An Army of Normal Folks - He Went to Max Prison at 16 and Came Out With a Master's Degree

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

At 16, Sean Pica made a decision that landed him in a maximum security prison. Now he holds multiple master's degrees and serves as president of Hudson Link - the nonprofit whose prison education programs once gave him a reason to believe his life wasn't over. In this episode, Sean shares his story and tells us why fewer than 2% of Hudson Link's graduates return to prison.  ARMY ACTIONS Subscribe to the podcast and rate & review us! Signup to join the Army, visit NormalFolks.org Join or start an ANF local service club at https://normalfolks.org/service-clubs/ Take The 10 Level Challenge, "the hero's journey for service" at 10LevelChallenge.org Record a testimonial or recommend a guest - https://army.storytap.com/906/start/anf-listeners?epdescription Follow us on all socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/armyofnormalfolks/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@armyofnormalfolks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArmyofNormalFolks X: https://x.com/armynormalfolks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/an-army-of-normal-folks/Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sean Pika is a former prisoner who benefited from Hudson-Links prison education programs, and incredibly, is now the president of that very nonprofit, which is a wildly redemptive story that we're about to dive into. How are the lives of people watching or listening to us right now? How would you like to see their lives be better at the end of this episode? Not that I've been doing this for 20 years as I've traveled. the country and visited the White House and spoke at the UN and in and out of prisons across the country when the white guy in a suit walks to the door of the warden's office trying to replicate

the program in their state and the first thing they say is well this sounds great but how did you get involved because no one looks at me and envisions that I actually spent 20 years in prison so I feel like one of the biggest things I bring to this aside from replicating and growing this and building programs around the country is shifting how folks think. My mom and dad were retired New York City cops when I went to prison for 20 years. Their lives changed way more than minded. I went to a max prison and sat there in a cell block for two decades while they navigated the neighborhood and, you know, cops have cops friends and like their world really shifted in a way that was way more difficult than me living in a max prison. You want people's

view perception views what they think what they think someone looks like in prison and what they think

someone should do when they get out of prison there's so many folks that have said to my parents well it's great he's going to college when he's in it because my parents would brag

you know oh yeah he's in college and you know I'm one of five boys I'm the only one to went to prison I'm the only one

that went to college and there's always a friend that'd be like kind of a waste of time though right don't folks just go back to prison Why bother?

I got to admit, when I walked in the door and met you for the first time, having known your story, it's absolutely true. You look more like a banker than a former inmate. We'll be right back. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, cleanup, and half your Sunday gone. Factors solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dieticians, delivered to your door, and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses.

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Listen to Iheart new music for 10 minutes a day on the IHart radio app. And click enter. Every day you listen is another chance to win. Stream Miley's new album, Bass Persuades, today. My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system. And over my career, I've heard a count after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story of injustice.

But I've never heard a story quite like this. The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, man, there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over. We'll hypnotize him to strengthen that memory. So he went into a good france. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me. They're going to do their police job. Listen to examined the backfire effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast.

for wherever you get your podcasts. Shortly before 6 o'clock a.m. on November 13th, 1991, Annette's mother and her two young sons found her unresponsive inside their apartment. Investigators ruled the case a homicide. Over the years, detectives continued searching for answers, but the case eventually went cold. This is Hunter Gilmore, host of Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast, shedding light on the silent epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls. bringing attention to stories that equally deserve to be told

and to the questions that still remain. As the years passed, detectives continued working the case. But more than three decades after Annette's death, no one has been held accountable. Annette's mother, Freda Scott, spent years hoping to see her daughter's case solved. She never saw that day come. Annette Jones's case remains unsolved.

Listen to Hunting for Answers a True Crime podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Dear honies, this is goodbye. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Patra Mather's and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know that they had died. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead.

Next stop, Wonderland. Patra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? I would have given a million reasons to not leave this world had I known. I keep coming back to I truly hope that Petra was a thousand percent on board with the plan. Do you think of him as having killed her? Yes, I do. I hold Michael responsible for my mother's staff.

I'm Leon Nafok. And I'm Alice Gregory. Together we set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael. letters as one married couple trying to understand another. Listen to death of an artist on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. First, without spending too much time on it, it's germane to the story. And to your point, I think it gives you enormous credibility your past.

How did a 16-year-old wake up in prison who's the son of two former cops? Well, the cops kids are the worst. We all know that. I didn't have a shot. grew up in a good neighborhood, both parents, great brothers and sisters. You know, I just, I had everything going for me. There was no reason I should have woke up in prison. But I shot and killed a man when I was 16.

And I had a good friend that I was growing up with that told me that he was doing things he shouldn't have been doing. And I just thought I'm making a bad decision for a good reason. And in my 16-year-old brain, I reasoned it out. Undeveloped 16-year-old. developed and it just was this thing where I was going to help my friend and end what she was going through and also that I was going to make this decision and I was going to deal with it. Little did my 16-year-old brain know that when you go to prison, your whole family goes to

prison. And in my case, my whole neighborhood went. When you look back at the news of me getting arrested, my childhood friends in the high school rallying, like, let Sean go as if I didn't just take a life. and I had a lot of personal stuff. I had to deal because I went to a max prison as a 16-year-old. And when I got there, I had like officers and staff and other prisoners

like slapped me on the back and saying, I mean, good job. And kind of as a 16-year-old, I held on to that. I didn't want to admit that I'd done something wrong. I didn't want to admit that I ruined my life and ruined my neighbor's life and hurt my parents. You just kind of held on to that. I had probably had four or five years in prison before I really started to deal with that I had taken a life, that had done things I can't ever fix, that, you know, redemption, where was that going to actually fit in and how do I navigate that?

But also, quite frankly, I was two inches shorter. I weighed 119 pounds. I was in a cell block where I was the only white kid in the entire cell block. No one else looked like me. No one was from my neighborhood. No one knew my family. I had no money. I didn't envision I was going to live through the week,

let alone for the next 24 years there. So some of my decisions were leading me in some bad directions. I was in and out of solitary confinement in the beginning. Literally four or five years into my 24-year sentence, I started to get my hands around the fact that I could do some good stuff while I'm here. 16. I have four children. All of them at 16 were about as,

smart as a spoon. I wish I could put up an argument right now. But four years later, at 20, your frontal lobe develops. Yeah. Your worldview, even from a prison cell, starts to develop. So when I hear your story,

I have this weird empathy for this 16-year-old, 120-pound, 5-foot-2 kid. I wish I could say. You murdered somebody. Yep. but also and we won't go into the particulars but I think I get to just

you had to have been scared to death and why this matters is not necessarily you but every other person that gets thrown in a cell you know what's so funny you get on this bus from the county jail

and you know eight 10 guys are shackled together in the back of a van and you drive nine hours up to the state prison that's far, far away. All you've heard was horror stories about what the state prison's going to be. And then I get there and all of us are lined up. Our heads are shaved. They throw away all of our personal property. They give us uniforms that don't fit us. And we're given this a time sheet that says how much time you're already in, what you're in for, where you're from, and the date you're eligible for release. And everyone looks at them, but they don't make eye contact.

Then they're marched up to a cell block that's five stories tall and two football feels long and you're locked in your cell and the lights are shut off. And you just hear men, myself included, just weeping because it's 1986, but I'm eligible for release in 2002. And as a teenager, all of us that were there, we were not prepared to wrap our heads around that. And there's no counsel there there, there's no help there. You're just locked in a cell alone. and then in the morning you find out who didn't make it through the night. Were there some? Oh, absolutely.

Took their own life or their lives were taken? No, took their own life? I'm not going to spend the next two decades like this. That's the reality of a... And that's every day, every day. And I don't know the number anymore, the incarcerated, but... Lost. Yeah.

I wish I could sit here and tell you that I turn. turn things around because I knew I had to make the best of a bad situation. And while I was at it, I should also sign up for school because, hey, I was in the ninth grade when I got arrested. I should also finish high school. And no, none of that was true. I had the older guys in the cell block that didn't know me, that owed me nothing, that should not have cared what my next step was, came to my cell the very first morning and literally said, hey, when that gate opens, if you don't step out, you don't eat. Get dressed. Tuck your shirt in. If they see what your shirt not tucked, you're going to be in trouble. Oh, by the way, make your bet. Oh, and on the way to

breakfast, we signed you up for high school. Wait, what? What? Why did they do that? I don't know. I don't know. That was 36 years ago. I have no idea why they cared. And while none of them look like me, and you know, I'm in a place where everything's for sale. It's not like I was in there and had some money and, you know, they cared. They were trying to get, no, I didn't have anything. So if you helping me, you better do it for the grace of God because I had nothing else to give you. And it was just like that for decades. What a story. And this episode is not about that story, although I could dive into that story with you for three hours. Well, I mean, on the one hand is the crime and the victims. You can't fix it. And you can't fix it. On the other hand, is this experience that so few of us

understand any more other than the sensationalized movies we see. Yeah. And somewhere in there is humanity. It's very broken. And lived it as a 16-year-old wow. Yeah. Yeah. So the truth is, though, that experience gives you an enormous amount of foundation and basis to do the work that you do now.

