Joan Lipinski : Battles for Her Autistic Daughter's Freedom

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Humanity over Handcuffs the Silent Crisis special event. Joining us
today is Joan Lipinski, who has graciously agreed to share
her deeply personal and inspiring story to navigate the complexities
of the legal system on behalf of her daughter, a
journey that led her all the way to the halls
of power in Washington, d C. Where she courageously advocated
for change. The challenges she faced have been formidable, forging
a path marked by resilience and determination. Through it all,
she's gained invaluable wisdom and perspective, making her extraordinary voice
in this conversation. Truly grateful to have her here with
us today. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you so much.
Oh, it's my pleasure now if you would give us
a little update on your daughter and her journey that
she faced with the legal system.
So initially when she had her sentencing, it was three
years after her first arrest that they actually did the sentencing,
and then upon sentencing they actually remanded her on the spot,
which is not what was supposed to happen. She was
supposed to self report. But at the end of the
sentencing his comments were, I would love to have her
as my neighbor. I know that she was manipulated into
doing this, but I need to make an example of
her to other nurses and janitors that work in a
prison that you can't do this. So and what happened
in my daughter's case was she was manipulated by inmates
where she was working to bring a package in that
she had no idea what was in the package, where
she would have never taken it in. This one inmate
was professing his love for her and totally used her
and befriended her and you know, built her up and
told him he would take care of her and she
just needed to do this for him.
So can you explain was she in jail for three
years before she got the verdict? How did this three
year appear period come about.
I know she was at home on probation pre trout
probation for three years till she got sentenced. We were
waiting for a sentencing date.
So it took three years from the time that she
was arrested until she finally got the verdict. That took
three years to do this.
Yes, and it was almost exactly three years. It was
April second of twenty twenty one, and it was April
fifth of twenty twenty four.
When the sentencing occurred. I believe you said the judge
made a notable remark concerning autism. Can you provide more
details about what was said? Additionally, can you elaborate on
her journey after the conviction was finalized and the challenges
she faced along the way to her final destination.
So at the sentencing he was like, you know, it
was stated that, you know, people with autism don't do
well in prison, you know, And she had just had
major back surgery too on top of it, and was
supposed to let her see her neurosurgeon before she was
taken into prison. But anyway, they didn't let her do that.
They took her on the spot and so the journey
was she ended up going to a local jail. She
was there for three months, so she was supposed to
get medical help and counseling, but they put her in
a county jail for three months with no treatment, and
then they moved her to a private facility for eight
days and there was no medications, food was scarce, and
they made her sign paperwork that wasn't even hers, but
she would have died there if she didn't. And then
from there they finally sent her to Tallahassee, where she
was there for one day, but they took her back
brace away at that point and she was not even
a little bit healed from her surgery. And then they
put her on a journey on a bus and then
on two planes, and then on another bus, and then
she was taken to Oklahoma to a transfer facility and
was there for ten days, and then finally she was
put on a bus and was taken to her destination,
which was Carswell Federal Medical Center, and it's the only
female medical prison that we have, so that was where
she was supposed to go, but it took four months
and five prisons to get there, and it was a
very arduous physically and mentally draining journey.
Wow, that's an immense physical and emotional toll she endured
throughout this ordeal. It's hard to imagine the strength that
she had to summon just to get through this, given
her medical needs and challenges she faces. I think you
mentioned the possibility of getting a compassionate release, So.
After she got there, we were going to file for
compassionate release because of the horrible treatment. I mean, she
almost died a couple times, and mentally she just was
about out of her mind. So when they filed the
compassionate relief in the end, which took a couple months
to do, the judge there was over five hundred pages
sent with a compassionate release of medical records and requests
and what had happened in the previous prisons, and she
hadn't gotten any medical treatment for her back or her
heart or anything. I don't think the judge read any
of it. And his comment was that her autism, which
was Asperger's, that was her diagnosis, was Asperger's, was overstated
at sentencing and all prisoners have medical issues.
