And then I
• 27:40
  started trying to prepare myself that if I couldn't get bail, you
• 27:45
  know, and the deck was stacked against me, how fair will things
• 27:49
  be if I go to a trial? And the plea offer in my case
• 27:53
  was 15 years. For about 13 months, you know,
• 27:58
  my prosecutor kept saying, well, you know, for all these charges
• 28:02
  at that time, I had been charged with a kidnapping, aggravated
• 28:07
  assault, a battery and a burglary with a battery.
• 28:13
  So those four charges, the prosecutor gave me a 15 year
• 28:17
  plea offer that you can sign this negotiated plea and we'll
• 28:22
  let you go to prison for 15 years regardless if you did
• 28:25
  these crimes or not. What was when I What kind of
• 28:29
  attorney did you have at the time?
• 28:31
  I went through a slew of them, you know, I, I probably went
• 28:34
  through probably 9 or 10 attorneys.
• 28:37
  Yeah. You know, like my family would
• 28:38
  hire them and like, and I was a high profile case.
• 28:41
  So most, most attorneys would get on my case, discuss it with
• 28:45
  the prosecutor. And the prosecutor had all the
• 28:47
  leverage, like they wanted me. So like, if you get him to play
• 28:51
  out, you know, we can give you X amount of cases that'll be
• 28:54
  favorable down the road. And that was the song and dance
• 28:57
  behind the door for all my attorneys.
• 29:01
  And then about 15 months, you know, when I didn't accept the
• 29:06
  plea offer to go to prison, my prosecutor hit me with the
• 29:09
  attempt to murder charge and then heighten my plea offer from
• 29:14
  15 years to 22 years. So as we say, the nightmare just
• 29:18
  kept getting worse. And now I was going to need to
• 29:22
  plea out at 22 years ago to trial.
• 29:24
  Well, I tried my prosecutor, prosecutor openly told me that
• 29:28
  if you lose trial, we're going to give you a life sentence.
• 29:30
  So trying to, you know, prepare my mind on how long I would be
• 29:34
  gone for, you know that that was, you know, that I think
• 29:38
  that's where I lost my hair at. So I think that's where like I
• 29:41
  really. Do.
• 29:43
  Yeah, I think that's where my hair started falling out at.
• 29:46
  And I think that's, you know, like I got really depressed, you
• 29:49
  know, trying to fight a system that was unjust, that just went
• 29:52
  here my side. And, you know, my family was
• 29:56
  able to collectively make one last attempt to fight for my
• 30:02
  freedom. They were able to, you know,
• 30:04
  collect some money along with my entire family, put a couple
• 30:08
  houses up and they went to a re retain Steve Sidal.
• 30:12
  You know, Steve Sidal was one of the most notable attorneys in
• 30:16
  the country. You know, if you Fast forward
• 30:18
  now, you know, he was the attorney that just represented
• 30:21
  President Trump. You know, on this last case, you
• 30:24
  know, this guy was a superstar. My family was able to go get him
• 30:27
  and when he came on to my case, you know, he came in different,
• 30:32
  you know, different than the local attorneys.
• 30:34
  You could feel the OR of him on that.
• 30:37
  This would be a different fight. And in that moment, I felt like
• 30:40
  there was number possible way I would play out.
• 30:42
  I would fight for my freedom. We're going to trial.
• 30:44
  And if I lose, I lose because I'm not going to agree to go to
• 30:49
  prison for something I didn't do.
• 30:50
  So if I have to go, you're going to have to make me go.
• 30:52
  And that was kind of my mindset. And when he came in, he was able
• 30:56
  to, you know, restore some of my emotion that, you know, this
• 31:01
  wasn't over. And we went through a five day
• 31:03
  trial. You know, he litigated to me top
• 31:07
  tier, you know, but I think he came in with the mindset that he
• 31:12
  could just litigate my freedom. You know, when I went to prison
• 31:17
  and I studied law for over 10 years, I've probably read over
• 31:20
  5000 cases. I've freed few people.
• 31:24
  I've gotten, I'm 30-40 people sentence reductions, like when
• 31:31
  you go to trial, that's your opportunity to change the
• 31:34
  narrative. And there's so many things that
• 31:36
  you could do in trial to be successful.
• 31:38
  And most attorneys don't want to spend the money to do these
• 31:41
  things. Well, I want to talk about going
• 31:44
  to trial though, because I mean that's very few people do it
• 31:51
  going into that courtroom. What?
• 31:53
  What was going through your mind, this process that you
• 31:58
  read? Well, going to trial was, you
• 32:02
  know, I felt like it was rigged from the beginning.
• 32:04
  And that's just being transparent.
• 32:06
  You know, when we went through Vordire, which is the jury
• 32:08
  selection, you know, there was never a jury of my peers.
• 32:12
  You know, I'm a biracial man. At the time I was 26.
• 32:16
  Nobody on my jury selection looked like me.
• 32:20
  Nobody was young like me. Most of you know, in state of
• 32:27
  Florida and other states, you know, they go to a 12 man trial
• 32:30
  and the state of Florida they go to a six man trial with two
• 32:34
  alternates. So in essence you have eight
• 32:35
  people that sit in the jury box, but when it comes from the time
• 32:38
  for the jury deliberations, they removed 2 and they go down to
• 32:43
  just six people. So out of my jury who made the
• 32:47
  jury pool? You know, I have one African
• 32:50
  American person. Everybody was over the age of 50
• 32:54
  and you know, everybody was was Caucasian.
• 32:59
  And did you? Did you feel like, Walter, as
• 33:03
  things you know, you've got opening arguments, you've got
• 33:06
  witnesses and you got cross examination at any time?
• 33:10
  Did you feel like OK this is good for me?
• 33:14
  Yeah, I would think it was like the third day of trial.
• 33:18
  You know, the evidence got presented and, you know, it just
• 33:23
  basically got said in open court that, you know, these things
• 33:25
  don't match them. And I specifically remember
• 33:29
  looking back at my family saying, I told you.
• 33:32
  So like, you know, like this moment has finally came out that
• 33:35
  like, you know, the evidence that they suggested was used to
• 33:38
  commit these crimes did not match me.
• 33:40
  You know that, that, you know, I had a judge prior, you know,
• 33:44
  probably about two years prior to this told the the prosecutor
• 33:49
  that, you know, what is the evidence in this case?
• 33:51
  And I didn't catch it then. But you know, at trial I was
• 33:55
  able to catch it, that my prosecutor never ran the
• 33:58
  evidence report until a week before trial.
• 34:02
  So in essence, she didn't know what the evidence suggested,
• 34:06
  whether innocent or guilt. So I sat in jail for 32 months
• 34:11
  without ever knowing an evidence report, you know, and that was
• 34:14
  crucial because when you could have given us and a copy of the
• 34:19
  evidence report three months, six months in, you know, it
• 34:22
  would have gave attorneys at that time and an opportunity to
• 34:26
  help break the case down to, to get it to where should have
• 34:30
  been, it should have been property damage and my maybe a
• 34:35
  misdemeanor battery because of the fight because I did, you
• 34:39
  know, that's what happened. But when you escalated the
• 34:41
  charges to 1st degree felonies or punishable by life felonies
• 34:46
  and you don't run the evidence report to a week before trial,
• 34:49
  you know, that's unethical. You know, that should have never
• 34:51
  took in place. And then when that comes out at
• 34:55
  trial, I thought that the truth had finally surfaced and it was
• 34:59
  enough to at least satisfy the beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 35:07
  Yeah, yeah. And I to me, there's so many
• 35:09
  like, reasonable doubt things in here with what I've, what I've
• 35:12
  read those bits and pieces of it.
