SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia criminal defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Hello, everybody. This is John Katz. I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense law in Fairfax, Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution. I am delighted that we have with us today my second person who has been convicted and gone through the criminal justice system and the incarceration system, but this is a different situation. We're here with Felicia Donald. And uh she was convicted in U.S. District Court, federal court a few years ago. She got clemency from Joe Biden, I think it was last year. To my left off camera is one of her two lawyers, uh Brett Lee, who's a friend of mine, who's a local Fairfax lawyer. The previous defendant you heard from are uh is Susan Crane. And uh she um she openly says, Well, I did what I did. I hammered on warplanes, for instance, uh, but that was justified by international law and the laws of God. Uh, and then uh Susan willingly serves her her time. Uh here we are with Felicia. Felicia, please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Okay, I'm Felicia Donald. And um uh I was a practicing OBGYN doctor in Fairfax and Sterling for probably 30, 32 years. And I'm happy to be on this podcast to explain to you uh the criminal justice system that I uh participated in and uh the uh Bureau of Prisons and then the aftermath, what happened.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Okay, and not to jump around too much, but as a result of this case, were you able not to practice medicine anymore, or are you able to still practice medicine?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Well, as uh terms of the probation, it says I cannot do anything until after the probation is over with.

SPEAKER_04 2:29

Got it. Well, I don't know if I mentioned to you my medical background, which is very minor. When I was in high school, and when I realized I was not going to go to med school, I realized it's probably still a good idea to learn something about medicine. So I joined the paramedics club in sophomore year. And there I learned to say sphigmomanometer. But I understand some of the current medical professionals don't even say that. The cuff for taking blood pressure. And uh one of the funniest things was a man who became a uh an orthopedic surgeon, David Kramer, who was in my uh graduating year, he was one of my test subjects, and he thought it was very funny that I found him uh uh getting his urine uh in the glass ready in the bathroom. And I said, What's taking so long? And it turned out he was laughing his head off when I didn't find any sugar in there. He said, That's not urine in that glass, that's tea. And he put a bunch of sugar in there. So I guess that the whatever we we use to detect sugar in the urine uh didn't detect regular uh table sugar. Now with the more serious stuff. Uh what were you uh criminally charged with that you were convicted of? And uh what sentence did he get? And that was in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Correct. Yeah. I was convicted of of two felonies. One was uh the 841-1A or writing prescriptions for a non-medical reason, right? Conspiracy, and the other one was Medicaid and Medicare fraud, healthcare fraud.

SPEAKER_04 3:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

That that came out to be $2,700.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

So $2,700 for the uh Medicaid fraud.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Right.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

They said that was that was kind of a ridiculous felony to put on me.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Uh they just found five patients I hadn't written a chart, written a note on, and they said, okay, that's that's fraud.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

So and the basis, I I started reading the uh the statement of facts, your plea, but I didn't get through barely the most of it. And and the basis for alleging prescription fraud was why?

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Well, I had okay, um, I was a practicing OBGYN for many years, and um my my income was dropping, you know, with the insurance companies coming in and and uh big business coming in. So I looked at for other revenues to um increase my you know increase my um money. And uh so I got into being a med spa director because I like doing beauty things, and then um I had I had helped uh a couple friends of mine with their pain clinic when they when they were um you know not around. So I thought, well, maybe I could uh increase my revenue by by these two adding these two um two things.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

So okay, I got it. Now um I see on your online docket, you apparently started with David Dishley as your lawyer, and then did you start with him uh and I guess Sean Sherlock, and then you moved over to Brett Lee and Marvin Miller?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Okay, so what informed your decision to start with David and Sean and then to replace them with Britt and Marvin?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Okay, I was I had been working with the Board of Medicine in Virginia, and uh when I was explaining what was going on with my with my business, and where I had been totally open with the FBI agents, one of the lawyers said, you know, you should get a criminal lawyer. And I go, I didn't do anything wrong. Why should I get why should I get a criminal lawyer? So she goes, I just suggest you get somebody. I said, Okay. So they had given me a couple names in in um in Richmond and in Northern Virginia. So that's how I got David Dishley's name from that, from that, um, from that lawyer at the Board of Medicine.

SPEAKER_04 6:16

Okay. And um I'm gonna back up here. How did you end up being discovered by the uh federal agents? Because not everyone gets discovered doing actual or alleged crimes.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Correct. Well, okay. Um I basically had found out that the one girl in my office was had been writing prescriptions, and you know, I just instead of working it out with her and and I did fire her, I called the police, which was a terrible thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

You called the police about wrongdoing by someone else, when if you had stepped back, you would realize that might have uncovered actual or alleged wrongdoing by you.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Correct, correct. Or if I even yeah, even had hired a lawyer before this, exactly. That would have maybe they would have said, hey, stop, don't do anything, and you'll be okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

Let's pause right there then, Felicia. Yes, for all of you who are listening who might want to call the police about something, and if that might end up finding something on you, which could actually be all the time. I mean, or let let's let's face it, let's say uh I say to the police, someone stole my tennis racket from my car and the and the cops go search through my car. What if the police finds some residue of cocaine on there? Because there can be cocaine residue on the ground. I could have walked into the car and wouldn't like, yes, before you call the police to report a crime, why don't you have a lawyer help you out?

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

Now, if you had in this instance called a lawyer to help you out rather than reporting uh what your uh employee had done, would this have avoided any um uh any criminal prosecution of you, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yes, I think so. Yeah. Because maybe the lawyer, the lawyer would have looked at everything, reviewed everything, and just said, you know, just don't make any calls and yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

That's major. No, that's major.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I mean, you're never supposed to call the police. I mean, that's one major thing, and never speak to the FBI without a counsel. I did everything wrong.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Well, but you did you did things a lot of people do, including the well-educated people like yourself. If I'm not mistaken, I think that there was uh I think we learned in law school about this criminal case where one robber reported the other robber uh for stealing some of his share of the the ill-gotten gains, for instance. And that guy may have gotten the death penalty. Um where is it that you went to law to uh med school?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Okay, I went to um Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

Okay. And when did you graduate from there?

