Locked In with Ian Bick - Mortgage FRAUD Leads To FBI Raid In The Shower & FEDERAL PRISON | Jacqueline Polverari

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Jacqueline Polverari was the last person you would ever expect to go to prison. Raised by a good family in Connecticut, Jacuqeline started her own business and family, becoming very active in her community. After the 2008 mortgage crash, Jacqueline makes a series of choices that lead to her arrest and imprisonment in the Danbury, CT women's federal prison camp. In this episode we dive into the collateral damage that comes from going through the criminal justice system, spending time in prison with Teresa Giudice, and post incarceration struggles. Connect with Jacqueline Polverari: https://evolutionreentry.com Connect with Ian Bick:  https://www.ianbick.com/ 00:00 Intro  01:29 Upbringing  11:42 First Marriage and Divorce  19:46 Title searching and started own business 25:40 Second Marriage  26:56 Mortgage Fraud  33:18 Partner Arrested and Snitched  36:54 Raided by the FBI (36:58) 44:00 Admission to fraud and working against Wells Fargo  47:35 “Snitching” on Wells Fargo  49:45 Reaction from the community  54:18 Sentenced  56:30 Prison prep  59:00 Self Surrendering Intake 1:05:55 Experiences in Prison  1:08:16 Teresa Giudice 1:09:33 First Reality check in prison  1:11:53 Prison Rules  1:13:48 Halfway House  1:19:41 Hardest Integration back home  1:27:30 $1.8 Million in Restitution  1:39:09 Message  Subscribe to our membership program on YouTube to get early access to interviews, see behind the scenes photos, live chat with Ian & 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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Welcome back to Locked in with Ian Bick. I'm your host, Ian Bick, and on today's episode, we have Jacqueline Polvarari here today from Connecticut, where I'm also from to tell her incredible story of how she was just a normal wife, a mother to kids, and all of a sudden, mortgage crash hits in 2008, and her life spirals out of control, leading her into some criminal activity in relation. to the business that her husband and herself ran. In this story, we hear about what exactly happened after that market crash to her and her family, how the FBI arrested her while she was taking a shower, 15 federal. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for the biggest shows this summer. Catch vocal powerhouse Christina Aguilera July 21st. Rock out to Imagine Dragons July 23rd.

and enjoy the signature G-Funk sounds of Snoop Dog July 24th. Tickets are on sale now at Yamava Theater.com. Only a Yamava resort and casino celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Must be 21 to enter. Agents armed raiding her house while the neighbor records this whole thing going down and then she's ultimately sentenced to a year and a day at the federal prison camp in Danbury, Connecticut.

Thank you guys so much for supporting. the show. Thank you guys for tuning in and all the love and support you guys give us week after week. If you can take a couple quick seconds, leave us a like, a comment on YouTube, and leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast from. It helps us tremendously. All right, guys, sit back, relax, and enjoy my interview with Jackie. Jackie, welcome to Lockton today. It's great to have you. You're another Connecticut resident. We've had a few people on from Connecticut now. Yeah.

But it's awesome. You're here and thanks for making the trip. You have such like a fascinating story and I'm excited to dive into it today. Thank you for having me. It was a great drive. It's really nice. Yeah, it's like the country out here. I know.

Yeah, I know. When I'm driving some of the guests, I think I'm like kidnapping them when we pick them up at the airport. When we had Johnny Mitchell on, he's like, where are you bringing me? Because it's like in the middle of nowhere, but it's like, you know, it's a small quaint town and then and it's nice. It's different. It's not what you'd expect. It's not like New York City. Yeah, yeah, it's nice.

So starting at the very beginning, where are you from? Where'd you grow up? What's like early life for you as a child? Kind of boring. I grew up in Connecticut, East Haven, Connecticut. I was there until I was 28 and I moved to town over to Bramford, Connecticut. And I'm still in Bramford in the same house today. My childhood was at the time I thought normal, I guess as we'd become adults. we see what's toxic. Actually, in the last year, I've really did some deep diving.

So what I thought was normal was a little bit on the toxic side. But two older brothers on the baby. Grew up in, you know, East Haven is just a little Italian town. And kind of had a boring. I was the geek. I was the band geek in school. I was one that was the academic band. geek, so I didn't get in a lot of trouble. I wasn't one who smoked, dig drugs, drank,

none of that. I had my first drink until I was 22. So you're very by the book. Well, I was by the book. I was by the book. It's interesting because it goes so far off from that down the road. I guess when you're a kid, you'd never expect that you would have landed yourself in federal prison. Yeah, right. Goes south quick. What did your parents do for work? My father was in insurance, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom until I was 16. And then she went and worked at a retail store. My father was always in insurance. He worked for himself, self-employed,

mutual of Omaha he worked for, the guy who, the animals. Yeah, and they're both retired, and they live with me now. They're 85, so I take care of them. They live in my in-law apartment. It's great to have them there. How are the financials growing up? You guys, upper class, middle class, lower class? I'd say middle class back then.

Today it would be lower class. Different times back. Yeah, different times. We didn't go on vacations or dinners or anything like that. But you didn't have to worry about money or... Well, back then the kids didn't know about money. You know, my kids... My parents didn't talk about money in front of me.

So I'm assuming the way we grew up, you know, with clothes and stuff like that. It was middle class because we didn't really worry about much. And who were you... closer to as a parent, your father or your mother? Oh, yikes. I am a daddy's girl, I'd say. Yeah, definitely my father. I think there's a big catalyst as to, as I look back on my shortcomings.

So, yeah, I want to get into that. Like, what was your relationship with him as a child? And how do you think that that affected what's to come? I think I always looked up to my father. He was the smartest man I knew. I still, smartest man I know. My brother, my older brother, was the number one at everything, number one, baseball, number one, football player, number one band, music, everything was number one. So a lot of emphasis was put on my older brother.

And my brother, who was just two years older than me, him and I kind of, I think, fell through the cracks a little bit because it was always about my older brother. So I always tried to overachieve academically. You know, I wasn't the pretty one or, you know, the girls that are the popular girls. So I always tried to overcome academically. Do you think you were noticed by those overcomings, or were you always, like, in the shadows? I think I was always in the shadows. I liked it there, though. I was the chubby kid who liked the shadows because if I wasn't, then my brothers were making fun of me.

So I got, now I look back and my mother, you know, my brothers used to make horrible fun of me of the way I looked. And my mother would say, that's what boys do. Today, I say to, no, that's not what boys do. Yeah. But I was picked on pretty badly as a kid. And like the relationship with your father, were you guys like doing activities together? Or was he more towards the brothers because they were the superstars? the ones that were known with sports and you're just trying to stand down and be like,

hey, I'm over here. God, no one's asking these questions. I'm not fair. That's what makes us different. I know, right? This is wonderful. No, he worked a lot. He wasn't around a lot.

So when he was around, I was always there trying to, you know, back then they had these dot matrix printouts of all clients and they used to do cold calling because it wasn't like it is today. and he'd do cold calling at night and I'd help him highlight the names and I always wanted his attention and he gave it to me I danced and he came to my

my dance recitals and stuff like that but it was really more about my older brother I could never I don't think me or my other brother got out of his shadow ever do you think that if you weren't in the shadow things would have turned out differently looking back on it

How can we know, really? You know, it's... It makes you wonder maybe sometimes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, looking back, every single thing we do in life changes and alters the next thing. So obviously, if things were different then, it would have altered my life to a different path. So I guess, yeah, you could say the way it worked out was the path that I took and it went south. What were your aspirations at that age?

like high school, a lot of high school kids. I know what I wanted to do when I grew up. What did you want to do? And was that, like, influenced by the way your relationship was with your dad, too? I don't think so. I always wanted to be a lawyer. A lawyer. But my guidance counselor told me, girls like me went to hairdressing school.

So guess where I went? You went to hairdressing school? Right out of high school. Didn't go to college right away. Not yet. No, I went right to hairdressing school, and hence I failed out. I was bad. Really bad.

Thank God I could never, I touched someone's hair and it would turn green. Now, what did she mean girls like you? Because you said you were a little chubby, not you were in the shadows. That doesn't really seem like the stereotypical girl that would go become a hairdresser. Yeah, it was kind of an odd thing for a male guidance counselor to say. Oh, that was a male guidance. Male guidance counselor, yeah. And for me, it was more he knew my brother.

And, you know, your brother's doing these great things. If I even got into trouble, it would be, you know, how could you not go to class? Your brother's the basketball coach or the football coach at the time. So I don't know. I don't know how that came about, but I did what he said and wanted to hear of us in school. The idiot I was. That shines a light on like one of the biggest problems in the school system too. Even back then, this is many years ago.

That still occurs to this day. You know, you could have been a great lawyer maybe. You never know, and he kind of diminished what you wanted to do. Yeah, it was pretty stereotypical. Looking back, not a lot of kids from my class went to college. I mean, I graduated in 1984, so, you know, it was a lot of technical. A lot of the guys went to become plumbers and electricians, but not a lot of kids went to college. Really?

It's interesting how times have changed because it went in phases it went from at that time period. Like you're saying, college wasn't big. Then it went to a phase when I grew up. College is everything. And now I feel like it's going back to it's not everything. And you can do more other things than college. Oh, yeah. My kids didn't have a choice.

They were going to college. Oh, okay. So you told them they had to go to college. I didn't even tell them they had to. It was just that's what you did. You went to college where I could see why you wouldn't go. I mean, I have two kids with student debt that's astronomical, and they didn't really need to go to college.