Yeah. Because I got to believe you understand your population better than most. The downside of growing up in prison, I ended up living in nine max prisons over 17 and a half years. I didn't serve the full 24 years. But during that time, nine different prisons, you know, the downside is that you grew up in prison. But the flip side is all my friends are now the wardens. So in the six prisons that I visit daily, they high-fied me. They say, I was mom.

We grew up together. Wow. So I get away. and when I say I get away with stuff, I have the Attorney General visiting this week going to pop in and hang out with me and the students. We have Tim Robbins, Ice-T,

Harry Belafonte was a regular guest, the Buffett's. You know, we had this traction of Whoopi and her friends coming to see and visit. It's incredible. And that support means that I'm able to raise

the entire budget for the construction, the trucks, the buildings, the houses, every textbook, every professor with no state of federal help. Now, a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, thanks for tuning in to an Army of Normal folks, where our mission is to make service easier for all of us and together, change the country. Today, I'm going to share with you an email that we received from Army member named

Dawn Peck about our episode with Ariel Moore. Don wrote, I so enjoy your podcast. The one with Ariel is one that I cannot let go without taking action into my own life. I am the mother of a son who has struggled with addiction and I've been trying for years to help him reach a different level of living. Finally, in March, he agreed. He's been working towards sobriety ever since. So this episode with Ariel has me so hopeful. I wish I could connect. with other parents and loved ones who are fighting the same fight and holding on to the same hope. Ariel also mentioned Care Portal. How can I help with that? I am the person who jumps at the chance to help people with zero judgment. When we asked Dawn about featuring her email on the podcast, we told her that we'd keep her last name out of it for the sake of her son's privacy and she wrote us back. You do not need to take my name out. My son has a different last name. And he's very transparent with all of our family and friends, and I am also.

He says it's part of his recovery. He wants to be like Ariel Moore. He said, it's the only way he can fight addiction for the remaining years he has left on earth. That he, the rest of his life, needs to be spent helping others free themselves from addictive demons. He wants to help others as Ariel Moore has. First, admitting addiction. and then trying to hit it head on and then saying, look, it is who I am.

It's part of my story. I don't mind people knowing my story and who I am because maybe if they knew who I am and what my story is, it can help other people suffering with addiction beat their own demons. So honestly, a huge tip of my hat for that courage and that self-awareness.

Next, Lisa and I have four kids. As imperfect as each of them are, I would do anything in the world for them. And when I read this email, I feel a mom's concern, a mom's love, and a mom's steadfastness and supporting her son through his demons. It's just so evident in your words how much you love your son and how much you care. I love how you're taking this difficulty in this demon and trying to turn it in a a way to serve others. I know I speak for Alex and the stand-together team and myself when I say, if an episode we bring to you can help inspire you to stay strong for your son and even get

involved in other things, then maybe an army of normal folks in some small way is working. Thank you very much for all you're doing and for encouragement and inspiration. I get out of your works. We'll be right back. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, cleanup, and half your Sunday gone. Factors solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dieticians, delivered to your door, and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses. And it's not just about convenience. You're getting real food, balanced nutrition, and zero artificial stuff. Meals that up you stay on track for all of your goals, without the grind of doing it all yourself. Grilled chicken, roasted veggies, steak plates,

Postables. They taste like something you get in a restaurant, but they come out of your microwave in two minutes flat. If time, cost, or effort have been holding you back from eating better, Factor just took those off the table. Right now, get up to $90 off and free shipping. Hurry, this offer won't last long. Go to FactorMeals.ca and use code FIT. That's up to $90 off and free shipping, but only with the code FIT at FactorMeals.C.A. Factor, Canada's number one meal delivery service. The music you love. I heart radio.

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Always free. Grab the free app. I heart radio. Everywhere you go. Always free. the free IR Radio app today. My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who covers the criminal

legal system. And over my career, I've heard a count after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story of injustice. But I've never heard a story quite like this. The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, man,

there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over. We'll hypnotize them to strengthen in that memory. So he went into a good france. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me. They're going to do their police job. Listen to Examine the backfire effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shortly before 6 o'clock a.m. on November 13, 1991, Annette's mother and her two young

sons found her unresponsive inside their apartment. Investigators ruled the case a homicide. Over the years, detectives continued searching for answers, but the case eventually went cold. This is Hunter Gilmore, host of Hunting for Answers a True Crime podcast, shedding light on the silent epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls, bringing attention to stories that equally deserve to be told and to the questions that still remain. As the years passed, detectives continued working the case. But more than three decades, after Annette's death, no one has been held accountable. Annette's mother, Freda Scott, spent years hoping to see her daughter's case solved.

She never saw that day come. Annette Jones's case remains unsolved. Listen to Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Dear honies, this is goodbye. In February of 2024, celebrated Illustrator and Children's, book author, Patra Mather's and her husband Michael, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members

to let them know that they had died by suicide. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Patra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? I would have given a million reasons to not leave this world had I known. I keep coming back to, I truly hope that Petra was a thousand percent on board with the plan.

Do you think of him as having killed her? Yes, I do. I hold Michael responsible from my mother's staff. I'm Leon Nafeck. And I'm Alice Gregory. Together we set out to interview everyone who got one of Patriot and Michael's letters, as one married couple trying to understand another. Listen to death of an artist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You've had more than 2,000 of your students returned home from prison. They've earned nearly 1,500 college degrees. Yeah, yeah. Fewer than 2% of them have returned to prison. That is a 98% success rate, and we have done, over the last 3 and a half years, a number of shows on prison help work. I've never heard 98%. I mean, the best of the best are in the 80s.

Yeah. So you've had 2% of them return to prison when the national average is 46%. There it is. And you have a wait list, a wait list of prisoners trying to get into your program. What are you doing that the rest of our country, our communities, our families of people in prison, our prisoners, our cities, our municipalities, what are you doing that our entire culture needs to learn from? This is no Harry Potter magical moment. All I'm doing is bringing in higher education into populations that have never had access to it.

Like me, I'm the only one of my family that went to prison. I'm the only one of my brothers that got a high school diploma. I'm the only one of my family that went to college. You're the only one of your brothers that got a high school diploma? High school diploma. Wow. I'm one of five. And you're the only one that has a college degree

and you got it in prison. They're the very program. I'm working on my third master's degree now. That's one. And, you know, I just remember like it was yesterday in, you know, grade school where the teacher told me, you know, put the stethoscope, you know, the career corner, put the stethoscope down. But you should pick up a tool belt, Sean. You're not going to. And, you know.

That's encouraging. I just feel like when I was invited to the White House, I should have invited that teacher to come with me. Instead, I invited the warden to go with me. But, you know, when we're doing these programs and we're growing them, all we're, we're doing is bringing in higher education, but also pre-college remedial two and four-year programming. Because everyone thinks being in prison is rock bottom. It's not. There are many folks that have spent their entire lives in and out of prison.

Some are more comfortable than anywhere else in the world going back into that place. It makes sense because that's where their friends are. That's where they grew up. That's the feelings that make the most comfortable failing in prison. That's rock bottom. So when I have very smart, some of the smartest men and women I've ever run into, I've met in the cellbox. When I say to them, hey, have you signed? I know you for a decade.

When are you going to sign up for college? No, I don't need that because they're scared. They're not scared of A Block. They're not scared of the parole board. They're not even scared of going home. What they're scared of is trying and failing college. So we ease in with this remedial program where other men and women, because there's no correlation between going to college, graduating, and going home.

So like me... So to say that again, there's no correlation. Between finishing school, graduating, and then being released. So you don't graduate and then go home. You could be there for a decade after you graduate. So what do you do there when you've finished, get your master's degree, and now you have another 10 years to do? Will you help with the program?

