Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / She Was a Credit Union President… Then the FBI Showed Up | Kelly Givens’ Story

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She Was a Credit Union President… Then the FBI Showed Up | Kelly Givens’ Story · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:00
Suddenly the doorbell rings and I think it was about 9:00 AM and
0:04
it's the FBI and the Virginia State Police.
0:07
They walk up to the door and masks.
0:08
And I honest to God thought that one of the ladies in the mask
0:11
was somebody that I worked with in the credit union.
0:13
I'm like, oh, they're like, they're coming to apologize,
0:17
right? They're coming to make amends.
0:19
We're. Going to talk about this.
0:20
Right. We're going to talk about this,
0:21
right? And I'm not a criminal type.
0:24
I'm not the type to know how things work so I let him in my
0:29
house and I sit and talk to him for like 2 1/2 hours.
0:34
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
0:37
Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
0:40
Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
0:43
nightmares that set yourself free.
0:46
We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
0:48
Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
0:52
These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
0:56
humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
0:59
something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
1:02
built up in your own. All right, welcome back,
1:05
Nightmare success or not, listener.
1:06
This is where you come from. What happens when your worst
1:08
year becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
1:10
overcome? Set yourself free, folks, Don't
1:13
forget, don't forget to follow, subscribe, share.
1:18
Like this thing out. Comment really helps the show
1:20
and I appreciate it. So who are we talking to today
1:23
on Nightmare Success? We're talking to Kelly Givens
1:27
and I think she is, I came across her on TikTok.
1:31
Believe it or not, I, I was, I, I thought that, you know how you
1:35
just kind of like just randomly scrolling.
1:37
She, she popped up and I thought, wow, she really tells
1:41
her story well. So I, I reached out to her and
1:45
she's, she's doing a lot. So a little bit about Kelly.
1:47
What happens when a career built on trust is in a federal
1:51
conviction? When your identity is stripped
1:53
overnight from professional to inmate?
1:56
Today's guest, Kelly Gibbons, lived that reality Once working
2:00
inside a credit union, she found herself on the other side of the
2:03
system, serving time in federal prison and facing the kind of
2:06
judgement that doesn't end with the sentence when the sentence
2:09
does. But instead of hiding from her
2:11
past, she's doing something most people never would.
2:15
She's telling the world all about it through her TikTok
2:18
platform, Convicted and climbing.
2:20
Kelly is turning her nightmare into a message of survival,
2:23
accountability, and second chances.
2:25
This is a story about falling hard and choosing to rebuild out
2:28
loud. And if you if you want to check
2:31
out convicted and climbing, she's always got good little
2:35
takeaways from from her from her story.
2:39
And it's a fascinating story. I can't wait to jump into all
2:43
this. Before we do, I want to
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Autoplasdirect telling Brent from Nightmare Success sent you.
3:17
You know, we talk a lot about the rebuilding after
3:19
incarceration on this show, finding a job, contributing to
3:22
community, finding purpose. But I recently came across a
3:25
book that reframes the entire conversation the way many
3:27
haven't considered. It's called Second Chance
3:30
Economics by Nevin Shetty, and it just debuted as a #1 new
3:34
release on Amazon. This isn't a book about criminal
3:37
justice reform. It's a book about economic
3:39
potential. Shetty starts with an overlooked
3:42
reality. There are 80 million Americans
3:44
with a criminal record. That's a massive, underutilized
3:47
talent pool, and one whose barriers to employment cost our
3:50
economy a staggering 1.2 trillion a year.
3:53
What I love about this book is the approach Shetty uses data to
3:57
show how second chance hiring isn't just a social good, it's a
4:01
competitive advantage. It lowers turnover, fills labor
4:03
gaps, and creates A virtuous cycle of growth.
4:06
Whether you're a business leader, a policy maker, or
4:09
someone who believes in reframing the narrative around
4:12
just as impacted individuals, Second Chance Economics is a
4:16
must read. Pick up your copy today on
4:18
Amazon. Hello, Kelly Gibbons, how are
4:20
you? Good.
4:21
How are you, Brent? I'm good.
4:24
So yeah, you, I want to get into all this about because I know
4:30
not only are you doing this on TikTok and sharing your story
4:35
and, and giving people what I love about what you do is it's
4:40
it's so relatable. And and I think the more people
4:43
can relate to people who've gone through or gone to they don't
4:46
have, maybe that's that hardcore prejudging of someone that they
4:53
don't know, you know, it, it gives them maybe a feel for,
4:57
well, maybe I ought to listen to what that story's about.
5:00
Maybe I should talk to maybe I should give that somebody a
5:02
second chance. Maybe I should give them a job.
5:04
Maybe I should let them live at my apartment, whatever that is.
5:08
But Kelly, before we get into all that, tell, tell me a little
5:12
bit about you. Where'd you grow up?
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Mom, dad, siblings? What was life like for you
5:18
growing up? So I primarily grew up in Salem,
5:23
VA. My dad was in the Air Force.
5:27
I was born in Florida. But we quickly moved to this
5:30
area and didn't have great childhood, you know, a lot of
5:35
instability. My dad's an alcoholic.
5:36
Moving a lot, probably. No, he he was out.
5:40
There, you didn't move a lot. Usually you do.
5:42
Right, he did what he was supposed to do and then left.
5:46
But just lots of instability with unresolved trauma from both
5:52
of my parents life and alcoholism on my dad's side.
5:57
And so they split up when I was 9 and it was just my mom and I,
6:05
you know, I didn't do very well in school.
6:08
And looking back, I'm realizing that that's a lot of undiagnosed
6:13
attention deficit. But, you know, we just kind of
6:19
did what we had to do to get by, right?
6:21
And that's kind of how my job started off with the credit
6:25
union was. Doing what you could do to get
6:28
by. Well, was that that way all the
6:31
way through high school? I mean, were you just a kid that
6:34
was just doing what you had to do to get by?
6:36
Like did you have like a social circle of people that you know,
6:43
or was school just not great? School was not great I had a
6:48
social circle I had a social circle and I I started working
6:53
at 14 with the workers permit, saved up my money, had to buy my
6:57
own car. We, we did not have money when I
6:59
was growing up. So I but yeah, I had a social
7:03
circle, but I never really had anybody to inspire me to do
7:08
bigger, better things, if that makes sense.
7:10
So it was just. You didn't have somebody looked
7:12
up to or to mentor you or, and those type of things.
7:15
Yeah. Right.
7:15
It was just get a job, do the bare minimum, do what you're
7:18
supposed to do. And yeah, so that's how I ended
7:21
up with the credit union job. I answered a blind box ad in the
7:24
paper for a teller. How old would you have been when
7:27
I was? 18 I was six months out of high
7:30
school. OK, so you you answered this ad
7:33
for credit union and you get hired?
7:38
Got hired as a teller, worked there for maybe 3 or 4 years
7:44
before I got promoted to an administrative assistant.
7:48
Did very, very well. I've always been the teacher's
7:51
pet type to I, I want to impress people as much as I can and did
7:58
very, very well. And then also got promoted to
8:04
operations manager and at that point, what?
8:09
Does an operations manager do in a credit union?
