Elizabeth Mikotowicz-Prison Reform-Inside Looking Out

Show Transcript

Prison Reform: Inside Looking Out

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: Artist Elizabeth Mikotowicz was nearly beaten to death while being pregnant. She became addicted to painkiller drugs and eventually was sent to prison where she was regularly humiliated and treated as a slave. Now she's launched an environmentally friendly clothing brand while working to expose corruption and cruelty in America's prison system.

[00:00:25] Stay with us. 

[00:00:26] Elizabeth Mikotowicz went from painting murals as a federal inmate to having her own environmentally friendly clothing brand based on art she created in prison. Matter of fact, she's wearing one of those creations today. It's beautiful. I love it. She's also working with state representatives to get better laws to protect people in vulnerable positions.

[00:00:52] Some she says have passed and she's got some news about that today. So Elizabeth, welcome to Lean to the Left. Appreciate it and, really looking forward to the conversation. 

[00:01:03] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Thank you for having me.

[00:01:05] Bob Gatty: You're welcome. I haven't had too many jailbirds on my show and and, those who I have had, you're far cuter which is

[00:01:16] okay. Tell us a little bit about your background, Elizabeth and what took you to where you ended up. Okay. 

[00:01:27] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I was adopted at birth and I had a really great family growing up. There was a lot of love and a lot of support. I was never exposed to violence cruelty drugs or any type of abuse like that.

[00:01:42] I did struggle with some mental health issues in my teen years. And I kept getting misdiagnosed and so I would be given psych med and it would put me in psychosis. And this continued for about 20 years. It was until recently this year I realized I'm not bipolar. I don't even fit the DSM five for bipolar disorder.

[00:02:07] I'm high functioning autistic and I have sensory issues and the autism spectrum is so wide for high functioning autism. It really spreads into all these other diagnosises, which fit me a lot better. And medication never worked for me. But it was in my late teens, early twenties I got into a really abusive relationship and he assaulted me and you could see my skull when it happened. It was right above my eye. All right. And yeah, I went, they had to sew the muscle back together, then the skin, and I literally couldn't lift this eyebrow for close to a year. They told me I was gonna have to get plastic surgery to get it fixed.

[00:02:50] Luckily it worked itself out though. Unfortunately, because of that injury, I started getting seizures. And so I had toddlers running around. My, my daughter was a toddler. I found out I was pregnant that day and the doctors gave me opioids. And when I tried to refuse because I found out I was pregnant, they threatened me with child protective services and they told me I was on too small of a dose to get addicted and I was on state insurance.

[00:03:21] Now I, wasn't on my parents' private insurance and I noticed they treated me a lot different. Now that I was on state insurance, I was in the poor class now. 

[00:03:30] Bob Gatty: Oh, wow. 

[00:03:30] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: The beatings got worse. I got strangled to the point where he damaged my windpipe where it would collapse in on itself up to a year after he was gone because the damage was so bad and you're 600 times more likely to be killed by a partner if they actually strangle you.

[00:03:48] And I went, when I went to the battered women's shelter in Bangor called Spruce Run, they're known as Partners for Peace now. They turned me away with two beds open. They said after talking with police, And looking at my hospital records, my injuries were way too extensive and it put the other women in the shelter in danger, and this is a problem with victim based shelters.

[00:04:10] A friend of mine in jail tried to get in the sex trafficking shelter because she was trying to get away from her pimp. She ended up in jail like. She, and they told her the only way she could get in is if she told on her pimp to police, and she's I'm not doing that. He knows where my children live. He knows where you know, everybody. I care about lives. He has all of my IDs, he has all of my ways I make money. He holds all of my, this is what these traffickers do. So like it's not safe for these women to tell on them and for shelters to turn away these victims because you're not getting something from them.

[00:04:48] That's not what this should be about. You're getting tax money and you're getting government funds and everything else to help these victims, and you're telling them, no, I'm not gonna help you because it's either too dangerous or you're not giving us a collar. And that's a problem. That's why so many women are slipping through the cracks of this country and ending up in prison.

[00:05:09] Bob Gatty: Was this your husband? 

