Locked In with Ian Bick - I Committed Fraud — Then The Feds Sent Me To Prison In Texas | Jill Ford

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Jill Ford never expected to find herself in prison. Entrepreneurial from a young age, she built a successful business fueled by ambition and growth — but overspending and financial pressure during the pandemic led her to fraudulently use pandemic relief loans, ultimately resulting in federal charges and prison time in Texas. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, Jill opens up about the decisions that changed her life, what federal prison was really like, and how incarceration forced a complete reset. She also shares firsthand insight into serving time alongside Elizabeth Holmes and Jen Shah, offering a raw, cautionary story about ambition, consequences, and rebuilding after prison. _____________________________________________ #TrueCrime #FederalPrison #Fraud #PrisonStory #CrimeAndPunishment #ExCon #PrisonLife #truecrimestory _____________________________________________ Thank you to FRONTLINE HEALING FOUNDATION for sponsoring this episode: Visit https://frontlinehealingfoundation.org/ to donate or share their mission. Connect with Jill Ford: Tik Tok: BitcoinJill Instagram: BitcoinJill X: BitcoinJill Youtube: orangeisthenewjill Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 The Moment Everything Changed 03:38 Inside a Women’s Federal Prison Camp 07:20 Starting a Podcast After Prison 10:10 Federal Restitution, Debt & Financial Consequences 15:40 Family Background & Work Ethic Growing Up 20:49 High School, College & Early Ambition 25:18 Marriage, Career Beginnings & Becoming a Mother 27:55 Building a Successful Online Apparel Business 30:43 Business Mistakes, Debt & Financial Collapse 36:34 COVID Loans, Desperation & Criminal Decisions 41:01 Bankruptcy, Legal Pressure & Losing Everything 49:36 Federal Investigation & Realizing Prison Was Coming 55:00 Guilt, Family Impact & Facing Federal Charges 01:00:38 Entering Bitcoin & Trying to Start Over 01:04:42 Indictment, Pretrial Release & Plea Deal 01:10:07 Sentencing Day: Shock, Fear & Reality 01:13:52 Divorce, Family Breakdown & Rebuilding Trust 01:16:11 Self-Surrender & First Days in Federal Prison 01:20:00 Daily Life Inside Prison Camp 01:27:00 Notable Inmates & Unexpected Prison Encounters 01:34:13 Prison vs. Halfway House: Release Explained 01:39:02 Probation, Supervised Release & Life After Prison 01:42:20 Healing, Accountability & Advice for the Future Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now, when do you actually find out that you're going to be arrested? And then they sentenced me to $20,000, $252,000 in restitution. And she said, you were greedy, and we need to make an example out of you. So tell us about that very first day you self-surrender. I was a little freaked out after I saw. I came into the room. one evening after walking the track and my roommate was getting a lap dance. So I was like, yeah, the same time. She was an entrepreneur from a young age and never imagined prison would be part of her story until overspending and desperation during the pandemic led her to commit fraud, land federal charges, and serve time in a Texas prison alongside Elizabeth Holmes and Jen Shaw.

Jill, welcome to Locked in. We've been talking about doing this for a long time. I know. I was in the halfway house. Yeah. And you said you were watching my content. from way like years ago when I was just making TikToks in my car before you were going to prison yourself. Yeah, I remember you talking about how all the men in prison had cell phones and it would like light up. And I was like expecting to go to prison and like nobody had cell phones. And if they did, they were going to the shoe. Oh, really? Yes.

Oh, they were batting down the hatches. Yes. So in like a women's female prison camp, if you have a cell phone, it's a big deal. Like they will send you to this like shoe in Houston. So it's like a, it's like a federal holding facility down in Houston as, you know, your, your punishment. I think that's kind of the way it works in Denver too for the women's because they don't have a shoe to house a woman. They have to actually put them in a van and send them to Brooklyn because they can't house them where the men are. Yeah.

And there's not that many women going to the shoe. So that's why. Isn't that why? That's scary. Whereas like the men, it's totally different. The guys are going to the shoe 10 times a day. It's just in and out, in and out. and now. It's nuts. And like just the things that they let the women get away with versus the men. It's a lot.

Well, before we start, tell everyone about your podcast that you're launching and what you got going on. You're like now. So I'm launching a podcast called Orange is the New Jill. And Orange is the New Jill is really about the human side and the human stories of people who have not only gone to prison, but even successful people. I work in the Bitcoin industry. So it's also about I have some people that are on that are talking about crypto scams and I have some people on that, you know, have went to prison and are now out or on the other side. And so I'm hoping to expand it more and talk more about my story. I've been a little nervous to talk about my story just because I've been on probation, but I'm on the tail end of it. So I'm ready to let the whole world know what it was like. So that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine what it would have been like for me to do. do what I do now while on supervised release, especially like I know with travel. Back then it was a lot stricter with traveling. Now I see so many people come here on supervised release and they have no problem traveling. Yeah, I think it all has to do with the amount of restitution you owe. I owe $240 something thousand dollars and as long as I'm traveling for work. And I do have like a work trip after this. So they're pretty flexible, but it just really depends on your PO. I've had really

great ones. I've had ones that are. Now is $240,000 the total amount that was owed in general or that's just what's left? That's what's left. I think it was like 250 something. Yeah, it was like 250,000. I found that the audience is so curious about restitution. Like I always see comments or like always ask how much the person owes if they're paying it and whatnot. Yeah, I'd love to talk about it actually because it's a very hot topic in my mind right now because money today is worth more than money tomorrow. And if my restitution has zero percent interest, why am I in a hurry to pay it back. I totally understand that I committed a crime and I owe that money back. I totally understand that. Like, I'm not putting that. Like, I do owe the money. And I, but a part of me is like, I'm also in the

Bitcoin industry and I see how you can invest in something that goes up over time. And it's hard for me to pay that back. It's not hard for me to pay it back in the means of like I owe it. my victims, which is the Federal Reserve, needs to be paid back. Like, I totally need to pay them back. But the problem that I have is right now I'm getting pressured to pay the whole amount back if I went off probation in January. And I absolutely would love to pay them back in full and be off and have my freedom back. But at the same time, it's like, God, I'm like battling in my mind because it is zero percent interest on this. And, you know, I could do so much better for my family. And, you know, they've already. already been through so much. So it's like, those are the choices that I'm looking at making.

My PO is like, hey, you don't need to be on, you don't need to be on probation. You don't need to be, you don't need to be drug testing. You don't need to be doing all these things. But we're going to make your life an inconvenience until you pay it back. And then we're done. And so I think the important lesson here is that you can't replace time and you can't replace your freedom. And a lot of people say you can't buy your freedom, but some people can. And that would be me. Yeah, I mean, when I, you know, did the Mr. Beast thing. Yeah. There was a lot of comments saying, why do you pay so much of the restitution off? And you could have just flipped that or turned it into more money or what I was wondering about that. But I mean, to me, it's more like a character

thing and an optical standpoint. I mean, if I sat on the money, one, the government would probably find a way to come after me. Yeah. If I had all of that. And two, it's just not that my whole brand, my mission was paying back the restitution. So now I have 194,000. dollars left, which my plan is to pay that next year. I think that, you know, that's worth more than if I could flip it and pay the whole thing off, you know? So I just, I look at it in that perspective. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what I've been, like, when I first got on probation, I was like, okay, I'll pay double my payments every month. I'll keep the government happy, you know, go on with my merry way. But that's not, that wasn't good enough. And it wasn't good enough because

they want it all back. And you just don't want your, you don't want your, your debtor to be the federal government. They will make your life hell, even if you're not on probation. They just want their money back. Like there's just, so, hey, to my probation officer, I'm working on it. Yeah, like, I'm going to do this. I am determined that by springtime of next year, this is going to be paid off. I had a dream that I was calling my attorney. I was like, Patrick, I got it paid off. I'm, I'm let's go petition. And so I really believe in dreams and I really think that I can do this. And I and there's more to it too. Like I look back over time and some of my spending choices this year and I'm like I could have paid it off instead of bought a house or whatever. But another side of this is when you're a small business owner and you have tax writeoffs. It's like, well, paying my restitution back isn't a tax right off. I'm going to have to pay employment taxes on all of this money, as you know. That's what's getting me this year. So, like for instance, the $162,000 I paid this year in restitution, that technically is profit. Yeah.

I owe taxes on. I mean, I've already paid a good amount of taxes this year in advance. But even still, like that you would think that I'm profitable this year and really I don't have anything left because I paid it to restitution. Right. But then you're still hit with taxes on it. So it doesn't give you incentive. I wish the government would actually like, hey, maybe if we do a restitution, could we

have like, I don't know, delayed tax? I don't know. maybe they could do something because when we were looking at paying mine back, it was like, okay, well, my husband runs the company or owns the company, and I'm going to have to send it through W2 payroll to pay myself and then 30% taxes. I'm not going to be able to pay off the full amount. I'm just like in this debt cycle, which is one of the reasons why I talk a lot about Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's tough. It's definitely tough. But I think if you just keep pushing forward. I know in my case, like I'm just going to keep pushing. And you, you know,

you pay off one debt, end up with another debt. It's kind of a part of business too. Oh my gosh. Yes. There's always, you know, reoccurring debts. And even with spending, like, I've looked at what I've spent this year, like we're eating in a lot less. We're doing like just to be better about spending and dial and cut expenses and whatnot where we can so we can really be focused in 2026. Yeah. Well, you don't have kids yet, do you? No, no kids. Wait until then. It's like, always need something. And I have a special need. kids. So it's like all the time with him. So, but I, you know, I just really believe that, you know, God gives and God takes away and, you know, he'll provide. So definitely. Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in Oklahoma City. I was born and raised in Oklahoma. Awesome. Yeah. Well, Annie, get your gun action? No, not really. I mean, it was more like tornado action. So, you know, I grew up like my mom was a hairstylist and my dad was a CPA, out of all things, considering I'm a spent of COVID loan. Ironic. My dad was a CPA. I know. I made him so proud in prison. He actually sent me, side note, he actually sent me a message while I was in prison.