8:13
They manage well. Do they manage people or do they
8:17
manage processes? Processes, not less, less
8:21
people, more processes. But this was a very small credit
8:24
union, so the operations manager at that point was truly doing
8:27
most of everything involved. You know, you're talking about
8:30
card services and the EFT processes and the building
8:35
maintenance. And there was a lot to do
8:36
because there were maybe 6 employees total of the whole.
8:40
OK. It was really small, OK.
8:42
Right. Very small.
8:45
And then the president at the time, who I had worked with
8:49
since I started there, she started kind of having some
8:52
health problems and wanted to step back and recommended me for
8:57
the president's role. So this would have been 13 years
9:04
after I started. Wow, so you really did move up
9:08
and stay there and that because so you're so let's see, would
9:12
you be in your early 30s then? I was. 13 years from 18
9:18
something like I'm I'm bad with math so. 2928, I am too.
9:23
I think it was 28 or 29, I can't remember.
9:27
And the board of directors was they trusted the president's
9:33
opinion of, you know, recommending me for the
9:36
position. I had no idea what I was doing.
9:38
Well, you're young too. I mean, the the position to the
9:41
board saying, hey, this, this person could be the president of
9:44
the credit union would be wow. Yeah, and I was, I was newly
9:48
divorced too, so it was kind of a whole change for my whole
9:54
life, you know, I mean, everything changed at that
9:56
point. And I tried to do the job as
10:00
best I could with there's like leagues that you can join for
10:05
the credit union to help out. And it's governed by the NCUA,
10:08
which is like the FDIC for credit unions.
10:13
So I'm on the phone with these people constantly trying to get
10:16
help left and right. What do I do?
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I don't know how to do this. How do I fix this?
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What do I do? And you know what about the?
10:22
President of the bank. Did she hang around at all to
10:25
try to help you walk through some of the things you needed to
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do? She.
10:29
Did she stepped back in like an advisory type role?
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She was so I, I love her dearly. I, I do to this day.
10:37
I love her dearly. But she was, she had a hard time
10:40
letting go of some of the things.
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And she was kind of like going behind my back and telling me
10:44
that I was doing stuff wrong. And it was upsetting the board
10:48
of directors, you know, and they were telling me like, you need
10:51
to toughen up and tell her not to do this.
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And I am not that person. So she eventually was let go by
11:01
the board of directors with a severance package kind of thing,
11:06
you know, and she'd worked there for a long time.
11:09
But at that point in time, the credit union was failing.
11:15
We were losing membership each month.
11:19
We had talked about a merger with another local credit union
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because we just weren't doing well.
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So when I got the position, the board is like, look, this is it
11:28
like we got, we got to fix it or we're done.
11:30
And so I rebranded and that was where the the media loves to
11:36
make fun of me for a book that I read that was recommended to me
11:40
by a league representative. But everything I learned about
11:42
business, I learned from the Grateful Dead.
11:44
And it's, I mean, if you know anything about the Grateful
11:46
Dead, it's, you know, making everyone feel like a family,
11:49
giving things out for. Freely they record during the
11:52
concert. Right.
11:54
And, you know, being a part of something bigger and, and
11:59
that's, I'm telling you, I sucked miserably at the
12:04
accounting side of that job, but man, I could grow that credit
12:07
union. It worked really, really well
12:10
doing like branded items and having events.
12:13
We did things like trivia nights and we had a big annual meeting
12:18
every year and we would do like big extravagant prizes for the
12:21
annual meeting and it went really, really well.
12:24
Membership was through the. Roof So you were a good
12:27
marketing person? Yeah, it, it did really well.
12:33
But in the meantime, as we were growing, I, I definitely should
12:37
have hired some form of an accountant or something.
12:40
And I just didn't know what to do.
12:42
I didn't know how to manage business.
12:45
I was good at certain aspects of it.
12:46
I was horrible. You're bringing in business.
12:49
I was bringing in business, but I was horrible at the personnel
12:51
aspect. I hired all the wrong people.
12:58
But yeah, so I I was horrible at the accounting.
13:03
I was doing what I thought was right with the accounting and it
13:08
was just wrong. And my NCUA Rep, at that point,
13:14
he was a terribly nice guy, wonderful person, but I think he
13:18
was just kind of overlooking everything and just kind of
13:22
checking off on it. Yeah, you're doing great.
13:23
At one point there's a camel rating that they give credit
13:26
unions. At one point he had rated as a
13:28
camel one, which is the best you can get.
13:31
And meanwhile I'm horrible at accounting and making so many
13:35
mistakes and not knowing any of it because I guess he just
13:38
really wasn't delving into it very much.
13:43
So our NCUA Rep got switched and this was 2020 like July 2020.
13:54
I'm thinking this person you're saying that that's an auditor
13:57
basically that comes by and. An auditor, yeah.
13:59
And I mean, they're there for for help, but they also come in
14:03
and audit annually. So our our Rep got switched and
14:08
the new guy that came in was by the book and he immediately saw
14:13
discrepancies. And you know, I did everything
14:16
that I could to help them find whatever the discrepancies were.
14:19
But I'm just explaining like this is just how I do this, you
14:22
know, So that started the whole deep dive of an audit, if you
14:29
will. And in during that deep dive
14:31
where they wanted to look through every single thing.
14:34
And now looking back, I know it's because they thought I was
14:37
stealing money. They thought I was there was
14:41
like 1,000,000 some some discrepancy of 1.3 million in
14:46
accounting and of course it looks like this girl, this young
14:50
CEO has stolen 1.3 million. So they are digging through
14:55
everything and in the course of digging through everything and
14:58
me getting account records and stuff for them, I realize that I
15:03
have been spending credit union funds on my Amazon account and
15:08
had no idea. And I can't tell you the feeling
15:14
of just the absolute stomach sinking feeling of recognizing
15:19
what I had done, how bad it was in thinking I'm going to lose my
15:24
job. Oh my.
15:26
God, was it? Was any of it Like I'm sure that
15:29
possibly that the credit union had an account right for Amazon
15:33
like to buy supplies and stuff like that, right?
15:37
What what more or less happened was as they got crossed over.
15:41
Well, I had, I had two accounts set up on Amazon.
15:44
One was personal and one was the credit unions and both billing
15:49
were the same and I just had no idea.
15:53
So I got all that added up and it was about $9000 and it had
15:59
happened over the course of about two years.
16:02
But not 1.3 million. Not 1.3 million, not even close.
16:08
And when I found it, the first thing I did, the first thing I
16:12
did, I picked up the phone and I called the chairman of my board
16:15
and I said, I'm so sorry, but I have to explain this to you.
16:18
And I know this is terrible. And I I can pay it back right
16:23
now. And she's like, hey, it's no big
16:27
deal. No, no big deal at all.
16:29
You'll pay it back. You know, let's tell the rest of
16:31
the board about it. So I made phone calls to every
16:33
single board member at that point.
16:35
And everybody's like, it's cool. You know, you're amazing at what
16:39
you do. It's cool.
16:41
And not to mention we were going through this extreme audit where
16:44
we felt like the NCUA was really not being fair to us.
16:48
And there had, there had been a recent, I want to say it was in
16:52
Damascus, VA. And there had been a recent
16:55
credit union where NCUA went in and shut them down doing the
16:59
exact same thing. And they had done nothing wrong.