[00:05:11] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: No. He was just my boyfriend at the time. 

[00:05:15] Bob Gatty: Why did you stay with him? You had two, kids by this guy. 

[00:05:19] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: No, I had a child by someone else from a teenage relationship. I got pregnant on birth control twice. All the women in my family did. Come to find out, once I met my biological family, this was like a constant theme in that family.

[00:05:33] Like birth control did not work Wow. On us. Wow. And yeah, we were very fertile and just Yeah, it was really hard. But 

[00:05:43] Bob Gatty: Why don't you st yet. Okay. But you were with two abusive guys. 

[00:05:48] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. 

[00:05:49] Bob Gatty: Why?

[00:05:50] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I'm not sure. I can blame it on being young and stupid, but I, and being high functioning autistic, I would mis cues that I think other people would pick up on.

[00:06:00] It would go over my head. You couldn't really read between the lines. It's like I had to learn the hard way. In order for something to sink in. And then when I tried to leave, he would hold me hostage and hospitalize me again or threaten my family or, and I was scared and like I, I tried to leave once and I got held hostage in my own house for three days.

[00:06:23] Bob Gatty: And you were how old? 

[00:06:26] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I was 18 when this relationship started. I'm 36 now, so I'm a lot older and I'm a lot wiser and I, know how to set bound boundaries now. Yeah. But I didn't know how to set boundaries back then, and I didn't I, didn't wanna be a single mom with two kids. And I was like trying to fix and something that was unfixable.

[00:06:49] And I think a lot of women Can relate where they're just, they don't know how to get out and he kept taking all my money. There was abuse coming from all angles from him. It was mental, it was financial, it it was everything.

[00:07:05] Bob Gatty: Yeah. So you were basically trapped. 

[00:07:08] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, when I, that's when I tried to go to the battered women's shelter for help. Finally. And they turned me away. Yeah. They turned me away with two beds open.

[00:07:18] Bob Gatty: Oh, man. So how'd you end up in jail? 

[00:07:20] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: After the shelter turned me away, I made a deal with my father to keep my kid safe.

[00:07:27] Yeah. Because if the cops had, he had shown up with the cops, my father would've had to hand my son over. And I wasn't willing to do that. I was homeless now and I was getting seizures constantly, so I wasn't even a safe caregiver at the time. So it made sense to sign temporary guardianship over to my father.

[00:07:44] But when I did that, I lost all of my insurance so I could no longer get properly medicated. I couldn't go to therapy, I couldn't, I was self-medicating on the street now and still running from him and drug dealers protected me. They gave me places to hide, like they gave me someone to walk with just to make sure I wouldn't get attacked on the street.

[00:08:06] They gave me drugs to sell or work. And because I was so hardened and so tough from the trauma of what he did, I wasn't scared to die at this point. And I wa I wasn't backing down to anybody. I was really good at this new street life that I had just stepped into, and I was always trying to get back to my kids.

[00:08:26] It was, I was always like, just one more flip, one more flip, and I, can get an apartment, then I can get my kids back. And it was just always one foot in, one foot out. And then eventually I caught charges in 2011, and then the feds picked it up in 2013 . I'm grateful for it because I was like Under this illusion of white supremacy and the patriarchy, like I thought discrimination and racism was over with in this country.

[00:08:51] And then I go to prison and it's like my eyes were opened to the most horrible things that were still going on. Like for instance, I met a handful of women that had been sterilized against their will in prison, and this was before Trump filled up the ICE camps with refugee women. And everyone was hearing about how refugee women were getting sterilized against their will.

[00:09:13] They were doing this to American women. And at one point after like I met the third or fourth girl that had that, that had this happen to, I realized none of those women were white. And now all of a sudden with overturning of Roe v. Wade, it's a great day for white lives everywhere. And it's I can see what's happening.

[00:09:32] It's just, it's terrible. They're, literally committing genocide. 

[00:09:36] Bob Gatty: You were sent to prison because you were convicted of selling drugs? Yep. Okay. So you were selling what? 