Well, that's sad to hear that the judge dismissed her
compassionate relief request. His remark that her ASPERG is diagnosed
was overstated and that all prisoners have medical issues, feels
dismissive of her unique struggles, adding insult to an already
painful situation. Now, how did you feel witnessing this response
from the judge, knowing the extent of your daughter's suffering.
Well, that was like stabbing me right into heart. No,
the autism is what got her in there, and then
no treatment for medical was what was putting her in
so much pain. And she's disabled now, she can barely walk,
she's in constant pain. She's still it's a year later
and we still haven't seen a neurosurgeon or a back
doctor of any kind. And she had one day of
physical therapy eleven months after her surgery, and her neurosurgeon's
never seen what he did if everything turned out the
way it was supposed to. But in the meantime, there
has been no counseling of any kind, no medical treatment.
So that started my journey of well, my journey started
back into County jail, taking her medications away, you know,
giving someone who just had major back surgery on a
one inch cot with no pillows, no blankets, you know,
sleeping pretty much on the metal, which was hard. And then,
which still is the case now or a year later,
she's got a thicker mattress and she does have a pillow,
but she's had no treatment. So I started being vocal
with the health services people lieutenants in the prison, fighting
for just simple things like underwear and socks. For four weeks,
she had no underwear and no socks, and it was
being a female. It was very, very difficult at the
time of the month when you really need that. And
I begged and pleaded for underwear and socks and.
Four weeks so who did you go to for the
simple things like that.
I went to the head lieutenant under the warden of
the jail, and I also went to the Health Services administrator,
who was to make sure she was getting the medications
she should be getting. And I was making those phone
calls at least once a day, sometimes twice a day,
and I was just begging and pleading. I drove to
the jail and took socks, but you're not allowed to
give anything. And I argued, because I gave them the
list of the medication she was on. I said, the
most important thing she needs right now is tilan all
because she just had this surgery. They took her off
the hardcore drugs for the pain, and for five days
she had no tile and all. She had no pain
medication of any kind, no treatment, no pain medication, slipping
pretty much on metal, no pillow. I mean, she was
in agony.
What was the response when you brought things up that
she needed, Oh.
We'll check on her, We'll check on her. And next
thing I know, ten days later, they threw her in solitary.
I couldn't find her. I thought she was on her
way to federal you know, because they said she probably
wouldn't be there very long. So I'm thinking she's on
her way to a federal prison. And I happen to
have a video scheduled with her because there's no visitation there.
But I happened to have a video, and I thought,
I'm going to stay in this video and see what happens.
She came on the video and was still there and
told me they threw her in solitary confinement and she
wasn't allowed out, she couldn't make phone calls, she wasn't
getting her medications, and nobody and I was on the
phone a lot then I'm like, are you trying to
kill her? You know? And they're like, well, we don't
know why she was put in there. And I said, well,
somebody needs to find out what she's doing in there,
because they said she's going out of her mind. You know.
It's feces infested, it's cockroach infested. And I said, she
can't call me. He goes, well, there's a phone there.
I go, yeah, there's a broken phone that an inmate
pulled off the wall because they got mad, So there's
no phone.
So what happened after all of that?
So finally there was no explanation as to why she
was put in solitary and that just about made her crazy,
And finally psychiatry got involved, and finally, after it was
two months, she got some anxiety medicine that helped finally
comp her down. So then she started this journey. But
with autism, these journeys are very difficult. An heat changed,
and plus she had been changed from unit to unit
to unit to unit, wasn't allowed outside, never saw daylight,
had no exercise for four months when she started this
whole journey. And here she's had back surgery. So when
they put her in a car she could barely get
in the car, and then when they went to put
her on a plane, she could hardly get up the steps,
shackled and chained, you know, and on heart medicine on
top of it.
So where is she now?
