Locked In with Ian Bick - Former Inmate Reveals How She Ran A Prison Bakery To Make Money | Lonett Williams

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Lonett Williams from BET's American Gangster Trap Queen Series shares how she went from successful real estate mogul to federal prison inmate for 10 years after the 2008 market crash. We get an inside look of her fraud, how she managed to survive prison for nearly a decade and what life is like for her now. Follow Ian Bick on Instagram: @ian_bick & Snapchat: ianbick Connect with Lonett Williams: IG: https://www.instagram.com/lonettwilliams/?hl=en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCkUNaEb3evROeRVtcuCvKcA Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com Chapters: 00:00:00 - From Sweet Shop to Prison Entrepreneur 00:02:10 - Childhood Memories and Generational Trauma 00:04:25 - Overcoming Adversity 00:06:34 - Forming Relationships in Prison 00:08:41 - From College to Motherhood 00:11:04 - From Entrepreneurship to Fraud 00:13:21 - Making Hard Choices as an Entrepreneur 00:15:42 - The Stress of Success 00:17:53 - From Loan Officer to Real Estate Investor 00:20:13 - The Market Crash and its Impact 00:22:33 - A Slide into Gray Area 00:24:56 - The Desperate Decision 00:27:17 - Forging Documents and the Criminal Justice System 00:29:18 - Forging Documents and the Consequences 00:31:37 - The Arrest of My Son for Mortgage Fraud 00:34:17 - The Devastating Time of My Life 00:36:50 - Devastating Legal Consequences 00:39:14 - 10 Years in Prison for Forged Documents 00:41:42 - Handcuffs and Shackles 00:44:11 - The Humanity of Incarcerated Individuals 00:46:36 - Conversations with Interesting People, Part 1 00:48:59 - Regret and Reflection 00:51:16 - Prison Life at Danbury 00:53:38 - Chicken Day in Prison 00:55:43 - Making Delicious Banana Pudding in Prison 00:58:06 - Challenges after Incarceration 01:00:25 - Overcoming Challenges After Prison 01:02:50 - Empowering Trauma-impacted Women 01:05:32 - Debt and Probation System 01:07:44 - Finding Purpose in Life 00:01:10 - Ian's Appearance on the Podcast Produced by: https://www.instagram.com/shanedanahy https://www.shanedanahy.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Netflix. The Four Seasons is back for season two, starring Tina Faye, Will Forte, Coleman Domingo, Marco Calvani, Carrie Kenny Silver, and Erica Henningson. After a difficult year, your favorite group of friends continues their tradition of vacationing together now with a baby in tow. From the Jersey Shore to upstate New York and Italy, their getaways are sure to take unexpected turns where comedy ensues. Watch the Four Seasons May 28th, only on Netflix. I used to have a sweet shop. Wait, you ran a sweet shop in prison? Come on, want to hustle.

You're always going to be a lot of it. How did you hustle? Yeah, entrepreneur, right? Banana pudding. I made the banana pudding taste exactly the way I made it at home. One of the cups was $2.50 and the other cup was $3.50. These girls would come by and just grab like two or three. I used to have commissary out of the wazoo.

On today's episode, we have Lynette Williams from BETT's American Gangster Trap Queen series to share her story of building a real estate empire, turning it into a fraud after the 2008 market crash and spending 10 years in federal prison. Listen up, everyone. Remember to grab your official locked-in gear just in time for the holiday season. I hope you all sit back, relax, and get ready to lock in with Lynette Williams. Lynette Williams, welcome to Locked In. Thank you, Ian. It's so great to be here.

Yeah, this is a great conversation already. We haven't even started. High energy, you're exciting, you're laughing, you've been smiling the whole time. I know. You've taken some shots at me. You called me shy. See, I'm warming up to you. Don't worry.

Yeah, you got that energy. You got that great energy. But shy's not bad necessarily. I'm like, you can't figure me out type of person. You don't know. It's like a mysterious, you know. Yeah. I got you, though.

I got you. It works, but you figured me out. You called me out on my bullshit. No. Welcome to show, though. You have a nice ride in? Thank you, yes. It was very long.

I thought I would not be back in this town. But here we are. Yeah, and this town has a lot of history for you, which we're going to get into. Yeah. But let's start at the beginning of the story. Where are you from what's early childhood like for you? Okay, so I am from, I always say I'm from Queens, but I'm actually from the Bronx. And I represent Queens because we move there.

Yeah, I know it, right? L-O-Coo-J. I really do that sometimes, like, but I represent Queens. But anyway, so I do represent Queens because I got there when I was about nine, I think, and I've been there. You know, I grew up there. I became a woman there. I went through those formative years there. So, yeah. What about your parents? Were they together? Did you have siblings? I had a great, I had a really good childhood. I had both my parents. I have an older brother. and look, yeah, the story stops there. That's it.

So pretty basic, no, like, childhood trauma, nothing like that? Well, you know, when you're going through, when you're young and you're a child and your parents' home, you don't realize that what you're going through may be trauma, you know. But as you grow, you realize, wow, it's like most of our childhoods are wrapped in generational trauma. You know, it's only when you get older that you look back and you say, wow, that wasn't. Hmm, so that didn't need to happen that way. And it probably would have been best handled another way.

But, you know, you work with what you have. And I had like this, my childhood from the outside seems like it was the greatest American dream upbringing ever. Let my brother tell the story. His story totally is way different than mine. We were just four and a half years apart. I don't knock his story, but from my standpoint, I had a great childhood. I couldn't have wanted anything more. But again, looking back, there's some things that I realize that selective,

that selective, what are they called, selective memory? Yeah. Works for me. You know, that's a great statement you made, though, that each person has their own memory of a situation, and that plays a big part into our stories, people that were formerly incarcerated because there's two sides to every story. You have the government side, you have our side. What normally happens is it's just the government side that gets out in the world.

You create a platform like this and it gives the opposite end of the spectrum. That's just like a huge theme in the show. Yeah, it is. I saw a couple of your shows and shows like these are so important. They're so important. People do watch, you know. They do want to know. They want to know what it was like inside.

They want to know what you experienced. They want to know about you as a person. This shows like these are really good to give a background on the person that went to prison. Because to look at you, you would never think. You know, I know to look at me, you'd never think. Who's walking around smiling like this all the time, you know? But, you know, to God be the glory. But, yeah.