Yeah, I have a lot of friends that went to college for something, and they're doing something entirely different than what their degree is, and they have the debt with it. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's crazy. My son's a musician. He's a professional violinist in the city, and he went to conservatory,

but in reality, he could have just went right into the city and got a private team. and saved thousands and thousands of dollars. And learn, I mean, some of the biggest pop stars in the world, they didn't go to college for a musical degree. Yeah. Wow, it's so fascinating. Like when you look at it and you break down like the nitty gritty on that.

So after you drop out of hair school, how old are you at about? I was still 18. 18. So what's your next move? What do you do? Do you feel like a failure at that point too? Yeah, big time because, you know, I wasted money. But I paid for my own hairdress in school.

You were working at the time? Yeah, I worked since I was 16, two jobs when I was 16. And I went and worked at this retail store, kind of like my mother did. And then didn't decide to go to college to like 1986. But I was dating my high school sweetheart since I was 15, and I ended up marrying him. Oh, that's so nice. No, I'm divorced from him. Oh, you're divorced.

Oh, that's not the original. It was nice then, no. Okay, it was a nice then. Okay. No, he wasn't the original Mr. Polvarie. Okay. Well, the concept, you know, that I don't know. You love a good love story. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. No. Okay, so you do that, you take a couple years off. What are you doing in those years off? Just work in retail? I was planning for my wedding, you know. I was... You're going to get married that young. Well, I wanted to because the only way out of my house was to get married. In an Italian family,

in our town, you stayed living home until you got married. You didn't go, like today, you know, you push your kitchen, like, go off, enjoy yourselves, live with your friends. That's not the way it was then. And both parents are Italian. No, my mother is very Italian and my father's Irish English. Okay. But you would say he's Italian because my mother made him become an Italian father, I guess.

They were very strict. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I. basically got married at 22. And your parents supported that. Oh, yeah, they supported it. Big time. They loved him.

And I found out the day before I got married, he was cheating on me. The night before. And you still married him. Yeah, my mother said, yeah, I got 320 people coming to the wedding. Half of them I couldn't understand. Anyway, they spoke Italian. Yeah. But it was more about appearance, you know, to my parents.

You look at the toxicity of that in itself. Yeah. Now. I mean, that is, that's crazy. Yeah. So I married him, stayed married 10 years. Even after, did you ever confront him about the cheating? Oh, you kidding me? We went into the girl's house that day, the morning of our marriage. You went, oh, so there was, this was a whole confrontation. Oh, huge because he kept saying, we're just friends, but the girl's mother called my mother. So it was kind of. Oh, wow. Out of landline telephone. Yeah, the landline ring, ring. We had coll-leading. That is crazy. Well, I'm sorry that happened to you. That must have been pretty.

traumatic in itself and that, like not getting, I don't know, I feel like when you get cheated on it, it breaks, like you don't feel accepted or not loved. Yeah, it's another thing, you know, you lose the trust and then again with the esteem and confidence, it's again piled on. And looking back, it was toxic and I'm living it and didn't think, I thought it was, it was normalized somehow to me. I don't think you ever cheated on me after that until, 10 years later when I did leave. That's why I'm so against, like, young marriages because it's just so young. Like, you have your whole life.

I have friends that, like, they'll meet someone in high school and they're still with them. Don't you want to experience other things out there, life lessons? I always say, like, I've lived, like, four lives because I've done so many different things between the nightclub and prison and this and that. Like, I didn't go to college, but I got that life experience. Right. So you do have a college degree. It's just in life experience.

Better than a lot of people I know. And debt that's like a Harvard Yale degree or Yale degree. But no, it's just, I don't know. I feel like now, like if I met someone, I was in a position where I would want to marry them, like I would be much more comfortable doing that than 10 years ago. Oh, yeah, yeah. My parents, even to this day, my daughter lived with her fiancé first. And I definitely live together because once you're married, you know, see how it is.

You don't know how somebody is until you're living with them. Oh, they weren't going to get married until after they'd, Yeah, they were living together. They bought a house and then set the marriage up and everything worked out great. But, you know, things happen between relationships left and right. You just don't know. Absolutely. And was your dad, like at this time period because you're kind of like in limbo?

Is he like having conversations like, hey, Jackie, you need to get your life together. You need to figure things out. That was the day before my wedding. So my father actually was the only one who told me knocked him. But even just career-rised. No, I never had guidance on college. I never had guidance on what I wanted to do. Like, you know, I sat my kids down.

What do you want to do? I never had that. It was a lot of emphasis. My brother disappointed my parents, my older brother, because he could have gotten into the major leagues. He decided to go to school for music. Really? switched gears on them and they they weren't too happy and about that time is when he quit school so again

it was more about my older brother and what was going on with him so you got married what happens next what career do you finally end up with uh i ended up going to school so that's when i started taking classes and i started working at the theater theater yeah i am member of the iotsie international Alliance theatrical stage employees. I still am. And I did wardrobe. My ex-husband's a sound engineer. That was the one at the time that you were married. Yeah, he, he, a lot of nepotism in the theater industry. And he was a sound man. He went right from high school working at the Schubert Theater. And then because I went to hairdressing school, they had Peter Pan was going on. We were doing the production for Peter Pan for Kathy Rigby, and they needed a hairdresser. So I'm like, I can cut her hair.

It was really short. What college was this that you go to? I was going to Gateway Community College. Okay, I've heard of Gateway, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Is that still around now? No, it's actually closed. It's now, no, it was South Central Community College when I went.

It's now Gateway. That's what it is. Yeah, it's Gateway now. Interesting. And do you graduate from there? Yeah, I had an associates. And it was in theater? No, it was in business.

I just took business classes while I was working at the theater. Okay. And then I switched over to Southern for my bachelor's, and I stayed there for my master's in business. So your life is normal for the most part. Do you guys buy a house? Do you have kids at this time? What's the dynamics? We bought a house, which was next door to my brother. Still in East David. I'm all like in the little community. And I was pregnant with my son. I was 26 when I was pregnant with my son. And so everything I thought was going the way it was supposed to go.

In our family, it was just the women cooked and cleaned and Sunday dinner. They made pasta and way too much food. And that's the way it was. I took over Sunday dinner. So my parents would come over Sunday. And, yeah, it was going pretty good. But again, I thought kids were going to fix, you know, my relationship as many young people do think. Yeah.

And it didn't. It just piled on more issues. My ex-husband constantly put me down. You don't need school. Why are you going back to school? And I became self-employed, even though I was working at the theater because you only work when there's a show. So I started doing business consulting for myself. and that was always a problem for him.

It was constantly putting me down. Now, is this the husband you start a company with or that comes later? No, no, no. I never started a company with my husband, ever. No, that's way later. Okay, so this whole time period pretty much comes to a close then. Yeah. No major issues, nothing too bad.

How do you guys end the relationship? We ended in amicably at the time. I had two kids. I was a single mom. I went to work for my brother. He had a title company, and he title searched. My one that was two years older than me. He was a title searcher from the time he got out of high school.

And so I went to work for him. So that was your introduction into the title searching. What did you think of the title business? Were you intrigued by it? Did you like doing it? It was all right. I did closings. I was a notary.

So I did a lot of closings, refinances. You drive to the house. see if people signed it and all I did was notarized. It was pretty good money, but it wasn't something that really crossed my mind as being a living for me. But I was a single mom, so I had to do whatever I could to be able to be home for my kids. So self-employment was the way to do it. And when there were shows that came in, like on a two-week run, I'd worked out. My mother would help out watching the kids.

And it really worked out well because I was dead. there for everything for my kids until my brother and his partner got into a big argument. And I saw something with him right there. She was kind of, she was taking money from him. I knew it she was taking money from. So I ended up leaving and I opened up my own title company. And what year is this? How old are you?

That was in 90, God, it had to be 90. maybe because I got in my master's in business. Now it was later than that because I went to work for the Children Center. I got my master's in social work after that. So 2000, I think. I opened up my title search company in 2000. It was a title company. And what gave you the idea to do that?

Because you weren't passionate about that. It's not what you wanted to do. What do you think brought you to do that? I saw what he wasn't doing. And I was like, he can be. he could really build this into something great. So he worked for title companies. So I didn't want to really hurt his business.

So he worked for attorneys. So what I did was I started to work for title companies only, and I never would cross that line. I knew someday he'd come to work for me because his partner was tank in the business. And I knew that was going to happen. My father worked for him doing title searching at this point because my father was semi-retired.

and started doing title searching. And then my older brother came to work for me. So it was quite interesting, yeah. My, yeah, so my brother had my father and I had my older brother, and my mother worked with me. My mother would just answer the phone. Is this a profitable business at this time period? Not at all.

Not at all. It started to be, it's a business that you can make a living at, but not really profitable. So I had the dream of it being profitable. And the way I tried to make it profitable was covering the entire state of Connecticut instead of just the area that I in. So I started hiring other notaries to do closings. And we were doing about 15 closings a day.

And you're meeting your second husband in this time period yet? No, not yet. That comes years later? Comes a couple years later. Okay. Yeah, because I was divorced. and I was still figuring it out, yeah. Single mom phase.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, which is great. You know, the single mom phase is pretty cool. Yeah. When you were a young single mom too, so you had plenty of opportunity to get out there, the dating scene. Yeah, it was in my early 30s, you had mid-30s, I think. But I was a workaholic.

