Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Prosecutor — Then My Cop Husband Got 11 Years in Federal Prison | Elizabeth Guzman

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Elizabeth Guzman was a prosecutor when her husband Javier — a Tampa vice detective who made the DEA task force — was arrested for laundering money for the cartel and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. She stood by him through the entire case and his decade behind bars, even finding a way to start a family while he was in federal custody. Elizabeth shares what it was like watching her husband get prosecuted by the same system she worked inside, why she stayed, and what 11 years of federal prison looked like from the other side. _____________________________________________ Become an EXCLUSIVE Locked In: After Hours Member & receive a FREE merch box: https://lockedin.supportingcast.fm/ _____________________________________________ Buy Javier's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Riptide-Cartels-Undercover-Temptation-Redemption/dp/B0GPNK3SX8   _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction: Elizabeth's Story 01:15 Early Life in Tampa 07:45 Family Turmoil and Divorce 14:05 College and Finding Direction 19:00 Law School and Becoming a Prosecutor 24:00 Meeting Javier Undercover 30:00 First Date and Early Relationship 35:00 Javier's DEA Career and Operation Promo 42:15 Javier's Breakdown and Warning Signs 47:30 Learning of the Money and Legal Trouble 50:40 Marriage and Move to Homicide 52:00 The Arrest and Aftermath 58:30 Plea Hearing and Sentencing 01:02:00 Working as a Public Defender 01:07:00 Moving to North Carolina 01:12:00 Conceiving Their Son 01:15:00 Tragedy: Brother's Death 01:17:30 Prison Visits and Fatherhood 01:20:00 Father's Death and New Job 01:24:00 Reflections on Love and Faith 01:29:00 Final Thoughts on Good People and Bad Decisions _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

I didn't want to understand what was going on. And, you know, I've had people say, yeah, but you were a prosecutor, you were a lawyer. You should have known right away. He had broken the law. And of course, I knew that. Somehow, you know, when it's somebody that you love, it's a little different. That's Elizabeth Guzman. She was a prosecutor when her own husband went from undercover cop to federal inmate.

When he was sentenced to 11 years for working with the cartel, she chose to stay, watching the same justice system she worked inside prosecute the man she married. Today, she's telling her side of the story of what it was like loving someone through a federal case, having a child while he was in custody, and rebuilding their life after prison. If you want to see what my life is like when the cameras aren't rolling, this is for you. We just launched Locked in After Hours. For $7.99 a month, you'll get exclusive vlogs from our travels, a new podcast with my fiance, Letitia and I, live Q&As with me on Zoom every week, plus, Every Lockton episode ad-free, and when you join, you'll also get a free locked-in merch box with free shipping.

Click on the link in the description or go to Ian Bick.com and click Become a Member. I grew up in Tampa, Florida. I am the youngest of six kids, and I grew up on Bayshore Boulevard. I don't know if you're familiar with that at all, but it is a boulevard next to Tampa Bay that is, studded with very nice homes. It's an affluent piece of real estate. And my first memories of living there with all of us kids, actually, the siblings were all stretched out in age,

not one after the other at all. I had two older brothers, 16. and 14 years older. The oldest was a half-brother, but I really wasn't aware that much of that, any difference. And then two sisters, then the next brother was four years older than me. And my father was an attorney, as I am, and my mother pretty much had to stay home with all the kids and raise them. He worked, my father worked in a silk stock. stocking law firm and did well. And my grandparents, my mother's parents lived on the same big piece of property facing the bay, whoops, behind us. So I always had my maternal grandparents

there. And my grandfather was a federal judge. Oh, wow. Which I think is why there are so many lawyers in the family. I have cousins, several lawyers. And my brother, the second, from the oldest, was a lawyer in the same firm as my father. My father was a big presence. He flew spit fires for the Royal Air Force in World War II. And that brother became a fighter pilot also in the Navy for the Vietnam War, flew off carriers. So those were big presences in my life, very influential. My grandfather, being a federal judge, I got my first exposure to a courtroom. When I was about five years old, this is just a fun little story.

My aunt took me to court to watch him. There was some big case going on. And you know how federal courtrooms are. They're very big and mahogany and elaborate and imposing and intimidating. And there's my grandpa. I didn't call him that. We called him Bubba. But anyway, he's sitting up there on the bench way up high.

And I had no clue what was going on. But I heard everybody keep talking about jewelry. You know, what about the jewelry? Where's the jewelry? When's the jewelry going to be brought in? And so I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to see this jewelry. And so I elbowed my aunt next to me, and I said, Aunt or Jan, when are they going to bring in the jewelry?

And I could see her shoulders shaking, laughing. She says, no, no, no, no, no. It's not jewelry. It's jury. I didn't care about the jewelry. jury. I wanted to see jewelry and then these 12 people come walking in. And so that was my first introduction to the legal system. But it did not attract me to it at all, as I'll tell you later. But anyway, so I had a bunch of friends on the street that were also grew up in well-to-do homes

and whatnot. And we would get together and ride our bikes down to the Tampa Yacht Club. So the Tampa Yacht Club had a big pool. It had equestrian stables and tennis courts and, of course, yachts because it was right on the bay. So while my future husband was jumping off buildings, abandoned buildings in the Bronx, my little friends and I are at the Yacht Club. He enjoys the contrast quite a bit, but it was definitely a contrast in our upbringing. So I spent a lot of time just doing that kind of thing with my friends. And apparently, oh, I was also allowed to just eat there.