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Finished there in 1982 and then went on to uh do residency at University of Maryland and then uh moved out to Arizona because I had gotten married, and then finished up at East Carolina University in in OBGYN.

SPEAKER_04 9:05

And so you started practicing as an OBGYN specialist when?

SPEAKER_02 9:10

In 1987 in Fairfax.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Got it. Yeah. Now um so someone from the board said you should get a lawyer, and when they said that, that was after you'd already spoken to the FBI?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yes, yes, because they she said the lawyer said, you know, people they always twist things. You've got to really be careful. And I was like, okay, but yeah, that was after I had spoken to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:39

Well, well, not only that, correct me if I'm wrong, when you were speaking with the FBI where they were uh they weren't even recording the conversation, were they?

SPEAKER_02 9:48

No, they recorded everything, but they never told me that. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

Okay, well, I mean the benefit of them recording uh is they can't twist around what's accurately on the record, but then again, of course the the the the the record prevents you from denying something that you said that's proven by the record. So it goes both ways. Right. And what did you tell the FBI?

SPEAKER_02 10:09

I just uh the two agents came to my office and um you know I said said I found this, I found this one girl in my office writing prescriptions, and I realized that other girl had the other girl in my office was doing the same thing, and um, you know, I'd I'd called the called the uh local police and just said, you know, my some of my prescriptions are stolen and and they're written for other people and I didn't know who they were written for and just wanted this investigated.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

And how do the tables turn against you as a result of that?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Well, I gave them all the I gave them all the records there. I gave them my uh the other thing is too, is they go, Can we have your phone? I go, Yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

That's crazy, too. Yeah, I should have just I as I said I hadn't speak spoken to a lawyer yet. And so I gave them everything, and um I guess they found they they talked to the they talked to Kim, they talked to the other person, and you know, they they said, Oh, you were in cahoots with her, you were in a conspiracy with her. And so that's what that's how it turned around.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Uh something to say, Brett Brett Lee is here. This is uh one of Felicia's two lawyers.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, it's very interesting how a lot of these investigations progress, where again, people will come forward and they'll then play everyone against each other. So they'll have the people, yeah, they'll have the people who um they're targeting and they're looking at for this prescription fraud point the finger right back and they go, now we can up this to make it again a conspiracy. We can make everyone involved, everyone at fault.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Because just each one, if when the doctor prescribes a legitimate pain pill, yeah, the drug conversion tables make it go sky high because they make it into a marijuana equivalency that just makes every single prescription you write, even if you're writing a mild prescription for a patient, right? They find one flaw with it, they can say we can bring in a doctor who paid for by the DEA who will opine that this goes against medical practice, that you did something wrong, you didn't cross an uh T, you didn't dot an I, or you did you know something that just deviates from best practices. And the next thing you know, you've now got a felony and an offense level that already starts sky high and just goes up from there. And so massive leverage they can use to say if you go to trial and you're not getting acceptance of responsibility, and here's all the gory details, you're just gonna get crucified for lack of a butter, better word. So yes, a lot of times, you know, just just being charged can be financially ruinous for anyone going through the system, as you well know. Right. And even if you were able to successfully defend yourself, there's impacts to your reputation, the time, there's impacts to everything that goes on with what you would have to spend out of pocket to defend yourself and have a good defense. And again, it would be a battle of the experts. It would be their doctor versus your doctor, and to even participate in this process, you lose. Um, so that's that's one of the dangers about and a lesson to be taken away for anyone concerned, listening in the first place. You have to lawyer up, you have to keep your mouth shut. You cannot give away evidence of things that can then be used because again, they go through with a fine-tooth comb, they have the resources to do that. And if they go looking for trouble, they'll find it.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

Well, yeah, that's uh well said, Brett. Uh, I think one of the things I love about the Lego movie is they have uh Craggle, which is actually crazy glue with some of the uh uh letters missing. But I love telling my clients just put the proverbial crazy glue on your lips. You can always uh remove the crazy glue later on with uh with acetone. Right, right. Now, with you, was the basis of the prosecution uh just that uh there was an alleged conspiracy, or did it go to that that you were allegedly making money off of uh uh you know being known as someone who would uh prescribe uh pain medication without uh uh going through the full uh examination you needed to with uh with your patients?

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Well, they I mean I didn't really make any money. I mean, they they they of course they they always put in the uh records she never did an exam. I mean, they always put that stuff in. But I mean, I just had in the pain clinic, I only had 20, 23 people. So I was just seeing them a half a day a week, so but I wasn't really making, I mean, you know, making anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

I'm okay. So when you were speaking with these federal agents, they didn't even tell you were your Miranda right to remain silent, right? Because you weren't in custody at the time.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Correct, correct. Yeah, they didn't say anything.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

So that's another warning to our audience. Just because the you don't have to wait for law enforcement to tell you right to remain silent, you have the right to remain silent at all times with police. In fact, uh, I was recently having a discussion about uh that, you know, in some jurisdictions of the United States, including a few in Virginia, the police there's it's actually criminalized to refuse to identify yourself to police. But the U.S. Supreme Court shored that up in the Heibel case by saying that uh, well, the cops have to first have reasonable or takable suspicion to believe the suspect has committed a crime. And I go back to this crazy glue thing, you can identify yourself to police without even saying a thing. Otherwise, you'd be criminalizing people who are deaf mutes. The person can just hand over their driver's license, for instance, which a person isn't even required to carry around with if they're not driving, but but you get the picture there. So uh after someone from the board recommended that you talk to a lawyer, did you do that right away?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Well, I I I started calling people and trying to you know find a lawyer, yes. I'd spoken to maybe three or four different lawyers in Northern Virginia, criminal lawyers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

Okay. Well, I'm I'm friendly with uh David Ishley and and Sean. And since you didn't stay with them, and since you did stay with Brett and Marvin, and I'm friendly with Brett and I've known Marvin for years, let's go right to what how did you end up finding Brett and Marvin and what made you decide to hire them?

