Locked In with Ian Bick - The Crazy Things I Saw In A Women's State Prison | Michelle Gray

Episode Date: February 19, 2023

Smuggling in contraband. Prison Food. Prison Hustles. Prison Relationships. Find out what it was like for drug addicted Michelle Gray to spend time in a Women's State Prison and then turn her life around.  Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com/Subscribe to our membership program on YouTube to get early access to interviews, see behind the scenes photos & more:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvVklIft6DMelVW18M0oBw/joinPowered by Q29 Productions, LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Ian Bick, and you're tuned in to Locked in with Ian Bick. On this week's episode, I'm interviewing Michelle Gray. Michelle was convicted on charges relating to larceny and spent time in a woman's state prison. We all make mistakes, experience failure, and fall down in life. But if you decide to get back up and use it as fuel to your fire, you can choose to not let it define you. You can make it through to the other side and turn it into an opportunity. I went from owning a popular nightclub when I was 19. years old to becoming a federal inmate by the time I was 21. Join me, Ian Bick, as I interview people

from all over the country who have experienced the rock bottom of the American justice system. Michelle, welcome to the show. Hello. Shelly, right? Yeah, you like Shelly. Okay. And the intro we did, we're calling you Michelle, though. That's fine. Got to give your full legal name. That is fine. Awesome. You're our first female guest. Thanks for having me. I think the audience is really going to appreciate this conversation. I know we were very much looking forward to. to it because there's such a fascination with like a woman's female prison so we're excited for it. Oh, it's all it's cracked up to be and so much more. Awesome. All right. So we like to start at the beginning. Sure. How did you grow up? Where are you from? What was your family like and your

childhood like? All right. So I grew up in Stratford in Connecticut. My family life was great. My father was never really in the picture, but my parents were divorced before I was even born. Love my father to death, but really wasn't like an example in my life. My mom was a single mom. I have an older sister. My mom grew up in, you know, in Connecticut as well. Great upbringing. I did too.

I was a dancer from the time. I was three years old until 17. Lived in the same house, very steady. You know, nothing, nothing that would like trigger my future actions, I guess. Do you guys grow up lower, upper middle class? So my mom actually worked for General Electric in Fairfield, so she was like an executive assistant. We never struggled, so I never really had to worry about lights being off or anything like that, or my mom owned our house. So if there were struggles, it would not have been anything that I would have known, but I don't really, you know what I mean?

From what I can tell, there really wasn't. Went to school every day, my mom went to work every day. She went to college afterwards, and my sister did a lot of work. a lot of raising me. My older sister is four years older than me. So she did a lot of that filling in from my mom when she was working late and couldn't make dinner. So my sister would make like frozen meals or whatever mom would cook, you know, leave for her on a note on the table saying, hey, cook, you know, frozen, I don't know, frozen chicken terriaki or just whatever it was. So yeah, I grew up very, you know, very normal average, not too above our means.

not below our means, just average. When's the first time you tried drugs for the first time? I actually did drugs later in my life. It's hard to tell because now like pot isn't considered a drug, but I guess I would say maybe when I was like 16 or 17, you know, I like smoked, but I don't even think I was doing it right, so I don't even really remember. But I would say maybe like 16, 17 is when I started pot, but like the harder stuff came when I was later in life.

What kind of drugs were the harder drugs? So I would say I started off doing like pills, perk 30s. I think the reason I started is they were just there. They were accessible. They were cheap. I could buy a bunch of them. This was before like heroin and all of that stuff. And then later down the line when drugs started getting more expensive and nobody really

had them, it led for me to start doing heroin. What triggered that initial want to even try drugs? You know what? Everybody always asked. Like, I've been in programs and places, and they're always like, what was that big moment? I don't know. Everybody else was trying stuff. So I wanted to, and I just kind of fell down the rabbit's hole, I guess.

Do you think it was because of, like, the people you were hanging out with? Well, my sister was probably the first person that I ever, like, tried, you know, drugs with because I think I wanted to, like, fit in with her. Me and my sister are very opposite. We're four years apart. I was, like, the ballerine and cheerleader, and my sister was the horseback rider and didn't want to participate in school activities.

But I was all about school. We also went to two different high schools. I went to Stratford High. She went to Trumbull High. So we had two different groups of friends. And I don't know. I think I just saw my sister doing it with her friends. And, you know, I tried it once with her.

And because we didn't really have a lot in common with each other, I think drugs kind of like brought us together, I guess you can say. So there wasn't really like a big like to-da moment. Like, oh my goodness, somebody did this to me or it just wasn't like that. It was, hey, she was doing it. I tried it and like that. It just became something that had to be done every day, not because it was a want. It was a need.

