Locked In with Ian Bick - Inmate Reveals Her Experience In Prison | Ginjer Wulff

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Struggling with drug addiction, Ginjer Wulff gets behind the wheel of her car while under the influence, resulting in a hit and run accident. Sentenced to prison time in a Florida State Prison for her actions: Ginjer gets a prison tattoo, develops prison hustles and finds herself in an inappropriate relationship with a correctional officer.  Connect with Ginjer Wulff: IG: https://instagram.com/lil_red_wulff?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM= TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gigiwulff?_t=8bxnn0uW1es&_r=1 Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com/ Subscribe to our membership program on YouTube to get early access to interviews, see behind the scenes photos & more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvVklIft6DMelVW18M0oBw/join Powered by Q29 Productions, LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt. Keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk by real California farm families. On today's episode of Locked in with Ian Bick, I interviewed Ginger Wolf, who was involved in litigation in regards to her incarceration after spending time in prison for leaving the scene of an accident. Make sure you guys like, comment, subscribe, and share. And if you're listening to this on our audio streaming platforms, leave us a review. As always, thank you guys for tuning in to Lockton with Ian Bick and enjoy the show.

Ginger Wolf, welcome to Lockton with Ian Bick. What's up? Oh, what's up? That's all I get just to what's up. Wow. She's in the hot. Nazi today. You had quite a bit of travel. You came from Louisiana, right? Yeah, I flew in from MSY. Awesome. So I always start my podcast at the beginning of one story, kind of, you know, open up to the person and see where their journey started from and how it finishes. So where are you from? How did you grow up? What's your childhood like? So I grew up in St. Augustine, Florida. It's a small town, like south of Jacksonville, so northeast Florida. I was the youngest. of three children, so my brothers were six and seven years my senior. They were basically like Irish twins, you know, like 10 months apart. My mom fell and broke her back when I was two,

and my mom has like a third grade education. I'm the only person in my family to graduate high school, never mind to get like a full ride to go anywhere for college. It was tumultuous. In my family, there was a lot of drug use. Like, it was. in and out. I wouldn't say my parents were addicts. My dad owned a small business, who's a breadmender. So he's like the guy that like picks up the bread and takes it to the store and then stocks the shelves. And my mom couldn't really work. Like I have a lot of memories of my mom being fucked up in the hospital, having multiple surgeries, and me being with my grandmother a lot. Also, I think it's important to note that everyone in my family has had some type of,

sexual trauma, literally everyone except for my oldest brother. Everyone. If you ever want to fuck your life up, do a family tree of trauma. Yeah, it's really, it's really game-changing when it comes to being able to understand and have empathy instead of being angry over some of the things that transpired while growing up because I just realized my parents were people that I kind of tended to put on a pedestal, and they had a lot of things that were, you know, trauma-wise, never dealt with, and it trickles down into the family system. I got, I was an honor student, you know, I had never gotten any trouble as a kid. I was, you know, always told by teachers that I was special, that I was bright. I had a 94 ASVAB score, and I had perfect scores in

99, and the national average at the time was like a 50. So I was, you know, I was, you did like ROTC in high school. I did AP programs. I started smoking pot, mainly because my dad and my brother were smoking pot together, and it was like they're bonding. I got picked on a lot. It was fucking horrible. They, my brothers started calling me Fatty G. And it's, dude, it's like a horrible stripper name, bro. It spreads like wildfire. And like once it becomes acceptable in the household, it's acceptable at school. It's acceptable. you know, down the road. And I feel like it really shaped how I viewed myself and how I still view myself because I always felt like if I didn't look a certain way and present myself a certain

way, there, I didn't have value. And that was reiterated over and over in my home. I watched my father tell my mother over and over that she was stupid, that he shouldn't have married her, that she was fat and as a child you tend I tended to gravitate towards the more dominant parent because of a survival

you know if I side with you you're not fucking with me all day you know but if I side with her and tell you that you're an asshole and that you're wrong then I am now victimized and targeted as well does that make sense? Yeah did this lead to like further drug use like passed marijuana for you?

Yeah so I started smoking pot at 13 I had my first job at 13 I was serving tables. My brother was doing oxies. He had some surgery, something in, I don't really know what happened, but he had some type of testicular surgery, and they gave him low-grade oxies, because this is in, like, early 2000,

like right around 2000, so oxies were a big thing in Florida. He had a lot of problems stemming from oxy cotton. He was in the paper for, like, being one of the big, Oxi Cotton Ring drug deal people in the area. My cousin was all over the news around the same time for, he owned a cab company and like their door gotten kicked in. They had like, I don't even know how many kilos of Coke and lots of pills and a bunch of stuff.

So it was like something that I saw a lot. And then I had, I went into like ROTC camp the summer before I went into my senior year of high school. I had already been awarded a Bright Future Scholarship, which paid for 100% of academic scholarship, and it paid for like 100% of my college. And basically I had a heat stroke while we were out there. And then afterward, I started having what, I don't know if they were panic attacks or what they were, but episodes where I felt like I couldn't breathe, I would vomit. And then after like two years, I would cycle in and out of the emergency room because I was 17.

at this point. My parents didn't want the hospital bills because they didn't have insurance. So they would basically literally wait until I was on the verge of kidney and liver failure before they took me to the hospital. They'd pump me full of dilauded and basically nausea medicine and would send me home. It was kind of like this repetitive thing. And what year is this at the time? So this was my, so this would have been, I graduated 2005. So this would have been 2004, I guess, Yes, it was. Summer of 2004. And this is where like the further drug use starts?

Yeah, this is so, let me back up a little bit. So when I was 14, I hung out with a friend of mine that she had like rolling parties at her house. And I literally had to dumb up my language because, you know, I hadn't, I didn't really speak bonics at the time. I didn't cuss a lot. And I wanted to fit in with this girl. She was the only person I knew, you know, in the classes that I had had.

So I kind of latched on to her and she was like Queen of the trailer park said, fuck every other word. And I literally cannot get rid of it to this day. It's a horrible habit that I would like to vanish. But I think it's important to note that cooped with the way the family system was broken, even though both parents were in the home, I looked outside. a lot for validation from other people. When I was

15, I got a job with said friend that I was telling you about at a major pizza company, and the boss there basically molested me in front of, like, everybody. He would come up behind us and, like, grab us, like,

you know, grab on my chest, he'd grab on my ass. There's one day where I smacked him. He was like, bitch you ever do that again. You're fired. And I was like, well, this is my weed money. Like, can't lose that. So you felt like you were stuck to deal with that because, you know, you needed to get your fix in and whatnot and you needed the money. So you felt like that was okay. And I'd be honest, I almost felt like it was acceptable too because I watched him.

This man was like in his 30s and I'm a 15 year old kid, right? And at the end of the day, I have to take accountability for, I probably could have done more. I could have left the job. I didn't. I stayed. My friend was there, you know. Yeah, but you're a kid, you know. That's not on you.

That doesn't make it an excuse for him, you know? So what was really fucked up was like he basically took me home one night and he kept asking me to go to this club with him. There was this club. I forgot the name of it. I think it was evolution. But I was 15, so I can't get into the club. And like, you know, basically I told him, I mean, yeah, I guess I'll go.

I'll go check it out. He gave me ecstasy. And he took me back to his apartment where he had sex with me. And I didn't tell anybody about it because I was so ashamed. And you're 15 years old. I'd be honest, I've never told anybody to the story. I feel like it's important to talk about it because my running history is drugs and men, drugs and men. And I feel like that really set the tone because they ended up bringing in another manager because it was a franchise.

So the franchise owner brought in his brother to like clean up the situation. and I just wanted it to go away. I wanted to, oh, he was telling everybody. Like, and I didn't even know how to respond to that. You know what I mean? But again, like, I have to take accountability for the fact that, like, I walked into that situation. You know, he didn't hold me down and rape me. So it's really confusing for me, even as an adult, to be like, what was my part in that?

And how responsible am I? because later on I brought in two of my friends to work with me and they had the same experience. I mean, I don't think it falls on you on responsibility-wise. You're 15. You know, you can't put that blame on you. It's a very traumatic experience for any 15-year-old and that that average kid does not go through that. And, you know, it's good that you're coming and talking about it. So that way other kids that are in that situation will understand that they know it's not okay for that to happen.

and then they should seek help if something like that happens. I mean, this has happened, what, 15 years ago now? Fuck, I'm 36,

so I was 15, so 20, 21 years ago now. And it took you like this long, you know, to talk about it. To like, really come out and be honest about it.

Because I would, because people asked me, like, did this really happen? I was like, I just wanted to go away. Like, I don't want it.

