Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waterers.
Speaker 2: This podcast was recorded on Hey, I'm Jemma Bath, host
Speaker 2: of true Crime Conversations and did you know that the
Speaker 2: team at Mamma Mia is bringing you over one hundred
Speaker 2: hours of the best content from your award winning podcasts
Speaker 2: for the Hot Pod Summer of your Dreams. Well, we
Speaker 2: are here at two Crime Conversations. We've handpicked some of
Speaker 2: the most chilling and thought provoking episodes from our feed,
Speaker 2: including gripping cult stories, powerful interviews with crime victims, and
Speaker 2: in depth accounts from women who have been incarcerated sharing
Speaker 2: the journeys that led them to that place.
Speaker 3: And that's just the beginning.
Speaker 2: Today, I'm bringing you the story of Cassie Sainsbury from
Speaker 2: No Filter, another amazing podcast on the Muma Mea network
Speaker 2: hosted by Mia Friedman. In this episode, Mia chats with Cassie,
Speaker 2: who for years was branded by the media as Cocaine Cassie.
Speaker 2: Here she talks about prison life, the abuse, the relationships,
Speaker 2: thee and what happened afterwards. Here's the original episode.
Speaker 3: Take a listen.
Speaker 1: From Mum and Me I'm mea Friedman and you're listening
Speaker 1: to No Filter. My favorite interviews to do on this
Speaker 1: show when I go in thinking that I know someone,
Speaker 1: I've got a sense of them by what I've seen
Speaker 1: or what I've read, and then after the interview, I
Speaker 1: come away with a totally different idea. That's the kind
Speaker 1: of interview you can hear today. The name Cassie Sainsbury
Speaker 1: probably doesn't mean anything to you, but if I said
Speaker 1: cocaine Cassie instantly, I bet you'd have an image and
Speaker 1: an idea in your head. Here are the facts in
Speaker 1: case you've forgotten them, because I kind of had. Cassie
Speaker 1: Sainsbury was caught with almost six kilograms of cocaine in
Speaker 1: a Colombian airport in twenty seventeen. It was concealed inside
Speaker 1: eighteen headphone boxes and the media went nuts. They were
Speaker 1: so so excited about this story. You knew you were
Speaker 1: being asked to deliver cocaine. Finally you've admitted I knew.
Speaker 3: It was in it.
Speaker 1: I feared for my life some massive organized crime enterprise.
Speaker 1: It's huge because the last time a pretty young white
Speaker 1: Australian woman was caught smuggling drugs, her name was Chappelle Corby.
Speaker 1: It was back in two thousand and four, and she
Speaker 1: spent ten years in a Ballei jail and was responsible
Speaker 1: for countless interviews and stories and a huge amount of
Speaker 1: media coverage and public interest. She'd been released ten years later.
Speaker 1: Just three years before, Cassie was caught with drugs, so
Speaker 1: the narrative was written instantly. Silly young girl serves a right.
Speaker 1: Whyant earth did she think she could get away with it?
Speaker 1: Cassie pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to six years in
Speaker 1: a notoriously rough women's prison in Colombia, and the conditions
Speaker 1: were pretty shocking. This interview is about what happened to
Speaker 1: Cassie in jail and what happened afterwards. She went into
Speaker 1: prison engaged to a man. That relationship ended and she
Speaker 1: got engaged to a woman. She was stabbed, beaten and threatened.
Speaker 1: She spoke not a word of Spanish. She made enemies
Speaker 1: and friends, and she fell in and out of love.
Speaker 1: She was terrified and defiant and determined and incredibly smart.
Speaker 1: Her resilience was next level, and three years later she
Speaker 1: was released into a completely different life which she has embraced.
Speaker 1: Put your expectations and your preconceptions aside and enjoy this
Speaker 1: conversation with Cassie Sainsbury. Cassie, do you remember, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you do, your first night in prison.
Speaker 3: I do remember that that was horrendous night. I think
Speaker 3: it was actually quite daunting going into prison to start
Speaker 3: off with, and obviously already knowing that I was looking
Speaker 3: at a thirty year sentence and I looked in there,
Speaker 3: and I'm looking at the people and I'm thinking, why
Speaker 3: do they look so comfortable? Like you would see women
Speaker 3: who look like they were having the time of their life.
Speaker 3: And then I'd see like women walking around with babies,
Speaker 3: and I was like, what is going on here? And
Speaker 3: obviously later I found out that there are women who
Speaker 3: were pregnant in prison actually give birth there and the
Speaker 3: baby will stay with them until they're probably three or
Speaker 3: four years old. Oh wow, which is be hard on
Speaker 3: a child to grow up in those circumstances, considering they're
Speaker 3: basically paying a sentence with their mum without even realizing it.
Speaker 1: When you were arrested at the airport, how long were
Speaker 1: you at the airport? Four?
Speaker 3: I was arrested and immediately I was taken from the
Speaker 3: airport and in budal To an anti narcotics center which
Speaker 3: is basically off of the airport, which I stayed there
Speaker 3: for forty eight hours, which in that time I was
Speaker 3: given my accusation hearing, and then from there I was
Speaker 3: taken to a men's retention center.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: If I thought, you know, it wasn't scary enough.
Speaker 1: That was.
Speaker 3: No words, no words. It was just quite daunting being
Speaker 3: there and being the only woman.
Speaker 1: Were you safe there? Like how many men were around?
Speaker 3: There were at least one hundred men. There were moments
Speaker 3: that it was quite questionable whether I was actually safe
Speaker 3: to be there or not, considering I didn't speak the
Speaker 3: language yet. In this area because it's basically underground, this
Speaker 3: retention center, police don't care. They actually help the other
Speaker 3: people that are there get drugs, smokes marijuana, and so
Speaker 3: they are smoking. And I have quite severi asthma and
Speaker 3: I just had an asthma attack, and the police were
Speaker 3: basically saying that they wouldn't help me unless I paid
Speaker 3: for help.
Speaker 1: In the movies, in on TV, when someone's arrested, they're
Speaker 1: allowed one phone call. When you're arrested and you're at
Speaker 1: the airport, I assume they took your phone away? Were
Speaker 1: you allowed to contact anyone?
Speaker 3: I was quite lucky that one of the police officers
Speaker 3: who were looking after me, I think he kind of
Speaker 3: had a bit of a soft spot for me, and
Speaker 3: he actually let me use his phone and his face
Speaker 3: walked to get in contact with my mum, And obviously
Speaker 3: at that time, my nanna actually replied saying, you know
Speaker 3: what a sick joke you're playing? When I was why
Speaker 3: would you say that you're dapping Columbia and they're thinking,
Speaker 3: are you kidding me? Why would it occur to someone
Speaker 3: to even make up a joke about something like that.