[00:09:42] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Everything uhhuh, everything I could every whatever streets around 

[00:09:46] Bob Gatty: streets, street, drugs. We're not talking about opioids.

[00:09:49] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. Opioids, pills, crack, heroin. Yeah. And then basalt came around and that's what I eventually got busted for. And it's funny because it was legal at the time and I'm like, oh, sweet. I can't even get in trouble for this if I get caught. And oddly enough I go to prison for the first time.

[00:10:07] What was it? But 

[00:10:08] Bob Gatty: bath salt. What's that? I don't know what that is. 

[00:10:12] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: It's, two components off crystal meth. Basically it started coming over here from China, just like all the fentanyl did. Yeah. And this was right after, see, I remember the timeline because I remember a year before we had just gotten in debt with China, like $7 billion or something like that.

[00:10:29] And then all of a sudden all of these street drugs changed and they were all coming from China. And I noticed it because I was a drug dealer and I noticed the market obviously. So you know, it was bath salt and they were bringing over like different strands of Molly. All these chemists have to do is change the drug two components and it's a whole new drug and it won't show up on the cop street test.

[00:10:55] Ah, So I, yeah it's pretty bad. So I don't know what the correlation between China and this whole thing is, but I it's, strange. Yeah. And they, came in through the back door and rural communities, just like big pharma did with the opiates. 

[00:11:12] Bob Gatty: Okay. So the bottom line is you got caught selling this stuff.

[00:11:15] They sent you to, to prison. First you went to a state jail, 

[00:11:21] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yep. And actually I stayed in state jail for 16 months just waiting to get sentenced. And my first week at Somerset County, I witnessed an entire pot of women get stripped because they signed up for a razor. And a male sergeant wanted a list of who shaved their vaginas and who didn't.

[00:11:38] This is just the PG 13 stuff that goes on in there. I want everybody to imagine your wife or your daughter being stripped naked. So a male sergeant can see what her grooming preferences are like, this is abuse, it's disgusting, and it shouldn't happen. And that man is still working there collecting a pension.

[00:12:00] And they had cameras inside. Some of the SMU cells where they'd have women's strip and they'd have men watching on the cameras. And they did this to me and it triggered my trauma from what my ex used to do. And I went into full blown psychosis and I had a female sergeant telling me to kill myself while I was in this mental state.

[00:12:23] And they, lied to the fed trying to get me more time. If they don't like you, they will make your life help. And they they do, they come in and do petty stuff like rip up pictures of people's kids and try to get reactions out of them just so they could use violence on inmates. You can refuse.

[00:12:40] I, know lots of women are saying I wouldn't strip in front of a camera. That's your choice. You're gonna be met with 15 armed guards all suited up in SWAT gear with electric shock shields, gas, mace, batons, and you will be met with extreme violence. So that's your choice. If you wanna stand tall and be like, I'm not stripping for these men or whatever, you're gonna be met with extreme violence and they will get away with it.

[00:13:06] Bob Gatty: When you say met with extreme violence, you mean beat the shit out of? 

[00:13:11] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yep. They'll throw gas in your cell and it's chemically designed to take the oxygen out of your throat so you can't breathe. And now they lock all the other inmates down when this happens. But the, it goes through the vents, so it hits everybody.

[00:13:25] So even though the The rest of the pod hasn't done anything wrong. They're still getting gas. They're still trapped in a cell that has these chemicals coming in and it's terrifying. You can't breathe and they don't care. They don't care what the consequences are. Yeah. I've watched so many women die.

[00:13:44] When they transferred me to Cumberland County. There was a 17 year old girl that got brought from the juvenile center, and they've had years of allegations of abusing these kids. And every, time they get caught or something comes up they just resign and put a new person in place.

[00:14:03] And the same thing happens again. And that's what all these, that's what all these institutions are. They keep covering stuff up and being allowed to conduct their own investigations. And this little girl got sent with us because she got tired of getting raped and she finally snapped and stabbed the guard that was assaulting her.

[00:14:20] So they brought her with the adults. They told her she was going back for her last two weeks. She had done 18 months, two weeks is a nap. They told her she was, her last two weeks was gonna, she was gonna go back. She slit her throat that night. That was better than going back there. And especially the juveniles, like what?