Because basically what happened was he would do, he would play Lucy Goosey because he knew that he was doing things that he could get fired for and may possibly put in jail for. So people got away with all kinds of atrocities. And then when the new guy got brought in, I was like the store whore, even though I had, it was the only person I'd ever had sex with.

That was my first sexual experience. And that's a terrible experience to have. And like I said, there was a lot of shame revolving around that. And you think that spiraled into the drug use? I do. I really do. I didn't really connect a lot with, you know, people my age. And I think a lot of that was due to my home life. I was constantly around people that were older. I was constantly environments where people were doing drugs and drugs were being offered. So I basically wanted to just put that out there to kind of lay the groundwork because I didn't have the massive drug problem. I'd only ever smoked pot.

And then I got this job. I have this experience. I started eating ecstasy. I'm still an honor student. I'm still doing great. you know, as far as functioning-wise. But that was a trigger. Right.

That was a big trigger. And then not being able to talk to anybody about it. So what drugs are you now doing after this experience? So I was basically, I said, I claimed for a long time saving pot or smoking pot saved my life because I'm not advocating marijuana use. Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying. I started starving myself my eighth grade year because I got tired of being told I was fat. So like Miss Genealty had come out.

She was like non on fucking carrot sticks and celery sticks. So I tried to do that. I don't like fucking celery. You know what I mean? So I just started not eating and I dropped. I went from like, I don't know, a size 16 to like a size 7 when one school year. So much to where a teacher had basically told me that she was concerned for me. I mean, that's the effect of bullying, you know?

Like how many kids go through that on a daily basis, you know? Well, and it sucked too because like I didn't have it at school. I had it more at home. So, like, my only reprise was school. So I think that's part of why I excelled so well, you know. School made sense to me. You know, I knew what was expected, and I didn't have the stress of trying to deal with, you know, making sense of what could I have done to these people that are related to me.

That was so bad that you guys feel the need to tell me all the time that I'm not worth love. So either way. So I get in my high school years and like I dabble a little bit with, you know, the ecstasy. I started smoking pot at night after I quit the job. I worked at the pizza place for two years and finally quit. I went to work for another company that I really enjoyed and would come home at night, would watch Comic View and would smoke pot and I started to eat again. And then I got into the gym, you know, things kind of leveled out. You're like this innocent girl, though. Like you're not committing crime to fuel your addiction. No, none of that.

So you understood like you wanted to work to support your addictions. I wouldn't even call it an addiction at that point. But I wanted to work to have the independence and to not be home. Yeah. You know, like who wants to fucking sit at home? You know what I mean? So you had a good head on your shoulders for the most part. Yeah.

So basically shit started to get really. out of control my senior year. I woke up on my 18th birthday with drug withdrawal. I didn't know what oxy withdrawal was. I've been getting a lot of different stuff from doctors every time I'd been cycling in and out of the hospital. Just to show how bad my absences were. We were only in school, 155 days. This is in 2004. I missed 130 days of school. They couldn't prevent me from graduating. I actually was in the hospital on graduation day. My guidance counselor brought my certificate, my diploma to the hospital. She called the police, all my parents do.

Because I had went to like the, like, I guess the run, like the pre-run of like you're getting, you're graduating, you know, where like they line you up, show you what you're going to do. And I was so sick I couldn't walk because I'd been throwing up, you know. Either way, eventually, 2006, I'm diagnosed with something called gastroporosis, and it basically meant that my stomach wasn't moving. and it was almost like getting food poisoning. Like stuff wasn't mobilizing, wasn't flushing out,

so I would vomit it up and become really, really sick. I do not know if that was an accurate diagnosis or not, but I know I threw up a lot and I had a lot of issues for years. And then it was exacerbated, I believe, by the oxies. I had memories of throwing them up. And at one point my brother was like, hey, like, you can snort those and they, you won't throw them up. So I started snorting them, and I couldn't stop.

You know what I mean? Like, I wanted to stop so badly. And there were so many times where I would go through the withdrawal process and literally be climbing off the walls. Like everybody else has told you, it's the worst experience. I would never wish that on anyone. I would rather give birth once a fucking week for six months than to go through six weeks of OxyContin withdrawal or dilauded withdrawal.

So either way, so, you know, the axes are a thing. I get a legal script as soon as I hit 21. Shit gets out of control really quickly. I got in a relationship with this guy that I was working with, who is now the father of my first child. I've two kids. He's a decent guy, but we both had like a lot of problems. we were really toxic together.

And looking back on it, he reminded me a lot of my dad. The way we bonded was we smoked pot and we watched movies together. Like we didn't really go out. You know what I mean? And like after we had the baby, it was just a really volatile situation. And six months after I had my son, I was living with his father, my then boyfriend, and I wasn't allowed to have a house key. There was all these like rules.

Like I paid part of the bills, but wasn't allowed to pay rent. So when he came home from the bar at 2 o'clock in the morning, he wanted to do coke with his friends. He would tell me and the baby to take a cab with my mom's. And I tolerated it because I think for a long time, I felt like I wasn't going to get me better because I was sick a lot. I had this drug problem that was like being managed, but was like it's like the Titanic.

Like every day another room gets full of water. You know what I mean? So eventually, like, you're at. asses out, you know, up in the air and you're trying to not drown. That was my experience essentially with that. And my son was like six months old. I'm living with his father. I, he had croup or something, and I hadn't slept the night before.

I get his father's mother to watch my child. I drop him off and I have a script for Oxies and for Xanax. I was going to go home and go to sleep. because I had like a six-hour window or I could try to get some rest before the child was going to be brought back. I get to the house, and I realized that he didn't give me the key

for the back door, and he was an MRI X-ray technician at the hospital, which was literally like a mile down the road. We lived over in the first gate of St. Augustine South off of US One, and he was working at Flagler Hospital. I call him, and he's like, hey, I'm going to go into surgery. I could be in there 30 minutes or three hours.

I don't know. If you need the key, have to come now. So I'm loaded. What time is this? This is like fucking four o'clock in the afternoon, five o'clock in the afternoon. I leave where the second house on the road, I come out, I take a left, I pass one street, I turn on the other street, I fucking nod out, I drop my glasses, and I hit something. And I look around and I see, at first I thought I hit a mailbox. I look around and I see a dog moving, like limping. And I was like, well, fuck, I'm going to leave.

I'm fucked up. So you just thought you had a dog at this point. So I left. I hate a 16-year-old girl walking her dog down the road. How did you find out that she was 16 years old? Through the fucking news. Like, I have the accident. I leave.

I go to my parents' house. I'm not even a vehicle that is owned by me. I'm in a vehicle that is owned by a friend of a friend. And you have no idea you hit a child. I have no idea I hit a person. I go back to my parents' house and they live in the middle of nowhere and they have a satellite. And it's like a nice day, satellites out like randomly. I turn it on and the news comes on.

It's a breaking story about how a 16-year-old girl was hit in St. Augustine South. I was like, damn, I was just over that way. And then they start describing the car. And like, do my heart so. Like, I don't know how to explain the feelings. I had at that point time and that I still do. What was going through your mind? Like the second you see that on the news that your car had hit someone, you went away from

that scene. How could you do that? You left someone there to die. That's essentially what I did. When you initially found out that it was a dog at first, did you... I never got out of the car. So did you just figure that the dog was okay because it was limping away? That was it.

And you're going to go away? Yeah. Had you had known it was a kid, would you have stopped in that moment? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it... So you see it on the news. What happens next? So I put two and two together, and I'm like, oh, my God. I have a friend whose father, it was a very prominent attorney in town. A call said friend. And I was like, hey, let me talk to your dad.

She gives me dad's number. I call her dad. And I was like, hey, check this out. Hypothetically speaking, I know the person who hit the kid in St. Augustine's south. The vehicle is at said persons parents' house, said parents own a small business. Because I was concerned, because Florida doesn't have accessory law for like murders or like stuff like that. So I was concerned that somehow I would get my family in trouble because even though no one was there when I got there, the vehicle was on their property. And you're saying Mr. Saul calmly to him? To who? No, no, I'm losing my shit. And he was just basically, like, well, if I was going to give legal advice,

I would say that you need to move the vehicle from the parents' house so your parents don't have a basis of losing their business. So my father was a small business owner. So I basically just took the car and dropped it off like in the woods. My parents live in the woods like a mile away. I just wanted it to fucking disappear. So you're not thinking about turning yourself in or anything? So yeah, so it's coming.

I didn't know what to do. I was really panicked. I dropped the car off. and now I have to go get my son. You know what I mean? So, because the hours have passed now. I have my mom pick me up. We go get my son and like, I'm just losing it all night.