Did you ever get into selling drugs? I sold a little bit of pot like here and there. nothing, I worked. Since the time I was 15 years old, my first job was Dunkin' Donuts, so I always kept a steady job. And at that point, you know, the way that drugs worked back then were a lot different than they are now. They were cheaper, they were more accessible and less dangerous. I didn't even have to go into these weird places of town. I could just call somebody and they would meet me my local Burger King while I was going through getting, you know what I mean, like chicken nuggets and I'd pull out and I said, here's the money and pass through the window,

have a great day. And then we would just keep going. At what point do you realize you're addicted to drugs? Probably about two weeks afterwards. I didn't really understand at that time what was going on, but my body was just not well. Like it just wasn't, I was probably 19 years old. So I smoked until I was probably 18 and then like the real hard drugs like the the pills came probably about 18 19 and I noticed I would wake up in the middle of the night and like I would do what addicts call like like the hyper extension you would just like your arms would start hurting your legs and you would start rubbing trying to like get that feeling out but I thought it was just because I was going to the gym and I think I tried to substitute the fact that I was a healthy person.

because I was a dancer, because I was a cheerleader. I don't know. It just, it really hit me when I wasn't able to function in everyday life. What's the craziest thing you've ever done to fuel your addiction? Probably, me and my sister used to go up and down between New York, Massachusetts, Jersey, Connecticut. We would go up and down this major drugstore brand and steal their vitamins. My sister would steal them. I would go to a different store and return them.

And while I'm returning them, getting a gift card to take to the pawn shop to get money for, my sister would be stealing more vitamins. You didn't need a receipt at all? No, because what happens when you go to a store and you don't have a receipt? What do they give you? gift card okay and then you would take that gift card and at that time uh before like pawn shops caught on they were giving you 50% of whatever the items were and my sister wasn't stealing like vitamin b she was stealing like 80 100 worth of pills and it was it was such a scheme that I look back at it

now and actually when I was driving on my way here I passed to CPS that in the back of my mind I'm like oh my gosh that's that's one of those places that's that I used to go and do this. And I can laugh about it now, but at that point, it was probably one of my lower, one of my lower times in my life. Was that the first time you ever committed?

First crime you ever committed? Probably. Yeah. Honestly, now that I think about it, and, you know, before coming here, I kind of sat back and, like, reflected on some stuff, which I tend to do on a regular basis now

where I am in my life. But I'm like, oh my gosh, I think that's where, like, the trigger went off. Like, that's where, like, my demise, I guess you could say, started. And unfortunately, it was with my sister. Did you ever try to ask anyone for help, try to go to rehab, try to get clean? I didn't think I had a problem. I always, like, blamed it on my sibling.

And it was just me and my sister growing up. So, like, the way that we went about things is that she would blame stuff on me, and I would blame stuff on her. and we would go to my mom, who was a single mom, before she married my stepdad when I was 14, would be like, who do you think it was, mom? And she would be stuck between a rock and a hard place because she's like, this doesn't sound like your sister.

This sounds like you. But then, you know, she didn't know who to believe. So it was just, it was tough. What type of struggles are you facing as an addict? Getting up in the morning, not feeling, like not feeling sick. I say now that I'm clean and sober, thank God. What I say now is there's a few things that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy,

one of them being unplanned pregnancy, unwanted, somebody in their family passing away and becoming a drug addict and that feeling. You know, my mom's never done drugs a day in her life. So to have two daughters that her completely, addicted. You know, it was a struggle for her because I almost like reflect on it, like, somebody who's not a mom telling a mom how to be a mom. How, if you're not a drug addict, how do you tell a drug addict what a drug addict does and who they are? So my mom was always the one trying to be like, if you need help, I will give you help. But I don't think at that

point, she really knew what those signs were because they weren't as predominant as they were a little bit later down the line, I guess you can say. What was dating like as an addict? Dating another addict. When I was 20, I started dating a guy who I was with for eight and a half years. I'm happy to say he's my best friend now. He's actually my oldest daughter. I have two daughters, two different fathers, but he is actually my oldest daughter's father.

We both were addicts, hardcore addicts, at the same time. We've been clean together. We've been non-clean together. Luckily, I can say we're both clean now. But it was hard. It was really hard because I would go to work to fuel not just one addiction, but two. You know, before I had my daughter, I was working all the time. And, you know, I had money to spend just because I didn't have any responsibilities for living with his mom,

at his parents' house, like, they're paying all the bills. So I was working as a bartender waitress, and for anybody who's a bartender waitress, they know, you know, you make a lot of money if you're the right type of person. And luckily, I was given the gift of gab. You got the personality. Yeah, so I was able to make a lot of money. So I'd be able to supply him with his drugs, mine with my drugs. And then enough drugs to last us in the morning, so nobody didn't feel well.