And when I wasn't working, I wanted to beat the kids' functions. So it was, I really wanted to build something that I could make, make my father proud of. Do you think he was proud of you at that time, seeing it come together? No, I don't think so. There was a lot of turmoil in the family because it was two companies and he was working for my other brother. But then he started to do work for both of us.

And then there was arguments. And, you know, Italian families is always arguments. Who's not talking to who for this year? And then... Yeah. Yeah, my mom saw the family's Italian. So there's always drama. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It's the drama side. It's kind of fun sometimes. I'm over. now, but back then you're in it. Yeah. You're like, this is, you know. So, yeah, so I started my own company, and then my brother's company tanked, and he came

to work for me. Why did it tank? His partner was, she was a hot mess. That was the one that you thought was stealing. She was, yeah. She was doing the books and everything, and she was just, I guess, padding more her side than his, and in the title of business. The mortgage business wasn't doing so great.

That was in 2004, I think. It was starting to kind of pile up because in 2008, we all know it crashed, but it started to do really well. And because I was working with title companies and not attorneys, attorneys never pay. So he had attorneys owning him money left and right and title companies.

Isn't it funny that the attorney doesn't pay? The one that'll sue the shit out of you So if you don't pay them. That's right. That's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. They never pay. That's like corporate America, though.

It's like the big fishes, like they'll put you on 60, 90 days net, whatever, and the smaller guys got to do it. It's not. Yeah. It was kind of crazy. So he came to work for me. So at that point, I had both my brothers and my father and my mother. And now I met Dave.

Which is your current husband. Your current husband now to this day. Yeah, he was my neighbor. Your neighbor? So he was there like the whole time? Not the whole time. I moved into a new apartment. Okay.

And he's got a, he had a little girl, and she was the same age as my kids. And we moved in. I remember my son when we pulled in. It was a snowy day. We pulled in. I had this old sob. You know, the old sobs with the convertible tops. And I pulled it, and my son's like, oh, Alexa lives here.

Because she was outside. He hated her. So I'm like, oh, great. this is wonderful. Yeah. And her, we ended up getting married. And what did he do for work at that time? He was construction shutters.

He built shutters, high-end shutters. He hated it. So here's me, I'll teach you how to search. And I did. I taught him on a title search. And then he joined your business at that time. And then he joined me. So now it's your husband, your whole family, all working.

I mean, this could have been a success story. I mean, if you guys were building it up and everything. Yeah, it really could have been. So I guess a major question. It should have been. The major question is, where does it go wrong? Like, what's the turning point? What's happening in the world that causes this to go south?

Well, it was really the industry. So the industry was booming between 2004 and 2007, but it was getting sloppy, very sloppy. And attorneys were a mess. Now, in the state of Connecticut, only an attorney can issue a title policy. So in order to have a true title company, you have to have a true title company, you have to have an attorney. And did you? So I didn't at that time, but I did give, I had a friend that was an attorney who I was doing a lot of work with. I gave him 40% of my company. So he would join us, so now I would have an attorney to move forward and build the business larger. And he joined us.

And at that time, a lot of closing attorneys were doing things very wrong. And I was a paralegal. I thought, I mean, I had a good title searcher, one of the best in the state. I knew my stuff. I knew mortgages. And we had now about 35 notaries working for us, about 15 title searchers, half of them family. My niece was running my closing part of the company and my best friend came in to run the title search side. And this is all legit, 100% kosher, no issues. How much revenue is it, generally?

rating. Not a lot at all. But you could afford to pay everyone? Yeah, at that time. In 2006, 2007, I could afford to pay everybody. It was paying the bills. Paying the bills. And gave you a little bit of a salary or something? A little bit of a salary, but I was paying my husband too, so he was making a good salary at that point. And then the mortgage industry started to come down and crash. And the attorney I was working with was doing some, it was. It was a little bit of, legal stuff that I knew about. I was turning my head to. And the business was, I started to get a, I got a job so I could pay my bills.

So I got a job at Wells Fargo as a loan officer. Okay. And which was stupid. Who does that? Who builds a business? You got to do what you got to do. Your whole family's working there. You're paying them.

You got to go get a job. Hey, it's part of the entrepreneur life, you know? Yeah, not really. I mean, I remember when I first started out, though, I was driving Uber. I was doing Uber Eats. Like, you got to do what you got to do. You got to do what you got to do. And you had kids.

You know, you had a lot of responsibility. Yeah, the kids were in middle school this time. So when that crash happened, do you see the writing on the wall, like what's going to happen? Or are you just like this? We're going to make it through. Everything's okay. Yeah, I felt we were going to make it through. And then payroll started getting difficult to me.

And my family just never said, are you okay? The pressure that I felt I was on. was way too much because how can I close everything down. I got my whole family working for me. They're relying on you. Yeah, they're relying on me. So I took a mortgage out on our house. You and your husband's house?

Yeah, actually, it was my husband's house because it was in my name when we first bought it in 2004. But then because I owned a business, we clicked claimed it to him. So I didn't have my name on it in case anything. went bad way back then. So it was just his house and I took a mortgage out and signed his name. You signed his name? Did you know what you were doing was wrong in that moment? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, how could you not? I was forging my husband's name on mortgage documents.

The crazy thing at that time, this is how bad, sloppy the mortgage industry was no one asked to ever speak to my husband. Ever, yeah. Yeah, no processor, no... No ID verification. No, yeah, it was no income no verification loans. How much was the loan for? $415,000. So the house, that is worth what? It's got to be double or triple that. No, no, it was worth.

It was no income, no verification, and 95% equity. Yeah. So it was worth maybe, I think, at that time, $4.80. And we're close to the water, so I take this massive loan out. And I'm thinking, what am I doing? And now the attorney I worked with, he did the closing for that loan. And he knows what you're doing. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

So the two are you in cahoots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I funded payroll for a long time with that. And I paid the mortgage. Never did I not pay the mortgage. So I'm thinking, okay, this isn't that bad. It's morally wrong. It's ethically wrong.

How could it be really illegal? I'm paying the mortgage, I'm paying my, you know, my payroll. And he has no idea. And my husband had no idea. Yeah, no. And my partner,

he was doing closings and wasn't paying off some mortgages. I think there was like five or six of them. He didn't pay off. There was... For clients of yours? For clients of... It actually was his personal law firm.

So he got snagged. And he gave up anybody. he could. And I was, yeah, I was in that mix. So he said that you forged. Yeah, yeah. That's wild. He threw you right under. He threw me right under the bus. And about eight or nine months after I took the mortgage out, I told my husband about it. I couldn't handle that part of it because I kept running home to get the mail before he did because I didn't want him to see anything. And I was a nerd. Oh, it was looking back, it was like, how did I live that way? Yeah, well, what was like the stress of lying to someone you cared about like that?

It was horrible because I never lied to my husband before, and he was my best friend, still is. And when I told him, I thought for sure he was going to walk out the door. Now, the FBI had not been involved at this point. And I remember him saying, well, we sign each other's names on a lot of things. And we'll get through this. I thought, oh, this guy is. That's a keeper right there.

He's a keeper, yeah. Little did he know two or three months after that. The FBI was going to come knocking. And he didn't know anything. I didn't know I was a target at all. It was very fast. Because you didn't know that your partner had rad on you. Yeah.

I did find out when he got, he was on the front page of the paper. He actually came in that morning and told me. because I would have saw it on the front page of the paper. He brought the paper and he said, I just want to let you know. And at that point, I said, we got to part ways. I can't be involved in thinking I was golden. I can't be involved with his stuff. So did you buy him out on that instant?

No, because I gave him 40% of my company. So I took my title search company, which I originally started with, and moved the office back to my house. because I had a full basement, yeah. So we made the basement into the office and my family was still all working for me. All the notaries were gone. They went with him or either left.

So we kind of split the company in half. If you asked your husband for the loan or money, would he have done it for you? No. He would have said no. Yeah, he would have at that point said, you need to get out of this. But I think that's obviously why.

I didn't ask them because I knew that. Could you have folded the company and walked away from it? Yeah. But the pressure was on. Like, what's a mindset behind that, knowing? Because we're very similar in that way where I had opportunities when things started to pile up and I had to make decisions because of that. What was your reasoning and logic behind that?

I didn't have any. I was running on pure instinct, I think. And my instinct was to fix everything and not disappoint. my family. And what would I do if my brother lost his house and my parents lost their house and, you know, my other brother lost what he had. And it was all about, I look back now and I really thought what I thought was what I bought people was why they loved me. So the only reason I thought I deserved love was giving people things instead of, hey, I love you just for you.

I think that's why I pushed my husband into becoming a title searcher because I thought, I'm going to give him this job and he's going to love me more. And he wouldn't have. It would have been the same. But in my mind, it's what I can give people. Not anymore. Since I've done a lot of soul searching, but back then, and it was very toxic. But to me, again, it was normal.

That's the way it was. So I was running on instinct, not even on choices. Yeah. But I mean, it's okay to give too. I guess there comes a certain line because people have that as an attachment style. Yeah. You know, there are a love language to be able to give. And you don't want to lose that ever either because very few people in the world have that.

Yeah. And the thing, too, is I think it's very similar. I have a lot of women that I work with that have addictions. Very similar to an addiction because instead of being addicted to, drugs or you're addicted to almost power to be able to take care of your whole family. You know, I'm a caregiver. I want to make sure they're okay. I want to fix it for them, make their lives okay. And in the meantime, I wasn't okay. And when I brought the business back to the house, about four or five months after that, I got raided by the FBI.