17:02
They just came in and said you guys are insolvent, shut them
17:04
down. And we felt like that's what
17:05
they were doing to us. So the chairman of the board,
17:08
now we're really fighting against some of the strict stuff
17:13
that was going on, which now looking back made it look like I
17:16
was trying to hide something and I absolutely wasn't.
17:19
So I report that and I'm in the process of, you know, board
17:24
meetings and I've got a, a check made out to pay that back.
17:28
And next thing I know, I'm called in and put on
17:31
administrative leave. And this was August of 2020.
17:36
And I'll never forget that meeting too.
17:38
I'm sitting there with three of my board members who, you know,
17:41
I was close with my board. There were board members because
17:46
I don't know if you've ever tried to form a board of
17:48
directors, but it's really hard to get people to volunteer their
17:51
free time for things. So I had like my mother-in-law
17:54
was a retired math teacher. She was on my board of
17:57
directors. And and of course, the board of
17:59
directors itself is who votes these people in.
18:02
So you make recommendations and then they have to vote them in.
18:05
One of my husband's best friends was on our board.
18:07
He was a finance manager with a car dealership.
18:10
So they were all, you know, relatable careers that they had.
18:18
Been counting right? Right.
18:21
And then another board member was the one of the previous
18:26
AUSAS in Roanoke. So they weren't dummies and a
18:33
guy was an accountant for our treasurer, was the accountant
18:37
for the US court systems in Memphis.
18:41
Sounds like a pretty good board. It was a great board, definitely
18:46
highly competent people on this board.
18:48
But anyway, so I'm sitting at our table in the beautiful new
18:53
office that I've just done with three of our board members and
18:57
they're telling me, look, NCUA wants us to put you on
19:00
administrative leave. We don't know what's going on.
19:02
And I go straight into, all right, here's what we're going
19:05
to do. My administrative assistant is
19:08
going to help us with this. They know the accounting side of
19:10
it. We're going to do this, we're
19:12
going to do that. And they're like, you need to
19:13
just shut up. You're done.
19:15
You know, we're not taking your advice.
19:17
You need to just get out right now.
19:19
And I was devastated. And they tell me you need to
19:22
hand your phone over. And I didn't think anything of
19:25
it. I just handed my phone to them.
19:29
And I went home and told my husband, I don't know what's
19:33
going on, but they put me on administrative leave.
19:36
And, you know, you start talking to people and, and people go,
19:40
that's wrong. They can't do that to you.
19:42
You should call an attorney. And I, I did end up calling an
19:46
employment attorney and they are drawing up paperwork for
19:49
wrongful termination and stuff like that.
19:52
And meanwhile, about a week later, I got an envelope in the
19:57
mailbox from FedEx officially firing me after 17 years of
20:03
working there, a letter in the mail.
20:05
And the letter said something like, we're investigating this
20:09
and we're not. We're not fully aware of all of
20:14
the misdoings that you've done kind of thing.
20:18
So of course I'm working with that employment attorney and
20:20
they're like this looks bad, but I'm not sure what's going on
20:23
with it. And anyways, nothing else
20:26
happens from that point on until that.
20:30
So that's August, nothing else happens until January of 2021.
20:34
And at that point, I've gotten a new job with Guaranteed Rate
20:37
Mortgage. I'm underwriting mortgages in my
20:40
house, which was an amazing job, great company to work for.
20:46
And suddenly the doorbell rings and I think it was about 9:00 AM
20:50
and it's the FBI and the Virginia State Police.
20:54
And The funny thing was it was still mask time.
20:58
So they walk up to the door masks.
20:59
And I honest to God thought that one of the ladies in the mask
21:03
was somebody that I worked with in the credit union.
21:05
I'm like, oh, they're like, they're coming to apologize,
21:09
right? They're coming to make amends.
21:10
We're going to talk about this. Right, We're going to talk about
21:13
this, right? No, it's the FBI and I, I'm not
21:17
a criminal type. I'm not the type to know how
21:22
things work. So I let him in my house and I
21:25
sit and talk to him for like 2 1/2 hours.
21:28
And of course, their spiel is, we want to hear your side of the
21:31
story. It's time for us to hear your
21:34
side of the story. And I, I tell him, you know,
21:36
from soup to nuts, this is what we're doing.
21:40
And they left. And I have a cousin who is an
21:45
attorney. She actually is the head of the
21:47
Innocence Project at UVA Charlottesville.
21:51
And I call her and she's like, oh, you should have never let
21:54
them in the house. I'm like, well, now I know.
21:57
Like, I wouldn't have known that.
21:58
And she's like, it's OK, you did what everybody you know who's
22:01
not guilty would do. And then.
22:07
Plus you just don't know, you know, the thing of it is, and,
22:09
and it's something I think we shouldn't just skirt over.
22:13
You know, I've been doing this show for a long time and, and I
22:15
run into a lot of people who have the exact same one guy just
22:20
talking the other day. He he was an attorney and and
22:23
let him in. So I think the immediate thing
22:28
that people think is I want to help.
22:31
I want to show, you know, I want to do what you're you being a
22:35
rule father follower or whatever.
22:37
It's like being pulled over by the Highway Patrol or something.
22:40
You want to help, you want to be respectful, you want to be
22:42
polite. And so people don't
22:44
automatically put up their defenses, say I, I can't talk to
22:47
you. I don't need I, I need an
22:49
attorney. But it's the only thing you can
22:53
do because the only reason that they're wanting to talk to you
22:55
is to try to entrap you or get you to say something that adds
23:00
to their narrative or whatever they're trying to do.
23:03
Because they've already created before they ever come talk to
23:05
you, they've already created a narrative and it's not good for
23:08
you. So you talking is they're trying
23:11
to grab bits and pieces of it. And the other thing is, is they
23:13
don't. They don't, those are not taped
23:17
conversations. Those, those are notes that they
23:19
take. So that's another thing that,
23:21
you know, I've people don't know, but it's so important for
23:27
people when they get into that situation to say, hey, if
23:30
they're, if they're coming to talk to me, then I, I need to, I
23:33
need to have a professional talk to the professionals.
23:36
Yes, absolutely. And it doesn't make you guilty.
23:39
No, no, it just. Protects you, period, you know,
23:42
and I know that now, but yeah, so I that employment attorney,
23:47
as soon as I called them, they said you got to get criminal
23:49
defense attorney right now. And they recommended somebody
23:53
who ended up being wonderful. And I went and met with him
23:58
again. It was COVID time, so he was
24:00
sick and it took it like a week. And by the time I get in there,
24:03
I'm like, Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?
24:04
Like, I don't know what to do. I don't know where is this going
24:07
to go? And he basically, they're all so
24:10
calm, it's no big deal. It's not their life, you know?
24:14
And he's like, well, let me reach out to the USA and let's
24:18
see what's going on. And of course, he reaches out to
24:20
them and they can neither confirm nor deny if they're
24:23
investigating me or what's going on.
24:25
So then it's just more waiting and nothing happened again for
24:32
probably another six or eight months.