SPEAKER_02 16:10

I um what what had happened is after I signed the plea agreement, the the plea agreement, and uh I just I just was so I was just devastated, you know, because um I was just devastated and I I just said maybe maybe I should reverse my plea. Yeah, I didn't know. So I said, I I need to maybe seek other counsel. So I I searched one night and um online and I found Brett Lee and contacted him. And uh I was talking to him and he said he he knew he uh worked with this other lawyer, Marvin Miller, that had a lot of federal experience and had had been in front of the judge that I had. And so I said, Okay, well, let me go ahead and um talk with you and meet you.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

So okay, so you hired uh Brett and Marvin after you entered your guilty plea, but before you were sentenced?

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Correct. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

And uh how much time and uh and effort did you need to uh spend with your lawyers for um preparing for your sentencing?

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Well, I met I met probably Brett and Marvin um probably sometime in June. So I I met met a few times with them, gave them, you know, all my information. And uh Brett, you you had you had said to me you were going to look at everything and see if you want to take the case. And so I was waiting to get that, waiting to get their response if they would take over the case.

SPEAKER_04 17:37

Okay. And uh did your lawyers recommend for you to engage in any self-rehabilitation or self-improvement, such as mental health counseling or or uh community service?

SPEAKER_02 17:50

They well David Dishley had said you need to get you know psychology, uh psychological testing and things like that. So I'd already I'd already done that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

And uh yes, well actually, if yeah, if I can you know jump in here, John, uh-huh. Um I do want to talk a little bit sort of about the the strategy we put in place. We looked at two things. First off, uh whether there's a real basis to pull out of the flea, and then what the risk and exposure was to doing that. Right. There's you know, and that's the problem, is that the government, when they they make these one-sided bargains with you, they really put the screws to you. Backing out is incredibly difficult. Yeah, so it became an the answer became clear. There was not a graceful way to undo or renegotiate the flea, but there was an opportunity with developing the right mitigation profile to be able to do things. And you know, Dr. Allen, we're not I don't want to you to go into your specific health concerns unless you feel like it, but had a number of physical health conditions. Um, and building that mitigation package, going to the right specialists, going to the right doctors, doing the right things to be able to establish that not only was there a need for a placement in a medical facility, which again we we came to learn was going to be woefully under-equipped to actually still deal with anything she had to go through and experience, right? Um, but that was to come. Um, but at the time, you know, certainly seemed like a better option than just a general medium to minimal security prison, um, where things I imagine could have been even worse. But in terms of building a mitigation profile, we did hire specialists, we did get doctors, we did get a workup, and that in the end really did, in my view, make a difference. Um, Judge Brinkenbuster said so on the record, and it also showed in terms of what the government asked for versus what was ultimately sentenced.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

So uh Brent, you know, uh what do they say? Uh hindsight is 2020, but would you have uh would you advised Felicia to have accepted this deal if you were her lawyer at the outset?

SPEAKER_01 19:48

It's it's really yeah really difficult to say so because here's here's the thing the deal they offer you and the deal you want to accept are never going to be the same in federal court, right? But there's also the fact that you know what what does it cost and what does it take to fight versus what does it cost and what does it take to to not fight? Right. So there's never a right choice, it's always a matter of personal risk, it's always a matter of personal preference. Um, in the end, I would say you have to be true to your heart more than anything else. So um, you know, my client wanted to fight. If there had been a way to reverse that plea and fight, then that that is what she wanted to do. That's what we should have done. And especially because again, I think the context was really you had people pointing fingers back at her to deflect themselves, and it's a race to cooperate. And the problem is they raced and they got their cooperation agreements with the government because she didn't even realize she was a target until it was too late. And a doctor, a doctor is always gonna be a bigger feather in their cap than a you know a nurse or a you know assistant at a practice. So, of course, when they want to put out a press release, they're not gonna put out a press release saying, Well, we we took out some part-time assistant, right? For us, they want to be able to say, We got a doctor who is over-prescribing, you know, and put them behind bars. So it's there's a there's a political aspect of who they choose to charge and what they choose to do in these cases. Um, and that's you know, that's the government because they they use these cases to send a message and it's you know, they they could call it deterrence. Um, but whether they're targeting the right people and whether they're doing the right things by that, by taking doctors during an opioid crisis off the street instead of focusing this more on a board or rehabilitation process, a best practices process. Right. I mean, I think we certainly have a policy question we have to ask in our country. I think there's commitment on both sides that there's over-prosecution. I think we disagree about Yeah, there's over prosecution. Um, but I think we we disagree perhaps about, you know, where where it goes. I think one thing we could all agree on, though, is that if there's a focus on rehabilitation, you also want to rehabilitate professionals and you also want to have policies in place to educate professionals before they put themselves in a situation, you know. Best practice is how to protect your scripts, how to make sure that if you're in a situation um again, where you're you're you're caught between two different a rock and a hard place, really, which is if you report mail fees and the police, someone comes in and looks at you, and then they target you and they go through and they shred through every one of your records looking for any of your wrongdoing. Yep. You don't keep a perfect record who does, you don't keep uh you know perfect practice who does. Right. Um, but you know, it's it's really the the emphasis for the federal government is not on rehabilitation, it's on deterrence.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