Speaker 3: But basically, when I did ask to have a phone call,
Speaker 3: I was told no. When I was arrested, I was
Speaker 3: told that I'd have a lawyer and the translator come
Speaker 3: and help me through. I guess the first lot of
Speaker 3: paperwork never showed up either. I was told that I
Speaker 3: had to sign a bunch of paperwork that I had
Speaker 3: no idea what it said. And then basically, yeah, then
Speaker 3: I was just shipped off wherever I was saying, where.
Speaker 1: Did your family think that you were?
Speaker 3: My sister knew I was in Columbia, but at that
Speaker 3: time I did not have a relationship with my mom
Speaker 3: or my dad. Really, I was quiet out on my own.
Speaker 3: I've always had my differences with my mom.
Speaker 1: Did your sister or any of your friends know what
Speaker 1: you were doing in Colombia?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, No one knew.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of gaps to fill in.
Speaker 1: I imagine once you started to talk to people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So I remember when I spoke to my
Speaker 3: sister and my mom, and you know, they were like,
Speaker 3: what happened? And I just said, you know, there was
Speaker 3: a hop of drugs found in headphones. And this is
Speaker 3: where I medituated that I had bought headphones as wedding
Speaker 3: gifts and that you know, the drug was inside of them.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, I never said I'd bought them
Speaker 3: as wedding gifts. I don't know if maybe they were
Speaker 3: trying to put some pieces together. And when my mum
Speaker 3: and sister actually came to see me in jail of
Speaker 3: the first time, they basically said, look, we know there's
Speaker 3: lots of things you're not telling us. When you're ready,
Speaker 3: you can tell us when not going to force you.
Speaker 3: It's obviously something that has a lot more detail to
Speaker 3: it than anybody's capable of understanding in these moments. It
Speaker 3: was nice to feel that they were giving me that
Speaker 3: trust to obviously open up when I was ready and
Speaker 3: I had processed everything. But in the meantime, everyone else
Speaker 3: was kind of starting to form their own versions of
Speaker 3: what happened, and I had no way of, I guess,
Speaker 3: coming out and saying, well, no, guys, that's wrong, because
Speaker 3: the only times I had a chance to even speak
Speaker 3: out it was never on my turns. It was always edited,
Speaker 3: it was always I guess, tried to make it sound
Speaker 3: more interesting.
Speaker 1: When did you become aware of the nickname Cocaine Cassie.
Speaker 3: I don't know when I became aware of it. I
Speaker 3: think it might have been when my mom told me
Speaker 3: that's what they were saying, because at the start it
Speaker 3: wasn't Cocaine Cassie. I think people are still quite unsure
Speaker 3: of I guess how things had gone down, and maybe
Speaker 3: reserving that judgment until they were like, yeah, no, she's guilty.
Speaker 3: But when she did tell me, I obviously I didn't
Speaker 3: like the name, but it just went hands in hand
Speaker 3: with what that happened. Like even until today, I don't
Speaker 3: like the name, and obviously it's such a defining name
Speaker 3: if you hear you go on, yeah, she had something
Speaker 3: to do with drugs. At the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I've kind of just accepted the name without letting it
Speaker 3: affect me anymore. Working through the ropes process, I guess
Speaker 3: to try and change that perception that I have. It's
Speaker 3: not easy, but I mean, even if it's one person
Speaker 3: out of a hundred that I managed to show the
Speaker 3: real me, it's just worth it because I'm not a
Speaker 3: bad person. Then you know, I did make a really
Speaker 3: bad mistake, but I'm trying to I get show people
Speaker 3: that one month's take doesn't define you.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I've watched interviews with you before in like
Speaker 1: over the years, and when you've been asked about that,
Speaker 1: about the cocaine Cassie thing, You've had different reactions at
Speaker 1: different times, Like you've been irritated, you've been angry, you've
Speaker 1: been mortified, and now there's like a lightness about you.
Speaker 1: It's like you've kind of accepted it and you're laughing
Speaker 1: at it because it doesn't sting like it used to.
Speaker 1: Is that why?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think so. When I think probably the Firbs
Speaker 3: year year and a half, well probably yeah, a year
Speaker 3: and a half of my journey through all this, I
Speaker 3: was so angry, so angry with who, with myself, with
Speaker 3: the other people that were involved, I guess as well
Speaker 3: with the justice system. Like I was just angry at
Speaker 3: everyone and anyone. And I had lots of differences with
Speaker 3: my mum, with my boyfriend, with my lawyer, and I
Speaker 3: was just constantly angry. In any of the first interviews
Speaker 3: or when I was on camera and I just looked
Speaker 3: in the face, it was because I was so angry. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I remember walking into my first hearing and when
Speaker 3: I saw that it was full of media, I was like, why, why,
Speaker 3: why would you even try and get the medium bowl?
Speaker 3: Like why? That was the only thing that was going
Speaker 3: through my head. And a lot of the deals that
Speaker 3: were taking place, I was kind of just thrown in
Speaker 3: the deep beats, like there was no benefit out of it.
Speaker 3: For me. It was purely, well, you've got to do
Speaker 3: this interview and doesn't matter the circumstances, just do it.
Speaker 1: But who was doing those deals?
Speaker 3: My mum was pretty much behind a lot of those feels.
Speaker 1: Okay, Ah, So that's when people come out of the
Speaker 1: woodwork and suddenly start seeing the opportunity. Did you know
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you're old enough to have lived through
Speaker 1: the Chappelle Corby story.
Speaker 3: I can't actually remember when it all happened, but obviously
Speaker 3: I had heard little bits and pieces about it. Because
Speaker 3: I've never been much into watching news or anything. I
Speaker 3: don't know why. It's just never been something that I've enjoyed. Obviously,
Speaker 3: after being arrested, that's all I would hear is a
Speaker 3: comparison between her and myself, and I think obviously in
Speaker 3: that moment, you feel what that other person would have
Speaker 3: felt in those moments too, because whether you know you
Speaker 3: did it or you didn't do it, you've got the
Speaker 3: whole world that's coming down on you. You're physically finishing
Speaker 3: a sentence that you have no human rights, you have nothing,
Speaker 3: and then when you get out, you've got a whole
Speaker 3: another journey waiting for you. Wear The society is very unforgiving.
Speaker 3: It's very difficult, I think, as someone who has done
Speaker 3: time to find their feet, because we become so accustomed
Speaker 3: to a routine and to I guess a treatment that
Speaker 3: we received that you kind of don't want to be
Speaker 3: around anyone, and you don't want anyone coming close, so
Speaker 3: you don't want to talk to anyone because you can't
Speaker 3: talk to anyone in dale because you don't know what
Speaker 3: be used against you.
Speaker 1: So back to your when you arrived there, what are
Speaker 1: the conditions like in the jail you were sent to?
Speaker 1: And is that where you spent your whole sentence.
Speaker 3: I was moved around quite a bit. I think I
Speaker 3: had a personal living tour of the dale. What anyone.