They had a restaurant and everything. We would all sign our little tickets. This is fresh in my mind because I was just talking to my husband about it. At the end of the month, all of the family take. would be sent home with the bill. And one night my father stacked them all up on the dining table for each kid. And my stack was like three times the size of the others. And he looked at me, I'm six years old, maybe seven at the most.

And he says to everybody, why is Beth stack higher than everybody else's? and I'm wide-eyed and I'm thinking I'm in terrible trouble and then he goes on and he says and why is the handwriting on so many of those tickets so different

and it turns out all my siblings were signing my name because I was the baby and they thought I wouldn't get in trouble so but that was the most abuse I ever got I was the baby I grew up

up. I was a good student, went to the local elementary school, everything was great, I thought. Up until I was probably eight or nine, I became aware that things were not so great with my parents and finally started hearing them actually arguing audibly. Now, my two older sisters who are seven and nine years, older than me, would protect me from these things and from these conflicts. But it got to the point where it was loud and bad. And my father finally moved out when I was about nine, I would say. And it was such a sea change in the household. Now, we're in this big, beautiful home, and the neighborhood thinks we're a big, beautiful,

family and all that stuff. But in those days, when divorce wasn't so common, it was more of a stigma. And my mother started drinking. My father, he didn't abandon us by any means. He continued taking care of the family, but slowly my older siblings started getting into smoking pot and whatever else they were doing. I wasn't aware at the time. and my mother lost control of the household. And it became really chaotic. And I didn't understand what was really going on. The brother next to me in age,

I guess he was four years older. he really started getting more and more into drugs. He finally got kicked out of high school because he got caught smoking pot. And that was sort of, even though he finished at another school and everything, that was sort of the beginning of his downward spiral. So that's going on. My sisters are sort of in and out of the house. My mother is drinking.

There's strangers coming into the house and a lot of pot smoking going on. And I'm just, you know, this is a little kid trying to keep it together. One day, in fact, I came home. I brought one of my friends from the neighborhood home. We're going to play at my house. And I opened the door to this porch. And there's a cloud of smoke and about 10 people sitting around getting high. slam the door. It's where I went to your house. So that went on for several years.

Meanwhile, my dad, who I still, even though I was hearing, you know, my mother was trashing him and my sisters were unhappy with him and all of that, I still thought he hung moon. So at some point, they finally divorced. He had been coming and taking me out to dinner. He would take me on vacations with him and things like that. So, ultimately, not long after my parents divorced, my mother remarried, And they've sold a big, beautiful house and moved into an apartment, and I went with them.

Well, this guy was kind of a knucklehead, so to put it mildly. So I went to live with my father, which was a very different experience. So by this point, I'm going to a snooty prep school and doing well. in school and living with my dad. Things are seeming to be fine. That's brother, his name was Jonathan. He ultimately became mentally ill to the point where actually this in odd way brought my parents together because they were trying to to figure out a way to help him. And so he went to several different hospitals,

tried the medications and just all of that. But he never really fully recovered. He would have periods of time living with our dad and periods of time living with our mom. And ultimately, you heard my husband talk about the brother that committed suicide while he was the one. He did hang himself. My mother had moved, and my grandparents had also moved down to Fort Myers years before,

and he was living with my mother. And that was just a huge shock. I was actually in my last semester of law school when that happened. about to do a clinic with the state attorney's office. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. So life went on with dad, and I'm in high school, and I'm making great grades, and I get to the point of graduation

and applying to college and things like that. I go off to college. I went to UVA. Stayed there, did a full year. And I went back the next year. My father always made me work from the time I was 13. It may have been jobs he arranged for me with his friends. I hire my kid and I'll pay her salary under the table.

but I always had worked. And so the next year, something shifted in me. And I felt like I had been doing what I was supposed to do all along. And there's been all of this stuff, trauma going on all around me. and I think at some point I just kind of needed a break so I took some time off from school and I just worked for a while well pretty soon I realized that wasn't going to get me very far in life and I still had these daddy expectations going on

So, I went to the University of South Florida. I stayed living with him, started working on finishing up college, moved out on my own at some point. And, well, it was pretty good. My siblings were still doing weird stuff. The oldest brother had, you know, the half-brother. I could spend an hour on him alone, but a short story on him. He had so much influence with my mother. I mean, that was her only child from her first marriage,

and his father had died in the war in a plane crash. This boy, it turns out, had this ridiculous IQ, but he was also, you know, there's a fine line between genius and insanity, so he was kind of moving over to the insanity side. And he would go off to live in Afghanistan and Morocco and all of these exotic places and then come home for a while and just there would be more chaos. Because he was such a strong influence. He would come in and he was ahead of his time on clean eating.

He would come in and throw away all of my cookies. and throw away everything I liked. So anyway, going back to my break from college, I continued to work and go to school. Came time to graduate. And my plan, because I got my degree in French, just because I enjoyed it, I had no idea of being a French teacher or anything like that.

So I was going to be a flight attendant and just travel. I thought, hey, you know, I'm sort of bilingual, but not really. I'll just fly and travel and see the world. Right around that time, there was a big flight attendant strike. I thought, okay, this isn't going to work. So I figured, well, I'll take the law school admission test, the LSAT, and just see how I do. Well, it turns out I got a pretty healthy score. I thought, oh, boy, now what do I do?

Because if you had asked me at age, and now I'm, how old was I, I don't know, 23 or so? Because I went to college on the six-year plan. And, but if you had asked me, are you going to go into the family business? Are you going to be a lawyer? You've got to be a lawyer. Absolutely. No, absolutely not. I will never be a lawyer.