24:34
Wow, so so so you waited six months and they showed up at
24:38
your house. You used to talk to them for 2
24:40
1/2 hours and then another 6 to 8 months goes by with nothing.
24:44
OK, wow, you were living in purgatory.
24:47
It was and it we just didn't know.
24:49
I mean, I remember at one point being afraid to be home alone
24:52
with my son because what if they come to arrest me and what are
24:56
they going to do? Like, is he going to have to go
24:57
to social services or something? So.
24:59
Well, I mean, the funny that you bring that up, Kelly, because
25:02
two or three episodes ago, Ryan Bloom did have that happen.
25:05
His wife left the house. He, he had one of his, his son
25:10
was there and his other two kids were gone with the wife.
25:13
And so they did come and arrest him at his house.
25:17
And he they did leave the little boy inside and I think he was
25:20
like 8 years old. And then Ryan had to call his
25:23
dad. Thank goodness he answered the
25:25
phone to come be with the little boy.
25:28
And the little boy was hiding in the house when the dad arrived
25:30
because he was scared to death. He just seen his dad taken away
25:34
and you know it. It's hard to believe that those
25:38
type of things happen. And the other thing that's
25:40
really hard to believe too is that when they do something like
25:44
that, I understand that. I'll say, you know, somebody's
25:47
got a gun and he's killed somebody and they've trapped him
25:50
to to this house. And so they take him more or
25:53
less for the safety of the the neighborhood or whatever.
25:58
That's not what's going on here with these situations.
26:00
No, they're they're handcuffing white collar crowds and acting
26:05
like that. They're violent and it's
26:06
terrible. And it's intimidating as hell.
26:10
It is. So anyway, 6 to 8 months goes
26:12
by. And.
26:14
What, what do you think? What are you thinking, Kelly?
26:16
And, and this time period now, now it's been a year or more.
26:22
What what are you and your husband thinking?
26:24
And you're working like what's going through your mind?
26:28
We're thinking the absolute worst.
26:30
We're thinking I'm probably going to go to prison and all
26:34
over a misunderstanding. And at any given moment, you
26:37
know, there was, there was even a time.
26:39
When the FBI tell, did the FBI tell you what they were wanting
26:45
to do? They tell you what they thought
26:47
was wrong? No.
26:48
When they came to your house, OK, They just wanted you to tell
26:51
them your story. And that was literally all they
26:53
said. Tell us your side of the story.
26:55
OK all. Right.
26:57
So there was one point we live on a a dead end and there was
27:01
one point when this dark vehicle is driving by several times a
27:04
day and we're paranoid that it's the feds watching our house.
27:10
Well, it ended up being somebody looking for a lost cat like it's
27:13
but you get so on edge that you can't not think about it.
27:18
So there's a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of therapy.
27:23
What? Consuming.
27:24
It is. And so we lived in that strange
27:29
purgatory of what's going to happen and it it was
27:32
debilitating. It truly was.
27:35
So the feds contact my attorney and they say, hey, we've got a
27:41
PowerPoint that we want to present to you guys.
27:44
And my husband couldn't go with me that day.
27:49
And I asked my sister-in-law to come in to go with me because
27:52
I'm, I'm just scared out of my mind and I don't want to do it
27:55
by myself. And she says, you know, I can't
27:57
cut. She lives in Raleigh.
27:58
She said I can't come. But let's ask Jenny, my cousin
28:01
that lives in Charlottesville, if she can come.
28:03
She's the better person. Anyway, she's the attorney.
28:05
So she comes with me and they make her sign in coming into the
28:11
the FBI building with me. They make her sign something
28:14
saying that she is Co counsel and I'm sure she had no
28:18
intentions of wanting to do that at that point.
28:20
But at that point she became Co counsel.
28:22
So they walk you into this room with this huge table and there's
28:28
every chair at the tables filled and they're introducing you.
28:32
As you know this is the head of the FBI or whoever it is and
28:35
NCAA and Virginia State Police and all these people are in
28:39
there for you for a little old $9000 error you.
28:43
And there's a screen that says the United States of America
28:47
versus Kelly Givens. And it was terrifying.
28:53
But then when they started the PowerPoint, it almost became
28:56
comical because the things that they presented, which, and I
29:01
don't know if you had to do anything like that.
29:02
I don't know if, I don't know if.
29:04
I never talked to one FBI agent. Never.
29:07
I never talked to anybody on the other side for six years.
29:10
Wow. Yeah, Well, I don't know what
29:12
they would have called this other than intimidation, but the
29:17
things that they had in it were like text messages, because
29:22
remember, they have my phone text messages that were taken
29:26
completely out of context, but they were going to use those
29:30
things against me and that was their evidence.
29:35
And at this point, they're telling me that my.
29:39
What are the text messages referring to?
29:41
Is it it has to do with business or?
29:44
No, it was like my into examiner had said something about going
29:51
down for bad accounting. OK, It was something like that
29:55
that was taken completely out of context that had nothing to do
29:57
with any of this. And but they tried to turn that
30:01
against me. And at this point their numbers
30:03
are 1.3 million in loss and I'm facing a minimum of like 76
30:10
months in prison. Wow.
30:12
And this is their offer to me. So and then of course, you leave
30:16
and it's like, well, you know, time's of the essence.
30:19
So you need to think about this now.
30:22
And that's their initial plea. That was your plea at 76 months.
30:27
So beginning at 76 months and 1.3 million in restitution and
30:34
my attorney when we got back to his office, he's laughing.
30:38
He's like, because he's seen what I'm presenting to him and
30:41
he's like, this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous.
30:45
There's no way. And he said he would tell me
30:47
several times throughout the whole process, too, that he
30:49
would pull the AUSA aside and say, you know, this isn't a good
30:52
case. You know, what you have is crap,
30:53
right? And she's like, well, we've
30:56
spent, you know, at this point a lot of time investigating this
30:59
and we're not willing to give up on it.
31:01
So that PowerPoint was the the starting point of, you know,
31:06
where they think I'm this criminal mastermind and I've
31:08
stolen all this money. Another several months go by and
31:13
they've lowered these amounts. It went from 1.3 million to
31:17
300,000 to 168,000. And at no point did I really
31:24
ever see any breakdown of where they were coming up with these
31:26
amounts. But when we really got into the
31:30
plea negotiations, it turned into it was 4 to 24 months
31:38
prison time with no restitution amount named, and they were
31:43
going to argue that. I'm curious too, Kelly, at all
31:49
during this time, is this out in the in the media press?
31:53
The first thing that came out in the media was when I signed the
31:57
plea of me, you know, me pleading guilty to doing all
32:04
this. And it actually came out five
32:06
days before my son's birthday. And we had already planned his
32:09
birthday party. And that birthday party was
32:14
really awkward. We, we live in a small town.
32:17
It was a huge deal. It really sucked.
32:22
And we kept my son in the dark on this the entire time.
32:24
We didn't tell him until sentencing.
32:28
We were able to keep him, you know, pretty sheltered.
32:30
He didn't know anything about it.
32:31
And then the minute I was sentenced, we left the
32:36
courthouse and. What?
32:37
What ended up? I forget what What ended up
32:39
being your sentence. Ten months.
32:42
Ten months. So how?