• 35:13
  But that, I mean, did it ever come out that just, you know, a
• 35:18
  couple of months before your wife had attempted suicide and
• 35:22
  that you had the kids and you had custody and she had to
• 35:25
  restrain order? I mean, that whole thing seems
• 35:29
  like that would have been a narrative that would have needed
• 35:33
  to come out because the whole attempted murder part of it is,
• 35:37
  is that you were doing that and she had already tried to harm
• 35:41
  herself. It's already a really weird
• 35:44
  night. And obviously she wasn't stable.
• 35:48
  So it's, you know, I know that they can build a narrative on
• 35:54
  the prosecutor's side and make you sound like a monster.
• 35:57
  And it's it's hard to get in these facts that happen that's
• 36:01
  evidence on your side. But with the way that it all
• 36:06
  went, it was a five day trial. Finally, when they go, you know
• 36:11
  to deliberate, what are your thoughts?
• 36:16
  You know I will never and I tell families this all the time when
• 36:21
  they buy my book off of Amazon and they reach out to me on
• 36:24
  social media. I will never believe that you
• 36:28
  are innocent till proven guilty. Like they need to just, you
• 36:32
  know, eradicate that from the criminal justice system.
• 36:36
  You know, it's never beyond a reasonable doubt either.
• 36:40
  You know, there was a preponderance of evidence that
• 36:43
  suggested that the reasonable doubt was there.
• 36:46
  And there was further evidence that suggests that he just
• 36:49
  didn't commit these crimes. So when we went into
• 36:51
  deliberation, I had the feeling that, you know, it was going
• 36:56
  good. You know, my attorney leaned
• 36:57
  over and told me when they, you know, when the state rested
• 37:01
  their case, that if they come back within the first hour or
• 37:04
  shorter, it's going to be a guilty verdict.
• 37:06
  You're going to be found guilty across the board.
• 37:10
  You know, brace yourself. Six hours later, you know, it's,
• 37:15
  you know, my trial started on a Monday and they ended on a
• 37:17
  Friday. And this is like Friday at like
• 37:20
  445. Deliberations have been in for
• 37:24
  seven hours. And I get brought back into
• 37:29
  court and the judge brings the jury back in there.
• 37:32
  And the judge basically tells the jury, if you can't get a
• 37:37
  deliberation that we're going to come back here on Saturday and
• 37:43
  we'll sit here until we can get the deliberation finalized.
• 37:47
  Now, just common sense, Brent. If, if you're working for my
• 37:52
  company and it you've worked all week and it's Friday near 5:00
• 37:56
  and you don't work the weekends, 9 times into 10, you're going to
• 37:59
  do whatever that supervisor asks.
• 38:01
  So that way you can be off at Friday at 5:00 and then you
• 38:04
  know, you can we'll see on Monday, right?
• 38:06
  So when the deliberations lasted for seven hours, it was a
• 38:11
  telltale sign to us that somebody in the room didn't
• 38:16
  agree with Gil. You don't deliberate that long
• 38:19
  if everybody agrees. So some type of conversation
• 38:21
  took place in that room that somebody in that room didn't
• 38:24
  believe that I was guilty, right?
• 38:28
  When they brought the jury back in and they gave them that
• 38:31
  ultimatum to either get it right by 5:30 or 5:00 or come back the
• 38:35
  next day. They came back in 20 minutes
• 38:39
  guilty of four out of five charges.
• 38:42
  And that's how that's how it happened.
• 38:44
  My sentencing was set off for 30 days and 30 days later, you
• 38:49
  know, we had a sentencing hearing.
• 38:50
  I had character witnesses come. I had Little League baseball,
• 38:53
  parents from children, I had coach, we had family, friends,
• 38:55
  people from the university and the judge gave me a 27 year
• 38:58
  sentence. The prosecutor in my case asked.
• 39:01
  She floated the idea that I could get a life sentence in
• 39:04
  prison, but said that she would leave it up to the judge.
• 39:07
  So she floated the idea that a life sentence could be handed
• 39:11
  down. And then the judge made his
• 39:13
  final decision. You know, it was unanimous about
• 39:16
  my character, who I was in our community.
• 39:19
  And the judge gave me a 27 year sentence.
• 39:23
  Wow. What was your what?
• 39:25
  What do you? What goes through your mind in a
• 39:27
  moment like that? You know, I felt that I started
• 39:34
  immediately calculating how old I would be when I came home.
• 39:37
  I started calculating how old my mom would be, my children would
• 39:40
  be. You know, I thought about how
• 39:42
  hard I worked to get to this point with fighting and then to
• 39:45
  lose it all. I started thinking about good
• 39:50
  people that started falling off in my life that I had no longer
• 39:53
  communication with. And it was just depressing.
• 39:57
  You know, I write in my book, the first three years of my
• 39:59
  incarceration were a blur. You know, I talked about, well,
• 40:02
  in my second book, I talked about the fights.
• 40:04
  I talked about, you know, the use of drugs.
• 40:07
  They're trying to cut cope with the depression that I was going
• 40:10
  through. That you had a man that had
• 40:12
  never been in trouble. And now I put it all on the line
• 40:15
  and I'm playing roulette and it doesn't hit my color and off to
• 40:20
  the prison I go to an environment I wasn't prepared
• 40:23
  for, an environment that was a culture shock, an environment
• 40:27
  that I had to learn quickly how to survive.
• 40:30
  And, you know, just the grief of losing it all at its highest
• 40:35
  level, it's just one of the most.
• 40:38
  I want to get, I, I want to get into all that, Walter, because
• 40:42
  entering a world that you never planned on going in, I'm, I'm
• 40:46
  sure with the, the type of sentence you had, it wasn't a
• 40:49
  lower security prison. It was probably a medium or
• 40:52
  higher. But I want when we get back, I,
• 40:55
  I want to go into how you handled that and how that you
• 40:58
  found yourself and found a passion in the prison and
• 41:02
  helping people before you do that.
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• 41:51
  criminal justice system. I'm a member of the White Collar
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  free. Whether you're just starting
• 42:00
  your journey or you've made it through to the other side, this
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  is great space for you. You can join us on Zoom Monday,
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  7:00 PM Eastern Time. I want to tell everybody that
• 42:07
  there's a White collar conference this October 11th.
• 42:11
  So if anybody wants to check that out, go to prisoners.org
• 42:14
  for all the details. So, Walter, you you enter, you
• 42:20
  enter this prison you never planned on being in and you say
• 42:27
  the first three years were just a blur.
• 42:32
  Walk is what does walk beside you in that place?
• 42:34
  What? What?
• 42:35
  How do you handle it? Well, you know, I think when I
• 42:41
  went through the reception center, because of the charges
• 42:44
  that I lost trial on, not the person that I am, the person
• 42:48
  that lost trial, the charges were high custody charges.
• 42:53
  And what that means is that when you go to prison and you lose
• 42:58
  trial on difficult charges such as attempted murder and
• 43:04
  somebody's egregious charges, you're going to be housed in
• 43:08
  custody with people who live like that, who have really done
• 43:13
  crimes like that, who are aggressive, you know, people.
• 43:17
  And then you put all these people under one roof and tell
• 43:21
  them to survive. And, you know, it becomes a
• 43:25
  survival of the fittest mentality.
• 43:28
  The week will be picked on. You know, you better have a head
• 43:31
  on a swivel. You better learn quick.
• 43:34
  And, you know, that was just a very difficult time because I
• 43:37
  felt in my mind that I needed to become a part of my environment.
• 43:44
  So usually here in society that I'm I'm a park of my
• 43:47
  environment. I grew up in a bad neighborhood.
• 43:49
  I sold drugs, you know, this is my life.