Forget it. Because I had seen my father and brother, both their marriages fell apart. They worked all the time. It was intense and stressful. They both drank too much. All of that, and I didn't want that. But now that I've got this healthy SAT score, L-SAT score,

now my dad's really interested. I think, okay, I'll apply and just see what happens. Well, I applied to the family alma mater, which was the University of Florida, go Gators, and I got in. And I remember the first day sitting in orientation. We were in this giant auditorium. And all of these, they turned out to be many of them wonderful people, but I'm thinking, what these are the geekiest people I've ever been around in my entire life? what am I doing here?

And I thought, well, I'm in it now. I'm stuck. So law school begins, and I did not enjoy law school. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't, because I'd always had a good memory, so I never had to, how should I say this, work very hard? before, but this was a whole different ballgame. And I sort of resented the mind bending, which I mean, I realize now you have to, they're training you how to think. Because you're not

just memorizing. You're learning concepts in law school legal principles. And you have to figure out how to apply them to different facts, different scenarios. And so they have to bend your mind. So once I figured that out, which was unfortunately later in law school, I got it and I enjoyed it more. So there comes a time where you have to figure out, where do you go from here? What do you want to go into? And I really, I didn't know. I did some appellate advocacy class where you're doing appellate arguments, which would later come in handy. And then my last semester of law school, I decided, well, I'm going to do an internship with the state attorney's office in Gainesville.

And I was pretty excited about that. So we started before the semester. began doing some trainings and things. And that was right around the time that my brother killed himself. And that just, it gutted me. And I didn't know what to do with that because it was just, it was a shock. I was just completely shocked. And I remember the day that I got that news,

I was supposed to continue the orientation for the clinic. And I went on, I went in. I mean, I had just been crying my brains out. I literally didn't know what else to do with myself. So, so I went in, and they were very kind. And, of course, redirected me. Look, you pack your things and you need to go home for a while. But I came back and I continued, and I really sort of threw myself into it.

It's my last semester of law school. I've got to figure out what I'm going to do. And I thought, this might work being a prosecutor. So when I graduated, that's what I pursued. And I started working at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, the state attorney's office, and they start you out in misdemeanor section, and so I did that for a while, mostly DUIs. Got a conviction on a guy on a bike.

Wow, what a moment of glory that was. But it was fun. I enjoyed it. It was interesting. The people I worked with were pretty great. Working with defense attorneys, all that good stuff. Eventually, I worked my way up to the felony division, and that's where you get the bigger cases. Tampa's a big enough jurisdiction even at the time that they don't just throw you in, typically.

So I had a supervisor, and I would be second chair on cases and things like that. Let me back up to one. one little interim piece. I was one day sitting in on depositions, and I was brand new to felony. And I'm sitting in on these depositions, and there was a defense deposition of prosecution witnesses, and this squad of detectives come in,

playing clothes, I'm sitting, taking notes, but I'm listening, and they're all amazing. Nobody was using any notes, and I wasn't used to that. I'd been used to uniform officers with their reports and everything. And this one in particular was testifying, and I didn't catch it at the time, but he was looking at me. And, you know, turning to the defense attorney and back to me. but I'm just vigorously taking notes. And so I was just, I was so impressed with all of them that I didn't dare look at them or show any interest of any kind.

So later on, I am, I'm in my home division, my home court, and I had to do a motion. I think it was a motion to suppress maybe. I'm not sure what it was. But I needed a witness, and I'm still baby prosecutor, baby felony prosecutor. So I call in this detective to come and testify, this undercover detective. And so, you know, the court's,

turning through the morning session. I'm waiting for my turn. And I could see him in the back of the courtroom, because he had sort of checked in with me. And he's sitting on the back. What I didn't know was that the guy next to him was trying to do a Coke deal with him. Now, he's not, the detective's not in uniform. He's just got long, long black hair, black curly hair, earring, goatee, the whole thing. And so when we take a break, well, actually, the other guy had to go feed his meter, comes up to me and he says, I need to get out of here because he wants to, he's trying to sell me Coke in the courtroom. I'm like, what? I almost couldn't process it at the time. So I was, I was. I was. I almost couldn't process it at the time. So I said, oh, by all means, you know, we'll continue the case.

You would get out of here. And so he did. But he started calling me to give me updates on his interaction with Espinoza, the guy in the back, turns out that unbeknownst to me, the post. public defender recognized the detective and had kind of looked hard at him, couldn't quite place him and told his client, Espinoza, be careful who you talked to after he was gone already, of course. And so when they finally, when the detective was finally able to contact Espinoza after

Aspernosa had been taken into custody. He said on the phone, hey, my lawyer told me you were a cop. And the detective, who, as it turned out, was amazing at laying these things off and these difficult situations off. That's crazy. No, I'm not. I was getting ready to do a deal with you, and I'm ready now. So ultimately they did work that out. Well, obviously the detective was my husband now.

And that whole dance, though, began with Marcello Espinoza trying to do a Coke deal in the back of the courtroom. So he was calling, keeping tabs on this case and everything because ultimately Esponosa was arrested on the sale. and it was set for trial in December, and now we're at, I think we're at 1990. And so we're rolling toward trial and everything. And he finally got up the gumption to come and see me in the courtroom and ask me out. And I was actually seeing somebody else at the time. But it wasn't going anywhere. And so I accepted.