I'm watching the news and they're saying that she's been taken to another hospital. What's really crazy is my kid's father actually worked on her when she came in through the hospital. Oh, wow. Because he was the x-ray technician, so he x-rayed her. She had, she ended up with like 50 stitches to her head and body. in person. Was she in critical condition at all or what was the situation? Not that I remember, but I could be wrong because again, my memory is, I have a pretty strong memory of most of what happened, but like as far as her experience with it, I only know what the papers said. Yeah. Do you tell

your parents what happened? So I do. I go back to my, back to the house with Nick and the next morning. My dad gets up super early and I would call him and I was like, hey, I really, I really, need to talk to you. I don't want to do it over the phone. And he's like, all right. So a whole night's past by this point. Yeah. Yeah. It's the next morning. This was like happened to like accident happened at like four or five o'clock in the afternoon. And then, um, this is like probably four o'clock in the morning. Do you tell your friend about the, who's car you had? No. Okay. No, I don't, I don't tell anybody at this point. Um, and you go and you talk to your dad. I'm scared and I don't know what to do. Um, I go tell my dad. I'm just crying and I can't really get it out, you know,

and I basically, we get in the, I go to help him pull up his store to put the service to the store, to put the bread on the shelves, and I'm just streaming tears, streaming tears, and then we get in the truck. And I was like, he was like, so, you know, what you want to tell me, does that have something to do with that car that you've been driving? Yeah. Is it stolen? No. I'm like, what did that come from? And he's like, okay, did you hit something?

No. Okay. And he takes a pop of a cigarette, and I'll never forget. He took three long drags of a cigarette, and he goes, did you hit someone? Yes, he goes, you hit someone and you left? And I said yes, and he goes, you goddamn kids are going to kill me. And basically, he was like, you got to turn yourself in. And I was like, okay, like, what do we do?

We called an attorney. We originally called Alexander Cristini. My brother called him because, like, I tell my first thing I tell my dad is don't tell anybody to we figure out what fuck we're doing. My dad tells my mom, my mom tells my brother, my brother tells his baby mama, his baby mama tells my best friend. By fucking five o'clock in the afternoon, everybody in St. John's County that knows me, knows that I had something to do with this accident. So we called the attorney, because it's now Saturday, happened on a Friday, so now Saturday. The attorney is like, hey, we're going to turn you in this afternoon.

I got some stuff to do, you know, we'll handle it then. I was like, okay, that time comes and goes, we call him. He's like, hey, they don't know anything. They don't even have a lead investigator assigned to the case yet. We're going to wait until Monday. So I was actually working for an addiction doctor at the time. And I was scared that what was going to happen was I was going to get her myself in and they were going to hold me in case she died.

So I was already thinking, I'm already going to put people out at work for this because me and this one other girl ran the whole front desk. So I went to this girl's house and told her like, hey, I had a minor accident. Like I was trying to minimize it because I didn't want, you know, to make a big deal about it before, you know, I got arrested for essentially. And as soon as I was, I said what I said, she's like, oh, my God, that was you we saw on the news. So you just told her this before you even were even arrested. So the whole point in me going over there was to tell her you're going to might be alone on Monday. And if you're alone on Monday, I wanted to try to save my job if I could.

I was like, if you're alone on Monday, like, I will be there as soon as I can, but I just want you to be prepared in case I cannot physically be there. So basically what happened was her husband, I guess, had like a third strike or something, so they were going to hit him with a bit, you know, habitual offender. And he called the police and was like, hey, I know information on the person that hit this pedestrian. So the police come to my house at 2 o'clock in the day. the morning, Sunday morning. To arrest you?

Basically, they came deep. And, like, my brother knew one of the cops that came out. My brother was there at the time. My dad was there. And they couldn't arrest me without the car, right? So, and, like, I had an inkling that that was what was going on. But, of course, they lie to me. And they tell me, hey, we're going to, if you give us the car, we'll let you turn

yourself in on Monday at noon like you have planned with your attorney. You told them that you had a plan. Essentially, they first went to Nick's. house, my baby daddy's house, and Nick calls me and puts me on speaker phone because I had told Nick at this point. I had told Nick

that night. After we talked to the attorney I planned to tell myself in, I went and told him, and he was just like, oh my God, you said the same, you hit a pedestrian and left? So he knew,

you know, basically that I had hit this poor girl. girl. And when the police came to his house, he was like, oh, she's playing on to turn herself in. Like, he's telling him everything I told him. So I hang up the phone. Because, you know what I mean? So then that's when the police came to my parents' house. And they were like, give us the car. And I turned around. I'm like, Dad, what do you think I should do? And they're like, no, don't talk to him, talk to me. And I was like, well, I want my attorney. I've already talked to an attorney. I want my attorney. And they kept saying, well, if you don't give us the car,

we're going to arrest you now and blah, blah, blah. I should have been like, okay, arrest me, but I, I was, I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to turn myself in and I, I really wanted this girl to know that, like, I wanted her to make it. Like, I didn't, I didn't know how, how this was going to affect her, but I knew it wasn't going to be good. I mean, this must have been a scary couple days in limbo. Like, from the scene of it, you don't know what her condition is. Yeah, yeah. You're trying to figure out what to do.

And all I, I'm riddled with, like, guilt paralysis. Like, I don't know what to do. I think it's a little crazy. The lawyer didn't just have you try to go in right away. So that way the family had, you know, some closure of what was going on. They could have known it wasn't intentional. Yeah, and I'd like to clear up. So originally we called Alexander Kristini, who was my brother's attorney.

He had dropped, got like 15 charges thrown out of my brother's few years back. But we got his voicemail. So instead, we told this attorney named Terry Shoemaker. And he was the one that was, you know, advising me at this point. So I give him the car. they arrest me. I go to jail. I bond out.

What do they arrest you on? What are the charges? The charges leaving the scene of an accident involving serious bodily harm. And that's a felony. It's a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison in the state of Florida. So, you know, they arrest me. I bond out. I'm on bond for like two years.

While I'm on bond, everyone's telling me I'm going to prison. My brother's like, yeah, I just came out of prison. You're going to prison. And you're using still. Yeah, well, yeah. Like, so it got way worse. Like, when I had the accident, I was doing Suboxin, like four, five days out the week and was using maybe one or two days out of the week, but I would do like 300 milligrams oxycodone at once, right? So after that, it got to where I was basically trying to kill myself because I was like, dude, I've never been in jail. Like,

I didn't even have a real jail experience because I didn't get dressed out. I bonded out before I even got, you know, I ever hit any type of jail cell. So I started doctor shopping. I was out on bond for two years. Are you working? Like, what's the neighborhood think of you at the time? I didn't really, we don't really live in a neighborhood. Everybody's kind of like, we're on five acres in the middle of, you know, like over by 208 in St.

Augustine. So you didn't really face the problem with bad press and streaming? Oh, I didn't. It was all over the paper. Was it affecting your life? I think I affected my life more than like the community. I mean, of course, people were saying I was a horrible human being, you know, which I believe was true. You know, like, who does that?

Who doesn't, who it's something that they know is alive, whether it be a dog or whatever, and they don't check on it, you know, a selfish motherbugger. Someone that doesn't have any regard for someone else. So I'm on, I'm on bond. and like instead of trying to clean up, I'm just trying to die. So I start hitting doctors like crazy because you can doctor shop. By the time I went to prison, I had 12 doctors a month, and I was getting the legal limit for oxycodone for every single one of them.

And what's your husband saying to you? I wasn't married. So he got your boyfriend, the baby daddy, he got rid of you? Yeah, we were kind of like always on and off. And I had a drug problem like when we got together. So I don't think he thought a whole lot about. out it other than it was just a fuck situation. And he really wanted to just know how it was going to affect him.

Because if I'm gone, then he has to take care of the baby who is only six months old when this accident happens. During this time, do you get a chance to talk to the victim at all? No. Do you know what happens to the victim? Just that she had a bunch of stitches and staples and she, her foot was looked at by my son's father when he did the x-rays. Were you being sued at all at this point, too?

They never sued you? Wow. Yeah. The insurance paid quite a bit. I was insured as a driver, so my insurance paid out, and then the vehicle, the owner of the vehicle, his insurance paid out as well. And you were your license was revoked right then and there or no? You were still able to drive after this. Yeah.

And did the police know you were on drugs at the crime scene? No. I mean, I think they assumed, but there was never any real conversation about it or anything like that. And I've heard people say, well, if you'd have stayed, you had a script, you'd have been better. And then people said, well, the best thing you could have done was leave because it would have been a different chart. Everybody's a fucking lawyer when you're a felon, right? I mean, you look at news articles in the comments. Everyone's got something to say.