32:46
And I meant to ask you, how old is your son at this point?
32:50
Well, he's 16 now, so it's been six years ago, So he's 10.
32:54
He was 10 at that point, so he would easily know that something
32:57
was going on. He knew there was tension in the
33:00
house for. Sure, but yeah.
33:01
How do you explain to him, how do you explain to a 10 year old
33:04
that mommy might go to prison for 76 months and she might not?
33:09
But we're not really sure. I mean, we had so much stress on
33:12
us to add. That it was quite, a, quite a
33:16
come down from 76 months to 10 months and millions of dollars
33:23
of restitution to whatever the whatever the final number was.
33:27
Let's take a break there because I want when we get back, I want
33:31
to talk about how you went in somewhere, a federal prison, a
33:37
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33:40
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33:43
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35:37
So Kelly, OK, you get this 10 month sentence and your son is
35:42
10 years old. How are you dealing with all
35:47
this? You know, everybody always said
35:51
that we would be relieved once the sentence came because you're
35:55
not worrying about how long. Well, you know what it is.
35:58
Right it here is it, here it is. This is the worst it's going to
36:01
be in. My sentence was 10 months and my
36:02
restitution was 10,000. So it was truly the best outcome
36:07
that anyone could have asked for.
36:12
And I was still terrified. I, I, I didn't even have
36:16
detention in school, you know, like I've never been in trouble,
36:18
never been in handcuffs. I didn't know how I was going to
36:22
get through that or how my husband was going to get through
36:23
that with me being gone. But we immediately just start
36:28
trying to find as much information as we can.
36:30
The judge had recommended Alderson, but I got sentenced or
36:33
designated to Lexington, which was six hours away from home.
36:39
So we had initially had this plan of Alderson is less than
36:44
two hours from our house. You know, they'll be there every
36:47
weekend to see me to probably not going to be there every
36:50
weekend, right? And I'd done all this research
36:54
on Alderson. And then of course, that's not
36:56
where it ended up being. So, right, But no, I was
37:00
terrified and I went into the prison terrified.
37:05
What was your first day like? Everybody remembers I I vividly
37:09
remember my first day. Yeah, we I got dropped off at
37:14
noon and the day that I went in, a lady had escaped, escaped from
37:22
the camp by walking. Everybody down.
37:25
So the whole women's facility was on lockdown and I had to
37:28
stay over at R&D for quite a few hours until I guess they got
37:36
everything secured. I'm sure they were just looking
37:38
everywhere and tossing everything that they could.
37:42
And so anyways, when I finally got over to the camp, there was
37:48
a lady waiting for me because I had scared the unit manager.
37:53
I, I couldn't stop crying. I was, I was terrified.
37:56
I don't know any other word for it.
37:58
And he, he got one of his, you know, favorite inmates to try to
38:03
talk to me and help me. So she was waiting for me.
38:08
And she's like, Hey, you're going to be good.
38:09
You're going to be safe. You know, I've got you,
38:11
Everything's fine. Which immediately helped, right.
38:15
So I kind of made good friends with one of my bunkies.
38:19
We were similar ages and she was actually sentenced to a year in
38:24
a day and had been there a week prior, so our sentences were
38:28
almost identical. Yeah, that that's helpful.
38:31
Right, So we go outside and she's showing me around and
38:35
there's a dog program there, and one of the dogs comes up to me
38:39
and bites me in the leg. Oh no.
38:43
And it it broke the skin pretty bad.
38:47
It was bleeding pretty bad and I had to go to medical and they're
38:53
you can tell they're almost already like please don't sue us
38:56
without saying please don't sue us.
38:59
And they, they gave me antibiotics, but I was terrified
39:03
to take any BOP issued medication.
39:06
Like I don't know what they're giving me if they're telling me
39:08
the truth of what it is and but. I had.
39:11
People, right, but I had people or erase my memory.
39:18
I had people tell me like, look, when those dogs came in, they
39:21
were from a puppy mill. They were really, really in bad
39:24
shape. You probably want to take the
39:25
antibiotic. So I ended up taking the
39:27
antibiotic and I got asked throughout my sentence.
39:31
I was I ended up being there for 7 1/2 months.
39:33
I got asked regularly throughout my sentence.
39:35
You're not suing the BOP, right? Like they didn't believe me.
39:39
I'm not I'm not the type. I don't I don't want to go back
39:41
to court for anything. No, I'm not going to sue you,
39:43
right? But yeah, that first day was
39:47
absolutely miserable. You meet so many people and it's
39:52
hard to remember all these things, and you're just trying
39:54
to adjust and you can't call home yet because none of the fun
39:57
stuff works that quickly. So you just feel alone,
40:01
surrounded by strangers. Yeah, and I think that's a
40:06
really good way to put that is it's it's a very lonely
40:10
existence and you're surrounded by a whole bunch of people all
40:13
the time. And until you get further into
40:17
that environment. And you know, one of the things
40:18
that I was because it is a like I was thinking when I got
40:24
dropped off and I was looking and I look at looking back and
40:27
you know, I just say goodbye to everybody.
40:29
And, and now I'm looking forward and I know that everything I
40:32
know, everything I love is behind me and everything in
40:38
front of me is the unknown. And I don't know anything and I
40:40
can't stop it. I have to go.
40:42
I there's no choice. And so that, and I do think
40:46
that's but on the other side of that, Kelly, and I know you, you
40:51
found this could we talked about, but there's so many
40:54
different people that you meet along this journey inside
40:57
prison. You're like, wow, but I had this
40:59
wrong. What's wrong about this?
41:02
Because I mean, the unknown in your in your mind is always so
41:07
much worse than what reality is. And that's true.
41:11
So anyway, you get into the world of prison.
41:18
What do you how are you thinking, Kelly?
41:20
You're going to get through it. Like, what's do you have a plan?
41:23
Do you are you thinking, OK, I got past this point.
41:27
What's your mindset? Well, I've never, I've never
41:32
been in a physical altercation with anybody.
41:34
I've never been hit or hit anyone.
41:37
And I had it in my head that there was going to be a lot of
41:39
fighting. And there was, let's be honest,
41:42
there was, it's a, it's a small building full of 300.
41:45
It's a. Primitive environment.
41:47
Right. But I had it in my head that if
41:51
I was respectful to everyone and kind of stayed to myself, that I
41:57
was going to be OK. And that worked.
41:58
That worked out well for me. I showed everyone respect.
42:02
I was nice to everyone. Even if somebody was acting
42:05
crazy, like throwing chairs in the Chapel, I might say like,
42:09
hey, you know, do you need to talk?
42:11
And I did my best to be kind and understanding.
42:16
And it it worked well for me. Yeah.
42:19
And I think, I think because this, this show goes in on the
42:22
Adovo platform to 1500 prisons and state prisons.
42:25
And I think one of the things that, and I can't speak to the
42:28
higher level prisons because I was, you know, at Leavenworth in
42:31
the, in the camp level, minimum level.
42:33
But I always tell people when I'm talking to them about when
42:35
they go into prison, that because your, your immediate
42:39
worry is just what you're talking about, Kelly, is your
42:41
really bad things are going to happen.