You run the site for me. You run the lab for me. You build the computer stuff. Like, there's another role for you to play there. and this thing of helping the younger guys as they're coming in, it's an incredible gift. And then also, there's also a market for it. So when I came home, one of the first gigs I got was working at the college because I knew how to run the program.

That makes so much sense. It also feels like if you've got your master's in prison, you still got 10 more years to go and you're working in school, you actually have hope for when you get out that you can go do something other than get 50 bucks a bus ticket and go right back the same that got you there in the first bus. Yeah, yeah.

It's a segue. I was working in East Harlem at a place called Stride. It was the first job I got when I came home. I came home and was doing construction and busing tables. I was making $10 a shift. But you had a college degree.

And I had a college degree. But I never really believed at that point 20 years ago I didn't believe it was real. And I was in- What do you mean you didn't believe it was real? I didn't believe that that was the same degree you got. Who's the degree from?

I graduated from Mercy, Nyack, Ulster County Community College. I had 200 college credits when I walked out the door. I didn't get that it was the same or harder. It's as valid as anybody else. I didn't know that. And nobody, my own mother said, well, I'm glad you're staying positive while you're in it, but that's not the same school I went to. I'm like, hey, that's not the same school out here.

And I get it. Who would believe, if they've never seen it, that a college program in a prison would remotely be tangible to what's happening on a traditional campus? I didn't believe it myself. So when I came home, I was doing construction in Harlem, and I signed up for my MSW, my master's social work at Hunter College.

I wanted to validate the stuff that I already had. I wrote a two-page essay about growing up in prison, prison. I got a phone call. They said, if half of this is true, we need you on our campus tomorrow. But now, I got to show up. None of us wants to look like a dummy in that classroom. I have an invitation, a full ride, show up and get this master's for free. I'm scared now. And the idea that... Am I going to match up to these normal smart kids? So I grew up in nine max prisons, but I'm afraid to go to a classroom in East Harlem at a college? So I showed up. I got in there.

Little did I know I was light years ahead. Because the stuff you learn in the cell block goes with the stuff you learn in the textbook. Both of them together put me ahead of a traditional student. And I just openly talked about growing up in prison and sentencing structure and parole. And when I finished a two-year full-time program in the hallway, getting ready for graduation, I saw the student president and the college president. And they both stopped me and said, hey, what are your plans?

What are your next steps? I said, I don't know. I got to pay taxes. I got to get a job. And, you know, when I left Sing Sing, I had more time in prison than at a prison. When I was 16, I was now 34. So I'm now in this college campus.

I feel like a 16-year-old. More than half your life. More than half my life inside. So now, and everything I'm reading, everything I'm talking, everyone's saying, well, if 79% of the men and women that leave prison go back to prison,

how are you going to be any different? You've never written a check. You've never paid rent. You've never paid tax. Is you're, really, you're going to be different than the rest of them? I didn't know. Quite frankly, I wasn't feeling too confident. And I sign up.

I do this full-time program for the first time in my life. I'm walking through this academically in a way that I'd never experienced. And the president stops me in the hallway, asked me that question. She says, would you consider being the keynote speaker at your own graduation? What? All I could think about was getting the message back to those men. that I left behind, that this is real. Hey guys, this really works.

Like, as an ambassador, like, I want those folks to know when I was sitting in that classroom and being like, I'd rather be in the softball field tonight. Why am I in this classroom and the school building? It's 110 degrees. Why am I wasting my time? Well, that's why, because it's real. And now, two decades later, it's the who's who of the social services field. Our students have infiltrated.

I don't know any other better word. The who's who of the social services field in New York City. caseworkers, counselors, executive directors, presidents. One of our students just finished his law program. He passed the bar, and he's now the first formally incarcerated ADA in the Bronx in the country. First formerly incarcerated.

ADA. Really? The mits are being crushed every day. Stop telling me what I can't do and start pointing me in the direction of the next hurdle, the next mountain for me to cross, the next myth to crush. It's a perfect lead into something that you say, which is the best way to keep a prisoner of prisoner, is keep them from having a community.

Yeah. Can you, I don't, what do you mean? So I worked directly with the past four commissioners from when I was in the time. Commissioners of Corrections in New York. All right. So I've read that, but I don't know what that means. So a commissioner of the prisons, and each prison has a warden, and this commissioner is the warden's boss. Yes, and he reports directly to the governor.

So he's the grand pooh-bah. Yes. So it's governor, commissioner, then down to wardens of each prison. So when you're talking commissioner, you're talking the guy that makes all the decision. Every decision on that level. He's the dude. So I'm on the governor's reentry task force, which she has specifically created seats for formerly Crossman and Women on her team because who better to help with these decisions about reentry

in New York City? Yeah, you guys really know. Yeah. And then also the commissioner has created a team of formerly cars and men and women that report directly to him for policy. So I'm on both these teams and every now and then I try to get them to do the meetings together to scratch one meeting off my calendar. And I'm in these meetings with the governor's team, the commissioner's team, DCJS, lieutenant governor, and someone will call me Shawnee. And the warden will say, can you just call him Sean in the meeting? Like, because if you know me for 36 years, I grew up with you, it's Shawnee. I get it.

But being able to be in these meetings and calling shots on stuff that's going to impact policy in the whole New York State Department of Corrections, I think it's an incredible opportunity that I didn't see coming. And though I worked with the past four commissioners in a row, the current commissioner literally 18 minutes into being appointed, call for me and my program director to run up to visit with him in Albany. And I just thought, man, we're making movies. We're having 10x events.

We created a new thing called Beyond the Block. We have college. He's going to tell us to slow it down. He wants to get appointed. You know, I just knew that that's what it was. Kind of a knot in your stomach. Yeah, yeah. So, Joel, my program director, did 24 years.

I served 70 and a half. We're driving three hours up to sit with him. When we get into his room, the first thing he does is get us coffees. The three of us sit down over a coffee. and he says, I need you to come up with ideas that I should say no to. And then let's do them. So one of those things... Hold it.

Hold it. That's a great quote. I want you to come up with ideas that as a commissioner, I should say no to. Oh, no, that's ridiculous. And then because they're so creative and outlandish, let's go do that. Yep, yep. And one of the... Who is this commissioner?

Daniel Monticello. He's a good dude. He's been in the field for a open guy. couple decades, but he also came up through the ranks. So he wasn't officer, started his career. Now, 29 or 30 years later, he's in charge of the whole thing. So no one can say, you didn't walk in my shoes, you didn't go through it, I went through it. He also has the jobs. He's incredible, traveling the country with us, building stuff. But the last thing that we came up together with is a TED style-like presentation where the men and women at the different prisons

will prepare for months a presentation or a musical piece or a composition or a skit, and then they perform it in front of hundreds of people at the prison. Some of these folks are never scheduled for release. Some are going home next Friday. So I film them. I raise all the money to film them, edit them, and then I give that seven or eight minute piece

to someone that might never go home so their family can see this incredible work they're doing with the commissioner and the lieutenant governor. in the front row. And we just turned one of those into a movie. It launched at the New York City Inc. Film Festival in the end of last year. And we're just traveling the country

because I got a grant to show it in 50 prisons for free. And nothing tells the story better than a movie screening with currently incarcerated folks in Texas and Tennessee and Maine. And I'm coming to Colorado at the end of the month, showing the movie. And then during the talkback, they realize I'm also forming in college.

I sat in the same seats they sat in. So how does that not keep them from having a community, what you say? It's the idea that it's not, there is not supposed to be community in that place. You're supposed to be isolated. If you get in trouble, you get isolated even further in solitary. We have turned the tables, biblically speaking. Jesus likes to flip the tables. We have flipped the tables and the commissioner and I are talking to incarcerated population saying,

what's the next thing you're going to do? What do you mean? I'm in prison. I can't do anything. Oh my God, here's your voice. Here's a microphone. Here's a movie camera. Let's do something different. Seeing those same men and women support each other,

because now you did the Beyond the Block last year, you're doing it this year. I'm now a coach. And it just flows. Some of your students are turning from prison or solving three problems with the same literal hammer, which this is pretty cool.

Explain that. What are they doing? So they're shattering all the myths. They're staying home. Shattering is a perfect word to what a hammered us. The amount of children that follow parents, men and women, to the prison system is daunting. The amount of men and women that return to the prison system is daunting.

for me growing up, I'm the only one of my family that's ever been to prison. Seeing fathers and sons in the same cell, in the same cell block was horrific to me. Oh my gosh, I've never even considered that. You will see a father and a son locked up and insane bunking. Yeah, yeah. And it's this thing of, is no one else horrified by this? Oh, yeah, it happens.