But, I mean, just the way you go about things just shows that you didn't let what happened to you define you. We come out here. We're still happy. We're having fun. you know, we all have our sad days. Even people that haven't been to prison have sad days. Yeah. But that doesn't define us, you know, that we keep moving forward.

Not at all. It's like if you do let it, if you let it define you or if you let it consume you for a moment, you can really sink into a deep space of depression. And sometimes, you know, since then, since coming home, sometimes I wake up in the morning like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not, no, no, no. You know, just I literally shake it off. we're not going to do any anxiety.

We're not going to do, we're not going to allow negative thoughts. We're going to be positive. And I know a lot of people, and this is kind of probably news to a lot of people, because when you see someone walking around and they're always seeming, you know, they seem to be in good spirits all the time.

It's like, no, we do have negative spaces, you know, we enter into. And the only way to get out of it for me is self-talk. I literally, and I say it out loud sometimes, Nope. We're not doing that. You have to. You got to check yourself sometimes. You only got you at the end of the day, no matter what. And when you get to a place like prison, that's when you really only have you.

That's right. And you know what's so funny and so interesting that you say that because there people in there, a lot of people created these families while they were away. And I found it interesting how, you know, they were able to create a family. I always felt like my family's home. Yeah, I, now on an everyday basis, I talk to more people that I was in prison with than I did to people than I was outside of prison with. I'm going to my friend's wedding next week who was a guy I met in prison. And you just, you form those relationships and people have those attachments because you spend so much time with them. Yeah. You know, what do they say?

It takes X amount of days and hours to get to know someone and consider them a friend. Yeah. You're literally living with individuals in prison where you're, forced to be in that setting. So it's a whole different topic. Talk about that. Forced to be, you wake up and you see somebody in your face, you go brush your teeth and it's the same person. Because everyone has their routine. Yeah. You pick any time of the day and you follow someone's routine in prison, you kind of see because you're forced to see those routines. How would someone describe you growing up? Like if we had one of your high school friends here, what would they say about you?

That's interesting. I like that question. Thank you. I like to ask a good question. I don't know if I can answer how somebody else perceives me, but I can just, I don't know. I think that's a great question, Ian. I'm almost stuck. I don't know how people would perceive me. I think people would have perceived me as shy back in junior high school and high school. I would say I was shy. wasn't very, the extroverted side of me wasn't in place yet.

I couldn't decide where that belonged. But, yeah, I think people for the most part would say I was shy and quiet. You've been calling me shy all morning and now here you were, we find out that you were shy. Takes one to no one. I'll take that. Do you end up graduating high school? Yeah. Where did you go to college?

I went to, right after high school, I went to Nassau Community. I didn't want to go to college, though. I didn't want to go. I went because I knew my dad was going to buy me a car. So my brother had got his car when he graduated high school, right? So I knew I was getting one. So you have to go to college in order to get the car. So I went.

I didn't stay, though. I didn't stay. But later, I went to Cornell. Okay. So you went to college just to get the car? Yeah. And then as soon as you got the car, you left college? So when you left college,

That first time, what did you do? Did you work? Did you have any career path, ambition, anything like that? No, I actually, I think, let's see, I left college because I was pregnant. With your first. Yeah, with my first. And were you married to that man, or you guys were just dating? No.

We were just dating. But we had a good, you know, at 19, what is your relationship? It was good, it was solid. We were in love, Ian. We were in love. And, yeah, so, you know, I got pregnant. And from the moment I was pregnant, I knew I was keeping my child. And before that, there's, I wouldn't, I didn't even think about having any kids at all.

Like, I wasn't, I wasn't one that didn't want any. But that's just not what we thought about where I grew up. We just didn't think about having kids. And, you know, a lot of young women did. But that wasn't what we thought of in my house. wasn't like part of the plan. Do you ever think about how life could have been different if you didn't have a kid at that early age?

I mean, I've thought about it maybe once or twice, but nothing, nothing, nothing solid. I didn't, yeah, I don't have any regrets. I don't have any regrets. I think, you know, looking back at this point in my life, that was, those were some of the best times in my life. you know, raising my sons. And I did it alone. So, but they were the best, most rewarding.

How are you supporting yourself financially? Oh, I had a job. Oh, you did. Yeah, I worked at American Express. I mean, you know, my parents worked. I worked. So you had a very easygoing life, for the most part. Like, you got the car, you went to college,

you had the opportunities handed to you. Everything was fine. So how on earth do you land yourself in federal prison? Because it's not like you had drug use growing up or you were in poverty or anything like that. You had like the advantage of life had to offer you. Yeah. And you know what? We can all end up in a federal prison at some point.

That's one thing I've learned. But, you know, I didn't, what landed me in federal prison is not a life of crime. it was a decision I had to make. You know, I became an entrepreneur. I was actually that since I was 11 years old with my Sunshine Girls Club. Wait, what's Sunshine Girls Club? So I created this club for myself

and the girls on the block, and we would do dances, and we charged the parents to come to the shows. And, yeah, they've had to pay 25 cents to come to the shows. And I know you were big on lemonade stands when you were young. Candy. So we sold lemonade and cookies and cakes and stuff that our parents baked.

And we sold them. And I actually chose a treasurer. What else? I was the president and CEO, of course. And it chose a treasurer and a secretary. And who knew that those are the three main elements needed to form a business. You know what's interesting is that the drug addicts that I had interview, something that's a reoccurring theme is that their parents were users and that trickles down.

Something I've realized with people that go to prison for like fraud, for example, a reoccurring theme is that they had some sense of entrepreneurship as a young adult. They were doing something. They had the skills or the ability or that mindset. Yeah. Because you need that to even commit a fraud anyways. Yeah. And you know what I realized also?

most of the people that did commit fraud, they didn't start out in fraud. Fraud wasn't part of the plan. It certainly wasn't part of my plan. I mean, I made my son, the CEO of my company, and I made my youngest one. He was an officer of the company as well. So, yeah, there was nothing. Fraud was not an option. It was not even in play, nothing I ever thought about.

But I think most of us that end up committing fraud, we are entrepreneurs for the most part and we find ourselves in these situations where we have to make decisions. Are you going to sink or are you going to swim? And I think maybe better planning. But things you're always going to find, as an entrepreneur, you're always going to find yourself in a space.

You're going to find yourself in a space where you have to make some hard choices. Did I need to make those choices? Did I have to make those choices? No, looking back, of course I didn't. But it seemed like that was the viable option at the time. Yeah. I mean, most individuals like myself, the fraud happened when you're pressed up against a wall and a lot of cases is not even intentional.