And we met at a Chili's in Tampa. And we spent five and a half hours on our first date, just talking about how different our pasts were, our upbringings. and he was telling me Bronx stories, and I withheld my Yacht Club stories at the time. But we also talked a lot about our faith that we shared and experiences in our youth that sort of transformed us, that maybe our professions had pulled us away from that sort of thing. I'm sure the waitress was ready to kill us, taking her table for five and a half hours, but anyway. That was the beginning.

And so the other guy who on paper was probably who people would have expected me to be with, that was quickly dispensed with. And we became increasingly inseparable. even to the point when it came to the trial of Espinosa, that was wild because the detective can sit at council table. And so I'm with my supervisor, he's first chair, and Javier's in the middle, and then there's me. And so my supervisor, who had a...

an inkling of what was going on. We weren't official yet. He had me, and this were into December, early December, he had me question Javier. And I don't know what it was, but one of the jurors who turned out to be the four-person on the jury would later tell us she saw the chemistry. Well, anyway, it was crazy because Marcello Espinoza takes the stand and lied like nobody's business. He told this crazy story about how Javier was dogging him and that he didn't really give him cocaine and all of this crazy stuff. and there was an error on the evidence, the packet containing the cocaine, there was a date change on the envelope, and there was a termite inspector on the jury who had this big magnifying glass that saw the error.

And so between the chemistry and the lies that Espinoza told and they walked the guy. It gets off, Scott Frey. So we were just, you know, we were just gutted by that because the evidence was all there. Well, anyway, that's fine. We get over it. Now we're just really inseparable because we had a lot to talk about about that trial, right? So anyway, we continued.

dating, oh gosh, I can't remember how long before we got engaged, but Javier was progressing in the ranks of undercover work anyway. And so I remember when he got involved with DEA, he was very excited about it. it certainly earned it. I didn't really see any stress when he was doing undercover work before he got into the DE. I knew he was because he would tell me about certain things that went on, like some of the things that he told you. But he was so pumped to go to DEA.

And I was proud of him. I mean, really, that's a big professional feather in one's cap. And so, but he gets over there and there was, it was a little frustrating at first because he was used to taking the ball and rolling with it. And he really couldn't do that initially. So, but by the time he gets involved with DEA, I have left. I have left the state attorney's office and I'm working in private firm and everything and enjoying that pretty well. So I'm out of the whole prosecution grind and it is. So the first big case he got involved with was the Verdesia case.

And that was pretty exciting. I was worried for him, of course, because he's dealing with a higher level of bad guy, more money, which always means more potential for violence. But I knew he knew what he was doing. I didn't feel particularly afraid for him. Neither did I ask him for a whole lot of information. My focus was on being supportive of him and what he was doing. I thought it was cool, really.

I wasn't afraid of what he was doing, oh, no, you're in so much danger. Not then, anyway. That came later. So it worked. I understood from the prosecution standpoint because I had interacted with law enforcement for four years doing. that. So I was fascinated by what he was doing. And as the Verdicia case rolled along, I just, I thought it was very cool. And I wanted to, to support him and not be a burden by whining

about it or anything like that. So, um, So when Verdecia closed, the thing that he talked about, when he called me, after watching him get arrested, and I heard him say, I can't do this anymore. I was actually relieved because I knew, okay, this is really. taking a toll. This is not buying crack on the street or even dealing with the local thugs that were a little higher level, but I really kind of wanted him to get back to the department. And we were, I knew, heading towards getting married. And so I wanted things to be a little more stable. And I thought they would be. So when he told me that, I thought, okay, that's heartbreaking, but you did what you signed up for and now you can

go back to TPD and go to homicide and life will go on. No. Didn't work out that way. He talked about Bob Mazur. Not a fan. But Bob was the shiny object that got. him to stay at DEA. And, yeah, Bob was a legend, including in his own mind of my perspective.

I will be honest how I felt that night when we were at his house and he was explaining how life would change. I thought, oh, no, no. no, no, no. The alarm bells were going off loud and clear. I did not want him to do this. But I'm also seeing the persuasiveness, the magic of Bob, and his stature in coming off the BCCI investigation and all that that entailed and everything. I could see the pull. And I knew, in spite of our conversations, after we left the house that night, that he was going to do it. So I resigned myself to that.

I kept, for the most part, only a surface awareness of what was going on. he told me in general what the whole operation was for and how they were going to lure people in with all of the trappings the condo the yacht all that stuff cool you know that's very you know sounds fun um but as it got more and more involved and you know you know it's you know You have to keep in mind the different vantage points from which we came at all of this. You know, I'm relatively, other than the family stuff went on and how heartbreaking all of that was, I was still, I was still daddy's little girl and fairly sheltered. Meanwhile, he's had this sort of gritty upbringing in the Bronx and everything.

And while now I see those two things coming together as a strength, it was still disorienting at times to think about some of the risks he was taking and keeping me protected from it all. Because I knew he was. And I wanted to be. I didn't want to know too much. But as the operation with Bob was called Promo, as Promo was rolling along and he's doing all of this traveling and telling me bits and pieces and I'm seeing him getting more and more stressed. I'm starting to get more and more concerned and really wanting this to end somehow. But again, I'm not going to interfere.

I'm not going to be that girlfriend or fiancé, I think, by that point. So it all just keeps rolling along. But the point that he went AWOL, when his sergeant, asked him to suit up in your uniform and come participate in riot control for the Rodney King situation, that's when I knew something was terribly wrong because that just wasn't him. I understood he didn't tell me a whole, I mean, he left the house, he didn't tell me where he was going. but I understood the seriousness of his role in promo.