so I can go back to work to make more money to keep fueling the cycle over and over and over again until it just got to be too much. I had my daughter and I couldn't do it anymore. Unfortunately, during our addiction, my daughter's father, because he wasn't working as being a man, a man wants to be a, you know, he wants to be the provider. I think he got a little ashamed that his girlfriend was the main provider and I was making great money and I didn't mind but I think in his mind his own his own mental got to him so he ended up doing a exchange for a machine gun and got caught up up with the feds and the DEA and they ended up catching him and he went to jail for got five years first first offer they gave him was 25 years but luckily I hired a lawyer and I was able to

to get it five years and he was charged with illegal possession of a machine gun. You're like the girlfriend of the year. So there was two, I tried, there was two of our friends, unfortunately he was involved with gangs back in the day. No longer was when he was with me because I told him all that had to stop, especially when I found out I was pregnant. But it was just crazy and it was a blessing in disguise because. when he got arrested and luckily it went around the right way we were able to know when he was

leaving so I was able to prepare but I looked at him and I was like you know honey this isn't going to work while you're away like you know I'm in my mid-20s I have our daughter to raise I can't have you worry about me while you're in there because as we all know when you're behind those walls what happens on the outside is enough to drive you mad and I didn't want him to worry about if I was cheating, if I wasn't cheating. I didn't want to be with anybody else, but I knew he wasn't the right person for me. So we ended up splitting and he went away for almost three years and came back and we are now the best of friends, better friends. And people just don't understand it, but he truly is. He's a wonderful father. His family is great

and he's truly my best friend. Did you use drugs while you were pregnant? I did. I did. Did you think about the ramifications? Absolutely not. Not a clue. Had not a clue. At that point, like, the methadone and suboxin was not a thing. Like, there was, and if it was, it was so non-accessible as it is now, where there's education behind it.

There's things that back then, my daughter was born in 2011. You know what I mean? I'm like, oh, my God, if I stop using, I'm going to kill my baby, but what other way do I have? So I lied to my doctors, my entire pregnancy, and ended up having my daughter and regular birth and had to tell the nurses, hey, listen, she's going to withdraw. I was using pills during this time. So my daughter was in the hospital for intensive, not intensive care, but just like monitoring for three weeks after she was born. Did you ever have any near-death experiences with yourself as a drug addict? You know, I put myself in some really shitty situations with people, people, places, and things.

Never directly did, like, I think that things were going to happen to me, because at that point, when you're in such deep addiction, you don't really care. I guess you can, it's not that you don't care. You're just so infatuated with getting that drug that you could just care less about, oh, I'm dealing with the sleaze ball that's over here. and, you know, maybe there's somebody around the corner that's looking at me while I'm dealing with this person, but not really, like, nothing that would warrant me to be like, oh my God, was I really like, why was I doing what I was doing? I think just being more in places that I knew weren't acceptable with the way that I was brought up, you know, being in inner cities and, you know, trap houses. and even if I wasn't like hanging out of the trap houses, just being there in general,

my mother taught me better than that, you know? So I think once I was in it, I didn't see it, but then after I left, I'm like, oh shit, what was, like, what was I thinking? But that was after the drug was already in me. Eventually you end up committing crimes that land you in a woman state prison. What were the crimes that landed you in prison? So in 2016, um, I, Well, we got to go back a little bit before that is eventually I wanted to get some help.

I needed help. So I went to a program in New Haven at Cedar Street in New Haven, which was not only a, it's a methadone program, but it is also a detox program. So I was like, listen, I really need some help. So I went into the detox program, and I met my other daughter's father, you know, just picking those winners, as I always do. He actually, we met while he was being wheeled out from just having an overdose seizure. And all I saw was him laying on the gurney with a pair of Jordans. And like at that time, I was such like a chaser of who's got money and who's got this, who can help fuel me.

And I just didn't see anything past it. So I went to the detox program. And then I was supposed to go to a rehab. And I ended up going to the rehab for a day. And before I left for the program, instead of them issuing me like a ride immediately from one place to the other without dealing with anybody, my daughter's father ended up coming back. I gave him my number. And what happened is he called me. I get to the program and I hate the women I'm dealing with.

Like they tried to steal my money, my cigarettes the first day because, you know, granted now I'm, you know, pretty, not huge, but I'm a bit, you know, I'm a bigger girl. I used to be 110 pounds soaking wet with all the drugs I did. And they were just trying to run all over me. Well, what I do, I pick up the phone and I call my daughter's father, before he was my daughter's father. And I say, hey, listen, I got to get out of here. I can't stay here. But if I stay with you, I'm staying.

Like, I'm not, it's not an overnight thing. Like, well, I'm staying with you. And he ended up picking me up, leaving a party he was throwing, picking me up. And we were together for four years. After three years together, we had a baby. And I don't speak to, I very rarely speak to him at all. He's clean and sober, too, but he's just not somebody that I want in my life anymore. So it's just funny how, like the world, I guess, can come.

I had to date somebody like that in experience. experience that and unfortunately my daughter is going through that having to deal with like a stereotypical deadbeat dad all because her mom chose to make a decision while she was I wasn't like heavy active using but I was still using at that time because there has been times where at that point in my life where I was clean sober clean sober but or clean not sober excuse me but those non-sober times had no, like, had no merit because the decisions that I made will forever somewhat haunt me. So when you're with him, you start committing crimes? Oh yeah. So we, back in 2016, I was working as a home health aide, had a great job. My daughter was six weeks old.

