Cynthia Ray:: Autism, Incarceration, and a Sister's Fight for Compassionate Release"

Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide?
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Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the
world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantur.
Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide.
Today we're joined by Cynthia Ray, who shares the powerful
and moving story of her brother's journey from his autism
diagnosis to his incarceration and a prostate cancer diagnosis that
went untreated for a year. Cynthia sheds light on how
these challenges unfolded and where he stands today. After my
conversation with her, I had the privilege of speaking directly
with her brother from jail, where his resilience and vibrant
optimism for what lies ahead were truly inspirational. So before
we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an
uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors.
Thanks for coming on, appreciate you having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure. So if you would give us
a little background on your brother and what.
Happened, well, I'd say in twenty fourteen was our family's
first indication that Philip was likely getting involved with the
character that he should not be in contact with.
And I tried to tell him right off the bat.
I don't want to say any normal person, but anyone
that would take just a moment to listen to this
gentleman and do one simple search. I mean to me,
it was very obvious that this was not someone that
he should be doing anything with.
You know.
Unfortunately, he had worked for the I don't know what
we want to call him, the co defendant's family driving
children to appointments. So they had I guess a contract
right with the a transportation company to you know, take
families and their children to hospital visits, doctor visits, that
sort of thing. And I told him in twenty fourteen,
I told him specifically, I said, Philip, I said, if
you get involved with this man, you will end up
in prison. And here we are ten years later, and
he's been in prison.
Now. I guess April twentieth was three years.
I understand he was diagnosed autistic.
But later in life, Philip, you know, my whole life,
I knew that he was different. It was way before we,
I guess, knew the term of autism, and certainly you
know the autism spectrum. I think for a while the
Asperger's term was used, and for years, these later years,
you know, I always knew that he likely was on
the spectrum.
You know, we never investigated it.
He's sixty eight today, and we basically knew that he
was I guess what you called mainstream. Through school, he'd
be passed on to the next grade. We were a
military family, so we were almost at a different school
every year. But there was always these little incidents. When
my brother was in firm, he walked away from school
to head home because he thought our family was moving
and that he was going to get left behind. And
I believe he did that more than once. So we
were two years apart in school, and we're two years
apart in age.
And another thing is that my parents, when they would.
Go somewhere when we were older, you know, pretty much
left me in charge instead of my older brother. And
then I have a vivid memory of a seventh grade journal.
You know, I was required to keep a journal for
a writing class, and I remember distinctly writing a sentence
about my brother is so strange.
All he ever wants to do is listen to sirens.
And then, of course, you know, I knew that he
was very, very talented in music and art, with no
lessons whatsoever. And so we just kind of worked through
our life in a normal fashion.
Moved every year, and you know, went to a new
base every year.
And I guess, thank goodness we had a military life,
because that did kind of contain us.
When we were growing up.
We were always on base, pretty safe, We could bike anywhere,
we wanted, to hang out at the community centers.
Which always had lots of activities.
So all that being said, cut through to this twenty fourteen,
and Philip had already been granted a patent for an
invention I think it was called iq vision, and he
had worked at probably one of the longest jobs he
ever had besides his military service was at the Southern
Mississippi School of Optometry. He developed some program for the
doctors to in order for them to be able to
assess a child's eyes easier. Yeah, I think he ended up,
you know, either signing it over to them or he
sold it to them for some you know, small amount.
When he came up with another invention, you know, we
were just like, oh, okay, I'm sure it'll it'll work someday.
But you know, we just basically, you know, loved him,
tolerated him, tried to understand him. And actually, I have
to say, the three years that he's been incarcerated in
a Bureau of Prisons, you know, in a federal prison,
I've gotten to know him so much better. Whether it's
because of the time he and I talked every Wednesday,
every Saturday, and he emails me, you know, depending on
what's going on or how he's feeling, you know, but
he can email me up to six times a day sometimes,
and then certainly if I don't hear from him for
three days, I know something's up.
Yes, that's very understandable. So what led to his incarceration?
This gentleman, the code defendant, lifetime con artist, which is
what I had figured out immediately when Phillips first started
talking about what he was going to do with this
code defendant.
Philip had what.