I mean, it was all him doing the traveling, doing the face-to-face for the pickups and that sort of thing. But his going AWOL was so out of character that a part of me was glad. I thought, okay, here's the point where they, of course they'll. He'll pull him from it. Of course they will. And they did. And I was glad that he was seeing the psychologist. But he was restless. He did not want to be pulled. And he felt duty bound to continue. I mean, I think there was this, you know, there were these conflicting emotions going on

with him. He wanted to continue doing his job because that was his job, but he knew that he was being stretched. He was having stomach problems. He couldn't sleep by this point. And we were starting to, you know, our nerves were getting a little afraid with each other. But at the same time, I thought once again, okay, maybe this will be a fork in the road, and then they won't require him to go back into the operation. And no, but no, but Bob, Bob, as he said, went to the psychologist and basically talked him into releasing him from the treatment and letting him back back into promo.

What Bob also did was talk about using the doctor for DEA agents. Hey, do you think maybe I'm sure that they could use your services too, schmoozing him? We didn't find this out until not too many years ago. So he's back in on a limited basis. And but it wasn't the same. and I'm seeing the cracks and everything, but I'm also at the same time we're planning our wedding. And I'm ready to get married, start our life together. And again, I'm thinking, surely this won't last much longer.

And we'll just have a normal life. but then when things got to the point where he told me look I've got to tell you something and even then he didn't tell me all of it he told me that he had warned

Luis and that he was trying to figure figure out a way out. It wasn't until later that I learned about, well, he did tell me, I remember the timeline here, we were in our home, not very much time,

not very long before we were going to get married, but he did tell me about having been given money. And it took me a minute to, really understand what he was saying. And I just remember, I remember the initial reaction being shock. I was, I was, I couldn't quite understand how, how things had gotten there. He told me about Louise being kidnapped and, and tortured, and that they wanted him to go to South America, but he, obviously, he didn't do that. And I thought, okay, this jacks up. stakes quite a bit. And I remember saying, but just give the money back. Just give it back.

Just get out of this whole thing. You don't have to stay, just, you know, in my limited, well, not just ability to understand. I didn't want to. I didn't want to understand what was going on. And, you know, I've had people say, yeah, but you were a prosecutor, you were a lawyer, you should have known right away that he had broken the law. And of course, I knew that. But somehow, you know, when it's somebody that you love, it's a little different. And I thought, yeah, just give the money back and it'll all just go away. And I hadn't seen any change. I didn't see any money being spent.

We still had the same mortgage. We still had the same car payments. Nothing had changed in that regard. But he was changing. He was just getting increasingly hyper-vigilant and increasingly stressed and vacant at times. But we still moved toward our wedding, move toward getting married.

And I'm thinking, okay, this is all going to go away somehow. So we get married April 3rd, 1993, and beautiful wedding. We get married in this mansion that's right next to my childhood home. My big beautiful childhood home on big beautiful Bayshore Boulevard. And it was just fairy tale. and went on our honeymoon in Cancun and started to learn how to scuba dive and everything was wonderful. And when he came back, things were moving in the direction of his going to homicide. And I think it was very shortly after we got married that he actually did.

And things seemed fine. we were having a great time, really. When he was in homicide, he was a different person. A lot of that, the amped up energy just started to recede. And let's see, what was I doing? I was working at a law firm across the bay and everything. I've pretty much always been a litigator. And so I was working at a tort firm, but, and he's enjoying going out to scenes.

I actually went out to a couple of scenes with him, not viewing the evidence, of course, because I didn't want to be a witness, but he was having fun. But then he got the call about. his former C-Eyes, and they exposed him. Now, he, I think it was the night before his arrest. By this time, I had left that firm, and I was trying to work on my own. I was doing some court-appointed stuff. I was going to, I was exploring, starting my own practice in a pretty low-competent.

way, taking the court appointments, doing things at home, not getting into an office just yet. So the night before the arrest, he was different and staring off into space a lot because he knew it was coming. And I kind of wondered, what is going on now? So the next day he goes off to work. I had some things in town at court to do. And so I went in. I say went in because we lived out in the county,

out from the city. We lived in a beautiful little home on a lake. It was really idyllic in many ways. So late the next day I came home and there were cars in the driveway on the street. They were executing a search warrant on our house. I didn't know he'd been arrested. He was already in custody.

And so I go in the house and there cops all over the place. There were, they brought dogs in, drug dogs. And I'm thinking, oh, come on, guys, really. this was never about him doing drugs or having drugs or smuggling drugs or any of that. And who was there, but Bob Mazur. And he's asking me questions. And, I mean, I didn't know anything about the particulars of what he was doing or had done. But, oh, and they're, you know, the dog, I had to.

two cats. I had two Abyssinian cats that were a gift from Javier that were my pride and joy. And I was worried about the dogs getting my cats. And they're, meanwhile, they're taking our computer. They're taking boxes and boxes of our stuff out of the house. And all I wanted was to get to wherever he was, to see him. And, you know, I had to have had a female agent came in with me to my closet to get dressed, to watch me get dressed. And they ended up taking my car. So I had to call my brother, the lawyer, to come and get me. My dad was out of town.

My brother came and got me. And I just left them there. I knew they were going to do what they did, take what they took. I said, look, just please lock the door when you leave. Don't let my cats out. And so we went to see him in the Pinellas County Jail. My brother was not a criminal attorney ever. He was a litigator, mostly family law, divorce law, things like that.

So we both, in that moment, were, my husband's lawyers. So I actually got to have a contact visit with him. I actually got to go into the holding cell and hug him and my brother hugged him and just talked to him a little bit. I was one of the most difficult moments in the process. He was, as he told you, on a medical unit where the nurses could watch him. and I didn't know anything about suicidal thoughts or that he had ever put a gun in his mouth. I knew none of that until later.