So let's talk about the day you're rated. How does that actually go? down? What's the whole story? It was bad. I mean, I was lucky in some respect. My mother and father planned a trip where they were driving cross-country, and they left the morning before. So thank God, because my mother would have been there working. And the FBI did wait for my kids to get on the school bus. So my kids weren't home. However, every morning my son would miss the school bus. So every morning I'd hear, you know, running down to get the bus and then running back. And so I'm, I'm in the shower. Me and my husband are in the shower. And, you know, no, no crappy stuff going on. We just were

in a hobby. Yeah, we were both in the large shower, both in the shower. Thank God, nothing was going on. And I hear banging at the door. And I'm yelling, Tannis, I will be out. We'll be out in a minute, thinking it was my son. And two minutes later, there was FBI agents in my bathroom. In your bathroom? What are they wearing? How do they look? Full on bulletproof vests. Like what the heck was happening here? And my say you fully naked. Fully naked. And the great, my husband, the first thing he said, let me get a towel from my life. It's all I said. That's all I remember, actually. It could have been more things. You know, trauma. But so I, I put a a towel around me. He put a towel around him. And they said, we're here. We got a search warrant.

And I said, call my attorney. I had an attorney at that point. We had an attorney across the hall before I moved. And he told me, he said, you know what, you're going to end up with problems. And so I said, well, you got me if I do, right? And he did. So they called him and he said, look, they're there to search the house. They have, because the business was back at my house. They don't, you know, your husband can go to work, you can go to work. They're there to look at the computers and take everything. So I was like, oh, my God, okay.

So no, I called everybody and told them there was no work. You know, we weren't working that day because I don't want anybody to come in. And my next door neighbor, who also worked for me, videotaped it. I was reading that article. That's insane. Yeah. She videotaped it and called Chiralee, and she was sending it to people, which I didn't know about at the time. And I also didn't know what it obviously looked like on the outside of my house, where there was about 15 agents around the house.

And I'm sitting in the kitchen, and they looked through the whole house, and the agent comes down and I go, well, it was the cleanest house we've seen. And I was like, well, of course I clean, not knowing what he meant, that the cleanest house meaning there were no guns or drugs or, you know, I'm not knowing that. I'm thinking he meant cleanliness. And they did let, they took two computers and let me keep the rest for work, but they did copy the hard drives. So while they did that, anybody who did anything wrong,

because I was a paralegal, all the files were on my computers. So anybody that did anything wrong were going to get caught at that point. And they took everything and they were gone. It was probably like a three-hour thing. I mean, they were respectful. They really didn't go in my kids' rooms. And that's not just say anybody hide anything in your kids' rooms. They just didn't go in my kids' rooms.

They did go in my room, obviously. And yeah, they were out the door, so that's when I knew, oh, boy, I'm in trouble here. What's the first thing your husband says to you when they leave? He went to work. He left and came home and he said, yeah, okay, we need out to serious talk here. Is there something I don't know? And I said, yeah. And I said, there's stuff that is going on with Gabe, who is my partner.

And I said, I'm not going to tell you. that stuff because I didn't want to put him in any position to know something where he in my attorney said that do not speak to anybody and and he told told me that specifically do not speak to your best friend about this do not speak to your husband shut your mouth great attorney yeah and I tend to tell everybody everything I'm pretty transparent if you've seen any of my stuff yeah um and so But I knew. I said, I couldn't say anything. And a week or two later, we had to go into the FBI office. I had not known that they had already spoken to most of the people that worked for me, not my family, but my best friend they did speak to. She was my business manager. And they

said to her, do you know, do you know anything about finances? And she said, no. So, I was obviously going to have her back. And they asked if she knew anything. And I said, no, I took full responsibility. They put the mortgage in front of me. They said, you know what this is? And I said, yes, I do. And they said, you want to explain?

And I said, I really don't have an explanation. I signed it. I took it out. And a lot of people get scared when I say this. I didn't just take a mortgage on my house and use it, the funds. I misappropriated the funds because the first mortgage was not paid off. that that's what the biggest part of the crime was. I know, and I forget that.

And a lot of people say, oh, my God, I thought you could take a mortgage out on your house. But you have to pay off the first mortgage when you take a mortgage out. So they didn't know that the bank did not know at this time period that you had another mortgage? I didn't disclose the first mortgage. But there's no way for them to check. I mean, it was. Well, no, because it was on my husband's credit report, not mine. Oh, okay.

So, but shame on them for not knowing anything else. They're definitely way more stricter now when it comes all this. Yeah, yeah, because of the 2008. My dad's calling. Oh, that's your rig tote? Oh, what a ringtoe. You could just close it. I'm so sorry.

Oh, it's okay. Yeah. That's a crazy rigtone. Yeah, well, you should hear when my mother calls. I didn't think people still did like sound ringtones on their phones nowadays. Yeah, I'm old school. You could get that on the iPhone. That's funny.

Yeah, somehow, I'm a big techie, so I figured out, I'm again the nerd. Yeah, I love the tech stuff. Well, you're still young, you know, you're not like an old mom or anything. Well, I don't know. 56 is, I feel old. That's younger than my parents. Yeah, so you're good. Okay, I'm good.

So you guys go in the FBI office, you admit everything. I said, yeah, I did everything. And they put a couple other mortgages in front of me. One was a very good friend of mine who did a very similar situation that they got off my computer. That you helped her with? It was a him. And no, I didn't really help him with it. He took a mortgage out and just lied on the application and overstated his income and a different, kind of a different situation, but it was still illegal. I didn't really know it was illegal though when he did it. But they did get that and they put that in front of me. And they wanted to get him. And they wanted to get

his, the guy he worked for. They were very interested in the guy he worked for. And they said, you know, if you work with us, we won't put your parents in prison for money laundering. I said, what? Yeah, they love that tactic. What do you mean? Yeah, I'm like, what do you mean money laundering? Well, you paid your payroll with money that you misappropriated that is flowed out to your own family, and that's called money laundering. And I looked at my attorney, and, you know, and, you know, And he said, you know, they really, they really could have, they wouldn't have, or maybe they would, who knows what they do. They're so corrupt that it's, they play on people's fear. Yeah.

So I said, I don't know what you're looking for. But what I do know is that Wells Fargo should be completely every single person up the top at Wells Fargo. because these robos signings that they're doing is so illegal. And they said, okay, well, you know, if you want to work with us, we will offer you some time off. So I needed to think, I had no idea what they were even asking me to do. So my attorney and I had a conversation at his office, and he said, there's this thing called a 5K or K5.

501K. Yeah, yeah, something like that. that if you do cooperate with them and they'll give you this letter so at time of sentencing. Now, I'm thinking, what's sentencing? How can I possibly, I'm paying my mortgage? How can I go to prison for this? He said, look, you have exposure. You're going to prison.

And I thought, how is that possible? And paralegals were going to prison left and right. And attorneys were going to prison. Everybody who was due a mortgage fraud. So I was adamant. I said, well, why isn't Wells Fargo, who never even asked to speak to mine? You know, I was trying the defensive thing because I hadn't really come to full round that, hey, I committed a crime.

And I don't really talk about this much because nobody ever really asked these questions you're asking. And so I, he said, so if you work with them and you have title searchers, you're in the vaults, get these assignments that are Robos signed, and you'll get this 5K letter. I didn't know it was five years of waiting to get sentenced just because I got them. I said I would cooperate with that. So you were cooperating with the government for five years? I was cooperating with them for about six months, thinking I'm going to not go to prison because I'm doing this.

And I was collecting all these robosigns thinking they're going to be the one to take down Wells Fargo. And I absolutely know that's bullshit. So interesting perspective here that you're saying all this because like you are, you're a mother, never commit to crime before. In the criminal world, like this is considered like snitching, ratting. Does that cross your mind at all when you're doing this? Or you're just like, what is your thoughts? Well, my thoughts is everybody's going to love the fact that I'm going to get Wells Fargo.

So, you know, in my mind, I didn't even know what the word snitching. meant really. I know in the drug world, you know, I mean, it's not a person. I'm not giving a person up. I'm giving an entity up that everybody hates and are so corrupt. And they weren't really, you know, concerned so much about the robosigning. What they really wanted was time because they were going after my friend who was also on there. And what they started to do was pit us against each other. And they said, you know, we're going after Tom, and Tom and I have done a podcast together since then, but in the last year. But they said to me that, you know, Tom's saying these things. And they would say to Tom, Tom's saying these things. And they, you know, they said,

we don't want Tom, we're not interested in Tom. We want his boss. And I said, I don't know anything about his boss. I'm not going there. And so I wouldn't. And they, Tom and I had a few conversations. Well, during those conversations, they were recorded, conversations were recorded by the FBI. And Tom didn't know. I didn't know. And they ended up putting an indictment against the loan officer, who was Tom's best friend, to try and get Tom to cooperate, and he wouldn't either. And then they put an indictment against his boss. And so now they just made us wait. And I waited five years to get. Five years on supervised release pretty much. On supervised release. Are you checking in with a probation officer and everything? Yeah. Now, you were

big in your community, like your kids, I was reading with their school, volunteering. How are the other parents looking at you? Are they like, I don't want you near my kids? Do you have that label automatically as like the criminal? It was, it was an odd thing because at this point, two of my kids were in high school, and I was very involved of the band. And the band director, the parents were trying to get him, the orchestra director, trying to get him out. And we were really heavily involved in that. So when the FBI raided me, the headline was, banned mom, band mom gets indicted. And I was like, are you kidding me right now? You can't, you got to put band mom.

