The Girlfriends S3/E4: The Shawties

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So you can get your ducks back in a row.

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Took the words right out of my mouth.

Just another day at the office.

This is Andrea Gunning from Betrayal.

Are there two sides to every story?

Academy Award nominee Robin Wright stars in The Girlfriend on Prime, a psychological thriller that will make you question everything.

Laura has the perfect life and a son she'd die for, but when he brings home his new girlfriend Cherry, played by Olivia Cook, something feels off.

Also starring Lori Davidson, The Girlfriend is a a twisted game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems.

Don't miss The Girlfriend, streaming now exclusively on Prime.

Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

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Hey girlfriends, it's me, Anna.

I wanted to give you a heads up.

This episode takes place within Rikers Island Jail, so we'll obviously be speaking a lot about the prison system.

Plus, there's going to be talk about addiction, and there's lots of references to violence, including domestic abuse.

But I'll also get to introduce you to some incredible women who formed a sisterhood while locked up and who helped Kelly become the woman she is today.

If you're affected by any of the themes around domestic and gendered violence in this show, reach out to our charity partner, Know More.

They're a domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources to help you or your loved ones.

You can search knowmore.org and we'll put a link to their website in the episode description.

There's also going to be some bad language, so let's go.

It's a swelteringly hot day in early July 2010.

Kelly Harnett has just arrived at the infamous Rikers Island jail.

She's been taken into a unit called, pretty uninspiringly, New Admissions.

This is where you wait around while you and a busload of other detainees are processed.

It's not a comfortable place to be, even at the best of times.

And this month, temperatures are reaching as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the non-Americans in the room, that's nearly 40 degrees Celsius.

At the time, Rikers also doesn't have any air conditioning, so you're just cattle in a hot tin can.

I couldn't take it and this one-piece paper suit covered my footing and I had no shoes on.

Remember that bloodstained suit Kelly was wearing?

She still got that on.

It was so hot, I ripped the shoe part and rolled it up.

Now I'm barefoot in Rikers Island in Intake, which is the filthiest place that I know of in the world.

From Intake, where all new arrivals go, Kelly is taken through a series of invasive medical tests, blood tests, mental health assessments, drug checks.

Then, she's issued with a kind of jail starter pack.

Some clothes, two towels, two sheets, toothpaste and a toothbrush.

A single green cup, plus something called state soap, whatever the fuck that means.

After getting her supplies, Kelly's spat out into the general population.

a 60-person unit.

As she walks through a communal area lined by cells, she can tell that everyone's looking her up and down.

All eyes stayed on me for two reasons.

I was white and the paper suit.

Now, I know that African Americans are treated very unfairly in the justice system.

So it made sense when I went in there and there are 60 cells and 59 of them are African American.

And then there was me.

So people started talking to to me like, yo, blondie, yo, white girl.

And I said, nah, nah, we're not doing that.

I have a name.

I'm not a punk.

You're not going to push me around in here.

Other than rejecting some new unwanted nicknames, Kelly keeps her head down for the first couple of weeks.

She's got a plan.

Just watch and watch and watch.

Get a feel for absolutely everybody.

But while I was watching, I was deathly sick.

Kelly's been an opioid addict for a decade and has been on and off methadone for most of that time.

Right now, she's going through something called administrative detox.

It's the fastest detox that you can put a person through legally.

When they called methadone, a few times, I had to crawl on my hands and knees.

And one captain, when he saw me, he said, you see,

I hope you remember this for the rest of your life.

This is what drugs do to you.

During this time, Kelly's barely able to speak, throwing up and worse.

Kelly's very religious, a Catholic girl through and through, and a dedicated disciple of Saint Therese, whose signature token is a rose.

Kelly's been praying to her since she was four years old, and I imagine she spent these early weeks of detox doing the same.

She's always relied on Saint-Therese to get her through the worst.

But right now, there's someone else by her side, too.

Kelly's being nursed by a woman, a fellow inmate, someone she's never met before.

This lady, she was maybe a couple years older than me, and when I was feeling a little bit better and I could speak, I said, Thank you so much.

She gives this woman a hug.

And I said, why do you smell like roses?

She said, Oh, these are my rosary beads.

I got these from the Vatican.

They're made of rosewood.

The woman takes the beads off and places them around Kelly's neck.

I said, What is your name?

She says, Teresa.

And I said, Really?

It's amazing.

I feel that that was my guardian angel.

I feel that God sent Saint Therese

to tell me that everything was going to be okay.

It's just as well, because Kelly's going to need all the help she can get, divine or otherwise, if she's going to survive here in Rikers, let alone prove that she's not a murderer.