What does that mean? So being able to really address And I went in in the 80s, you didn't talk about what you did. You didn't talk to anyone else about anything private. You didn't tell them who your family. Everything was just in silence. All you would spend a day just in silence. We started to shift that with some of these storytelling opportunities.

I not only want you to tell a story, I want it to be the most vulnerable thing you could ever think of in front of 400 people that you don't know. And just the tears. I wait until I share this movie. You're going to be blown away. It is a total tearjerker. I showed it at the women's prison at Bedford Hills because I teach there as well. So I snuck the movie in a few weeks ago. And I'm sitting there with the warden who I grew up with.

I know it for 30 years. And we're showing this movie. At the end, the lights come up. And my program director went up and said, like, Sean and I could do a little talk back. And it's just, you could hear a pin drop. So maybe they didn't get it. Maybe it's not their thing.

Okay. Not everyone has to like my movie. And one woman stood up and said, Sean, you should have want, like our makeup is shot. We've just cried for the past hour and a half. I didn't realize what we were walking into. And of course, the next question was, how can we haven't, you've done five beyond the blocks in New York City. How come you haven't done it here? Well, now we're doing one October 23rd.

The three problems with the same hammer. Three. We have recidivism, children following parents into prison, And then education ending. So you're the first person in your family to get a college education. Now you come home and either you didn't get the chance to finish, you never finish, or you finish, and that's where your career ends. So recidivism, children following.

We talk about, gosh, Alex, we've talked about recidivism a whole bunch. I don't know that we've really ever talked much about the fact that children follow parents. Two generations in prison. Yeah. I guess we have talked about it becomes a culture and prison life can become generational, but I've never really thought of them in the prison together. That is your word. It's horrific.

And then the third one is not having a way to educate yourself. Yeah. So we created something. We're doing the college stuff for 29. We're celebrating our 29th year. And those recidivism stats are for 29 years, almost three decades. In the midst of that, we launch a construction initiative where the men and women upon release are rebuilding homes to live in

or safe bed is the most important part of a safe reentry. And then also we created something called the finish line. This finish line initiative means if you're six credits short upon release, tell me where you want to go. I'll pay for it. If you finished inside, but you want to go on to a master's or another bachelor's or a doctorate or law school, tell me, let's help, let's pick the right school.

I'll pay for that too. So we now have in our third season about 150 students that have gone on to another degree or finish a degree. It's been incredible. You've got a wait list of people inside. Inside. And you're teaching all these students. And something you just said is really interesting to me. You said a safe bed is the most important thing to reentry in your viewpoint.

A safe bed. is the single biggest indicator to a successful transition, not jobs, not supportive family, not spouses, it's a safe way. Somewhere to live. Do people leave prison and have absolutely nowhere to go? No way to go. And so my mom and dad were New York City cops when I got arrested. They were retired when I came home.

I was eligible for release for 10 years. Every 24 months for 10 years, I was up for review and kept getting denied. My parents, at that time, were talking about me coming, back home. All of a sudden, I have a date. It's actually, I had 24 years. It was at 17 year marks.

It was earlier than everyone expected. And I talked to my family. And they excitedly say, this is great. But they weren't so excited. As the kid that had just been in and out of solitary and just hurt so many people and done some horrific things, were they really excited that was coming home? And in the end, I didn't go with my family.

and Catholic Charities had a transitional house right by the prison. That was my plan B. And when I went there, it was actually really important because even though the other five men that I was living with, I didn't know them, they were all home at different levels. So one guy was home already driving. One guy had a job. One guy had a good relation with parole. And I'm delving into those helping hands as I'm navigating reentry. and the flip side was the place was horrific.

It was falling apart. Every window was broken. The doors didn't open. The washer dry didn't work. So while I was grateful to have a place, it was pretty bad. The thing that I've created now is transitional houses that we build. We renovated. They're completely 100% brand new renovated.

And then the students that build them move in and live rent free until they get on their feet. In seven years we've been doing this. five or now homeowners, which was never even part of my plan. We'll be right back. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, clean up, and half your Sunday gone. Factors solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dieticians, delivered to your door, and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses. And it's not just about convenience. You're getting real food, balanced nutrition,

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My name is a free Grab the free app I heart radio Everywhere you go Always free Download the free IHard Radio app today My name is Josie Duffy Rice

I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system And over my career I've heard account after account of prosecutorial misconduct Story after story of injustice But I've never heard a story Quite like this

The more I kept reading this stuff I thought man There's more red flags It just kept coming up over and over. We'll hypnotize him to strengthen that memory. So he went into a good france. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me.

They're going to do their police job. Listen to Examine the Backfire Effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shortly before 6 o'clock a.m. on November 13, 1991. Annette's mother and her two young sons found her unresponsive inside their apartment. Investigators ruled the case a homicide. Over the years, detectives continued searching for answers, but the case eventually went cold. This is Hunter Gilmore, host of Hunting for Answers a True Crime podcast,

shedding light on the silent epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls, bringing attention to stories that equally deserve to be told and to the questions that still remain. As the years passed, detectives continued working the case. But more than three decades after Annette's death, no one has been held accountable. Annette's mother, Freda Scott, spent years hoping to see her daughter's case solved. She never saw that day come. Annette Jones's case remains unsolved. Listen to Hunting for Answers, a True Crime podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Dear honeies, this is goodbye. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Patra Mather's and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know that they had died by suicide. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Patra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind?

I would have given a million reasons to not leave this world had I known. I keep coming back to I truly hope that Petra was a thousand percent on board with the plan. Do you think of him as having killed her? Yes, I do. I hold Michael responsible for my mother's staff. I'm Leon Nafeck. And I'm Alice Gregory. Together we set out to interview everyone who got one of Patriot and Michael's letters. as one married couple trying to understand another.

Listen to Death of an Artist on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you have a favorite story of a Huntson Lake alumnus other than yourself? Have you heard of the new movie Sing Sing that just came out? I actually have heard of it. I don't know anything about it. So Coleman Domingo is the lead actor. It's a mix of actors and folks that were in prison that are actors. That's the only reason I've heard.

That is so weird. I was on a plane. It's funny you say that. I don't remember. I can't recall how, but I do remember reading about this movie Sing Sing that has actors in it, but a lot of the other people are literally formerly incarcerated people. So it's like really valid.

And the actors can't hold a candle to these things. No. But Holman Domingo was incredible. Not just in what he, not his portrayal of the guy in the prison, but in how he, the stories of him with these guys and coaching them, these guys may be actors,

they've never acted before. So it was a really incredible moment that Coleman Domingo was amazing in. But 824, the production company, after, you know, two and a half years of filming and editing are about to release the film,

they go back to the commissioner and said, if we're going to show this film, it's, it's at the prison. Like, that's going to be the first place it goes. And of course, the projector was from 1912. So the commissioner said,

you tell me what date, I'll be there with Bell's on to watch the movie with the guys. Then they said, well, what about the guys that are in the film that are now home? Let's bring them back in. So we have Coleman Domingo, a 22-foot a production company, they're going to come in and show this film at Sing Sing.

A 200-year-old Max Prison, notorious Max Prison, and they bring in a brand-new projector and they show this film. So Clarence Maclin, who's the co-lead in the whole movie, it really just was incredible in his role, went that day with a bunch of the other guys back into the prison. And I was expecting this like Hollywood moment.

Like they're talking about Oscar nominations in this thing and you're walking back into the prison you lived in. After the movie was over, the warden invited a few of them up on the auditorium stage to do a little cute. And I remember Clarence saying to the guys, if you don't work hard here, the hard work's not going to happen out there. Yeah, got this role. It was an incredible role.

I'm so grateful that they're saying I crushed it, but I didn't get out and start learning Shakespeare. I ran Shakespeare lines here with you guys for two decades. When this role opened up, all of a sudden it was right in front of me and I grasped it. That man, Clarence, is now working on his third film. and he's going back in these prisons to share that. Don't wait to get out to start working hard. Let's take advantage of this situation right now. Hearing from guys that went through the same thing you did that did decades,

here's your opportunity. Seize it now while you're in A Block. That guy's a poster job for you guys then. He's a dear friend. He's incredible. But it is. I mean, that's your whole thing. Do the work now.

