Speaker 1: Hey, girlfriends, it's Anna. Most of this episode takes place
Speaker 1: in prison. There's going to be some mentions of murder
Speaker 1: and some very serious domestic abuse, but you'll also get
Speaker 1: to meet some more of the women Kelly got to
Speaker 1: know while she was locked up, many of whom have
Speaker 1: stories just as incredible and complex as hers. If you
Speaker 1: feel impacted by some of the themes in this show,
Speaker 1: you can reach out to No More. There are a
Speaker 1: domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources to
Speaker 1: help you or your loved ones. You can search No
Speaker 1: More dot org and we've also put a link to
Speaker 1: their website in the episode description. And as you know,
Speaker 1: we all swear a little bit. It's October twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: Alone in her cramp cell, surrounded by towering piles of
Speaker 1: legal documents, Kelly Hannett relives her trial over and over.
Speaker 2: I was broken apart clearly for the first few d's
Speaker 2: asley I lead in bed.
Speaker 1: Her fellow Ryker's Island shorties can't believe the jury's decision, She.
Speaker 3: Says, she had been found guilty. Well, like kill, it
Speaker 3: is not playing because Kelly is a joke starre too.
Speaker 1: That's Angelica who you heard from an episode for Kelly's
Speaker 1: friend with all the makeup tips.
Speaker 4: She will say, Now they found me guilty, and she
Speaker 4: broke down and we were shot in.
Speaker 3: All of us started crying like how like how is
Speaker 3: that possible?
Speaker 1: Kelly left the courtroom, promising herself that she would take
Speaker 1: down the prosecutor from her trial, Assistant District Attorney Sean Clark.
Speaker 1: But instead she's barely left herself for days. She's moping hard,
Speaker 1: head deep under the covers. Eventually, Angelica decides enough is enough.
Speaker 3: We had a rule, you have three days.
Speaker 4: Of feeling sorry for yourself, and then you gotta get
Speaker 4: out and figure it out, right D number three.
Speaker 3: I borge into herself.
Speaker 2: That's all right, she said, shouty, that's it.
Speaker 3: It's cool. It's time to get up.
Speaker 2: So I got up. I sat up, and she said
Speaker 2: what are you doing? I mean, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: I said, what do you want me to do? I
Speaker 2: was found guilty?
Speaker 5: You know that.
Speaker 2: She goes, ah, guilty, shmilty. She said, look around, paperwork, paperwork,
Speaker 2: paper All I see here is paperwork.
Speaker 6: Kelly.
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, I know, and it all went to nothing.
Speaker 2: She goes, oh no it didn't. No, No, you're not
Speaker 2: gonna go there with me.
Speaker 4: Take your butt to that little library and figure something out.
Speaker 3: Laying here is an option. You gotta get up, and
Speaker 3: you gotta go.
Speaker 1: I'm Anasonfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts,
Speaker 1: This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse. Lawyer is episode six, Guilty
Speaker 1: Schmilty By November twenty thirteen, Inspired by Angelica's Tough Love,
Speaker 1: Kelly is back in the Riker's law library.
Speaker 2: I started looking through everything, and that's when I found
Speaker 2: a three thirty statue.
Speaker 1: At three thirty motion to set aside a verdict.
Speaker 2: November fifth, twenty thirteen. It was my first motion that
Speaker 2: I put in, was all in and written, and it
Speaker 2: was sixty eight pages.
Speaker 1: Kelly doesn't want to leave anything to chance with this document.
Speaker 1: She picks up the phone and calls, of all people,
Speaker 1: prosecutor Sean Clark, the man who's just got her sent
Speaker 1: to prison.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure if he was going to hang up
Speaker 2: on me or speak to me, but he did say, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I received it. I said, so, what would happen when
Speaker 2: I go back to court? Probably nothing, It'll probably be adjourned.
Speaker 2: And this was the beginning of a seventeen month war
Speaker 2: of attrition.
Speaker 1: For seventeen months. Kelly, a self taughtu our house lawyer,
Speaker 1: holds her sentencing at bay, trying every legal avenue she
Speaker 1: can find.
Speaker 2: He wrote emotion. I wrote emotion. Maybe sometimes that every
Speaker 2: opposition I wrote for, and it came to a point
Speaker 2: where they stopped answering me, so I kept writing motions anyway.
Speaker 1: A lot of Kelly's motions focus on what's called the
Speaker 1: Brady Rule. It states that all evidence from the police
Speaker 1: and prosecution is meant to be turned over to the
Speaker 1: other side, especially things that could benefit the defense. And
Speaker 1: while it hasn't been proven, Kelly alleges that this Brady
Speaker 1: Rule was violated and that some evidence wasn't handed over.