Speaker 3: I was taken to Yard one when I arrived, which
Speaker 3: is basically bat then was where all the newcomers would go,
Speaker 3: and then they would be sorted into different yards, determined
Speaker 3: through the crime that they committed. So you could say
Speaker 3: it's organized. It used to be organized better said basically,
Speaker 3: they would try and keep foreigners and not so much
Speaker 3: life threatening people together and then obviously you've got your
Speaker 3: people that were quite dangerous and then consumers minor offenses.
Speaker 3: They did try and split it up, I guess, but
Speaker 3: they also judged on the appearance of yourself, so you
Speaker 3: were quite I guess rude, aggressive didn't go well with
Speaker 3: the sorry you were already going to a bad yard,
Speaker 3: and I guess at the time that organization was good.
Speaker 3: It wasn't always like that. So from Yard one I
Speaker 3: was sent to yard five, which is supposedly the safest
Speaker 3: yard in the jail, which was actually where I had
Speaker 3: most of my runnings with people, which is also where
Speaker 3: the photos were leaked.
Speaker 1: From what photos were leaked, it would.
Speaker 3: Have been in May twenty seventeen. A photo was leaked
Speaker 3: where I was next to two girls and I was smiling.
Speaker 3: I think it was showing how gullible I really really was.
Speaker 3: Because one of the girls, her name was Julie. She
Speaker 3: came to look for me and she's like, no, we
Speaker 3: know that you don't have much clothing at the moment,
Speaker 3: so we want to give you some so we have
Speaker 3: something to change in. And at that time was like,
Speaker 3: do I really smell that bad? Or She lived on
Speaker 3: the fourth floor, and when I went in, there was
Speaker 3: another girl there and they pulled out this bag of
Speaker 3: clothes and they're like, you should try that on, see
Speaker 3: what you like. Take it. And when I turned around,
Speaker 3: they had a phone, and in my head I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: we have phones in jail now, like I hadn't seen
Speaker 3: one yet, and they're just like, oh, it's her birthday.
Speaker 3: Can we get a photo with you? I thought, what's weet?
Speaker 3: But all right, sat down, took a photo with them.
Speaker 3: Next minute, it's all prey with the media that I
Speaker 3: was having the time of my life in jail. It
Speaker 3: was on the weekend, so on the weekends there's visitors
Speaker 3: that come in and out. And while the visitors were
Speaker 3: lining up outside, the media had actually convinced some of
Speaker 3: the families to get photos and they would pay for photos.
Speaker 3: Actually this was obviously quiet when it was all very
Speaker 3: fresh still, and they were actually paying guards to try
Speaker 3: and get footage of me inside. And one of the
Speaker 3: guards got caught and was fired on the fox. So
Speaker 3: Australian media, I did a good job.
Speaker 1: Were there are other phonners there? When you were put
Speaker 1: into yard one?
Speaker 3: There were actually a lot from Mexico, Italy, Germany, but
Speaker 3: there weren't many English speaking people.
Speaker 1: Who did you gravitate towards because is the instinct. I've
Speaker 1: got to find some people, I've got to make some alliances.
Speaker 3: I was always quite lucky that I was always drawn
Speaker 3: to like a mother figure. So when I got to
Speaker 3: Yard five, the lady that I happened to be living
Speaker 3: with in the cell, she took me on straight away
Speaker 3: and she was like, you know, she gave me home
Speaker 3: of I guess personal products yodaans so because you don't
Speaker 3: get given any of this stuff. And when I was
Speaker 3: moved to a different yarn, also another lady kind of
Speaker 3: took me on as a mother figure and she was
Speaker 3: trying to, I guess, show me the ways of not
Speaker 3: trusting people, because didn't matter what yard I was in,
Speaker 3: something would always happen. So in yard seven, where it
Speaker 3: was maximum security, which I was moved to after I
Speaker 3: had obviously been threatened the photos were released, someone stole
Speaker 3: money from me. In the cell. We were actually in isolation,
Speaker 3: so each person was basically insolitary in this yard. And
Speaker 3: they would say you can pay to either get a
Speaker 3: radio in if you want, you can get a TV
Speaker 3: in purely so you don't go insane. I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't know how to do that because I haven't
Speaker 3: got anyone in Columbia to actually go and buy these things.
Speaker 3: And there happened to be one lady who spoke English.
Speaker 3: She used to live in Spain. She was from Venezuela,
Speaker 3: and she's like, oh, I've got someone who can help
Speaker 3: you outside. You just need to transfer this to this account.
Speaker 3: And who fell in the trap this person did, so
Speaker 3: I think it wasn't a lot, but it was obviously
Speaker 3: just that insteat of I can't trust anyone.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask, what you learned about trust?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's actually really funny because I should probably be
Speaker 3: the person who did not trust them absolutely anyone af
Speaker 3: sure that's happened to me. But if anything, it's actually
Speaker 3: taught me to analyze the person really well, because I
Speaker 3: might be talking to my wife and I'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this person, Nah, I don't think so this person is
Speaker 3: going to do this, and without fail, I'm always right.
Speaker 3: So it taught me not so much not to trust people,
Speaker 3: but just to analyze them really well. I mean, in prison,
Speaker 3: people just look out for themselves. And it took me
Speaker 3: a long time to get that through my head because
Speaker 3: I having been surrounded by people I guess that were
Speaker 3: well off.
Speaker 1: So when you say people who were well off, do
Speaker 1: you mean there were other prisoners who were well off.
Speaker 3: Yes, if you have money and you're in that dal
Speaker 3: or you can have whatever you want, like what. So
Speaker 3: I remember there's one girl. I did not get along
Speaker 3: with her at all purely because of the way she
Speaker 3: would treat people. She's very rich and she actually paid
Speaker 3: to get transferred to this yeah, the high security. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because she wanted to live on her own. She wanted
Speaker 3: to have all the phone she could get. She wanted
Speaker 3: to enter in clothing, entering, food, everything, and the guards
Speaker 3: would basically obey her. So she would pay the guards
Speaker 3: and they would enter in whatever she wanted.
Speaker 1: What was she in jail for.
Speaker 3: She was in dere because her her ex husband wanted
Speaker 3: a divorce, and so she then killed her ex husband,
Speaker 3: then killed her sister in law, killed the lawyer and
Speaker 3: the judge.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's an interesting person and we had a lot
Speaker 3: of difference.
Speaker 1: The thing, Cassie, how do you have differences with someone
Speaker 1: who's killed lots of people? That doesn't seem sensible.
Speaker 3: I think is because she thought she was better than everyone.