He was mad because I wouldn't give him money. And he was like, well, at least I'm not in federal prison. And I'm like, okay, bite the hand that's feeding you. Is he still alive today? He is still alive today. He may watch this. Love my dear old dad, but he is kind of a hothead. So, yeah, so anyways, growing up with a, you know, a dad who was, who's very verbally and emotionally abusive.

And then I had a mom who was, you know, struggling with her bipolar disorder. One minute it was, I'm going to go, I'd be a kid. And I remember being at home, like, irritated with her, you know, like throwing a fit, like just like a regular, like kid does. And her being like, sorry, I'm going to go. I got to go run an errand. I'm going to turn my phone off and I'm going to go run my car into the side of the bridge. So she'd turn her phone off and I could not get a hold of her. And so, and I thought that she was, you know, not going to be around anymore. So I went through, just to say that, I went through a lot of trauma as a child. And not that I don't love my parents, but parenting just doesn't come with a handbook. And, I don't think that they, I wouldn't say they didn't want to be parents because they did have great qualities. They just, they just did the best they could in a really odd, strange way, I guess. And, you know, their past traumas really affected them. So, but my, so my mom was a small business owner and my dad was a CPA and he was always getting her out of hot water for things that she was doing that she shouldn't like writing hot checks and, you know, stuff like that.

So that's kind of how would I grew up like seeing. So but very small business, household. So I had this entrepreneurial drive. And as a child, I wanted to make money because I wanted to help my mom get out of the relationship with my dad. And so we would put Avon books on apartments. She would drop me off at an apartment complex and I would go and I would put Avon books on their doors that random stress. I was like nine or ten then. random strangers would invite me in and I was like selling them Avon.

My next little business venture was selling on eBay, like 1999. When eBay became eBay, I was on there with my mom. What we did was we sold clothes. We would buy pallets of clothes off HSN and QVC and I would watch Suzanne and QVC all day and like listed on eBay. So I've always been on the internet. So I've just been this little entrepreneurial kid that has been striving for financial freedom, emotional freedom, and just really to get my mom out of the wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd.

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job for someone because I love building. And, you know, my grandma was an entrepreneur. My grandpa was an entrepreneur. You know, they ran a jewelry store. So it just kind of runs in my blood. The problem with me being an entrepreneur, though, is that I'm so ambitious that sometimes the things like finances slip through the cracks. So. Do you think you got your bad traits from your mom? Well, yeah, I do. Because she had. a very like, if your dad doesn't know, don't tell him, which I believe in a healthy relationship, you should be completely honest and transparent with each other. Also, you know, she just kind of, you know, she'd take out credit cards in my dad's name and stuff like that without telling him.

And I think it was just a lot of like, part of her was like, I want to give Jill the world. I want to give her, you know, that parenting feeling where you want to give your kids everything. But then at the same time, it's like, I shouldn't be doing this. So I'm going to essentially, I don't want to say she committed a crime, but it wasn't like the best, wasn't the best behavior, mom, like writing checks, hot checks that actually was a crime. Yeah, my dad bailed her out of that one. But yeah, so I guess I just learned how to justify things. If I could come up with an excuse in my mind to call it right, then, yeah, it was fine. Tell us about high school, Jill. What were you like?

High school Jill. So high school Jill, well, I got into church really, really heavily in high school. I was just kind of seeking a way out of all the chaos that was going on at home. And I actually started driving myself to church at 14. No, well, it was 15. It was 15. My parents would drop me off at church. But then, like, at At 15, I was driving to church. They weren't going to church at the time. They were more like the kind of people that just go on Easter, you know, maybe go once a year, Christmas Easter. And but I was going and getting involved in youth group every Wednesday and Sunday and really getting, really getting after it going to church camp. And, you know, pretty much was a really good girl. And then, you know, you hit like the teens where you start dating. And, you know, made some bad choices, started drinking alcohol at 16, and yeah, just made a lot of bad choices. But a lot of the times I remember as a kid, I was drinking and doing those things because I was wanting to numb the pain of what was going on at home. Like, it was just because I was so tired of the yelling. I was so tired of seeing my mom be abused. I was so tired of being abused that I just couldn't, I couldn't take it. It was an escape to be like, bye guys. And church was my escape for a while, but then, you know, I started hanging out with the

wrong people and getting into things and, you know, but I've always been like into, like, how do I say this? I don't want to, I don't, I've always been religious and believed in God and gone to church and done those things and just I've been very spiritual. So to me, I feel like God has walked through every season of my life with me from the abusive parts to being in prison to, you know, even the difficult times of raising my kids and even going through a divorce right before going into prison. So there's just been so much chaos that's constantly thrown at me that I know I can get through anything. Were you planning on going to college when you were in high school? Absolutely.

And did you end up going to college? I did go to college. Where'd you go? I went to the Art Institute of Dallas. Okay. Yeah. I went for fashion retail merchandising and that's where I met Trent. Why fashion? Why fashion? Oh my gosh. I just grew, because, you know, I was listing things on eBay as a kid. And I just loved fashion and purses and jewelry. My grandma and grandma were jewelers. And I just had this, this desire for fashion. I don't, I mean, I don't really do any of that now, but it was just exciting. It was fun. I guess because in fashion, you can create a different image of yourself. You can be a new person by the way you dress, the way you, you know, the way you carry yourself. And that's what I loved about fashion. Frontline Healing Foundation exists for the warriors among us,

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to donate or share their mission. Healing is possible and no warrior should have to fight alone. I'll have the link in the description of this episode for you. Do you think it was like an escape from your present life at the time? That's what you were envisioning fashion to be? Yeah, I definitely think so, although I still love fashion and all of that. I think just for me, it was just something, a passion that I love, that I still love. And was the goal at the time to start a business from fashion? Well, the goal wasn't to start a business. What I really wanted to be was a buyer.

So I'm really good with procurement. And I find things and I resell them, kind of like what I was doing on eBay. So that's really what I wanted to do. But I lived in Oklahoma, moved to Texas for college, moved back to Oklahoma because I had gotten married at a young age. I was 19. And so there weren't really a lot of buying jobs in Oklahoma. So I became a store manager. And that was, whew. So Trent is who you met in college. Trent is who I met in college in the library and Trent is who I married. And that was the first year of college or second? The first year of college, the first six months of college. How did your parents react to that? my dad sat Trent down and Trent was like, well, can I marry her? We'd only known each other for three months. And he was like, well, I hope you can handle her.

Thanks, dad. Like, thanks. Thanks. You know. And he knew the turmoil that I had with my family. But he still, you know, he still stuck it out. It was crazy because you would think this man would run away because, you know, I'd just gotten, I moved out of my parents' house. I was eight. when I met him. And every time my dad would like verbally abuse my mom, my mom was always like threatening divorce. I thought that was normal. So I get engaged with this man. And every time I get mad, it's like, here's your ring back. So like, I don't know how many times I did that when I was in our first year of being together. But he stuck it out. Is that not nuts? Why do you think you kept going back to your dad for like approval in the sense where, you know, you had Trent go and ask for permission, even though you were trying to escape your dad and that family dynamic. I went back to my dad because from a small kid, as a small, from a small child, he would always

incentivize doing the right thing, whether that was like grade money. I just wanted to make my dad proud, but there was no, there was no way, there was nothing I could do to make him happy or proud because that happiness is not found within your child. And I realize that as an adult. I also see how twisted that dynamic was. Do you think he was too strict and had expectations too high? I think he was strict and had really strict expectations, like all A's and doing all that. But he wasn't there for me in other areas. Like I couldn't talk to him about certain things, so I'd go to my mom, you know.

But what's really strange is that when I was a child, you know, kids go through puberty. My dad explained to me what a period was because my mom. mom would not talk about it. So there was a really like odd dynamic between them too. So it was just, there was a lot of messed up things that happened. And I grew up really fast. Do they ultimately stay together through your college years? They did stay together through my college years, but they did get a divorce. Are you glad that they stayed together during your childhood looking back on it now? No. I told my mom all the time that, hey, you, need to leave him because I remember as a kid we would go up to the grocery store to get some food

for dinner and then she would pick up these things called apartment finders. There's these little brochures in the, you know, like the walk, the breezeway when you walk in. And she'd come out to the car and she'd look at it and look for apartments and cry. And I said, just leave him. It's okay, mom. It would be better for me if you just left him. I was always like way above my years as a child. At six, seven years old. I told him I was moving out the day I turned 18 that they didn't need to be together, that their relationship was toxic. You know, I remember telling them, you need to pay your tiths because you're spending your money on things that you shouldn't. Like, I don't know, you know, I don't even know where I got that idea at the time, but it was just like, I was way, but I just grew

up really fast because of the things that I saw and heard and the trauma and the, it's just, you know, one of those things. So you get married and then do you leave college to move back? or are you still in college when you moved back? So when I got married, my parents stopped paying for my college. My dad, like, lost his job or something. And Trent had just graduated college. And he had gotten a job in a small town called Waxahatchee, Texas. And he was working for, like, a video game company because he's a 3D artist.