Speaker 1: She also states that much of what's missing relates to
Speaker 1: the problematic eyewitness Amando Perez. She found evidence in a
Speaker 1: police officer's notepad that he was known by a different name.
Speaker 2: They made a mistake, they didn't redact one of the
Speaker 2: portions and it said witness Armando contreris Perez.
Speaker 1: According to some online slew thing, Kelly's brother, rond Amando
Speaker 1: Contreres Perez, well, he has some skeletons in his closet,
Speaker 1: so I.
Speaker 2: Witnessed my trial had an extensive criminal background that was
Speaker 2: not turned over to me. Basically the biggest Brady violation
Speaker 2: of all Kelly suspects.
Speaker 1: Armando may have a criminal record, and that it could
Speaker 1: have been white in exchange for his testimony against her,
Speaker 1: although this hasn't been proven, and while I've seen a
Speaker 1: photocopy of the notebook with the Contrera's name in it,
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to find these criminal records myself.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean it's all just tinfoil hat nonsense either.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors do strike deals with individuals who have criminal charges
Speaker 1: or convictions in exchange for their testimony against someone else.
Speaker 1: Then there are the moves Kelly Mankes that are a
Speaker 1: little more unorthodox, especially when it comes to Judge Lasac.
Speaker 2: I got a hold of his first grade teacher.
Speaker 1: Kelly says. She makes then through a chaplain called Sister Eileen,
Speaker 1: who she met at Riker's And Sister Eileen knew the
Speaker 1: nun who taught at the judge's school.
Speaker 2: So the first grade teacher called them back, and from
Speaker 2: my understanding, she was really pushing him and prodding him,
Speaker 2: like set this girl's verdict, decide, like listen, I'm your
Speaker 2: first grade teacher. They tried the porn nuns.
Speaker 1: Kelly says. She also manages to somehow find the number
Speaker 1: for Judge lay Sack's best friend. She is nothing if
Speaker 1: not resourceful.
Speaker 2: I left a message on his best friend's voicemail telling
Speaker 2: the best friend how I'm innocent and they've made a
Speaker 2: huge mistake.
Speaker 1: I'm sure this all went down great with Judge lay Sack.
Speaker 1: Kelly battles on and on and on, but after holding
Speaker 1: off her sentencing for nearly a year and a half,
Speaker 1: she's exhausted all her possible motions. No more delays. It's
Speaker 1: time to go back to court. It's March twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Kelly Hannett is standing in the same courtroom where she
Speaker 1: was found guilty seventeen months ago. It's time for her sentencing.
Speaker 1: She's facing twenty five years to life. This is Kelly's
Speaker 1: final opportunity to speak, and in true Kelly style, she's
Speaker 1: taking full advantage of it.
Speaker 2: I went on and on and on and on. I
Speaker 2: was citing case law and constitutional violations.
Speaker 1: I've seen the transcripts of this. It really does go
Speaker 1: on for page after page.
Speaker 2: All of these people were standing in front of me
Speaker 2: as I went on and on and on, and I
Speaker 2: looked at some of their faces and their mouths were
Speaker 2: up and like shock and awe. That was one of
Speaker 2: my proudest moments because I had the ada. She means
Speaker 2: Sean Clark suck in his teeth, sighing, and what does
Speaker 2: it feel like? I felt like saying, like, you shut up,
Speaker 2: it's my time now.
Speaker 1: Kelly also says how sorry she is for Angel and
Speaker 1: his family, but that she shouldn't be held responsible for
Speaker 1: his murder. She says, I did not contribute to that
Speaker 1: death in any way, shape or form. I was definitely
Speaker 1: afraid of my co defendant. Kelly also says that had
Speaker 1: she not done what she did, Tommy would have killed
Speaker 1: her as well, and that instead of prosecuting a case
Speaker 1: with one victim, it would have been too Kelly ends
Speaker 1: her monologue by thanking Judge Lasak for his patients. Then
Speaker 1: it's time for the judge to deliver his center, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't hold back. I've asked producer Jake to read
Speaker 1: from the court transcripts.
Speaker 7: We had to delay the sentence to allow you to
Speaker 7: make every three point thirty motion that you deemed necessary
Speaker 7: to make. And it has been delayed for quite a
Speaker 7: number of months. This is a very sad case. The
Speaker 7: court takes no pleasure in any sentence, especially a sentence
Speaker 7: regarding a case like this. You are not the victim
Speaker 7: in this case, and you are not a witness. We
Speaker 7: all make choices in life, Miss Harnett, on this particular
Speaker 7: night July seventh, back in twenty ten, you were with
Speaker 7: a person that you made a choice to be with,
Speaker 7: mister Donovan. You had a choice to take ten years
Speaker 7: on manslaughter plea, and you chose not to, just like
Speaker 7: you chose to stay with mister Donovan, and you chose
Speaker 7: not to try and stop him, and you chose to
Speaker 7: give him that sneaker lace, and you chose to kick him,
Speaker 7: kick mister Vargas when he was down on the ground.