But he had an attorney in mind, and unbeknownst to me he had talked to him already but had not engaged him yet. So, and again, that's something that we worked out because they weren't going to let me continue coming in as his lawyer unless they had something to prove it. So that got cut off pretty quickly. And so that was the beginning of a very long road.

he we thought for sure no problem he was going to get a bond no no question at the bond hearing they didn't want me in the courtroom for whatever reason I ended up waiting in a jury room actually so feds being feds and I'm sorry I'm there are many I'm sure good and honest ones, but they will also use whatever information will serve their cause. And so they used what the CIs had told them, that Javier had taken multiple trips to Columbia, that he had been involved with one of the sisters of these CIs, all this stuff that was just fabricated. And so the judge did not give him a bond.

And so he sat in the Pinellas County jail, not only the 90 days of solitary, but up until the time he entered his plea. And during that time, you know, the press was kind of, of after, not after me, but actually his attorney wanted me to do an interview, which I did, not happily, but I did it. I did have reporters come to the door, ring the doorbell, want to talk to me, and I unfortunately had a speaker. I said, go away. I'm not talking to you. If they saw me going up the courthouse steps, they were behind me. Just, you know, it was a

circus. But the day of the plea, I was really not prepared for that circus. There were so many law enforcement in there, including people he had worked with to watch the show. And I really, I told him at one point, I wish I had popcorn to hand out to them because that's, that was the atmosphere in there. and, you know, I had my wonderful brother on one side, my dad on the other, and so I had my pillars of strength. But it was hard. It was very hard.

The, I watched him apologize, but take responsibility. I hoped that the judge would come down off the top. of the range at sentencing. And I knew the judge. I had she had been a, well, in Florida, there are circuit court judges, felony judges. I had tried cases in front of her several times. And I and the rest of my family had all written letters asking her to be lenient, essentially. But no, she was in to bust his chops,

and so she gave him the top of the range, and I was, yeah, I was pretty gutted at the time. And so prior to that point, I left this part out, while we were awaiting the entry of the plea and all of those months and everything,

I had been at the courthouse, not the federal courthouse, the county courthouse, and I'd run into the elected public defender, Julianne Holt. I mean, this is, I hope she sees this someday because I am so grateful to her. She comes up next to me and says, listen, been following everything that's been going on. And what are you doing for work these days? I said, well, I'm just kind of doing all of this guardian ad litemes. stuff and whatever I can pick up court appointed wise. And she said, well, why don't you come work for me? And I was just like, so much relief and emotion and just gratitude for her. So not only did she hire me, she put me in a position that was not in the courtroom. I really didn't want to be.

in the public eye. So she put me an intake. So I would go to the jails in our county, Hillsborough County, and interview new clients. And there were two main jails. I think there was one in another area that I didn't cover. But anyway, I remember that I went to the brand new one with all of the beautiful cameras and sliding doors

and accommodating guards to attorneys. But I also went to the old one, the old, I mean, it was the Morgan Street jail. I'll never forget. I don't know if it still exists, but tiny interview rooms and just old rickety elevators and dark. So I did that for a number of months. before they put me in a courtroom. She said, I can't keep you out there forever. You've got too much experience, and I need you in the courtroom.

I said, fine, I'll be fine. And several months had gone by, and I was fully awake to my new reality. But one interesting thing that happened, I went into the Morgan Street jail one day. And it's just another day. I had my files on my new clients. And I was meeting with one. And the guard let me into the meeting room, which was, I mean, I was, oh, golly. probably maybe six by six at the most.

And my client walks in and he's big and he's bulky and sits down across from me. And he's so big my knees are almost touching his. And he just kind of sits down and I'm going through his file. and I review past history with the client because that affects how we proceed on the current charge. And I saw that I said, well, Mr. McCalla, I see that you've been in a, you were last incarcerated for an incident where you were in a shootout with a cop. And there was some bondsmen and a dog. And I said, you know what?

That cop, I think, was by husband. And I'm expecting this, you know. The poor guy just sags in his chair. And he says, ma'am, I'm just so sorry. I didn't mean anything by that. I just was so in the moment and everything. I didn't mean to hurt. I was just, he was like a little boy.

And I ended up feeling sorry for him. I comforted him. I said, it's all right, Mr. McCalla. Everything's going to be okay. I didn't tell him my husband's currently sitting in jail himself. I didn't think that was pertinent. But anyway, yeah, I'll never forget that moment. So I was sort of assisted by that incident in getting out.

of the jail work and into it back into the courtroom. But there was chatter, there was talk, there were people who would look at me and things like that and give me side-eye, but for the most part, people were lovely to me, treated me very well. I had dear friends that would check on me and and, but once the plea was entered and I knew he was going to be going away, then I knew things would have to change. And I think some people just assumed either I would divorce him or just stay in Tampa and visit now and again, that kind of thing. I was already flying up to Butner periodically to see him. I'd fly into Durham and get a hotel,

in a car and go see him and go back home, but I thought there is, there ain't no way. I'm going to sit this out several hundred miles away, not happening. Originally, the judge was going to, well, actually it wasn't the judge. It was BOP. They were assigning him to Williamsport in Pennsylvania. Is that? Alan Wood or Allen? Yeah, I think it's Allenwood. I think so, yes.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I don't want to move all the way up there. I thought, let me just try something. So I wrote a letter to the judge. And I said, look, well, respectfully, I didn't say, look. Respectfully, my father and brother own property in North Carolina in the mountains. Is there any way that he could be sent or signed somewhere in North Carolina so that I would at least have a, you know, a foothold there in the state,

have contacts. They both flew back and forth. And lo and behold, she did. She's the one that got BOP to send him to Butner in North Carolina. And I thought, okay, I can work with that. Not that I wouldn't have moved to Pennsylvania. I would have, I would have done whatever I needed to do. But I thought, this makes more sense.