So I can't afford to go to the Art Institute of Dallas anymore. It's extremely expensive. So I found it online college and I got a full-time job. So I got a full-time job at a jewelry store and I did college online so I could finish my bachelor's degree, which I did. But it was tough there for a while. And that's when you end up at the store, the general manager? That's when I ended up. We moved to Texas because he got a job down there.

But that whole studio closed and they went out of business and that's when we decided to move back. home to Oklahoma. Right shortly after that. Okay. And then in Oklahoma, you got the job at the store. Yes, I was a store manager. Yes. Because I had graduate, once I graduated college, I got those opportunities of being like store manager and stuff like that once I got my bachelor's degree. Did you feel like kind of frustrated where you were at in life? That's not really where you were expected to land. Absolutely. I felt frustrated. I guess I got really frustrated with the structure of having to be somewhere at a certain time and, you know, looking at my check and working so hard and, like, it's never going to go up. Like, because at that time, I think my salary was like $30,000

as a store manager in Oklahoma, which was really good at the time. It was like 10 years ago. But I just felt like I wanted more. I always have had this drive that I want more. I feel like there's more to life than just this, you know? I had gone through so much and I had overcame so much that I just wanted to share that. And I didn't know in what capacity. I do now. But then it was this, I've always had this entrepreneurial drive of like just wanting to share my story because I think so many people go through things and they don't see that they can overcome it without a substance or without making a wrong choice. And you can.

How long are you at the store for? Oh, okay, yeah. I'm at the store for about a year. I quit because I got pregnant with my daughter, Olivia. And that's your first child? Yes, yes, yeah. Were you excited to have a baby? I was so excited.

I was so excited. Gosh, I was, I think I was about 23 at the time, 22 at the time. I was really, really excited. And how was you and Trent's relationship? It was really good. Yeah, it was really good then. Yeah. We were really excited to welcome our first child.

and walk through that. So you have the kid and then what happens? Well, I have the kid and I want to be a stay-at-home mom, you know? Like, duh, I have a newborn baby. I can't possibly work. At that point, Trent had been working, he was working for another studio in Oklahoma City. He was working at like an architecture company doing 3D models. And it wasn't quite like his dream job or anything, but he did it just so we could get by.

We had Olivia. He also had a contract job on the side that did all the fun stuff. He was like creating stuff for Crayola and all the great stuff. So he was really pursuing his career. And I was like, well, okay, well, I'm going to back off. I'm going to take care of this baby. I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom. But I quickly realized that that was just like not something that I wanted to do. I love my children so much. And I would love to stay at home all day with them. But when I, I stay at home with them, I find ways to make money. And one of those ways was I started sewing baby leggings and baby headbands and I was listing them on Facebook Marketplace. And it just blew up. And I started, I put them on Etsy. And I put them, you know, just all out on the internet.

This was before, you know, everybody was buying on the internet. This was like 2014, 2015. and I just started learning the algorithms of Etsy. It had a list things. And I started buying things off Etsy, and I received an item, and it took a really long time. And I thought to myself, like, I could do this better. So I started making t-shirts and doing the whole vinyl thing. And then you'll probably ask me the next stage of my life. But I was running this small business out of my home when Olivia was, you know, a baby.

And do you scale the business? Do you move on to something different? Yeah, I scaled the business. I ended up having to get an office because it had overgrown the house. And then from that 600 square foot office, we went into a 2,500 square foot warehouse that grew to a 2,500 square foot warehouse that grew to a 5,000 square foot warehouse, that grew to a 10,000 square foot warehouse that was in the process of growing to a 12,500 square foot warehouse.

And I was running this company called Oliver and Olivia Apparel. And we did screen printing and embroidery. And my mom was working for me. My sister was working for me. I had 50 employees. 50, wow. Yeah, we were doing custom children and adult apparel online. And we had kind of hit the, we hit it when no one was really online.

You know, a lot of, well, there's a lot of like T-shirt companies online now. But we were kind of at that sweet spot of doing custom apparel. before COVID. And what was the revenue looking like over how many years? Like how fast does this grow? Yeah. So in our first year in business, just being on Etsy, I did $365,000. Wow.

In our second year, it was like about a million dollars. And I know our very last year, it was $3.5 million in revenue. And are you using social media to promote it? No, no social media, no TikTok, no Instagram, no Facebook. This was all on Etsy, Amazon, really just Etsy and Amazon. And we got on this website called jane.com. So it was all just like third-party platforms. So this is like the type of business that exploded during COVID, just pre-COVID,

because you'd see all those moms start businesses during COVID on TikTok and have this much success. Right. Mine had been going for five years at that point. I went out of business during COVID. And what were some of the mistakes you were making along the way, if any? Oh, I was making tons of mistakes. One of the mistakes that I made that I think was the ultimate, well, not that I think that I know was the ultimate downfall, was that I was taking on debt constantly. I'm a very ambitious person. And if I see that we're making money, it doesn't even have to be profit. Like, we're just making money. We're just making sales. I want to study my competitors and see what they're doing so that how I can do it better. So that sometimes meant that I was buying, or let's just say I was getting a loan on like new equipment. Or I was taking out net 30-day

terms with suppliers. Or I would get in a pinch and I would take out, you know, those stupid high interest payday loans for business owners. Or like the merchant cash advances? Yes. I've been down that path when I first started. But merchant cash advances for businesses where they take a percentage out of your sales every single day. You know what I mean? It's like that bad. So by the time like COVID rolled around, I had financed every piece of equipment in my building.

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and you have consistent revenue debt is good? Yeah. Is the outlier here that COVID happened and sales plummeted? No, because sales went up. I just took on more debt. But also another reason that things didn't go well was I was personally not spending in correct ways. And I'll tell you the reason why. Because this was why I thought why it was okay.

I thought because, you know, I was a business owner. I needed write-offs, you know, that buying that nice car, I could depreciate it or ride it off on my taxes, not thinking that when we had a bad month, so that lease on that Mercedes was not a good idea. It was really just these choices, these financial choices I made. I built a house and my logic was, well, we've moved nine times in nine years and I really want my children to have a steady place to live and I drove by the lot every day and I prayed over it and I really thought God wanted me to have it. Well, I feel like God wasn't really speaking to me in ways that I thought he was. I was listening to my own impulses and my own will. Now, if say COVID didn't happen, do you think you would have been able to pay off that debt?

No. You think it would have just kept spiraling and spiraling? Oh, it would have spiraled before because all the COVID loans just helped me hang on because I had like so many different merchant cash advances and then I had credit cards. And then, you know, I had, I was just financing everything. And the business revenue, it didn't all like just go to me by any means. I was making bad financial decisions. But there were things that like as a business owner you should keep up with. Like maybe I shouldn't have hired and given out so many raises.

I wanted Oliver and Olivia to be the best place that you could work at because I hated working W2. So I wanted my employees to enjoy their working environment. But at the same time, I do feel like I got taken advantage of a little bit because, well, I let it happen. So I'll just take responsibility for that. You know, people, employees would come to me for raises and ask. And I was always, yes, yes, yes. You know, even if they were way overpaid.

I just wanted, I just cared about people and wanted them to succeed. but I when things started crumbling I really really really did not handle that in the right way do you wish you involved your dad in the business maybe he could have helped

no because I don't trust my dad I mean how can you trust someone that's abused you in multiple different ways and now I'm I had a child and I had these realizations that some of the things

that my parents did were absolutely not right. It's not normal. So I definitely didn't want him in the finances. And my mom worked for me. And when she worked for me, I paid her a really good salary and she got to move out of my dad's house and divorce him. And when the business failed, and she lost her job, she moved back in with him. And she's still back in that abusive situation. So now let's talk about COVID. Yeah. COVID happens. What's going on? Well, obviously we have. had challenges like every other business where employees didn't want to come to work, but we were getting loans like the PPP loan and the EIDL loan. During that time, I was also building a house. And I had started building that house August of 2020. Oh, no, 2019, August of 2019. And so we started

building that. And, you know, we didn't have like a mortgage set or anything. We didn't have like a mortgage or anything like in place then, but we had a contract and we were making payments. And we were, I don't know how do I, how do I explain this? We had gotten like a pre-approval. There we go. And so, but pre-approvals with mortgages only mean so much. I mean, you can get pre-approved and then not get the house. But we were building going along with our merry day and then COVID hit in February. And, you know, nobody wanted to come to work. And then a lot of people were ordering online. We ended up adding masks into one of the things that we did. So we added that onto like our different platforms that we were selling. And so that really floated us by during

those times and the loans did as well. But the business grew. But it was growing at like a rate that it was just hard to keep up with too. Gosh, it was just a lot. It was a lot. Now that I'm like reliving it, I just feel so overwhelmed because during that time point, my son got diagnosed with autism. I had 50 employees and, you know, just the stress of COVID and like all of what was going on in the world and then trying to navigate a business. And, you know, a lot of the people that worked for me before COVID, I had to rehire a whole team because I didn't want to come to work anymore. And then just having a different business model because things had really ramped up and really picked up, which was great, but then I saw this opportunity that I needed to buy more

equipment. So it was like we were like going through cash like crazy. And I couldn't understand why at the end of the month there was always a deficit. There was always like, it was like there just wasn't enough. And I look back now and I know why there wasn't enough because I was going so fast that I didn't, you know, figure out what my costs were. So we were selling things and losing money. You know, different things were happening around the warehouse that I heard after, like, there were employees throwing away orders and stuff like that. And I don't know if it's true or not. My mom and my sister told me, but I don't know. I would be honestly, if I knew what was happening in the business, maybe I'd be throwing away orders too. So I'm not upset about it. I just, there were things out of my control that were happening that, you know, obviously cut into the profits. And at the end of the day, I could blame it on so many things, but we were over financing. And, you know, We just weren't making money. So what happens to the business ultimately? And at one month during COVID.