[00:14:38] When they try to report stuff, their word is not taken seriously because they're children and these predators know that and they sign up for these jobs there. Like you're six times more likely to get sexually assaulted by a cop than a civilian. And I'm not gonna sit here and say all cops are bad because that doesn't help anything And that's not true. For every cop that tried to hurt me, there was another risking their job trying to make it stop. So I'm not gonna sit here and feed into this whole like, anti blue thing because they're not all bad. But when it's at least half of them, that's a problem.

[00:15:15] Bob Gatty: Okay. So you went from the state jail to federal prison eventually, right? Yep. Yep. How did that happen and. 

[00:15:27] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I got sentenced to 37 months and three years probation. And I had to make the trip from all the I, was going to West Virginia, but to go to West Virginia, they send you all the way to Oklahoma and then you come back to West Virginia. It's ridiculous.

[00:15:44] They spend so much money moving inmates around unnecessarily. And it like it costs $400 for an inmate to be moved from Penobscot County jail to the courthouse. The courthouse is a block away and it's $400. This is where your money's going, people, and let me tell you something, like they make inmates work 40 hours a week.

[00:16:09] For $5 and 25 cents a month. A hospital saves $350,000 a year contracting their linen to be washed by inmates instead of paying regular people. That's why we have so many people in prison. It's not rehabilitation, it's not their crack laws. It's a free workforce for corporations. This is why they're doing it.

[00:16:32] This is why they're criminalizing homelessness. We went from three empty houses for every homeless person to 29 empty houses for every homeless person over the pandemic, and now they're fining people for feeding the homeless. They are forcing people to break the law and go to jail. And then they're gonna use them as a free, as free workers because they don't even wanna pay us minimum wage.

[00:16:57] They want a free workforce from us. And it's, I've heard so many people say, oh you get free meals and, free healthcare in jail. I've watched so many people die in jail from very treatable things and they just don't want to pay for an inmate's healthcare. I watched a girl go into labor and the only reason they took her to the hospital is cuz we threatened to riot.

[00:17:18] And then they told her if it was a false alarm, that they were gonna put her in solitary. This is what America is now. And it's just, it's terrible. We had inmates moving dead covid bodies for pennies a day. We had inmates fighting wildfires, risking their lives for pennies a day. 

[00:17:37] Bob Gatty: Fighting wildfires.

[00:17:39] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. In California they had the inmates fighting wildfires in California. 

[00:17:44] Bob Gatty: But there's a show on TV right now about that. Yeah. 

[00:17:49] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. And you know what, that's fine, but pay them. They could save up a little chunk of money and get out and be okay and have an apartment and be all set up, but they don't pay them fairly.

[00:18:01] And then you can buy stuff off commissary. A package of ramen noodles that cost like 30 cents out here costs a dollar 80 in there. So they're making that money again. They're, jacking everything up 10 times the price in there and charging inmates like 

[00:18:17] Bob Gatty: where are the inmates supposed to get the money to pay for all this overpriced stuff?

[00:18:21] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Exactly. 

[00:18:22] Bob Gatty: So what do they do? 

[00:18:23] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: You have people send you money? Yeah. But a lot of people don't have that, so they find li they find little side hustles in there. 

[00:18:30] Bob Gatty: Like what? 

[00:18:30] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Like I painted cups people with coffee cups. Yeah. In there. And I, coat it with floor wax so it wouldn't wash off.

[00:18:37] And I do portraits and people come up with creative stuff. Like they'll, the one girl had a. A sewing business where she would hem people's uniforms for them. Other people would do laundry. I people had all kinds of little hustles in there. Okay. 

[00:18:55] Bob Gatty: But you're getting paid by other inmates who don't have any money.

[00:18:59] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Some people have money. Oh, okay. Some, people do. But like I, I had my little when I was hired to paint murals at Danbury, that was one of the highest paying jobs at the prison. I got paid $57 a 

[00:19:12] Bob Gatty: month. Okay. So how was it, let's get you to Danbury. How was it that you went from the state jail to Danbury?