I know. So what, do you take like a plea deal? Do you go to trial? What exactly happens next? So originally, so I ended up with his attorney, Alexander Kristini. And he's like, hey, we've got a suppression issue, the car, because you ask for an attorney. You have witnesses saying you ask for an attorney. We want to suppress.

Um, by this point, we're like, I don't know, it's probably like a few months from the accident. My drug use is getting worse. I've transitioned from snorting drugs to needles because I cannot physically snort 30, Roxy 30s a day. Um, it's, it's a challenge. It's not, you know, it wasn't happening. So I ended up transitioning to the needle and my parents were like, she's going to die. Also, while this happened, I hooked up with a friend.

of my brothers and didn't know much about him. Like I said, my kids dad and I were like always on and off, on and off. And while we were during our off period, I started seeing this guy and he abused a child in my family. And I was going to kill that motherfucker. Yeah, I was going to kill him. And I ended up working with the police in order to get him arrested. He got sentenced to 15 years in prison.

He actually comes out in the next few years, I think. But that made it so much worse, too, because, like, there's this pattern of me using and leaving wreckage everywhere I go. And it's not just for me. It's for the people around me, which is really sickening for me. me because it's like when I started with the drugs, it was just my problem. And then, and it, it started legitimately. Like, I legitimately needed something to deal with the pain that I was experiencing for this, you know, stomach nausea issue. Did you realize what you're saying now at the time that you

were causing this destruction or it wasn't until all these years later? No, no, no, no. I was entitled. I definitely felt like I didn't deserve prison time at first. And, I absolutely fucking did. Absolutely. How much time do you end up getting sentenced to? So I go to rehab. I end up going to rehab for like 30 days while I'm on bond. No.

Private rehab where I flew to California, went to a private facility for 30 days, came home because they thought we were going to suppress. And then when I get home, I find out that my attorney now is being promoted to interim judge. So now I need a new attorney. He has to unload his. cases in order to take that position.

I think he felt like, hey, why don't you take the two and a half years that they're offering you and we'll just be done with it. And I was like, well, we were going to suppress. We were going to do this and that. Like, why the fuck did I go to rehab and spend all this money, you know, if we weren't going to do that? So then it takes longer. By the time I get back, I'd originally thought that if we were going to turn me in and we

were going to sentence me that it would be quick. And then when I came home, it drugged on for like another year. So by the time I go back to court, I'm using again because nothing's changed, you know? What are you doing for work? Nothing. I was working for my dad, kind of on and off. So who's supporting you financially? Me. I mean, the pills. I would get enough pills to work. Oh, so you are selling them too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I would get enough to where like, and I didn't really have any real bills. You know, I had like minor financial stuff, like a phone. The, when the times that I lived with my kid's father, like I would give him half of like the utilities and all the bills except for rent. Yeah. And I had my doctor fees. That was my biggest thing. And there's always some dude,

usually a dude, that was willing to finance me using because ginger doing a thousand milligrams So oxycona today is a totally different ginger than ginger that's not using, right? Yeah. So either way, I go to sentencing and I had a different attorney because my attorney, Alexander Christina, have been promoted to interim judge. So I ended up with Shoemaker, who was the guy I originally talked to, and Brian Shoresteen and Terry Shoemaker. And we were going to, what I thought we were doing was,

a plea with a cat where I was going to open plea to the court, but she couldn't go over two and a half years. And when I got to court, I had an open plea to the judge who was Judge Wendy Berger, and if anybody knows anything about St. John's County, she's not female felon friendly. That's for sure. They had tried to get my brother for, like, a lot of stuff multiple times

and could never really catch them with anything other than, like, dealing and stolen property. So I think once she connected me to my brother and then, you know, looked at the whole situation, I think she was like, yeah, fuck you, I got something for you. So what did she give you? She gave me three. So she maxed me out, essentially. And again, it's my first arrest.

She gave me three years in DOC, two years of community control after DOC, and then she revoked my driver's license for life. So I get sentenced on a Tuesday afternoon. I bring in a bunch of pills because, you know, I'm, I'm anticipating, you know, this. I knew I was going to prison. So I'm in, like, solitary the first day. Do they, like, slap the cuffs on you right when she sentenced? Oh, yeah. And that's at your haul down.

I'm stuttering crying. What's going on to your mind when she gives you the sentence? Or you already knew that you were going to prison? I knew I was going to prison, but I didn't understand why they didn't cat me out because I thought I had a plea with a kid. There was a lot of transition throughout this whole thing with different attorneys and stuff. So I think that was really what happened

between me being loaded all the time. So I couldn't really advocate. So they haul you to the jail. What's your first week in prison like? So I did, I only, I had one day of jail credit. I was sentenced on Tuesday, and then I was shipped Thursday night. They kicked my bunk to a prison.

So I start withdrawing, because, like, I brought in some methadone. I brought in, like, all the 30s I had, and then some Xanax, and then some other shit. And, like, I flushed everything that I couldn't take the day that they took me to prison. So I woke up my first night, and I puked all over my bunk. And it's a fucking week.

It's a holiday weekend. And I've got green bile vomit all over my bunk. And I look like shit. I've got track marks all over me. I'm really thin. I'm really dehydrated. And I basically went into kidney and liver failure my first week in prison. So I had a similar experience to what Barbie had experience.

So I hadn't even been classified. So they blackboxed me. Basically, they kept sending me to medical because I'm puking everywhere. I can't stand up straight. I'm, you know, I'm trying to, like, live in the shower. Everybody's concerned about me. I think people thought I had, like, AIDS or something because, like, I just, shit, really bad and wasn't faring well. But yeah, I got there that Friday morning by Wednesday that I passed out in Chow and they took to be in medical because I can't hold anything down.

I get some medical and they're like, well, your blood pressure is fine. So you're good. But we're going to monitor you because basically the officers kept, so they sent me back. And then the officers kept saying, hey, she needs medical care. Like I have watched this girl throw up all night and all day for the past three days. She needs medical care. finally after I passed out they they kept me there and I remember like having a seizure which I'd never been prone to and then I remember like they tried to get pee from me and it was like so

dark that the officer was like appalled she's like oh my god that must have hurt a lot basically I hadn't even seen the doctor yet at this point and uh they bring him in and I know that something's seriously wrong like I can I can feel my body like shutting down down. I'm going in and out, like, focus-wise. I can't really look and, like, get a clear view with the doctor. And he, he's like, oh, man, all in, like, annoyed that I'm basically going into kidney and liver failure, but nobody knows it. I felt like I was going to die, so I acted like I couldn't breathe. I was like, he was, call 911. I don't want her to die on my ship. Dr. Torres.

10 years ago, I still remember that guy, a nurse cook. They call the ambulance. They black boxed me. So I have two officers riding with me because I'm not classified. So I'm black box, shackled, and handcuffed. I get to the hospital. I'm in kidney and liver failure. My arms are all tore up.

My neck's tore up from shooting up in my neck. They ended up having to do a central line through my leg. And I was like hallucinating. It was rough. I was in the hospital for like four days before they sent me back to the compound. and then I got classified once I sent me back to the pound. Is this what finally took you to get clean? No.

So you were still doing drugs throughout prison? No, no, no, no. No, yes. Yes. So that was the last time you ever used drugs? Yes. Yes. And that just that.

So do you think it? They actually wrote me a script in the hospital for oxies, but the prison was like, yeah, fuck you. You're not getting those. So do you think that was like a blessing then and itself going to prison to be able to do that? Not at all. Not even to help you get off drugs.

but if you never went to prison, wouldn't you have still been doing drugs, maybe to this day? Maybe, but so I relapsed when I came home. So that's why I say, I feel like my prison experience was to, A, humble me, and then to B, show me basically, like, I met so many people in there

that had had such worse backgrounds than me. People with no education, people that had been severely abused. So it was basically like a, hey, it's time to take you, control of your life. What type of people are you with in this woman's prison? Like everybody. So originally I was in the open bay dorm. So we had like 80 women to a dorm. I was in Papa dorm, which was the culinary dorm. They threw me in the kitchen, even though I have like a basically a useless

fast as we could let no push, no bending, no lifting, no pushing, no standing. So that was your prison job in the kitchen? For a little bit. I had a lot of jobs. So I did the, I did the kitchen for a little bit. then the woman that worked in admin really liked me. Her name was Ms. Schifflett. I really liked this lady, and I'm still really upset with myself that I let her down. But she gave me a job to be the admin orderly for VP. So I would work on the weekends. I'd clean the games.