She is at Federal Medical Center and cars Well, and
that's I mean, that's her destination for now. But when
she got to cars Well, they had no medical records
on her and didn't know what she was doing there.
So once again, so here I am. I'm calling that.
This is when I really started calling on senators and people.
I'm like, I need help. I you know, I was
working with waltw with prisonology. I'm like, what do we do?
I had attorneys. I'm like, we got to get in
touch with somebody. She help. They don't even know what
she's doing there. They put her in camp clothes, put
her in medical clothes, put her back in camp clothes,
put her in medical clothes, all the while hauling mattresses
and stuff. She was fit to be tied. And I
thought her first day there she was not going to
make it through the night.
Now, this whole process we've been talking about is over
the last year or now at a year okay, and
there was three years before that, So how long is
the sentence that's remaining.
Sixty three months? Five years and three months.
So what about the first three years that.
Went by don't count or nothing? No, because she was
at home, they don't count for anything.
So now she's been in there year, technically she has
four more. Yes, okay, so what are you doing now?
So what I'm doing right now is especially after they
denied the compassionate release, which everybody, everybody was thinking she
should be able to get that with her medical condition
the way she's been true, the mental aspect of it,
you know, and the judge said, we want her in
a medical facility where she gets care. Well, okay, so
four months went by, we had no care, no medical facility,
so we thought that would be reason for him to
grant the compassionate release, plus the autism. And then, like
I said, his statement was, well, her autism was overstated,
and all prisoners have medical issues, well not all prisoners
have major back surgery, heart conditions and don't get treated
for any of it, right right, and get moved to
five prisons in four months. That's not a normal journey.
So anyways, the more she's there, and she keeps in
touch with me, and I, you know, I just find
out what's going on, and so I'm like, I have
to do everything I can in my power to try
and get her out. So the next step is clemency.
And we just filed clemency paperwork.
Okay, So in trying to get clemency, what are the
steps you had to take to get this started?
So you go online and you pull the form off online, okay,
and you fill it out. But then I was able
to get another attorney to help me with clemency. He goes,
we need to add more to the clemency form. It's
it's eleven page.
Form, all right.
It's really her statement of what happened, you know, what's
happened in her life, what's going on, what is she
participating in, what does she want to do in the future.
And then I put a statement with it. And then
I had an attorney and he and I believe he's
on your podcast and passing.
Yes, he's been on very good episode. How did he
help you?
He actually did the clemency form for me, and he
made he made it her story. He told her story
of going from like high school, you know, through college
and keeping it simple and then what happened, you know,
and how she got into this and how this affected
her life. I wanted to hand deliver this to Washington,
was my goal. So that's where that went.
Okay, So you did get to clemency papers filled out?
Was you able to get them to DC?
Well, right before they got filled out, I heard from
the one House of Representative person that I knew. He said,
you cannot hand deliver paperwork. It must go through email.
Oh okay, it.
Has to be. It has to go to that address
that's on the paperwork. You cannot bring it here and
we can't hand walk it over because that was my intention.
I wanted to hand walk it over to the office apartment.
Well, that's unfortunate that you actually couldn't take it over
there in person. I always thought hand delivering it sometimes
would make a difference.
I was really let down about that. But we went
ahead and filed it online and I made copies of it,
and I said to myself, I'm still going to Washington.
Good for you.
What were your plans.
I'm going to go and I'm going to carry my papers.
I'm going to put them in front of people and
I'm going to talk about this issue. I'm going to
talk about the inhumanity that they faced in the prisons
right now. It's understaffing, no medications, they're hungry, there's not
much food. There's been no commissary. They put people on lockdown.
The inhumane treatment is unreal. And Michelle, being a nurse
by trade, she has to see people who've lost their legs,
they've lost limbs. You know, they're sick, they faint, they
have seizures. She can't help them. And she's in a hive.
She's in a maximum security facility because it's medical. So
she's in with white collar crime, she's in with minimum
offense first offenders, and she's also in with murderers.