Yeah. So we were able to hang on until, so 2020 we were in business. It was 2021, February of 2021, that we finally shut our doors because maybe it was March. I think it was March. Go. That was such a rough time. such a really traumatic time in my life because I've never had like a major death in my family or anyone close to me that's died but like when that business went out of business I remember

telling Trent like I don't want to I don't want to live anymore like yeah it was awful um I put everything into that business. And I feel so bad about the people that I hurt during that time, which were my employees. It wasn't the federal government that got hurt because they just print more money. It was my employees. They lost their jobs and I didn't support them during that time. And I was their biggest fan. Like, I should have, if I couldn't have paid them, I should have found a way to pay

them. But ultimately, what had happened was it just got to a point where it was like, there's not enough revenue coming in and we don't have enough money to stay open. And Trent really didn't believe it. He was like, because we were walking on a cloud for this whole time. You know, how do we not have the money when we have 50 employees and a 10,000 square foot warehouse? And we're looking into expanding, and I'm like, I don't know. It was truly just a combination of a lot of different things. My judge, when she sentenced me, said it was the perfect storm. And it really was. I was going through a lot of things mentally, too. I was misdiagnosed bipolar during that time. And I was on, like, a bunch of different mood stabilizers. And those are all kind of messing with me

while having my medical marijuana card, and I was just trying to find an escape from the pain. And ultimately, there was just one day, I remember the day vividly, I had Trent sit in the car with me, I said, we've got to shut down. And it was like, why? Is there anything going on? I was like, no, there's not anything we can do. It's just too late. We had an investor who wanted to invest in the business. I actually met this investor because I had taken it. I actually met this investor because I had taken out one of those merchant cash advances and the guy that gave it to me was like, look, I have a friend who will buy your business. Don't go out of business. He will buy it. The guy that worked for the merchant cash events? Yeah. He will buy it. Don't worry. We've got this. But they wanted 90

percent and I would own 10 percent. And I just couldn't do it. I even look back today and I'm like, yeah, I went to prison and there were things that I did. But like, I'm glad that I went through those things because they molded me to who I am today. But like, would that money have cleared all your debt if you took the 90%? Like, could you have walked away even at that time? No, I still had to work in the business. And there still would have been debt. Okay. So, because I think he wanted to give us like $500,000. And we had taken out like a $460,000 main street lending loan, which was the one that I misspent. And I think it just would have gotten us above water. and then we would have had to done a lot of house.

It was just a lot of housekeeping to like we just would have had to probably still close and like revamp and open back up. I don't know what. But there was just, I didn't see it helping. So at the time of this conversation with Trent about having to close, there's no investigations. There's nothing yet. Nothing. It's just everything that's like a flood on you and you're overwhelmed. Yeah, overwhelmed.

I wasn't closing because I thought that I had misspent alone. I honestly, I had, so when I misspent the COVID loan, the money was commingled with other business sales that were coming into the account, if that makes any sense. So business was as business as normal. I was just like, this isn't working anymore. Like we've grown at scale. We could have a lot less stress if we just were smaller. So I didn't necessarily just want to like open up another t-shirt business out of my house but trint and i he had worked for the company he had stopped doing 3d art and he was working for oliver and olivia he learned how to embroider christmas stockings and was the best embroider and breast direct a garment printer i have ever seen he was awesome

compared to anyone else he outshined them and did so many orders i don't know how the man did it he'd stayed up there all night but um he didn't know what to do with his life either So we just, we called a bankruptcy attorney and that was our next step. We called Jerry Brown. And that was like, yeah, we can help you out of this. You're going to have to file personal and business bankruptcy. We're like, great, we can get this weight off our shoulders and just move on. And maybe that means that I go back to being a store manager or Trent goes back and gets a job in the office or whatever.

but we can restart our lives. This whole business owner thing is too stressful. So do you guys proceed with the bankruptcy? We do. We proceed with the bankruptcy. And we get to the point in the bankruptcy where we're giving all the documents. I don't think of anything. I just give all the documents like normal. And we go to what's called a meeting of creditors. We go to the meeting of creditors and a lot of different, you know, debt collectors were at that. The banks that I took, the banks that I took a PPP loan from and a mortgage. They were the same bank. So they were there. Citizens Bank of Edmund was there. They were the bank that I took the Main Street lending loan from. And there were some other small people that I'd like financed equipment that were there. And so my business attorney

had advised me that, hey, we're going to go to this meeting of creditors. They're probably not going to show up. It's going to be a breeze. You know, this is just normal, easy, peasy every day. Well, the problem was, was before the meeting of creditors, I was on the news. My employees had gone to the news because I wasn't able to pay their final paycheck. I had the money I had, I either could hire an attorney or I could pay them their last check. And I selfishly hired an attorney. And I say selfishly because it was my responsibility as their employer to make sure that their families were fed. and I didn't do that. And I gave them no support.

And that is the worst. That is what I regret every single day because I did not build my business on those principles. But I got in desperation mode and all I could think about was my family and their future. And it was selfish. And I shouldn't have done it. Like I really, like I should have put their interests because at that time I had a house I could have sold. I had, you know, different assets that I could have sold to pay their paychecks. And I didn't. Instead, I just went straight and got an attorney and filed bankruptcy.

And I should have just taken care of my obligations. And it didn't. And I don't know why. And I look back and I just, I'm like, I don't, I'm not that same person. I could blame the medicine all day long that it just had numbed me. and it absolutely numbed me. But I just, I was not able to face consequences or except, I don't know, it was a lot like when my mom got in trouble and blamed it on something else. But I see this big character flaw in me then. And I severely regret it.

Like, that's one thing that it's hard to sleep at night knowing when you've wronged people. good working hardworking people how old were you when this happened wow um i am 34 today and it's 2025 and this happened in 2021 it's almost 2026 so it's about 29 yeah wasn't even 30 yet do you think age played a factor in some of your decisions yeah i do i do i do see my my mental maturity has definitely gotten. It's definitely like, I'm definitely different. Like my thinking and my maturity and as my children have gotten older and I've gone through so much bankruptcy, having your car, you know, taken away your house, your freedom, your life's completely different and having to rebuild. Yeah, I think about the actions I made in business as a teenager and, you know,

I made terrible business mistakes, ones that I wouldn't make this. same ones today when it comes to paying vendors or anything like that. Yeah, well, even in 29, you think you would have, but my whole life was just a cycle of trauma for the most part. And, you know, I grew up with my watching my parents make mistakes and justify things that they did. I just thought that I would get away with it. If you had paid your employees at final time, do you think you would have avoided the arrest and investigation and everything that was to come. That's what triggered everything.

That triggered it. So the bankruptcy wouldn't have triggered it? I think the bankruptcy would have triggered it. I think it would have prolonged things probably. So either way, they would have probably referred it to criminal? I think so. I think so because we went to the meeting of creditors and this lady named MJ Koffer who was over,

I'm not sure, I don't quite remember what her job was, but her job was to investigate me. and she was with the Department of Justice, and she went through all of our financials. And my attorney, he told me that she could call another meeting after the meeting of creditors. For most people, you go to a meeting of creditors and your bankruptcy is then discharged. Mine wasn't. It went on for at least a year after that. And she had all sorts of questions, and we sat in eight-hour meetings.

and in one of those eight-hour meetings is when I realized that I misspent the COVID loan. And there was so much going on. I know it's hard to believe that I could say that no, I didn't misspin the COVID loan, but I was so off in the head. And I'm not saying that as an excuse, but I was on a lot of medication. And mixing it with medical marijuana wasn't good either. and I was self-harming myself. I was wanting to die.

We'll just say that. So I was under a lot of medication, a lot of psychoments. So, and that was from 20, like the whole, I saw the business was going down. So it was like 2020 and 2021. I was trying to get on the right medicine to kind of get my brain straight. And it was just, I did not realize that I had miss been a. COVID loan. I did not go out there and say, hey, I'm going to get a loan and I'm going to go buy a Ferrari. It was more like, okay, I would love to buy a house for my children. So I started building in 2019.

My best friend's dad was a builder and he died during COVID. And that was also really hard. We built the house and I thought, well, I needed a house to live in because that helps with more tax right-offs, right? And I needed to buy these cars because I'm going to owe the taxes at the end of the year if I show a profit. So that was the way I was thinking, but I wasn't thinking consequences. I was so numb. I could not even feel. So when I went to this meeting of creditors and she started investigating, they set up different meetings afterwards, eight-hour meetings. So what got me to thinking that I might have misspent the COVID loan was when I was in the meeting of creditors. And one of the, you actually get to get on the stand and, or not, you don't.

I'm sorry, this whole part of my life is really hard to relive. So you're doing great. Thank you. It's making me feel a little nervous because I'm reliving these moments that I never wanted to relive. But I remember people can get on the stand and ask you questions. Your creditors can at the meeting of creditors. One of the creditors got on the stand, and he said, he asked me, did you misspend any of your COVID loans?

And I said no. And I truthfully, in that moment, did not think that I did. And you may wonder, like, how do you not know that, Jill? I didn't even know what I was making per item on a t-shirt I was selling. I didn't even know the profit of that. I couldn't tell you how many, you know, T-shirts were in my warehouse. So I surely wasn't managing my money well. and I had hired a CFO and he had died in a freak accident, car accident.

So he wasn't there to back me up either. So I said no. And because I really didn't think that I did. Like in my mind, I didn't do that. Why would I do that? Because I paid my employees with the PPP loan. I, you know, I don't know why I thought that because going back and looking at my books, I sure did, and I was shocked.