The act itself is intentional, but not the mindset behind it. And I think that's what the court system is not looking at. You know, it used to be intent, right? Intent is what used to put you away. But that has nothing to do with it anymore. It's just the act. The act is. fraud, therefore you, do you know what the judge said? You had cause to know or you should have known. Okay. So what business did you get into that you started? I had when at this point in time. At that point in time, before the fraud happens, describe like what the setting is,

what your life's like and your son's involvement. You said they were the CEO, right? Yeah, but you know, that was only by name. I made them CEO because I could. I just wanted, you know, as a single mom, you know, I definitely wanted to build a lifestyle and a life for them that sat outside of that box. So, but life for me before the big storm happened was fabulous. You know, definitely I had the big house on the hill in California.

I had cars. I had properties everywhere all over the country. And a lot of responsibilities, a lot of responsibilities. And nobody to, you know, I was built this empire alone, you know. And so that being said, I didn't have anybody to report to. Nobody to hold me accountable and so and vice versa. So it was, life was good. Life was good. A lot of stress.

It's so crazy. You don't realize how much stress is involved in being successful until you are, until it's all gone. Absolutely. So was this empire built legally? Yes. Legitimately. And for those that don't know who you are, it was a real estate empire. Yes.

What was like day-to-day operations? How did you accrue this empire? Day-to-day operations were stressed from the morning. You know, one real estate deal will give you stress, right? So imagine 17 deals in escrow at one time. It's all over the place. But, you know, sometimes I would actually, sometimes you'll make calls and you make calls,

and it's like, okay, listen, today is an off day. Because as an entrepreneur, we don't take days off. We work, right? And so when nobody's picking up at the escrow office and you've got all of this business going on all over the, country. It's like, okay, you know what? Why don't you just go to the movies? And that's what I would do sometimes. Just go to the movies? Drop it and go to the movies. By yourself? I went to the movies

for the first time by myself a couple of years ago when I was working in Long Island for Whole Foods. Listen, that was like an interesting experience because I hated going alone to places. Really? Yeah. And I liked it. I saw the new Spider-Man movie because I didn't know anyone in Long Island. So I went and then recently when I was in Alaska, I ate alone. And it's a very like wholesome like experience just sitting there. Yeah. And I think that broke because like you said, I'm shy. I've always been shy like when I walk into a place like I have to be on my phone like I don't want people to recognize me or anything like this.

Now like I don't I don't give a shit. Like I just walk it. I just do whatever. I say hello. I'm being more social. Yeah. Shooting my shot into girls' DMs. Okay.

I'm doing things like that. But I didn't have that before. Like this is all I think as this podcast has progressed. I've gained that, which is, it's interesting how, like, those things, you know, change it. I'm a very, like, mind type of person. Like, I love the mentality and how someone thinks. That's why, like, I ask questions about, like, your thoughts, your feelings, who you are as a person. Because that's how the audience gets to understand you, too.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I love that. And it does. It does. Oh, podcast. And it definitely opens you up.

Absolutely. You have to. Because if I sat here shy, this wouldn't work. No. I came to Connecticut for this. What, um, were you flipping houses? Is that what the empire was built on? What exactly were you guys doing? Well, okay, so I started in real estate in, um, as a loan officer, actually. So the loan, being a loan officer is a very powerful position, FYI, who for, for those watching and listening do not know.

That's a very powerful position, especially if you're a loan officer for your own deals. So, um, your own transactions. So starting out as a loan officer, I realized, I found out a lot. I've loaned, I processed my own loans and as I moved into the real estate side of it as an agent, you know, selling the happy homemaker her home. Oh, no. I can't do it. Do it. You know what happens when you, when you, for me, mainstream real estate sales, nobody goes home happy. You know, at the class. You know, at the closing table. I'm excited to get my commission, right? But everybody's like, you know, they're happy at the moment, but then they call you two days later and say, oh, you know, there was a chip in the floor. Can we get some of that, you know? It's like, no, the deal was closed. But what happened is they went home with a deal

that, with a house they probably couldn't afford. Somebody probably told them, oh, you grow into your house. No, you buy what you can buy and then you sell it or you rent. it out and then you buy into something else, you know, but usually people, they're looking at, they're saddled with these mortgages and in debt over there, you know, over their head. And so nobody's happy. So my, the type of real estate deals that I did was investment real estate. And so, we'll call them incentive built in, right? Which were really just seller concessions.

But, you know, the people can make anything look like it's not legal, especially when they need it to not look legal. They can make it appear to be whatever they want it to be. But largely, they were concessions built into the deal. So by the time my real estate transactions closed, everybody's happy. Everybody went home with money. And so it was a good day. What's the difference between Butter?

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Did it? Yeah, right around there. So everything was great up until about then. Yeah. So what happens? Was it the market crash that changed your life? Or was it other circumstances? Oh, it was the market.

Really? So you're not the first person that's been in this type of industry that it affected that crash turned into fraud. Yeah, that was a very serious time. I mean, during that time, everything was, it was great for a while. And, you know, I had clients that were refinancing their homes every six months. It's like, and it got to a point, and that wasn't my suggestion, but they were refinancing their homes like every six months. And it got to the point where a few of my clients were about

to refinance. I said, you know what? It's about to shut down. You might want to, if this is what you're doing, you might want to go ahead and refinance and cash it all out, because this will be happening again because I felt it coming. Not even that I felt it coming. I saw it coming. I saw the crash happening. I just knew it was coming. Things started to slow down and, you know, the industry started changing. And so you could really, when you're in it that way, when you're in the thick of it, you can really see the little things, the appraisal, the appraise values and how they were coming back. how many closings were happening without closing costs included

because you couldn't get the house low enough to accommodate the closing cost. So this was easy six months ago. Now all of a sudden, it's not. So it was a lot. How much were you making before the crash at the peak of your business? I made a few, I made about, I made some six digits. a month. A month, six digits a month. And this was all legal. Everything was legit. Yeah. So the crash happens. What was the first time that it goes into the gray area?

When the six figures became five. So was, was it for you a mental thing where you needed to figure out how to make more money to live up to your lifestyle? Well, no, it was more like, that's when you asked me when I saw it coming, when I noticed that things were changing and that's when I noticed. You always notice your pockets first and that's when I noticed things were changing. So no, it wasn't right away that any of that needed to happen. I did meet somebody that had these connections at the bank, you know? I don't even want to say the bank out loud, but somebody had these connections and they introduced me and it was right around the time when things were changing.