Do it now. Get it in now. How can someone watching or listening to us now bring a program like Hudson link to their community? He just got to call me. I helped Tennessee and North Carolina replicate already. I'm currently helping Baltimore, Boston, the Yale program in Connecticut. I could just say Connecticut, but it's so much better just say the Yale program in Connecticut and Texas. And I'm there just helping.

And I think it's really important to understand that this thing. starts with college courses in college for inmates. And of all your graduate, there's only a 2% residivism. Say it. Residivism. Thank you. So clearly it works. All right. But you can see you're, you probably need Redland. You're an ADD guy for sure. You have serious energy. I finally haven't found a career where I can have seven jobs. That's perfect. I get it. So great. But not enough. And you keep doing these other things. And you briefly mentioned the houses.

And because you say the most important indicator of someone's success, a formal incarcerated process is a bed, you said, okay, I'm going to get them agree, but I got to take care of this thing over here. So tell us exactly what you've done and how you've done it and where you got the money and when you started it because I think you got some. really sound sage advice from a billionaire. And I just, I think the whole story is really interesting. So take us through. I really felt like I was super savvy pitching Warren Buffett on a real estate idea. And I look back now, I'm like, that, I mean, that's really his dick. You pitched him on his own stuff.

But I went to the Buffett's and I asked about having a headquarters because we were spending all this money on rent every year. And it's our headquarters, no mortgage, no rent, no taxes. and it's an incredible space. Then we really thought, you know, we were at about like 10-year anniversary. Nobody was home in the first 10 years. It was me and about six other guys.

And I got permission from the board of directors, like, hey, we should do a dinner. We should get all six or 10 of us together and get a dinner and kind of make do it once a month or something. Keep us connected here in a place where we're not supposed to have community. We need to hold on to this community concept. The board loved the idea. They wanted to come.

So we had, you know, 30 people having. dinner in Manhattan. But then you started hearing guys that are doing great, but they're living in a shelter. They're doing great, but they're couch surfing. They're doing great, but, you know, and what are we going to do about that? So the idea of taking dilapidated homes

in impoverished communities, which Sing Sing is in Austining, we started picking these homes that were abandoned five, seven years. A home that's empty that long is a project. So we started taking the newly released men and women. Are they typically on like tax rolls?

They've been abandoned in the state or city or some or county. But an abandoned property in this county was still 400K. Good grief. Yeah. So I'm buying these abandoned property. Man, things in New York and Memphis are different. Putting another three or 400 into it. And now it's the nicest house on the block.

A beautiful, brand new, renovated space. And I didn't change anything structurally because the definition of a single family home in that neighborhood is up to five unrelated people. So if it was a single family or a two family, I'm having five or 10 people in each house. And if I had to sell it, I could sell it tomorrow. The market's so hot. So far, we've not had to do that.

Three houses are done. 23 men and women are living in those three houses. And we have the head. All with degrees. All with degrees. Or going on to another degree. And the fourth house is already purchased, already off the rent rolls, the tax rolls, and ready for construction.

Why, when the city love you, you're taking dilapidated properties, fixing them up, making them nice, and taking them off the burden of the city and paying, well, you're not paying property taxes on them, but there are no more. The other thing, too, is it's a very elderly neighborhood. So when you start to get older and you might be a woman living alone

and you're now in your 70s, you start to take care of the house less and less. Our guys, not only take care of the properties, we do all the lawns and grounds, we seal the driveways. So when we're sealing our driveway, we seal two or three in each direction. So we've become kind of champions, not just with this beautiful, brand new house, but also of helping other elderly folks in the community.

Well, you're seeing folks wearing Hustling T-shirts. They don't even know what we are, what we do. It's just, it's like a little village. We own the deli. We have a clothing, a beautiful 2,000 square foot clothing store where you could shop in eight days a week for free, the four properties. That fifth is the headquarters. You navigate that neighborhood.

You're going to find out who Huston Link is. You got a community. I've lived there forever. and somebody comes up and fixes a dilapidated property and then you find out, oh, my gosh, there's former, former, former convicts living in this place. The hell are they doing to my neighborhood? Have you not been hit with that at first?

We were at first. We had to have proved yourself. We were at first. News 12, a local station, did a story when we were just finishing construction and the neighborhood implode. Who let those people? And up until that point,

I had done everything on a handshake. So I already do in my own construction privately. So I went to the building department and said, hey, what if I do this thing through the nonprofit? And they loved the concept, but they were also warned, like warned us, hey, you should stay in this part of town. You'll be way more successful. Well, they were wrong.

Every part of town doesn't want a form an incarcerated person. Because they have the view. Yes. Back to the very beginning. Yeah. They think they know what that was. So we're five or six months into renovations. this house from the 1800s.

We're gutting it from head to toe. We're moving along swiftly. We're getting support. We're raising money. The folks that are working on it, are loving it. We're doing a little bit of filming. We capture some of this stuff. And I remember I got a call from the town supervisor.

And she said, Sean, we need to talk. Like, this is really getting ugly. Can we come over to your office? She was coming with the town council, the town supervisor, the local legislator, and the school superintendent. bring in their body. And I just said, man, they're going to shut us down.

This whole thing is built on a handshake. They're going to say, this is going too far. It's not what we bet on. So I'm sitting there. You know, this is, this hurts. This is my baby. This was my undergrad thesis project to graduate from Hudson Link. Really?

I typed it up on a manual typewriter while living in A block. And now it's born into something. It's grown, and they're going to stop it. So they get in there, they get in this meeting. And they said, man, we are so embarrassed. But what our neighbors are saying, we need to know how to support you to make this successful

because it's the most important thing that's come to our neighborhood in 100 years. And they stood by us in town meetings and fought alongside us and said, they didn't make up this rule of five unrelated people. This is our rule. This is our homes. This is our neighborhood.

They're creating a better community for us. And it really shifted. having those legislators in our corner. And also, here's the other thing. There's a lodge behind every max prison there's an officer's lodge. Those officers that we grew up with were standing aside with us.

Wow. They believed in it as much as anyone else. And then once that started turning, the officers and the neighbors started coming to help with the construction. You're kidding. And so that very first one that this was the hills on.

Yeah. How long did it take for you to get four or five formally incarcerated people living in it and for them and the surrounding neighbors to, I don't know if the word, dissimilates for the wrong word, but coexist in a way that was respectful and appreciable. I, once I started construction, I started visiting the six prisons that I'm in regularly. And my thing was I wanted to sit with the current student body to say, hey, we'll building houses. I don't know who needs a place to stay.

It wasn't a ton of people, but I wanted to know who was who. We wanted to create an application. We wanted to create a pipeline. 17 men and women worked on that first house. And during the course of working on it, I found out that four were homeless. They were coming from a shelter. Of the people working on the house. Yeah.

And I said, well, shoot, if I'm going to create a wait list, I want to do. I wanted to start right with the men that are, men and women that are putting in their blood, sweat, and tears. And having folks build it and move into it, it's a different level of care. There's a different level of community. Appreciation. Like, it's really cool to see. And I remember we were at the finish line. Construction was done.

We had a bunch of guys that were painting. And the commissioner and the warden were visiting Sing Sing. And I got a call from the secretary of the warden saying, hey, the commissioners here. are you at the house? I said, yeah, we're here. We're painting. Come on over. And seeing like the four black sedans roll up on the front of the house

and the security roll out. And they looked around and they went to a different house because it can't be that. It can't be this one. It's beautiful. It's got to be something else. And then you see they realize, oh, no, it's 14 and they roll in.

And then the thing that happened to was now the warden who knew every one of these guys starts dapping and handshaking and I'll go, don't hug them. He's got paint all over him, you know. The commissioner doesn't know the men and women in that level. But if they lived in your prison, having a warden that knew you at that level, it shows a very different kind of prison.

And he actually, Superintendent Capra just retired. And he was just like 44 years on the job, knew everybody by their first name, walked those cell blocks just in a way that I haven't seen before, you know? So with all of that, then they move in and the neighborhood is now accepting them. And these guys are probably the best neighbors there are. Yeah. Yeah. Just cutting there.

We do lawns and grounds, we call it. So once a week, we just roll out with a truck with weed whackers and lawnmowers and bags. And whatever we're doing, we do two or three houses in each way. And it's appreciated. Families that don't have it. Now you've got people who have a college degree. They have the most important thing they need, which is a safe bed. What have you seen these people go on to do from these homes?