Perceivably was a very viable invention, a new wind turbine system.
And you know, that's power, that's energy.
It was the new and improved I guess windmill, but
it was a wind turb wouldn't have to have as
high a tower. There wouldn't be the blades involved, you know,
external blades that could fall off. And so this gentleman
told Philip, I think we need to take this to
market and I can get you all kinds of money
to help you get this built. Of course, and that
was what Philip told us. Is not just claim JD
that JD was gonna help him get this to market.
But the catch was that all of the funds that
JD raised needed to go through Phillip's bank account.
Well, I'm a lifetime auditor.
I was like, well that doesn't make sense, you know,
And that's what was my first clue that something was wrong.
Why wouldn't you set up a corporate account and higher
accountants and you know all this, But anyway, what it
woled down to, long story short is JD went out
and basically conned people out of hundreds of thousands of
dollars and ran it all through Phillip's checking account. And
Philip would go wherever he told him to go and
do whatever he told him to do. He'd send him
to Florida to meet with one of the companies that
looked at his invention, send him to Dallas, had him
move his family to Dallas so they could set up
offices in Dallas.
And all the while JD's out.
There getting money from these investors, having it deposited into
Phillip's account, and then he would call Philip say, hey,
transfer me this amount, transfer so and so that amount,
and oh, by the way, you can keep the rest.
So basically, I guess something happened and they had gotten Actually,
the other gentleman, JD got a cease and desist, you
know from the SEC. You know, naturally, you know there's
rules that have to be followed for raising money from investors,
and you know, things like that, and certainly none of
that was happening Philip just one hundred percent. And I'd
say there's probably a small percentage today that he could
easily be turned by this same gentleman, because he is
an expert con artist, so much so that he waited
right down to the very last i'd say day of
his supervised release, before he even spoke to Philip about,
you know, doing a deal with him. And I think
the guy had his brother in law, his wife's brother,
involved in the whole thing. I guess the FBI approached
that guy first. You know, we've all heard the saying,
you know, the first one that squeals gets the best deal, right.
And sure enough, his brother in law I think got
maybe ten months and they're all liable. I think the
amount ended up being like one million dollars over many years,
not just fourteen fifteen, sixteen, seventeen eight.
You know, several years, and Philip being in.
His mind being a very trusting and kind person, not
an evil bone in his body. Once you get his loyalty,
you've got it. I mean, it's just you'd be hard
pressed to lose it. As a matter of fact, I
even remember him saying that, well, if he goes down,
I'm going down with him, you know, because this works.
He just couldn't see what was being done wrong, that
there was anything wrong with it.
How did it go that long with these pe people
that was investing these companies didn't check it out to
see what was going on.
Yeah, very good question. So what had happened?
I guess the straw that broke the camel's back was
when they went to I guess the brother in law
of JD. Went and I mean as a bank finance auditor.
I don't even know how, but he got a couple
million dollar loan from a bank in the state of
Arkansas for I believe it was two hundred and thirty
one acres. You know, we'd all love to only have
to spend two million dollars for two hundred and thirty
one acres, right, So that was pretty fishy to.
Me as well. But anyway, the brother in law got
a loan for some land. And then, of course, in
a small town, well in any town.
Right before you go into a huge project, right, you've
got to go to the town. They've got to agree
to do this and agree to do that. From what
I understand, they had requested that the town incorporate the
two hundred and something acres into the city limit. And
then that's when a state representative, you know, that's when
other people started investigating the company, and sure enough, you know,
someone easily, just like I did, looked up the guy
and saw he had served a lengthy sentence for mortgage
fraud in the state of Oklahoma. Of course, I had
told Philip that he's like, well, he's done his time,
he's turned his life around.
I'm like, well, you might think so, but no. But
once the.
City's in town got involved, well then naturally, you know,
you've got your counsel looking at this company. And they
were all very excited at first, until I believe there
was a state representative who got wind of the cease
and desist against the gentleman and dug into his history
and saw that what I already knew is that the
man was nothing but a crook. They just went after
the both of them, and Philip was standing his ground.