Like, you know, I'm a geek as it is. And now you're going to call my kids out. And because, you know, it's, I guess I shouldn't, I'm blessed because that was the only stuff that was in the paper. The Channel 8 News that did come and film it got the very end of it and had me, they said I was a relitter. They had it completely wrong. I said I was a realtor who was getting raided by the FBI

and showed one quick glance at my house. That could have been any house. Well, these news things never even get it right. Yeah, they never do. What was your conversation with your kids? Like, how is your relationship with them? I sat them down immediately, and I think that's one very important thing. And I was a social worker as well.

So I had my master's in social work. So I sat them down, and I said, look, I said, you all know that moms are human and we make mistakes and I really screwed up and I made some mistakes of the company in business and I'm in trouble and I still really didn't think I was going to go to prison at this time so I remember my son's saying what do you say I'm mom and I said I'm saying that I'm in trouble with law enforcement I'm not sure what the outcome is going to be but you're going to go to school and you're going to hear a lot of things And they really didn't.

They didn't. Nobody really bothered them about it. I was pretty surprised. They had a really close friend group, and no one said much to them about it, and they didn't speak to anybody about it. So it's kind of odd to me that, you know, why was this so easy?

It shouldn't have been. And my, I went to college at that point. My other daughter came into high school. No, they were in middle school when this started. So they're going through school. Again, this was kind of normalized. Now, normalizing toxicity for them, right?

Because it was normal for them, for their mother, would be in bed crying or depressed, or it became normal. Everything I tried to do opposite of what my parents did started to kind of be the same because it was that toxic environment. Yeah, and it passes down. What about your relationship with your father? My parents, again, no one asked me a question. They didn't care that their daughter, their only daughter, daddy's girl, is arrested by the FBI.

No one asked me anything. They didn't say, are you okay? They didn't say, what happened, would you do? Nothing. We support you. That's it. Wow. My brothers, We support you. Everybody supported me. That's a good family. Yes, and no. You're right. You're right.

In that sense, yes, but nobody said, are you okay? Because I wasn't. I just got raided by the FBI, and my parents didn't ask me if I was okay. I think they probably also didn't know how to react because it's so abnormal. That's why people like prison content or this kind of content because they're curious. And when people are curious and they don't know, it's hard for them to give help. to someone. Yeah.

I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that how could they not know? They saw what was going on and the pressure I was under and how checks were bouncing. And I mean, my father was very intelligent. My two brothers pretty intelligent. My mother was answering the phones. How could they not know? Yeah. You know, it's one of those things.

So for five years that happened. So what year do you finally get sentenced? I got sentenced in 2014. How old are you at the same? time? God, I don't know. I can't do that. In your 40s, probably. In your 40s, yeah, it was only early 40s. You go into sentencing, who's with you, your husband, your kids? My parents. Everyone's there. Yeah, they're all there. My parents couldn't hear. Thank God. And the government's probably making you out to be the wicked witch. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was

terrible. I was prosecution, you know, I was the worst person. I was overprivileged. I was greedy. I was, everything they say in every financial case. You know, you're greedy. Yeah, it's the same exact thing. And my kids went up and spoke together and my husband spoke and there was hundreds of letters and the judge said to me, you know what, you've an incredible family here. You have all kinds of letters. Your kids are gorgeous. They have a great, you know, you're doing good shame on you. And if you didn't cooperate and, you know, I got points off for that, I'd give you the full extent I could and I ended up with a year and a day. I could have gotten three years. Do you know why they give the year and a day? Yeah. If I get that extra day, you get good time. So if I got a year, I'd have to do a year at that time. There was no cares act. So how much do you do on a year and a day? Seven months. So because of the fact that you got a year and a day, you got less. So the judge was doing you. Yeah, she did me a favor. Yeah. I didn't know that. I heard a year and a day and I thought my life was over. Shame on me because I met women that were. I there for so, Clover, you know, women that were there for so long. And I was one of those people

who came in and out while she was there. So. Now you get that year and a day, how much time do you have ready to prepare for prison? They gave me, I think, four months. And then my attorney said, do you want to wait until after Christmas? And I said, if I could, and they let me self-surrender or January 5th. Did you get to, did you ever think in that moment that maybe it was like a little bit privileged to have that opportunity because not everyone gets that? No, because I didn't know anything about the carverdum process. But would you come to realize that when you spent time with someone in the prison?

Yeah, and I realized a lot. Because that's not the norm. Yeah, not at all. That's like what the celebrities are doing. That's celebrity treatment right there. And I had no, because back then it wasn't like it is now. There was no podcast. There was no openness.

There was no transparency. see, there was nothing. I had nobody to help me guide me through. I had no idea what I was going into. My husband had me doing cromagaw classes. And I'm like, what were you doing to get ready for prison? Yeah, he had me doing cromagaw classes. Were you watching shows or anything to TV shows to compare it to?

Orange as a New Black is out at that point. It just came out. Did you watch that? And I watched that and I stopped watching it because I'm like, oh my God. I've never gotten into an altercation. What am I going to do? And it's loosely based on the prison you're going into too. Yeah, it was, I thought, this is bad.

And, you know, I had to sit my kids down again before that, you know, talk to them. And they supported me. They were wonderful through it all. They kept in what they were feeling. And I say that's wonderful then. But now I'm realizing it wasn't. It wasn't healthy for them to keep it. I was very selfish because all I saw was I was going to prison.

And no. It's traumatic. You're like, yeah, you know, anyone. Yeah. If the roles were reversed, they would be thinking the same thing. Yeah, there was no, I didn't see the external. I mean, I think in life when someone's struggling, it's hard to focus on other people when you're drowning. It's like, how do you save someone else when you're the one drowning?

Yeah. But as a mom, your job is to save everybody else. And I tried, you know, as much as I could. And then I wouldn't. The night before you go in, what's a conversation like with your husband? Are you guys like, we can have. have an open relationship. Are you, is he, he's fine with waiting?

I'd kill him. I'd say, but that's a lot of task of someone, you know? Like, it's his wife going to prison. I was like, look, if you're going to cheat on me now, leave. Because, oh, yeah, I couldn't handle that. I've no, low self-esteem. I have no confidence. And now he's going to, and that's all I thought of, you know, he's going to cheat on me.

That's it. He's going to cheat on me. What does he say to you? He's like, seven months, you know, you're going to be home. And we didn't really know. He's like, you'll be home in six months. You'll be home in five months. Because who know?

I didn't know how the system was. Do you guys have PTSD going into that shower? Oh, yeah. I won't take a shower with him, period. And I won't take a shower with people not home. Wow. So it's funny. But then I had on my back was, you know,

Teresa Judice was self-serrending the same day as I was. Yeah, can you talk about that? What happens? The day you self-surrender to prison and what? Yeah, that was immediate everywhere. So my attorney, I had a different attorney. I switched attorneys for sentencing. And the attorney I had for sentencing, we're good friends now.

He's a cool guy. And he says, okay, I'll call you when you should go. And he calls me up and he says, she surrendered at 5 in the morning. So you just go. And I'm like, is there media there? They're going to see this. We had a black SUV at the time. And I'm like, they're going to see this black SUV with tinted windows.

And they're going to see me driving it. and that's, there's going to be media. And it was media all in front when we pulled in. And this is the Danbury Federal Prison. I actually went to that prison too. Oh, did you really? The men's side in 2017. I was there because I live in Danbury.

I'm from Danbury. Oh, really? Yeah. The nightclub I owned is right down the road from that prison. Oh, wow. Yeah, but I remember watching on the news because this is right. I just finished my federal trial when Teresa was self-surrendering. So I remember seeing the news because I was fascinated with that.

because I was going through that same situation. Yeah. So you self-surrender that day. What's the experience like? Well, you know, when you drive in, you see the men's prison. And it's scary because everybody told me I was going to a camp. But when you drive in, I didn't see it in camp. All I saw was this big prison with barbed wire around it.

And that's where I had to self-surrender. And my husband took me by himself. And when I tell you the first episode of Orange is the New Black, they got it right because it was horrible. It sang goodbye to my husband at the door. I mean, there was no baloney sandwich. You know, we didn't sit there. I didn't really realize what he went through recognized until years later. But on my end, it was, I felt like such a failure and a disappointment.

a horrible mother, a horrible daughter, and, you know, everything, because I blamed myself and the guilt. And it was just, what did I do? I had the judge was right. I had it at all, and I screwed it all up, and what's wrong with me? All those waves of emotions hitting you.

Yeah, and I get emotional thinking about it, you know, because even that's, I think, a different piece for men and women, you know, it's for women as a moment, mom, it's very different for a guy as a father. What a disappointment. You don't hear very much about the moms going to prison. You never really do. They're not putting that in the, in anything, you know?

It's not sensationalized. You know, and they like the sensationalized stuff. So here I am sitting there thinking, this is the prison I'm going to be in. And I went through intake, which we all know is horrific. How was your first intake at federal prison? Oh, man. Like, walk me through from when the guard. takes custody of you.

Yeah, and I'm thinking, I can be nice to these people, you know, and female guards were there, and then they had this, like, little curtain thing that you have to get in, and you have to strip. And luckily, I was able to keep my own bra. No, you keep your bra. Because it was all cotton. And I don't know who told me. I think my attorney said, just wear cotton bar. You might be able to keep it white.