Speaker 7: These are all choices that you made at that time.
Speaker 7: And I'm sure Miss Harnett, you would wish you could
Speaker 7: turn back the clock to July seventh, twenty ten and
Speaker 7: act differently, and this never would have happened, and we
Speaker 7: wouldn't be here and mister Vargas would be with his family.
Speaker 7: But we have to deal with the reality, and the
Speaker 7: reality is that you and mister Donovan acted in concert
Speaker 7: and killed him.
Speaker 1: That was like a pretty terrifying transcript from her case,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. Yeah, you did this and you did that,
Speaker 1: and this is who you are. You know, you are
Speaker 1: not a victim in this case. You are not a witness.
Speaker 7: It is heavy, it's really heavy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that use of the word choice that you
Speaker 1: chose to do this, you chose to do that.
Speaker 7: There's no nuance in it for the judge. It feels
Speaker 7: like the judge is almost like a representation of the
Speaker 7: brick wall that like somebody in Kelly's position hits over
Speaker 7: and over again as they try to just get understanding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it makes sense that after that experience, she's
Speaker 1: become so passionate about trying to get people to really
Speaker 1: see who she is, you know, like to understand that
Speaker 1: there's the like domestic violence aspect, as she said to me.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: On March twenty fifth, twenty fifteen, Kelly Harnett is sentenced
Speaker 1: to a minimum of seventeen years in prison for the
Speaker 1: murder of Reuben Angel Vargas and one year for the
Speaker 1: criminal possession of a weapon a shoelace. In the eyes
Speaker 1: of the law, Kelly is a murderer, a villain, not
Speaker 1: a victim as she claims, And now she's finally going
Speaker 1: where she belongs, Bedford Hill's Correctional Facility, the only maximum
Speaker 1: security women's prison in the state of New York. When
Speaker 1: Kelly gets to Bedford, She's immediately dropped into a new world.
Speaker 1: She's out in the sticks of upstate New York, over
Speaker 1: forty miles away from her family back in Queens and
Speaker 1: away from her Riker's Island. Shorties after arriving, Kelly's brought
Speaker 1: to an area known as the Jungle.
Speaker 2: Why was it called the jungle because they're crazy. They
Speaker 2: set their cells on fire on a regular basis. One
Speaker 2: time there was the fire, but I hadn't been able
Speaker 2: to use the phone for a week, so since everyone ran,
Speaker 2: I ran into the phone room so I could finally
Speaker 2: make a phone call. And I was like, well, when
Speaker 2: the fiery gets really bad, I'll run. Like this is
Speaker 2: how crazy it is in there.
Speaker 1: But underneath all the chaos, many of Kelly's fellow inmates
Speaker 1: are lifeless.
Speaker 2: Bad fruit. Everybody's dead. Everybody's dead inside. They're walking around,
Speaker 2: but there's nothing in there.
Speaker 1: Locked up away from her family, away from the world
Speaker 1: surrounded by women so broken they're almost more zombie than human.
Speaker 1: It would be understandable for anyone to throw in the
Speaker 1: towel and join the walking dead. But this is Kelly Harnett.
Speaker 1: She hasn't given up so far, and she's sure is
Speaker 1: shit not going to give up now. Every morning, in
Speaker 1: her green prison uniform, Kelly sits in her cell, in
Speaker 1: front of her mirror and brings herself to life.
Speaker 2: I made sure that under my state greens that I
Speaker 2: always had a T shirt on that was a different
Speaker 2: color than green, and that had to match my eyeshadow
Speaker 2: as well as my lipstick every day and usually my earrings,
Speaker 2: and I always wore a headband that matched that, because
Speaker 2: that's a sense of individuality. I'm Kelly cloaked in a
Speaker 2: guilty person's uniform, but I wanted the individuality to shine
Speaker 2: through because I'm not guilty. I realized that when you're
Speaker 2: just a detainee.
Speaker 1: Meaning still a ways in your trial, you have.
Speaker 2: Life and hope and whatnot. Now these people are walking
Speaker 2: around with these twenty five to life sentences and they're hopeless.
Speaker 2: I know so much about the law, so my first
Speaker 2: thing was Jesus Christ, I have to help these people out.
Speaker 1: Kelly's the first couple of weeks keeping her head down
Speaker 1: getting to know the lay of the land, but she
Speaker 1: can't stay away from the law library for too long.