And I wasn't using with her, but I was on methadone. She had to stay for monitoring in the hospital, but because I was clean, sober, good, everything was great. I would take her to work with me sometimes just because I worked with a lovely family and I'm forever, forever in my heart. I'm so sorry for what I did. But after my daughter was probably two, three months, I ended up getting back into drugs

and ended up stealing. The wife was, it was a husband and a wife, an older family, and I was going, being their caregiver. Well, I found a bag of jewelry. And I just went rampant and just took all the jewelry. And, you know, I was like, oh, my God, what am I going to do with all of this? And I ended up pawning it. And I should have known better because I told him and he didn't want to pawn any of it.

So I ended up haunting it all. And you get caught right away. Yeah, that was my initial charge that caused my life to kind of, that's, that's preliminary what got me incarcerated for six months. Eventually you get sentenced to prison for that. I actually got sentenced to prison twice. So the first time was because of that is, actually, to be honest with you, I'm not 100% sure. I think it was, I was supposed to go up to court. It was a failure to appear.

I was supposed to go to court, and I don't show up. And then I ended up getting into an accident with somebody. They end up taking me. and I end up going from the Stratford prison system to Bridgeport to court. They say, oh, you're going up to Nianic. So I go to Nianic, which for those who don't know is the women's prison in Connecticut, and there's only one women's prison. So no matter where you are, no matter what your charges, everybody goes to the Nianic.

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Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. And a night there or if you're going to spend the rest of your life there. Everybody goes there. How many chances did the court give you before ultimately giving you a six-month sentence? One. When I get up to jail the first time is they found drugs in the back of my phone. I immediately thought I was going to go into like the medical building, which everybody has spent seven days. And all of a sudden I get put into a separate room and they throw red scrubs at me. And for anybody who knows, red scrubs, they're throwing you in the shoe. And I had no idea why I was being thrown in sec.

I had no idea. I'm like, I didn't do anything. Like, I didn't do anything besides this charge. And this was like my first. This was like my virgin period being thrown in. So they throw me into the shoe. Then two days later, I go to court and they release me on a PTA. Say, hey, listen.

Which is a promise to appear. Yes. Promise to a pair. They say, hey, listen, you have to show up at court this day. You have to go to probation and just check in. While I go to court, they give me another court date, but they also tell me to go to probation. I don't show up to probation. The next time I go to court, they throw me into jail.

That's when I spend six months in Nianic. We hear a lot about men state prisons. We don't really hear a lot about women's state prisons out there. What's it like for you being a woman in a woman's facility? It was tough. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't like like Orange is the New Black. So just for those who have that idea, it really wasn't.

I felt that I never felt unsafe, but I never felt safe. very minimal is given to you. You spend the first seven days, like in a medical unit with one, two, three, four. There's like six people in one cell, four of them, you know, two top, two bottom. And then they bring these things called boats out, whereas if there's an overflow, they will put boats on the ground. And they literally look like a, yeah, but it's not a cot. It looks like a boat. It's made out of plastic because they need to fit as many people.

on that medical unit because everybody is required to spend seven days in medical. This is to make sure like you don't have tuberculosis to make sure that you know if you need to go and see any of the doctors or anything like that before they throw you out in general population. They also need to take time so that you can meet with the psych doctor that you can meet with the OBJYN so that you can figure out what level you're on because I a perfect example is when I was in medical the there was poor lady. She was like 70 years old on the ground. She was there for larceny and she was 70, but nobody wanted to give up their bunk to let the lady, who probably shouldn't have been on the

floor because she was using a cane. Nobody was giving up their bunk to let this lady up. But then I also had another woman who was just convicted of murder. So there was a little bit of everybody thrown in. And a rule of jail is you don't ever ask somebody what their charges until they tell you what it is. And, you know, it was difficult because you're like, why is this 70-year-old grandma next to this 16-year-old person who probably stole next to me stealing, you know, jewelry to feel my addiction? So it was a little bit like all over the place. And you really didn't want to ask questions. Or at least I didn't from what I knew of what the rules of jail were, I guess you can say. What's it like to be a drug addict thrown into prison?

I was luckily on methadone at that time, and methadone was introduced to women's prisons. So I was on a steady dose, so luckily it didn't affect me because they offered it in the prison system. It probably took 24 hours for me to get into their system from them calling my program and figuring out, you know, how much I needed, and once the last time I got medicated and things like that. But I probably, you know, honestly, I went into jail high, so it didn't really make a huge difference to me if it was 24 to 48 hours because I still had drugs in my system. Is there any abuse going on by staff, male or female against women inmates? Oh, I would, not that I like physically saw, but the stories that I've, you know, that I've heard of people who have who've experienced things. I'm super lucky where it never really happened to me.