[00:19:19] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Oh I was I, wasn't that was all the same bid. So in 2011, I did seven months. That was my state bid, and then the feds picked it up for the exact same drugs in 2013. So I went to jail for the same drugs twice. I was being held responsible for the same substances twice.

[00:19:39] There is no such thing as double jeopardy with drug dealers. If the state can pick it up, then the feds can pick it up and you're going to jail twice. 

[00:19:46] Bob Gatty: Okay. So you went to jail the second time? Yeah. And you went to Danbury. 

[00:19:51] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: No, I went to Alderson. I went to Danbury when I messed up on probation. Oh. So I got out and then I only made it six months.

[00:20:00] My trauma was so bad. It also didn't help that I had $1,300 worth of medications the prison had me on, and I had no way of paying for it. And these were all psych meds. So when you stopped taking 'em, you basically go crazy and LePage was still in office then, and when I went to dhs, they told me you have to get pregnant in order to get healthcare.

[00:20:22] And I'm, 

[00:20:22] Bob Gatty: wait a minute, who was still in office? 

[00:20:24] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Paul LePage. He was the governor of Maine. Oh, okay. Yeah. He's the guy that got on TV when I was in prison and said, black thugs from the hood come up to Maine and impregnate our white women and flood our streets with drugs. I was a drug dealer, and I can tell you that's not what happened.

[00:20:41] The only reason they came up to Maine in the first place is because white police informants and white drug addicts went down to the cities and got these people. That is the only reason they knew to come up here and quadruple their money. And then you have CIs going down and getting these drug dealers and bringing them up, and now it's crossing state lines.

[00:20:59] So it's a much bigger punishment when they get caught. Okay. And it's, systemic racism and it's it's entrapment. Basically you're setting these people up to go to jail for a much 

[00:21:14] Bob Gatty: what'd you do to, what'd you do to violate your parole? 

[00:21:18] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I kept smoking weed because I had a panic attack every time I left my house and I just could not take 

[00:21:24] Bob Gatty: it.

[00:21:24] So you got caught smoking weed and they sent you back to jail for that? 

[00:21:28] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. And and it's funny because if I was on state probation, I would've been allowed to smoke weed because it was legal in Maine. But the feds are still locking people up for marijuana. And they would have to rewrite their entire sentencing system because what they do is they take your, they take a drug, say you get caught with a gram cocaine, right?

[00:21:53] They convert that into marijuana. So one gram of cocaine equals 200 grams of marijuana. And that's ridiculous because you can't compare these two substances. Oh, yeah. Weed is not gonna cause the harm that cocaine does. In any capacity. And they're, just making money off of locking people up basically.

[00:22:16] Bob Gatty: Okay. So you had two kids and you were sent to, you were sent to federal prison, right? Yep. Your dad took care of your kids or what? 

[00:22:25] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah, he adopted them when yeah, just passed down that generational trauma onto my kids, unfortunately. Yeah, he adopted them and this is the, kept them safe.

[00:22:36] Bob Gatty: This is the father that had adopted you? 

[00:22:39] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. 

[00:22:41] Bob Gatty: He's a really good man. 

[00:22:43] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah, he is. He's a great guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:22:49] Bob Gatty: Okay, so you're in federal prison, you're in Danbury, and you decide to start painting. 

[00:22:56] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. They wanted to, they wanted the white walls to go away and they wanted to make it look inspiring and beautiful.

[00:23:05] So the caseworker was like, I don't care what you paint. Just make it beautiful. I actually have pictures I can show you. 

[00:23:12] Bob Gatty: Okay. So you went from painting teacups or whatever you said you painted 

[00:23:17] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. Coffee cups 

[00:23:18] Bob Gatty: to doing murals on the wall. That's great. 

[00:23:22] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Oh, I did both. 

[00:23:22] Bob Gatty: Oh, you did both. Oh, okay. 

[00:23:24] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I got five bucks a cup.

[00:23:26] Bob Gatty: Okay, cool. 