Speaker 1: And it's in there that Kelly starts to find people
Speaker 1: who can relate to all the frankly fucking crazy experiences
Speaker 1: she's had while locked up.
Speaker 2: One day, I started talking to him about how Riker's
Speaker 2: iamon wanted to cut my leg off one time and
Speaker 2: they had the wrong person. They literally wanted to amputate
Speaker 2: my leg. Then they told me I had a tumor,
Speaker 2: and I busted out laughing. I said, bring me back
Speaker 2: to the unit. Me and my tumor would like to
Speaker 2: leave now. I didn't have a tumor.
Speaker 1: So he was overhearing Kelly holding court is one of
Speaker 1: the prison officers. I'm just going to refer to him
Speaker 1: as the officer from here on out.
Speaker 2: He actually started laughing. He said, Jesus, I thought it
Speaker 2: was bed here. And then he started speaking to me,
Speaker 2: and clearly I wanted to jump there, so I inquired,
Speaker 2: and immediately he asked me, like, do you have any experience?
Speaker 2: And I said a little bit.
Speaker 1: Kelly is intrigued by the officer. There's something different about him.
Speaker 1: He doesn't treat her like an inmate, like a number.
Speaker 1: He's attentive. By August twenty fifteen, Kelly becomes a qualified
Speaker 1: law clerk here in Bedford, making about twenty four cents
Speaker 1: an hour. Kelly's back where she loves to be, neck
Speaker 1: deep in a bunch of legal papers with a list
Speaker 1: of grateful clients as long as her arm.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many motions I rolled. I was
Speaker 2: doing so much work.
Speaker 1: And rather than embarrass myself by trying to explain the
Speaker 1: complicated legal tactics being offered to the women of Bedford.
Speaker 2: Hills, now it gets a little complex because for just vacation.
Speaker 1: I'll leave it to Kelly Harnett esquire.
Speaker 2: I wrote her brief, and it was due to a
Speaker 2: justification to fancountcy CPL three thirty thirty. Yet, like I said,
Speaker 2: martians satisided vertict mass up section one of three thirty thirty,
Speaker 2: which they said it must be two scent. There was
Speaker 2: the weight of the evidence that behavior's corpus. I could
Speaker 2: always do an article seventy eight, which would be directing
Speaker 2: that the jury was wrong to date, I could reiterate everything,
Speaker 2: including all of the cases. I became a person full
Speaker 2: of hope for so many people at Bedford.
Speaker 1: But Kelly's not content with just inspiring hope. She wants
Speaker 1: to do something big, something she says, no female Geilhouse
Speaker 1: lawyer in the state of New York has ever done before.
Speaker 1: With this in mind, one day she asked the officer
Speaker 1: a question.
Speaker 2: How many people have got and other incarcerated individuals out
Speaker 2: of here? He goes, like, you mean other inmates. Nobody's
Speaker 2: ever done that? I said nobody. He said no. I said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be the first one to do that.
Speaker 2: He looked at me. He goes, I hope you are.
Speaker 3: I hope you are.
Speaker 1: If I asked you to picture Kelly in prison, what's
Speaker 1: the moment that you're seeing in your head.
Speaker 5: Her yelling out of her cell or her door to open.
Speaker 1: This is Trinity. She was in prison with Kelly. They
Speaker 1: lived on the same block, but they first met in
Speaker 1: the law library.
Speaker 2: She's gonna laugh when she hears it.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you, she's gonna laugh because she knows what
Speaker 5: I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Every morning at Bedford Hill's correctional facility, all inmates are
Speaker 1: woken by the sound of their cell doors opening.
Speaker 5: They all open at once.
Speaker 1: All except Kelly's.
Speaker 5: Every single day she had to yell to get her
Speaker 5: door open, open, three open, three.
Speaker 2: Open like you can you can like wait for it.
Speaker 5: All the doors would open, bam open three every single
Speaker 5: day like it got Oh my god, like I literally
Speaker 5: lost my mind over.
Speaker 1: Trinity is thirty years old now, but she went to
Speaker 1: prison when she was just a teenager.
Speaker 5: Like Kelly, I have a domestic violence case. When I
Speaker 5: was seventeen, I was with my father. My dad has
Speaker 5: always been like an alcoholic and a pretty abusive towards
Speaker 5: us growing up. My incident was it happened in July
Speaker 5: twenty twelve. The short version is that my father was
Speaker 5: drunk and tried to kill me, and I ended up
Speaker 5: killing him and then I got arrested.
Speaker 1: Trinity's story is depressingly similar to so many of the
Speaker 1: women I've spoken to while making this series, women who've
Speaker 1: experienced a life full of violence and extreme trauma, setting
Speaker 1: them on a catastrophic path. Often they had to come
Speaker 1: to prison to finally be free of their abuses and
Speaker 1: to find a real family.