• 43:51
  But now it was reversed that I had never been this.
• 43:55
  And you put me in this environment and I better become
• 43:58
  like the pack. If not, the pack is going to
• 44:01
  chase the wink. And that's just how it goes.
• 44:04
  And, you know, there were times in there that I had to, you
• 44:09
  know, stand tall and go through a lot of things that condition
• 44:14
  me for the duration of my prison sentence.
• 44:17
  You know, it it, you know, it's one of those things.
• 44:20
  It got bad before it got good. And, you know, it kind of shaped
• 44:23
  me where I would never let somebody take or harm me, you
• 44:27
  know, because those are some of the prison etiquettes that you
• 44:29
  must learn and you must learn fast that if you allow people to
• 44:32
  take from you, then they're going to always take from you.
• 44:34
  If you allow somebody to harm you, then you're the you're the
• 44:36
  prey out there and people are going to do whatever they can to
• 44:40
  to pray on you. So I knew at least, you know,
• 44:43
  being in that culture that I didn't want to be the week.
• 44:47
  So, you know, I started working out.
• 44:49
  I started to try to figure out how I can align my schedule up
• 44:53
  with, you know, being away from this dormitory as much as
• 44:57
  possible where I didn't have to be around aggressive people.
• 45:03
  You know, maybe if I had to come back at night and sleep there,
• 45:05
  but I needed to find a job or do something that keep my mind and
• 45:07
  my time busy versus being in a dormitory where people want to
• 45:12
  hurt, fight, take rape, you know, you name it, it's
• 45:16
  happening in here. So, you know, it was just a bad
• 45:20
  time. And, you know, I started to
• 45:22
  understand gang culture, you know, prison etiquette, the do's
• 45:26
  and don'ts. You see, you don't see, you
• 45:27
  hear, you don't hear. And, you know, before I knew it,
• 45:31
  three years of my life had passed by with, you know, some
• 45:35
  trials and tribulations. Yeah.
• 45:38
  And did. You did.
• 45:39
  You stay plugged in with your family, your mom, your kids.
• 45:44
  Yeah, No, no, for the children. The children were eventually
• 45:50
  taken. There was a custody battle going
• 45:52
  on between my mom and my ex-wife with the court system about who
• 45:58
  should have custody. You know, you was labeled
• 46:00
  mentally unstable. You know, you should have went
• 46:03
  through serious evaluations to get the children back.
• 46:05
  But, you know, the child custody service immediately gave the
• 46:08
  children back to their mom. And it was we, my family was
• 46:13
  never able to overcome that hurdle with getting the children
• 46:16
  back in our lives. So the time of my incarceration,
• 46:19
  then the entire time of my incarceration, there was no
• 46:21
  communication with my children. You know, they were kept away
• 46:25
  from me. And they were kept away from,
• 46:27
  Yeah. I mean, like, you know, they
• 46:29
  were kept away from my family, too, on the outside.
• 46:31
  So it became like a divided family, a war between families,
• 46:35
  you know, and at the end of the day, I think that side didn't
• 46:38
  understand that it takes a village to raise a child, that,
• 46:41
  you know, a child deserve as much love as possible.
• 46:45
  And if you want to alienate a child from their loved ones, it
• 46:49
  says a lot about your character. It says a lot about who you are
• 46:52
  as a person. So that was going on on the home
• 46:55
  front, but behind the gate, you know, you know, I, I started to
• 47:01
  learn very fast on, you know, the do's and don'ts.
• 47:05
  And then like I was getting transferred from prison to
• 47:07
  prison. You know, like there might be a
• 47:09
  gang stabbing and they do a population adjustment at one
• 47:12
  prison, then I would be transferred to another.
• 47:14
  And you know, that was like the first 3 institutes that I went
• 47:19
  to. That was what was happening.
• 47:20
  So I'm just getting shipped around from prison to prison
• 47:25
  until finally I got to a prison where, you know, something
• 47:28
  changed my life. Yeah, let's, let's talk about
• 47:32
  'cause I, I know there's was ACEO that said something to you
• 47:36
  that caught your attention, that you changed.
• 47:42
  Yeah, it's a, it's a retired Sergeant here in the Florida
• 47:46
  Department of Corrections. You know, she, her family member
• 47:49
  worked in a classification and she was able to review my chart
• 47:54
  or guess I was being talked about.
• 47:55
  And she pulled me aside one day and asked how, how come I'm not
• 47:59
  working in the law library as a law clerk, working on my prison
• 48:03
  sentence? You know, she knew exactly who I
• 48:04
  was, how much time I had. And from there it was, it was
• 48:09
  the avalanche that started and she ended up retiring.
• 48:13
  You know, she became the librarian.
• 48:15
  She requested that I work in there.
• 48:17
  And like she was really hands on about me learning the law.
• 48:20
  You know, she really challenged me to to rise above my
• 48:24
  environment and focus on what was most important.
• 48:28
  And most people who know me personally, Brent, you know,
• 48:31
  like, know that I like challenges.
• 48:33
  You know, I for some reason in my life, if somebody tells me
• 48:36
  no, I can't do it, I try my hardest to do it.
• 48:38
  Like I've never been a handyman in my life.
• 48:41
  But if somebody says like what we need to get this light up or
• 48:43
  we need to drill this down, I'm gonna try it because I accept
• 48:46
  the challenges. And, you know, when she was able
• 48:49
  to challenge me, that's when my life started to change for the
• 48:52
  best. And she paired me up with a law
• 48:55
  clerk who had a life sentence and he taught me a little bit.
• 48:58
  And you know, through just working and trial and error,
• 49:02
  like my life started to change because I understand, I, I
• 49:05
  started to understand the law. And then my prison statue
• 49:09
  started to raise or rise because now I became like the law guy of
• 49:13
  the prison. So people who?
• 49:15
  Want to talk? Or people who want to have find
• 49:18
  out answers about the case or where it went wrong.
• 49:20
  Like I became like a popular person and it gave me an
• 49:24
  opportunity to start trying to change and save lives.
• 49:28
  And you say you just became obsessed with the law, you know,
• 49:32
  and I, I, I, I love that kind of word obsessed because that, that
• 49:36
  it's, it's, you know, coupled with passion that can really
• 49:39
  change a lot of things. And when, when I know you
• 49:44
  started working through with other people and seeing results,
• 49:49
  when was it that you thought that there was a possibility for
• 49:52
  yourself? I definitely went like I told
• 49:56
  you, there was a guy that the first guy that I freed, his name
• 49:58
  was Ivan Williams. He's out of Polk County,
• 50:00
  Florida. You know, being able to set him
• 50:04
  free, you know, they end up shutting the prison down.
• 50:07
  They had emergency release for him when I was able to to, you
• 50:12
  know, get him a release from incarceration.
• 50:14
  And then like the word spread throughout the prison that like,
• 50:17
  I was a law clerk who did it like that gave me all the
• 50:20
  confidence in the world that I needed to apply that same
• 50:24
  tenacity to my own case. You know a good mechanic, he he
• 50:30
  can fix any car, but in his driveway he's got the car that
• 50:33
  is still sitting. Not fixed.
• 50:35
  And she has not fixed. And I felt like I didn't.
• 50:38
  I felt like learning the law and working to help others was a
• 50:42
  good way to deal with the trauma that I went through for the
• 50:46
  system. But I wasn't prepared yet to
• 50:50
  unpack the emotional damage that the system had did to me.
• 50:53
  So working on my case was never a forefront.
• 50:56
  I was working on other cars, but seeing that car drive off and go
• 51:00
  home for Ivan gave me a sense of belief that I could get my car
• 51:06
  back on the road and I could go home too.