[00:23:29] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Nice. Yeah, they were all blue and then they had quotes in, in, between. And it's funny because I was in prison when Obama was president, right? And I was in, and then when I went back, Trump was now president. And let me tell you, the difference is, it's like night and day.

[00:23:48] Like when Obama was president, everyone was getting their two point reduction and everybody was going home. And the vibe in prison was a lot better and there was funding so more people could take classes that actually helped them. Okay. When Trump became president, That all went away. Oh, and really people were getting maximum mandatory minimums.

[00:24:13] And a lot, you notice like the prisons were just filling up when Trump became president because the person he put in charge said, give all the drug non-violent drug dealers mandatory minimums. And it was a lot of Spanish people. Coming in, like it just in droves, compared to, and I remember the case worker right before Christmas.

[00:24:35] She just, she said, I have to tell 60 women that already got their date that they are not going home for Christmas now because they cut funding and the halfway houses can't take this many people. And that we were running out of food when Trump was president. You'd go into line and they'd be like, sorry, we don't have anymore We've, ran out of the budget because he cut the budget in half.

[00:25:00] And the other thing I noticed is that when you know inmates from a different country, or when some of the Spanish countries, ICE would show up and take them back and deport them all, except the Russians, the Russian inmates got to stay. Huh? 

[00:25:19] Bob Gatty: Wonder why that was. Yeah. Okay. Were there restrictions on what, on your art, on what you could do in prison?

[00:25:29] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: They just said, make beautiful stuff. All right. Just make it beautiful. 

[00:25:33] Bob Gatty: So did they like it what you did? 

[00:25:35] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah, they loved it. Yeah. They were really happy with it. Yeah. So that, was good. 

[00:25:41] Bob Gatty: That was good. Yeah. So, eventually you got out obviously cuz you're sitting here talking to me, so I don't see any, okay.

[00:25:52] I was gonna say, I don't see any bars behind you or anything 

[00:25:56] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Actually at the camp, they don't have bars. They don't even have cells or fences. Like when you're minimum security, like you have cubes and they don't even lock the doors at night. Like you're literally there on your own accord. 

[00:26:08] Bob Gatty: Oh yeah. Really? 

[00:26:09] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: So annoying because you'll get these rookie cops come in and they act like it's a maximum security prison and Ooh, you guys gonna flip out and go crazy? Oh geez. Yeah. On the full moon, we grow horns and like fire outta our ass.. 

[00:26:22] Bob Gatty: Now this is Danbury you're talking about? 

[00:26:24] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. Danbury, they built a brand new facility, $80 billion facility down the hill. And at the camp there was an inch of black mold in the showers. The vents hadn't been cleaned in years. Nobody could breathe. Everyone was getting health issues. And they didn't care. But when an inspection came around, they made sure to get paint and they made sure to make it look really good.

[00:26:47] Oh, sure. But they do back flips to make it look good for inspectors. And if any of us were to tell them the truth, we would automatically go to the shoe. They, we would get punished like severely for telling the truth. Okay. Like a new, a news crew showed up and one inmate told the truth about what was really going on and how we really get treated.

[00:27:08] Yeah, she got sent to the shoe. Okay. 

[00:27:10] I guess I could ask you this. What, was the, I don't know if I want to ask you, what was the worst thing that happened to you in prison? Do you wanna talk about that? 

[00:27:20] Actually I, really don't. I still can't even talk about it. 

[00:27:26] Bob Gatty: No, that's fine. That's fine. You know what, I shouldn't have even asked you that. 

[00:27:29] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Oh no. It's okay. But in, when I was at Alderson I filed a PREA against Somerset County for forcing me to strip in front of cameras, right? And when they got the complaint back from Somerset County deemed it unfounded, which so it wouldn't go any higher.

[00:27:51] That's how they, this is how they bury the abuse in there. And then Alderson wouldn't even allow me to hold the complaint that I filed and read, the results myself. They read it to me and then I'm like, okay, let me send it home or let me have it so when I get out I can actually do something about this.