And so when, as things were changing, you know, I'm calculating. I'm looking around. It's like, okay, all right. I'm, you know, figuring maybe I will flip. Maybe I will flip in cell or, you know, maybe I better start, you know, stacking and doing something, whatever. But to have such airtight connections on the inside, and to have your back against the wall, you know, it got to that point where your back was against

the wall. And nothing can go wrong. What can go wrong? If anybody's going down, she's going down. Right? Not me. So, but yeah, it didn't work that way. It didn't work that way.

Looking back on it now, was there any other alt-term? So you could have taken besides the road that you're about to travel down? Yeah. I could have just lost everything without trying. So there was no way to try and do it legitimately? What was I going to do? Go into a bank and say, you know, you make all these millions and go to a bank and say, yeah, I need some, I need a float. I need something like I need a loan.

They're not going to give. They weren't going to. Even with all the real estate you owned? Yep. Is that just because of the timing? It was the timing. It seemed, you know, I think I can go ahead and just say it just seemed like an easy way to go ahead and make it happen. Yeah.

You chose the fast route. I chose the fast route. I did. And it just felt like any other way was going to take too long and that window would close on me. And so, yeah, out of desperation, I grabbed. So what exactly did you do? What does it lead into? What do you mean?

Like what did you do that was considered fraud? Oh. You know, that would start from a legitimate operation to an illegitimate operation. Falseified documents. Falsified documents are we talking about. Oh, God. No, you know, the listeners want to know. Yeah.

Well, you know I have this episode, right? BET. Yeah, this is a different group of people that want to hear from you, you know? Yeah. These are the people not watching BET. That's right. I know what you did, but it's the listeners that want to hear, you know. Ask the question again.

What type of loan documents did you forge? Okay, it was, it started with 1003. What's a 1003? 1003 is a loan application, mortgage loan application that you fill out when you want to buy a house and you want to go into contract and you want a loan from the bank. So that's the big one. and so yeah it started with the 1003 and actually it started with stated income that's the fave back in the days over 700 FICO you can state anything you can say you make a million

dollars somewhere and you know it's going to go through because you have the FICO to support it what happened is that you needed to have um you didn't need any documentation to support it at that time. The only falsification was that on the application. And so as things are dropping out of escrow, they decided that now you have to supply documentation. Otherwise, all of your deals were going to fall out of escrow. So you had to forge them. How would you forge them? Is it just like taking a photocopy and using some whiteout? Yeah, sometimes it was as simple as that, a little white. A little white. out here, a little white out there. That wouldn't work now, would it?

You know, I don't know. I have no idea. I don't even want to know, to be honest with you. I definitely will not travel that road ever again in life. There is nothing. I mean, you know, so crazy, it's like, you know, that was the one time I made a left turn and like, everything.

So that was it? Yeah. You just did this a couple, like once or twice. When I did it, well, I did it. I did a few times because I had a lot of deals in escrow that I did not want to fall out. So, yeah, I did it a few times. But when I say that one time I took a left turn and, like, that's the first time I entered a crime zone. You know, like, and needless to say, I didn't think that, I know that sounds crazy, right?

It says we will prosecute right on the application. But you're not going to prosecute me. But when you were forwarded these documents, who's losing? on that deal. Like, is anyone really out of pocket? Because if you have real estate to back it, is the bank, even though you lied, is the bank losing money or no? Hypothetically. They're not. But it's because you lied, someone found out you lied, and then they brought that up is because you is why you eventually get charged. Yeah. And there's insurance all over the place. So there is insurance to back everything up.

Everything. What's interesting, too, is about the criminal justice system is a bank can lose money. insured and the person that caused them the loss is still going to jail. Not only are they going to jail, but they're paying restitution. Yeah, that is a big issue with the fact of the restitution. A lot of these people get their money back through insurance, and then they're still paying, I don't know where that money goes, how that works. And they're not even people that get their money back, their entities.

They're entities that get their money back. The FDIC is big insurance, right? It's way different. Titles insurance, that's insurance. You know, I mean, I guess you, you know, I read somewhere that the laws were not made for people that don't commit crimes. Does that make sense? One of those ways. How much time passed between when you first did this, forged a document, and when you ultimately found out whoever was investigating you?

I think the time was five years. Five years won't by. Were you actively forging documents through the full five years? No. So you just did it a few years back and then all of a sudden it catches up to you? Yeah. So how do you get when that they're investigating you? Someone told me.

Yeah. Somebody that they were actually – this woman I was actually doing business with, she managed to tell me that – watch the messenger, right? So she managed to tell me that I was being – that I was being investigated. They took pictures of us when we were in Miami. me and like, okay, well, I'm not doing anything, you know, everything that whatever I did is done, it's gone. Yeah, and so she told me.

And were you able to rebuild your business from those forged documents? Like, is business back to normal at this point? No, no, no, no, no. Business is not back to normal. I mean, that was years ago. I had to pay the price for that. So business wasn't back to normal even in the later years before the investigation even started? No, I shut down my business in 2009, I believe.

Oh, so you had to shut it down even with? I didn't have to. I just did. You know, it had its run, and I wasn't, I was enjoying spending my money. And, you know, the stress in life was kind of, you know, lessening. And I was enjoying kind of like a little stress-free. That didn't last long. No, it didn't.

So what year did they come knocking? They came 2010 or 11. I believe it was 11. And did they raid the house? What happened? No, they did. It was worse than that. It gets worse than raiding the house?

Yeah, when they arrest your child. They arrested your child? Your son? How old was your son at the time? 28. Was that because he was named on the business? So how do you find out he gets arrested? I was on my way back from Italy, and, you know, whenever I fly back in, whenever I get back in the state, I'll states from traveling, I'll, you know, I'll call one of my kids and say what's going on.

Like, am I going to go hang out with my oldest one in New York, or am I going to go hang out with my youngest one in California at home? And he didn't answer the phone, my oldest, and he always answers the phone. Like, that was a phone that I paid for specifically. because when he moved away, he moved from home at 18. So that phone never dies, right? We had a little pack that we made. And so I called my youngest one who was back home in California. And, you know, I'm bubbles.