Yeah. Well, you know, uh let me uh give uh Brett a chance to introduce himself and give a plug because the way this worked was uh uh Brett said to me a few weeks ago, you know, I've got a client who's uh might be willing to be on uh your podcast, and then we arranged this with Felicia, and I think I said to Felicia just as late as today or yesterday, hey, you know, if you want Brett Nandor Marvin to be with you on this, they'll be fine. So I I've got to increase my uh my uh AV media here because I'm just dealing with some computer uh camera. Otherwise, if I shined it on Brett, I don't even know who going the right direction. But Brett, give a give a plug for yourself. I think everyone can hear it from you and and and uh tell people uh where you practice and what you do.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Uh my office is in Fairfax, just down the street from John's. I do federal and state felony misdemeanors, traffic cases, expungements, uh, but it's all criminal-related practice. Um, the reason I've done it and done it for more than a decade, um, I think our constitution is an incredible document when we live up to it. And that's the thing, you're only as free as when you actually put your practices behind your words. So, my view is if we're going to say that we believe in rehabilitation, if we say we're going to believe in constitutional rights and fundamental rights and the presumption of innocence and not treating our citizens like criminals and not treating people who are accused of crimes like that's the only thing about them that's true about them. Um, we have to have people in the justice system like you, John, like I try to strive for, um, who stand up for people and show that there's more to them than just, you know, the worst accusation the government can put out that shows that there's something about um the situation that doesn't perhaps add up to what the government's asking for. Because again, it's a political process. Um, all prosecutions are to some extent political, that you choose your priorities, what crimes you enforce, who you enforce them against, who you're going to target, where the resources are going to go, where you allocate resources. And if we're a society that believes in rehabilitation and not just throwing people under the bus and hoping that they figure it out after we destroy them, um, then we have to we have to live that. We have to live uh that we have to hold our judges and our politicians and our defense attorneys and our prosecutors all to that standard.

SPEAKER_04 24:45

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Uh, what is your URL for your website? It's www.brettle.com, br-e-t-le-e-e.com. If you do Brett with two Ts, you'll find an Australian cricket player who's very good. But I'm Brett with one T. Um, and yeah, I you know, I just I I love what I do. I love being able to get to know people's stories. And I'll I'll tell you, um, you know, Dr. Donald has a terrific family. They had she had a lot of family support. She had a great support for her sister, she had a great support for her father, um, and she's still active in their lives, and they wrote great support letters for her. And again, it's one of these things where um, you know, if you go digging in anyone's life, I think you're gonna find things that you can hold them accountable for, and you're gonna find things that they haven't done perfectly. Um, you know, anything from you messed up your taxes to again in a complex medical practice where perhaps somebody goes on autopilot, um, are mistakes made or things done against best practices, you know, absolutely. I think you can probably find that in um any small practice and probably in the big practices too. And that's one of the things now. It's that you've now created an environment where there can be selective prosecution. Right. Um, and it's I I've heard this before, I use this term before the speeder's plea. Yes, you may have been speeding, you may have been out on the road, and you point to the cop and you go, but look how fast everyone else is still going. Yeah, right. And the cop says something along the lines of, well, you don't throw the fish back just because you didn't catch them all. Um, the the problem is that, you know, again, when you have selective prosecutions, you choose where to allocate resources, the politics, the bias, all these things can come in and be invited in. And again, we have to hold our officers, our judges, our prosecutors, our politicians to a high standard to say, are you being fair? Are you going after the worst actors? You're going after people who really present a danger to the public, or are you just, you know, taking the layups? Well, you're talking to the converter there.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

Brett, uh, how did you end up um uh deciding to team up with uh with Marvin Miller uh for Felicia's case? And how did you end up starting to uh do any collaboration with him before then, if you were collaborating with them before then?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

I I did. I was his associate for three years. We worked on a number of uh federal drug cases together, so I knew his trial strategy, I knew him inside and out, and I also knew that he he is an aggressive defense attorney, and I like that about him. And my personality is not to be all in people's faces, it's to be more, you know, kind of calm. So we're we're the kind of the yin and the yang, so to speak. We balance each other out, but we take the best aspects of each other's practices, and it let us do in this in this situation, um, sort of a good what I would call a good cop, bad cop kind of kind of play, where Marvin could could drive the prosecutors kind of crazy, and then I could smooth things over, and we could kind of play off that that ping-ponging them. And again, it it worked well. We got we got more discovery, we got more time, um, and we got some concessions. And in the end, we we set things up. Yeah, you you can't ever call when someone has to go to jail truly successful because there's a huge personal cost, there's a huge personal cost for Dr. Donald. Right. Could it have been worse? It could have been a lot worse, and the government was asking for worse. But you know, this is actually a really you know, this might be a good pivot point. I don't need to derail what you want to go to, but to to what her experience was once she was in the system.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

Oh, we're gonna do we're gonna do that, please, please and uh for leash you know that. But we've been talking about Marvin. Let's give him a plug. And is he a New Yorker? Because I I got a sense that he is.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

He sort of he has an affinity for the Yankees because of the great Yogi Berra. Um, so he he has connections to New York, his wife is from up there. Um, but one of the things I love about him, he's he's very much a Virginia gentleman, but he is also like what you would expect from a former radical, um, where you know, in the 70s he was organizing against and helping with protests against Vietnam. But you know, he was he was doing it with you know, being in law school and having that legal background and making sure that he coordinated well with like you know the the forces that kind of wanted to to crush and oppress these things. And um, you know, he's he's a very he's a passionate person. Um, so I'll I'll you know plug him for this. Um, he always fights hard for his clients, and that's a lesson where having worked from him, that's something that I've adapted into my practice. It was great mentorship. Um, and again, one of the reasons I think your original question is why'd I partner up with him? Um, a lot of experience, um, and also the fact that um with these cases, it can often help if you if you can afford it to have two different attorneys. So you get multiple perspectives, you get the ability of the attorneys to collaborate, use their their the best of their skills in each different aspect. And again, it can it can really help you when you have two people, and you're not just getting an echo chamber, you're not just getting like one opinion, right?

SPEAKER_04 29:26

Um, you know, the the yin and the yang. I mean, it reminds me when uh uh when a northern Virginia uh child pornography uh possession defendant after being convicted where in federal court before for child pornography possession said to me he wanted uh Miyana's case as the junkyard dog, and uh Bill Stevens in Prince William County is is the person who the prosecutor could maybe be relaxed with and you just go back and forth with the junkyard dog lawyer and me and and and and and the local well-like lawyer over there.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

And just you know, John, I I love your branding and your positioning of you know, beat the prosecution, but there's also times where you know if they're holding all the cards, you're gonna work with them. And I know you can you you can do that too. You get great results for your clients. But what I will say is that um it can be great when you have two people or a team of attorneys, and there's a reason why a lot of times, you know, people will go for can I get something that compliments each other, right? Like not just having a steak dinner, surf and turf, right? Like I get the steak and I get the seafood, right? I have a little bit of the best of both worlds and it just creates a great meal. Um, not an appropriate analogy for lawyers, but still kind of kind of a fun thought to have about um if you can afford the extravagance it often makes for a really, you know, it it offers benefits.