• 51:08
  And that moment, you know, it changed me.
• 51:13
  You know, it gave me, it gave me that sense of purpose that what
• 51:16
  I was doing was, was was right and I was on the right track.
• 51:20
  And then it just became a relentless pursuit to crack the
• 51:24
  code on what happened with me. So I know that too.
• 51:28
  Is it? I know this just because of the
• 51:32
  number of people I've talked to that have done this.
• 51:34
  But there's so many Nos, there's so many rejections when you go
• 51:39
  through it. So it, your resilience in this
• 51:42
  situation is not just the knowledge, but you have to have
• 51:46
  the mindset that I'm going to stick with this.
• 51:49
  I'm going to, I'm going to, I know that I, I might get a no on
• 51:52
  this, but I'm going to learn a little bit from it and I'm going
• 51:55
  to push another one forward. And, and I'm assuming that's
• 51:59
  just what happened with you. You just kept stepping into.
• 52:03
  I, I, you know, the no's are real.
• 52:06
  You know, Brent, I have 42 no's before I had a yes, you know, I,
• 52:10
  you know, I, I know that number for a fact, you know, so I don't
• 52:13
  know, I have 42 Nos through the entire process from the day of
• 52:17
  my rest to the time that I heard the yes, I had 42 Nos.
• 52:21
  And, you know, it's, it's easy to see here and say now that I
• 52:28
  had the resilience. But like, every time that I
• 52:31
  heard the no, I felt like I was being pushed further to see, you
• 52:35
  know, like I was drifting away from the shore.
• 52:38
  But being able to help other people in the process, you know,
• 52:43
  it made me feel like the distance that I was away from
• 52:45
  shore wasn't that far. Yeah.
• 52:47
  You know, when I go to the the conferences or I go to, you
• 52:51
  know, the universities across the country and speak, I often
• 52:55
  tell people that, you know, what was inspirational for me was the
• 52:59
  story of Harriet Tubman. You know, this is a lady who
• 53:02
  endured slavery. She was raped.
• 53:04
  She was separated from children. You know, she was sold from
• 53:07
  owner to owner. And then when she found a way to
• 53:10
  get free, she didn't just escape to free herself.
• 53:14
  She did something inconceivable. She went back and started
• 53:17
  freeing others. And, you know, just being able
• 53:20
  to read the courage of people in our our history.
• 53:24
  You know, I felt that I needed to focus on myself because it
• 53:28
  was the most important thing. But if I had the ability to free
• 53:32
  somebody else, I felt like I was doing good in the world even
• 53:36
  though I was incarcerated. Well, that that's a big deal in
• 53:38
  prison to be able first of all, to be somebody that can help
• 53:42
  somebody in prison and and actually free somebody from
• 53:46
  prison while you're in prison is is quite a story And but it it
• 53:52
  also fuels your tank. It gives you fuel in your tank.
• 53:56
  But I'm I'm curious. Walter Lake, how did it?
• 54:01
  How does the the all those knows?
• 54:03
  And then when did you see light? What happened in your in your
• 54:09
  appeal process where you saw you 'cause you're pro SE?
• 54:12
  You didn't have an attorney. And I know you, you reached out
• 54:15
  to a lot of different universities and the different
• 54:17
  people that helped you, gave you books and different things, but
• 54:21
  you were pro SE. Meaning for those out there in
• 54:25
  the Cayman Islands, that means you're, you're, you're
• 54:28
  representing yourself in this situation.
• 54:31
  At what point did you see a light?
• 54:33
  That was like, Oh my gosh, this is an opportunity that I could
• 54:35
  actually get out? Well, after one thing is I I
• 54:41
  became like a a avid reader of the floor Law Weekly.
• 54:46
  For those who don't know, what that is, is that it's a review
• 54:50
  journal that gets published every week, that new cases get
• 54:55
  put in there for cases to help people get their sentence
• 54:58
  overturned. So this review journal came out
• 55:01
  once a week. And you know, every library in
• 55:05
  the Department of Corrections receives this News Journal.
• 55:08
  So when it used to come to our library, I used to take it back
• 55:10
  to my dorm on breaks and I used to read it, read it all night
• 55:15
  and just try to read through this journal to see if there was
• 55:17
  any cases that mirrored mind that if this case was able to
• 55:20
  free somebody, then maybe I could apply this in my case and
• 55:24
  it can free me. So at the time I had, when I
• 55:30
  filed the motion that got me out at this time, I felt like I had
• 55:34
  enough. I knew it was airtight.
• 55:36
  I knew that I would get a court date.
• 55:38
  I knew that they would bring me back from prison and they would
• 55:40
  drive me back to the courthouse that sentenced me.
• 55:42
  I knew it. I knew it in my heart.
• 55:44
  You couldn't tell me anything different.
• 55:45
  I don't care if I had to wait two years before they answered
• 55:47
  it. I knew without a shot of a doubt
• 55:51
  that I would go back to court, that I would have my fight in
• 55:53
  court again. I filed that motion.
• 55:57
  And then I had a nagging, A nagging mom who, you know, would
• 56:03
  go back and forth and say, well, what about the doctor in that
• 56:07
  case, you know, would he make a difference?
• 56:10
  And I, I didn't want to go back into filing another motion
• 56:14
  because I believe in my heart, I already had enough.
• 56:16
  But she kept being persistent of, you know, you need to check
• 56:20
  with this doctor, you need to check with this doctor.
• 56:21
  So we came up with a game plan that I would look for cases to
• 56:26
  see if that would have an impact and maybe deciding my freedom.
• 56:32
  And sure enough, and the Florida law Weekly, a case came out
• 56:35
  where a doctor was able to testify on the defendants half
• 56:39
  to secure his freedom. You know, the doctor was able to
• 56:42
  bring medical evidence, was able to, you know, go to cross
• 56:46
  examination and fight for the accusers freedom.
• 56:50
  And that's something that's unheard of that you have a
• 56:52
  medical physician that comes and testifies for the defendant.
• 56:56
  So just even reading that was, you know, it was just mind
• 57:01
  boggling that, you know, this occurred.
• 57:04
  And sure enough, you know, it mirrored my case.
• 57:07
  And then I wrote a supplemental motion for this specific issue
• 57:13
  to fight for my freedom. We was able to secure a
• 57:17
  notarized statement from the doctor, an affidavit, you know,
• 57:20
  speaking about what he would testify.
• 57:22
  It matched the prongs of what this case law would need to be
• 57:27
  submitted. And I wrote this.
• 57:28
  And now the percentage of securing not only a court date,
• 57:33
  but securing my freedom, to me, it just went through the roof.
• 57:37
  Like there was no way that you could deny this if he could come
• 57:39
  back and testify that I feel like it was a lock.
• 57:43
  And you know, usually just for the viewers, usually when an
• 57:46
  inmate is pro SE, meaning that they go to the law library and
• 57:49
  they filed a motion by themselves.
• 57:51
  Usually that motion won't get hurt for two years because
• 57:54
  there's no attorney. They put it in a pile and when
• 57:57
  they get to it, they get to it. So when I filed the supplement
• 58:01
  of motion, the motion that I had filed had already been in the
• 58:04
  system probably a year. So then they attached the
• 58:08
  supplement emotion and then probably, you know, eight months
• 58:13
  later I got, I started getting in the response from the court
• 58:17
  that, hey, you know, we see you have merit in this motion.
• 58:20
  We're going to grant you a court date.
• 58:22
  And then the avalanche started to happen.
• 58:24
  How long had you been in prison at that point?
• 58:28
  I think I did a total of at that point.