I think more of the not so much abuse like physical, but more of the verbal abuse, you know, the inmates being called bitches or sluts or things like that. Oh, you're dirty, you're nasty. By the staff. By the staff. Oh, yeah. I remember when I got thrown,

after I was done with medical and I got thrown onto the general population, me and my bunkey, one of my bunkeys out of my bunkeys out of many. She, her and I got into a tift, or she got into a tift with one of the CEO workers on the floor, the correctional officers. Well, he threw everybody on our tier into their rooms, and so we're sitting on our bunks, and all of a sudden, he comes in, opens the door, tells us to get out, puts our faces against the wall, and tears our room to shreds. Two shreds, I'm telling you, rips everything, all of the photos of my children off the wall, everything that you can imagine takes our beds off, all of our bedding, all of our hygiene products, toothbrushes on the floor,

actually through our hair brushes in the toilet. And we asked why, he said, because I have the right to. And what do you say? Okay, we didn't get a ticket, we didn't get written up, we didn't get anything, but he just did it because he wanted to show his dominance, I guess you can say. He wanted to say, hey, you're the inmate, you know what I mean? I'm the officer. You do as I say. How are you getting money in prison? Do you have a prison hustle at all? I do. I do, actually. I'm a really great braider, so I had braid hair. But also, too, when I was spending the seven days in medical, I learned from one of the other girls who had already been there to ask the girl that goes around and does the cleaning and the food distribution because when you're in medical,

it's almost like being in the shoe. You can't get out. You get 22 hours. You get one hour in the morning out, one hour in the afternoon out to like use the phone just to walk up and down the hallway. You don't go outside at all, but to use the phone. But all meals are fed back. So the girl that distributes the food is, she was actually, she's actually still there. Hi, Green Eyes, love you. she is there for murder and she is the one who I spoke to who told me, hey, fill out paperwork for a job. So after spending the seven days, I applied for jobs that don't require any kind of classification. For instance, laundry is one of them, working food, you know, food distribution. So I applied for both of those.

And after I got put out on the general population and we went in to go for Tao, I saw. the person who's the one that does the hiring, I guess you can say. And I said, listen, I'm really trying to find a job. He said, okay, well, the only times I have is the 3 o'clock in the morning shift. And I said, sold. So then two days later, I get pulled out of my unit that I'm in, moved to a different building. And I started my job working from 3 o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock every morning. How much are you paid?

25 cents. 25 an hour? A day. A day. Oh, a day. Oh, a day. Oh, wow. The total was $125 a week.

Wow. And that helped? Yeah, I guess. I had a little bit of money when I went in, too, I guess, just from having, you know, in my pockets. Plus also, too, is my mom set me $25 every two weeks. And I just stretched it, you know, is I was really lucky is when you become a worker there, you live in a building with the other workers. Once there's room, like, so once somebody gets fired, the new person,

gets moved from that spot and they kind of switch spots. So I ended up moving into this girl's unit who my bunkie was working in laundry. So we had a hustle. She would take extra sheets, pillows, blankets. And when you are put through the system, you get all your clothes stripped. Even if you come in, you can come in to the prison system with a white shirt, a white sports bra, like white haines underwear, white socks, and black and white white. sneakers of certain kinds. But no matter what, everybody gets stripped of that at the beginning and they get bagged up and brought to laundry so that can be processed.

Well, sometimes girls don't get bonded out while they're in the medical building. So they just leave their shoes and stuff there and they go out with whatever they have on because they'll go to court and then they'll just go home. So my bunky would take those leftover shoes or, you know, shirts or sweatpants or or whatever, and because she worked in laundry, we would dye them with bleach. Everybody wanted bleach because the women's prison, we wore jeans, a maroon t-shirt,

and ugly, like, little white kids. So with jeans, you take bleach and you can tie-dye them. So it was a way for the girls to be, like, individualized. But if you got caught by the COs, they would take it away from you. And of course, bleach is considered a deadly one. weapon so you would be thrown into the shoe for that too. How do you get paid for your prison hustles? What's a currency in a woman's prison? It depends. Some people do food. Like when I would braid hair, I would say, hey, listen, if you're making food, throw me a plate. Or let me use your TV

for an hour. Or let me borrow your headphones. Or if you have phone time from 7 to 740, let me switch with you so you have the later slot and I have the beginning slot. So It all depends. Or you call home and tell your mom to put $20 on my book and I will do your hair for the rest of the month. Or, you know, it just all depended on what you wanted, how much of it you wanted, and how much you were willing to spend. What's the craziest thing you see in a woman's prison? This is a good one. So my bunkey, excuse me, my bunkey was transgender.

And her girlfriend lived across the hall. transgender as in transgender it was a girl who was masculine her name was frankie lover to pieces her uh her girlfriend was in there for murder and lived right across the hallway from us so we could see each other you know if you stared at if you were in lockup you could see through her window and she can see through ours so frankie and her were always constantly talking and it wasn't horrible and when I got headphones, but before I got headphones, it was just like they were constantly like banging, tapping on the wall. And I didn't realize why they were doing it.