So your next step was Washington, d C. How did
it go when you went up there?
Yes, So I went to Washington last week and I
took a whole packet with me. I put an agenda together.
I had a meeting with Senator Cruz's office. I went
to his office. I couldn't get a personal visit with him,
but I was able to go to a coffee that
he had where his staff was there, and I did
get to meet him. So I got to sit with
down at his staff, and I had my packet of
her clemency paperwork and what's happening, and just a brief
description of why I was there, and I was fighting
for her life. I'm fighting for her being now being disabled.
I'm fighting for prisoner rights because they don't understand how
bad things are in there. We've got no leader right
now of the BOP. A lot of the wardens have resigned.
The leadership is lacking, and the treatment within the facility
is just inhumane. So I got to sit down and
really have a long talk with his legislative aid and
he was like, I really appreciate you letting me know this.
He said, I had no idea.
So do you think that the time that you spent
up there was productive and did you walk away happy
with it?
I think if you take any message away from this
at all, they are involved in so many different things
that if you have ten people that go and talk
to the same person about the same issues, that's where
you start having an impact. And when you start having
more people, like one hundred people or one thousand people
that are complaining about the same thing, then you get
you start getting people's ears right.
That makes a tremendous amount of sense. So you got
to see Senator Cruz and talk with some of his people.
Did you get a chance to see anyone else?
Well? Then I went from Senator Cruz's office, I went
to Rick Scott's office, Senator Rick Scott's office and dropped
a packet off there. Because I had been in communication
with his office, I was not able to get an
actual appointment with him. And then I went from there.
I went to two other House of Representative offices, and
then I went to Senator Greg Stuby's office and I
got to sit down with him personally for fifteen minutes,
and his legislative aid, who is responsible for this type
of thing?
That's great to hear? How did everything turn out at
the meeting? Once you arrive?
That was my best conversation at that point. The clemency
was filed, but we had no record that it had
been received. So they were going to look into that.
They were going to talk to people at the Office
Pardon find out what options, you know, we might have
to move forward, see if we can get her paperwork
to anybody specifically, they have a pardon czar who was
pardoned by President Trump who's in charge of pardon, but
they don't even know if she's in Washington or where
she's at. I've tried to reach out to her. I've
reached out to her organization that she personally had. I
got word of who might be the next head of
the Bureau of Prisons. I have tried to reach out
to that person and get a note sent to them
and let them know. I'm fighting on behalf of my daughter.
I'm concerned about I already know she's disabled. I'm worried
about her coming home in a body bag. I appreciate
any help we can get. You know, people think I'm
being over dramatic. I'm like, I'm not being over dramatic.
Two weeks ago, there was a female in her that
was bullied. Michelle's bullied all the time, that was bullied constantly,
was asking for help, and she ended up committing suicide.
Is that a concern of mine? Yes, that's a concern
of mine. But she can't say anything because if she
acts like that as a problem, she will get thrown
into solitary and they will put her in a straight
jacket or in a mental ward or whatever they'll do,
and then she'll just really go downhill.
Yeah, we definitely don't want that to happen. So what's
your next steps? What are you doing now? Are you
following up the calls that you had? Have you got
any calls coming in?
So what I'm doing now is I'm following up with
the five offices that I actually touched base with while
I was there, which includes Senator Scott's office. I actually
talked to them earlier. I let them know what happened.
With Representative Greg Stuby's office, I reached out to him.
I let them know the case number. We have the
case number now, and I gave them updates on what's
going on with her and what we want the next
step to be. And there's so much discussion right now.
Nobody knows. The left hand doesn't know what the right
hand is doing. You know, there's supposed to be letting
people out on home confinement. They're supposed to be letting
minimums out. They're supposed to be sending people to halfway houses.
They're supposed to be getting people's records straightened out. And
it's a big mess because people's records are wrong, you know.
