Possession = 5 years in prison
So, I was 21. I think I’d had one traffic ticket at that point in my life. Yes, I was hanging around some shady characters, yes, I was experimenting with drugs and yes, I was completely ignorant about the so-called “justice” system.
I answered the door the day after Christmas in 2000 and an unfamiliar woman handed me a package.
She said, “I think this got delivered to the wrong house.”
It was a large manilla envelope addressed to me with no return address. I hesitated as my dad’s voice came to mind.
“Never open anything that doesn’t have a return address,” he had always warned me.
It was the day after Christmas, I was out of my mind from finding my boyfriend after he had hung himself in my basement a few months before (but that’s another day and another chapter).
So I opened it. I was on the landing at the top of the concrete steps in front of my house and I opened it. Before I could even figure out that those were coffee grounds spilling out onto my lap, before I could even see what else was in the mystery Christmas package, about 10 plain-clothes TASK force agents had appeared out of nowhere.
“Are you Molly True? Is this your house?”
“A drug dog hit on your package at the post office. There is an 8 ball of cocaine in there.”
“Where did it come from? Who sent this to you? Who were you going to sell it to?”
“I don’t know, I mean, I have no idea who sent it. I seriously don’t even do coke. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You can either give us permission to search your house now, or we will go get a warrant and tear your shit up and charge you with every illegal thing we find in there.”
“Go ahead and search it.”
The package was taken out of my hands by a TASK officer before I even had it all the way open.
I never saw the “8-ball” of “cocaine” that was allegedly in the package.
The officer would not let me touch the letter or the 2 Polaroid photos that were in the package.
The “8-ball” of cocaine turned into “2 grams” in the police report and then “about a gram” in the parole board report…
I never met my public defender. When I went to my final sentencing, he sent his partner, who told me, “If you sign this paper, you will get out of jail today.” Of course I signed it.
He failed to tell me that I was being sentenced to 5 years of probation and if I did not comply in any way, I would be sent to prison for 5 years.
The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world.
2.2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S.; that’s 1 in every 110 people.
Over 50% of federal inmates are being held for drug violations.
Due to inefficient legal representation, the “war on drugs” and what I believe to be a police set-up, I was incarcerated for 5 years of my young adult life. I was locked away with murderers, rapists, child molesters and other violent criminals....Ultimately, because I was addicted to drugs. I was stricken with the disease of addiction and I was locked away with criminals.
As a result, I not only carry the stigma of being a recovering addict, but I am also a convicted felon. I cannot vote, I cannot own or possess a firearm, I get pulled over and am subjected to random searches when police run my license plate and see that I am a convicted felon, I am not eligible for many jobs… plus an array of other bullshit hoops I have been forced to jump through.
This is my blog detailing the injustices I endured throughout my incarcerations, the inhumane abuse I suffered at the hands of various and numerous correctional officers, the dark humor I was able to come away with from the trials and tribulations of other inmates I encountered along the way and my sometimes appalling, sometimes funny, yet always entertaining stories from my extended time-out from life.
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