Speaker 3: And I think going into a place like this, you
Speaker 3: have to forget about social status, You have to forget
Speaker 3: about everything. You are exactly the same as everyone, because
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter what you've done. You've done something illegal
Speaker 3: and you're there for a reason. So I got alone
Speaker 3: with quite a two people, and you know, I would
Speaker 3: actually train them. We do lunders what. It was a
Speaker 3: good distraction for me, So I would actually train a
Speaker 3: couple of girls, and and then it was Sophie, and
Speaker 3: Sophia's come up to me. She goes, I'll pay you
Speaker 3: triple what they're paying you if you train me. And
Speaker 3: I've kind of looked at Hannah, God, I don't need
Speaker 3: your money because I'm not asking for money from anyone
Speaker 3: to train them. And I said, that's what you do
Speaker 3: when you want to actually hang out with people and
Speaker 3: be a decent person. And from there it was just
Speaker 3: an instant clash because she thought if she had money
Speaker 3: and she threw money at someone that they would basically
Speaker 3: bow her feet and I wouldn't do it. So it's
Speaker 3: from there we just had lots of differences from there,
Speaker 3: and she actually managed to get me removed from the yard.
Speaker 3: She paid to get me removed.
Speaker 1: When you say differences, did she try to kill you?
Speaker 3: No? No, no she didn't. She didn't try to kill me,
Speaker 3: but she did make it clear that she has like
Speaker 3: a seventy year sentence and an extra body on it
Speaker 3: didn't matter.
Speaker 1: So wow, in terms of violence and the women that
Speaker 1: you were with, was there a hierarchy in terms of
Speaker 1: what women thought about the crimes of their fellow inmates, Like,
Speaker 1: was there a particularly heinous crime or was it just like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if you're in here for robbery, drug smuggling,
Speaker 1: or murder. Everyone has a blank slate when they get
Speaker 1: to prison.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the only crime that was kind of really
Speaker 3: separated was any kind of child related crime. They couldn't
Speaker 3: even be close to any other inmates, purely because a
Speaker 3: lot of the women that are in there actually have kids,
Speaker 3: and so they would look at these people and think, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I've got kids. One of you would have
Speaker 3: done that to mind child. So they were actually quite
Speaker 3: often in danger of being close to any other inmates.
Speaker 3: Other than that, there wasn't any other particular crime that
Speaker 3: separated anyone. So you'd have your extortionists, you'd have your kidnappers,
Speaker 3: you'd have your money launderers, john traffickers, murderers, robbery.
Speaker 1: Did you hang out with the drug traffickers? Was it
Speaker 1: like high school? I mean, I should laugh, it's not funny, but.
Speaker 3: I think obviously the stories would go through And I
Speaker 3: did speak to quite a few bigger drug traffickers who
Speaker 3: you know, had been arrested with tons of cocaine and
Speaker 3: they got four years. So it was quite interesting to
Speaker 3: hear of their stories, and it showed such the imbalance
Speaker 3: in the justice system over there, because there might have
Speaker 3: been someone who had stolen two phones and they got
Speaker 3: twenty years. So if there is no actual guide or
Speaker 3: scale to go through salts, are you gonna say it's fair?
Speaker 3: But I didn't really hang out with anyone in particular.
Speaker 3: It was kind of based on the person, not what
Speaker 3: they had done. It's kind of you get to know
Speaker 3: the person without judging them, because if I'm there too,
Speaker 3: I don't have a right to judge any one.
Speaker 1: How long were you in prison before you received your
Speaker 1: sentence and what was that day?
Speaker 3: Like, I got sentence on the first of November in
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, I'd been there for six months, and I
Speaker 3: was in that six months I'd kind of been forced
Speaker 3: to learn Spanish because I didn't trust my lawyer. So
Speaker 3: I would literally sit down with a book that's called
Speaker 3: Equale Little Bemal, which is like your judge's law book,
Speaker 3: and I would go through the laws and I would
Speaker 3: learn where my kids actually fit into the justice system,
Speaker 3: and I would actually argue with my lawyer.
Speaker 1: Hang on a second, you arrived in jail and in Colombia,
Speaker 1: not speaking any Spanish, you had to teach yourself not
Speaker 1: just Spanish, but also legal Spanish within six months. How
Speaker 1: did you do that?
Speaker 3: The termination? No one was going to do it for me.
Speaker 3: I guess I wanted to take away that barrier that
Speaker 3: was really separating me from having communication and understanding every
Speaker 3: step of the way of what was happening. Because I
Speaker 3: didn't understand Gods, I didn't understand the medical center. I
Speaker 3: didn't understand anything. And then obviously, in my first hearing
Speaker 3: the translator that had actually been picked for my case,
Speaker 3: he wasn't translating properly, and for me, I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: here we go.
Speaker 1: How did you know he wasn't translating properly if you
Speaker 1: didn't speak the language yet.
Speaker 3: I had a translator who was with me, a lady
Speaker 3: who had actually come from Australia to translate, and she
Speaker 3: was horrified at the translation service that the prosecuted offers
Speaker 3: had to give it.
Speaker 1: So, Cassie, how do you actually learn a language? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like you have access to the duo lingo
Speaker 1: app or anything in prison.
Speaker 3: It goes back to like really old school with a
Speaker 3: language dictionary, and basically I would pick word for word.
Speaker 3: So in a sentence, let's say I wanted to say
Speaker 3: I'm hungry, I had to figure out i'm and i'm
Speaker 3: such a common use, so I'd be like, okay, this
Speaker 3: they and then hungry is hungry. So it was like
Speaker 3: a process of elimination of Once I learned a word,
Speaker 3: I would just remove it from the words that I
Speaker 3: needed to learn. And it took me to actually properly
Speaker 3: speak it and understand word for word. It probably took
Speaker 3: me about eight nine months. And even now, like I
Speaker 3: think back at it and I don't remember the switch.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that day where suddenly I could be
Speaker 3: thinking in financial and actually speaking English or vice versa,
Speaker 3: because now I think in both languages, like I've not
Speaker 3: lost it at all, and it's quite interesting.
Speaker 1: Actually, one of the things that freaks me out the
Speaker 1: most about being in prison is the boredom. Did learning
Speaker 1: a language and having a goal provide something to do
Speaker 1: and some distraction and a purpose.
Speaker 3: I think learning the language was my stepping stone to
Speaker 3: being an English teacher, because I wanted to teach my
Speaker 3: inmates English because in Colombia not many people actually speak English,
Speaker 3: and if you do speak there's a whole world of opportunity,
Speaker 3: like it lifts you up in the social scale, in
Speaker 3: the working scale, everything. So I really wanted to, I guess,
Speaker 3: try and help them find a new path when they left,
Speaker 3: using the English that they had learned, so they didn't
Speaker 3: feel like this time in between had been kind of
Speaker 3: lost or they'd leave thinking, oh what am I going
Speaker 3: to do now? So my purpose, I guess you could say,
Speaker 3: actually became helping people inside jail. So I would teach
Speaker 3: them English. I would actually help them write their legal letters.
Speaker 3: It was really funny, actually the foreigner helping them do
Speaker 3: legal letters, Like that's how well I'd actually managed to
Speaker 3: learn the language, Like wouldn't just speak, I could read
Speaker 3: it and I could write it. So the amount of
Speaker 3: people that would come looking for me just to sit
Speaker 3: down and have a chat and you know, try and
Speaker 3: have motivation to get through another day, it was a lot.