SPEAKER_04 30:42

Well, and also, I mean, this thing about not being in an echo chamber, you know, Brett, you got to join if you haven't done this. And you I think I've told you about this. We have uh uh my friend uh uh Chris Floor in Saverna Park, Maryland every second Saturday morning of the month for free. He gets together criminal defense and other people's trial or to prepare one of the people's cases. You'll find it's uh dynamite. You can either do it on Zoom or in person. Before we get back to Felicia, let's close the loop on Marvin and tell everyone where they can reach him if they want. Marvin Miller is in Alexandria, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:13

He's in Old Town Alexandria on Duke Street. Um, and he has had again close to 50 years of practice now at this point. It is a marvelous career. I encourage him to slow down. He has no signs because he's a force of nature. Um, but no, he is he is a wonderful attorney and he specializes also in additional plug-in for this. Um, he does a lot of appellate work with the Fourth Circuit, with the federal court, with the Court of Virginia, um, and both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. So for appellate matters, he is again as as passionate as he is in the courtroom, he's also passionate on paper for people's uh appeals and pleas and um other things that they, you know, they do in terms of getting all these, you know, the various things through the appellate court set up.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

And okay, and the final personal thing with Brett before we get back to Felicia is Brett, you are the second uh Philippine American lawyer on the show. Uh we had Freddie Sisson, who's a great uh former federal public defender from North Carolina on the show. And uh right up there, that's uh that's an award I got from the Philippine American Bar Association for being on their first CLE program uh way back when.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

I forgot most of my I lived in the Philippines for three years when we were stationed over there. I forgot most of the Tagalog, except for the expressions of frustration that my uh Filipino and Filipina teachers would use on me. But um, you know, it's it's it's a wonderful culture, it was a wonderful experience during my formative years to be there and to really partake. And um, you know, it not everyone gets to go back to where they're they have roots from. So it was okay, Felicia.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

So you got sentenced to seven years uh total or seven years and a few months?

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Uh 84 months.

SPEAKER_04 32:52

So 84 months, that's seven years. Yeah. And the prosecution was looking for four asking for 14 years. 14. Yeah, yeah. Okay. How long was this uh sentencing hearing of yours? And uh how much time did you spend speaking to the judge during that hearing?

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Well, Marvin had Marvin had you know given me a letter to that I had written something, but he goes, No, we have to keep it short and concise, and this is what you're gonna this is what you're gonna say. But he said, you know, the best thing he didn't want me speaking to her, he just said, just give her the letter. So that's what I did. I I presented her with a letter.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

So and how much of that letter was just written by you and and how much did your lawyers help to polish it up?

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Uh I'd say 50-50, probably. He polished it up because he he knew what she wanted, he knew what she wanted, and you know, he'd been probably to a lot of these um sentencing um meetings.

SPEAKER_04 33:47

So the way I like to do it is I first talk orally with my client, or maybe just give them uh some written points that I want them to address. And uh, and of course, yes, I mean I'll look over and give some pointers on polishing it off. But this way, when the judge asks uh my client who wrote the letter, my client can say, I wrote the letter. Uh, you know, John helped us some pointers once I wrote it in editing, but I wrote it and I wrote the initial draft and this came from my heart. Uh now, uh, what was the attitude of the judge? I mean, I know about this judge. I don't think I've been in front of her, but I've heard her speak at a lecture before. What was the attitude of the judge at this uh sentencing hearing? And and and what was the personality of of the prosecutor or or prosecutors against you? Were they were they kind of like wonks or or the prosecutor wanted mouth or what?

SPEAKER_02 34:38

The prosecutor just wanted to make me look as bad as possible. That's what they do. So I mean, he was just ranting and raving about you know about me and all the negative things and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

And what was the judge's uh general attitude, demeanor, and approach to this whole sentencing and and to what your lawyers were saying and and to what the prosecutor was saying?

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Um I think she was I think she was um kind of open and stuff because the prosecutor wanted me to initially charge me with obstruction of justice, and she said, no, she didn't do this. No, we're not doing that. So she was, you know, yeah, she was giving it.

SPEAKER_04 35:13

So the prosecutor wanted one of your guidelines to uh recognize obstruction of justice. Right, your sentencing guidelines.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Right. And she said no, that that's not in here. So that was good. So and also when I read back on the judges um during the uh when I pled guilty, when I read uh you know her read the uh transcript, she was actually trying to, you know, maybe help me with things, but I was so nervous and so um upset that I really didn't see that. So she was trying to be helpful at that stage.

SPEAKER_04 35:46

I get it. Now your prosecution started and got sentenced during the Trump administration, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:54

I was okay, I was um in in 2020. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

That's yeah, you didn't leave until January 20th of 2021. So this prosecution was happening during the thick of COVID.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Right. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

So when you appeared in court, was everyone masked up and distanced?

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Everybody's masked up and uh there was no grand jury. I did everything pre-indictment too. So um, yeah, there were very, very nobody was I could nobody was even in the courthouse hard hardly.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

Do you have any viewpoint about the extent to which maybe uh you wouldn't have been treated as harshly by the prosecution if your prosecution had been under the Obama or Biden administration?

SPEAKER_02 36:39

I really don't know because this is the first time I had ever um, you know, anything had happened to me. So I really don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 36:48

And we are gonna get to your actual incarceration, but my burning question before I go there is you were one of the uh hundreds of people or a thousand people who got whose sentence got commuted by Joe Biden. Right. Yes, that's you it was in 2024, well, well before his last day in office, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah, it was December 12th of 2024. What happened is I got out on the CARES Act. So then I guess that was out since June of 23. And um out of an 84-month sentence, I only did 30 35 months. Right. Incarcerated. So I got out June uh of 2023, and then I was at the halfway house on a monitor at my house until um December 20th of 20, 2024.