And so a trip through the Hernando County jail, where he met up with Luis and then through Atlanta, which was a nightmare, he finally got to Butner. And that was kind of a relief for me because, oh my gosh, the stories you told me about Atlanta, it was just blood-curdling. So that's, now we are at, the end of 1994 in the timeline. And so I'm still at the public defender's office trying to get things together,

get her house sold. My dad was not terribly pleased that I was leaving home. But at that point, I was, I don't really. want to tell you how old I was, but anyway, I was responsible for myself. So I got the house sold. I moved to Raleigh. Did not have a North Carolina law license. Had a little bit of money, saved up, got an apartment, got a job. And so I would drive back and forth and see him as often as I possibly could. And that, for me. worked for a while until they transferred him.

So I moved to the town where I had a job at a law firm. Those people were lovely to me too. In fact, once Javier got sent to a camp, they were the reason I was able to go and sort of execute our plan, which I will, I will. share with you, as I've never shared it publicly before. So, Javier, everybody has to work.

Everybody has to have a job, as you know. And he got a job driving the tractor on this, the camp, which was on Air Force Base, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. And so he would mow grass, and they had some areas that were near the runway that weren't heavily patrolled. And so he was sort of doing recon on our mission. And our mission was, I had given out the prospect of heavy children, right? So he came up with this plan to maybe meet at one of these openings in the fence.

around the camp. And I was terrified. I thought he was nuts. But over many visits and much talk, he convinced me. And so I drove over there one morning. I actually did it more than once, truth be told. And I picked him up. He had found a wooded break in the fence line.

I had scoped out a, it was a Korean Baptist church, I think. It was definitely a Korean church. But anyway, scoped out this parking lot. At that time of the morning, vacant. And I picked him up. And we drove down there. And just to cut to the chase, our son was conceived there. and so we may have tried one more time after that

but I didn't know I was pregnant yet but so I was thrilled absolutely thrilled and so was he and at first nobody was suspicious about anything because you know didn't show until about four months and by the way I'm studying for the bar in North Carolina. And see, I'm trying to remember the sequence of events here. They started to get a little suspicious. Prior to that, I don't want to leave this out. my hero brother

who was flying home from North Carolina one day he had his fiance and his son flying back from a visit to their place in the mountains and I'm maybe I'm not very pregnant at this point I'm not sure what happened to the plane but they were landing coming in over water and something happened and he had to try to make an emergency landing in the water, on the water.

But he was unable to keep the aircraft completely stable. And one wing tipped, and that sort of sent it into a hard crash into the water. And his fiance and his son survived, and my brother maintained consciousness long enough to, because he hit his head to get them out of the airplane. He was not able to get out and the airplane sank and he died. And I was newly pregnant

and working at this law firm in Garner. And he and Javier were pretty close. So it was just you can imagine. Terrible, terrible thing. So there I am again going home for a funeral and my father was completely, completely wrecked.

I didn't tell him at that point yet that I was pregnant. But after we sort of got through the morning period and the funeral and some weeks went by and I got bigger and bigger. Well, now the hacks were starting to get suspicious at visitation, as you might imagine. Ultimately, they pulled him out of the camp and put him in Butner Lowe, backwards. He started only he was in medium when he started. So I had the baby, named him after my brother. and took him to see Javier at Butner Lowe, and he was just, it was a truly magical moment. And eventually they ended up sending him back to the camp, which we really, we didn't expect.

Because they didn't know how I got pregnant. The statute of limitations says well run, but they can't come after me or anybody. You know, for all they knew, I had frozen my eggs before he got arrested, which I didn't do. So they sent him back to the camp, and I was able to visit him every weekend. Eventually I moved to the same town and got a job there, but took the baby boy, and we would have hours. we had six hours Saturday and Sunday for visitation, and he got to watch Chad grow up and, well, grow to about maybe four when he transferred to another facility for a short time until he was to get out.

And they were, it was great. We had, we talk about how much more time we had talking. during those times of visitation, then typical married couples do, or any couples, for that matter, and how much time he got to spend with his baby boy. And it was really, it was a beautiful thing, and I'm so grateful that we got to do it that way.

Most people would think I was crazy, but I am, I am grateful. When he got ready to go to Beckley, West Virginia, I was working for myself at home, and I didn't know what I was going to do at that point. Because that's a long drive going back and forth. They didn't want to be in Goldsboro without him. I didn't want to stay there.

I had interviewed for a job at this point out in in Morganton as an assistant attorney general at a state psychiatric hospital. I was still waiting to hear. And I drove Javier up to, they let me, well, that's a whole other story. But anyway, I drove him up there to Beckley and dropped him off and came back home. thinking, oh my gosh, I'm here in this town. I don't want to be here. But the very next day, I heard from my future boss, yeah, we're going to hire you. And you're going to need to be there, gave me a certain time to start. And it was before the end of the year. I made plans. I told my dad

He said Come spend Christmas with me Out there at his house In the mountains And so Backed up the baby And Went out

To spend about four days Christmas And Had a great time He talked to Javier on the phone and said, you know, because Javier was scheduled to get out in 2002, because now we're at the end of 2001. And he was encouraging him, saying, you know,

you're going to get out soon, and you'll be able to make up for lost time and get back on your feet. And it was just a, it was a great moment for Javier because he knew he had let his father-in-law down and he wanted to make amends and things like that. So anyway, it was, the odd thing. was that during those four days at Christmas, my dad kept saying, make sure you start your new job on time.