Speaker 3: And so it felt like my time there I had
Speaker 3: actually used it well, so not only to reflect on
Speaker 3: my own problems, on my own issues, to actually be
Speaker 3: able to invest that time and I guess help other
Speaker 3: people find a good way to deal with what happened
Speaker 3: as well. When you discount you have to leave your
Speaker 3: yard and go to I guess school, which is inside
Speaker 3: the prison.
Speaker 1: What does discount mean.
Speaker 3: Discount is when you work to reduce your sentence. So
Speaker 3: in that sense, if you don't discount, you can't leave
Speaker 3: your yard. You are literally there until food's called and
Speaker 3: then that's it. So I obviously had the between eight
Speaker 3: am to midday, I was outside for classes and then
Speaker 3: back into the yard for lunch, and then back out
Speaker 3: again until about three point thirty and then I was
Speaker 3: back into the yard. So obviously that distracted me quite
Speaker 3: a lot, but it also gave me that movement through
Speaker 3: the prison if I needed to submit paperwork, if I
Speaker 3: needed to speak to the director, So that in that
Speaker 3: sentence there was obviously that with discounting, which allowed one
Speaker 3: to move more up.
Speaker 1: Next, Cassie talks about the day that she was sentenced
Speaker 1: to seventy two months behind bars. She talks about how
Speaker 1: people have sex in prison and the very public marriage
Speaker 1: proposal that she really didn't want.
Speaker 3: The day that you.
Speaker 1: Received your sentence, What was the sentence and how did
Speaker 1: you feel about it on that day?
Speaker 3: So I received seventy two months. In Columbia, they always
Speaker 3: say months. They don't say years. It's more daunting for
Speaker 3: me anyway, a six year sentence. The prosecutor had told
Speaker 3: me that he had requested in my file that doing
Speaker 3: discount dogs, I should be allowed to be released after
Speaker 3: two years on probation, which was burely dus one of
Speaker 3: his tap to get me to sign the plea deal,
Speaker 3: because it didn't happen like that at all. In part
Speaker 3: of it, I was still quite annoyed that my only
Speaker 3: option had been to sign a plea deal because my
Speaker 3: lawyer did not want to go down the other road.
Speaker 1: He refused the other road being what being going to
Speaker 1: trial and pleading not guilty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't want to go to trial. He didn't
Speaker 3: want to invest money investigators. So I kind of felt
Speaker 3: like I didn't have an option there. And then at
Speaker 3: the same time, I guess I knew the time that
Speaker 3: I would have to serve, so there was kind of
Speaker 3: that okay, mentally, I know how to prepare myself and
Speaker 3: what I need to do if I want to get
Speaker 3: out on probation or whatever available. It was really mixed feeling,
Speaker 3: and I remember going back to the yard and I
Speaker 3: was crying. I never cried in front of anyone, cried
Speaker 3: when I was alone. Why because I didn't want in
Speaker 3: particular when obviously media, I didn't want them thinking that
Speaker 3: I was victimizing myself or trying to make people feel
Speaker 3: sorry for me. So I never showed emotion in front
Speaker 3: of the media. I didn't want my family seeing me
Speaker 3: in that emotional wreck either, because it was hard enough
Speaker 3: seeing you know, family member in those circumstances, and then
Speaker 3: to see that mentally they're not copying. I couldn't do that.
Speaker 3: But then when I got back to the yard, I
Speaker 3: was crying. I was frustrated. I'm sad, and I wasn't
Speaker 3: seeing that clean and self. Okay, all right, Cassie, get
Speaker 3: hisself together. You need to wake out your plan. Now.
Speaker 3: I was in that moment of well, six years, seventy
Speaker 3: two months, and you'd go through and I think like
Speaker 3: in days, it was three thousand or four thousand days
Speaker 3: on the lady who had kind of taken me on
Speaker 3: as a mother figure, she came in and she's like,
Speaker 3: don't cry. She's like, you know what, it's gonna be fine,
Speaker 3: You're gonna get through it. You just need to process
Speaker 3: what's happening and then just just do it. And I
Speaker 3: was thinking in the moment off, well, thank you for
Speaker 3: bad advice. You know, that makes me feel so much
Speaker 3: better in this line, right. But I think something that
Speaker 3: really helped me push through that mental block of well
Speaker 3: six years was the fact that as bad as I
Speaker 3: felt that I had line at that moment, as bad
Speaker 3: as I felt that my situation was, there was always
Speaker 3: going to be someone who was going through something so
Speaker 3: much worse. I didn't have children, and that was something
Speaker 3: that I really focus on. I didn't have children. There
Speaker 3: was so many women there that have children outside abandoned
Speaker 3: because no one could after that, they would have to
Speaker 3: give up their rights as parents, put them in the
Speaker 3: foster system. That's where he came from wanting to help
Speaker 3: people because I thought, you know, I went through some
Speaker 3: pretty crappy things, but I'm okay, you know. So it
Speaker 3: was like, if I can help them just feel good
Speaker 3: for a day or a moment, they're the little things
Speaker 3: that allow us to just move forward and take one
Speaker 3: day at a time, because that's all we can do.
Speaker 3: There is one day at a time.
Speaker 1: When you went into prison, you're engaged to a guy
Speaker 1: called Scott. Yeah, how'd that pan out?
Speaker 3: Well, it didn't last very long. Purely because I would
Speaker 3: call him, I guess, wanting to have a normal chat, right,
Speaker 3: a normal chat about life, and you know he would
Speaker 3: parlol all his problems outside.
Speaker 1: While you were in prison.
Speaker 3: And so he'd be like, no, this is happening, this
Speaker 3: is happening, I need these. I'm thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 3: like I can't deal with with all of that, Like,
Speaker 3: I'll be here as much as I can. And then
Speaker 3: it would be he would ring me out to complain
Speaker 3: about the problems with my mum.
Speaker 1: Do you get phone privileges? Do they listen to your
Speaker 1: phone calls?
Speaker 3: So for each yard there is one phone that allows
Speaker 3: incoming calls, so you might be there for like three
Speaker 3: hours trying to actually get a call to be accepted.
Speaker 3: Or the other option is we can buy phone cards
Speaker 3: and with that you can call out. However, the phone
Speaker 3: cards are like three thousand pays and five thousand pay
Speaker 3: so and I would literally get from three thousand pacer,
Speaker 3: i'd get like a minute phone call and from five
Speaker 3: thousand i'd get two and a half. Because the rate
Speaker 3: to call home was really expensive, and not only that,
Speaker 3: the hours the hour difference was impossible.
Speaker 1: And how long did you stay together before it ended.
Speaker 3: I think we were together until January and twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: but before then it had already finished. I guess you
Speaker 3: could say like there was no real communication anymore. It
Speaker 3: almost like he would call you because he felt like
Speaker 3: he had to type thing, not because he wanted to.