I'd hang out with people, you know, during their VP experience in Visitation Park. And then I get in, I go to confinement because, so while I was in R&O, the reception and orientation, there was this girl named Bebop, and she had a straight from the trailer part tattoo. That's what it said, and it had a picture of a trailer. She was a big girl, and she had this rap. And mind you, I had never sold my body at this point, right? I had had a dude that was older than me that, like, I dated, you know what I mean,

for a little bit on and off that would, like, help pay for my scripts and shit, but it was not like a trick. You know what I mean? It was like, I actually liked this guy's guy like me. He was just way too old for me. So either way, while we're in prison, she's got this rap, and it's basically talking about sexually servicing men. And she said she was rapping for the white girls. And I was like, yeah, we can't have that.

So there were some other girls in my dorm that wanted to write a rap to shut her down. So I was like, yeah, you guys suck. I got this. Let me do this. So I wrote this. It wasn't really a rap. It was a limerick. It was essentially a lyrical comedy written in iambic pentameter.

So it's like, dun-da-dun, dun-d-dun, done, done, done, right? So we go out there and I do this rap, because I think we're on fucking A-mile, right? She's going to say some shit. I'm going to say some shit. We're going to insult each other. And then they're going to, like, vote on who's is the best. So I came in, like, guns blazing, and she started to cry at the end. And then I felt like a dick, you know.

And she was like, hey, you've got, like, a really horrible mouth. Like, maybe you should make fun of yourself. You sound like Sergeant Vogue. you would be the perfect, you and him would be perfect together. I was like, okay, you want me to clown on myself? I can clown on myself, so I would. Bonjour, compadre. It's the Priceline negotiator.

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and making me not feel like such an asshole because I'd made fun of this girl thinking that's what she was going to do to me. Yeah. Yeah, I write this song about how, like, Like, I'm a perfect fit for Sergeant Villavician and I'll, like, stalk him around the compound. But he's going to spray me. He doesn't want anything to do with me.

But it was really funny. People enjoyed it. And, like, it kind of gained traction because it was funny. And I don't think people expected it from me, you know, just with the way I looked and the way I acted and talked. Did they, like, give you, like, a prison nickname from this after this happened? Yeah. So I got called Slim Shady.

They called you Slim Shady. I got called Slim Shady by the officers. A lot of the officers. like really thought it was entertaining. So essentially what happened though was like all the officers on this compound knew about this this lyrical comedy thing that I had written and, you know,

we're making jokes about it and stuff. And then I ended up writing a letter to my oldest brother's first wife because I had heard that she basically thought I was in there like getting beaten up and like that it was like gang stuff. Like they don't have like the comments. thing at Lull, you know what I mean?

Like with the gangs and stuff like that. I never saw... Prison politics. Yeah, I never saw any of that at Lull. Women are too busy doing stupid shit to do stuff like that. Like, we're more worried about makeup and like who's fucking who than we are about like coming together to get shit done. Did you have like a prison girlfriend to?

I didn't. I didn't. It wasn't really for me. I'd be honest, like, again, I saw a lot of my validation through officers and I was relatively attractive girl. I was relatively, um, intellectual, you know, considering where we were at. I had a lot of people like, what the fuck are you in prison for?

Why are you here? Story of my life. And they're like, oh, yeah, fuck you. You deserve to be here. Okay. Yeah, were you getting a lot of shit for being in prison for, you know, hitting a kid with a car? No. No one gave you a...

Like, as far as, like, harassing. Yeah, anything like that. No. So now, back to the guards. Are the guards, like, hitting on you? Are they trying to, like, get with you? What's the dynamic as a female inmate? So, a little background on roll.

It's like the largest women's prison in the state of Florida, for sure. I think it's the largest women's prison in the country, but I could be wrong. It has a lot of inmates and they're for sure the most cited prison for violence against inmates from staff. So whether that be sexual and abuse of violence loosely, you know, because if you were an officer and I decide to have a consensual relationship with you, it's still not legal because the fact that you control every aspect of my life. Right. So I had a lot of officers that would lie. It starts out easy, right?

And it's a culture. It's a culture there. Like you want something done and you're ugly or you're like dyke. Go find a pretty girl that's your homie to go talk to the officers to get your shit done. Because otherwise it's just not going to happen. So I had a lot of officers. So he's like, hey, inmate, write a song about me. So can you perform a song for me?

Like, just dumb shit. You know what I mean? So they probably like that you're like this bad girl, attractive woman prisoner. Maybe. I don't know. I think it was, I think, again, the culture there is you have, in order to get something done, you need to have an officer on your team. So you used your looks to your advantage in prison?

Oh, yeah. There's definitely pretty privilege is a real thing in prison for 100%. Anyone that tells you know, I don't know where y'all were at you. What kind of stuff are you getting from these officers because of your look? So most of it was just bare minimum shit. Like, I need pads. I need toilet paper. I need a fucking razor.

I need to get let out of the gate to go to a call out. And you guys won't let me through the gate. You know what I mean? So it was really like basic stuff. And then towards the end, you know, there's perfume. there's makeup, you know, there's money on your books, there's, you know, cigarettes. Cigarettes was a big trade while I was out to court. They pulled me for out to court.

When I came back, they had gotten rid of cigarettes on the compound. So the only way you could get cigarettes was if you were bringing them in through P. Or if an officer was giving them to you. And the way cigarettes were, like, I never smoked cigarettes. So you could get seven new, seven roll-ups from a Newport Shores. and you could charge $3 to like $5 for a roll-up. So when I started doing, I became the admin orderly again after I lost my job the first time. They'd hit me with a hold for something else, took me out to court, brought me back,

dropped my custody down, moved me to the main unit, and I didn't want to be there. So I went back to the annex and went to the admin and was like pleading my case on why I should get brought back. They brought me back to the annex and then placed me as an admit orderly. And this was like probably a year, two years into my sentence. So because like I was, yeah, year and a half into my sentence because I did two and a half years on three. Because you do 85% of your time and stay aboard it. Do you end up like sleeping with these guards at all or do it hooking up with the guards? Yeah.

So I ended up. I had a physical relationship with one of the guards. And I actually was so stupid. I thought it was my friend. and then I realized later that he was essentially a predator. He had done the same thing that he did to me over and over and over. And they had put him in the pregnant dorm, which is where we're kind of jumping all around.

But let's back up. How would this happen? How did you initially hook up with that prison officer? So do you want me to start there? Do you want me to just take you through? I mean, just like your experience with him. I mean, again, so it's subtle stuff. It's that they groom you.

You're essentially groomed like any other predator would groom a child or, you know, like pimps groom their girls. You know, they, they do you respond the right way when they try you? You know what I mean? A lot of it would be like, like there's times where they handcuffed me to the bubble. Like, you know, the officer station, I was literally handcuffed to the officer station for entertainment. Like I'd sit there with other inmates mail and help. help the officers pack up the mail to send out mail while I'm fucking handcuffed to this bubble while these officers are telling me jokes and asking about my home life and my private life.

And so the way I deal with stuff that's uncomfortable is I always try to make it a joke because it's always easier for me to walk out of the situation if I can like brush it off versus if I get hostile. Does it make sense? Yeah, so this guy comes along. How's the interaction go? I mean, basically as soon as I got in the dorm it started. We had, so at this point, like I said, this is more towards the end of my sentence. I'd already been in confinement for they thought I had an arrangement or a relationship with one of the other officers when there was, there wasn't one. It was just that joke, that, that trending joke.

So it had already been rumored that I had been associated with an officer even though I wasn't. So I think when I got over there, that was already like in his mind. And then... Did you make a move on him? So what had happened was I was originally the admin orderly on the annex. I did that job for about 10 months. I was bringing in cigarettes by the carton because I had a gate pass. So I would go out the gate and I would have my Bunky's mom drop a whole carton of cigarettes in the trash.

I'd have her busted up and put it in McDonald's cups and then throw the McDonald's bag in the trash when she would get VP. So as soon as her name would be called, I would go hit Vee. and say, hey, I need to work. Because, like, the way it worked at Lowell, like, inmates kind of ran the compound sometimes. So I would be on the gate, like, hey, I got to go to work. Someone asked you to go down there? No, I got

to go to work. Are you going to let me out? Or am I going to to sit here and talk to you on the gate? They don't let me through. So I go to the control room and I'd be like, all this fucking trash thing. You guys got to take this shit out. I want the trash, obviously. Um, and they'd be like, no, we're not doing it. That's what you're for. I'm not doing it. Take me to jail.

Olin. Get that fucking trash right now. Then, fuck you. Okay, so I get the trash can and like, I want it. I take it into the compound from outside the compound. I bring it through control room. I walk in and then I take it to the officer VP. And while there's no one there.