But you do. You have to squat and cough. naked, completely naked. And that's horrifying. Because for me, I was like, well, what do you think I'm going to do? Put something up there. It's like, that's horrific. It happens. Girls are swuggling in drugs, everything. Yeah, it's, it is one of those things that happens that you don't even, you know, something that wouldn't cross my mind, but apparently it happens. Was that like the only time you were ever stripped out there, though? No, one other time. Easter. I was stripped out Easter by Mailguard. A mail guard stripped you out? Yeah. That's a lot.

No. Why did a male guard strip you out? It was a guard that was giving me a lot of trouble while I was there. A couple other women were sleeping around with him, and I would not. I was not interested, and I would not, and he just didn't like that. He thought I thought I was better than him, and he gave me a really tough time, and it was Easter Sunday, and my kids, and my husband were there, and he made sure they saw me get pulled aside. And there was a little room right on the side of visiting whenever somebody got stripped out. They knew they were going in that room. And it was by random that people, very rarely did women get stripped out.

It's like that the men's camp too for anyone that's listening. You know, normally when you're at the camp, you don't get stripped out at all. They'll do a pack because that's the minimum security. Yeah, or they got the wand. Yeah. So he takes you to this room and he's like asserting dominance basically in front of your husband and kids. Yeah. Well, not in front of them, but they knew because he took me in the room and stripped me out.

And I was like, you can't do this. And he's like, there's no women guards on today. And there wasn't. And I'm like, well, then you shouldn't be strip searching me. And he said, I saw you slip something in your shoe. And I said, okay, then let me take my shoes off. You know, there's no, but he did strip me out. Made you get fully naked.

Fully naked. and I don't even think he looked at me. I think he just wanted me to be humiliated. He wanted the satisfaction. Yeah, the power and the humiliation over me. And that was the only time that besides going in that I got stripped out. And I think that's one of like the most dehumanizing factors. That and no first name.

You have no first name and the strip searches. Yeah. Yeah, it's purposeful. You know, you have no identity. The government owns you. And I think that many people feel, oh, they need to go to prison. They need to go to prison. I'm not one of the advocates that think prisons should be abolished,

but I do think that we need to have a big overhaul and that camps are purposeless. There's no purpose. It doesn't make sense. No offense. None at all. At the time, my son was going to Westcon. He probably went to your bar, God.

You got to ask him about Tuxedo Junction. I'm going to have to ask him. If he was a partier, he probably went at that time period. But he was going to Westcon. I remember when he graduated. I was in prison. And I thought, I could walk out here, go to his graduation, walk back. No one would know what was gone.

That's how ridiculous thing. No, you said these women are sleeping with this male officer. How does that happen? Did you witness what goes on? I never witnessed anything. I made sure I was not. I went to bed early. I didn't want to get involved in anything.

But women talk. Women talk. That's the thing. And you know what's going on because women talk. And yeah, women were willfully sleeping with guards and some willfully not. When you've got a long sentence and there's a good looking guard and he's offering X, Y, and Z, I don't know. I don't judge anybody for sleeping with a guard because they have power. and the power to get you something from the outside,

even lipstick or anything that you may need. No, I always ask, like, because we hear a lot about the guys that sleep with female guards. Yeah. What do you think is the logic behind a man sleeping with a female inmate and risking his career for this woman? Is it because he's not attractive himself and he can't get, you know, anyone outside?

Like, what is the logic? I mean, you can't know it's in anyone's head. But I think that for, I think it's about power because similar to like the crime I did, I didn't, you know, I needed to fix this. I needed to, you know, and I did have the power to, I was the owner of the company. These guards have such power over these women and they're not police officers, right? You and I both know that a couple of the guards wouldn't be able to run from here to there. I don't know how they pass the test. But they do get guns, and they got guns too.

They do have guns. But it was just odd that, and a lot of the guards are married. Like, why would you even, you know, there's no. Go roleplay with your wife if you need that, you know. There's no, there's no rhyme or reason except for the power. That's all I could think of is that they, you know, and then we had some great guards. We had this one cute guard who couldn't say my last name because it's Polverari. And he used to, and I used to shovel snow.

and he would just say snow waiting. Oh, that was your job? Yeah, I went down the men's prison. I would shovel the front. I was a snow shoveler too when I was at the camp. Yeah, but so did you shovel the front? We would shovel the front where the visiting room was and stuff. We'd get up.

They'd wake us up at like 2 or 3 a.m. And we would go and we would shovel. Now, because you and Teresa self-surrendered the same day, did you guys form like a bond? And where I and the prisons I was in, whoever you go to that prison with on day one, you connect and bond with each other. No, absolutely.

You didn't like her? No, none that I didn't like her is that I think there was a sense of entitlement with her. Really? And I'm in her book. I'm the woman with the salad. You got put into Teresa's book? Yeah, really made me that. Wait, why did she put you at her book?

She had said that, you know, there was people who were privileged. You got to eat their salads in their room. You got to eat? And I was the one who ate my salad in my room. And she's not privileged for not having a job the whole time. I don't know. But we got put in separate. You know, when you're first put in, you're put into what's called the bus stop.

And we had 11 girls, 12 girls in one room. We got put into separate rooms. So I think you form more of a bond with the women that are in that particular room that you're first in. I can't believe she called you privilege. Yeah, right? Isn't that crazy? That is so funny. Yeah.

But mind you, I went to prison and I made sure I got spray tan. I had a tear. I had my nails. So you weren't helping your stuff. I was not helping myself because I didn't know. When's the first time you got like checked by another female inmate that really put you into reality? Like this isn't like a nice area. These are women, some of them there for like, you know, multiple years, maybe even decades.

Yeah. I had an issue with a Spanish woman who was there for 15 years and she worked her way down to a camp. She was a queen pin. And she liked me at first. And she thought I had a cell phone. And I didn't. And she wanted to use it. And she, it was visiting.

I was going to visiting. And I realized at that point in time that if I didn't stand up for myself, that was it. So I had a top bunk and I jumped off my bunk. I put my hands in my pocket. And I said, you know what? Go ahead. Punch me. I'll take one for the team because everyone wants you out of here.

There was no shoe. So the thing is, they would send the women to Brooklyn if they got in trouble the camp. They sent a special van to come pick them up. We would hear about that. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. It was like, so she, I was like, you want to go to Brooklyn? Because I know I'm not going, but you go ahead. I'll take one for the team. Punch me. And I stood right up to where. And when you stand up to the bully, they always. And she left you alone after that. And the CEO came in at that point because I was yelling, you know, at her. And I was just, I went black. I was like, okay, bring up the Italian in me. It's got to come out because I've got to, you know, and I was really, I realized, okay, this,

this place isn't just a, you know, club fed. It really was. It is, but it isn't. Right, right. You know, it's, no, you just said you had, like, a nickname for both the snow shoveling, but what were, like, the inmates calling you? What was your nickname you were donned on, like, the first week? I don't think anybody really called me anything, but Pol Ferrari. Okay. A lot of inmates, Yeah, a lot of, I didn't really know a lot of people still after, believe it or not. Like, even Dr. Clover, who was on your show, we didn't meet till after. Really? We were there together.

We were actually in the same dorm together. And we really didn't become friends till afterwards. Yeah, I have so many guys that I was in prison with that reach out now. And they're like, hey, I was with you. And it's interesting because everyone has their guard up and whatnot. Yeah. Now, my last question for you about prison, and then we can move on to what's next is, what's some rules that you've learned in prison that you never would have thought would have been

rules because they are not existent rules on the outside. And these are rules I'm talking that the inmates make for them themselves, not the prison. Well, we all know about the cafeteria. You know, there's seats that you have, seats you don't have, and you don't cut anybody in line, and the older women have respect. And what I never, you have to call them miss. And then there's the prison daughters, right? I was a prison mother, and I didn't even know it until somebody called me mom. And one of the women said, you know, that's serious. I still talk to her today as a mom.

And I said, what do you mean? It's serious. That is serious. Now, you have to be responsible for her. And every time the girl did something wrong, it's still to this day. It was my fault. That doesn't exist in the real world. You know, you don't have to, you could sit where you want in the real.

world. You don't have to make sure you're not sitting in somebody's place or at cafeteria, if there's two eggs left, you know, you can't take it because the two people at the end of the line that are, you know, they're theirs. These, they're not really crazy things. There are more respect. I think there was more respect in prison than there is in the outside world. They're really, if you think about it, you know, we call the older women miss, you know, miss so-and-so, miss that we had respect for each other and respect for the time that they were doing. And I think that for me, it's not about rules. It was about the respect that shocks me how much respect inside there is versus outside.

You know, I don't know about the men's prison. I mean, you've got a whole other issue, the gangs and you. All right. So you do this eight months, seven months out of your federal prison sentence at the Danbury federal prison, you go to a halfway house. Yeah, that's prison. Yeah, the halfway house, especially Connecticut, I was reading one of your articles that you went to a community solutions ran one. Oh, yeah. I went to the community solutions ran one in Waterbury. So you know. I know what it's like. The viewers don't really hear about halfway houses. What was that like for you?

And why was it so bad? Why was it worse than prison? Well, you know, your transition into supervised release. So I was there for five years. Then you're transitioned into prison. Then you're transitioned into halfway house. So you go from a camp where there's COs, and there's order at least. There's respect, like I talked about, to, you're transition to a halfway house, which is state and federal. So the first floor was four beds federal. The rest of the house was state. The bad thing is they immediately put a line between you because the feds have air conditions, but the rest of the house doesn't. So there's different rules for the feds in the state. The state could have iPhones, but feds couldn't. I could have my car there, but state couldn't.