Speaker 3: And I think he for me was just like a
Speaker 3: comfort zone type thing more than anything, because even before
Speaker 3: coming to Colombia, you know, being engage, I never actually
Speaker 3: wanted to marry him, so it was quite a transformation
Speaker 3: time or in the middle there.
Speaker 1: Really tell me about love and sex in prison?
Speaker 3: Okay, So in prison once a mon there are what
Speaker 3: they call conjugal visits, basically a sex visit, which is
Speaker 3: throughout the normal time that they do visits on the weekend.
Speaker 3: You have to have a registered partner to come in
Speaker 3: and see you. If you do have a partner inside
Speaker 3: the present, you can also request to go to where
Speaker 3: they live or they go to you. Apparently sexual health
Speaker 3: is very important in prison.
Speaker 1: Wow, Where do these conjugal visits happen?
Speaker 3: In the cells? So if you share a cell with
Speaker 3: one to five people, basically you would have to take
Speaker 3: turns of who would have the visit. So I will
Speaker 3: actually quite lucky. I never never had one, even having
Speaker 3: I guess I had girlfriends inside, but I never felt
Speaker 3: that I wanted to, I guess to say, I never
Speaker 3: felt that connection to actually want to commit to having
Speaker 3: a conjugal visit.
Speaker 1: What it mean to have a girlfriend inside? Was that
Speaker 1: a really common thing?
Speaker 3: It was very common. You would actually see people who
Speaker 3: have their husbands who live outside and then they have
Speaker 3: their girl braends. But it was quite common, I guess
Speaker 3: because more than the sexual side, I think it was
Speaker 3: just that having someone to confide in to share times
Speaker 3: make it a little bit easier, and ideally it would
Speaker 3: always start because they're your friend, and then it kind
Speaker 3: of just goes from there.
Speaker 1: Had you been with women before?
Speaker 3: Uh? Yes, When I was younger, I actually knew that
Speaker 3: I liked women, but I was too scared to come out.
Speaker 3: And I had been so convinced that after having I guess,
Speaker 3: whether it'd be kissing a girl or having you know,
Speaker 3: a relationship with a girl, something would always go bad
Speaker 3: in my life. And so I started kind of convincing
Speaker 3: myself that I was having such a hard time in
Speaker 3: life because I wasn't normal well, and so that's where
Speaker 3: you know, I started forcing myself to have boyfriends and
Speaker 3: try and be normal, and then it was horrible that
Speaker 3: I can tell you right now. I hated having sex
Speaker 3: with a man. I hated it. And it was just
Speaker 3: purely having boyfriends for an image, because I mean, you
Speaker 3: can speak to any of my exes and I wasn't
Speaker 3: sexually active with them. It was more so that having
Speaker 3: them there, you know, sharing a meal, going out to
Speaker 3: the movies, and so for me, it was always more
Speaker 3: on that side of just a friend. Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So in some ways being in prison and
Speaker 1: having no other options was it a bit freeing.
Speaker 3: So when I arrived to prison and I saw how
Speaker 3: free and unjudgmental everything was, it was I still thought.
Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong, I fought it for quite some
Speaker 3: plan because I was like, no, I can't be the
Speaker 3: new girl who suddenly is a lesbian who will be
Speaker 3: picked on. So I kept it to myself for at
Speaker 3: least another year or so before I kind of just
Speaker 3: let it out. And I think this was also part
Speaker 3: of my reflection process of finally allowing me to be me.
Speaker 3: And the thing is I already had the worst reputation,
Speaker 3: so I'd thought, you know what, what could be worth,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't get any more on the bottom.
Speaker 3: And I guess coming out and being around people who
Speaker 3: actually supported that it really helped boost that self esteem
Speaker 3: of Okay, I can do this, you know. So it
Speaker 3: was really enlightening, felt like a huge weight had been
Speaker 3: lifted off my shoulders.
Speaker 1: In prison, the prison you were in, was there a
Speaker 1: lot of casual sex or it was more relationships?
Speaker 3: I think it was more relationships then casual sex.
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine there's much privacy in jail. No
Speaker 1: where do you hook up.
Speaker 3: They would do it in the cells, like they no
Speaker 3: worries about that, and there would be people, let's say
Speaker 3: it wasn't a sex visit and two pop would going
Speaker 3: at it in a cell. They would actually pay someone
Speaker 3: to keep watch to make sure no guard was coming.
Speaker 1: So would the guards just turn a blind eye, or
Speaker 1: if there was no one being paid, they'd tell you
Speaker 1: to stop.
Speaker 3: It, so if you get caught, you would actually be
Speaker 3: separated and sent to different yards. And it also be
Speaker 3: something they called an in fordy, which is like a
Speaker 3: behavior record, so you'd now have bad behate.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, so it wasn't as easy as some might imagine. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't and some planning was requiet. Absolutely, you got
Speaker 1: engaged in prison, and for reasons that I can't explain.
Speaker 1: I've seen the video. Someone took a video of it,
Speaker 1: and it was.
Speaker 3: Leaked or sold.
Speaker 1: I should say, no doubt to the media. Tell me
Speaker 1: about Jolie.
Speaker 3: So this one was an interesting one. We were friends,
Speaker 3: you know, it went from friends at pajure Kitsie and
Speaker 3: then I guess relying on that friendship until one day
Speaker 3: we had actually come back in from the exercising that
Speaker 3: we're allowed to do, and she's really weird and there
Speaker 3: she's like, you can't come out and sell okay, And
Speaker 3: then when I did come out, there was this huge
Speaker 3: post we married me. Oh, everyone in the yard had
Speaker 3: literally come to watch this. I can't think of anything
Speaker 3: worse than a public proposal. I had not actually considered
Speaker 3: marrying this girl, and now I've been put on the
Speaker 3: spot of.
Speaker 1: We marry How long had you been together?
Speaker 3: I think we would have been together maybe like four
Speaker 3: or five months, right, And so I've come out and
Speaker 3: she did this whole speech and I kind of just
Speaker 3: looked at her, and I looked at everyone, and I
Speaker 3: go yes, because I didn't know what to do, and
Speaker 3: I thought, you know what to leave here? I leave
Speaker 3: this area, no one will em I know. And then
Speaker 3: when we went and told you right, I said, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to marry you, like right now, we
Speaker 3: are in such an enclosed environment. We don't know what
Speaker 3: will happen when we go outside. The relationship will be
Speaker 3: completely different. And she's like, no, it's fine, you know,
Speaker 3: just looking at the promise, Rey, she knew that I
Speaker 3: wasn't going to marry her, but I guess kind of
Speaker 3: went along with the idea of it, which was an
Speaker 3: error in this time that I guess I didn't realize
Speaker 3: that I'm falling into that because we were not good
Speaker 3: for each other at all. She very toxic person. Being
Speaker 3: with a woman you expect to receive the same treatment
Speaker 3: that you would give them, not the whole I'm better
Speaker 3: than you. You need to do what I say type thing.