• 58:36
  It was probably about the time that I got hurt was probably
• 58:41
  about eight years. So I had you like 2 1/2 years in
• 58:44
  jail and then eight years in prison.
• 58:47
  So we're looking at about a decade already.
• 58:50
  Yeah, that's a long time. So Walter, how does it work?
• 58:55
  So you they say, how are you notified that you have a court
• 58:59
  date? Like how does that all work?
• 59:01
  So when you file a motion with the court system as a pro SE
• 59:06
  litigant, it goes to a judicial assistant, OK, So in a judicial,
• 59:10
  A judicial assistant will review the documents to make sure it's
• 59:14
  facially sufficient. Make sure that you have merit.
• 59:16
  They will look at it and see if it's worth an argument in front
• 59:21
  of court. OK, Once they do it, they will
• 59:24
  put that motion or you're, you're you're you on the docket
• 59:28
  for court date. And basically what happens is
• 59:32
  they the, the, they file a motion, the course of file a
• 59:35
  motion for writ of your body. And what happens is they're
• 59:39
  basically telling DLC that we're going to take him out of DLC
• 59:43
  custody and bring him back to county jail custody.
• 59:46
  And for me, it had been in court or had been in custody a decade.
• 59:52
  And then like I went back for over a little over a year
• 59:59
  process before I was able to secure overturning my
• 1:00:02
  conviction. Well, tell me about what
• 1:00:04
  happened in the in the courtroom.
• 1:00:06
  Were you there? I was there, you know, being
• 1:00:10
  able to being brought back to court that day, you know, after
• 1:00:14
  and I pride myself. Maybe it's egotistic like I
• 1:00:20
  pride myself at this point being a legal Beagle.
• 1:00:22
  So like, you know, my ears and antennas are up, like I'm
• 1:00:26
  catching the song with dance. You know, they often refer to it
• 1:00:29
  as kangaroo court. You know, it's already pre
• 1:00:31
  written what's going to happen. Like I was able to like from the
• 1:00:35
  moment I was arrested, the sitting in court with the fear
• 1:00:39
  and then coming back and seeing court as it is now, I was able
• 1:00:42
  to see like a vast difference of the legal arena, how lawyers
• 1:00:47
  play, how prosecutors play, how a judge sits up there and the
• 1:00:52
  decisions they make. So I was able, it's like, it's
• 1:00:55
  like, you know, to me or how I explained it to friends is like
• 1:00:59
  you're taking a high school football player and you're
• 1:01:02
  putting them down there in Little League with the
• 1:01:03
  seven-year olds. And he's just, you know, you
• 1:01:06
  know, he's just leading the years ahead of that competition.
• 1:01:09
  So, you know, being able to be back in this arena, I'm able to
• 1:01:12
  catch things in real time. And as this hearing is going on,
• 1:01:17
  you know, I had a doctor, his name is Doctor Morello.
• 1:01:20
  He's on a lot of my social media.
• 1:01:23
  You know, this is a doctor that came back and put his
• 1:01:26
  reputation, his livelihood, the way that he supports his family,
• 1:01:30
  his everything, his career on the line for me.
• 1:01:33
  And he testified on my behalf. And he is ultimately what
• 1:01:38
  secured my freedom. You know, this man saved my
• 1:01:40
  life. He'll be a long a lifelong
• 1:01:42
  friend every every accomplishment.
• 1:01:45
  That I do. Every accomplishment I do it
• 1:01:48
  like, you know, either I'll text him or I'll get some type of
• 1:01:51
  message from him. But you know, being able to be
• 1:01:56
  free was because of him, and it was because what?
• 1:01:59
  What exactly did he do with the medical evidence?
• 1:02:03
  He was able to bring back medical evidence that's
• 1:02:06
  supported that I didn't commit the crime.
• 1:02:08
  OK. You know, this piss piece was
• 1:02:10
  missed during trial. Had he would have been presented
• 1:02:13
  at trial, it's a likelihood I wouldn't have went to prison.
• 1:02:16
  But because my attorney failed to call him as an expert
• 1:02:18
  witness, it got lost in the shuffle.
• 1:02:21
  You know, my attorney didn't think that this would be a best
• 1:02:26
  move for a legal standpoint. And you know, that's where the
• 1:02:29
  ball got dropped at. That's when the in effect
• 1:02:31
  assistance of a council became real when you got a man fighting
• 1:02:35
  for his life and you don't use everything in your arsenal to
• 1:02:38
  secure his freedom, whether it's because money, because it's
• 1:02:41
  time, it's investigation and you miss this critical piece that
• 1:02:45
  could could have secured my freedom.
• 1:02:47
  So here it is as a pro say litigant, you know, I'm able to
• 1:02:50
  find this missing piece and put it back into the puzzle.
• 1:02:53
  And this puzzle piece is what secured my freedom.
• 1:02:56
  How and then how did it work Walter did was it he were there
• 1:03:01
  any other witnesses that were part of this court hearing or
• 1:03:05
  was it and then and then when it happened, is it just the judge
• 1:03:12
  says what? No, it wasn't.
• 1:03:15
  It was. He came back and was able to
• 1:03:17
  testify and I had the the same prosecutor who prosecuted me,
• 1:03:23
  you know, she was on there to cross examine.
• 1:03:25
  And you know, he made it very clear that the evidence that
• 1:03:31
  support or the evidence that was talked about that I committed a
• 1:03:35
  crime wasn't factual. And it was so factual opposite
• 1:03:40
  that, you know, he could teach this as an adjunct professor at
• 1:03:45
  Emory University where he teaches, you know, college at
• 1:03:48
  for his medical students. So he was able to bring the
• 1:03:51
  medical evidence to show that these crimes that were accused
• 1:03:56
  against me wasn't factual. And, you know, my prosecutor,
• 1:04:01
  you know, relentlessly went after him, trying to cross him
• 1:04:03
  up, trying to get him to say things and, like, he, like,
• 1:04:06
  stood firm to the cross examination.
• 1:04:09
  And you could feel in that courtroom, the conviction
• 1:04:12
  slipping out of her hands. And, you know, it's one of those
• 1:04:16
  things when people ask me, do we have a fair and impartial
• 1:04:19
  system? And the answer is no, because I
• 1:04:20
  watched it. A prosecutor unethically go
• 1:04:24
  after somebody versus conceding that I should have never sent
• 1:04:28
  you to prison because the evidence doesn't support it.
• 1:04:31
  So I had a prosecutor even a decade later, fighting to
• 1:04:34
  continue to keep that nail in the coffin versus doing the
• 1:04:37
  right thing of extending a hand and helping me get out of there.
• 1:04:41
  So, you know, that became a surreal moment.
• 1:04:44
  And when the judge was able to hear this, you know, the judge
• 1:04:49
  ruling at the end of this hearing was, you know, I'm gonna
• 1:04:53
  take time for deliberation. You know, I'll put it in writing
• 1:04:55
  my decision, you know, so back to prison I went.
• 1:04:58
  But I went back to prison, you know, waiting with the
• 1:05:01
  anticipation that it would be favorable to me.
• 1:05:04
  And. That decision, yeah, when that
• 1:05:06
  decision came, you know, it was favorable and.
• 1:05:11
  Where were you, huh? Where were you when you got the?
• 1:05:16
  The, the I I was in, I was, yeah, I was somewhere doing
• 1:05:20
  something. But like, you know, I remember
• 1:05:21
  calling home and surprisingly, like, instead of me getting the
• 1:05:24
  legal mail, you know, the court system usually updates it
• 1:05:27
  online. So when you're an incarcerated
• 1:05:28
  person, you don't have access to the Internet.
• 1:05:31
  So my family actually knew before me.
• 1:05:33
  Before you like. Yeah.