You know, he had invented this wind turbine, you know,
many many years prior to the con man getting in,
and of course, in his very what's the term for
when you're on the autism spectrum, you have a very
strong mindset of what you know and what you know
to be true, and so that's really what basically took
him down with the guys, because he just couldn't believe
the guy was taking advantage of him, and of course
he had a very strong belief in his invention.
Sure, I can understand that now the companies, I would
assume that they looked into the invention to make sure
that it was okay.
Yes, And this is what absolutely astonishes me.
Okay, because I'm a retired CPA, I've audited all kinds
of companies throughout my career, whether car dealerships, oil and gas,
you know, very complicated, Urkat. The Electrical Liability Council of
Texas then get much bigger than that. You know, we're
the only state that has a council or electric grid
is within our state. All the rest of them cross state.
But anyway, so these gentlemen, very very smart gentlemen, I
never could understand how in the world they bought into this.
You know, you were talking like ten thousand here, thirty
thousand there. I mean, they were begging JD. Please let
us be part of your company. Were and they set
up their own company because they wanted to. You know,
if they brought in more investors, they would get paid percentages,
and some of them did. Apparently that didn't matter in
the grand scheme of things. But I mean they even
went to equity firms. Wow, right, I mean my brother
asked me to be his CPA and I refused.
I was like, no vital think.
So that's the thing that really puzzled me is that
these seemingly very smart financial people who saw the financials
on a monthly basis, and they did their due diligence,
but yet somehow I guess the greed.
So once this thing all started falling apart and it
started working with the legal system, what happened next?
Philip, with his very strong mindset and belief in his invention,
he was indigent from the beginning. I mean, the only
money he had was what JD was saying, Oh and
you keep the rest right, and you're talking like maybe
fifty thousand a year max, you know, year over year,
just barely enough to pay rent and utilities and buy food. Right.
So then what was the next step after that?
So they appointed him a public defender, and immediately Philip
thought he was the smartest man in the room, right,
and he felt very strongly that just any public defender
is not going to understand my wind turbine, And so
he decided to represent himself, which of course we all
know who you're representing when you represent yourself, right. I
mean a couple of years went by before it even
went to court, because they had gotten the cease and
desist in twenty sixteen. I think by twenty eight Team
Philip had gotten a full time job at an auto
dealership in Little Rock, Arkansas, and basically, you know, he
was minding his p's and q's, he was working, paying
his bills. I believe at that point he may have
started drawing his Social Security you know, so he basically
was money and money out for food, clothing, and shelter, right,
And I think that went on for about four years before.
It went to court.
Well, we had no idea that it was headed to court,
and I mean we just found it by flute. My
dad went online and looked to the guy and we saw,
oh my goodness, he's been indicted. We didn't even know
that because again, because of his autism, it.
Was not unusual for us not to hear from him
from like two years at a time.
That's quite a long time to go. Did you have
any idea that something was going wrong?
Oddly enough, while we yearned to know where he was
and what was happening. It never occurred to us that
something horrible could be happening. So in twenty twenty is
when we discovered that he was about to go to court.
Thankfully because of COVID, it got delayed, delayed, delayed, and
so I was able to basically get him to understand,
you can't do this all by yourself. And the co
defendant did get an attorney, very well known.
Attorney in Little Row. I met with that attorney.
He wanted to know where's Philip going with it, and
you know, I explained Philip's situation to them. So the
other guy paid bookoo bucks for this very well known attorney,
and Philip represented himself. They could not get it separated,
for it to be two separate cases.
So then fast forward to September.
I guess what three years ago September of twenty twenty one,
the conviction came through.
I mean the trial.
I believe if it was not four weeks, it was
at least three weeks long, which I thought was crazy,
you know, in and of itself. And really the money
that from the investors was only and I don't mean only,
but as far as it being a portion of the
one point one million. Money from investors was total like
five hundred thousand. And again that was over several years
of these different investors, you know, putting in ten thousand
or putting in thirty thousand, and there again there was
one investor that put in three hundred thousand because guess what,
he wanted to build it all, right, he wanted to
be the one managing the construction of it all. So
finally when the conviction came down, you know, they go
through I think the government had fifty one witnesses or
you know for the prosecution, which was crazy. They even
brought in this lady from Florida that had taken fill
Up around to look at some apartments, you know, whenever
JD said, hey, you need to go to Florida because
we need you sitting down there speaking to the company
that's going to analyze your invention. But of course, I
mean they were they weren't out I don't know, maybe
an hour hour and.