Don't let anything get in the way. You want to be there on the day they need you there, get moved in to, because he had helped me find a, during those four days, he'd helped me find an apartment. And just make sure everything's squared away. So I thought, that's kind of odd. Why wouldn't I? So I go back to Goldsboro getting my thoughts are about packing getting ready to go all of that

and my dad was going to be flying out to visit somebody in Atlanta, a friend of his in Atlanta and so I get a call from my sister a couple days later and she's crying she says tells me that my dad had crashed his plane and died. And heroically tried to keep it from crashing into houses because he ended up at the very end of a cul-de-sac, no damage to any of the houses. And the FAA investigator would later say it was a credit to his skill that he was able to do that.

So, as you can imagine, that was yet another, you know, walls caving in on me moment. And I thought, I got to move forward. That was the plan. And my dad told me, make sure you start on time. Got a moving company packed up because I'm moving from the eastern part of the state all the way to the western part of the state. Everything packed up, and I went, moved in to my apartment, started on time. That was rough.

But so I was now an assistant attorney general and a state psychiatric hospital, and I represented the hospital in involuntary commitments. There were four other facilities. that I represented, did employment law, did other advising to the clients. I did criminal appellate briefs. Appeared before the Court of Appeals in North Carolina three times and the Supreme Court of North Carolina three times. Really an enjoyable job.

But at this point, I'm just... waiting, waiting for him to get out and come home. And, you know, that's a, when you're so close, the wait is longer somehow. But we were so ready. We were so excited. And, you know, you've heard the story. He picked him up and we dropped him off at the out. Asheville Salvation Army and he got a job.

And we were about to have our happily ever after. And, you know, a lot of people ask me, how did you wait that long? How did you do it? And I think, you know, and he calls me a hero. And I don't feel like a hero. I just... Love wins.

And I, he was so different from anybody else I had, I mean, we met when I was 30, so I had had some relationships before. But I always knew at some point when they were terminal pretty early on. Not with him. That moment never came. It's like he was family from, very early on and I knew I knew that I would stay with him

no matter what and there were the naysayers you know oh you'll you'll leave him you'll get tired of it and people were saying things behind my back I know and I didn't care but the interesting thing too is

people who knew me before all this happened never would have thought I was the one that would make it. If I had thought about it, me at 21, 22, and you'd said, this is your future, I would have said, really? I can't see that. Because I was a spoiled little thing.

And I mean, yeah, I'd had a lot of that family drama, trauma, and all of those things that, yes, hardened me in some way or toughened me up. I guess I should say. It made me more realistic that life isn't always, you know, a bed of roses. But it deepened my love. It made us closer. And all of the things, and it wasn't easy, all the different jobs and not having a law license. But I was so much better equipped.

I had to look around and see some of the poor women that would only be able to come see their loved one twice a year. And, excuse me, and Hero was able to move and spend all that time with him, sustain myself and our child in so much better circumstances than so many other people could. And shoot, he's got a cousin. and she waited for her now husband 20 years. And he was, something drug related, I couldn't tell you. 20 years, I thought, okay, you know, I can do eight and a half. 11, I thought, from the beginning, I can do this.

And, but I come back to our faith. Without that, I don't know. That was our foundation. That's what we shared. And the Lord is what carried us both through. And so I, you know, sure he can call me a hero and all of that, but I know who the real hero is in our story and remains that to this day. So I regret nothing.

I am happy. Like he said, we're happier than ever. We laugh every day. We enjoy each other's company. We crack each other up. He's hilarious. He's such a type A. He comes across.

It's so easygoing, but he's very driven. And I'm the laid back one. I'm the okay calm yourself down take a deep breath and so we compliment each other very well and I'm just I'm so thankful I'm thankful that we're here now and we're able to tell our story we've waited a long time in part to make sure that there was no weirdness out there but also to protect our son because we are in a small town. And, but the time is right. Do you think someone could be a good person and make a bad decision?

Oh, oh, heavens, yes. Absolutely. And that's a great question because it points to the fact that a lot of people out there think that the things that get people into prison, it's black and white. You know, it's all black and white. And believe me, when I was a prosecutor, I took that stance often myself. But it's not. There are a lot of things that factor into why people do some of the things they do.

Not everybody, of course. Some people, you know, they do it for money or for power or for, you know, whatever. But you can't, you can't not look at all of the other circumstances to why people do what they do. I think being a public defender really helped round off some of those edges in me. And I'm glad for that experience too, but I do want people to know. there's a story beyond what you see definitely in the news, definitely.

And there's a story beyond the people that you see and what you imagine in your own mind. Does that put things into perspective, too, as a prosecutor who was a part of those press releases that the government sends out and then to see it on the other side? Oh, yes. Yes, it's a whole different world. Yeah, I wouldn't. I really wouldn't trade the time. Well, okay, it was kind of eight and a half. It was a little long.

I would have shortened that. But I wouldn't trade the hardships and, you know, what I went through. I wouldn't trade any of that. There were a lot of really dear, sweet people all along the way that helped not only me, but him. And I did.

I got a whole different perspective on the criminal justice system that I just didn't have before. Well, I...