There's no one hanging out. I'm over an officer VP while everyone else is like, you know, walking around and I'm taking the cigarettes out of the cups. I'm stuffing them wherever I can put them. And I've hit the compound with this cart and a cigarette. And I would split it up. But eventually, I got in with this lifer and like, it was fucked up too because when I got that job and admin, I really wanted to do a good job because I really liked the women that

I had hired me, Ms. Sheplet. She was a really nice lady. But when I got up there, I realized this was already something that was going on. This was not my idea. This was already something that was in place. And basically the main admin orderly was like, hey, get with it or go. back to the fucking main unit. And you had that kind of pull as, or some inmates had that kind of pull where like she

could go talk to the warden or go talk to movement and be like, hey, I don't like her. I don't want her here. Put her ass back on the main unit. There's no AC on the main unit, man. I don't want to be over there. And Annex was lucy goosey because a lot of people were dirty. So there was a lot of things that, like little shit that you would get away with that didn't fly on the main unit.

like, you know, being able to move around freely for going in from dorm to dorm. So how does this play into the guard? So because I, that's how I got moved over there. Okay. It was essentially, I did this deal with somebody else, another lifer, where they wanted to bring in stuff. And it was supposed to happen on one day. And then it didn't happen. And then I told him, hey, I was right around Thanksgiving.

Basically, it was like Thanksgiving day and trashed. didn't go before that. So they dropped the stuff. I got up to the compound and the trash had been taken. So these people, when I come back and I'm like, hey, there's nothing there. And she's like, well, my mom put it there. It's there. Thought that I had ripped them off. So, and I kept telling them, like, I have no reason to do that. I've got money on my books. I'm pen paling at this point. So because I'm getting ready to go home. I'm trying to prepare for my release because I don't want to be back in the same situation that I was in with no license, no place to live, no money. nothing going on.

So basically she calls like the crime hotline in fucking prison and tells them that ginger and there's only one ginger on the compound that works in Admin, you know what I mean, is bringing stuff in and my, my Bunky's mom had brought some stuff in and I guess had acted kind of sketchy dropping it off and they had saw it and I was already under investigation but I didn't know it because I was free on the compound. It wasn't like AC confinement yet. So essentially they, they arrest, not arrested me, but, you know, they put me into confinement and I did like 45 days or some shit in confinement. For investigation.

Yeah, yeah, the second time. The first time I was in confinement like a long time. But I went out to court, so it kind of broke it up. Yeah. But either way, so the warden comes to see me. The warden is actually dating a friend of mine. She was on the top Juana Santos

She was in the top bunk And I was in the bottom of a really Beautiful girl, very smart girl The warden's dating another inmate The warden's dating an inmate And basically the warden came down Does everyone just know about this? I mean, yeah

The warden's like hooking up with this inmate Oh yeah Oh yeah I feel yeah So this happens and then this carries on into your interaction Yeah so the warden comes to see me While in confinement

He's like hey I'm gonna try to get you out of confinement I was like, hey, no, don't bother. I did it. I already told him I did it because they were talking about charging my Bunky's mom with like,

and she had her fucking grandkids with her and stuff, dude. I was like, how long does the charge actually hold? They're like 30 days in confinement. I was like, I did it. I'll just go lay down. So he was basically trying to advocate to get my job back in admin.

I was like, yeah, that's not going to happen. No one their right mind's going to give me a gate pass after I told him I was bringing in cigarettes. Like, it's not happening. I'm lucky I didn't get an outside charge. So I come out of confinement and the warden comes and finds me and asks me what dorm I want to go to. And I basically told him, hey, I want to go back on, I want to go to the main unit just because

I wanted out of the drama. At this point, I'm like less than, I'm like 10 months or something away, nine months away from going home. And I just didn't want to be involved in any trouble. They also had like suspended my account. They started doing this shit where after you do your confinement time, they hit your inmate bank, and they hit your canteen and they hit your phone and they hit your BP. Yeah, they take it away.

Some double jeopardy bullshit, you know what I mean? So you get to this new dorm, what happens? Yeah, after like being cut off from the world, you know, because I can't call anybody. The only way I have to communicate with people is male. So I get into this new dorm and this officer, like, immediately befriends me. I realize that people are, like, eating his lunch. Like, little, again, little dumb petty shit, you know, like he's signing off for people, you know, having done jobs that they didn't ever do,

he's letting people basically just do whatever the fuck they want because he was dirty. And I didn't realize that walking in, you know? But basically he just tried to befriend me. And like, I noticed he would like stare at me when I was in the shower because like it was weird where the placement was of the showers.

We had these swinging doors that were always fucking broken and then a big open bay shower right in front of the officer bubble. Like literally, probably, like however far this is, 20, 30 feet, you know, from the officer bubble. I'd go in the shower in the mornings, and he would, like, shine his light in the shower. So, like, I'm trying to shower knowing this dude's looking at me, which was kind of awkward at first. And then after a while, you just kind of get used to it because everyone's like, it's just how he is. It's just how he is.

So when's the first time you guys, like, actually hook up? Um, God, I must have been in the dorm maybe six weeks, maybe. And where does it happen? In the officer bubble. So you just go over there, no one else is paying attention? He lets me in the officer bubble. And you guys have sex? So I'm in the officer bubble and I'm legitimately back there,

health being like organized stuff, like doing an actual job. I turn around, the dude's got his dick out. You know what I mean? And I'm just like. And what do you do in that scenario? I kind of just stood there. He walks over to me and it was just kind of like the sinking of the Cisanic. And I was like, okay.

I didn't know what to do. I knew I didn't want to scream because, like, he's my friend. You know what I mean? Did you felt obligated to do something at that point? Like, you know, and again, you know, where's my accountability, you know, because, like, I knew he liked me. I kind of flirted with him a little bit because he made my life and everybody else's life easier. And the next thing I know, it's like put up or shut up type thing. And it just kind of happened.

And this happened multiple times? It happened twice. And you were okay with this the second time? So the first time, it was, again, really confusing. And, like, my friend saw, like, me come out of the bubble. And they were like, what's up? And I didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted to pretend like it didn't happen.

And then there was another day. I forgot what I was doing. The sergeant had asked me to go back there for something. And I get back there. And I'm, like, cleaning the toilet and, like, cleaning the officer bubble. and then when I go to turn around, he's physically in the doorway. Like, he was a big dude. You know, he's bigger than me.

Blocking, walking my way. And he just kind of like pushed me up against the, the wall and pulled my pants down. Do you say to stop? I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to do. Did you know it was wrong? I did kind of, I do remember kind of being like, like, what are we doing right now? But there was no, like, no, don't stop.

I didn't. It didn't come out of my middle. Now, you eventually ended up suing the prison over this. So 13 of us sued the prison. And it wasn't just that. It was, again, the culture because of the fact that it's a pattern. They literally do this over and over and over. It was crazy, too, because, like, less than a week after we had had this encounter, I was kind of, like, staying away from him a little bit.

Not because I feared him, but just because I did it, I wasn't comfortable. with like, I like to talk about shit and there's not this type of environment where like you could have an open conversation about what is this that we're doing? What is this? Where do we go from here? What is the purpose of this? Um, like less than a week after our second interaction, he brings another girl back there and does the same thing. And then I start hearing that he had done this. And this is the pregnant dorm because the warden had done me a solid and put me in the easiest dorm on the compound, which was the pregnancy dorm, even though I wasn't pregnant.

So I'm hanging out with all the pregnant chicks that have it a little easier because people feel sorry for them because they're pregnant. Yeah. But I had heard that he had done this to like six women in less than a year. That's wild. Yeah.

Well, what was crazy was, so he brings this other girl back who actually looks a lot like me. She had this long red hairs for pretty girl. She had just got there. She'd only been there a couple days. He brings her back there. People see it.

People go get a white shirt and bring them back. And she's walking out in the bubble as the white shirt banging on the fucking door because the door's locked and he doesn't, for some reason, didn't have a key. So the officer comes out, lets him in. They remove him from the dorm. The next day, he's on perimeter. He's on outside, like outside perimeter. He parks his truck when we're going to chow at the gate and is waving at everybody.

Like, hey, y'all didn't get rid of me. I'm still here. But he was like suspended or whatever. So he was still, he was still working, but he couldn't go back to that dorm. They pulled him from that dorm and I never saw him in that dorm again. Now, you guys won this lawsuit later on and you guys got received money from it? Yeah. So I got $65,000 and then my attorney took like 40%.

So I walked with like 36K. Wow. And it was proven that what these officers did you guys in prison. Yeah. And again, there was 13 of us. Were any of them criminally charged? No. Okay.

I have a friend that went home pregnant. From an officer. So this is just how Orange is the New Blacks show. Oh, dude, I love that show. Please reach out to me. I want to be on that show if y'all do a reboot. I swear to God. Because I watched it after I came home and was like,

dude, Orange is the New Black, but at times Wentworth is my Florida prison experience. It just was. Yeah. There was, and like, what I loved about it was the relationships. They really, because you build a lot of women. We built a lot of relationships with each other. I said, I have probably 100 people on my Facebook that were all people I encountered at Lowell.