I'm Anna Sinfield.

I'm from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts.

This is The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer.

Episode 4, The Shorties.

At first, Kelly keeps her distance from the other inmates.

But pretty soon, it becomes clear that to get by and here, she's going to need some friends.

Enter Angelica.

Our sisterhood, we called ourselves the Shodis.

Angelica isn't actually her real name, but it's what we're going to call her.

Going to court is the time where men and women are brought back together, right?

Because we're very in very separate quarters, and so we don't see each other until it's time to go to court.

The way the guys speak to you, they go, you shodi!

Yo, shorty with the blonde hair, shodi, shorty with the gray shirt or shorty with the black pants.

Yo, Shawty, give me your numbers.

So we started this joke.

We started calling ourselves the Shaudis.

And this is when I formed a family in Rikers.

We're going to find lightness in everything.

I mean, I think it's part of the human condition.

As terrible as an experience is, in order to survive it, you find

some beauty somewhere, you find something amusing somewhere.

Kelly finds her little pocket of joy the same place she found it before prison on the dance floor.

Drop the beat, Kel.

I used to put my walking on and dance, like in the open, in the huge recreational room.

I wanted to feel happiness, and that's what made me happy.

So I danced.

And other people started dancing.

We started what they call a battle.

One person will go, and then the next person goes.

And then by whatever you hear, the crowd screamed, like, yo, she got sunned.

That's who wins.

Then the officers were calling other officers to come watch this.

And

they said, you gotta see the way this white girl is sunning everybody.

So

yeah, I won the battle.

They were like, yo, white girl could get down.

And they took me in as their own.

Which included sharing their most sacred secret recipes, DIY beauty tips.

How do we straighten hair without a flat iron?

Well, we had a nice hot pot.

which is kind of like a long tea kettle, if you want.

And we would unplug it and like wrap hair around it and brush it.

Or in Kelly's case, she liked her hair curly.

So she would make rollers out of newspapers or tissue.

Just kind of like roll her hair, tie a little knot, go to sleep, and there you go, curly soup.

And for lipstick, for example, we had these little packs of almost like Kool-Aid.

wet the crystals a little bit, dab your lips, there you go.

It's It's amazing.

No smudge lipstick.

What about foundation or eyeshadow?

Or mascara?

Mascara must be hard.

So mascara was made with toothpaste and the ink from a pen.

Now, thinking back at it, it's probably not the best thing for your eyes, but

don't get your eyes wet and you're fine, right?

And it worked just like mascara.

And it got to the point where officers were like, you guys have makeup in your cells.

We're like, no.

They're like, oh, here go these Building 8 girls, you know, because we were always tip-top.

As the shorties bond over time, Kelly tells them about her case.

And everyone kind of shrugs it off.

All of us were like, why are you here?

Kelly's innocent.

They can all tell.

And it's just a matter of time before a jury will see that too.

We just knew, oh, you're going to go home.

You know, this is just, it's unfortunate it's taking this long.

At one point, early in Kelly's detention, her brother Ronnie comes to pay her a visit.

The visitors' area is one depressing room split into two by a row of booths that go down the middle.

Glass separates the prisoners and the visitors.

Over the two-way telephones, Kelly and Ronnie are having a heated exchange.

Kelly's been offered a plea deal, 10 years in prison.

Her co-defendant and ex-boyfriend Tommy Donovan, the man Kelly says is solely responsible for Angel Vargas' murder, has already taken the deal he was offered.

He'll take a plea for manslaughter for 15 years

and the deal was as long as he states that I helped him.

Those were the conditions.

But Kelly's not budging.

I'm not guilty.

I'm not taking a plea.

I plan on taking this to trial.

Don't go to trial, please.

Don't go to trial.

Ronnie, I can't say the words that I did something I didn't do.

I was getting so frustrated.

Ronnie was so scared to lose me that he was telling me to take the plea.

I screamed it out.

Do you think that everybody that's here, do you think they all did it?

And everybody that was there, they were shaking their heads like, he's right.

Kelly's in a unit of 60, but Rikers Island houses around 600 women in total.

Their charges range from things like simple drug possession all the way up to murder.

They come from different places, but there's one thing so many of them seem to have in common.

Very few people wake up one morning and say, I'm gonna hurt somebody today, right?

There's a whole

story before you get to that moment.

One after another, those stories eventually blend in together.

These are the women who was in here for domestic violence.

I have a domestic violence case.

Domestic violence survivor.

Fighting off their attacker and things like that.

He came up behind me and put me in an awful chokehold.

And tried to kill me.

The first time I fought back.

Where I ended up killing him.

Next thing I know, I was being arrested for murder in the first degree.