I left that day and I went and I looked through QuickBooks and I saw that I did and I called my bankruptcy attorney and I was so scared and ashamed because I did. Is that not nuts? Like probably your listeners are out there. How does she not know? I really truly didn't. It was I didn't do it on purpose. It was it was ignorance. an ignorance, as you know, in the federal government does not fly.

But, yeah, so I called him and he said, well, we're going to have these eight-hour meetings, and we have one scheduled for this day. So during that eight-hour meeting, I just said, hey, guys, this is what I did. I just stood up in the meeting. I thought that, like, you know, by being honest, like, I realized what I did, and I didn't mean to do that. and they said okay we went on with questioning we had another eight-hour meeting set after that eight-hour meeting two guys in uniform come up to me afterwards and they were the U.S. Marshals and they gave me a piece of paper and I went up to my bankruptcy attorney I was like

what do I do and he looks to me and he goes you're going to have to hire a criminal attorney and I was like what? I didn't mean to do it. I have three children at home. It was just overwhelmed. I've never committed a crime in my life changed. I went from living in a state of like, I was so mad at God during that time because I thought, I thought it was meant to be that I had the house. I thought that he was growing the business and that's why we were getting orders. And I was, you know, during that whole time of the business, I was like paying my tides and, you know, I was donating to the church and doing different things. And I thought I was doing the right things.

It was just so odd. So, but I know now that God puts us through things to strengthen us. And he puts us through these things to learn and to help others with our story. So from the media of creditors, I got the stuff from the Department of Justice. I ended up that night I called a friend who was an attorney. So one thing I didn't tell you was that Oliver and Olivia was a part of a program called 10,000 small businesses with Goldman Sachs. And I had been flying out to Boston to take this small business course with Goldman Sachs. It made my company look really good to lenders because I was doing this small business program and I had been chosen.

And so I had met an attorney there and I called him and was like, I'm in this situation. like, what do I do? Because I was being mentored by Goldman Sachs during this. Like I was taking, you know, classes, business classes. So I called him and I called kind of different people in the community at 10. They call it 10KSB. And I said, okay, what do I do? And they were like, how did you not know this was what you were doing? But when you have three kids and you're building a house and you're just busy, you're not giving attention to the things that need to be done. So going back to what I was saying, sorry, I'm ADHD, so I jump around a lot. I call my friend who's an attorney and he's like, you have to hire this certain kind of attorney.

But don't worry, you're probably not going to prison because, I mean, come on, your mom with three kids. He'll be able to get you out of it. You'll be able to work out a deal. It's going to be okay. So I hired my criminal attorney. I had to ask my family for money and got a criminal attorney. And my criminal attorney assured me, look, you're a first-time offender. You've never done, like, you, the worst thing you've done is a speeding ticket.

Like, you have children. They're going to look at all this stuff. This was before, like, COVID loan fraud cases were rampant, and they were, like, throwing people in prison left and right. I was the first COVID loan fraud case in the state of Oklahoma. So it was very much, like, the whole time that I was on probation, pre-trial probation, it was like, it's going to be okay. You know, you're not going to go.

Because I had started a new journey, a really exciting new journey. And it was, you know, it was a very lucrative company that I was working for. And so I was able to save money for restitution. So you're able to get a job while all this was happening. Yeah. Well, I had this job. So I, I, so March was when the business shut down. April, I started working at edible arrangements as a area manager where I'd go around

and drive through all the stores. I did not like it. I had to dip strawberries. And I'm saying this like, I remember, I'm so mad at myself because I was so boozy and I'm just, I can call myself names, okay? I was just like, I would come home and cry every day because I had to dip strawberries. Come on, like, that's the life to not have to carry stress and do dip strawberries all day and make arrangements. Like, come on.

Come on, Jill. Like, this was a wake up call, you know? It's a humbling moment. Humbling moment. I was the area manager, so I thought, or the district manager, so I thought, okay, I'm over all these stores, but I still had to help do those things, you know. So it was a very humbly experience. And Trent didn't have a job. He was wanting.

to do screen printing and embroidery and not sorry embroidery, but he wanted to make t-shirts out of our house. So he had a direct-to-garment printer from Oliver and Olivia. We brought it back to the house, which is a no-no, but we brought it to the house and he was printing t-shirts. And he had started up his own company called printed teas, and the news did not like that at all. They did not like that at all. But it is what it is. So going forward from April, when I worked to arrangements. I worked there for a couple of months and then I stumbled upon this job on LinkedIn where this lady needed help with her e-commerce website. And I'm really good at that because I had grown businesses online before COVID happened. Like before the internet was the internet,

I was on there. I was on eBay at like what, eight years old. So I knew how to grow e-commerce businesses. But what I wasn't good at was wearing all the different hats. As you know, finances are not my strong suit. So I applied for the job and I got the job. And at the time, it was just a beauty product that she wanted marketed. But in December of 2021, she said, we're no longer selling this beauty product. We're actually going to start selling Bitcoin miners. And I want you to learn all about Bitcoin, all about this equipment. And I want you to start going to conferences. and we are going to sell this now. She fired everybody in the company but me.

And so I was like, okay, well, I need the job. So let's do it. So then I got into the Bitcoin mining world, which was at that time, like 98% men. So my first conference was Bitcoin 2020 and I walked in there and I was like one of the few women and I was so intimidated because I didn't know how to talk to men. and my whole self-identity was crushed because I had built up this really awesome business where people were praising me all day about how awesome it was to now I'm under federal investment. This episode is brought to you by Netflix.

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So I started this beauty product slash Bitcoin mining in July of 2021. I got indicted in August. So the marshals had handed me that in August. I didn't tell my employer. I just kept rocking it. I was just like, I'm just going to keep going. So they just stopped by and handed you the indictment paper? It was after one of the eight-hour questionings.

Oh, that was the actual indictment? So they had already arrested you? Oh, I never got arrested. They just handed saying you were indicted. Yes. Oh. Yeah. So they never took me away or arrested me or anything.

But a grand jury indicted you? Well, like the Department of, I mean, the government did. I didn't. So we decided to do a plea deal instead of going and having like a jury trial. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, so maybe they didn't even indict you and it was, you pled out before that could even happen? Possibly.

I'm not really sure how all that works. I should now. So that happens in August. When do you reach a plea deal? Well, I went to sentencing in January. So this moves very quickly. Yeah. So I think it was probably the next month.

I just went ahead and like, yeah, we've reached a pleadil. Like, hey, this is what happened. And then I went in January of 2022 and I pled guilty. What did they offer you on the offset? I mean, it was really, they didn't, now that I think back of it, they didn't really, they didn't really offer me anything. They just, I didn't even know my sentence. I just, maybe I should know, but I don't.

I just honestly, this was how it all went down. I hired my attorney, his name's Patrick William, shout out to him. And we had, he dealt with a, he dealt with the feds for me on my behalf. And he brought me in a few times to talk about my case. And then he kind of like, you know, defended me on my side. And we kind of went back and forth. And finally we just decided, okay, well they, and then we opted to dismiss the bankruptcy during this time and not keep going with it. Because then they could have brought up criminal charges in the bankruptcy because they said that I lied during the meeting of creditors. Even though I don't think that I lied, I did lie because, you know, I just didn't look at, it was my responsibility as a business owner to know what was going on and I didn't. So.

But yeah, it was basically during that time, we were just kind of going back and forth with them. And then we decided just to plead guilty because that way I would. And then we there wasn't really like, hey, we'll give you 20 months if you plead guilty. It wasn't anything like that. They didn't offer anything. I thought the whole time, my attorney was like, okay, we're going to ask for house arrest and probation. So we go to sentencing in, no, no, not sentencing. We go to, I pled guilty.

I'm sorry. It didn't go that fast. It all runs together. So I pled guilty. In January. In January. Does it now make sense? Yeah, it's a little bit longer.

Okay, yeah. Okay. Because I always felt like I was on pretrial probation forever because they kept pushing the case and pushing the case and pushing the case to sentencing. So I didn't, so I went and pled guilty. in January of 2022. I didn't get sentenced until November of 2023. So it was quite a while. And I actually went to Dubai on pretrial for work during this time.

So I was traveling. You know, I started another business selling Bitcoin mining equipment. I was saving for restitution. I was doing all the things, you know, also went through a divorce during that time. and I went through a divorce. I was doing all the things that I needed to do to pay them back. So when I go to sentencing in November 2023, I had brought back $106,000 that I had saved. And I was, and my attorney and I were both like, well, surely they're not going to send me away

because I have this chunk of money that I have saved for the past year. It only took me a year to save that. So I felt like I was very successful and I was like, wow, okay, I'm doing this. Finally getting my feet back on the ground. And come to find out, I was about to go away. I remember my probation, my pre-child probation officer came to the house to look at the house and she was like, so are you ready? I'm like, I'm ready. She said, yeah, are you ready to go to prison? And I'm like, I'm not going to prison. She was like, okay, but make sure you have a backup plan. I had no backup plan that day when I got sentenced.

And during the whole time of sentencing and like sitting through getting sentenced, the judge was super emotional. You could see that she had like she had been getting tears and crying because we talked a lot about my son, he's special needs and how attached he is to me and my other children. and she's a mom of three. And I really thought I wasn't going away because I had brought the money back. I had brought most of the money back. And then they sentenced me to 20 months,

100 hours of community service, $252,000 in restitution. And she said, we all see that you didn't do this on purpose, and it was the perfect storm for you, everything that was going on in your life. but at the end of the day you were greedy and we need to make an example out of you and I sat there numb like in shock and my friends were in the audience my parents were in the audience and it was like a curveball because through the whole sentencing we were talking about how well things were going and how I had done

so much and you know even my one of my old employees husbands was there and he got mad because it didn't seem like I, like, the way the sentencing was going, it didn't seem like I was going away. So we took a break in the middle, so he could go talk to the judge. And she didn't really want to talk to him. But I think he wanted his one last cry of desperation before, before, he wanted to make it clear that he wanted me to go to prison. But she already, I think judges already know before they even come to sentencing what their sentence is. So she ended up sentencing me and I did, it was just a shock. What's going on with your husband at the time? Where does he fall into all this?