And I'm just like, what's going on? And he said, Ma, did you call, you know, did you call him? Did you call Sean? And I said, yeah, but his phone went to voice me all. I'll try them back in a few minutes. You know, I'm still excited. So what's going on? So I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to hang out in New York with Shawnee for a minute

or am I going to, you know, come home? And he said, okay, Ma, no. No. Okay, so you don't know. I said, no what? Oh, that's when I hit the ground in the airport. Bonjour, compadre. It's the...

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Like, you know, I was fortunate enough that, you know, I didn't have to deal with any of that kind of stuff, raising my sons. And so for him to just say those words, like, that was pure devastation. And then I was already on the ground in the airport. And then I said, no, what happened? What happened?

You know? And then he told me what it was. He said it was for mortgage fraud. And yeah, that was like a canon, you know, if you can even imagine, went straight through me. And this lady, I remember this lady tapping me because, you know, I was dressed nice. You know, I was like I wasn't hanging out on the floor in the airport. Clearly something happened. And she tapped me.

I said, I'm okay, I'm okay. And, yeah, so that was the most devastating time of my life. There was only one other time where I was devastated like that. And that's when school dropped my youngest one off in a housing development. That was not where I lived. But, yeah. So did you know that it was related to you once he told you mortgage fraud? Yeah.

So you knew that, oh, shit, this fine. finally came up, caught up to me. So what happens next after this? Well, immediately from the airport, I called my daughter-in-law and I just drove straight to rented a car. I left my bags in the airport, you know, and I just went straight to the car rental, rented a car, and went to New York. And she said he wasn't home yet, so he's like literally still, you know, in custody.

But she said he's the releasing him. And so she was going to pick him up. So she went and picked him up. And by the time she picked him up, I got to her mom's house. And that's where we all met. And what's like that first conversation like? There was no conversation. It was just, it was, I was, I was bawling.

And, you know, just, I'm sorry. And then later that night, we all went back to my son's house. And then we just, you know, we were talking, you know, talking and just, you know, trying to find out. I wanted to know what happened, what they say, what did they say. And, yeah, to try to start getting to the bottom of why they would arrest my son when they know that he has nothing to do with anything. You know, he lived in New York City. this was, you know, he had nothing to do with anything. They knew it was my business.

What was he doing for work at that time? He was living in New York, and him and his wife, they had this vintage clothing business. So he wasn't associated to you in any way besides that document, saying that he's the CEO? Well, the CEO, and that I bought him a house in Florida. Okay. I did buy my house in Florida, and I did buy it stated income.

Okay. Yeah. So when do you go and talk to the police? I don't. I don't think that that came up. I wouldn't talk to my attorney. Yeah, they didn't call me. They didn't have anything on me.

They didn't have anything on you. They just, because his name, oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, that was even more devastating. They never had anything on me. I gave him everything they needed, though. So that way they dropped the charges on him. You would think that was the point.

And they didn't. So he got jail time too? How much jail time did your son get? He, 18 months. In a camp or a low? They gave him 18 months even though he had nothing to do with it. Yeah. Yep.

And I didn't even realize at the time, but at the time they told me that it was facing more than that. Yeah, he was facing more than that. And so after being away, we look at time differently, right? But at the time, I'm just a mother, you know, that built this lifestyle for my children, and we're not thinking about any kind of prison or anything like that. And so I'm clearly just like no jail time. He should not have any, you know. But in retrospect, after going through my time away, that's when you look back and like, wow, that was kind of either they should have done nothing or he could have gotten a lot.

So, yeah. How much time did they end up giving you? Ten years. And you got a plea deal or do you go to trial? Plea. Yeah, I wasn't going to trial. They had my baby. Yeah.

Yeah, there was no trial for me. There was no fighting it. I didn't even do the, what did it call it, the 2255, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I didn't even do that until they had gave him his sentence. And that was maybe a week before the deadline. So I had a whole week before the deadline for me to file that motion. And I did. I filed it, but they didn't get back to me for like maybe four years later.

So they gave you 10 years in prison over a couple documents that were forged. What did they say was a loss to the banks? I don't know if it was different than it is, $13 million. They said it was $13 million that you illegally signed for. Yeah. Wow. And you couldn't have paid any of that back through any of the money you had? You know, at a point, people think that you can just pay your way out of prison.

That's true to a point. But it doesn't work that way all the time. So, yeah, no. And if I had $13 million, I don't think I, yeah. You wouldn't have paid it if you had the money? I mean, let's back away from that. Okay, so they send you, they give you 10 years in federal prison. Where do they send you first?

I was in, I was in a jail house in Escambia County. Florida. Pensacola, Florida. Oh, you went to the Pensacola camp? I heard that's like a really nice camp. Actually, not a Pensacola camp. It was the jail. Okay.

Yeah, it was Pensacola jail. Why, Florida? I had business in Florida. You had business everywhere. Yeah. So what did you say to the fed? Yeah, I think I'm going to do my time here? No.

That's where they, that's, no, my son's case was out of Florida. Okay. And so when I flew into Florida to, you know, go on to the witness stand for him, that's when they, you know, that's when they arrested me. At his trial or witnessed? At his trial. Because then they figured out that you were the real mastermind? They didn't figure anything. I told them.

Oh, okay. I said, these are my, these charges belong. I'm responsible for these charges. And then I told him, it's in the transcript. My son didn't do anything. He had nothing to do with any of this, you know, so. So you go to Pensacola first for prison or the jail. Iscambia County Jail?

What was that like your first time ever in prison? That was devastating. What was like the strangest or weirdest thing that you experienced that you never would expect to have experienced as someone that was going to jail for their first time? All of it. What shocked you the most? Like your first day in prison? Well, you know what shocked me? I had, okay, so I had on a suit.

This was the second day I went to court. And I had on a suit and I had on my heels, you know. And what shocked me. is that they put handcuffs on me. That was the first shock. Like, oh, my God, what is going on? Look at you guys to me, right? So it was the handcuffs.

And then they put this chain around my waist. Why did they put a chain around my waist? Because they shackled me. My feet were shackled. Like, this is, like, crazy. It was crazy. Were you, like, yelling at them with your personnel? or anything like that.

Were you saying anything to them? No. My personality. What the house wrong are you people? No. No, no. I was honestly, I was defeated. I was defeated.

I just wanted to, I mean, we were at my son's trial, so I needed to understand what was going on, like what was going on with him. And so, you know, I'm one of those mommies, right? Like, never mind, I'm all right. What's going on with my son? That's it. I just needed to know what was going on with him.