Well, in between when there was breaks, they were making a woman's toy, I guess you can. Like a sex toy? Yeah, sex toy, yeah. I forgot, like, the proper name for it. What they called is they were taking, they were making a dildo pretty much. And Frankie,

said, hey, listen, I'm going into the bathroom with my girl because we had showers on our floor. So there was shower on the left, shower on the right. The shower on the left had a little bit more privacy, whereas the shower on the right, you could see feet underneath it, whereas the shower on the left was just like a regular tub shower. So she would always go into the one with her left because she would close the curtain and close the door. So if a CEO came, she could push her girlfriend against the wall and it only looked like she was in the bathroom. This is some orange as a new black shit. So in that aspect, yes, but you know, Frankie would be like, hey, listen, I will give you a new pillow or I will give you, I saw this girl come in and she had a pair of champions and she's

not picking them up. I'll bring them to you, do me a solid and give me 15 minutes with my girl. So what happens? They just took her. She screws her girl on the bathroom. Is there a lot of sex going on with women alone? Absolutely without a doubt. You didn't even have to finish that question. Did you have a prison girlfriend? I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I, I wouldn't not consider it. You know what I mean? I think everybody's beautiful, women, men. But also, too, is what I did notice is there at one point,

there's a lot of seminars about, like, HIV and AIDS, and they were always pulling people out. And then once I got released, I realized the amount of women in the correctional facility that I was at who have some type of sexual disorder or sexual problems, HIV, AIDS, HP, chlamydia gonorrhea and there's one i keep forgetting the name that it's like three different ones all together that they normally call like the girls that were prostitutes that have it

because when you go through the medical system they ask you hey do you want to see a doctor and 50% of those women maybe more say no which i have no idea why because a lot of them have just been selling themselves on the corner and you can tell those certain girls that you can tell those certain girls because when they go to the bathroom, it's not a pretty smell, if I could say the least. In men's prisons, we hear the term gay for the stay. Does that apply in a woman's prison? And do they still have husbands at home? And they're just, wow. Absolutely. Absolutely. There would be girls that would be, you know, doing stuff with their girls down at the end of the hall where the cameras wouldn't reach or, you know, asking the girls all the way at the end.

Because the way that the prisons are is there, I almost like to call it like an L shape. You walk up the stairs and there's a room here. There's another room there. And then there's a hallway. So it looks like a capital L. So when you get far enough down the hallway, those cameras can't reach because there's no windows. There's no sunlight. There's no lighting down there.

So they would ask the girls who live at the end, hey, listen, can we borrow your room? Because during rec time, even if, you know, even if they weren't going, you know, you know, down to outside or whatever the case may be. I was there in the winter, so nobody went outside. And the gym was closed. They would ask to rent a room. I kid, do you not rent a room, and they would go down, and the two girls that were living there would step out,

and they would do their business and walk out. Like, nothing happened. They would be playing cards outside the door. What's the contraband like in a woman's prison? Are there cell phones, drugs? Not really cell phones. It was really hard because the whole facility is pretty much, you know, compounded in. And I would say that there is a little bit.

Women think that they're smart, which they're really dumb. This one girl tried to put a vape up her vagina. But they ask you just like men, they ask you to bend over. They do the same thing for women, bend over. spread them cough, but we spread two instead of one. You know what I mean? So I'm like, I'm looking at this girl while we're sitting and holding and I'm like, she was really trying to put a vape and the liquid to put in the vape in her inside. Yeah, she didn't make it very far because it dropped out. So, and then she got, she got herself another charge for trying to bring contraband

into the jail. Are there any well-known woman prisoners or celebrity prisoners at the prison you're at? There was. During the time I was there in 2019, there was a woman named Michelle Tricone, who's known in the Westport area, Jennifer Doulos and her husband, I forgot her husband's name.

Doulos is the last name. Apparently, Jennifer Doulos went missing. This was back in 2019, 2020, she went missing. And her five children were left with family. Apparently she's missing. and her husband and the girlfriend, Michelle Tricone, was incarcerated with me for a very short period of time, but she wreaked havoc on that place. The entire, the entire place went on shutdown. And the reason she was there is because she was being accused of being an accomplice.