Through the legal proceedings, through the marshals, through everything. I don't think Trent really knew the full extent. Well, he was at all the meeting of creditors. And he saw the marshals hand me the piece of paper. He was there through that part of it. When I pled guilty, he wasn't there. When I was at sentencing, he wasn't there. Um, because shortly after, um, I had gotten the paperwork from the marshals, Trent started applying for jobs and he got a job in Texas working at a video game studio, which is what he, he did before. And that was great. And we moved there. But about three months after we had moved there, I had decided to move out. And I was at a point where I was caring so much and I felt like I was carrying so much by myself.

And I wanted him just to wake up to my cries for help. And he wasn't. And so I was like, I have to do something dramatic for him to see that I'm in trouble. And I need his help, even though he doesn't know how. I need him to step up and help me. So I move out and right away he starts dating and that really made me mad. because I just moved out. I thought we were going to get back together. So I just moved out to like clear my head, you know, to try to work on me and what was about to happen versus all these relationship

issues. So, you know, I move out. We went our separate ways. We dated different people. And November rolled around. And, you know, we were. We went. weren't on good terms at all. Like, I remember we were texting each other and he just, he told me at one point, you're going to get what you deserve. We were, keep in mind, we were going through a divorce. So we were very snargy with each other. But, and I even had a boyfriend going into sentencing too. So, you know, it was just, we were really at each other's throat. So what happened after sentencing is we had to come back together. We had to figure this out for the kids. So all, all of the mean talking to each other, all of the, you know, all the stupid stuff that we had argued about and gone through during the divorce, we had to put it aside.

We had to come back together for the kids. So we wrapped up our divorce really quickly. So we got it done in December. And then we moved back to Oklahoma and we moved back together into a square foot house, a 1,200 square foot house with three dogs and two dogs and three kids. So we were living under the same roof. And we weren't even like, we were just friends at that point. Like we were just cohabitating. And I was set to surrender January 4th, 2024.

So we really didn't like, I mean, it's weird because I'll tell you, he never tried to come on to me, never tried to get back with me during that month that I was living together with him. It was literally like the two days before I left. what had happened was he had taken the kids to his in-laws for Christmas. And this was my last Christmas that I spent with him before I surrendered. And he took the kids of the in-laws. And I had set up all these ring cameras because I was like, I'm paying rent on this house and you're living in it. You're not going to have women over around in front of our children.

So I set up a freaking ring camera in the living room. But you know what? It bit me in the butt because I invited my boyfriend over to see him one last time before I went to prison. and it made Trent really freaking jealous. And I'm like the day, so the, okay, so he doesn't like leave his trip early to come home, but man, am I getting blown up? And I'm like, I didn't even know you had feelings for me, buddy. Like, this is new to me.

Like, okay. Like, when we were in our dating era, like the year that we weren't together, we lived in the same neighborhood and he was my neighbor and he brought girls over to the house and he'd date women and I would see it and I'd get mad because I was still on that lease still paying for that place. I was just mad, you know? So let's just say like I didn't care if he was mad or not because you did this to me first. So keep in mind, I was 19 when I got married, had never really dated as an adult. Actually never did. He was. was the only one.

It was your chance to experience. Yeah, it was my year to experience, but wow, it's pretty awful out there. So I learned a lot in that season, too. But I was, like, kind of in shock because, you know, I had just ended things with my boyfriend, and then he comes back home, like, the next day, and then he's like, I want to be with you. And then I'm like, this is a lot. Like, I'm about to go to prison. Like, please, this is a lot.

Just let me process, you know? We're back. My mom picks me up to take me. It's about a five and a half hour drive down to Brian, Texas. And backing out of the driveway, he kisses me. I haven't kissed him, you know, since we were together. And he says, I'm going to wait. I'm waiting on you.

And then my six-year-old daughter was right there. Well, she's six now. She was four at the time. I'm going to wait for you too, Mommy. and I was just crushed because as much as I wanted my family to work and be back together, I was not in that headspace yet because I was just in survival mode because I was about to surrender to go to prison. So we became pen pals in prison. Yeah. So tell us about that very first day you self-surrender what that was like for you.

So I get out of the car and give my hugs goodbye and my mom and my grandma, they're the ones that took me so they were crying. And I walk up to the door and I have to sit in this chair forever just like right outside the guard station until an officer can come check me in and do all the stuff. And I had been preparing myself in those two months for what it would possibly be like. So I went in and, you know, we went through all the checklist that they have to do, like, you know, strips or two, cough and squat and paperwork and, you know, all the things. The check-in and I had to sit in a cell for a really long time because, you know, they're always short-staffed, so somebody didn't show up. So then this couldn't be done. So you just sat. And while I sat in there, I sat in there with a really friendly lady who was also self-serendering, and she was from Oklahoma City, and she was maybe a few years younger than me, and we just talked, and they got a little mad because we talked. We wanted us to stay quiet. And yeah, another girl came in, and she had gotten drunk before, you know, and she came in kind of stumbling, and they put her in the shoe. It was just, it was an interesting, like, wake-up call.

I just remember like just looking around and scared and I just like stuck out like a sore thumb. Oh, I remember them taking me to my unit for the first time. And they took me to the wrong unit. I got into, went into the wrong room. Now how that happened, I have no idea. They just put me in the wrong unit. And so I had gotten used to my like, my bunkies. There were four of us in a room, including me, and they were really sweet and helping me out and,

you know, giving me snacks and sweatpants and all the things and making me feel more comfortable. And then the guard comes and gets me, and she's like, you're in the wrong group. So I had walked through a whole unit of people like staring at me and looking at me, you know, fresh meat, there she is, what's this white lady doing in here, you know, all the things. and then they made me go to another unit, and I had to experience all of that right over again. And I ended up in my first room, and that room was wild. What are you wearing?

What do they have you wear? At that point, they have, like, temporary, like, khakis and, like, a, like, like, scrubs. It was, like, khaki scrubs, but they weren't, like, the uniforms. What were the uniforms? The uniforms were a khaki butna. and then khaki pants. What was the one thing you thought you knew about prison that by the time you got there on day one,

totally changed your opinion? Oh, I mean, I don't think that I had any thoughts because I didn't have any time to prepare, really. Yeah, I couldn't even tell. I couldn't even answer that question because it was a new experience, and I had no expectations. Did watching the prison TikToks help you at all? They did, but,

a lot of people were in there for like different crimes and such. And like I'd get on a prison TikTok and it would be about their experience in like a county jail or their experience, you know, at a medium security prison. I didn't really get any experiences from prison camps other than yours, which is why I watched a lot of them because you actually went to a federal prison and a camp. So that was really helpful. Did you watch Orange as the New Black before going? I did, and I had to stop watching it. I had watched it the season all the way through. I've watched the whole thing.

But then before I went, I started watching it again. I would say that it's very close to Orange is the New Black. I'm not even kidding. Before they went off on the timeline and everything. Yeah. Before they, like I couldn't finish the last season. It was terrible. But I'd say the first season replicates.

Absolutely. I imagine a woman's camp exactly. Yes, yes. You know, that's based on. off a dam bear the town over. Yes, yes. I do. And they filmed it in New York. Well, the Orange is the New Black book was in the prison. Everybody read it. I read Orange's the New, I had watched a series, but I read the book in prison. I didn't realize the book is really just only based on season one. Yeah, it's crazy. But yeah, I would say it's very close to that because people would ask me all the time. My friends

would message me, you know, in Coralinks and be like, is it like Orange is the New Black? And I was like, yeah. Yeah. So the room was wild. What do you mean by that? What happened? Well, my daughter's listening, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you anyways, well, let's just say that the two girls in my room were really into girls. So they would invite their girlfriends into the room. So, yeah, there was all sorts of stuff happening. I moved rooms, pretty much. I was a little freaked out after I saw I came into the room one evening after walking the track and my roommate was getting a lap dance.

So I was like, yeah, this thing happened. What's the demographic of the woman there? It is, okay, so Brian Texas is right down by the Mexico border. So a lot of it is Hispanic. There's a lot of people that are in there for like drug-related crimes, but not like violent drug crimes because, you know, as you know out of camp, you can't have any violent crimes. But so they'll have drug trafficking crimes, human trafficking crimes because they've brought over, you know, citizens over the border or not citizens over the border. And then we've got like white collar crimes, like business owners, doctors. The last room that I was in, one of my roommates was a lawyer.

And the other one was she did like accounts receivable AP. She was like a bookkeeper. What's one woman's story that really touched you there? There were so many. The story that touched me the most was so I had a friend in there. we'd walk the track together and she had brought drugs over the border she had gotten involved in the cartel and she brought drugs over the border and she only did that because she needed $5,000 for an attorney because she needed to file divorce from her husband and he had taken her kids away from

her so I mean but there were stories like that over and over and over and over there was a little old lady in there who took the blame for what her son did and she's going to die in there. Does it make you appreciate your life more and, you know, put your life into perspective? Absolutely. Like it made me learn so much about time. Time is one thing that can never be replaced, can never be duplicated. It can't be bought. And so it changed my perspective completely. Now, these women that are serving long sentences that, you know, are there for, for more serious crimes, how do they treat someone like you? Honestly, they were really nice.