Speaker 3: So at the start she was a really really nice person,
Speaker 3: and then probably when she thought she had control of me,
Speaker 3: completely changed.
Speaker 1: You were released from prison early. When did you find
Speaker 1: out that your sentence had been reduced and you were
Speaker 1: going out?
Speaker 3: So I had a meeting with my judge. It would
Speaker 3: have been in December twenty nineteen, and I actually wasn't
Speaker 3: going to talk to her. We didn't get along very well.
Speaker 3: Her son had had an overdose on drugs and unfortunately
Speaker 3: passed away, so she was quite hard shouldn't any type
Speaker 3: of case that involved drugs. And the first time I'd
Speaker 3: ever met with her, she's like, you know what, don't
Speaker 3: bother coming to see me. It's six years, that's it,
Speaker 3: So why would I bother going a talking tree again
Speaker 3: me just to be let down. So when I hadn't
Speaker 3: saw her this day, it was the end of the
Speaker 3: day and someone was like, why don't you just go
Speaker 3: and talk to her? You know, she's in a good mood.
Speaker 3: I thought, yeah, what's a good mood from a pig
Speaker 3: this lady? So I thought, all right, gone in there,
Speaker 3: sat down, and she goes, hi, Hi, the big Spanish
Speaker 3: shit said yeah, that's how long I had not seen her.
Speaker 3: I had not lost any false hope in going to
Speaker 3: see her and waiting for an answer that I knew
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to get. And she goes, what have
Speaker 3: you been doing? And I'm pretty much just holding you
Speaker 3: know that I've been teaching, and she brought up my
Speaker 3: file and she's looking and she's, oh, you've got a
Speaker 3: fair amount of discount. I don't on yeah, I think
Speaker 3: I had maybe like eight or nine months that i'd
Speaker 3: managed to wake up over two and a half years.
Speaker 3: And she goes, you know what, Cassandra, because they don't
Speaker 3: say Cassie over there, it's all full name, So why
Speaker 3: are you just send me in your paperwork? And I'm
Speaker 3: going oh, and I'm thinking in my head i'm doing
Speaker 3: the maths. I'm going I don't have time yet to
Speaker 3: do that. So i'd be like, hey, thanks you, and
Speaker 3: I left and I didn't send my paperwork in why
Speaker 3: because I knew by law that I had to have
Speaker 3: three fifths of my sentence to be considered for PEROT
Speaker 3: and I didn't have that yet, and I did not
Speaker 3: want to be let down by sending it and then
Speaker 3: her going oh no, sorry, can't do it yet. Well
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, I'm going to be smart. I'm just
Speaker 3: going to wait the eche of time and i'll send
Speaker 3: it in when I do have time. So it was
Speaker 3: in February. In February, I managed to saw out everything
Speaker 3: that I needed to legally are us for her role,
Speaker 3: send it in and then I didn't hear anything at
Speaker 3: all that'd be and the prison was always making up
Speaker 3: excuses for not sending paperwork that the judge needs, so
Speaker 3: they have to send through your behavioral report, the discount report,
Speaker 3: and there would always be we don't have any paper,
Speaker 3: we don't have any print, ink, the internet's down. Like
Speaker 3: getting out of that place, they make it in possible.
Speaker 3: So when obviously the judge actually subpointed my documents because
Speaker 3: they realized that it was taking way too long. And
Speaker 3: then I think it was in March, towards the end
Speaker 3: of March, and they just started calling every day, calling
Speaker 3: judges of us every day. I thought, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to be a paved in the yards
Speaker 3: now signed cooler, and the assistant be like, no, nothing yet,
Speaker 3: nothing yet. And then it so happened the last weekend
Speaker 3: in March. Hadn't called him a few days. I don't
Speaker 3: know why han't it called. And I woke up on
Speaker 3: the Monday and I thought, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go on cold. So I'm cold out of the office
Speaker 3: and the assistant already near my boy, and You're like, I, Cassandra,
Speaker 3: am I I'm just checking to see if if anything's
Speaker 3: been untrued, and he goes, yeah, it's been approved, right
Speaker 3: kind of. And I'm god, what, like he took me
Speaker 3: like time to process that. And he goes, it's been
Speaker 3: approved and no, I'm like, don't cheat about these things.
Speaker 3: He's like, why would I joke about this? It's my job.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, I didn't mean it like that. I'm
Speaker 3: just trying to process it. He's like, yeap, you need
Speaker 3: to organize your bond caution, which was about I think
Speaker 3: two thousand dollars, and then you need to send the
Speaker 3: receipt to the judge's office and then they will issue
Speaker 3: the freedom slip.
Speaker 1: Freedom slip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I didn't tell anyone, didn't tell anyone why.
Speaker 3: I back to my and I just sat there and
Speaker 3: I was kind of picking the people that I was telling.
Speaker 3: So I've gone down to the lady who had received
Speaker 3: me the first time in that yard, and I've gone,
Speaker 3: you know what, I've just been told that my parole
Speaker 3: has been granted. And she started to cry, You're leaving me,
Speaker 3: you know, leave me your line, You're gonna forget about me.
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, no, it's not the case. I'm like,
Speaker 3: if anything, I can probably help you more on the
Speaker 3: outside than the inside. And then obviously by people started
Speaker 3: to put it together because people were coming to visit
Speaker 3: me and they'd be like, oh, can you leave me
Speaker 3: this Chlothy, because the idea obviously I didn't really want
Speaker 3: to take anything that had been inside there of kind
Speaker 3: of leaving anything, I guess with that kind of energy there.
Speaker 3: And then time went by, and I had a friend
Speaker 3: on the outside now and I'm arguing with her every
Speaker 3: day because I'm thinking, why it's taking so long, and
Speaker 3: the poor thing like she was trying to do.
Speaker 1: A friend that you'd made in prison, who is now
Speaker 1: named Crystal. Yeah, and when you'd spoken to the guy
Speaker 1: on the phone, had he given you any indication of
Speaker 1: time frame?
Speaker 3: No? And the thing is we were in Colombia at
Speaker 3: that point. We were actually about to go into quarantine
Speaker 3: for COVID, So I had days to get this organized
Speaker 3: or I would not have been released. Crystal running a
Speaker 3: mark out sign, she went and did the deposit for
Speaker 3: the caution, took it to the Dadgit's out birth and
Speaker 3: then nothing happened either, And so I started pressuring the
Speaker 3: guards from the inside as well, and I said, you
Speaker 3: know what, it's come up on the system online now
Speaker 3: that it says that my freedom slip has been issued.