42:43
And, and, and people do get into fights and people do have things
42:47
that happen. But what I found was, is that
42:50
however you were received on the outside, how people reacted to
42:54
you on the outside is how they'll react to you on the
42:56
inside. If you're somebody that kind of
42:58
gets in, you know, talking smack and doing those type of things
43:02
on the outside, that's kind of stuff will probably cause issues
43:07
on the inside. But if you're somebody that
43:09
generally gets along with people, generally respectful and
43:14
and don't get into other people's business, you're going
43:17
to do just fine. OK, in in prison, world's not
43:21
going to collapse on you. Yeah, and that was the the
43:24
biggest rule that I saw. Truly there was mind your
43:29
business. Don't even if you had a a
43:32
meaningless conversation with somebody about what they're
43:35
going to eat for breakfast tomorrow, don't repeat it.
43:38
It's nobody else's business. And because if you repeated
43:43
anything that anybody said, you were probably going to get
43:46
yelled at by somebody. So, yeah, mind your business,
43:50
keep to yourself when you need to.
43:52
But the, the, the honest to God, truth is, there's so many good
43:57
people in prison. I mean, I have lifelong friends
44:03
and I I'll, I mean, I would, I would fly across the country
44:08
right now for any one of them and do anything I needed to do
44:11
for any one of them because. Yeah, You know, when you spend,
44:15
you meet somebody at work, you know, and you see them, you
44:18
know, maybe a couple hours a week, whatever.
44:21
But when you're in prison, you're with them.
44:23
You're. Not going anywhere.
44:24
You're not going anywhere. You're seeing them 24 hours a
44:27
day. You're eating three meals a day
44:28
with them. That's your person to hang out
44:31
with. So you really get to know
44:32
everyone very quickly and they're in the trenches with
44:36
you. So the friendships that you
44:38
build from, from, you know, prison situations, they're
44:42
pretty amazing. Yeah, and I remember too, even
44:46
when you get up, I I got I had gotten really close to Rick
44:50
Gregg. That was we, you know, we walked
44:52
together, ate together, did all and all this stuff.
44:56
And I remember the day I was leaving, I was so excited just
45:03
to my family was on the other side of this whole thing and
45:07
that day. And but I remember in the
45:10
hallway with Rick, I knew he had two more years and it was like
45:16
you almost feel like you're leaving them on a battlefield,
45:18
you know, and and I knew it was going to so drastically change
45:22
his life in there. Not, not because I'm such a
45:25
special guy, mostly because it was part of his routine.
45:29
You know, everything that was going on was a was his routine.
45:32
And routines are such a big thing in prison.
45:34
And that that stayed with me for a while, you know, while I while
45:39
when I've gotten out is, you know, what is Rick doing?
45:42
You know, how's he doing? It's just kind of an odd thing.
45:46
Well, I still keep in touch with my best friends.
45:49
One of them got out. But I do remember that feeling
45:53
of it's all. It's almost bittersweet.
45:55
Of course you want to go home. Of course you miss your family,
45:57
but you're leaving somebody who has.
46:00
And all of the people that I had connected with, for the most
46:03
part, had lengthy stays. And it's just a terrible
46:07
feeling. But on my way home from
46:10
Kentucky, you know, having my phone back, I downloaded Core
46:15
Links and I had left my e-mail with, you know, my closest
46:20
friends there. And as soon as they got me set
46:22
up, I've talked to him every day since.
46:24
So that's. Great.
46:26
Did you, did you have any issues, you know, before you get
46:32
out, did you have any issues of getting out and getting your
46:35
date and working with your case manager or did that kind of go
46:38
the way? Oh, for sure.
46:41
My original date. So I went in August 8th, which
46:47
was four years after I had lost my job and I was supposed to get
46:55
out. The initial date that I got was
46:57
in December, I think it was December 21st, so it would have
47:01
been right before Christmas and that didn't work out.
47:06
The RRM came back with March 21st when we had requested
47:15
December 21st and I I worked for unit team so I was close with
47:18
the case managers and I'm sure that's why they put that date in
47:21
for me. Then the next date we tried for
47:27
was January and that got denied too and then it was just stuck
47:33
with March. So then what ultimately ended up
47:36
happening was I signed to deny for halfway house because the
47:42
halfway house date was March 21st and my release date was
47:46
March 7th. OK.
47:48
So I had to sign to deny it and March, it was probably the first
47:53
or something of March somewhere. You know when FSA credits post
47:57
it was somewhere around the beginning of March.
47:58
End of February FSA credits posted and my date changed from
48:04
March 7th to March 21st with no explanation and it was
48:10
devastating. You know, you're so close to the
48:12
door and now you have to wait and and it's not long.
48:15
No, no. But that would have been the
48:16
longest two weeks or three weeks.
48:19
So yeah, And I remember being devastated throughout.
48:24
I'm I'm going to miss Thanksgiving already.
48:25
I'm going to miss Christmas, and then I'm going to miss my son's
48:28
15th birthday. It was it was just devastation
48:32
each time and it's it's best just not to get your hopes up
48:34
for any date and count on your official release date and never
48:39
if it comes earlier than great. But so the camp administrator
48:44
there, Miss Ely, got involved with the changing of my date and
48:48
she fought for them to fix my date back because there was no
48:52
explanation for why it would have changed.
48:55
And the first try got denied. But then she kept pushing for
49:01
it. And she came to me on March
49:04
14th, a week after I should have gotten out.
49:07
I was cleaning Ben's visitation. It was about 8:00 AM and said,
49:10
you are going home today. You have immediate release.
49:13
And it was because she was fighting for me to get out of
49:16
there. And I, I think she was crying
49:18
just as hard as I was. It was, it was such a, it was.
49:21
It's just an example of what the BOP does OK.
49:26
How did that work, though? You get released that day,
49:28
there's no preparation for like, your family and stuff to come
49:31
get you. How did you get out of there?
49:34
Well, it's so funny because she comes and says, you know, hey,
49:36
you're going home, come with me to my office and let's call your
49:38
husband. And you have to wait on the
49:41
Sally port. And so it's not nearly as fast
49:44
as what you think it's going to be.
49:45
But we went to her office and I called my husband and I just
49:48
said, honey, Miss Ely got me immediate release.
49:52
I'm coming home, I need you to come get me.
49:54
And he, I swear to you, he just went, I'm on my way and hung up.
50:00
And he caught he was on a work call with his boss at the time.
50:03
He works from home the majority of the time.
50:05
And he said she's coming home. I got to go.
50:08
So he he got in the car right then and there and drove 6 hours
50:12
to come get me. What?
50:14
Was that like, what's, what's you guys or United?
50:19
Oh, it's, it's such a strange thing because, you know, he'd
50:23
come to visit me twice. He's my husband.
50:26
You know, I love him. I'm used to being in his
50:28
presence. But I mean, you couldn't have
50:31
knocked the smile off my face that day.
50:33
And it's just such a strange feeling to be back out in the
50:36
world for. I don't, I don't know about, you
50:38
know, 90 days in prison or a month in prison or whatever.
50:41
But in my, in my opinion, it doesn't matter how long you're
50:44
in there. You're giving up your entire
50:46
life. You're surrendering your
50:47
existence. So any amount of time that
50:50
you're in there is difficult to recover from.