• 1:05:34
  And then having that conversation that, you know, the
• 1:05:37
  judge had overturned the 27 year sentence like it was just.
• 1:05:41
  I can't imagine. Yeah, it was a moment of relief,
• 1:05:44
  but it wasn't celebrated, you know, as openly one, because
• 1:05:51
  when you're in an environment where people have tried, tried
• 1:05:55
  and tried and you're celebrating something that they didn't get,
• 1:05:58
  you know, sometimes I've seen the turn ugly that, you know,
• 1:06:02
  just because of the emotional damage that the system has done
• 1:06:05
  to people that they could turn on you or, you know, lose it
• 1:06:08
  because you got something they didn't.
• 1:06:10
  And at the same time as well, you know, it was short, shortly
• 1:06:14
  celebrated because I felt that there there was so much work to
• 1:06:18
  be done that there are other people that deserve their
• 1:06:21
  freedom and they should be getting good news just like I
• 1:06:25
  should. So how did you get released?
• 1:06:28
  I was released on a on a weekend, you know, it was a
• 1:06:32
  happy moment. My my family was there.
• 1:06:36
  Well, excuse me, it was just my mom, you know, I don't think,
• 1:06:39
  you know, I don't think she was going to share that moment with
• 1:06:43
  anybody else. I think, you know, she had been
• 1:06:48
  with me every step of the way through my incarceration.
• 1:06:50
  You know, she was the bully that kept my head above water.
• 1:06:53
  You know, I spoke to her every day.
• 1:06:55
  She was a piece that kept me afloat.
• 1:06:59
  And when the news was, you know, given to her that, you know, I
• 1:07:03
  will be released on this time, you know, you know, she came by
• 1:07:08
  herself. And you know, which was super
• 1:07:11
  cool for this moment is that I had knew that this was a
• 1:07:15
  possibility and it was coming and we had security, a news crew
• 1:07:23
  that want to do a documentary. So we was able to, you know,
• 1:07:29
  this was given to us. This was a sponsorship that fell
• 1:07:32
  into our lap about catching these moments.
• 1:07:34
  So there was a small camera crew there to catch me being released
• 1:07:39
  and my first day. And there's a video that I
• 1:07:41
  played that is kind of like a build up, you know, for a
• 1:07:46
  possible documentary. So these things were actually
• 1:07:48
  caught on camera. As it happened.
• 1:07:50
  Yeah, as it happened the first day.
• 1:07:52
  And I think, you know, you know, just that moment of being able
• 1:07:57
  to be free, to be able to hug my mom as a free man, to know that
• 1:08:02
  I didn't die in prison, that I survived it, that I did as best
• 1:08:06
  I possibly could. I helped others.
• 1:08:08
  That, you know, the character of a man like Martin Luther King
• 1:08:11
  says it's not. And, you know, not where it's at
• 1:08:14
  when it's convenient, but in the times of trials and
• 1:08:17
  tribulations. And, you know, I wanted my
• 1:08:20
  character to always be on display.
• 1:08:22
  I wanted people to always know whether I was free or I was
• 1:08:25
  incarcerated, that I was a good human being, that I help people.
• 1:08:29
  And no matter where I was placed at, that I would do my best.
• 1:08:33
  And you know, you know, it was just a good moment to see my
• 1:08:37
  family that day. Well.
• 1:08:38
  Yeah. And I'm curious what re entry
• 1:08:40
  was like for you because you you're somebody that was in
• 1:08:43
  prison for a long time, but but you get your case overturned.
• 1:08:48
  So how? I was lost.
• 1:08:50
  How did lost present itself? I was lost.
• 1:08:53
  You know what, I went in when there was a BlackBerry Curve
• 1:08:56
  8930, you know, and then I come home and it's touch screen this
• 1:09:00
  and you know, I was definitely lost.
• 1:09:04
  You know, the, the clothes that I was from 13 years ago.
• 1:09:08
  So like even the, even the clothes that I was wearing was
• 1:09:11
  super outdated. You know, there was definitely,
• 1:09:15
  you know, just getting out. Like, you know, the culture had
• 1:09:17
  changed. Like, you know, there's no
• 1:09:20
  disrespect. I love, I love the the culture.
• 1:09:23
  But like when I went in, like the first night, the first day,
• 1:09:28
  I couldn't decide on what I want to eat.
• 1:09:29
  So we ate at Olive Garden and like when I went to away, you
• 1:09:35
  know, there was no females walking around and gym clothes,
• 1:09:38
  spandex like that was unheard of.
• 1:09:40
  Like that was like, like, you better not come out of the house
• 1:09:43
  and like my first meal. Like I'm at Olive Garden and
• 1:09:46
  there's a girl that I feel like is like she's dressed
• 1:09:48
  inappropriate. I'm like, where am I?
• 1:09:50
  Like, you know, so those things had definitely changed.
• 1:09:53
  Like the culture had changed, you know, But what I'm most
• 1:09:57
  grateful for is that the people that I love the most remained in
• 1:10:01
  my life, you know, that that didn't change.
• 1:10:04
  And I knew as long as I had those people in my life that
• 1:10:07
  everything was going to be alright.
• 1:10:09
  You know, I had heard the reentry horrors, the horror
• 1:10:12
  stories of can't find a place to live, can't find a job, you
• 1:10:15
  know, but I was very fortunate that, you know, I had, you know,
• 1:10:19
  my mom there to to take me back in, to give me a roof over my
• 1:10:22
  head to to be there to help me get my life back started and.
• 1:10:28
  Crucial. I don't know stuff, yeah.
• 1:10:31
  I don't know where I would be without her support.
• 1:10:35
  And you know, and for the things that she's given me, not just in
• 1:10:38
  incarceration or this justice system or the trials that I went
• 1:10:41
  through, but just in life, man. She's just been that person
• 1:10:44
  consistently throughout my entire life that has always had
• 1:10:47
  my back and has proven it time and time again.
• 1:10:50
  So, you know, being free, you know, I can't like when I first
• 1:10:55
  started my speaking engagements, like I used to take her
• 1:10:57
  everywhere because I felt like, you know, I wanted you there,
• 1:11:00
  mom. I wanted you there to be able to
• 1:11:01
  see these things. Now, now Fast forward, you know,
• 1:11:04
  I can't take you everywhere because now some of the places I
• 1:11:06
  go, like they give me a demanding schedule where I got
• 1:11:08
  to teach and I got to speak and the conferences.
• 1:11:11
  But I felt like, you know, that first year, I wanted her to to
• 1:11:15
  be a part of that, to to be able to see me go after these goals,
• 1:11:19
  you know, things that I had talked about for years.
• 1:11:22
  Like now I'm living it like national speaker.
• 1:11:24
  I'm an author. I statement to arenas where I
• 1:11:27
  speak for the marginalized populations.
• 1:11:28
  I talk about the the recidivism rate, the juvenile justice.
• 1:11:33
  You know, I think one of the biggest moments was graduating.
• 1:11:36
  You know, that's something that I was against.
• 1:11:38
  I saw that on LinkedIn that. Was yeah, I was against it.
• 1:11:40
  I told her I would never go back to school.
• 1:11:42
  Mom was demanding to that. Demanding like I told her I
• 1:11:45
  would never go back to school. I, you know, I was told and you
• 1:11:48
  know, before my arrest, I was 12 classes away from graduating
• 1:11:51
  with that broadcasting degree from University of South
• 1:11:53
  Florida. And like I, I was 12 classes
• 1:11:56
  away. So, you know, to come back to
• 1:11:59
  school with something that I never thought I would do.
• 1:12:02
  And for her, like that was just something that I had promised
• 1:12:05
  and I wanted to keep that promise.