They're working with me at days work for days pay. So I have dumpsters and box trucks and vans and, you know, roll-offs. And what we're doing is we're doing, we're managing garbage and recycle on a bunch of the buildings on our block, which is just a cash income that most nonprofits don't. have. But I'm also giving you a day's work for days pay because while you're figuring out your third day home after 29 years, you want something in your pocket. Because having that and not being able to get a cup of coffee really is not great. Also, we own the deli. So now in the midst of you working, every morning, lunch or dinner, that meal is on us. Just roll in and put it on us.

You make poor decisions when you haven't eaten in three days. You really do. And there's a lot of folks that have never experienced hunger past one day. For our community, you spend it on the kids, you spend it on the subway, you don't spend it on a meal. And next thing you know, it's been two days. When you start going on the third day, you make dumb decisions. So being able to feed people and raise money specifically to feed people to me is one of the most important thing. Well, don't tell my college partners. I said food is way more important. But I feel like the clothing, the clothing store, you know, we give every student a laptop, transportation money, the access to the clothing store, and they just feel like they're wrapped in these arms of care.

I'm sitting here hearing you, and I'm like, well, I guess you do have a 98% success, right? You're making their reentry to society workable. My neighbors all know what I do. I'm very open about my background and my past and what I do, and my 20-foot box truck has Hudson Lincoln, New Beginnings, written all over it. My wife is horrified that I bring it home every day, but my neighbor, And every morning I go out to go to work, and there's two or three bags of donated clothing

in the back of it. So on the way home, I'm dropping them in a clothing store. I walk in at 7.30 at night on the way home the other night, and there's three formerly incarcerated guys lights on in the 2,000 square foot clothing store because one guy just home is getting suited. Because if you've never worn a suit, you don't know where to begin to, how does it fit,

what does it look like? And these guys are in the... there. Oh, no, he's got a job interview coming up. Great. Shut the lights off when you leave. It's incredible this each one, teach one, like just handing it down to the next guy. What's your phone number? You mentioned people that can call you. Oh, 911, 471, 7004. It's also Hudsonlink.org, and it's S.Pica at Hudsonlink.org. There you go. That's how you can do it. By the way, we're helping these five other states for free. I got to go back a little bit to your time in prison and how your life of service actually really started there and really what we can learn

from that. How did you, as a 16-year-old in prison, how did you start to lean into service then? And what can we take from that story? So, I don't know, three, four, five days into my sentence. I'm sitting there in a cell, feeling very sorry for myself. All the new guys at the prison are locked in their cells, 23 hours a day. You get one hour out a day to walk the yard. So the days are super long.

Everything is super annoying. And you're just sitting there with your own thoughts in a cage every day. It's not great. And one of the officers came to my cell, wrapped on the bars. And he said, hey, we have guys that are trying to learn English. you know, wondering if you might want to help. So what are you talking about? A high school dropout.

I went to the ninth grade. He goes, yeah, you're one of the most educated guys here. Man, that's so- You read and write. And selfishly, I wanted out of the cell. Also, I had never helped anybody. I'm 16. I'm in prison.

Maybe one of the reasons you're there is because you've never helped anyone but yourself. And I'm going to go down to this, room in the basement and read to these older guys, the 26-year-olds. And they just had a pile of children's books there. And I read every day for an hour or two to them. And they just drank it up. You see, being in prison is tough.

But when you only get one five-minute phone call a month that your family can't afford, or you're allowed to write five letters a week, and guess what, you can't read and write, now it just gets even worse. That whole community thing you're talking about is destroyed. Yeah. So I start helping these guys. and selfishly just want to get out of my cell. And these guys are just so hungry as I read out of these children's books.

It wasn't even an effort to me. It was just sitting there reading for an hour or two and then going back to my cell. And then one day I'm in the yard. I'm just like posted up against the wall, waiting for nothing to happen. And everyone's walking in this circle for an hour. And when someone cuts the yard, it means they break the circle and walk across the yard. And we all, something's about to go down. Someone's about to get hurt. And the guy, is that a faux pie? Don't cut the yard. Don't cut the yard. So what do you just,

if you want to go to those other ward, you walk around the outside of it. So this guy's cutting through the yard, cutting through the circle. And he's, he's heading my way. And he's just the biggest guy I've ever seen in my life. And I'm like, oh, you know, blend in, right? You know, do something. It didn't seem so funny when I said at the time. But, um, he said, are you Sean? And I just really thought, if I lie to this guy, like he's gonna figure it out. And I just said, yeah.

And he reaches in his jacket pocket. Did you think you were about to get stabbed or something? No. You had been scared to that. I'm the only white guy in the yard. And he's big, right? Yeah, the biggest guy I literally have ever seen. And he says, you know,

he pulls out a letter from his son. And he says, would you read this to me? Wow. And they heard there's a crazy white kid that's reading stuff. In a place where everything's for sale, I'm reading and helping guys write letters for free. But that's not even the story. The story is he couldn't read his son's letter.

I read it to him. There's big, huge guys in tears. And I said, do you want to write them back? And I move, normally you get to a prison in New York. You do your reception center. They do testing and stuff. And then you'll either stay there or go to a different prison for the remainder of your 20 or

30 years. I went to nine max prisons. I moved around quite a bit, mostly with disciplinary issues. We don't got to get into that now. I didn't take direction real well in the beginning, but every time I got to a new prison, a new yard, a new cell block, and I was a little over my head, which was every single day, man, one of those guys I read to was there. No kidding. We'll be right back. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, clean up, and half your Sunday gone. Factors solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dieticians,

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Your favorite radio stations. Everywhere you go. The podcasts everyone's talking about. All in one place. And it's free. I heart radio. Whatever you want to hear. Listen anytime.

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Always free. Grab the free app. IHard Radio. Everywhere you go. Always free. Download the free IHard Radio app today. My name is Josie Duffy Rice. I'm a journalist who covers the criminal legal system.

And over my career, I've heard a count after account of prosecutorial misconduct, story after story of injustice. But I've never heard a story quite like this. The more I kept reading that stuff, I thought, man, there's more red flags that just kept coming up over and over. We'll hypnotize him to strengthen that memory. So he went into a good France. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me.

They're going to do their police job. Listen to Examine the Backfire Effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shortly before 6 o'clock a.m. on November 13, 1991, Annette's mother and her two young sons found her unresponsive inside their apartment. investigators ruled the case a homicide. Over the years, detectives continued searching for answers, but the case eventually went cold. This is Hunter Gilmore, host of Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast, shedding light on the silent epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls, bringing attention to stories that equally deserve to be told and to the questions that still remain. As the years passed, detectives continued working the case. But more than three decades after Annette's death,

no one has been held accountable. Annette's mother, her mother, Freda Scott, spent years hoping to see her daughter's case solved. She never saw that day come. Annette Jones's case remains unsolved. Listen to Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Dear honies, this is goodbye. In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Patramathers and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of of friends and family members to let them know that they had died by suicide. By the time you get to Schleaderbov Petra and I will be dead.

Next stop, Wonderland. Patra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? I would have given a million reasons to not leave this world had I known. I keep coming back to I truly hope that Petra was on. thousand percent on board with the plan. Do you think of him as having killed her?

Yes, I do. I hold Michael responsible for my mother's staff. I'm Leon Nafok. And I'm Alice Gregory. Together we set out to interview everyone who got one of Patriot and Michael's letters, as one married couple trying to understand another. Listen to death of an artist on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A man named Big Al got you to cry for the first time in years.

Yes. So I am I'm just getting out of solitary confinement again, you know. I'm so bad one again. I'm not going to ask. No, no, no, don't know it. Don't do it. We'll talk about after coffee. So I'm just getting out.

I'm in a max prison that's literally a disciplinary jail. Everyone there is in trouble. And I'm just walking the yard alone. Don't know anybody. Probably pissed. Yeah, just feeling really sorry for myself, to be honest with you. They just, you know, this is just not going to get better. And this guy's cutting the yard.

And another guy. His name is literally Big Al. He's the biggest guy. He's cutting across the yard. He's got to be six, eight, six, nine. You know, it's just huge. And he comes up to me and he says, are you Sean?

And I'm like, do I lie to this guy? And he says, I don't know if you know it, but there's a youth program here where me and some of the guys who are approved by the warden, and we talk to high schoolers that come in once a month. and I said to him, I hear you, I can't even help me. One of those scared straight type of hours. Yeah, yeah.