But I'm fighting for my daughter right now. I want
to fight for everybody, but right now I'm fighting for
her life because if I lose her, then I'm done.
I can certainly understand your logic there for sure. Now
what about your family? How has that affected them? And
how you're doing on that front?
It? This has affected our family greatly, and you know,
I mean we're fortunate and that we have a family
to support her. You know, I listen to her stories
and it's so sad the people that have no one
to fight for them. So I say, well, you tell
them once I take care of you. I fight for everybody,
but right now I'm just trying to save your life.
Well that's good that you think that way. So what's
your next step now?
So my next step is right now, I fly to
Texas three times a month to get her out of
the facility for a couple hours, to get her out
of the toxic environment, to spend time with me. But
it's so hard. I mean, she's still crying. It's a
year later, she's still crying. You can't touch them, you
can't you know, console them. All you can do is
sit and talk to them and just tell them you're
going to make it. Just keep pushing through. You know,
but they don't understand her physical issue, and they keep
letting her to work and she can't. She can't. She
can't make it through visitations with me because she's in
so much pain. And then mentally, the crying is just
really difficult, and she tries to hide the crying, but
she can't. And for her, it's begging and pleading. It's
constant begging and pleading. I need to be home. I
can't do this anymore. You know, they're going to just
let me die in here. I want to be with
my family. I miss everybody. I mean, she's she was
allowed to go to any for those three years, she
couldn't go to any funerals or weddings or anything like that.
She was confined to an area. So were four years
she hasn't been allowed to do anything. And for a mistake,
a mistake that she made, not intentional, no maliciousness, for
a mistake.
It sounds like you're on the right track to getting
what you want done. It's just going to take some time,
because one thing I've found when dealing with a government
or anything like that, is the hands of time move
very very very slowly, very slow. I think this is
going to make a great episode because you have explained
the steps that you took. I hope anyone listening, especially
those who fortunately aren't in a situation like this, can
gain some valuable knowledge from it. Unfortunately, if they are
in a similar spot, hopefully they can follow you steps
to gain and find success like you have too.
Yeah, I think, like I said, I had gotten involved
with another group years ago, and I know one thing
that someone told me, and I was reminded when I
went to Washington. If you have people that come and
tell you what the problem is, and they're in front
of you, they have to listen to you, and it's
usually something they don't know about. And if they hear
from someone else the same thing, and hear from someone
else the same thing, then you start to get their ear.
And I know, you know the women who were praying
at the abortion clinics who got arrested, some of them
were in there with Michelle. You know, the seventy and
eighty year old women were in there with her. So
they're getting a voice and they're getting to speak out
on what the injustices is. But the problem Michelle's having
is and even her counselor said to her you're kind
of like a unicorn in here because nobody knows she
has autism and doesn't understand why she's quirky.
What is it that she might be doing that they
think is a little quirky.
I think that she says things to bully people, but
that's what comes out of her mouth, and she doesn't
mean it in a mean or negative way. And she
was almost beaten up by her one roommate who was
a murderer, who was in there for murder, and Michelle
is afraid she was going to be killed.
Yeah, that's real tough. What would you like people to
know that you think is very important for them to
hear and understand.
I'm happy to tell it. I just hope it can
help someone, and I hope that all of our voices together,
well one helps some judges understand you can't treat everybody
the same, you know. And I know that a lot
of the other parents and people are speaking out that
law enforcement has to have a little bit of an
understanding of this too, because they don't understand, you know,
they think someone's lying to them and they're not lying
to them. It's just that they're quirky or they don't understand.
Yes, that's a common thing that's been said about autistic people. Well,
this has been a great conversation, great information. I hope
it helps a lot of people that are listening. I
really appreciate you taking the time to come on my podcast.
All right, well, thank you so much, Tony. I look
forward to you know, the podcast and hopefully it'll make
a difference in somebody's lives.
Yes, absolutely agree with you, they are one. Well, thanks again,
thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule
to listen to our show today. We hope that you
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