This isn't unique to Rikers.

Studies show that more than 70% of incarcerated women say they've been victims of domestic abuse.

And obviously, this is in addition to the poverty and racial abuse many have experienced.

When Kelly looked around the visiting room that day, and looked around the jailhouse in the days after, she wouldn't have just seen a room full of potential criminals, but a room full of women like her.

All Kelly can hope is that the next chapter of her life includes a not guilty verdict.

But it's an uphill battle, and the odds are seriously stacked against her.

Because that plea deal that her ex-boyfriend Tommy took, the one where he agreed to testify against her, it means that now she's facing even greater charges than him.

And if Kelly can't convince a jury that she's a victim too, she could spend the rest of her life in prison.

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No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

the grand opening for my children's boutique is coming up, gay!

Um, but I am struggling to get my.

ducks in a row?

But gave it away.

Don't worry, we can help you with everything from signage to get the word out, custom printing to show off your unique selection,

branded products you can customize on our website, and of course, affordable flat-rate shipping so you can get your ducks back in a row.

And start growing my business.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Just another day at the office.

Bear of a task?

You're up next.

This is Andrea Gunning from Betrayal.

Are there two sides to every story?

Academy Award nominee Robin Wright stars in the girlfriend on Prime, a psychological thriller that will make you question everything you think you know.

Laura has the dream job, the perfect husband, and a son she'd die for.

But when her beloved Daniel brings home his new girlfriend Cherry, played by Olivia Cook, something feels off.

Is Cherry the sweet, innocent girl she appears to be?

Or is there something more manipulative beneath the surface?

And how far will a mother go to protect her son?

Also starring Lori Davidson, the girlfriend is a twisted game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems, and everyone has something to hide.

Don't miss the girlfriend, streaming now exclusively on Prime.

Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

About three weeks after arriving at Rikers, Kelly is still getting her daily dose of methadone.

One day, she gets talking to the woman in charge of the detox program, Miss Cruz.

She goes, Harnette, you need to stop it with this methadone shit.

You need to get the hell off of it, and you need to get your ass to that law library.

And that's what you need to do.

You need to get your head in those books.

Seriously, Kelly.

And when she called me Kelly, it was like humanizing me.

She said,

you gotta start fighting your case.

So I said to myself, all right, just go to the law library, see what happens.

The next day, at 12.30 p.m.

Sharp, Kelly's outside the law library.

She's waiting at the locked blue door, peering in through the window.

The officer opens the door, he checks the list.

They're very used to nobody showing up.

They're so used to getting those hours free, and they could just go and hang out with their friends.

So I was cramping their style.

The law library is divided into two main sections, separated by a big divider with windows.

As you walk through, you'll see a load of computers and then row after row of bookcases.

But to get to that part, you first have to pass the officer's desk, which sits directly across from a bunch of old typewriters and some of the dustiest, oldest law books in the library.

He was really pissed off, the guard, that somebody was coming in.

He said to me, Anytime you want to leave, you can leave early.

And I was like, there's no way I'm leaving early.

What am I going back to?

Really?

What am I going back to?

There is one person happy to see Kelly in the law library.

The paralegal that was there, an older man.

His name was Fernando Contreras.

What an amazing man.

I mean, he was so great with me.

He gave me so much hope.

kelly picks up her first book

mckinney's consolidated law

that's the binding authority for new york state i started reading it and nothing made sense to me literally at first they looked like hieroglyphics

it was like a complete foreign language And I didn't understand how people could possibly go in there and understand anything.

And I said, okay, Kelly, the only way that you could learn to love this is if you're good at it.

Everyone loves something that they're good at.

So start reading things over and over and over until you practically memorize them.

When you practically memorize them, you're going to become good at it.

When you're good at it and you master it,

you're going to love it.

I was studying for 16 hours a day I was reading CPL 71020 730 740 and so forth Brady violations Rosario violations

one day during one of Kelly's hieroglyphic translations another inmate comes to join her

her name is Peaches Peaches became a really good friend of mine She had such an amazing personality.

She was such a good person.

She was just so genuine.

And I would help her a little bit with her reading.

And

then it became like a potential assistance for legal work because I'm just getting started.

So I didn't know if I would ever have the capabilities to help myself or anyone else.

But the more Kelly reads.

And then rereads, the more things start to fall into place.

By the third time I read it, I couldn't believe that I felt like they looked like hieroglyphics because I'm totally understanding this now.

And I'm picking up the wording, even if a case is unfavorable.

I'm learning how to write the way that they write.

She's not just regurgitating a bunch of jargon.

Kelly starts crafting legally sound arguments.

It became the love of my life.