And I just said, I can't even help myself. Like, I don't, thanks, but no thanks. I have no interest of trying to help someone else when my whole life is just imploding. It just wasn't going great. And he said, oh, no, Sean, I'm not asking. It's Monday at 6 o'clock. And I showed up Monday at 6 o'clock.

And when I got there, because Al told me to go there, I wasn't not going to do it. Two things happened. One is the officer walks up and the officer asked Al, what's the lineup for today? They said, oh, well, big Al he's in charge of this.

The officers aren't running this. And then another one of the guys hugged the officer. And I'm like, wow, what the heck is happening here? And, you know, I'm probably in prison 18 months, two years at that point. It has not been great thus far. and I'd never seen an officer hug

anybody. So we go, you know, they kind of give out assignments. You're going to talk about peer pressure. You're going to talk about drugs and alcohol. You're going to talk about prison. Sean, I want you to talk about family. Family in prison. Okay.

So I walk in and thank God it wasn't the first speaker. These guys did not do a scared straight program. They just sat there and spoke to these 10th graders with love and respect about the life they were living and some of them were in for 24, 29 years. like they were in there for decades at that point. And I was, you know, the big thing for Alan, the guys was they were old enough to be their

parents. I was younger than them as a 10th grader. So they wanted someone then that could really like impactfully like hear from their own age group. And when I was the last guy and I started talking about growing up in prison and when I went to prison, my family went to prison and the impact on my family and my brothers. And I just started crying. And man, it had been so many years since I had cried. I just couldn't remember the last time.

And then when I looked up, man, everybody was crying. And we walked out of there. We said goodbye to those kids. And when I got to the hallway, the officer hugged me, he goes, man, I want you to cry every month. And as you can see, I haven't stopped crying. But it was the thing, man, college is not the thing that changed the direction of my life. It was those teenagers that,

listen to me and talk to me that really made me shift what I might do with my life. And when I got there 36 years ago, guys that had 25 years in were telling me, man, just keep your head down, go to school, 20 years is going to go fast. I couldn't comprehend it. And then 17 and a half years later, I'm walking out with a master's degree. Some of those guys that told me that are still there. Wow. Interesting. when you signed up for, I've read, when you signed up to take education classes,

it really wasn't about getting an education. It was about living in a better part of the prison. Is that the deal? These older guys, I was such a tough kid to help. Like, I literally, between trying to run around and get high, between trying not do what they said,

between drinking, like, I want to do everything but what they said, but there's no secrets in ABA. So they would constantly come to my cell and said, is your homework done? I never had a teacher come to the cell block before. Like, they're like looking for their work. And they would give me my papers back with the red ink.

You're not even allowed to physically have a red pen in prison. Where were they getting all these red pens from? It was driving me crazy. And I just kept pushing back. Now, it took me a couple times to pass this test to get my high school diploma. It doesn't matter how many times it's irrelevant. But when I finally passed, every time I pushed back and tried to stop the schooling, the guys would said, if you want to, you know, the key jobs, if you want to work where we're

working or live where we're living, you got to get your high school diploma. So the prison did this incredible job of caps and gowns and the other prisoners were in the audience and cheering for us. And it was kicking coffee. If I'd known there was going to be king over, I probably would have worked harder to. But I get to this thing and I'm putting a tie on for the first time my life, which was there just a moment there of being like, I'm the first one of my brothers to get a high school diploma, I'm probably the first to put a tie on. And I said to the principal, and this is really cool, now I can work in the kitchen. She says, well, you don't need a high school diploma to work in the kitchen. Oh my God, they had b***ed me. I was so angry. But walking across that stage and getting that

diploma, it sparked something to me that I didn't know was there. And it made me continue and come home with a master's degree. But I can't help believe that there wasn't some self-loathing going on. Yeah. And that allowed you to actually have some self-respect and pride in yourself, and it changes perspective. I never heard anyone before in my life. And now of a sudden I took a life,

and I didn't really get what that was going to be like. And something you can't ever run from, you can't leave, you can't forget, you can shift your life and try to do some good to try to balance the scales of what your head is telling you. But even when I was released after 17 years, there was that moment of being like, I don't deserve to go home. I haven't done enough time. I don't, I can't fix this. And I just kept my head down low. I'm looking forward. Not, I don't want to look backwards. I don't look at the worst mistake I've ever made. I just want to see how I can do better

and how I can help folks along the way and create something, a nonprofit in which you have the tools to help as many people as you can. I guess what I'm wondering is that transition that you went through, that has to be a component of this for the people that are in your systems

is that, look, you can have all the bravado and outward you want, but it's just you and you looking at the mirror and you're stuck in prison because of something you know you did, you have to be angry at yourself. Yeah. They call it the ceilings. When you go to, at the end of a long day,

and you go to crash, and you get into bed, and you're staring up, and there's just no sleep that night. And so, a long night. When you're able to get your degree and put on a tie and walk across a stage and do something that other people, your family hadn't done, And that's got to help just chip away at that self-destructive mentality you have about your own being. Yeah.

Which then allows you to move forward. And it feels like that's what's happening with your students. You know, when I got to prison in the 80s, you just no one talked, no one shared, no one cried, nobody. But I think I was just younger than most guys. And when I say I was 16, I looked like I was 14. I still had braces on my teeth. Like I was the nerdiest white guy in the world, let alone A block. In prison.

In prison. And I got away with stuff like crying and whatever. And now, 36 years later, when someone cries in the prison, they call it a pika. No way. I'm kind of proud that I shifted some of that crazy stuff that was happening in the worst place in the world where you can cry with your peers in this newly formed community. And instead of them judging you, they call it a pika. And they wrap their arms around you and they get you back on your feet and they support you. I love that.

What surprised you the most? I mean, you went in at 16. You came out at 34, I think you said. Yeah. So alive, free 16 years locked up 18. Yeah. So literally more than half your life. Yeah.

When you got out, you got this degree with the former 16 year life experience and now the 18-year life in prison, what surprised you the most when you got out of prison? I think I just expected I didn't even have to say I was in prison. You're going to see it on my forehead.

You can't hide from it. Do you really believe that? I really just was so scared. I wouldn't go back to my neighborhood, which was one of the reasons why I went to that transitional house. I was just so afraid of going back where I grew up and the judgment

and even though it had been two decades, I was so wrong. There were so many people I grew up that was so proud of the changes I had made. Not what I did, but that I didn't let that be my worst act. And, you know, getting knocked down, but getting you back up. But you went in an 86 and you came out when? Oh, two. TV, movies, clothing, never seen a cell phone before, never been on a computer before, never touched the internet before, never, never wrote a check before, never paid taxes before, never,

it was, it was a lot. It was a lot. But that's the reality for every one of your students coming out of prison. Yeah. As they go in. And you don't have to navigate that alone like I did. And you come out to a foreign land. Yeah. And what you're doing is you're educating them to give them a shot.

You're giving them a place to make sure everybody has a safe place to live and not making them navigate that alone. Oh, my favorite thing is this. So 28 cars ago, someone donated a car. 28 cars ago. I started giving them away. So a family,

a local support, a family, Mary and John, they came, they were supporting the college stuff, they said, hey, we had this old Audi.

We were going to sell it, but we thought, you know, would you take a used car? And I said, well, sure. And my wife's dear friend

is a mechanic, a local mechanic, and he just adopted us. So, because giving away a car that's not good is worth a no car at all. So he gave

the car once over. He goes, well, it needs brakes, but then that's a good car. And we gave it to this guy, Robert, that was just home after 29 years, had just been offered a job that he couldn't take because he didn't have transportation. 29 years, but had a degree. Had a degree. Had his master's. Yeah, had his master's. Yep. And couldn't take the job. So I gave him the car and just changed the whole direction of what he was doing next. And he ended up saving buying another car and then giving that car to somebody else. But in the meantime, we've given away. 28 or 29 cars now. And it's just been a real gift to be living rent-free,

have a clothing store for anything you might need, having no car note, and being able to save, physically save. And now you own a home. Like this outcome, I couldn't have guessed it. What do you say to those listening and watching us right now? Who say, these people did a grum,

and they're coming out, and the cars and the housing and the education and all of the money, do they deserve it? Yeah. I definitely don't deserve it, not a bit of it. But if I think and look at it that way, I just get mired down and just hurt community further and I've already heard it. The best act that I could do for supporting the community that I now am part of is to give it the best it's sure impossible. And I will also say, too, we don't get any state of federal funding.