Speaker 3: And there's a law in Columbia that says once it's
Speaker 3: been issued, they can't keep you for more than twenty
Speaker 3: four hours because then it comes kidding, it's nice to
Speaker 3: know these sorts of law. Its once some of the
Speaker 3: guards are saying, no, nothing's come through. Yeut. And then
Speaker 3: one guard who I got along with really well. She
Speaker 3: hated me when I arrived, but by the end she
Speaker 3: absolutely loved me. And I said, look, it comes up
Speaker 3: in the system that it was sent. It was Friday.
Speaker 3: Now she's look, I'm going to have a look, but
Speaker 3: I can't promise you anything. So she went out there
Speaker 3: and probably within like two hours, would have been about
Speaker 3: midday on Friday on the third of April, and she goes, look,
Speaker 3: here's what you mean to sign, which is basically compromising
Speaker 3: that I would not leave the country, that I had
Speaker 3: to report to immigration. Looked a month. I thought, Oh, okay,
Speaker 3: She's like, I'm going to do this, like now I
Speaker 3: have to do an Interpol chat. She said that might
Speaker 3: take a while. Okay, so but if everything goes wow,
Speaker 3: you should be released today. She's like, you should be
Speaker 3: released before six pm, and say, I'm excited. I've rung
Speaker 3: up Crystal, like I'm getting out today. You need to
Speaker 3: come and pick me up. And so this poor girl,
Speaker 3: she's she's coming. She was waiting outside the prison for hours,
Speaker 3: and I didn't hear anything back from the guard. Nothing.
Speaker 3: We did the head count, and we all know that
Speaker 3: once they've done the head count, that's it. Nobody leaves,
Speaker 3: nobody comes it. And so I I don't think I'm
Speaker 3: getting out, and literally it was such a down feeling
Speaker 3: because that Saturday we were starting quarantine. And then so
Speaker 3: I've gone and actually changed into my padama and I've
Speaker 3: gone and use a burn a phone in the toilet,
Speaker 3: just to tell Crystal, you know, just go home, don't
Speaker 3: keep waiting around. And then the guard's called my name
Speaker 3: and I'm either literally throwing this figure. I don't need
Speaker 3: a bad behavior record now, and I've walked up and
Speaker 3: it happened to be one of the guards who had
Speaker 3: also received me, and she goes, what.
Speaker 1: Are you doing?
Speaker 3: I don't know. She goes, You've got a guilty looker
Speaker 3: on your face. She's like, you don't know how to lie.
Speaker 3: They'd got no, no, no, nothing, and she had a
Speaker 3: piece of paper in a hand. She goes, you're ready,
Speaker 3: and I'm here for what Like At this point, I
Speaker 3: was so convinced that I wasn't getting out, and she goes,
Speaker 3: it's time to go, and I literally going, fuck, no,
Speaker 3: how's I have a rush to change? And everyone's coming
Speaker 3: out just saying bye to me. And then when I
Speaker 3: walked out of my passageway, the guards had actually opened
Speaker 3: up the other passageways so people could say by to
Speaker 3: me as well, which was quite overwhelming because I had
Speaker 3: probably been one of the most hated people when I arrived,
Speaker 3: so everyone was hugging me. And then I got sent
Speaker 3: to medical to get checked over that I was in
Speaker 3: the same condition that I arrived, and then I was out,
Speaker 3: and when I was coming back from medical, you actually
Speaker 3: have the pass or all the arts, and it was
Speaker 3: really overwhelming because the guards were actually allowing people to
Speaker 3: come out of each yard to say goodbye to me.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, emotional okay, And I was quite overwhelming because
Speaker 3: I didn't think that I had made so much of
Speaker 3: a difference that people would actually, I guess, feel that
Speaker 3: kind of emotion with me. So they all saying goodbye
Speaker 3: to me, thanking me, and then I walked. I walked
Speaker 3: down and the guards stopped me, and she goes, if
Speaker 3: you only saw the person that we will see wise,
Speaker 3: that's it. And so I walked out the front. And
Speaker 3: it was really weird now walking through the prison. I
Speaker 3: didn't feel like prisoner. And so I walked out the front.
Speaker 3: I was officially signed out of their books, and I
Speaker 3: walked right up to the blue gate and kind of
Speaker 3: stood back, and you know, all the guards coming to
Speaker 3: say goodbye to me as well, and the lady who
Speaker 3: was working the door, she gets you ready as a no,
Speaker 3: so I'm not ready, So I don't know what wait
Speaker 3: to me. On the other side, I was terrified, so scared.
Speaker 1: What were you scared of life?
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to pick myself up and keep going.
Speaker 3: So I brought through the door and Crystal was still there,
Speaker 3: and she was in her own little world. She was
Speaker 3: actually hitting on an army guy to be precise. I
Speaker 3: wanted to stand there and realized that they've come out.
Speaker 3: She's screaming. She ran over to me, and you know,
Speaker 3: I stood there and it was so surreal, like it
Speaker 3: wasn't hitting me that I had just left prison and
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be going back in there. And then obviously
Speaker 3: we got in a taxi and going through like everyone
Speaker 3: was ready in quarantine, so it was a ghost town.
Speaker 3: So it didn't really give me that feeling off and
Speaker 3: back in society. It was kind of like the oh,
Speaker 3: all right, I'm out of prison. I've going to lock
Speaker 3: myself in a room now because of quarantine.
Speaker 1: I just loved that conversation and I wanted to keep going,
Speaker 1: so we spoke more about her life after her time
Speaker 1: in prison. Coming out was daunting, she says, but it
Speaker 1: was much harder even than she could have imagined. Here's
Speaker 1: a little taste.
Speaker 3: I felt like every time I tried to take a
Speaker 3: step forward in the right direction, I would just get
Speaker 3: not back, or I'd hit a reap wall. Because I
Speaker 3: couldn't work because I had no papers. I couldn't receive
Speaker 3: money from my family because I had no papers, I
Speaker 3: couldn't know anything. And then obviously the polstant fear of
Speaker 3: when I had to go out and do food shopping
Speaker 3: that if I got stopped by a police officer, well
Speaker 3: I was going back to prison.
Speaker 1: Because of her parole conditions, she I'm allowed to come
Speaker 1: back to Australia, and also because it was COVID, she
Speaker 1: couldn't even leave the house. But she wasn't going to
Speaker 1: let her mistakes to find her. And what's really interesting
Speaker 1: about this next phase of her life is how she
Speaker 1: just shrugged off the shame. It's such a great conversation.
Speaker 1: To listen to part two of my conversation with Cassie,
Speaker 1: just click the link in the show notes. The executive
Speaker 1: producer of No Filter is Kimberly Bradish, with sound production
Speaker 1: by Madeline Juannu. I'm mea Friedman and thank you for
Speaker 1: having me in your years.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for something else to listen to, like
Speaker 2: and follow all of our Mamma Mia podcasts, which are
Speaker 2: currently bringing you Hot Pod Summer one hundred hours of
Speaker 2: summer listens, from spicy conversations to incredible stories, fashion, beauty
Speaker 2: and more.