And nobody was able to tell me anything. That's the worst. Yeah, yeah, it was the worst. Because I didn't know if he was found guilty, if they would release him. So I didn't know anything. So I just didn't have a lot of words for anything at that point. How long did you spend time in Florida for during your prison's day? I think it was your 10 months.

And then you eventually make it the Danbury? No, I traveled. Did they play you through diesel therapy? No, I traveled. I went to California. Okay, a camp, a women's camp? Yeah, Victorville. Victorville.

They have a USP there too, right? Yeah, right in that hole. In Victorville, they have a USB. I think they have an SCI 1 and 2, and then they had the camp. So I was at the camp in Victorville. So tell me about women's prison camp. Are there like politics?

Are there like rules that the woman make? What's that like? Let me tell you about jail. Okay, let me tell you about jail where I was like, I was housed with people that committed what we would call heinous acts of violence, like murder and not just. just murder, not just shoot somebody with a gun. I don't know why I feel like that's just different.

But, you know, I think one of the people in there actually set someone on fire. And you know what the craziest thing is? You meet these people, these people that we call these people, right? And you realize that they're just people. They're just people. You know, what possessed them to do something like that? I have no idea. But you don't even see that when you're dealing with them.

They're just people. And so it's just a whole, just being incarcerated is such an interesting, it's just an interesting mindset that happens in there. Now, before prison, laying next to someone that murdered somebody would have been like, what? No, we can't even. And it's like, and then here we are on the other side of things

and it's like, oh, so they committed murder. Okay, so did they do their time or do they have more? It's just a conversation. It's just a conversation. I think at some point reality kind of sets in and especially after you're there for a while, you see that things happen in people's lives that they can either explain or not explain.

There are acts of passion that happen and they commit like these crimes but people at the end of the day are just people. So these women that we see on like TV that do some crazy, crazy things that we see in trial and they look all crazy on the television and stuff? Yeah. Are you saying those are normal individuals?

like when you talk to people like that? What's normal? Well, I mean, like, could you have a conversation with an individual like that? Because you're saying you've seen people with he and his crimes, like, are they people that you can approach and talk to? Or does TV villainize them?

Not saying that they're not a villain, but can they be talked to as human beings? Yeah. They really can. Yeah, they can be. That's interesting. I'm sure a lot of people are curious about that because you see some of these women

with the crazy hair and they look like, or they did just kill someone. You kind of want to wonder the mindset and how these individuals are. You do. Now, can you approach them and talk to them? Yeah, how many conversations can you have with someone is another story, you know,

and it depends on the depth of conversation that you want to have. You know, so, yeah, interesting. People are interesting. I've learned a lot about people being away. I've learned definitely to be slower to judge. Because you never know, any outside of someone that's dealing with a mental condition that, you know, they were born with, let's just say, you never know if that person, if something happened in their lives, that turned them around. And they became that way.

It's a difference. And if that's the case, which it is largely, then it could have been you. It could have been me. I didn't have to be returned sane. There's a lot of people that went in there, sane, came back and just can't pull it together, you know? So you've got to think that there is a power higher than us that are governing steps, you know, without going into any particular space. What was your nickname in prison? Did the inmates call you anything?

My nickname is Cookie. How do you get the nickname? But I didn't let anybody in prison call me Cookie. Why did they call you Cookie? I was three months old. And I think my cousin started calling me Cookie, which is really crazy. She said I looked like the wise potato chip man. You know what's funny?

You're sitting here in Blue, so the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. He was blue, right? Yeah, he was blue. Yeah, the cookie monster. Yes. Was it Oscar the Grouch? No, Oscar the Grouch was the cookie guy, right? No, he wasn't the garbage one.

Yeah, I think it was just called Cookie, right? No, I think it was Oscar. You sure? I don't know. Yeah, Oscar's the one that wore the Blue. Oh, what about the Garbage Guy? Yeah, I don't know about it. That's just the Grouch, right?

I don't know, but you were the Blue, the Cookie Monster. Yeah, so I was called Cookie since I was three months old. And, you know, here's the funny thing that even closing million-dollar deal, the bankers, the cookie. When you got to prison, did you have any regret for what you did and the actions that led you there? Yeah.

Yeah. You know, regret, regret. We can speak about regret on a bunch of different levels. So the regret is that I didn't want to be in prison. I didn't want my sons to be, I didn't want my sons to go through this. I didn't want my, especially my, the oldest one to have to even see the inside of a prison, you know,

and to have been responsible for that was crazy as a parent. You know, as a parent, I'm talking about I wasn't, I wasn't the parent that dropped the kids off and kept it pushing. I was that parent every single day as a single mother, you know. So to that degree, yeah. Now, the question, if the question were, would you have done it again? my answer would have to be, I don't know. I don't know.

What about now? Now that you've survived prison. No, not doing it again, but has that feeling of regret change? Because normally when we're in a difficult situation, we tend to regret it in that moment because we're living in that difficult situation. Now you're past that difficult situation are your feelings differently to your past actions. that got you that difficult situation to begin with? I'm so past the situation at this point in life.

It doesn't hold any weight on, do I regret it, do I not regret it? You know, life throws you a lot of different bricks and you either dodge them, you know, or you get hit by them. But bricks will continue to happen. They'll always be thrown. It's life, you know, you're going to have to make decisions. I'll get in a position where I'll have to make some decisions. But, you know, hindsight is 2020, right?

Yeah. So we're in Richfield, Connecticut right now. It's on the border of Danbury, Connecticut. Why is Danbury, Connecticut significant to you? Well, this is where I walked into freedom from FPC, Danbury. After you got out. After how many years did you end up serving in Danbury? I was in Danbury for a year and maybe eight months or something like that.

traveled. I was in Victorville for like two years. And then I went to, I wanted to come to Danbury to be closer to family, but I think there was one, I don't know, they had like a freeze on the, on the prison. I think it was, I think it was Jude Ice. You were there when Teresa was there? No, I was, I was about to be there, but they stopped me and I ended up in West Virginia. Did they know you were an attacker or something? They had to keep cookie away from Teresa? No, I'm not an attacker. But so they stopped me in West Virginia.

And that's where Martha Stewart was. And that's where I was in West Virginia for like three years. You weren't with Martha, though, right? No, no, no, no, no. She had gone. So Dan Bear is a pretty famous prison. Yeah. Yeah.