[00:28:09] They wouldn't let me send it home. They wouldn't let me have it on the compound. They just would not let me have it. Yeah. So when I got out, the captain and four subordinates at Alderson all got arrested and convicted for raping and stalking inmates and tampering with PREA evidence. PREA evidence is anything sexual.

[00:28:28] It stands for Prison Rape Elimination Act. And this is how they bury the abuse. They just don't give inmates the paperwork because the first thing that happens when you get out, when you try to file a complaint and say, this happened to me in there, the first thing they say is, okay, where's the paperwork?

[00:28:43] Where's the paper trail? Proving that you filed a complaint, right? They're, they and I, tried to get the paperwork When I got out, I contacted the Freedom of Information Act and everything. They couldn't find it. Wow. They got rid of my entire complaint. Wow. And they were raping and stalking other inmates and that I wasn't even their biggest victim.

[00:29:04] But this is how they're covering up the abuse. And it's not other inmates you have to worry about in there. It's, the guards, it's the cops. Yeah. And they will hurt you and get away with it. And so this is one of the bills I'm working on now because they know that there's no consequence if they don't hand the paperwork over.

[00:29:23] Like they told me to get a lawyer and subpoena it. You can't subpoena anything without an open case and you can't open a case without the paperwork. So it's this catch 22. Sure. And so I'm working with state representatives to say, okay, for, there needs to be a consequence. So for. Every day you stonewall an inmate and refuse to hand give them their paperwork it's $500 because this causes other problems too. Like I couldn't get my medical records, so I couldn't prove that I was on certain medications. And so MaineCare wanted me to go through certain medications again because they couldn't prove I had been on it. These medications put me in psychosis.

[00:30:01] So I had to go through it again just because this jail would not gimme my records. Wow. And it causes a lot of other problems too. Like these jails and institutions need to be held accountable. And it's not just the jails, it's the colleges trying to keep their rape stats low. It's the military.

[00:30:17] I was in prison with a whole bunch of military women that got thrown away because they stood up to their rapist. Like these institutions need to be brought down off their high horse because they are destroying people and they would rather save their reputation, which is corrupt as anything I've ever seen than do the right thing by these victims.

[00:30:41] Bob Gatty: All right. So eventually you were in prison one total about three years altogether, right? 

[00:30:47] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Back, including the time I did in 2011. It was actually close to four and a half. Oh wow. I did nine months to wrap up probation. And I was so lucky when I got out because Janet Mills was the governor.

[00:31:01] And she expanded MaineCare. So now I could get therapy. I could get mat treatment if I need it. I could get counseling, I could get the medications I needed, and that made all the difference just having access to medical care when I got out. Like it was literally the difference between me succeeding and falling back into a life that I never wanted in the first place. And yeah, it was still really hard. I still had to go through medications that didn't work and I was wrongly I, was misdiagnosed. So that was a struggle too. But at least I had the option to get it worked out well.

[00:31:42] Bob Gatty: Did you get your kids back when you Got out or how did that work? 

[00:31:47] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I, they would they come over when they want to and, okay. When, I was going, when the lithium stopped filtering, I, the feds had me on lithium and I went through a period where it stopped filtering through my kidneys properly, and I was just in full blown psychosis, couldn't leave my house.

[00:32:05] Like I didn't leave my house for three weeks. Like the longest stretch. And because like my mental health just collapsed in on itself from these medications. And so it was better for them to continue staying with my father at that time. And I only had this tiny one bedroom apartment.

[00:32:22] Okay. It wasn't big enough for them. Like they, they live in a huge house with a yard and everything. Like I'm not gonna take them outta that. Especially when I was in like a medicated psychosis. Sure. Like they come over whenever they want to. Like I Okay. Pick them up from school, have 'em on the weekends.

[00:32:40] I'm still very much in their life it's definitely not the way I wanted it to turn out and Sure. It sucks. Sure, But it could have been a lot worse and they, I could have lost them to the state. I was in prison with women who didn't even know where their children were.

[00:32:57] Wow. Like the state lost track of them. And they're sitting there doing years not knowing where their children are. And I was so blessed on so many levels, like as hard as my situation was, 

[00:33:11] Bob Gatty: yeah. Elizabeth, how did your how did your clothing line begin? Where did you get the confidence to do that?