SPEAKER_04 37:39

And uh how hard or not was it to get uh the relief under the CARES Act and how much help did you need from a lawyer or lawyers?

SPEAKER_02 37:47

And was it uh once again Brett and Marvin or one or both who was helping you with that getting the Well the CARES Act really, that was uh that was the BOP and the and the case manager, you know. We knew that um the CARES Act was gonna end soon, and a lot of people, I was, you know, I was older, I had medical issues, and a lot of people were going to the case manager saying, look, do you think we can get into the CARES Act? You know, it's gonna end soon. So um she was actually pretty um, you know, she actually really helped me a lot, the case manager at at Carswell.

SPEAKER_04 38:17

So well that that's a whole lot different than the situation of uh Leonard Peltier the American Indian uh activist who was in prison for almost 50 years.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

And I took a I took a stab the morning of Joe Biden's last day in office. See, did Joe come to his senses finally? And he did. He uh he finally pardoned him, and and that was uh blood, sweat, and tears, an uphill and downhill battle over decades with the Lord's helping him out there. Yeah. What was your uh your medical ailment at the time of your sentencing? And is that what you still have? And is that what you had when you were in prison?

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Yeah, I had a I have a blood disease at polycytemia vera, and you need to uh you just need to make sure that the your blood count doesn't get up too high because you're uh you can clot. And so they need to follow that, and then they do phlebotomies on you where they drain a unit of blood off, and and and that was done, that was done at Carswell when I was there.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

Okay, so Carswell is located where?

SPEAKER_02 39:21

In uh Fort Worth, Texas.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

And uh did you request Carswell and and what made you uh uh and what did you have to do to uh to ask and convince the authorities to let you go to Carswell if that's what happened?

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Well, uh Marvin and Brett had probably said that she that I needed to go to a medical facility. So that they're the ones that um talked with the judge and she agreed.

SPEAKER_04 39:46

So and was it Carswell that was determined to be the best facility for you, or just a medical facility, or one of the better medical facilities?

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Well, at that time in 2020, Carswell the was the only female um medical facility for the BOP.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

So there's strengths in numbers, it sounds like for there to be more male, uh male federal inmates than women. I assume that the males would have had a lot more choices than you had for a medical facility.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Right, because I think they have Buckner and there's another one or something, uh another another medical facility.

SPEAKER_04 40:24

So what was the quality of your health care and uh over at Carswell?

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Well, okay, when I got there, um you have to see uh you're you're supposed you're supposed to see a doctor within 30 days, and they had three doctors there on staff. And uh Carswell actually is uh on the on a Air Force base, um actually a Navy base, and they overtook the old VA hospital, and that's part of um the prison is the hospital, and then they have a high-rise built right next door to it. So um they have a lot of the sick people on the fifth floor, and then have a lot of the terminal people on the fourth floor of the hospital building. The terminal people were there that had cancer and and you know, kidney disease and things like that. Um there was one doctor that was pretty um very good there and and listened to you and and tried to um you know get you seen when you need to be seen. Um but a lot of I I knew what to do because I was a physician, but there's a lot of people there that just didn't know, couldn't advocate for themselves when they had problems. So um, you know, I saw a lot of medical mishaps there, a lot of deaths and um problems.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

Well, okay, that's not just a mishap. You've seen death you saw death mishaps.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Yeah, yeah. People complaining of this, complaining of this, and then they never would get seen, and then that it's um they're almost dying, and then they finally get sent to the hospital and they they they get there and they die. I mean, it was crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:56

So there were people dying because they did not get immediate health care and or because they weren't getting the right health care?

SPEAKER_02 42:03

They weren't getting they weren't being taken seriously. You know, they would one lady they they just would complain and complain, and then okay, we'll get to it or we'll do this and that, and it just they just wouldn't do it. It's just it was terrible. So it was if you did get the right medical care and you got sent out to the facilities outside the hospital, outside the the cars. Well, you were treated fantastically. I mean, but you had to get to that point.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

So that's right. This is the whole flaw with you know a lot of things where we don't do quote unquote preventative medicine. This is an example of had there been preventative medicine in the system, had people, you know, you don't have things escalate to the point where they die, where they have to be sent out to an outside hospital and then they they suffer through everything they go through. And there's an analogy about preventative medicine that's just as true for, I think, criminal justice reform, which is if you stop someone's slide before they get to the point of recidivism and everything else like that, and you divert them and you address mental health, you address substance abuse, you address whatever it is that's that's causing the unlawful behavior, you have a chance to save someone before you have to invest a whole lot more resources into a plea worse situation.

SPEAKER_04 43:16

Well said. Okay, so uh Felicia, to what extent was were these folks not being taken seriously because it was just uh uh understaffed, not the right staffing, not the right experience, just thinking that these were uh the the the girls who cried wolf or or what?

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Yeah, there was one lady that had a hernia and she kept complaining and complaining, and they just you know, you'd have to go to the officers, and the officers were the ones that had a call down a medical and you know, things were just uh just avoided, you know, and then sometimes they would call down there and the medical staff would just not really take 'em seriously either. So um I just saw a lot of a lot of people getting sick there. So and

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Now, I remember that Gene Harris, who was convicted of uh uh murdering the Scars Doctor Scarsdale diet doctor, who had been her Paramora before. Yeah, and uh Bill Cosby when he was in prison, both of them actually seem to have carved out some way to make their uh their own time in prison more meaningful by thinking Gene Harris uh helping to teach inmates and Bill Cosby did something, I guess, to help uh self-empower people. Did you find any kind of niche to help out other inmates yourself?

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Okay. Um the inmates knew I was a doctor, so a lot of times they they had they wanted me to review their medical records, so I helped them that way because things were missed, so that was good. Um and then I I taught some classes, uh ACE classes, uh, which is adult continuing education education classes, and then I taught in the rec department too. Um and uh so that's those are the things that yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:11

And to what extent did you carve this niche out for yourself, or was this more like just uh did you say, hey, what opportunities are that I can do as a well-educated person, including with a science and medical background?