It's amazing that, you know, for something to be that famous to be that nasty. So what do you mean? nasty what were some of like the I was at the men's low but what was like the camp like for you there I've never I've never experienced anything so nasty

in my entire life camp sleepaway camp is not even as nasty as that place it's like yeah no there's just mold everywhere it's tight it's just

oh it's terrible how are the guards Guards treating inmates? You know, guards, they have their favorites. If you like to chit-chat with the guards, you're good. If you don't like to chit-chat with the guards, but you give them that resting bitch face, you're good. Now, I've had a couple women on the show that were at the Danbury Prison,

and they say that guards do sleep with inmates. Did you see that happen at all? No, I've never seen that. You never seen that? What about conjurban, anything like that? Contraband's everywhere. They have cell phone. in the woman's camp?

I never saw one. So you were goody-to-shoe. I know, right? But listen, I was a good girl in life. Until you decided to start, you know, forge a document. Yeah, that part. That part, I'm telling you, it's crazy. But, yeah, no, there was contraband.

I had my contraband. I mean, you know, I used to always, my clothes were always tailored. So you were two good, good-gutty-to-shoes. That part. What about food? What was, like, your favorite meal in prison? Oh my God, no. Okay, what about commissary food?

You had to have it. You did 10 years in prison. You can't say you didn't have a favorite dish. I mean, I love Chicken Day. Yeah, can you describe, we haven't talked about this, describe the audience what Chicken Day is. Chicken Day. Why that's so popular in prison. And you know, here's the thing.

I loved, leg and thigh used to be my thing, right? And in prison, that's all you got on Chicken Day was leg and thigh. And I was like, okay, this is happy. This is good. But, yeah, every Thursday, that was like the, that was the mediest, heftiest meal that we got all week long. So, you know, they had their, you know, for the eaters, you know, for the real eaters, there was mashed potatoes, and then you had the string beans,

and then you had the yams and the chicken. It was just like, it was like almost Thanksgiving on Thursday. And they had great holiday meals in prison, too. Holiday meals and the chicken days were the best meals you'd ever get. Yeah, they were. Now, the men's prisons, on Chicken Day, we would take it, put it in a Keefey coffee bag, smuggle it out, and dish it up. Were the women doing that, too?

Absolutely. What were they, like, what kind of dishes were they making with that chicken? Just like, you know, like stewed chicken. We would make our own gravy, and then we'd make some cheesecakes. I had, oh, you know what? I used to have a sweet shop in, without. Wait, you ran a sweet shop in prison? All right, you got to tell us, give us the play-by-play.

Come on, once a hustler. Always going to be. You know, I mean, entrepreneur, right? That's awesome. I had used to tailor clothes. So my clothes were always tail out. I used to, you know, tailor clothes as well. But the sweet shop was great because whoever was in there that were doing things that weren't what they were supposed to be doing.

You know, they had a sweet tooth, right? They needed the sweet tooth satisfied. And the sugar that was on commissary, even if it was just cookies or something, it just wasn't sweet enough. And so I would make strawberry short. Cork Cakes, and it was so delicious. Oh, my God. Because I would make the whipped cream. And then I made banana pudding.

I made the banana pudding taste exactly the way I made it at home. How do you make banana pudding in prison? So we take our pudding, the vanilla pudding, and I melted carmels in it. And then I put in a little bit of milk and stirred it and made the pudding. And then we bought the vanilla wafers. Yeah, I crumbled them up. And then on fruit day, I think we have bananas once a week. So I would try to, you know, hoard as many bananas as I possibly could.

I actually paid for some bananas sometimes. And so then I would make my banana pudding that way. How much are you selling a banana pudding for in prison? Well, I had sizes. Okay, what kind of cups were you putting in a mid, too? I had, I think, if I recall, I had the vanilla pudding cup size. the snack thing, and then I had another, there was another cup that was a decent size. However you slice it, one of the cups was $2.50 and the other cup was $3.50.

These girls would come by and just grab like two or three. I mean, of the $3.50 ones, and then the $2.50 ones would be the ones that I'd have left over sold out. And what were they using to pay you like soups or mackerel? Commissary. So anything goes. It's like any type of commissary. I just have commissary out of the wazoo.

Yeah. That's great. I love the prison hustle story. Yeah, I did so. The pudding's the first. I haven't heard a pudding one. Really? I've heard apple pies was probably the craziest one I've seen, but the pudding one's cool.

Yeah, the banana pudding, that was good stuff. Can you still make it if we asked you to? Yeah. You can whip that puppy up. God knows, I don't want to eat that stuff. Yeah. We were doing like this cooking competition earlier in the year of prison cooking competition, and I ate some of the food, and it was just like it made me be so sick after.

Yeah, it's just crazy. You remember how you would make those, make, ah, I was going to. The taffy and the taffy and all that. What year did you end up getting out of prison? 2020, well, really 21. You know, we come from federal prison, we go into a halfway house. And so from at this point, the halfway house, it was during COVID. So I went straight to family.

And when I wanted to transfer to Queens, I had to go through the system. And then they ended up keeping me in a halfway house, which was crazy. So you got me, I'm home. I'm with my family. And then just because I want to move to Queens, where there was my own space available. They held me at, you know, the halfway house in Brooklyn. So I was in an actual halfway house for like three months.

So I didn't really start rebuilding my life until 21. What were some of the challenges you faced getting out as now with a felony on your record? You might not even have had any. You know, I don't want to make it seem like. Like there are no challenges because more of us face challenges than those of us that don't. I'm a business for my entrepreneur, so it's not like I was looking for the job of my life. You know what I mean? So I didn't have to deal with that kind of thing.

Any job would have been, any job was fine because I knew I was only going to work you for a period of time. So nonprofit organizations, they offer jobs to those of us that were formally incarcerated. And they actually, and some of them pay well. But my first job was, I think, I don't know, $20 an hour or something like that. And then maybe two months later I got a job was $23 an hour. No, my first job was $23 an hour. That's great coming out of prison. It really is.

Mine was 15 coming out. It really. That was good coming out of prison. It was $23 an hour. And I liked it, too. I liked it. But then COVID happened. And, you know, places were shutting down or get poked in order to stay here.

And I'm like, that part. And so, but yeah. And then so I was home. It was unemployment, kicked in. And when it ran out, I got another job. Because I'm focused. At this point now, I'm building my business. I'm building my brand.