I started filing dismissals and indictments for people at Rikers Island.

Kelly's not only helping individuals with their own cases, she's fighting for all of her Rikers Island sisters.

We took them to court for taking our flip-flops away.

We took them to court for searches, like they were doing excessive searches on a specific unit because it was so small.

And we took them to court for that.

They stayed away for about eight months after that.

Kelly's reputation eventually starts spreading around the prison.

It even reaches a recently arrived inmate, who we'll call Tasha.

She's been jailed in Rikers following a lifetime of abuse after witnessing her boyfriend murder someone.

Everyone who meets Tasha tells her the same thing.

You need to go talk to Kelly.

Some of them are like well, who's Kelly?

She works in a library.

By this point, Kelly's in high demand.

There's a long line of women who want her services.

Tasha comes back again and again.

Eventually, I asked her one day, I said, excuse me, is your name, Kelly?

So she looked at me, she smiled with the most beautiful smile I've ever gotten.

And she said, yes.

I said, can you please help me?

And I just started crying.

I sat down and she was like, well, tell me what's going on.

So I told her a little bit about the case.

And she went and she found this paperwork and that paper.

She put it down.

She gave it to me.

She was like, I want you to read this and write down whatever you feel fits in your crime.

Eventually, you know, I would continue to go back.

I was giving a lot of people hope, and they were telling me that.

Like, thank you so much.

You're giving us so much hope.

All of a sudden, the law library started getting packed.

And like, Mr.

Brown wasn't happy about that.

Mr.

Brown was the officer.

He goes, oh, God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer.

Of course, life isn't all roses for Kelly inside, even with Saint-Therese watching over her.

Kelly spent the last few months fighting for her fellow inmates, but her trial is coming up.

She needs to go back to fighting her own corner.

Unfortunately for Kelly, though, that's not the only fight she needs to be prepared for.

Because while the Shorties have her back, Kelly's also made some dangerous enemies.

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The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

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Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Variety has the solution.

Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Where do you see the business actually heading?

Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

But I am struggling to get my

Dev Sonora,

but gave it away?

Don't worry, we can help you with everything from signage to get the word out, custom printing to show off your unique selection,

branded products you can customize on our website, and of course, affordable flat-rate shipping so you can get your ducks back in a row.

I can start growing my business.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Just another day at the office.

Bear of a task?

You're up next.

This is Andrea Gunning from Betrayal.

Are there two sides to every story?

Academy Award nominee Robin Wright stars in the girlfriend on Prime, a psychological thriller that will make you question everything you think you know.

Laura has the dream job, the perfect husband, and a son she'd die for.

But when her beloved Daniel brings home his girlfriend Cherry, played by Olivia Cook, something feels off.

Is Cherry the sweet, innocent girl she appears to be?

Or is there something more manipulative beneath the surface?

And how far will a mother go to protect her son?

Also starring Lori Davidson, the girlfriend is a twisted game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems, and everyone has something to hide.

Don't miss the girlfriend, streaming now exclusively on Prime.

Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

It's always an uncomfortable experience running into your ex's ex.

Now imagine running into them in jail when neither of you can get away, which is exactly what happens to Kelly.

She's trapped in Rikers with Tommy Donovan's ex-girlfriend, who Kelly says is inside for selling drugs.

And the worst part of all of this is that Tommy's ex, she has serious beef with Kelly.

I asked her why, like, she's like, you stole my man.

I had a fist fight with her literally every single solitary day, every day, to the point where one day I said, I want to have a peaceful date today.

So it was 5.30.

It was breakfast time.

I pounded on her door and she was like, what?

Who's there?

And I was like, It's Kelly.

Get up.

Let's go now so we get it out of the way.

So she comes out like hair all crazy.

I said, Come on.

She said, Where are we going?

I said, to the staircase where there's no cameras.

And listen, my brother told me to fight.

And, you know, for a white blonde girl, like people get shocked at my strength.

It's not something I'm proud of.

I'm a lady.

However, if you're going to touch me, you are going to get a receipt.

So, yeah, I kind of beat the hell out of her on the staircase, but I didn't start the fight.

She kept hitting me first every day.

This went on for 45 to 60 days.

So I was like, okay, so it's a once-a-day thing.

So I'm just going to get her first.

But I would never be like a dirty person and like hit her when she's not looking like she would to me.

This isn't the only fight Kelly was getting in.

They have these girls that we call bubblettes.

Now, bubblettes are the girls that hang around the officer's bubble and flirt with them all day long.

And you get really pissed off because you're like, you can't get your door open.

You can't do this.

You can't do that.

You need toilet paper.

And they're just flirting and flirting and flirting.