Speaker 5: In Bedford, Like we have nothing to do, so it's
Speaker 5: like we just talk or laugh or play games or something,
Speaker 5: watch a movie or whatever. One time we were playing
Speaker 5: this boarding I think it was from my birthday party,
Speaker 5: something like scategories, where it's like you had to roll
Speaker 5: the die with the letter and then you had to
Speaker 5: like try to like write down all the things that
Speaker 5: began in that letter. So it was like different types
Speaker 5: of cars, and the letter started with h I'm thinking
Speaker 5: like a Honda.
Speaker 1: Kelly's team mate is doing some more let's say lateral thinking.
Speaker 5: Her partner said a hearse and it was so funny,
Speaker 5: and Kelly thought it was the funniest thing. I mean,
Speaker 5: she was laughing for so long and it made me
Speaker 5: laugh too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wanting to stop her Badford family from becoming totally hopeless.
Speaker 1: Like so many of her fellow inmates, Kelly pushes them
Speaker 1: to relook into their own cases, like she's doing with hers.
Speaker 5: Kelly taught me that you can get out on a technicality,
Speaker 5: like an infraction like something like that. So she encouraged me,
Speaker 5: you know, like read your transcripts, go over it. If
Speaker 5: it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have done that. More
Speaker 5: than likely.
Speaker 1: Working alongside Kelly in the law library, Trinity can see
Speaker 1: how many inmates are relying on her. Kelly sees the
Speaker 1: benefits too.
Speaker 2: I had the protection from the Law Library. If somebody
Speaker 2: tried me, I always tell them like, listen, this is
Speaker 2: something you don't want to do, because I guarantee you
Speaker 2: you will need me at some point in your bid.
Speaker 2: And then other people would finally say, oh, this one
Speaker 2: you don't touch like anybody else. I don't care. But
Speaker 2: it's just because I was like the only lawyer you know,
Speaker 2: Jelhouse lawyer. Obviously, Yeah, the.
Speaker 1: Law Library offers physical protection from the other inmates, but
Speaker 1: it's so much more important to Kelly than that. It's
Speaker 1: her sacred safe space. But then something happens, something that
Speaker 1: puts Kelly at risk of losing the law library job
Speaker 1: she's worked so hard for. Kelly begins to spend more
Speaker 1: time with the officer. He's been so helpful to her
Speaker 1: throughout her incarceration so far, and as Kelly sees it,
Speaker 1: he's one of the few good men she's met in
Speaker 1: her life. But one day, Kelly says, their relationship crosses
Speaker 1: a line from prison guard and prisoner into something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he definitely he put the moons on me. He
Speaker 2: started touching me and things of that nature. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to lie. When we kissed for the first time,
Speaker 2: that felt nice. I wanted to feel love, and when
Speaker 2: you're taken away from human contact for so long, just
Speaker 2: this feels good. I always just wanted to kiss and
Speaker 2: like a hub I felt a lot when I kissed him,
Speaker 2: and he said that he felt a lot too, And
Speaker 2: then I was to get excited like I have a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: Deep down, Kelly knows what the officer is doing isn't right.
Speaker 2: It was weird. It was kind of maybe like they
Speaker 2: call it grooming.
Speaker 1: I felt violated in every prison, not only in New York,
Speaker 1: but across the whole of the USA. Sexual or intimate
Speaker 1: relationships between prison officers and inmates are forbidden, and it's
Speaker 1: not just against the rules, it's a crime. Even if
Speaker 1: both the officer and inmate claim it was consensual, the
Speaker 1: law wouldn't agree. The power and balances involved are just
Speaker 1: too great.
Speaker 2: I felt that I couldn't tell him no.
Speaker 1: Kelly's worried what if this could jeopardize her access to
Speaker 1: the law library.
Speaker 2: The law library is my life, and without the law library,
Speaker 2: I'll probably never get home.
Speaker 1: Kelly also knows how many of her fellow in mates
Speaker 1: are depending on her.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna let the whole facility down if this ever
Speaker 2: gets out, because I'm taking care of everyone's cases, and
Speaker 2: what would everyone ever do? So I felt that I
Speaker 2: had to let him do these things to me.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Kelly says, the officer reveals a different side of himself.
Speaker 2: He became abusive right along with the rest of them.
Speaker 2: I would come in one day and he would like
Speaker 2: slam the book down and be like demanding get these cases.
Speaker 2: I didn't even do anything to him. He had me
Speaker 2: going so crazy, roller coaster of emotions. I was like,
Speaker 2: what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1: Kelly says. The officer would win her back on side.