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah, I I just said what can I do to help help the inmates, right? Especially the medical their medical care.

SPEAKER_04 45:29

So I once asked myself now, if I was ever in prison, uh-huh, uh I I had this uh dark humor idea that if I was helping some of the inmates with their appeals or habeas corpus actions, if I was playing one-on-one basketball with another inmate, maybe one of my uh prison clients would come over and say, Hey cats, what are you doing playing uh playing basketball? And you haven't finished my habeas corpus petition yet. Yeah. I doubt that that kind of thing happened with you. That was just more dark humor on my on my part. Okay, well, let's get back to your health situation. So um were with you, uh, what was the source of the insufficient health care for you? Uh was it just that there were overworked or or or under uh uh under quality people over there, or you weren't being uh being given uh uh health care outside of the prison or what?

SPEAKER_02 46:25

No, I was I they they took good care of me because they knew I was a physician. So I had good rapport with the uh doctor there. Um I did have an eye problem that developed. And so uh when you're in the prison, and if you want to get something done, um you have to fill out these BP forms, you know, BP 8, 9, 10, 11. And it has to go, these forms have to go to first the local people, then they go to uh the the warden, then the four next form goes to Grand Prairie, and then the next form goes to DC to see if you can get anything done medically. So I I knew I would have to do this to get my eye surgery, so I started filling out those forms. It takes about seven months to get everything done. So in the meantime, I'd spoken to Marvin and uh I said, look, I don't know if they'll be able to, you know, fix this for me. But he goes, if they don't, we can get you out of there. But in the end, they did do this surgery and they fixed it for me. But that's just because I I just hassled them to death with, you know, paperwork.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

All right. So how much of these uh hurdles that you were able to overcome had to do with just damn bureaucracy and once again, just not being properly staffed or having the right staffing or or just these folks being overworked and under maybe underpaid and underappreciated?

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Well, it's definitely bureaucracy and it's also understaffed. They they don't have they never had enough correctional officers, and they were con officers were constantly doing two shifts and stuff, and a lot of people were retiring. So, you know, and then when I was there for the almost the three years or two and a half years, two of the doctors left and they were left with one doctor to for the whole whole prison. So, you know, they were definitely understaffed.

SPEAKER_04 48:11

So what is the solution to this quagmire?

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Uh hire more people and pay them better salaries. And uh I know that they I know that Trump just got rid of the retention bonus for the officers, which is terrible, you know, the correctional officers. So um I I you know it's it's just a a a quagmire.

SPEAKER_04 48:33

And maybe shrink the criminal justice system and maybe don't give uh sentences that are are so long anyway, and give options for people to leave earlier to to get help. Yeah, give give options.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

Maybe like the people that do money crimes, why not just get them to pay, work and pay? Why do they have to go to jail jail? You know? It's I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 48:53

So okay. So as you're sitting with us today, is is your health uh to what extent at all is your health situation any worse today uh by having uh been in the prison system and gotten the health level of health care you got than if you were never in the prison system?

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Well, I I my health care today, right now, is fine. I'm I'm I'm I'm doing great. I mean, my eyes working, my blood disease is the same, and it's great. So, but as I said, I got good care there because I was, you know, they knew who I was and I was on to it and you know constantly complained and advocated for myself. When you have these little ladies from Kentucky and Tennessee, and they don't, you know, they're they just they just sit there in their room and they don't, they're not advocating, and things happen. So it's just you know, it's sad.

SPEAKER_04 49:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Uh John, what I would say is, and you know, I I appreciate how gracefully Dr. Donald has has taken her experience there, but she she very nearly went blind because of lack of care. Okay. Not getting regular phabotomies like she was supposed to for the serious blood disease that she had um or still has. Um, and we wrote letters to the warden. We uh comments from her family about how inconsistent and lacking the care was. And again, she had a good outcome, she was able to advocate for herself, but it you know, she could have gone blind in there. Um, and there are people who had worse health outcomes because they didn't have an advocate, they didn't have family on the outside, pushing the lawyers to write letters to the warden. They didn't have her inside filing the right forms and knowing what forms to file. So part of this is also one thing a client um can ask for if they know they're gonna be sentenced to federal time, is also making a plan ahead of time for what's my support network going to be, who's gonna advocate for in the system. Um, and then also having a sense of you know what what resources are there to be able to try to advocate for myself. You have to be very careful that because there are people within the system will take advantage of you. You can't let people know you have a bunch of resources on your commissary because they'll start trying to leech off you, potentially put you in threat if you don't help, you know, give them extra candy, extra things in the conversation. It's a it's a delicate balance. But the other thing that I'll just tell you from my experience with a lot of federal cases recently and about the understaffing is very hard to get calls with clients in federal custody when they're working through appeals, when they're working through um any kind of you know just situation within custody. Um getting consistent contact, counselors change, access to the phones are limited. It's very hard for people to be connected with the outside. And again, if you if you want to treat people like people, right, right, you you need to be able to provide them with resources to stay connected to who they're gonna come back out with afterwards and to be able to, when they have problems, be able to identify them before they turn into crisis. And that's the thing. You think about what it costs a wrongful death lawsuit to the state, to the federal government, right? One of these things happened, you think about how preventable that tragedy was in the first place with a little bit of action, right? And it just, you know, it doesn't make sense economically, policy-wise, or just morally to put people in these situations.

SPEAKER_04 52:07

Well, once again, agreed. Uh, so do either of you have an opinion about the extent to which uh, if an inmate in your health situation you had uh Felice, you would have been better in a better worse or the same situation if their lawyer had been a federal public defender lawyer or a or a private uh practicing lawyer um handling the case court-appointed.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

I mean, the thing is, you know, when you go when you get a when you get a uh court court-appointed lawyer, you don't know what you're getting.

SPEAKER_04 52:41

Right?

SPEAKER_02 52:41

You know, you don't know how much experience they have and stuff. So that can be kind of scary. So, you know.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

I just didn't know, for instance, with the federal public defender's office, the the extent to which maybe they they do or don't already have the resources for uh for for pushing for their clients to the to get that kind of health care. I just I just don't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, so you you served a a little more than three years before you got released?