Apparently, a little bit after a while after that, her boyfriend, she was like the secret, not secret girlfriend because they were in the process of a divorce, the douloses were in the process of a divorce or separation, but she came in for a small period of time, and I was working in the kitchen, and one of my buildings was the shoe, and they put her in shoe because she's a high profile, you know, celebrity, I guess, or she was well known. She was horrible. She didn't want to eat the prison food. She didn't want to change her clothes. So every time we would go ahead and put her food on the table and the COs tried to put it through the door, she would throw it outwards. I guess she went on like a fast for like five days because she got brought in on a Thursday,

didn't bond out until like the following Tuesday. So there were not so much like celebrities, I guess you can say, but well-known cases. What's a commissary like in a woman's prison? Those damn cookies. Oh my God, those old meal cookies will have. me dead. You know, just women, the smart women, normally, which is not a lot of the women, but if you're smart, they give you very bare, minimal, like toothbrush, toothpaste, and it all is very generic. Most women, including myself, what I did is one of the reasons I started to work in the kitchen, I said, oh, when you work in the kitchen, you get extra food. So I figure, okay, so if I get extra food, that'll help me bulk up a little bit because I was

a toothpick. But in addition to that, I can spend the rest of the money on shampoo, conditioner, actual toothpaste, you know, a real toothbrush, a real brush, deodorant, things like that. Most of the women, when they go through their commensary at first, they always get hygiene products because you do not just like a kid in school, you don't want to be that smelly kid. What's a food like? Certain things are great. Other things are gross. For an average inmate that doesn't work in the kitchen, what are they getting served?

There's a thing called White Girl Wednesday, which is, it is Kosla, it is fruit salad, it is fruit salad, actual salad, and cottage cheese. That's a lunch and a piece of bread, two pieces of bread, actually. That is a white girl Wednesday lunch because when they give it. you the platter, it's white. Nobody touches it. They might pick like the grapes out of the fruit salad, but the food is not something that you would write home to mom about, I guess. There's certain meals, like the basics, like the rice, the gravy and rice is good. There's certain days. They don't obviously give you a menu. So once you start your first month there, you'll see inmates that'll start writing down, hey, Fish Friday and, you know, Hot Dog Tuesday, and they start creating

a calendar of what foods, just like at a elementary school where they send you, you know, the lunch schedule, but the schedule is the same. Do you get served special meals on holidays? Not really. Like, maybe an extra cookie. Maybe a little extra food, but like it's not like they give you, They try to do like turkey dinners for Thanksgiving or like try to appropriate it towards what it is. But other than that, do you have a prison nickname? What are they calling you inside? White girl, Shelly. White girl Shelly.

I was one of the only girls that can actually braid. And the way that I braid is not an average French braid for those that now is I do it the opposite way around. So I was able to braid the black girl's hair and not have them come out looking wild. be like as if they were to go to the salon, but, you know, if the girls wanted two braids back, I could do that, or I would try different styles, especially on my bunkie. My second bunkie was great. She was a stripper. Her name was cash. She's still great. I still talked to her this day, but she crocheted. So what she would do is she would crochet bras and underwear for inmates. Like, and I'm not talking like the basic stuff. I'm talking like beautiful pieces.

for people and they would want to wear them. And this one girl who was locked up for a while, she had somehow got acquired a camera, like a Polaroid camera, maybe from a CEO. So I braided her hair while Cash made a, made a bikini for her, and she sent it home to her loved ones. Are female inmates hooking up with male staff at all?

Not that I saw. They try to keep them separate, you know? It's like through the great. find rumors that it's happened, but none that I saw. Also, there's really not, when I was there, there wasn't a lot of movement because it was pre-COVID. It was like, COVID happened in 2020, like March 2020, and I was there from December 2019 to about that time, you know, about that time. So they were just getting like through the rumor mills. So they really didn't let us go anywhere. So I've heard yes, like from other people, but at that point in time, I didn't see anything myself.

In TV shows, you hear about women selling home their underwear as a hustle. Does that happen? Absolutely. And they're getting paid big money for that? First of all, you do not want those lovely granny panties that anybody. But the women are very, it wasn't so much the underwear that they were sending home. They were taking the underwear of the granny panties and turning them into sports bras. So it wasn't them sending it home because you couldn't because when you send a letter,

you'll seal it, but the COs will open it before it gets sent out. But it was the other women who wanted the women that knew how to make sports bras out of, you know, out of the CO given underwear. And it was more like through the yard than it was to be sent home. So you finally get out of prison eventually. You're done with all that. Are you still committing crimes? post-prison and getting into trouble?

Yep. And then you end up going back to prison? I did not, actually. I did not. You go on probation? I go on probation. So I get released. Luckily, when COVID hit, they call my name over, you know, the surround speaker in my tier. And it's Friday, and I was working, so I missed my

commissary. So I was assuming on a Friday, that's the overflow. I assumed they were going to send me down to commissary to pick up my stuff. And there was a lady standing in the tier. I was in the shower, standing in the here in the center of the quad and she had a clipboard and we all know when you have a clipboard there's two things that can happen either really good or really bad and I'm like thinking to myself

as I'm walking down the stairs I'm like did I do something wrong did I I didn't steal anything from the kitchen this week or you know thinking to myself and she goes all right am mate gray and I said yes she's like go pack up your stuff you're heading home and I'm like you're joking with me right because I was expecting nine to 18 months. Because you were back on a violation. Yeah, because of the violations. And they gave me a charge because of having the drugs in the back of my phone. And, you know, just little, little things that were all adding up.