So I'm in this halfway house, and most of them are drug-related crimes, or some of the women were violent crimes that they're in the halfway house. And there's like, I'm sitting laying there, and there's a basket coming up the side of the house with drugs in it. People would drop it and they pull it up. And there was no real guards. The girls that were there. Like kids that just got on college. Yeah, they're younger than my kids.

My case manager was my age, if not younger, and they're trying to put all the structure into your life. It's crazy. Yeah. They're strict. It was insane. And it's really tough because you have to really listen to them. So here I am self-employed.

I had my business. My title search business was doing well. It survived the seven months. My daughter really took care of it from college. And I wanted to go back and work for myself. So they didn't allow me to unless I took a paycheck. Yeah, you needed pay stubs. Yeah.

So I said, okay, I'll go work 15 bucks an hour. And there's no way. You have two degrees. You're two master's degrees you can't. Because I had to pay for my bed. So I was making $25 an hour that they approved me. They take a cut out of your thing. Yeah, they take a cut.

So it's almost like the only way I can go and work for my, you know, do my work was if they could have a cut of it. And I think it was 20% of my pay. And that's a whole issue with reentry. You know, that's why I just like joined an organization for reentry. That's, it's one of the biggest failures. You know, prison has its own issues in itself and prison reform and stuff like that. And that's going to take years to fix. But reentry is something that they could fix now. The fact that you're supposed to get freedom when you're going to these things, just for them to be even stricter. Yeah.

It's so hard. I remember there would be guys in these halfway houses that are like, take me back, violate me. I'll go do the last few months inside. I don't want to be here because they're so petty and it's these kids. They're not even C-Hos. Like you said, they're not. They are kids. They are young kids that are intermediate.

I think I went through two case managers because they were like, yep, I'm here just to do my six months or whatever and then I'm out. And then he had the head of the house who was just really straight. And every woman in Danbury said, don't go to halfway house. I'm thinking, are you kidding me? I want to go home. That's what I said, halfway home. I'm going.

And I should have done my whole time at Danbury because it was, you know, we had to, we had chores to do. So now. Foods worse. Food's worse. Yeah. So everything. So, but they approved my job.

So now I have my car. I drove home every day. at 7.30 because my office was in my house. I would drive home. I would work and have to go back to the halfway house to sleep. Did they give you home confinement at all at the halfway house? After. Yeah.

So I had to work for, I think, two weeks before I can go home on weekends. And I could just go home overnight for one night on the weekends and come back to the halfway house. And the halfway house was in the middle of a horrible section, inner city section of Harper where there was shootings. You know, there were drug houses around us. And I'm thinking, community solutions can't do better than this. They're getting paid millions from the government.

And this is what reentry is. And I was there for, I think, four months. And then again, you get transitioned yet again to home confinement. So now you're going home. Yeah, I could do home confinement. I'm getting calls in the middle of the night. And they're popping in. And they had to come to my work.

But my work was in my house. So I'm like, you know, they thought they were going to get away with coming once. I said, oh, no, you got to come on. You got to all the other women. You got to come while I'm working, too. So I'd make them come twice. Yeah. And yeah.

Halfway house home confinement is worse than, because I was on both. I was on halfway house and then the ankle monitor on probation. They would call you at 3 a.m. I would, my mom's a night owl. So I said, mom just wake me up because I'm not answering that phone call at 3 a.m. Yeah. It's crazy. They call the house phone, but you could set it to call forwarding and if you wanted to leave.

It's such a shanky, you know. Yeah, see, they checked my phone for call forwarding. I wasn't allowed to have it. Yeah, there's a way, they do that, but there's a way to turn it on and off too. Oh, really? Like, because you know, if they come on a Monday, that's it for the week. Yeah, exactly. Or if they come on a Friday, you know they're not coming on the weekends.

Yeah. So there's ways around it. Guys would do it. Yeah. That's crazy. What was like the hardest? I know you weren't in prison for that long, but what was like the hardest way to reintegrate with your family and society?

You know, it's funny is people say, yeah, you weren't there that long. I think one day in prison changes you. And when I left, I missed those women. I felt guilty that these women had such a long time. A few did exactly, a lot, did exactly what I did, and some had two, three years. And then there was women there that did less than had less of a restitution. And we're doing 10 years. The sentencing disparities were insane.

It put your life into perspective, though. It really did. and I learned a lot about diversity and respects. Now I get home, and I didn't think I'd have a hard time because I was working. And I just kind of went right back into working for myself and doing title searches to make money. And I didn't really, it didn't hit me for five years later because I immediately started helping other women. I made a promise to the women in Damary that I would work to help them. And I kept that.

I opened up evolution reentry services. And what's that? 2016. And that is a women's reentry organization that helps women prepare for prison. It helps women while they're incarcerated and when they come home. And it also helps families. So we have a weekly support group meeting online on Zoom on Wednesdays. And then we have a family support group on Thursdays.

And let me tell you, Ian, when I tell you, I learn. what I did to my family from that family support group. I can't do it anymore. I have somebody else who's a wonderful friend of mine, and I got to give a shout out to him. Bill Olivesi he runs the family group because I just burnt out from what the families go through. They're the ones that are collateral damage.

I had it easy, I realized. And I was so selfish. Like when I was inside, I would call my husband, I need money on my books. Not even thinking what he was going through. He was putting money from our credit cards just to get me through. People don't understand you've got to pay for your staying in prison. You know, he was paying $300, $400 a month because back then phone calls weren't free.

The phone calls are expensive, emailing they had in the system, the commissary, everything. Yeah. It's crazy. But he stuck with you. He stuck with me. That's what matters. Yeah, well, the poor guy. My mother was cooking for.

every night. So I came home. He was 20 pounds heavier because my mother was there every night. Were your parents supportive when you got home to? Yeah. My family was supportive. And again, nobody said, are you okay? What happened? How was prison? Did you see a therapist at all? Not at first, no. So I just went right into help mode, fix mode right again. But now I was doing it legally. You know, so I'm thinking, okay, I'm healing. But in reality, I was just doing what I was doing in a different way. And I got really, really obsessed with helping women and their families, and especially while they were incarcerated to keep them have support. Email with them. I stay in contact with them. I stay in contact with their families.

My husband speaks to other husbands. My kids speak to other kids. That's great that your kids do that. Yeah. How old are your kids now? My son's 30. And my daughter's, my 28. and then 27. Well, you know, if they ever want to come on the show, like, I would love to hear their perspective. Yeah. My daughter and both my daughters and I did a podcast together. Okay.

And it was what it was like from when mom went to prison. And that's your husband's daughter and your first daughter. Yeah, I had to. And then I adopted my husband's biological daughter. Okay. So that made us three. Brady one. And, yeah.

So they, I tell you, they were so supportive to me and so giving of themselves. And in fact, my son recently played at Rikers. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. The chamber symphony he's in, Chelsea Symphony, they, at the first symphony in the country that is played at a maximum security prison. And they've played twice at Rikers. So do you think this whole experience, even though it was negative, brought your family closer together? for in a more positive way?

That portion, my kids and my husband and I, yeah. We went through it in a different way than my brothers, my mother. They didn't have their fixer anymore. My kids held it together. And my husband had a lot of new responsibilities that he wasn't, you know, I had, I left him a, this is how you do this book. The poor thing didn't even realize. you know, how much I was doing.

And so it really helped him in a perspective of, oh, my God, this is the pressure that she was under. Yeah. And the re-entry part was just, for me, I still get, again, I get emotional about the family piece because my kids just were so supportive. of. And I think the communication portion of it was like I wrote them about prison. I talked very openly about, I didn't shelter them. There were women in prison that told their kids that they

were on vacation or they were in school or different things. I didn't do that. I didn't think that would benefit in any way. Did you have like friends, close friends that were curious about prison? Because I know I had a lot of friends that, you know, they're kind of scared to ask, but they'll ask because They're like, well, did you have sex in prison? Did you get into a fight, this? Are they asking you that kind of stuff? No, because I didn't really have a lot of friends. I thought I did.

They all leave. But they all left. And my best friend, I treated her pretty badly. And she did some kind of bad things too, and I covered for her and my niece, the same thing. So I had a lot of deep inside anger that I hadn't done. with. So we weren't speaking at that point. So I didn't have anybody except my family and who would ask. And I wasn't transparent when I first came home. It was terrifying. I don't want anyone to know. And then we come to a point where we realize we have two choices. We become

transparent or we put it behind us. I decided to be transparent because I didn't want to always look behind me and say they're going to find out. They're going to find out with Google today. And with, you know, I just didn't want that on my shoulders. If I'm being transparent, I don't have to worry about anything now. You have to own your past. Yeah. You own it, you put it out there. And then what can anyone say to you at that point? Yeah, exactly. Like if you walk into a room and, you know, you're not hiding anything, what can they say? You're just being you. You know, what can they do? And that's freedom, right? That's freedom. It's liberating 100%. It really is.

And when I started Evolution, I did that. I wrote my story out. And a friend of mine who also has a re-entry company, Progressive Prison Ministries, he put it on his page. And there was a ton of people who read it. And I got a lot of calls because a lot of women don't become transparent. Yeah. Now I was reading that you have a restitution of like $1.8 million.

How do you feel about that? And what's your plan? I'm angry. I'm angry because I paid Wells Fargo in full $315,000. And the government doesn't recognize that. They won't recognize that. My husband refinanced the house. Wells Fargo was made whole.

And the government's position is that I didn't pay it. My husband did. And that this is recent. And I was like, what difference does it make? Who paid it? it's paid in full. And then two of the other mortgages I ended up not being responsible for because they had nothing to do with them.