And so, you know, the job didn't happen for me. And that's not what I was looking for. You know, I think that there's different challenges for every individual coming out of prison. Like, for me, I didn't have problems finding housing. There was no issues with that. Like, as soon as I had the funds, I was able to apply and get a place and build my credit and everything like that. That didn't affect me. And, you know, financial crime stuff doesn't affect your credit if you didn't.

do anything to involve the credits entirely separate. When I apply for an American Express card, they're not running my background to see. And honestly, my criminal record doesn't even pop up on a lot of job applications because employers are looking for federal sex offender crimes or dangerous crimes. Yeah. So when I applied to like Whole Foods, they ran my state charges, which I had like a misdemeanor, but the federal stuff didn't pop up. I still reported it because at that time they said, have you been convicted of felons?

or whatever, but it doesn't pop up. But I think each individual has different challenges. Yeah. So where some people struggle, like, I know, like, with me, like, on a social level, I struggled with that. But I didn't struggle in finding work because of my work ethic and then building a business because of my entrepreneurial sense. But I got messages from guys that they can't find work because of their conviction.

Yeah. So it really is different for everyone. It is different. It is different. And you're right. I did the same thing. I came home. I knew, you know, I knew that I was going to build business.

I had, you know, but then I got into my organization, which I love. Yeah, what do you do now? And so I have a women's organization. We empower trauma-impacted women with tools and support to help them regain their sense of self-worth, the women and their families, to help them regain their sense of self-worth after a trauma. And so we focus largely on those that have re-entered returning citizens. I use my podcast to actually bridge the gap between society and our returning citizens. And so business-wise, I have a life and entrepreneurship coaching firm where I house my entrepreneurial mindset programs and workshops.

And I was just able to hire two facilitators for some workshops that we're doing right now. now and one of them is formally incarcerated. That's awesome. Yeah. And you got onto a BET show. Yeah, yeah. What was that about? For those that haven't seen it.

American gangster trap queens. So why are you considered a trap queen? Season three, episode seven. You know, I guess it's... That sounds like drug-related, trap queen? It does, but I think when you are, I think, when you're trapping, don't get me to explaining this.

When you're a boss bitch. That's what that reference is, right? At the end of the day, it's, you know, something funds what illegal gain. So did you like how you were portrayed in that film? I have to say, yeah. And how did they portray you? It was, it was.

Were you the victim or were you? No, no, no, no, no. I don't do victim. Okay. Yeah, no. That's why I like it. I wasn't the victim. They didn't portray me as a victim.

They really laid it out the way it, for the most part, the way it was. And where can people watch that if they want to see it? Yeah, it's actually streaming live now. It's on BET. And, yeah, just plugging BET.com. Do you have, like, a restitution now, too? I do. And that was for that full $18 million, or what is it, $16 million, something like that?

$16 million. Not $16. Well, I mean, it might as well be $16 million. It's $13 million. And you pay that monthly? Yeah. So you'll probably never pay that back in this lifetime. You hope you can.

Okay. I didn't say I'll never make it. I didn't say I would never make it again. No, no, no, not never make it. It's different. Yeah, it's different. Wow, 13. That's a lot of money.

How do you feel about that? About what? Does it affect you? No, about what? Does it affect you? No. Does it affect your mental health at all? Or do you not even look at it as like you actually owing it?

Because it's not like a, like, yeah, it's like a, it's like a loan or whatever, but it doesn't show up on your credit report. No. Like it doesn't affect you from buying a car. It doesn't. So do you even think about it? No, I just make the monthly payment. And that's it. Yeah.

So do you have to deal with like the financial litigation unit and all that? No. So they just tell you how much to pay? They told me. That's it. And you just pay that monthly? they don't bother you? You know, it's so crazy.

But I came, when I got off of, when I came out of the halfway house and I was released from BOP custody, that's when you go to probation. So federal, you know, it's different. And I was on, you know, what is it, high security. That's where we all exit from, I think, I'm not sure. But in 30 days, they put me in low intensity security. And you just had to report, like, digitally or whatever. Online, piece of paper on.

They don't bother you now. Are you still on probation? Yeah. Oh, you are still on probation now. Interesting. How much more probation do you have? March. You're right there.

I know. Were you able to apply to get off early at all or no? I didn't. Okay. I didn't. You know, it's more, it's more, you know, nobody can throw anything back at me. I'm done. When I'm done with them, I'm done.

Yeah. I'm done. You know, it's, I don't owe you nothing. I paid my debt to society. I paid my debt and you know if I probably

if I was on some sort of this is the way I looked at the probation thing you know I'm a free spirit and I like to move around

as I choose but I just took it to mean maybe maybe timing is everything you know maybe timing really is everything so but I'm looking forward

to March you know right around the corner yeah but I was placid you know and I came home toting my business plans and what I was going to do because, you know, I have to build a business, right? Yeah.

And I was stopped in my tracks. I didn't even approach any of it because this organization, the women's organization, just was laid on my heart, and I had to go for it. You found your purpose. I found it. I found it, and I live it every day, and there's nothing more fulfilling than that. Like, I am good. Do you feel like it should either be prison and restitution or one or the other?

Like if you go to prison, do you feel like you shouldn't have to pay restitution? I feel like if they send a paper to your house that says you in capital letters versus the United States of America, I think that's enough. That's enough. That's enough. It was definitely enough for me. That's enough. But, no, of course, I don't feel like there should be any restitution. You know, it's done.

These people will hold on. hold on to you for dear life, you know. And if you let that become a weight, then it becomes a weight. But paying restitution is a real thing. I have my choice ways of looking at things, you know. I know that I had cars. I had a huge mortgage. I had properties. I had bills. So my bill, so this is just a bill, even though I don't have those kinds of bills anymore or today. But still, it's a bill and you have to pay your bills. And so that's just how I look at it. What's your message to the people listening to this?

Like out of everything you've been through, the experience is the life experience you have now. What do you want someone to take away from this interview? Be patient. Be patience. It's indigent. You know, I want to say a cliche that I always, you know, I try to stay away from cliches,

but what's for you? is for you. What's for you is for you. You're going to get what is for you. I love that. Well, Lynette, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We wish you a safe trip back. You know, best of luck with the organization.

And hit me up whenever you need help with the podcast or anything like that. You know, I'm going to come to you. See, we got it on record now. Exactly. Yeah, you guys are going to see Ian on my podcast, the Cisteration Room. Awesome.