50:53
So pulling out of that complex, I feel like I'm doing something
50:58
illegal and I'm so I get in the car and I'm like go, go, go, go,
51:02
go, go. Get out of here for that change.
51:03
We've got to get out of here. Let's go.
51:05
Yeah, before they change their mind.
51:08
And we we went and got something to eat.
51:10
And being in a a restaurant is weird.
51:14
Having a choice in what you eat is weird.
51:17
It it takes a lot. And I kind of just remember
51:20
standing around like there's this feeling that is, it's kind
51:24
of gone away now of I feel like I still smell like prison.
51:29
I still look like prison. Everyone knows I've been to
51:31
prison. So you're just waiting for this
51:35
judgement that doesn't really happen.
51:38
But you just, it's just such an. Awkward.
51:40
You feel like it's on your skin. Yeah, and you, you can't really
51:43
wash it off very easily, but yeah.
51:45
So we drove home six hours. My son was out with his dad at
51:51
the time and I ran. They were in Panda Express,
51:55
actually in Blacksburg, VA. And I ran in and hugged him.
52:00
He knew I was on my way home. He the original plan was they
52:03
were going to come, it would have been the following week to
52:06
pick me up and he was coming with him.
52:08
But it was also last minute. He couldn't come.
52:10
So it's it's just an insane feeling to be told you're going
52:14
home today. And you know, the weird thing
52:17
about my release was the night before, you know that things you
52:20
can't explain and like the night before.
52:23
So Thursday night, I thought, I need to write letters to my
52:28
friends. It was a week in advance.
52:30
I'm usually not that much of a prepper, but I I sat down and I
52:34
wrote these letters and had them ready.
52:35
And when they told me I was going home, I would have never
52:38
been able to sit and write those letters at that point, but I was
52:40
able to give them these letters that I'd written, you know, of.
52:44
Thank you so much for everything you've done for me in here.
52:46
And you mean so much to me. And I'll never forget you.
52:48
And we're going to be friends forever, you know.
52:52
But yeah. And we.
52:54
So I had to go back to the camp at that point.
52:55
I left men's visitation, went back to the camp.
52:57
And I don't know, when you left, did you give away all your
53:01
stuff? Yeah.
53:03
So you know what that's like? Like I'm sitting in the floor in
53:07
front of my locker and hollering like, who wants this?
53:10
And everybody's like, I want that.
53:11
And all these people are like crowded around my room gathering
53:14
stuff. And I'd actually already made a
53:15
list too, of things that I would give to certain people that
53:18
needed things, but I left with nothing.
53:21
I that's not true. I left with like 2 books and
53:26
left everything else. So let's talk about the whole re
53:30
entry world, because that's the thing that all of us would go
53:35
through this, that we don't really plan on that so much
53:37
because we think the hard part is the prison.
53:40
And then you get out and you're like, I'm so happy to be out.
53:43
And then all of a sudden it hits you that there's all kinds of
53:46
barriers in this sentence that you have that you thought ended
53:49
a prison goes on for the rest of your life.
53:50
You just got to learn to live within it and how you know you
53:54
can thrive within it. So let's talk about that.
53:56
How did you how did you re enter?
53:59
How? What was your world like when
54:01
you came home and what you started doing from that point
54:04
forward? Well, you know, I had the, the
54:08
therapist there, the psychologist at Lexington had
54:10
told me that I needed to start preparing for my release because
54:14
re entry is harder than being in prison.
54:16
And I looked at her like she was crazy.
54:19
But it's the honest to God's truth.
54:20
It really is. Re entry is so such a difficult
54:23
thing. Like I said, the stigma, you
54:25
feel like everybody knows everything.
54:26
And in my town, I felt like everybody definitely did know
54:29
everything. So seeing people out is strange.
54:33
Even coming home and sleeping in your own bed, you, it's almost
54:36
like you know it's not going to happen, but you're waiting for
54:40
the CEO to come and put a flashlight in your face.
54:44
And it's, it's just such a strange thing to recover from.
54:50
But almost as soon as I got home, it was almost like, God,
54:53
did that even happen? You know, it's, it's just such a
54:57
strange feeling. And I think that's probably just
54:59
some sort of defense mechanism to forget it as much as
55:03
possible, right? So I had gotten a job as a job
55:08
coach. I got laid off with Guaranteed
55:11
Rate when the mortgage rates went up and I found a job as a
55:14
job coach. And I help people with any sort
55:17
of boundaries to employment to find and maintain employment.
55:20
So disabilities, criminal background, child care, any kind
55:24
of boundary for getting a job. And I, I started that job before
55:30
I ever got sentenced. They knew my background.
55:34
They knew that I was likely to go to prison and they were
55:39
willing to hold my job for me while I was away, which was
55:41
amazing. Good company.
55:43
Yeah, amazing company. You were very qualified though.
55:46
Well, truly. And I, you know that I remember
55:49
saying that too, like when I get home, I'll understand a lot of
55:53
the people out of prison even better.
55:54
And that's the truth, right? So I came home on the 14th.
56:01
I went back to work on the 21st and I when I when I came home, I
56:08
remember I had cleaned the house really well because my husband
56:11
and son had been here without me and my husband used like a leaf
56:15
blower to sweep It was, it was just a strain.
56:20
Anyways, I cleaned the house and tried to get acclimated.
56:24
My family from Raleigh came in to see me and it's, it's just
56:30
such a strange feeling. It's really just indescribable
56:32
of gratitude and accepting that it's over.
56:40
That's a hard thing to do, but yeah, so I got right back to
56:44
work and I found myself with my clients that have been to
56:48
prison. I share my details sparingly.
56:52
If I feel like my story will help someone, or if I could try
56:56
to make somebody feel better about it, then I will share my
56:59
story. But for the most part, I really
57:00
don't talk about it. Very much going through this
57:05
though, Kelly, you now, you know, have convicted and
57:10
climbing. What what was the spark for
57:13
that? What what made you decide to
57:15
live out loud is and get in front of your story.
57:18
Well, I don't know about you, but when I was in that process
57:24
for a number of years, nobody believed what we were going
57:29
through. We got told there's no way she's
57:31
going to go to prison. This, this will all get cleared
57:34
up. There's no way the government
57:35
wouldn't do that to anybody. And until you go through it, you
57:39
don't believe it. And I wanted to help with that
57:42
stigma of, you know, you hear somebody's story, you read
57:45
something in the newspaper, and you can read between the lines
57:48
now of the reality of it, of what the prosecutors allege and
57:53
what likely truly happened, right?
57:57
And there there's just so much stigma out there with it that I
58:00
really wanted to get my story out to help people to understand
58:04
that I believe them, One, I believe you and you can recover
58:09
from this. And what ended up actually
58:12
happening was it helped me to recover, to talk to people that
58:17
are heading to prison or facing sentencing and being able to
58:20
walk them through what my experience was and comfort
58:25
people. It was truly helping me to
58:27
recover. You do a lot of that.
58:29
I do. I do.
58:31
Yeah, which is so great that you do that, Kelly, because people
58:36
are petrified, scared into paralysis on the other side.