And so they were taken off, but they haven't credited me for that yet. Gotcha. And I recently got subpoenaed by financial litigation, which this is what people don't talk about, right? We talk about reentry, we talk about prison, but we don't talk about the fact that I am a felon for life. No one could take that away with the president. And we all know none of the presidents that are going to do that. They're not helping a small fish.

Yeah, we won't get into that. Right. But that's not going to happen for me. And you think that you're going, you've done your time. I've done some incredible things since I've been home. I went back to school. I got my master's in criminal justice. I'm getting my doctorate in criminology.

I've done a lot of things. And I still am getting harassed. and by financial litigation. I was ordered to pay $300 a month. I pay $300 a month. I don't, you know, it's now after the three years of probation because now they transition you from, again, halfway house to home confinement to probation.

And you're on probation for three years. I got three years. And after three years, you think it's over. I'm free. It's over. And guess what? You get that letter in the mail. Yeah, yeah, that letter.

you have 30 days to pay $1.8 million with an 0.11% annual interest. And I'm like, yeah, so I called up, this is eight years ago. I called up and I spoke to one of the women. And we got along really well. And she said, really, it's a form letter. We have to send out, you're good, you're in compliance. And I said, okay. Then you get financials.

They send you a financial affidavit that you're supposed to fill out. I refuse to. I've never filled out of financial since I, since I've been off pipe probation because I thought I wasn't in prison. I thought that I'm free now. And I do what I'm supposed to do. And I pay my restitution. I paid $315,000 to Wells Fargo. And anytime, I recently, I also, years and years and years ago, I gave a mortgage to a guy, a $30,000 mortgage he had out of a house.

I got a letter that he was getting foreclosed on, a Greenwich house and a New Haven house. So I called financial litigation. I said, hey, this happened. He's getting foreclosed on. If you put a lien on those houses, you'll get my, I'm in second position. I should get something out of it. They ignored it. They didn't do anything about it.

So I did the title searches on them, and I sent the title searches to financial litigation. I said, look, here's the title search. I'm in second position. Put a lien. Did nothing about it. I got subpoenaed recently. And all of a sudden, because I got subpoenaed, they wanted to look good. They put a lien on it and the house after they're both foreclosed on already.

And they sent a writ to the state of Connecticut to give them any money that was due to me. But I had told them about it a year ago. If they did it then, they could have more money for the victim. It's crazy. It's just crazy. there's no common sense, right, to the whole thing. So I hope your listeners get this, that, yes, I committed a crime. I was sentenced by a judge. I was judged and sentenced. But I'm still being judged and sentenced every day by financial litigation. So I'm still in prison because if I make two

dollars, they're going to take a dollar. So it truly is not just in a criminal justice system when people have gone to prison. They did a crime in the financial crimes. When they come home, many people have astronomical restitutions that they could never pay. Pay $1.8 million. I was in school for four years. I owe home. You know, what I... Well, you have life, and it's like, that's something I, like, struggle with. Like, how do you live a life and also try to make right of the past when you've already completed a prison sentence too. Yeah. And I don't think anyone has the right answer to that. And the government can be the government, you know, and, you know, it is what it is. I think you do your best every day. You get up. You do something you're passionate about. You work towards it.

And you don't ignore it, you know, like my plan is to pay off my restitution. And but I'm not going to like live in a box. Yeah. And pay, you know, everything I have every month for it. And but I always will say I wrote a letter to them. I said, listen, I sell this podcast, I sell my movie rights, whatever, they can have it all. I don't care. I just want to live a normal life. I don't need to be driving around a Ferrari and still owe the money like Wolf of Wall Street. Perfect example. He's got the mansion known to $100 billion. I'm living in a studio apartment and have a finance car. So like they could take a hike. Well, I think the biggest thing for them was they couldn't take my house. Because it wasn't my house. It too, yeah. It was my husband's house. And they couldn't.

take it. And my husband and I got divorced after I came home. And we went through a little rocky. You guys got back together, though? Yeah, we never really, we never really completely broke up, but his finances were intermingled. And he was going through a tough time. He supported me through everything. But now after it's over, he's getting judged. So I said, I'm divorcing you. We love each other, you know, why should you legally have to be responsible for anything? Do you still live together? Oh, yeah, of course, of course, of course. We've since gotten remarried. Oh, you guys got remarried. Yeah, after probation. We got, we got remarried after probation. And I just felt like during probation, they were just judging him so bad. And my family's been through and off because of me. So now I had

this guilt and he was like, you're not divorcing me. I said, well, you can't eat. You know, I am. And so we went through that during, you know, through probation, but we've always been together. And, you know, they think, I think people think I have so much money because I have a house. And what they don't see is I don't have any things. We learn that in prison. We live out of a locker. Things mean nothing to me. You know, in that house, I have a dining room table and three beds.

and a couple of side tables. I don't really have much. I don't buy clothes. I mean, you know that saying you can always rent like a Lamborghini or whatever just because you're driving around and it doesn't mean you have it. Yeah, that's the thing. The mortgage is low. It's $2,800 where most people would rent is more than that.

So I get subpoena and I go to court the same courtroom that I got sentenced in. Now the trauma. You know, this is the last couple of years that I really started. You're going through it again. Yeah, I'm starting to have some dreams. If I hear keys now, I'm, like, getting kind of flipped out a little bit from the guards' keys. And I think financial litigation, because this new attorney, Attorney Apoku, her name is, and I could call her out because that's the truth, she took over just six months ago. Now I've been home 10 years, right?

Well, eight years. and I've gotten along paid my restitution for eight years. I've missed a couple payments during COVID, but I even pay it on my credit card if I have to. And she decides she's going to subpoena me, and she wants me to fill out of financials, and I won't. I'm not an accountant. I'm self-employed.

I really don't know how much I make to the T. You know, I pay my bills. Evolution re-entry doesn't make any money. I help women for free. if we get donations, it's very minimal. And, you know, I'm not signing a financial form. And so she's asking me questions. I'm on the stand.

And she's asking me questions. And it was just her, me, the judge, there. I didn't go with an attorney. I had nothing to hide. And she says to me, your daughter's got married. And I said, one of them got married. And she said, how'd you pay for that? Who paid for the wedding?

I said, I did. How'd you do that? I said, well, you have my Discover card statement in front of you. You could see all the charges. I'm pretty much on credit cards. She's my daughter, you know. And did you not want me to help pay for her wedding? I paid my restitution, and I paid $315,000 towards Wells Fargo.

So they're paid. And she, you know, badgered me about, you know, what about jewelry? I think I was telling you before she said, you know, in the last, 10 years, have you had any assets that you gave away for less than you wrote? I said, of course I have. I have three kids. Right? Everything. They come, they backpack when they come home. They come home and they go home with wine and, you know. And yeah, my daughter on her wedding day was given my mother's rent. My mother gave me a ring that I gave to my daughter. This was a big problem. How much was that ring worth? I said, I have no idea. I've never gotten it.

I didn't get it to praise. It's been to the family forever. She badgered me. And, you know, I gave her everything they wanted. I printed out all my bank statements. She wanted my business bank statements. And my business since my daughter has taken over my title search company, it's not mine anymore. It's been passed down to my daughter because I do full time. I do with evolution and in school.

And they wanted the financials when I owned it. And they could see clearly the company did well, but it paid its, employees and it paid salaries and at the end of the year what I do used to do and I hope my daughter continues whatever was left in the bank account we split between all the yeah no owners draw no I split it between my title searches oh the title search yeah it's not a lot left and the title search business is you know it's very sloppy once again yeah there's going to be another you know so after all of this everything you've been through and your story is interesting because it's relatable to people in the sense that this could happen to anyone.

Like this could literally, it's one, that wrong decision can, you know, that's why people like my story because it's relatable because I could be someone's, you know, son or brother or child or whatever. So after everything you've been through, what's your message? What do you want people to take away from your story? I want people to know that good people make bad choices. We are not defined by the choices we make, but we are defined by how we handle those choices and go forward. And I was judged by a judge already.

I should not be sentenced again over and over if I apply for a job. Any woman that I work with, they apply for jobs. If they don't disclose, a month later, they're getting fired because they find out. If they do disclose, they're not getting hired. and they're being judged over and over and over again. I mean, when I applied for my master's in criminal justice, I went to Fordham for my master's in social work. They denied me because I had a felony.

I went to Albertus Magnus, who I love so much. And we're working on a bridge, a college-to-bridge program for Niantic right now. They're phenomenal. And people, women, men who come home from prison, need to be embraced, they've been through hell. And yeah, they made a bad mistake. They made a bad, I shouldn't say, I didn't make a mistake. I made a bad choice.

It was my conscious choice. But I handled it and I moved forward. I just got inducted into the Connecticut Hall of Change. But yet I got to go back. I got subpoenaed from August 29 because I won't sign a financial. Because I'm fearful of the government, you know. It's scary and it's traumatic. But Jackie, thank you so much for coming on this show.

today. It's been a great conversation. We wish you the best with everything you have going on. Thank you. To the listeners, the viewers will have your information in the description of the show. They could reach out to you, connect with you. Yeah. And we'll have to check out Teresa's book now to see where she shouted you out. Yeah, you definitely got to. But thank you so much, Ann, for having it. And thank you for your platform. There needs to be platforms like you have. So people do hear the realities that people, make bad choices. We're just real people. We're just people trying to get through life like everybody else. Well said.