I want to just say, listen, just put the flirting on hold.

Can you just give me some toilet paper, please?

I have to use the bathroom.

And you have to wait.

Flirting, flirting, flirting.

Kelly asks if she can get past to use the shower because one of the bubblets is standing in her way.

She told me I couldn't use the shower.

And I said, Excuse me, the last time I checked, you're an inmate here just like me.

And she said, you can't use it.

And I said, I'm using it.

Kelly breezes past and steps into the shower.

Bad move.

I

someone grab me and yank me.

Like instant whiplash, right?

Now I see people running in.

One held one arm in back of me.

When I went to hit her, the girl caught my hand and held it back.

They call it like a crucifixion because it's like one arm here, one arm here, you can't use it.

And then the girl who was flirting, she just starts punching me in the face.

Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch.

Now I'm trying to kick her.

Somebody else grabs my leg.

Now each person has a limb.

I'm up in the air with the girl punching me over and over and over repeatedly, right?

The girl who was holding my right arm, she said, stop!

You're gonna kill her!

That's when I got scared.

If her co-conspirator is telling her to stop, this must look really bad.

And then Peaches comes running in.

In addition to being Kelly's unofficial law library assistant, Peaches is a big, friendly giant of a woman.

She's also not someone you fuck with.

She said,

you effing bitches,

put her the F down before I effing kill all of you.

And she put me down, all right?

She actually threw me down into another shower.

Peace just goes, yo, Kels, get up.

Now get a few shots in.

And I did.

I just started wailing, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

This is not something I'm proud of.

I just want to put on the record.

However, this was the survival of the fittest.

And like only the strong survive.

So if it got out there that I took this, it would never stop.

So I knew I had to do some type of damage to make it visible to other people.

I did a lot more than I intended on doing.

I put her in a wheelchair.

So.

Permanently?

No, no.

No, no.

I think she was really trying to milk it, honestly.

She told everyone, yo, that white bitch is crazy.

Stay the fuck away from her.

Like the other times Kelly's told me she's gotten into scraps.

Kelly was quick to add that she's not proud of how this bust up went down, but she's also kind of laughing it off.

And while she might not have started this fight, she sure finished it.

I know my discomfort is showing me up as a real soft-handed lily-livered journalist.

And believe me, I am trying my best not to be.

But here's the thing.

Firstly, I'm still shaking off my preconceived notions of how I would expect a victim like Kelly to behave.

And also, because I reckon if I was facing an accusation of murder, I wouldn't be so open about sharing a story where I kick the shit out of someone to the point of them needing a wheelchair, temporarily or not.

I care about Kelly, and I kind of want to tell her to edit herself in these moments because it doesn't look good.

But I actually think, in a weird way, Kelly telling me this shows that she's not holding back or shying away from some of the less sympathetic parts of her story.

The bottom line is, jail is a rough place.

And like Kelly says, only the strong survive.

Whenever she's not fighting her ex's ex in the stairwell or a few pissed off bubblets in the shower, Kelly's in the law library, fighting her case, maybe a few dance battles in between.

Her life goes on like this for some time, which won't be a surprise to anyone who has experience of of the justice system.

It moves very slowly.

It's May 2013.

Kelly's trial date, after years of delays, is set to begin in the next few months.

Kelly's been poring over all the documents from her case.

arming herself as best she can for the fight ahead.

When she gets some news,

her lawyer has received a letter.

A letter that could change everything.

A letter from her ex-boyfriend, Tommy Donovan.

Dear Mr.

Epstein, as you are already acquainted with me, I will get to the point.

My memory is clear and my intentions now true.

On the next episode of The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer, Kelly's case goes to trial.

The trial was awful.

They called Judge Lasack Mr.

Murder.

They got into an altercation with Mr.

Vargas.

Hi, I'm the killer.

That's the likely motive for what happened.

Did I pull that out of the air?

No, I pulled that out of the evidence.

They came back with a unanimous verdict.

I couldn't believe it.

The Girlfriend's Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.

For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

The show is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield, and is written and produced by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from Jaco Tayvich and Michael Gino.

Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr.

The editors are Georgia Moody and me, Anna Sinfield.

Production management from Cherie Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe.

Our fact checker is Dania Suleiman.

Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander.

Music supervision by me, Anna Sinfield, Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander.

Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander, Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein.

Story development by Nell Gray Andrews and Willard Foxton, creative director of Novel.

Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are our executive producers for Novel.

And Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etor are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts.

And the marketing lead is Alison Cantor.

Thanks also to Carrie Lieberman and the whole team at WME.

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Took the words right out of my mouth.

Just another day at the office.

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This is an iHeart podcast.