Speaker 1: He would spin her bullshit about how the two of
Speaker 1: them would be together once she got out of prison.
Speaker 2: This went on for two and a half years.
Speaker 1: One day it all comes to a head.
Speaker 2: On my birthday. He wrote a note to me that
Speaker 2: stated something about I can't wait to give the birthday
Speaker 2: girl a kiss in playland.
Speaker 1: Playland and honestly, I'm so fucking grossed out that I
Speaker 1: have to repeat that word in this context is code
Speaker 1: for the bathroom that the officer would allegedly sneak Kelly into.
Speaker 2: Somebody found the note, so they know that we're having
Speaker 2: a relationship.
Speaker 1: The person who finds the note is Trinity.
Speaker 5: Something told me to keep it. And then I told
Speaker 5: another one of my friends, not knowing that that other
Speaker 5: friend also had a relationship with him.
Speaker 1: Another inmate that the officer is accused of having an
Speaker 1: inappropriate relationship with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was bear Stard, I guess was screwing around
Speaker 2: some with both of us at the same time. I
Speaker 2: came in like a raging bull and I went ballistic
Speaker 2: on him and I called him like every name in
Speaker 2: the book that. I said, you little bastard. What you
Speaker 2: can't get a girl on the outside, so you come
Speaker 2: to prison to pray on the weak and vulnerable. You're sick.
Speaker 2: And I said, I'm telling you right now, I'm going
Speaker 2: to take this little library and use it to convict you.
Speaker 2: And then he was like, oh it stop. Please. I said,
Speaker 2: you're going to jail and you're going to be somebody's bitch.
Speaker 2: He started crying and then he tells me, please don't
Speaker 2: do this. I'm going to kill myself. I told him
Speaker 2: that Tommy used to say that to me, and he
Speaker 2: said to me you know what, you should have said,
Speaker 2: do what you got to do. So when he said
Speaker 2: I'm going to kill myself, I said, do what you
Speaker 2: gotta do.
Speaker 1: Kelly tells the prison about what's happened between her and
Speaker 1: the officer. I've seen the documents to prove this, but
Speaker 1: she says she doesn't get much of a response.
Speaker 2: They didn't take it seriously at all. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, I told them that Trinity has the letter.
Speaker 2: They went out of their way to not call Trinity
Speaker 2: so that they wouldn't get evidence.
Speaker 1: There is one person who comes to Kelly's aid, someone unexpected,
Speaker 1: the man who helped send her to prison in the
Speaker 1: first place, Assistant District Attorney Sean Clark. Most of the
Speaker 1: men in Kelly's life have not treated her the way
Speaker 1: they should have. They've often been controlling, abusive, and at
Speaker 1: times extremely violent. Seems like the officer was just the
Speaker 1: latest in that long, unfortunate line. Kelly's brother Ronnie, has
Speaker 1: really been the only exception, well apart from one other man.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about the curious case of
Speaker 1: Kelly Harnett and Prosecutor Sean Clark. Their unusual relationship first
Speaker 1: began in the months between Kelly's verdict and her sentencing,
Speaker 1: when she started calling Sean on the phone.
Speaker 2: Hi, Sean, it's Kelly, who was usually like, Hi, Kelly,
Speaker 2: what is it this time?
Speaker 1: Often Kelly would be calling to contest some part of
Speaker 1: her case, or learying out what kind of motions she
Speaker 1: thought should be filed. I can't stress enough how unusual
Speaker 1: this all is. Defendants in murder trials do not call
Speaker 1: up their prosecutors for a chit chat about the finer
Speaker 1: details of their case. But Kelly says she just wanted
Speaker 1: Sean to see her as a person, not just some defendant.
Speaker 2: I'm not a number, I'm not a case. I was
Speaker 2: trying to show him the level of humanity that they
Speaker 2: never see, and I think he was starting to see it.
Speaker 1: Kelly wasn't just calling him up. She was sending him
Speaker 1: some special deliveries.
Speaker 2: I would make comic books of what was going on
Speaker 2: between me, Sean Clark, and mister Murder.
Speaker 1: When Kelly says mister murder, she means Judge lasac As
Speaker 1: for Sean Clark. Do you remember in our last episode
Speaker 1: where Kelly said he looked kind of like Clark Kent?
Speaker 1: She was really serious about that.
Speaker 2: I had people sending me Superman comics all the time, right,
Speaker 2: and Supergirl. Supergirl had blonde hair.
Speaker 1: You can probably guess who Kelly put in the role
Speaker 1: of the blonde haired Supergirl.