• 1:12:06
  But more importantly, you know, I wanted to go to law school.
• 1:12:10
  You know, that's a dream that I have.
• 1:12:11
  I felt like the 10 years of retaining law is something that
• 1:12:14
  I would be great at, not just from a financial standpoint to,
• 1:12:18
  to raise money. I felt like, you know, I could
• 1:12:21
  definitely do some, some good in our community.
• 1:12:23
  Law school told me that you can't come to law school unless
• 1:12:26
  you have a bachelor's degree. So, you know, I got mom on one
• 1:12:29
  side pushing for the degree. I got law school, you know, so I
• 1:12:33
  went back, I finished, I got a minor in criminal justice.
• 1:12:35
  I had an exciting time when I went back to school.
• 1:12:37
  I, I got, you know, I took 14 credit hours.
• 1:12:42
  I got all A's and 1B. How long has it been, Walter,
• 1:12:46
  since you've gotten out? So 14 days ago was the 31st, so
• 1:12:52
  it's been three years and 14 days.
• 1:12:54
  Wow, you've done a lot in those three years.
• 1:12:56
  I mean, if, if you anybody follows Walter on LinkedIn or,
• 1:13:02
  or wherever he's, he's a man on the move.
• 1:13:06
  I'm I've been curious, like I know that your kids were a big
• 1:13:11
  part of this whole thing. How did that and does that
• 1:13:15
  resolve itself or what? You know, you know, that's a
• 1:13:21
  personal question. You know, I definitely don't
• 1:13:23
  answer for you because maybe one day my children will be able to
• 1:13:26
  watch this. You know, when I got separated
• 1:13:30
  from them, that was one of the most difficult days of my life,
• 1:13:33
  you know, to be a father who was there.
• 1:13:36
  Here's so many times my father left, you know, my father left
• 1:13:38
  my mom. But you know, being a man that
• 1:13:41
  stepped up to the plate to raise his children, to become a single
• 1:13:44
  father, to show them that like the love that I have for you was
• 1:13:48
  more than in a responsibility. You know, when I got separated
• 1:13:52
  from them, I lost all form of contact.
• 1:13:54
  And then like my mom was battling my ex-wife for
• 1:13:57
  visitation rights and couldn't get that.
• 1:14:00
  And, you know, as a family, we decided it was best we give up
• 1:14:04
  fighting for that and focus on my freedom.
• 1:14:07
  You know, even though my family from time to time still tried to
• 1:14:09
  reach out to her and to see the children, you know, they were
• 1:14:12
  met with resistance. They were met with no.
• 1:14:15
  And that relationship between my children and my family and
• 1:14:18
  myself was severed when I became free.
• 1:14:22
  You know, it's one of the biggest goals that I have on my,
• 1:14:25
  my, my ball, my goal, my, my board goal.
• 1:14:28
  Excuse me my I have AI have a board that's like a.
• 1:14:32
  Vision Board A. Vision board, Excuse me, that's
• 1:14:34
  what I was looking for. I have a vision board that I
• 1:14:36
  have in my home and I have all my goals, speaking engagements
• 1:14:39
  and things. Graduation places, go law
• 1:14:42
  school, You know what I need to do to get there?
• 1:14:44
  Home ownership. I have so many goals on this,
• 1:14:46
  but to be reunited, it's at the top of the list.
• 1:14:51
  And I've tried to reach out to my children.
• 1:14:55
  I've gotten partial communication back from my
• 1:14:58
  daughter, nothing from my son. So, you know, they were raised
• 1:15:03
  by that family. You know, there's no telling all
• 1:15:05
  the things that they were told, you know, And I'm a firm
• 1:15:08
  believer that, you know, if you know, one day that I could get
• 1:15:12
  back in their lives and they can reach out to me, that, you know,
• 1:15:15
  I will welcome it. But in the meantime, you know, I
• 1:15:19
  got to continue to, you know, go after the goals that I have set.
• 1:15:23
  I got to try to continue to help as many families, you know, to
• 1:15:26
  be a voice in our community. You know, when my children were
• 1:15:29
  taken away, you know, being incarcerated, they gave me an
• 1:15:32
  opportunity to be a parent to other children who didn't have a
• 1:15:36
  father either in the picture or they wasn't raised.
• 1:15:40
  So, you know, being able to be a parent, I was still a parent,
• 1:15:43
  you know, just to different children.
• 1:15:45
  You know, there will be plenty of families that seem that
• 1:15:47
  visitation and thank, thank me for taking on that fatherly role
• 1:15:50
  with their child or keeping them safe or keeping them motivated.
• 1:15:54
  So that being said, you know, my relationship is estranged and I
• 1:16:00
  look forward to the day that, you know, I can reunite with
• 1:16:03
  them. In the meantime, I'm going to
• 1:16:05
  try to be as productive as possible.
• 1:16:07
  Well, I I wouldn't bet against you, Walter, if it's on your if
• 1:16:11
  it's on your vision board, I can see you conquer and things
• 1:16:13
  because you you seem to conquer things when you can become
• 1:16:16
  obsessed and and and move towards your passion on it.
• 1:16:22
  What do you think, Walter? You've got such a like,
• 1:16:25
  incredibly fascinating story. What do you think's your biggest
• 1:16:31
  take away through all this? That's a good question.
• 1:16:37
  I think my biggest take away is that, you know, I think the old
• 1:16:42
  cliche is that you can do anything that you put your mind
• 1:16:44
  to. I think the biggest take away is
• 1:16:47
  that like that, that drive, that belief system that we all carry
• 1:16:52
  it. You just need somebody to turn
• 1:16:55
  that switch on. You know, there's so many times
• 1:16:57
  that I walk into spaces where I speak at conferences,
• 1:17:01
  universities, mentorship programs, and there are so many
• 1:17:05
  people that are going through an incarceration.
• 1:17:09
  It might not be physically, but there are a lot of us that are.
• 1:17:11
  Prison in their mind. They're going through prisons in
• 1:17:14
  our mind. They're going through, you know,
• 1:17:16
  situations in life that they feel that they can't overcome.
• 1:17:19
  They felt like that, you know, all the deck is stacked against
• 1:17:23
  me. And I feel that I want to be one
• 1:17:25
  of those people that I can take, you know, that drive that belief
• 1:17:31
  and help others find that switch to that is the biggest take away
• 1:17:35
  that I that I take from my situation that, you know, a lot
• 1:17:39
  of people say, OK, well, you're a criminal justice advocate, but
• 1:17:41
  you also do motivational speaking.
• 1:17:43
  You know, I try to tell people and I try to say this on every
• 1:17:46
  platform that I want to be the new age leader.
• 1:17:50
  Like if I could have a special wish granted, it would be to be
• 1:17:53
  the modern day Martin Luther King.
• 1:17:55
  You know, you look at our, our leaders and you know our, our
• 1:18:00
  civil leaders, you know, they're either died or they're getting
• 1:18:04
  old and they need somebody else to pass the torture that can go
• 1:18:07
  into the communities, go into the courtrooms, go into the
• 1:18:10
  political circles and be able to speak and be a voice and stand
• 1:18:14
  firm until change happens. And I want to be that person one
• 1:18:18
  day where I can walk into those spaces and demand change and not
• 1:18:23
  take a no for an answer and stay rude until change happens.
• 1:18:28
  And I try to tell people who fight for goals, whether they're
• 1:18:31
  trying to bring family home from incarceration, children from
• 1:18:34
  incarceration, or they're, you know, going through trials and
• 1:18:37
  tribulations. You know, here in society that
• 1:18:40
  you just need to encounter a person who could turn the switch
• 1:18:43
  on for you. And when you're able to fill
• 1:18:45
  that energy, rise above you, you are now given a sense of purpose
• 1:18:49
  that you can accomplish those goals.