A half, two hours.
I think they got it late in the afternoon, and
pretty much the next morning it was settled. And so
at that point in my mind, I guess I always
thought Philip knew that he was autistic and I don't
know why I thought that he knew that, But that
day I asked him, and you know, and it was
hard for me to ask him. I said, have you
ever considered you're on the autism spectrum?
He's like, no, why would I do that?
I said, let's run over a few characteristics and I
just went down this list.
You know that you can pull up right Google.
So once you got this all done, did you actually
get him diagnosed?
Yes?
I told him he was just in total shot. When
he's like, well, yes, yes, yes, I have all of that,
and I said, well, I said, I think the best
thing you can do is go to the Veterans Hospital
right here in Little Rock and you need to go
talk to someone and you need to find this out
if they agree or disagree. You know. Sure he and
I could sit there and google the questions and just
like the IQ tests, right.
You can pull one up right.
So he agreed and he went and he was evaluated
by a psychologist at the VA hospital in Little Rock,
and sure enough, he meets every criteria. He is you know,
ABC D yes. And so I also used that to
help Philip understand you cannot go through sentencing and you
be your own attorney. Again, you've got to let them
appoint an attorney for you, you know, So if nothing else,
we got him to allow an attorney then to be
appointed for him through the sentencing phase. But even then,
I mean, too little, too late, right, And not that
an appointed attorney was the reason that it was too
little too late. But still, you know, you've got what
two months maybe three between the guilty verdict and when
you're coming back for sentencing. As a matter of fact,
I think the guilty verdict was in September, and the
sentencing date was in February or March, and then of
course he had to report in April. It's taken me
the three years that he's been in there to get
him to understand what really happened.
Yeah, that can definitely be tough. So how many years
was he sentenced for.
He was sentenced to eight years, So this is retired military.
He actually worked for the Judge Advocate General's office in
the military, helping inmates in Leavenworth filing claims, you know,
about their property or whatever. And of course, as you
can imagine, even that stint, you know, and I think
he worked for the Judge Advocate General in several different
classes or levels throughout his eight year career, and so
naturally he thinks that he knows as much as any attorney.
Sure I can understand that, but.
Yes, they sentence him to eight years.
He did get sentenced to a camp and that went
along smooth. He had a rough adjustment of period because
then he was like, how come they.
Don't follow their own rules? Right? Because he reads a lot.
Then he read the rules and he's like, wait a minute,
they're not following the rules. So he went in in
twenty two. In July of twenty twenty three, he started
having prostate issues, and then it took from July of
twenty twenty three to August of twenty twenty four for
them to even get him to a urologist.
Wow, that's unbelievable.
And sure enough, by October eleventh, he was diagnosed with
a very aggressive prostate cancer. I mean, on the scale
of one to ten, he's a nine. The percentages the
amount of coverage I guess, for all intents and purposes
in a layman's terms, the cells, right.
The amount of damage cells, cancer cells.
My fight for him was to get him out because
of the whole thing just being wrong to begin with.
But now my fight is my brother's going to die
in prison. He basically has a death sentence. I mean Talladega.
Oh where he was They even by November first, so
he got the diagnosis, confirmed the scale the seriousness by
October eleventh. On November first, they said, please transfer this
man to a federal medical center. We can't deal with this,
which obviously it took him a year just to get
him seen, you know, a consultation. So then he gets transferred,
and of course they don't tell them anything. So finally
one night in December, December seventeenth, just this past December,
they said, pack up your stuff.
You're leaving at five o'clock in the morning.
He's been at the Federal Medical Center at Butner since then.
Okay, so what's the next step. Are you trying to
get him a compassionate release?
Yes, filed compassionate release.
And I think you may know the attorneys I've been
working with, Doug Passing, Yes, Allenball. I mean he used
to be on the Federal Sentencing Commission board or council
or you know whatever they call it.
Both just brilliant men.