And almost every single one of them I've offered for them to come, you know, stay with me. That's awesome. Like when they come through to New Orleans or, you know, whatever. Yeah, I have so many of the guys I was in prison with that reach out now. I have a couple that are still in prison that I talk to. But there's guys that reach out now that I'm getting bigger on social media and stuff. Right. And it's great to have those connections.

They're like family. Right. Now when you got here, you showed me that you had a prison tattoo. Yeah. What was it like to get a tattoo in prison? This is the only tattoo I have. It's a pick and poke. I paid $10 for it.

You paid $10? Like 10 soups or 10 macros? So she wanted coffee and like a lotion or deodorant or something. Okay. Yeah, I remember I've been home for 10 years. Did it hurt? I mean, it numbed. It was a staple.

And she used for a gauge to like a depth gauge. She tied string around a pencil and did the tape the staple to the pencil and then used boot polish. Just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And what did you use for like aftercare? You put like lotion on it or you just let it heal? Let it heal. And hope it. Oh, my ghost drove.

So you go in this girl that, you know, has never committed a crime except for like doing drugs or whatever. No criminal background. You go and you get a tattoo in prison. Yeah. That is the funniest shit ever. You literally came out of prison. I don't have any others.

Just this one. I mean, it'll be a good reminder for the rest of your life. Yeah. So how old are you when you get out of prison? And what year is it? Fuck. So I was sentenced to prison in 2011. So I got out the end of 2013.

And how old were you? I want to say I was 24. Sounds about right. Was it hard to reintegrate back in a society? It was really hard. So my brother had been living at my mom's. And like I had to go back to my mom's. And so the other thing we didn't touch on is the pen paling.

So I knew I was going home to this situation where like my parents, you're not happy with each other. Like there's a lot of drug use in the family. And I was supposed to be able to do this community control. I mean, I'd never done probation before. I'd never had any type of sentencing, but I basically thought it was like house arrest without a monitor, which it is. So knowing I was walking into that from prison with no driver's license and like all the stuff to do,

I wanted to have some type of nest eggs, I had no money. I had nothing. And I started pimpauling the last, I would say, nine months that I was in prison. I walked out of prison with $10,000. And that was your prison hustle? That was my prison hustle. There's a lot of hustles in the women's prison. Like I sewed for a while.

You sold cigarettes. I sold cigarettes. Dude, I made a lot of money off the cigarettes. But everybody ate off of me. Everybody. Like, I would literally throw dorm parties where, like, I played Secret Santa where people that didn't get shit. Because I had so much commissary because I could underbid anybody.

And that's what, that's where I fucked up. I started pissing off lifers because lifers were selling roll-ups for $5 that was stepped on bullshit that an officer, you know, take his pissy boots and stomp his cigarette out and go scrape it up and sell it to the new people. So you're like the woman shot caller of this prison. You're like running the joint. I didn't know about all that. That was not J.D. Delay, who I think did a great community service while he was in prison, by the way. Yeah. But I definitely had some pull. I definitely had a lot of pool with like the officers and then other inmates because of what I was doing and who I was affiliated with. But again, there wasn't like a, there

wasn't gains and stuff like that. It was just like I had my hustle. Nobody was going to fuck with me. I didn't fuck with you. And basically to not bother me, I would like give you shit to basically just go away. So you made $10,000 in prison. I made more than $10,000. I walked out of prison with $10K.

The bank had to cut me a check. And they didn't want to because I didn't have a state ID because I didn't have no money. So you didn't have to work when you got out then? So I immediately got a job for $8 an hour and I rode my bike that my probation officer had bought for me five miles there and five miles a bad. What kind of job? I was working in the kitchen at Sunnies and I had a heat stroke as a kid so like they don't have it's like this unacced kitchen. It just sucked. It wasn't for me. Was it hard to find work with that felony? Well, it wasn't. I don't think it was just the felony. I think it was the fact that people

had known me. I had really had a really good name before the drugs had really started and it was crazy too because some of my friends that went home before me but didn't know me before were like dude everybody in town asked if I knew you and was in prison with you like literally everybody be serving tables and somehow it would come up that I was at lulled who was like oh my god you know ginger you know what I mean so it it was definitely known that I had I had fucked my whole life up you know what I mean um I think the hardest thing for me was the no license and then trying to navigate my brother was actively using. My brother was my drug dealer, too, for a long time. So even after, like, the week before I got sentenced to prison, all the, like, major pill pushing pill mill places were getting

shut down. So it was probably, actually with Forthaw, it was probably best that I did go to prison because I probably would have been the person that ended up either dead from heroin, which, because I had never done it. And, like, a lot of people were transitioning to that or, like, Robin Pharmacies or something crazy because there was a lot of people that did shit like that. But you got back into drugs after you got out. I did. Um, I came home and I did well for probably six months. If, if that, maybe October, November, December, January. So about four months. Well, caused you to relapse. Um, a lot of it was just the stress and the not, I still had all this trauma. I didn't, I didn't know how to deal with what I had done. Um, you know, because at the end of the day, like I said,

I hurt somebody. And that's the last thing like I ever want to do is hurt another person. Do you go to therapy at all? No. Was it even a thought? Like, hey, maybe I was no money. There was no money for. Like that 10K that I had, I bought, I got a rental property. I had a friend that knew somebody that would rent to me. And I paid like my first six months rent up front. And then I bought furniture and clothes because I was so much fatter than when I went in. So the money was basically gone within like two months of me being out.

Did you ever like reach out to probation or anything to say, hey, I need like some help just to talk to someone? It's just so it wasn't a thought. No. So you went back to what you knew before to cope, which was drugs. Yeah.

And I've got like chronic pain issues too. So I think that the trauma was manifesting. And I think that that's what honestly what was happening when I was a kid. I think I did have some medical stuff going on. but I honestly think it was trauma manifesting that had not been dealt with because I had had this experience with my boss that I'd never talked about.

I had these experiences at my home life that were so traumatic for me that I hadn't really talked about and worked through. So when I got home, like, I just couldn't deal. I couldn't function. I had no, no skills to be able to live

in the outside world, essentially. What finally made you get clean? So I relapsed. And then, basically it was getting so bad. I enrolled in school because I got a Pell Grant to do like cosmetology. So I'm actually a licensed cosmetologist and esthetician. But like while I was in school, I wasn't functioning well because I was already using.

I started getting dudes to fund my, my usage. You know, I had a friend that basically her had experienced, we'll call it, sex trafficking. as a child. And then when she grew up as an adult, it was normal for her. I'd had this experience in prison where I kind of felt like I had had minimized myself for goods and services, essentially, because I never would have given that officer the time of day had I been out on the street. You know what I mean? It was basically because of the situation I was in and, you know, where I was at and where I was at mentally and emotionally that that was even able to permeate into my life,

if that makes sense. Yeah. But basically, I was like really going through it. My friend was like, well, I'm just going to sugar daddy. And I was like, just like, I mean, you basically had one in prison. Like, you can do it now and it could be okay. And it started now, like, decent. And then towards the end, dude, I was a drug-addicted prostitute.

It was fucking horrible. It was not, it was not, was that like your wake-up call? Yeah. I was going to shoot myself. I couldn't, I couldn't suck another day. Just couldn't do it, dude. It just couldn't do it.

I just woke up one day and was like, I just can't do this anymore. You know, I'm shooting up in my neck. I look bad, you know, like. After everything that you've been through in your life, that was the defining moment. That was like the wake-up call. Just couldn't suck another day.

And you never did drugs again after that. So I got, I reached out to intervention because I'm so like methadone clinic was really an option for me because I've done it before exacerbates my gastroporesis I started throwing up and it's I end up in the hospital almost every time didn't work for me. So boxin and subdux didn't really work well for me either. So I knew I needed to completely detox and completely get out of where I physically was. The emmeshment with my family didn't help either because like, you know, my family's all like,

okay, I'll take you to go get drugs from whoever. My brother was selling me drugs. So I just felt like I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to live like that anymore. You know, like I am so much more than these experiences that I had basically settled with. You know, and I was living really like bottom of the barrel. So I wrote intervention because I was like. You finally asked for help.