58:40
And when they can hear from somebody who's walked through it
58:43
all and, and hear that they're OK, I mean, they're, they're
58:48
different, but they're OK. There's something that that
58:52
gives that sharing, you know, having a life experience and
58:57
then trying to share it to help someone along their journey is a
59:00
big deal. Really is it is as far as how
59:04
that that convicted and climbing.
59:06
And then you have like also groups that you have and meet
59:11
what what goes on there. Well, it's just support.
59:16
Sometimes it's just talking about funny things that happened
59:19
in prison. And you know, you think that's
59:22
funny. Listen to this one, right?
59:24
Because the longer you're in prison, the more zany things
59:28
happen and the less you can believe what's happening right
59:32
in front of you and the way things are handled and other
59:36
people's stories or interactions with people.
59:38
So a lot of it is that. And some of it is, you know,
59:40
getting resources for somebody, they want to know what this
59:44
prisons like. Do you know anybody that's been
59:46
to this prison or somebody needs contact for their family needs
59:51
help, What can they send? How do they send it?
59:53
So, and a lot of the things that we use for communication with
59:56
prisons, they don't work well. You know, correlinks is
59:59
difficult to get signed up with. The video visits are difficult
1:00:03
to get connected sometimes. And I send pictures through Pele
1:00:06
post. That's a lot to understand
1:00:08
sometimes. So walking people through how to
1:00:10
put money on somebody's books or how to schedule a video visit
1:00:13
and how to set it. Up and what phones are going to
1:00:15
work better. It's, it's really just a lot of
1:00:17
support for anybody that needs it that has been just as
1:00:23
impacted and you know, it's just as much, the families are just
1:00:26
as much, just as impacted as the defendant.
1:00:29
Right. Always.
1:00:30
I mean, the family goes to prison also.
1:00:32
They're just on the outside. They do.
1:00:37
So the, and I think so much of this, this employer that you
1:00:42
work for that they held a spot for you and then you came back
1:00:45
to it because that's, it's kind of like in the Ryan Bloom deal.
1:00:50
I just spoke about him earlier, you know, he had a situation
1:00:53
where he had gotten a new job and they said, we're going to
1:00:55
stick with you unless something happens and we'll deal with it
1:00:59
then. But what it's such a big deal
1:01:02
that you you're able to get into a position that you know really
1:01:06
well. I mean, you know, the barriers
1:01:08
and you're living through barriers and, and then now
1:01:12
you're, you're also taking that and helping other people with,
1:01:15
with the support groups. Your TikTok channel is fantastic
1:01:20
and, and it is creating so much related relatability to people
1:01:24
just scrolling. They're like, oh, wait, she's
1:01:27
she's interesting what she's saying.
1:01:30
Kelly, going through all this. What do you think's your biggest
1:01:33
take away from it? Oh man, well, it depends on who
1:01:38
I'm talking to. If, if it's somebody that's
1:01:40
facing prison, this is survivable.
1:01:42
Survivable. You know, it's, it sucks, but
1:01:45
it's temporary, but you're going to survive it.
1:01:48
Somebody that's outside of it, you know, the right job will
1:01:52
come along. You will find somebody that will
1:01:54
trust you and believe in you and the families, you know, just
1:02:01
stick with them. They'll be out one day.
1:02:04
It's, it's so hard to be honest in some of the situations
1:02:09
because sometimes you'll talk to somebody that's going in and you
1:02:12
just want to tell them, Oh my gosh, it's terrifying, you know?
1:02:17
But that's not the right thing to say, right?
1:02:20
It's survivable. It's survivable, yeah.
1:02:24
And I do think there is something I was being
1:02:27
interviewed the other day. There was a switch for me and
1:02:33
there is something that happens, Kelly, it doesn't matter how
1:02:35
long you, you did time that you did it.
1:02:40
And there's some kind of strange new confidence that comes from
1:02:44
that. As I survived that I got through
1:02:46
that. I figured that out.
1:02:48
It was like nothing I would have ever thought that I was going to
1:02:51
ever experience and I survived it.
1:02:53
I think that stays with you too. And, and it gives you, you know,
1:02:57
when I said you're different when you come out, things like
1:03:01
that make it that your, your mind is a little bit different
1:03:04
as far as how you look at things and see how things can be done
1:03:09
or solved or whatever. Your, your own mindset.
1:03:11
And you wouldn't know that unless you go through what we're
1:03:17
talking about here. Right.
1:03:19
But it's strange too though, right, Because while you feel
1:03:21
invincible in some ways, you feel so damaged in other ways.
1:03:25
So it's, you know, well, I've been to prison so I can face
1:03:28
most anything, but I'm scared to because I'm in prison.
1:03:31
There's a lot of scar tissue, right?
1:03:33
Yeah, exactly. But I love the fact you're
1:03:37
standing out in front of the story.
1:03:38
I'm a big believer that I think that you own the story and you
1:03:43
know, the narrative gets set out there and so much better, I
1:03:47
think for for you to own the story.
1:03:49
Whether you're talking to an employer, whether you're doing
1:03:51
an interview, whether you're at a, you know, Little League
1:03:54
baseball game, whatever it is, know your story to be able to be
1:03:58
relate, to be able to be to relate to people with it so that
1:04:02
they can understand and and feel it.
1:04:05
And in a. Way that it's relatable.
1:04:07
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. And that's for any of the people
1:04:11
that I've talked to that are going into prison.
1:04:13
And they ask like, well, I don't know if my job's gonna.
1:04:16
What if they don't let me keep my job while I'm away?
1:04:19
And I always tell everybody the exact same thing.
1:04:21
It's better for them to hear it from you.
1:04:23
Yeah. And then to Google your name and
1:04:26
read it in the news or hear somebody else's perspective.
1:04:28
And it's a hard conversation to have.
1:04:31
I totally understand that. But it's best to just come right
1:04:34
out and say it. This is what's happening.
1:04:36
If you can hold my job, I'd appreciate it because I mean, we
1:04:40
know how much worse. We know how much worse it can
1:04:43
get from somebody else's perspective.
1:04:45
That's right, that's right. If people want well people
1:04:49
looking for Kelly go to convicted and climbing Any other
1:04:53
way to contact you Kelly? No, I'm working on a website
1:04:57
that I haven't yet but convicted and climbing on TikTok.
1:05:01
Yeah, check that out and follow Kelly.
1:05:03
She's always got good stuff. I want to give a shout out to
1:05:07
Homestead Financial List. We use all the fancy lights and
1:05:09
cameras here. If you've got home mortgage
1:05:12
needs, Greg Aftyev is is your guy.
1:05:16
If you're looking for a book out there, get mine.
1:05:19
Nightmare success, loyal to betrayal, life behind bars,
1:05:21
adapting, finally breaking free. I know it's a hassle guys, but
1:05:24
if you got time, leave me a review on it.
1:05:26
I love reading those helps the show.
1:05:29
Go to breakmessage.com to see what I'm doing.
1:05:31
And as I used to say to my people as I was writing my
1:05:35
emails back and forth from Lovelworth, stay strong.
1:05:38
I'll do the same. Kelly Givens, proud of you.
1:05:41
You've done, done it and you're helping so many people now.
1:05:44
It's it's great. Keep doing it.