I appreciate them so much, so we filed compassionate release,
and it went.
Nowhere for months and months.
And all along Philip was not even being treated. Finally,
so he got to the Federal Medical Center on December eighteenth.
He saw a doctor on January seventh that said, yeah,
we know, we need to treat you, and then nothing.
And because I truly believe, only because I was already
fighting for this compassionate release is the only reason that
he is actually being treated today.
He just finished.
I think his first treatment was on April fourteenth, and
his last treatment will be July no June June eleventh,
and then they have to wait thirty days for them
to even do another test. It's almost a day question
did you get your treatment? Did you get your treatment?
Because the machines are old and break down, and you know,
maybe you're going to get treated and maybe not.
So you know, so far, so good. They've been holding up.
So what are the next steps?
Well, so right now I'm kind of in a holding
period because the judge finally responded to the motion prosecution.
You know, they get to pick up the phone and
call the Federal Medical Center and say.
Hey, what are you going to do?
And win and they may or may not have planned that,
but once it goes into a court record. So really,
as bad as it sounds, I'm really lucky that I
was already trying to get him released since August of.
Twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four.
You know that when we finally got it confirmed, because
I guarantee you that the only reason he's being treated
is because I was already asking for him to be
released so that the VA could you know that he
could be treated properly immediately without the delays. I mean,
I can't even imagine what it's been like for him
to sit there day after day after day and year
after year with no treatment.
Yeah, that is just unbelievable.
Really, yes, very well, that particular location has one fourth
of the deaths.
And you know this is nothing that I'm just inflating.
Right. So where is he located now?
He's at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina.
Oh okay. As a matter of.
Fact, I just emailed Philip today, you know, it's his
birthday and hoping he's had a good day, hoping he
got his treatment, and reminded him don't forget to request
a transfer to go back to a camp. We have
officially changed his home location to my address in Texas.
So basically, as soon as he finishes treatment and he
gets a clean bill of health, and I don't even
know that it has to be a clean bill of health,
but when his treatment is done at the Federal Medical Center,
then we want to get him back in a camp
environment where he belongs, where he should be, because it's
a much more tolerable and understandable situation for him. You know,
right now, at a federal medical center, you're with all types.
It's not just your white collar criminals. It's the drugs
and the murderers and all of that.
So are there any host that you might get him released?
I really hope that.
So you know, in the system, are you familiar with
their good time credits? Yes, so you know if you
have an eight year span, so I think originally he
was the eight years would have gotten him out in
twenty thirty two. So for example, after he served the
first two years, within two years came off the back right,
so that brought him down to six years. And so
I'm hoping that now now that in course, I have
no idea when it'll show up in their system now
that he's completed another year. I expect another year to
come off the bat and if that is the case,
then he should be able to come out on supervised
release next year. So April of next year he should
be eligible that. You know, they say that you can
be out on supervised release a year prior to the
end of your sentence. So if that's the case, at
the farthest out point, I'm looking at twenty twenty six,
but it could be twenty twenty seven, but still I
guess best case scenario immediately would be once he completes
his sessions treatments, that he can come to Texas. You know,
he's been so so far away.
As a matter of fact, I got.
To visit him for the first time in April in
three years. I mean, my parents are eighty eight and
ninety about to be eighty nine and ninety one, and
you know they can't make that kind of trip. The
very next thing is we're hoping that he at least
gets moved back to a camp and then either next
year and certainly by twenty twenty seven if nothing else,
that he can come out on supervis release.
So that's where we are today.
Well, it's been a crazy journey for sure, but hopefully
he can get his health back and then get out
on supervisor release. Oh yeah, hopefully it's not that death
sentence like they thought, right.
Right, I just can't you know, it was obviously you
know it was bad enough looking at eight years and
you know, my parents could likely be gone before he
ever gets out. But that's kind of my goal is
to get him at you know, I've got this window right.
I need to get him healthy and out while my
parents are still healthy in here. And I'm hoping that
those two points meet quickly.
Yeah, me too, Let's hope. Well. I really appreciate you
taking the time to come on and tell the story.
Thank you so much, Tony. I appreciate your time.
Oh it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking
time out of your busy schedule to listen to our
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