Yeah. I was like, dude, somebody's going to help me. I wrote like Dr. Phil. I wrote intervention. Intervention gets 10,000 letters a day. And I worked with them for three months before they. committed to coming out. And part of why they didn't want to commit to coming out was because of my family. My family didn't want to be involved. They didn't want to be like supportive. And like

the whole reason why intervention works is because the whole family is so distraught over the life that this part that their loved one is losing due to their substance use. And my family didn't really have that aspect. So I basically pretended to be my family and wrote intervention and the guy that was on the show with me was just some dude that was like, hey, if you need help, I'll help you, I'll say that I wrote them. And it was crazy because I was going to shoot myself before Christmas. I want my, we've got a lot of birthdays in Christmas. I couldn't, and like my, so my birthday is two days after Christmas. My original detox period was when I was, you know, I woke up at 18, two days after Christmas when my first withdrawal. I'd not want to do another Christmas loaded.

I couldn't do it. So I was like, I'm going to shoot myself in the head. the backyard if I can't get sober by Christmas. Intervention came out and they followed me around for like, I don't know, five days. And then we did the intervention on my niece's birthday, which was December 16th. It went to treatment. I did three months in treatment. And then I went to a sober living facility after that that was gifted to me by somebody that had heard my story because I kind of got dicked around a lot with intervention. But at the end of the day, like, I don't hold any animosity to them because I used them and they used me.

Like, I knew what I was signing up for. I could not imagine being one of those people that has no idea they're on the show. And it's like, oh, my God, now we're doing an intervention. Like, I pretended like I didn't know because that's what I saw everybody else do. But that show changed your life. That show did change my life. And how did it change your life? So I was able to actually get real drug treatment.

and I was able to break the ammeshment with my family and start living a new life. I had met my now husband while I was using drugs. He didn't realize that I was under. He's like a normal dude, never had a drug problem. So my husband up, there's one day where we were in one of the rooms where we're all talking about how we had these horrible experiences as children, you know, where we were victims of some type of sexual abuse. My husband walks up, was like,

damn, who are all these people molesting people? I must have been an ugly-ass kid because nobody ever tried to molest me. Like, he didn't understand the gravity of, like, what was going on, and he was trying to make light of it. But, like, you know what? It just goes to show, like, how sheltered he was. He had a normal family, you know what I mean?

So I say over and over, the fact that my husband wanted something to do with, me while I was using was kind of like in the back of my mind, but I was smart enough to not move on it because I knew I could not be loyal to him while I was basically having men pay for my drug problem. Yeah. But he came to you at the right point in time and helped you on your journey. I got sober and then I had to go back to St. Augustine because my uncle had died and

I broke up with the guy that I was seeing because it wasn't healthy. it just wasn't a healthy relationship. And when I went back, Doug, my husband was on my men's list. So I went and told him, hey, like, I went to drug treatment and so I was gone. I was using drugs. And it kind of laid the foundation for a new relationship. So he went out to see while I was in California in drug treatment. And like we communicated a lot via Facebook Messenger and really bonded.

And basically when my time was up at that facility, he said, hey, if you want to come live with me, you could come live with me and get your shit straight and finish school and I'll try to help you get your license and we'll go from there. And like he was all in from day one. And what's your relationship like with your child now? So my oldest son? Yeah. It's a little strained, but it's much better than it was. I see him all the time.

I ended up going back to court and got like a legal custody thing done. You're trying to be a better mother. Yeah, yeah. I'm really honest and open with him. He watched the intervention. So, like, I have the conversations with him of, like, hey, like, these are the mistakes that I made. And this is how I ended up in this situation. And if you ever find yourself here, like, I want you to be able to talk to me because I didn't have anybody to talk to.

Yeah. That's great. And now, what do you do now? What do you do for work now? So I work in TV and film. Yeah. Which is kind of something I just found. Well, you have that personality.

You had that personality in prison. and now you come out here and you got the look too. Thanks. You got like that made for TV look. Yeah, I'm actually pretty tall for TV. A lot of these actors are, so they always book the man first. So it's kind of hard because I have to find a lead actor if I wanted like a big role that was taller than me, essentially. There's not a lot of them out there.

And you've been completely clean from drugs? Yeah. So I do use a medical marijuana vape occasionally. But so I did go through after intervention. I was totally clean for three years. Yeah. And then I had the surgery on my face. And they gave me a script for, for Oxy for like, I don't know, a month.

And it was really hard to stop. It never turned into drug use again. You know what I mean? But it was me just taking a medicine. But like my brain was kicking into high gear of like, how can we keep this going? How can we keep this going? even though I knew I really didn't want that. Yeah.

But it's just so hard to stop taking them because the physical sickness is so hard. I mean, I'm glad to hear you're clean. And, you know, thank you for sharing your story. It's crazy to see, like, how those traumatic experiences that individuals experience as a child can evolve down, like, this path very quickly, like something that your parent does or you're surrounded by, ultimately has an effect on the rest of your life. and you went like through this crazy experience onto drugs and then you know that the accident

happening and landing yourself in prison which I'm sure you never expected but it you know I made you the person you are now you have like this lifetime of experience and and you're getting it together what would be like your message to a you know maybe a young woman or a young man that is was in your position addicted to drugs makes a mistake and is faced with the situation of confronting it or running away from it, what would you tell them? So I'm always in, I'm always going to confront things. I've always been that way. Like if there's any type of drama or animosity or if like I feel tension, I always want to talk about it.

So I, and that, that helps me. Personally, if you're not valued where you are, find another venue. You know what I mean? Find somebody where they value your input and they value what you have to offer because, like, like the study on water, right? Like if you scream at water and tell water that it's fucking horrible and it's fat and it's stupid and it'll never be shit, that water, when you look at it under a microscope, looks different from the water that you tell you love it and it's beautiful and it has value

and it has meaning and purpose. You know what I mean? Does it make sense? Yeah. So I feel like it's the same with people. You know, if you're not growing through what you're going through, go somewhere else. And also don't give up on yourself before the miracle happens

because I definitely never thought intervention would come for me. My dad told me intervention wouldn't come for me. I think to don't let other people determine who you are. Like literally, the biggest struggle for me has been not other people but myself. Like ever since my accident, I've woken up every single day in my life trying to prove that I am not that world fucking person who left to. a child on the side of the road to die. I've reached out to her.

I've done the victim twice via Facebook and kind of tried to open the door to like, hey, I'm sure you don't want to talk to me. You probably hate me. But I do feel like you deserve to be able to have your moment to tell me how I hurt you and how I affected your life and how you struggle because of my actions.

I would really like to get involved with some type of activism for, like, you know, families that are going through some of the things that I've went through. I wanted to open a, like, a halfway house for women inmates because there's not, there's a lot for you guys. There was not a lot for us. I poured over records and sheets of information before I came home to my family because I wanted to go some more elsewhere. else because I was so scared that I was going to relapse again coming out of prison and there just wasn't anything for me. So I really would love to be able to do like the red tape behind that and to be able to kind of like I said, I really reached out to you because I love what you're doing. I feel like there's a lot of purpose and there's a lot of meaning behind being able to have a large

platform where people can come in and be honest about themselves and who they were and who they are and how to basically take accountability for the things that they have done and the wreckage that they have caused and to be able to build a better life and to show other people that like just because you've made mistakes doesn't mean that you can't come out the other side. I never would have thought I'd be in movies. I never would have thought that I'd have been in a Super Bowl commercial. like, you know what I mean? I've had some really amazing things happen, but I think a lot of it started in my mind.

I literally woke up one day and decided I was going to do these things. It's all about mindset. Like, that's how I live my life. Your past literally does not have to define your future. And it is what you make of it. If you sit at home, you know, wallowing, saying like, you know, you're depressed. You're, you know, you can't lose weight. You don't have that girlfriend or boyfriend.

You're sitting at home just complaining. You're not going to get that shit. Like, you have to go out there. there and you have to manifest it. You have to wake up and you say, listen, I'm going to go to the bar tonight and I'm going to find my next relationship or I'm going to start hitting the weights and I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to change my body and I'm going to cut weight or I'm going to bulk up or I'm going to do this, this and that. I'm going to start that business. That's how I live my life now. Like I go after what I want and I don't let anything stop me from doing that. That's

how I've been able to like create what I'm doing now. So I'm glad you have that mindset. It's really good and I'm glad you were you were able to come out here and share it with us. So thanks for coming on the show. Ginger, it was a pleasure and, you know, looking forward to keep it in touch with you and see where you go. And hopefully you get those things started that you want to do and accomplish. And if it's anything, you know, I think that you'll probably do it, knowing what your personality is and you're very go-getter. I think you messaged me what, like, you know, 20 or 30 times, you're like, let's go, let's go, let's go. I want to come on the show. That's why I was like, fuck it. I'm just to book my flight and tell them to be in New York. I had no reason to come to New York other than

that. See, so that's energy. That's how you get where you want to go in life. And so I wish you the best and thank you. Thanks for having me.