• 1:18:51
  And you probably need a support system in your life to keep you
• 1:18:54
  rooted until you can resource goals.
• 1:18:55
  And then you play it forward and you go help the next person
• 1:18:58
  until we can try to change the culture of, you know, a downward
• 1:19:02
  spiral with losing children to a mass incarceration.
• 1:19:05
  The the prison, the pipeline that we currently see or the
• 1:19:09
  people who are in society that get dealt a bad hand and don't
• 1:19:12
  know how to overcome it. You know, I had a picture
• 1:19:15
  perfect life and in 20 minutes it was derailed for nearly
• 1:19:18
  thirteen years. So if I can make it, you know, I
• 1:19:22
  want to be living proof that you can make it too.
• 1:19:25
  I love that. I love that.
• 1:19:27
  If people want to get a hold of you, well, let's.
• 1:19:30
  Call me. No, you know, I'm on the social
• 1:19:37
  medias. You know, most people who like
• 1:19:39
  buy my book off Amazon when they need questions for, you know,
• 1:19:45
  you know, some guidance or some advice.
• 1:19:48
  You know that they have questions with my legal book.
• 1:19:51
  You know, they can reach out to me on Facebook.
• 1:19:53
  Walter Dunn. If you go to Instagram, it's you
• 1:19:56
  can put in Walter Dunn as well. Or you could put in motivational
• 1:19:59
  wall. It's all one word.
• 1:20:01
  There is motivational wall on TikTok, but most people that I
• 1:20:05
  get communication from is is on LinkedIn.
• 1:20:09
  You know, that is like my I feel like LinkedIn should sponsor me,
• 1:20:12
  Grant like. I feel like.
• 1:20:13
  I feel like they should be sponsoring me.
• 1:20:15
  Like I really love LinkedIn. It gives me an opportunity to
• 1:20:18
  connect with people all over the country, some people
• 1:20:20
  international, you know, So I love LinkedIn.
• 1:20:24
  I feel like that's, you know, where the professionals are at.
• 1:20:27
  That's where people who are, you know, you got to, you got to
• 1:20:29
  surround yourself with people that are going in your
• 1:20:31
  direction. So LinkedIn from a business
• 1:20:33
  standpoint is where I'm at mostly.
• 1:20:35
  But you know, if, if people want to reach me, they could reach me
• 1:20:38
  on one of those outlets and, and I would definitely respond to
• 1:20:40
  them. Love it, love it and the and the
• 1:20:43
  and the two books again that that's through innocent eyes.
• 1:20:46
  And what's the the you're navigating the criminal justice
• 1:20:49
  system. Is that what?
• 1:20:50
  It Yeah, my personal story is Through Innocent Eyes, that's on
• 1:20:53
  Amazon. And then my legal book, How to
• 1:20:56
  Navigate through the Criminal Justice System is also on Amazon
• 1:20:58
  as well. And their purpose for the the
• 1:21:01
  second book, the navigation book, is because when I went
• 1:21:04
  through the system, you know, my family was ignorant.
• 1:21:06
  We didn't know anything but to pay an attorney.
• 1:21:09
  We didn't know the attorney, never had a relationship with
• 1:21:11
  him. But you, you graduated from some
• 1:21:13
  law school. We're going to put money in your
• 1:21:14
  pocket to fight for my freedom. And in the process of working on
• 1:21:18
  my freedom, I started to keep like, you know, a best practice
• 1:21:22
  book on what you needed to know going through the criminal
• 1:21:24
  justice system because there's so many attorneys out there that
• 1:21:27
  have taken my family's money. And that's going to take your
• 1:21:29
  family's money as well. But I wrote a book to give you
• 1:21:33
  the best information that you need.
• 1:21:35
  So that way you need to help offset the cost of paying legal
• 1:21:39
  attorneys. I love that a lot of times, you
• 1:21:41
  know, families can, you know, kind of walk themselves out of
• 1:21:44
  danger if they just had the book.
• 1:21:46
  So, you know, when you look online for criminal justice
• 1:21:48
  books, they're usually three, $400.00.
• 1:21:50
  I told myself I never want to make that a business.
• 1:21:53
  I truly want to help people. So I put my book online for 50
• 1:21:56
  bucks just to give people the best information possible.
• 1:21:59
  So that way, even if they get the book and they're sitting
• 1:22:01
  down with the attorney, they could be educated on how to take
• 1:22:03
  that conversation. I like that.
• 1:22:06
  I like that a lot. That's good stuff, Walt, and I
• 1:22:11
  want to, while we're talking about things here, I want to
• 1:22:13
  thank Homestead Financial Home Mortgage to let me use this
• 1:22:16
  podcast room and all the fancy lights and cameras.
• 1:22:19
  If anybody's got home mortgage sees out there, Greg Aftyev is
• 1:22:22
  your guy. And I've got a book too.
• 1:22:24
  It's called a nightmare. Success, loyalty, betrayal, life
• 1:22:27
  behind bars, adapting and finally breaking free.
• 1:22:30
  And if you want to know what I'm doing, go to brickcassidy.com.
• 1:22:33
  I spell it wrong. I spell it with ATY, not a DY.
• 1:22:37
  And as I used to say to my people when I was writing my
• 1:22:40
  emails back and forth from Leavenworth, stay strong.
• 1:22:42
  I'll do the same. Walter Dunn Man, I, I've, I've
• 1:22:46
  really, you know, I, I feel like sometimes I get re inspired by
• 1:22:52
  the stories that I get to listen to week in, week out.
• 1:22:55
  And this is one of those times. I, I really think what you're
• 1:22:58
  doing and what you doing with your life and how you've handled
• 1:23:01
  yourself is, is quite an inspiration.
• 1:23:03
  So I really appreciate you being here today.
• 1:23:06
  Well, Brent, I mean, it's the same feeling, you know, I, I
• 1:23:09
  admire what you do. I admire that you give people
• 1:23:12
  the platform to be able to, to get their message out, to be
• 1:23:15
  able to speak out. But most importantly, I, I
• 1:23:19
  really appreciate the, the example that you set for others.
• 1:23:22
  You know, you've had a nightmare happen in your life.
• 1:23:25
  You've overcame it. You shown resilience, you know,
• 1:23:29
  you're giving people now an opportunity to get good messages
• 1:23:32
  out there. And that's what we need in our
• 1:23:34
  community. People like you that can go
• 1:23:37
  through the worst nightmare and, and change their narrative.
• 1:23:41
  And you are your own storyteller.
• 1:23:43
  So I, I wish you all the success.
• 1:23:45
  I'll definitely always be in contact with you.
• 1:23:47
  But you know, I admire that you give people an opportunity to to
• 1:23:51
  be heard. And, you know, there are so many
• 1:23:53
  stories that I could give you of people that will never see
• 1:23:56
  freedom that you, you and I both know that probably deserve their
• 1:24:00
  freedom. But because of, you know, time
• 1:24:02
  restraints on legal motions or, you know, excessive following
• 1:24:05
  that they'll never get the opportunity to, to have a voice
• 1:24:08
  that's free. So, you know, when you're able
• 1:24:11
  to make those voices being amplified, you know, that's
• 1:24:15
  really special to me. And like, it's very commendable.
• 1:24:17
  So we are all big fans. So we, we, we truly want to tune
• 1:24:22
  in and make sure that we listen in and like, I appreciate you
• 1:24:26
  having me on your show as well, Brent.
• 1:24:27
  I appreciate that a lot, Walt. Nightmare success in and out.