Speaker 2: I cut out Clark Kent, and then Supergirl. I cut
Speaker 2: her out and she was walking by a door. I
Speaker 2: roll on the door while library, right, and then Supergirl
Speaker 2: in the comic. I didn't have to touch it or
Speaker 2: alter it. It actually said Clark, is that you I
Speaker 2: can speak your language? Now, no way, that's right. It
Speaker 2: was the first one I sent him. I waited till
Speaker 2: I knew he got it. Then I called him up.
Speaker 2: I was like, maybe he's gonna be really ticked off
Speaker 2: about this. He was like, Hi, Kelly, I could hear
Speaker 2: him smiling through the phone, you know, when you could
Speaker 2: just he was almost giggling, Like you could just hear
Speaker 2: his voice went up a few decibels. I never wanted
Speaker 2: to harass him per se, but I think you could
Speaker 2: suck up a few phone calls.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely. But did you ever worry that you
Speaker 1: might be jeopardizing your chances more than helping? Not at all.
Speaker 2: No, no, because what are they going to do put
Speaker 2: into evidence? A piece of a comic book like That's
Speaker 2: why I made sure I left it at like these
Speaker 2: ridiculous things that they would almost feel stupid bringing up,
Speaker 2: and nobody ever brought it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're a very unique person, Kelly. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1: It's a compliment. It is a compliment for sure. These
Speaker 1: conversations between Sean and Kelly lasted well beyond her sentencing.
Speaker 2: I've even recorded Sean Clark and then called him up
Speaker 2: afterwards and said, I, Shanna just wanted to let you
Speaker 2: know that on the last two conversations I recorded you
Speaker 2: and I'm going to get them transcribed and I'm going
Speaker 2: to submit them in my.
Speaker 6: Four forty ten.
Speaker 2: He just stopped.
Speaker 6: He was like, oh, okay, Kelly, thanks for the heads up.
Speaker 2: After that, I said, that's going to be it. He's
Speaker 2: never going to take a call again. I waited for
Speaker 2: like two months. I called him back. He didn't hang
Speaker 2: up on me. He was just a little bit more
Speaker 2: cautious after that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just Kelly who Sean was in contact with.
Speaker 1: Kelly says he also made a lot of time for
Speaker 1: her family too. Her brother started calling him. In fact,
Speaker 1: it seems like During this time, Sean's going out of
Speaker 1: his way to help Kelly's case before her sentencing. He
Speaker 1: even sends her a transcript of the witness's testimony, where
Speaker 1: he'd healthily marked up and notated certain sections that just
Speaker 1: happened to include the problematic points in his story. I've
Speaker 1: literally seen a copy of this. I still can't quite
Speaker 1: believe it's real. A sitting assistant DA sending a cheat
Speaker 1: sheet to the same woman he's trying to send to prison.
Speaker 1: I've already struggled with unsuccessfully fitting Kelly into a nice
Speaker 1: neat podcast shaped box, and now his Sean Clark, also
Speaker 1: not playing the role I expected him to play. It is,
Speaker 1: from his side, a very odd relationship to be keeping up.
Speaker 1: I can see why you were doing it.
Speaker 2: You know why, I believe. I mean, I can't speak
Speaker 2: for him. I don't know if you've ever read the
Speaker 2: telltale heart Egger Owl Poe. I think a guy killed somebody.
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, somebody was buried under the floorboards,
Speaker 2: and you just kept hearing like beat beat, beat, louder
Speaker 2: and louder and louder, And it was the man's conscience
Speaker 2: the whole time. He did ask me one time, Kelly.
Speaker 6: Can I ask you a question, Why didn't you just
Speaker 6: take the plea? So?
Speaker 2: I said, because I didn't do it, Sean, I'm one
Speaker 2: hundred percent innocent. And to tell you this, she was, Sean,
Speaker 2: if I have to stay in prison for the rest
Speaker 2: of my life and die here, I'd rather that than
Speaker 2: to lie and say that I did something I didn't do.
Speaker 2: He gave this heavy sigh.
Speaker 6: And he goes, Wow, you did always maintain your innocence.
Speaker 1: I wrote to Sean Clark asking him to comment on
Speaker 1: the unusual relationship he had with Kelly, to ask why
Speaker 1: he kept up those phone calls for so long, to
Speaker 1: confirm if he spoke to her family, and if he
Speaker 1: really did send those transcripts. And I got a reply,
Speaker 1: but not from Sean. It was from the Queen's District
Speaker 1: Attorney's spokesman, Brendan A. And Brendan didn't really respond to
Speaker 1: anything I asked, like at all. He just doubled down.
Speaker 1: Here's producer Jake reading from their response.