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 53:10

All right, so after you got sentenced, I take it you weren't locked up right away. You're waiting for yourself to be uh designated or or uh or are given a given a start date for going to your prison. No, I can speak to this.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Um the obstruction situation and how the prosecutor set up the case um meant that she she had been set back, she was in custody and was and stayed in custody in um Alexandria locally at the Alexandria during COVID.

SPEAKER_04 53:39

During COVID, which again had its own, you know, with that was a hellhole there during that.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

It was and they were there were deaths in that facility. Um and we were we were worried for every day and again, you know, we were able to go visit her, we were able to see her. Um but COVID was so unprecedented, no one was truly safe. And that's you know, in in a small way, the lawyers take some of us going to these facilities, but the fact is when you're holding people unnecessarily in facilities in the middle of a public health crisis, and it can happen again, right? We're finding around for its bird flu or who knows what will be next, right? But um it really does not feel like many lessons were learned from the pandemic. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 54:20

Yeah. Okay, Felicia, just in case there is another pandemic during our lives, what were you doing, if you could at all, to protect yourself against uh catching COVID from other inmates when you're at the Alexandria jail and when you're in the federal system and were you segregated and wearing crazy uh plastic masks or what?

SPEAKER_02 54:39

Yeah, we were wearing the masks, yep. And anytime anybody had a uh cold or anybody, they got swabbed. And if you were positive, you were switched away and put into seclusion. So, and that happened twice to me in uh Carswell. Came down with COVID twice, and they put you into a segregated area and lock you away for you know anywhere from five to ten days.

SPEAKER_04 55:02

All right. So being incarcerated in the local jail and in prison is no picnic to begin with. So am I correct that it was even less of a picnic, uh, even if someone, an inmate, did not have COVID, and even uh a worse picnic if you had COVID as an inmate.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Right. A worse, yes, definitely worse if you have COVID. Yes. Definitely worse.

SPEAKER_04 55:22

And I I mean, my understanding is there were there was a lot less interaction uh among inmates, including for for programs as a result of COVID. Did you even get to interact much with in other inmates when you were at the local jail and when you're in the federal prison system?

SPEAKER_02 55:38

Well, the local jail, um, as long as you were not sick and you were okay, you were in the general population. But if you had COVID, they would whisk you away. And then in in Carswell, there was no programming at all, hardly at all, during until um maybe tw late 21, beginning of 22. So again, if you had COVID, then you're whisked away, put into a segregated area and kept for 10 days locked up.

SPEAKER_04 56:03

So when you were talking about having helped other inmates at Carswell, you're saying that wasn't really until later on in your uh incarceration period that you were even able to help other inmates much?

SPEAKER_02 56:14

No, as soon as I as soon as I got there, um inmates would you know come up to me and they would get their medical records and and show them to me and I'd go I'd review them. So I was able to help help help some.

SPEAKER_04 56:27

Okay, so now you're you're out of prison for um I take it for about three months. How has that transition been? And with your unable to being unable to uh practice medicine at least during your probation period, which is how long? Five years? Uh three years. Okay, three-year probation period. Uh how are you spending your days?

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Okay, well, I'm I'm spending my days. I'm uh I'm working as a personal care assistant, you know, just helping with my brother. He's disabled, so that's good. I work on nights and weekends with him, and then um I'm you know trying to learn other other uh other careers and stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_04 57:10

So what state is it you're living in now? Virginia. Got it. Yeah. Now, Felicia, I really appreciate so much that you joined us. Uh, there must be so many former inmates that would really just prefer to put everything in the past, not talk about it, not reopen any psychological wounds. But let me tell you something, Felicia. You've done such a huge service to all former inmates, future possible inmates, current criminal defendants. I really appreciate it so deeply that you've joined us, and I've learned a lot as well.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

Yeah, no, well, it was very interesting. So, yeah, if I can help in any other way, let me know.

SPEAKER_04 57:51

Well, one way you can help, uh, you know, don't say it online. Brett will tell me where you live, but it'll be great to meet you in person sometime.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Okay. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

Uh, I told you we'd be together until four o'clock, and it's now 3.59 p.m. I want to give this as an opportunity to you, Felicia, to tell the audience anything you haven't said already or to emphasize anything you've already said.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

Just that the uh criminal justice system is terrible in the United States. It's just it's not fair at all. It's uh I never I just never realized it. I mean, I never had I never was in trouble, and then do this whole experience just um opened my eyes. And also meeting so many ladies um in in the prison with long sentences, one lady 280 years for what? We're not talking murder. We're not talking murder, we're talking another lady 44 140 years, it's crazy. The sentences are just astronomical. I I just I couldn't believe them. So that really opened my eyes.

SPEAKER_04 58:53

I I fully agree.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

Yeah. And you and I learned never to talk to the police again. Never.

SPEAKER_04 58:59

Exactly. You just smile at them. Yeah, just send them loving kindness. Brad, is there any parting words you wish to make?

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Just for anyone who hears this and like sees something in her struggle and her experience. Um, there are a lot of people out there who will support you. And I you just always look at, you know, I think it's inspirational how she got her way through this. Um, and I'm very glad that there was some discretion shown to her in the terms of the sensing, the CARES Act, the commutation, everything else like that. We have to work on rehabilitating people. That's right. Right. That's that should always be the priority. Unless you're going to put a bullet in someone, which we don't do anymore, thank God. You know, hopefully that doesn't change. But they're going to be back in society. If they're back in society, you want them to be successful. You don't want to be weighing them down, you want to be lifting them up.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

Totally agreed.

SPEAKER_03 59:47

Fully agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:48

I'm part of the choir on that. Yeah. Well, thanks both of you. Thanks to uh Felicia Donald and thanks to one of her two lawyers uh who was with her at sentencing and beyond Brett Lee and before. This is John Katz. I'm a criminal defense and DUI defense law in Northern Virginia. This is Beat the Prosecution. I don't know how many more times I'm going to say thank you. I'm just saying thank you for the rest of the month. You be good.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

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