My unexpected life journey

My hearing was held on February 12, 2020 in Sao Paulo.  I was handcuffed and placed in the back of a transport van that had no windows in the back.  That was the worst.  I think I may have had a little light in the back but not much.  It seemed like it took forever and I had to really try to maintain my balance on the seat in the back while the guards drove the van to the courthouse.  I finally arrived to the courthouse and climb down in the back of the van as well as I can with my left hip hurting as it was.  We climbed the stairs to the floor where my hearing was being held with an armed escort of 2 officers.  When we arrived together floor, I spoke to an interpreter so that I could understand what was being said and he would interpret what I said.  My appointed attorney meet briefly with me and then we went into the hearing.  There were two witnesses for the prosecution.  I recognized the officer who had arrested me and who did the strip search but the other person I didn’t remember ever speaking with at the airport.  But she gave testimony that I had a conversation with her.  What she said in the hearing were things I never said to anyone.  When I was finally asked questions, the look that the judge gave me was one of malice and disgust.  If looks could kill, I would be a dead woman.  One thing I did appreciate is that he asked the guard if I was a danger to myself or anyone in the court and she said no so he asked that my cuffs be removed during my testimony.  That’s the only appreciation that I had.  I told them I had never known anything about transporting drugs for anyone and hadn’t known that was what I had been carrying.  I told the court that if I had known those packages were drugs I would have flushed them all down the toilet, changed my ticket to go back to America and never spoken to “Marcus” again.  I informed them that they could look on my phone (which the federal police had) and it would show that I never had discussions about drugs between myself and “Marcus”.  The judge ordered for a review of the contents in my phone and the hearing was ended.

After the hearing, I was placed back in cuffs but this time, the guard placed them on extremely tight.  Then she grabbed the cuffs and pulled me out of the courtroom and cranking my hands upwards with her grip.  She never let go of the cuffs even when we were going down the stairs.  She didn’t slow down on the stairs and kept pulling me and I was fearful that I would fall down the stairs again.  She was acting really rough with me and I didn’t understand why.  Finally we reached the bottom of the stairs and began the journey back to the prison.  At that point I was happy to be in the back of that van because I didn’t have to be manhandled again because I knew she wouldn’t treat me that way at the prison.  The head of security liked me and made sure that I was okay all the time.  I knew I never caused a problem and always kept my nose clean so the treatment by that guard was purely unwarranted.

So I made it back to the prison, walked through a metal detector and allowed to return the population.  I tried to go back to work but the guards told me I could just head back to the building which I did.  I was cautiously optimistic because I knew there was no evidence linking me to drug trafficking on my phone.  I went back to my normal routine and waited for the verdict. 

I received the sentence on April 1, 2020.  I thought it was a joke but apparently April fool’s day is only done in America.  I received a sentence of 7 years, 10 months and 15 days.  I didn’t know why.  I couldn’t understand why especially if they looked into the content of my phone and found no discussions about drug trafficking on it.  To say it was a huge blow would be an understatement.  I asked for an appeal to be started and it was noted that is what I wanted to happen.  I was very distraught and walked back to work since it was still in the middle of the shift.  The head of security saw me walking back afterward and was spreaking to a couple of visitors.  She stopped her conversation and called me over.  She asked if I was okay.  I said I was even though I had tears brimming in my eyes.  I know she saw this but didn’t push me to talk more.  So I went back to work and tried to be productive.  I failed miserably.  Reality hit hard and I started crying.  I had to get up from my work station and step away from the group I was working with.  A couple of my English speaking friends came out to check on me.  The manager also came into the room I was in and found me as a couple mess.  I was crying so hard and telling my friends about my sentence so they could relay the information to the manager.  I asked for a few minutes to put myself together before I returned to work.  I knew that this sentence meant that I would be transported soon to another prison because that’s how it usually goes.  I was told it could take months to get transferred but still, I didn’t want to go to the other prison.  There were always horrific stories told  about the prison I would be going to and it terrified me.   Never did I think that my terror would manifest as quickly as it did.  A few days later, I was informed that I would be moving to the other prison on April 8, 2020.