I raise every single penny for every part of this programming from local folks that believe in second chances. Now, if you don't believe in second chances, don't give me money. Don't support it. I'm cool with that. You don't have to be a part of it. But if you want to be a part of changing the community and everyone in it in a positive way... Earlier, you said Jesus likes turning over tables. He also is pretty big on second chances. I mean, that's pretty much the whole reason he came around. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

And I went through the seminary. I got my MPS. Did you really? I didn't know that. When I went through the seminary, I was just really encouraged to worship with other guys I was in school with. And I went to the mosque and with the Judaism. And I just really kind of shifted everything I thought I knew about life at that point. But one of the things that came out of that is I preach pretty regular in different churches.

And being able to get in the pulpit, it's just an incredible gift. And I love it. It's just helping spread the word about what we're doing or how we're doing it. But also, you find the churches that won't allow a formally incarcerated person in the pulpit. And that's the church I steer clear of. Because if I'm not allowed there, then who is? You know, if you're a church and you don't understand second chances in redemption, you probably need to go back, look at your charter.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a bad. If an Army and Normal folks, we're listening to you right now, what would you, Sean, personally, not the president of Hudson Link, but you tell them about service that they need to hear? Service is not supposed to be easy, and it's not, it's got to be painful. My entire Board of directors are all volunteers, all my professors, all my staff, everyone that's involved with the work that we're doing, there is no day that it's, is not a hard one. When you get involved in this work, know that it's not for the faint of heart. If you wanna change your life,

change a direction of someone, what they're doing, support someone while they're doing it, you gotta jump in there and it's not, it's pretty painful work. God, I have so many examples of the pain. But quite frankly, I just wanna think about every single day that I'm able to help somebody and help change the direction of their lives

and see them while they're getting, become the first ADA in the Bronx, in the country, I want those stories to be the ones that I'm talking about, not the painful ones. It's really important, as we're talking about redemption and second chances and everything, the point you make is there's no federal, there's no tax dollars.

You're raising it all. Yeah. Because people get offended by that, you know? Well, it could be a point of contention using city, state, local, county, federal tax dollars. But you've erased that by raising it. Holy crap, though. That's a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. Kind of get into the finances of the whole thing. So we have about 680 men and women currently in pre-college, two-year, four-year programming. It's five different prisons, 11 different college partners. 680? Yeah.

Yeah. Are you having to pay? college's tuition? Yes. On their behalf? Do you get any cut rate from the... Nope. So what we do is we broker the deal, bringing a college into the prison.

We broker the deal with the prison so that neither one of them needs a talk. So we're coordinating all that. We're finding the students. We're scheduling all the classes. The teachers come in, like a traditional campus, and teach the night. While they're teaching, we manage all the supplies, the movement of the men and women, all of that stuff. in the end, there's a graduation,

we pay, coordinate, and run the entire graduation. So there's no part of the finances that fall in the colleges. Everything from books to professors from food, we pay for the entire thing. So I'm paying for all the construction, I'm buying all the properties, all the trucks. I'm paying my 23 staff members daily, all the professors that come and go.

It's about $5.7 million a year right now. And just every year it grows a little more. That's finish line, the clothing store, the deli, all that stuff. And it's just going to keep growing. And you raise it all. Raise it all privately every year. That is phenomenal. But before anybody goes bonkers, how many people?

600 and what? So we have 686 men and women currently enrolled inside. Okay, 686. Yeah. All right. That's on average, of those 686, 672, will reenter society, be productive taxpaying citizens, and not go back to prison. And one other way, too, I think about it is, so we have 2,000 men and women that are home. If 68 or 70% traditionally go back in the first three years, let's just take 2,000, take 60% of that, and $100,000 that they normally

would be costing the community millions of dollars a year. There's the thing. And we're saving New York tax payers every year for a problem they don't pay for. Because of that 686, you're going to get 672 that are productive members. The baseline would be of that 686. Within three years, 480 of them will go back to prison. How much about does it cost per prisoner? 100K a year.

100K. So that's $48 million. a year versus five or six. Yeah. So on balance, you're the best bargain in town. It's a pretty cheap bargain. It's not very...

It's a hell of an investment. Yeah. So when you hear the $5.8 or $6 million, whatever that number is, you do got to set back on, that's a lot of money you're raising. Yeah. But my God,

it is the best social and cultural bargain on the face of the planet on the balance of what our tax rolls will be burdened with when the baseline of 70% of that 686 goes back to prison. Yeah, yeah. That's an easy sell. Yeah. Fabulous. Thank you.

You may not know, but stand together is our supporter. Oh, I didn't. Yeah. So, I don't know, about a year and a half ago or a year ago, Alex, and his whiz-bang self got something going with staying together and now stand together. Actually, actually is our team that supports and owns the show and everything. Oh, that's cool.

So we're brothering a little bit. I think you're a stand-together. Yeah, I was in the second cohort 119 years ago. And I just, the community has, again, community, bringing nonprofits from around the country together to build, work together, support each other. and then the event or the conference ends, and we're all still communicating. We're all still working together. We have two of the stand-together folks

coming to New York Monday. I found that over the weekend. The warden's allowing them coming with no notice. Monday, great, bring them, we'll roll at the red carpet. Wow. And it's that kind of connection

because they're in New York. Hey, while they're here, we also want to visit the prison. And it's just, it's pretty cool how the community has worked together, support each other while stand-togethers in the background, just connecting us. Yeah. I didn't even know any of this.

I found it out when we sat out and met each other this morning, but I think it's cool that we're completely supported by staying together and you are partly supported by standing-gown. It's called their catalyst program if anyone wants to look it up. Yeah. There you go. Sean, thank you. Thank you for first all you do. Thank you for how you make our community together.

better with Hudson Link. Thank you for your candor about what you called three or four times, the biggest mistake you ever made in your life. I can't imagine reliving that as the most wonderful thing in the world, but it is so important to understanding the story that I really do appreciate your candor. And thanks for flying to Memphis and spending a little bit of time with me. It's a great story, and I wish you nothing. Thank you.

But the best of success. I got to believe there's more coming in your world. world. I don't feel like you see stop signs. If we, um, if 70% of the men and women in this country returned to prison in the first three years, statistically I'm not supposed to be here, right? I'm supposed to be back inside. So every day is just a gift that I didn't even know was coming while I get to spend my days just helping other people around the country. It's a great story, Sean. Thank you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Sean Pica has inspired you and general, or better yet to take action by supporting Hudson Link, getting involved with something

like it in your community, exploring starting something like it, helping formerly incarcerated folks reenter society, or something else entirely, let me know. I really do want to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfokes.org, and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social. Subscribe. to the podcast wherever you're watching or listening to it. Rate it. Review it. Join the army at normalfolks.org.

Join or start one of our local service clubs. Take the 10-level challenge. Buy our merch. Any and all of these things will help us grow. An army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do it you can. On recent episodes of The Questlove show,

I chatted with Jojo about her music and Wallow 267 about his story. everything in between. Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave get out or too little, too late, or baby it's you. Oh, no.

And I'm going to be like, okay, cool. Check out my conversation with Jojo, Wilo 267, and more on the Questlove show. Listen to the Questlove show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. Peace. Back to school is here, and you know what that means. Dirty Rush is on. As campuses, come back. to life and Rush Week kicks into high gear. We're taking you inside the mysterious journey of a

sorority girl from pledging to initiation and just about everything in between. Join me, Gia Judice, Daisy Kent, and Jen Fessler. Dirty Rush takes you deep inside Greek life. Let's get dirty. Listen to Dirty Rush on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Detective said he had stalked her before she died. Years later, they said he remained the person they continued to focus on. This is Hunter Gilmore, host of Hunting for Answers a True Crime podcast, shedding light on the silent epidemic of missing and murdered black women and girls, bringing attention to stories that equally deserve to be told and to the questions that still remain.

Listen to Hunting for Answers a True Crime podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In 1986, a man named Scott Macklem was killed in broad daylight. Police quickly found their suspect. Prosecutors convicted him. But now, almost 40 years later, I'm re-examining this case. I really didn't believe any of it was real. And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me.

They're going to do their police job. Has the wrong man been in prison this whole time? Listen to examined the backfire effect on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If anyone wanted to commit a murder, Up here would be the greatest place in the world to hide the body. But someone will find it. He acted friendly. He talked friendly.

He sounded friendly. They all knew that I did the scary boogie stuff, and I said, maybe she'll find out where this girl is. I saw him violent. Backhanded a bow! Listen to the Devil's Quarry Season 2 in the Bone Valley Feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get.

your podcasts.