Speaker 7: On July seventh, twenty ten, Thomas Donovan and Kelly Harnett
Speaker 7: murdered thirty two year old victim Reuben Angel Vargas an
Speaker 7: Astoria Park, Harnett repeatedly kicked the victim while Donovan manually
Speaker 7: strangled him. Hartnett handed a shoelace to Donovan, who then
Speaker 7: used the lace as a ligature to further strangle and
Speaker 7: kill the victim. An eyewitness's account was further corroborated by
Speaker 7: the medical examiner, who found that strangulation was the cause
Speaker 7: of mister Vargas's death. It took a jury of Harnet's
Speaker 7: peers two hours to unanimously agree on a conviction. Miss
Speaker 7: Harnett repeatedly attempted communications with the prosecuting attorney, unsolicited and uninvited,
Speaker 7: despite overwhelming evidence of her guilt. In numerous court filings,
Speaker 7: the defendant blamed her attorney, the court, the district attorney's office,
Speaker 7: the jury, and the eyewakness. She blamed everyone but herself
Speaker 7: for her guilty conduct.
Speaker 1: It feels like neither Brendan nor I can really speak
Speaker 1: to why Sean Clark kept up this strange back and
Speaker 1: forth with Kelly. It's possible he felt some doubts about
Speaker 1: Kelly's conviction. Maybe as he got to know her more,
Speaker 1: he saw her more as a victim and not the
Speaker 1: villain he claimed. She was back in twenty thirteen. Maybe
Speaker 1: he was trying to make up for that, or maybe
Speaker 1: he's just a good guy who wants to help where
Speaker 1: he can, including with Kelly's case against the officer.
Speaker 2: My brother got in touch with Sean Clark and told
Speaker 2: him what was happening. Peta Ronnie. I guarantee you we're
Speaker 2: going to get rid of him.
Speaker 1: Kelly says. Sean makes some calls to the department who
Speaker 1: are handling the investigation.
Speaker 2: Now they're taking me seriously, they said, because we're getting
Speaker 2: phone calls.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: He really did save me, Sewan' Clark.
Speaker 1: The officer doesn't face any jail time, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that Kelly says she and the other inmate the officer
Speaker 1: was allegedly involved with both gave statements.
Speaker 2: Western to the County District Attorney's office decided that there
Speaker 2: was insufficient evidence to go through and prosecute him under
Speaker 2: Penal Law one thirty, which is a sex offender.
Speaker 1: This is why I can't tell you his real name.
Speaker 1: Because no charges were brought against him. He still legally
Speaker 1: has the presumption of innocence.
Speaker 2: It was just such a traumatic situation.
Speaker 3: It really was.
Speaker 2: For it to have gone on for two and a
Speaker 2: half years too, and then the worst came. They took
Speaker 2: my job for.
Speaker 1: Me working as a clerk in the law library. Being
Speaker 1: the jail house lawyer, both back in Rikers and here
Speaker 1: in Bedford, has been Kelly's one continuous source of strength
Speaker 1: throughout her long incarceration. It gave Kelly suffering some meaning,
Speaker 1: kept her fighting all these years, not just for her
Speaker 1: own case, but for all her fellow inmate clients. Without
Speaker 1: the law library, Kelly can't see how she can help anyone,
Speaker 1: let alone prove her own innocence. And worst of all,
Speaker 1: if she's not the jailhouse lawyer, then she's just another prisoner,
Speaker 1: another villain with a guilty verdict, joining the ranks of
Speaker 1: the walking dead.
Speaker 2: That's the worst thing you could have done to me.
Speaker 2: That's when I just freaked out.
Speaker 1: Next time on the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna die here. It was a race
Speaker 2: against time.
Speaker 4: Now I'm not thinking of her helping me, I'm thinking
Speaker 4: of me helping her.
Speaker 2: Listen, this new lodge is pissed in.
Speaker 1: She took Kelly's keys.
Speaker 2: I just started screaming.
Speaker 6: I was like.
Speaker 1: The Girlfriend's Jaelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Anna Sinfield and is written and
Speaker 1: produced by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from
Speaker 1: Jako Taivich and Michael Jinno. Our assistant producer is Madeline pa.
Speaker 1: The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
Speaker 1: from Sarie Houston, Joe Savage, and Charlotte Wolfe. Our fact
Speaker 1: checker is Daniel Suleiman. Sound design, mixing and scoring by
Speaker 1: Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by me Alis Infield,
Speaker 1: Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander. Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander,
Speaker 1: Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein. Story development by Nell Gray
Speaker 1: Andrews and Willard Foxton. Creative director of Novel, Max O'Brien
Speaker 1: and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel, and Katrina
Speaker 1: Norvell and Nicki Eatoor are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts,
Speaker 1: and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to
Speaker 1: Carrie Lieberman and the whole team at WME