They wouldn't get like as close, you know, to try to form a bond. But they were, honestly, everybody was really nice in there. I never had a major issue with anybody. You know, it was more just they wouldn't want to open up or be as close to you as like somebody that else is going to be in their long term. And one of the ladies told me, you know, that she really liked me, really wanted to hang out with me. I asked to be her roommate. And she was like, well, you're only, you're not going to be here very long. So I don't want you to be my roommate. Yeah. Because I don't want to get like attached and form a bond. And, you know, you're in such a small quarters with someone. They didn't, you know, my sentence was 20 months.

But in reality, that because of the good time credits, it ended up being like a 12 or a 12 month sentence. And then you've got halfway house. And you've got. the home confinement. Yeah, so when you meet with your counselor or case manager that first time, and he breaks down on that sheet of how much time you actually have to serve, what does that look like? Well, I was hoping to be out of there in three months because I was like, oh, I get up to a year in the halfway house.

Woo! I'm not going to be here long at all. But that was not the case because the halfway houses are completely full, and they don't want to send people like me to the halfway house that don't really need rehabilitation. So it was kind of a fight to even get to go to the halfway house. So I had a lot of hope when I saw that because I didn't really know if I was going to be in there 20 months or not. I kind of had a good idea because I had done some research before I went in.

And so I thought, okay, at the max, I'll be in there like a year. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll be out by the 4th of July. But I got out at the end of August. So it was what, eight months about? seven months and 25 days. Now, did your family hire like a prison consultant at all going in? Did you think about doing that? So I actually did hire prison consultant. His name is Sam Mangle. You probably know him. I don't, but this is interesting because I feel like, so I had a negative experience with prison consultants, but it was also a different period of time. And I'm also curious because of this world of social media if they're actually, you know, needed because there's so much information available on YouTube or TikTok about prison. So what was that experience like for? for you. So, like, right when I got sentenced, I called him up, because I had hired him right when I got

the indictment because I was like, I don't know what to do. And he even was like, I don't think you're going to go to prison, you know, this was, but this was before all the sentencing of COVID loan fraud cases happened. So, you know, a crime like this, it would be like a probably like a slap on the wrist and, you know, but there was the government cracked down hard on it. So I hired him then and didn't didn't talk to him throughout my whole pretrial for about a year and a half and then called him up one day and said, well, I went to sentencing yesterday and this is what happened. And he was like, okay, take a deep breath, Jill. And then he started connecting me with people that I could talk to that had been in Brian prison camp. And he also, when I got to the camp, I had already known of some people that were in there that I could like ask

questions to if I needed to. So that was helpful. But I mean, honestly, like he didn't help me like get to the halfway house sooner like they say they do or anything like that. They overpromise under time. Yeah, no, I don't think they do any of that. I think it was more just emotional support and I really appreciate that. He did calm my fears. Could I have done it with the internet and social media? I think I could have, yeah. And there's also a ton of tools now to get out earlier. Like when I was there, they had just passed the CARES Act in December and I got out in January, so that didn't affect me at all. Gotcha. But, now there's so many things to get. Like back when I was there in the years before for anyone,

you couldn't have a 40-month sentence and get out in eight months. That's crazy. Or a 20-month sentence to get out in eight months. It just wasn't possible. You just did the whole time? Yeah. I mean, I had a 36-month sentence and the most I got was, I think, I got three months or four months a good time. And then four months a halfway house. That was it. Gotcha. Eight months. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. So my roommate had a 36-month sentence, and she got out in 17 months. Yeah. Say that's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she was also really upset that she got out in 17 months because they kept delaying her halfway house paperwork. She could have got out earlier. Yeah. We computed, we computed based on everybody else in our unit that 36 months typically gets out in 12 months and goes to a halfway house for a year. But halfway houses aren't any better. Honestly, being in prison is better than a halfway house. Yeah, I tell everyone if I had to do it again, I'd stay in prison.

Yeah. The halfway house is no fun. The problem with the halfway house is that your family has access to you again, right? So all of those like expectations of you, well, because I'm a mom, come flooding in, right? And I still am in custody and I can't do those things. And my kids don't understand that they see me, but they can't have me. So I think it's better to be in prison because he just don't have all those expectations. you know, it's just easier.

Now, you were in prison with a lot of notable people. I was, yes. Can you talk about that for us? Yeah, so, like, I was in prison with Jen Shaw. I didn't really have a whole lot to do with her. I worked out with her once at her little workout camp. She was very to herself, and I respected that. So, and then also Elizabeth Holmes, I did go to prison with her.

Was she there when you got there or she came after? No, she was there. Yeah. I would consider and say. that, you know, we were friends and we talked. And I talked to her a lot about Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining. And I gave her a book called Thank God for Bitcoin. And she was interested in it. She was, what we really bonded over was like the things that were awful in prison. And we would get all worked up over those things. Yeah. Now, but did she already surrender before you or did she come

Yeah, she had been in there a year when I had gotten there. Yeah. So was she one of those people that, like, approached you to kind of make sure you're doing okay when you first got there? I think it was more of like, I stand out like a sore thumb. I'm a white lady or white lady, hey, kind of thing. Like, we just started talking in the phone line and she was very to herself. But when you're a celebrity in prison, you have to be to yourself because there's so many people that could take advantage of you. Are people bothering her in there? I mean, I mean. she didn't, I wouldn't say she had any close friends. I wouldn't even really consider myself a friend.

We just talked here and there and gave each other books and, you know, she worked in the reentry department and if I had questions, I'd go talk to her or if there was a class that she taught I took. And, you know, I ate dinner with her a couple times, like just more of an acquaintance, you know. But I did feel like she was someone that I could talk to or go to or because she was in reentry. but she didn't really have anybody that she was always with or bonded with. Like a lot of people, a lot of ladies will like get a girlfriend or they'll get a best friend and they'll be with them all the time and they'll go do everything with them. Usually it's your roommates.

She wasn't like that. She was very, to herself, she had a top bunk when I was there. Is that good to have there? No, a bottom bunk is what you want. But I was shocked. Because I would have thought, you know, if you're a celebrity in a prison camp, you'd surely have a bottom bunk, right? It's interesting that her husband is still going the distance with her when she's gotten that much of a lengthy sentence.

I wonder if that continues the whole way or if they're just hoping that, you know, the sentence will be reduced before something is made. Well, when I was in prison camp and we had visitation, her husband would come by himself and visit her and then he would come and bring the kids. So he's definitely like, he loves her so much. It's just really sad to see because she's not a violent criminal and I feel like there's so many wasted resources. Look, I know she committed a crime. I committed a crime. And the people in there commit crimes, but like, in my opinion, if you were in a prison camp and you can just walk out freely, have the person at home on an ankle monitor.

It's way worse than being in prison, I promise. Now, you've shown, you know, especially today, a certain level of remorse. Do you think someone like her or anyone of the other woman in there right now have that same level yet? Or do you think that's something that comes over time and they're not at that part of the journey yet? I really don't think I can speak at their level of remorse because everyone carries within their self and not everyone lets people see the vulnerability it takes to have remorse. I've learned that being vulnerable and sharing my story is important for me to heal. So I don't know if she thinks she committed a crime or not.

I'm sure she has things that she wishes that she would change, just like all of us do. A lot of the ladies in there didn't really believe that they really needed to be there. They did put a lot of blame on others. At first I did too. I think sometimes it takes going through that experience and growing to really be able to step into forgiveness, forgiving herself, but also like embracing that, yeah, I made a mistake. I did do that.

And growing past it and taking your past to anchor to the future. Now, individuals like Jen and Elizabeth, are they treated any differently? I know you mentioned not getting the bottom bunk, but food-wise or any special privileges that you saw extra visits or is it all equal? I didn't see any extra visits. Now, I hear now that Just Lane Maxwell is in there, that she gets whatever she wants, but I did not see that. And she wasn't there when you were there.

No, she was not there. I don't know anything about it. But I have heard that she gets special treatment. But Elizabeth Holmes did not get special treatment other than getting extra food. But she was breastfeeding at some point. So that could have been it. Oh, she could breastfeed while in prison? Yeah, they made an exception.

So they didn't make an exception for like breastfeeding. And I think another thing was that she got to get her hair colored more often. Something like that. You guys have hair coloring in there? Yeah, we have a beauty school in there. Interesting. And you can actually get your beauty license. Now, how is the food in there?

I know every prison is so different. I gained 30 pounds in there in seven months. You put odd 30 pounds? Yes. Normally people lose weight. Yeah, but when the food sucks, Nutella's on commissary, and you start to realize that if you dip those cosmic brownies in Nutella. You guys had Nutella?

Yes. Spoiled. That's crazy. Yeah, we had some good stuff on commissary, but they would, those girls would hoard those Little Debbie's. They were there at the Little Debbie truck came every week and you were lucky if you got him, but. I love the Christmas tree, Little Debbie's, especially around the holidays. Those are good.

Those are good. Oh, you didn't make it for Christmas. No, I didn't. Oh, you never got a Christmas bag? No. Oh, you missed out. So I came in in January and everybody had saved their Christmas bags because they were, you know, you hoard it, you know. And so they were like, we're going to make cheesecake with these special cookies they put in our bags.

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Oh, you just opened up a can of worms. So, typically most of them are respectful, but I did have one guard that was clearly showing a lot of interest in me. And I did report it. And nothing got done. He still was a guard. And he actually, I actually, he kind of punished me. He was really mean after that. But I would like go to, they would have a mail call and I would go down to get my mail and he would sit in the officer station and he would like, here's your mail.