And they weren't giving it to me as concurrent. They were doing, you know, one after the other. So I was assuming nine to 18 months. And they were like, hey, listen, you're being released on a PTA. You have to show up to court in two weeks. So I'm like, all right, great. I was like, but I just ordered $250 worth of commentary. Can I go and pick it up?

Because me being the person I am, I know I'm not getting that money back. So why not play Santa Claus to everybody in the tier and just start giving away everything that I had? So the court gives you another chance? Yeah. Is this when you turn your life around? Yeah. Yeah. After all of that happens, I get released.

And it took me a little while to get like my feet on. the ground. What's the hardest thing about being a felon post-prison? What struggles are you facing? Really just staying away from the people that I was like the people that I had in my life before that, you know, the dealers calling my phone, the people that I thought were my friends that I used to get high with. You know, just the day-to-day life is you get so used to this kind of cycle of waking up knowing you're not feeling good, having to go to the methadone program, and then going to get high afterwards, and then, you know, sneaking around. And the fact that I didn't have to lie, cheat, or sneak around was a little bit thrown.

I was thrown off by it. I'm like, oh, my God, I have to be a productive member of society now and do better for my children. Were you still struggling with drugs at that point? A little bit on and off. Yeah, there was times where I was like six months sober and then I wasn't. And then there was just one point where I'm like, I'm just done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm completely, utterly, totally 100% done. How old are you when you made this conclusion? I'm 34 years old.

So at 34 years old, you finally say to yourself, you want to, you know, put the crime behind, put the drugs behind and get on the straight and arrow? It was been a little bit before because, what, we're in 2023. I would say in 2021. So I've been sober. I've been clean and sober off of all drugs for, I would say about two years. count after the first year and I'm actually glad that I lost count because I didn't want to be one of those people that it's like you know knocking down the days of of oh I have 365 after a year I'm like great do you think your kids were a motivating factor absolutely without a doubt you know I've never lied to my children my youngest daughter who's six about to be seven she didn't really know any any different I've always lived with my parents for the most part so having that support for my parents and her being

so young. She really didn't know anything. On the other hand, my other one, once I came home and, you know, I was really there and able to be an active parent for not just one, but both of them, but my older one, she kind of knew, and she saw the change. And I'm probably a better mother now than I've ever been in my life, ever. What do you do for work now? So I work at a dance studio in Westport. So I am an administrative coordinator for a dance studio. studio in Westport. And I absolutely love my job. I love my students. I love my boss. I just, I love the people I work with. And it really gives me a day to day of what to do and how to keep myself on the straight and narrow. Now, there's a lot of young women, young moms, even, you know,

older women that find themselves in your position in life or the position you used to be in. What's your advice to them? Someone that's battling drugs, committing crimes, maybe facing prison time or will eventually face prison time? What do you say to them? Just don't give up. Don't give up. If you, there's so many resources. If you want them, you need to use them. And maybe my biggest thing is people, places and things. Change the people you're around. Change the places that you used to go to to newer places. Change the things that you used to do. And keep yourself with a schedule. A schedule as drug addicts, most people, you know, love repetition of stuff. Even people that smoke pot, you wake up, you break up the trees, you roll it and you do things, where when you sober your life up and

you need to make a routine of waking up, even just making your bed, brushing your teeth, doing your hair, taking a shower, keep a routine and maintain that routine and your life will become so much more productive than what you thought it was. I mean, I think it's great, Shelly, I think you're definitely a role model for a lot of women. I see so many, even people I went to high school with, they go off, they have kids, and they're still out and about doing the same bullshit, they're partying, they're hanging out with the wrong men, they're going back to the wrong men because of drugs, alcohol, whatever. And I don't think a lot of them, because they've gotten so many chances with getting lucky, maybe not getting a DUI or not getting arrest.

but then they see a story like yours where you went through all that and you went through that shit and you're able to come out on the other side. Hopefully that gives them hope that, you know, they don't continue on down that path and they can turn it around because you and I both know that it could go very bad if you don't turn it around. Yeah, you know what I mean? And if you don't do it for yourself, like, of course I have my children, but if you don't do it for yourself, you're never going to do it for anybody. You can't do it for the court systems.

You can't do it for parole probation, your mom, even your children. If you don't want to get that help and you don't want to become active and a, like I said, a productive member of society, I always joke with my boyfriend about this. I am a non-lying productive member of society. Yes, it's hard, but life is hard. You know, so, you know, I'm always here if anybody ever wants to talk to me about it or, you know, feel free. Instagram, Facebook, feel free to find me. Like I said is I'm pretty new, not so much new, but I have a lot of background in this. So, you know, I know what it feels like to be on both ends of the spectrum.

And I will assure you, as being on this side is so much better than I could have ever imagined. Thank you for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being our first female guest. Very glad to pop that chair. We are, we're excited to see where life takes you and continue to be on the straight and arrow and, you know, go out there and show the world that your past doesn't define you. Absolutely. Same to you. Thank you.