Here's your mail. Oh, are you, you're, you're Ford. So you must like to drive forwards or he did say this to me one time. Oh, I should call you Mercedes. And I was like, why would you call me Mercedes? Because you used to drive one. How would he know that? Tell me how he'd know that.

He looked me up. And I wasn't the only girl that he did this with. He would stop by rooms at night and stand in the doorway for like hours. I'm surprised he still left him on the compound when you reported it. He was the guard the next night. They didn't care. I heard about different incidents that I'm lucky. He never put a hand on me ever.

But I did hear of things that he possibly did to other women. I do know that when I had a visitation for Trent, he came up by himself just as a date. he was given me evil eye glares the whole time because he was the officer in the visitation room. Like it was almost like he was mad at me. And so I go back to my bunk that night and he is, because he did visitation, he's also the night guard too. And he was like, so your husband here and all this stuff? And he was, wait, no, you're divorced.

I read your file. It's like all this stuff that you shouldn't know. What about the case managers and counselors? Were they helpful? They don't care. Most of the time the case managers and counselors would tell you to get out of their office. Or you'd stand in hours, in line four hours, and then go in there, and then leave. No update, but they wouldn't check.

You know what I mean? Like, a lot of times you're going into check to see if your halfway house date has came back. No update, Jill. No update for, or they call me forward. No update forward. Go away. Next day. No update.

Next week. No update. When they haven't even really even seen. submitted your paperwork. They just, they didn't care. Tell us about getting released. And this was a little over a year ago now. Yeah. So getting released, I was so excited because the halfway house date I got was August 27th, 2024. And I was really, really nervous that that date would get pushed because we saw women who would get excited about their halfway house date. They would wake up the morning to leave and they would get sent back and have to stay in prison for an extra three months because

the halfway house pulled their spot. So we'd see it happen all the time. So there was a real fear in me. I was really excited because I thought I was going to go to the halfway house and go home on home confinement immediately because that's what everybody had said. When you go to the Oklahoma halfway house, they don't have room, so they're just going to send you on home confinement. It's going to be easy. You're going to be fine. So I wake up that day. You know, I've already told my kids that mommy's going to be home. Mommy's coming home. I just got to make a little stop and then I'll be home. Walk into that halfway house. Mommy is not coming home. Mommy is not going to be on an ankle monitor for three months. Why? And my kids were like, why are we at this hotel? You know, it was like this

and it was mixed with men and women of all security levels too. So like one of my roommates had conspiracy to a murder or something like that. Like her husband like murdered someone and she was involved in some way. And she was my roommate. And I am scared to death because the guard that was taking me to my room said, don't worry about the guys that sneak in at night. And I was like, what? Guys sneak in at night? So I went and told the, I don't know, she's like the head of the halfway house. Oh, sorry, the head of the halfway house. And she was like, guys do not see. sneak in at night. Okay, so we had one person that got pregnant last year, but they do not sneak into the girls' bunks last night at night. But that guard didn't get in trouble or anything.

And so I have this fear, and I'm like, well, you really need to send me on home confinement because I am not going to be able to sleep in this bed. And the beds were worse. You know, like the prison beds are like hard as a rock? Well, these had coils. And they don't replace the mattresses like they do in prison. And the pillows they give you are plastic pillows that are like this thick. And they said I wasn't allowed to bring sheets, even though everybody else had their own sheets and blankets. So yeah, it was worse than prison. We all, everyone was like, oh, we should have just stayed in prison because, you know, I had a double mattress in prison. I double mattress did it. So this was awful because my kids thought I was coming home.

So, yeah, that was halfway past. How long did you end up staying there for? August to November. So it was, I was able to be at Thanksgiving at home in November. I had just gotten home, like mid-November. And when's your max out date? It was December 31st. So you only had to do another month and a half on home confinement.

Home confinement supervision? Yeah. And that was just calling the phone or did they have you on an ankle monitor? I was on a wrist monitor. Oh, those are the new ones. I actually just interviewed a guy who had that with the cell phone and stuff. Yep, with the cell phone. They give you a separate cell phone. Yep, yep. They let him come interview? No, I had to go to him. It was in Boston, so two-hour drive. So I went to where he works and interviewed him there. That's awesome. But he had the cell phone in his hand the whole time and the wristband.

That's awesome. I wonder if they'll get mad. They're like, okay, so there's this thing about now that I'm on probation, like it's like the law, even though we have freedom of speech, right? The law doesn't really, and This is my opinion. The law doesn't really apply to me because I'm under the discretion of the judge still. They could revoke my probation and I could go back to prison. So I'm always feeling like I'm walking on eggshells. Did you ever feel that way? Well, so I guess my situation was, I definitely felt scared because you're on supervised release and they could literally make up something or anything. But I didn't go on social media or anything. Oh, okay. But what I do see is so many of my guests, I'd say the vast majority of them are on. probation or on parole if you're a state case or on supervised release. Yeah. And they come and do the interview. I think it's become more normal.

Okay. And I also think it has to do with the platform too. Right. Like I've heard of cases where like there was an issue and like my podcast was actually played during like a supervision hearing or something or the judge knew of it. I think it's just the platform is becoming so known with law enforcement with individuals. So I think it has to do with credibility aspect too. Right.

Now, if you're going on a podcast where the person's selling drugs or something, I think that might be a little bit different. Yeah, no, I think it's really good to talk about your stories to help others prepare. And I think it's also important to show people like, at least like, I made a mistake. And I am so remorseful. Oh, goodness. Like, it's just a weight. I carry every day. And some people may think that I'm not remorseful because I've gone on with my life.

And, you know, I'm in the Bitcoin industry and I talk about Bitcoin and I teach it. You know, it's just a tool that I've used to kind of anchor to my freedom, which is hopefully coming soon. So I just, I just use it as an experience. What was a conversation like with your probation officer coming on to do a show, a podcast? Well, we originally had this scheduled in October and then we had to reschedule it for December. So my first probation officer had already approved it. I was going to Washington, D.C. at the time for a conference and then was just going to stop by. So she had already approved it. And then this time, you know, being in New York close by, so actually wasn't like a big deal. He didn't even say anything about it. He just approved it.

So they don't ask questions or anything. They don't ask questions. So there's your answer. But I'll probably send him this. I think it would be cool for him to listen. Yeah. We have a lot of law enforcement probation officers and everything that watch a show, which is really cool. Yeah, because ultimately, like, I'm like, I get to the point sometimes where it's like I committed this crime and I've been in the system and I've been doing this and I'm doing my absolute best to make things right and it's never doesn't ever feel like it's good enough so I think the million dollar question that the audience wants to know at this point by the time they make it to the end is what happens to the husband oh yeah you've got to give the finale to the husband's story so we

became pin capals while we were in prison and he started coming and seeing me by himself without the kids He brought the kids down once a month, but he also came separately for separate visits. And we ended up getting back together. We had to learn to, like, we had to get to know each other again. It was traumatic for him, too. Super traumatic, taking care of three kids. My son, he is severely autistic, so he didn't even go to school at the time. He had an in-home therapist and who he went through a lot and it changed him.

I think we both just that situation molded. and shaped us and we realize like we are each other's person and yes we have done each other dirty we've said things that we shouldn't have we have but you know what we're each other's right or die like we know each other better than anyone else does and we have been through from throwing the ring back at him at 18 to prison to getting back together now so um we are back together and he is here today he is here today. Yes, he is here today. I know that he does regret not being there for me in those moments, but we were going through a divorce and I was draining his account and I wasn't very nice. You know, it's funny when I was listening to tell your story because he was talking about being into

the gaming industry and you're telling the story here and I'm like, there's no way she ended up with two people that are the gaming industry. But then now that I know how the story ends, I put it together halfway through. Yeah, yeah. I did date another guy while I was single that year and he was not in the gaming industry, completely opposite. What advice would you tell your teenage self? Oh, what would I tell? Keep going. Life is really, really hard, and you're going to go through a lot.

But know that that inner strength within you is stronger and can overcome anything. I now feel like any difficulties that I go through in life, well, I went to prison and I did all these things and I overcame some of the biggest things and biggest challenges that people go through it in life and I overcame it. So I would tell myself that you have the strength to overcome anything. Do you think you've made closure with your dad about what happened in your childhood? No. Will this be his first time seeing how you felt or have you expressed that before? I have in prison when I, you know, I told him to don't bite the hand that was feeding him and he shouldn't be saying those things to me considering all the things that he had done to me in childhood.

He was like, sorry, daughter, I'm so sorry. He knows. But even saying it to him, won't make a difference. Well, maybe this will have. Maybe I'll send it to him, we'll see. I mean, I still love him and I do forgive him. But the choices that I made as an adult were shaped by my childhood. They were. They're not my parents' fault.

They didn't do the actions, but I was shaped. It's almost like a mold. You know, you come from your parents and that mold that you're in. So that's why I try really hard to just be honestly honest and transparent with my kids about the mistakes that I've made and the struggles that I've gone through because I want them to learn from it. My parents didn't open up to me about the things that they did. Well, Jill, I appreciate you coming on the show today. You did amazing. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I'm glad we can make this happen. Yes, me too. You reached out to me very quickly after you got out of prison too. I was in the halfway house. I was like, I got to be on the – Well, because before I went to the halfway house, you know, you were just doing the car video, you know, you're in your car. And then all of a sudden you blew up and I was like, I've got to talk to him. Now I've got an experience. It's so crazy. Thank you and good luck on your journey and everything you have going on and enjoy the holidays with your family.

Thank you. You too. Thank you. Thanks.