[00:33:20] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I found a company called LeGaleriste. They're from Montreal, Canada, and they turn artists artwork into an environmentally friendly clothing brand. So, like I painted this moon design. Okay. And yeah, I've got some other. Here's one of my bags. And it comes in plus sizes too, so it's really inclusive.

[00:33:43] And I'm so happy the way they sized everything because we have, as women, we have skinniness shoved down our throats and we're told we're only as valuable as we are skinny and pretty. And this brand, like when I bought, I got a small and it was actually too big for me. Like you have a lot of brands that size their clothes way too small and it.

[00:34:04] Feeds into body dysmorphia and mental health issues. And I, that is not something I ever want to contribute to. I've never struggled with eating disorders and body dysmorphia, but I've, had other mental health issues that crippled me at some point and I don't wanna contribute to anything like that, 

[00:34:23] Bob Gatty: so.

[00:34:23] how did you get the idea to do clothes? 

[00:34:27] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: It popped up on Facebook and I was like, Oh, I gotta try that, that, because I was trying to find a way to sell my art and actually make money off of it. Uhhuh, that would be because you spend five hour or 40, I spent 40 hours on one painting.

[00:34:43] Sure. And it's people don't wanna spend more than 20 bucks Sure. On a painting. Sure. Especially if you're not a known artist. So I needed a way that would generate profit and that was Like wearable art and it's environmentally friendly. You're not gonna find clothes like this.

[00:35:01] Anywhere else. And I painted all this stuff on my healing journey. And I just wanna inspire people and make them feel stunning and confident and beautiful. This is a pillowcase That's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. Very good. And all this stuff is like super soft and I have like place mats, like this is a place mat.

[00:35:25] Okay. And I have shawls, I have dresses, I have pants, I have scarves, I have wow bands. Wow. Like this is a shawl. 

[00:35:35] Bob Gatty: Okay, so how's this work with this company? You get a, piece of the action and how's that work? 

[00:35:42] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yep. So I can buy wholesale. Or people like, like I have I bought whole, I got a $10,000 grant.

[00:35:50] I was like, oh my God, I've never gotten this much money before, legally. But I, joined voc rehab and they helped me get this business grant. So I got I got a collection, bought it in bulk, so I got it significantly cheaper than what's on the website. And I got a couple stores to carry it.

[00:36:07] And but you, anybody can go on the, galleries Dot Elizabeth. Yeah. Whatever it is, the website, and go on my portal and order these clothes at any time, or they can order it off of me and I could probably give it to you cheaper actually. 

[00:36:24] Bob Gatty: Okay. So your, portal is what, Elizabeth What?

[00:36:29] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: It's http slash slash legaleriste.com Slash Elizabeth Mikotowicz 

[00:36:39] Bob Gatty: send that to me and I'll put it up on the screen. Okay? Okay. Thank you for those people who are watching and can see for you guys that are just listening. Your s So L you're just going to have to, all right, so let's see here. What did I, so people can, you said it's in a couple of stores, huh?

[00:36:58] What 

[00:36:58] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: stores? Yeah, it's my three months just ran out at the Red Rabbit Bazaar, but it's still at Bangor Wine and Cheese. And now that I'm living down south, I'm try, I'm working on getting it in some stores around here. I have one store that I just have to bring it in and show it to them, but Okay.

[00:37:15] Bob Gatty: So, you're in Texas. Yeah. So you people in Texas You can if, you're lucky, you find a spot where she's got this stuff for sale. And if she sends me the info as to where it is, I'll stick it in the notes and you guys can find it, because I'm telling you, it's cool stuff. It really is.

[00:37:39] Alright, let's see. Let's talk a little bit about What you're doing with, these laws? You, said that Yeah. Before we started, you said that you had one that was on its way to being passed or something. 

[00:37:53] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah it, actually, it got, it just got passed. See, prisons are really cheap and they, get over a hundred dollars a day per inate, but they don't want to provide women with sanitary hygiene items.

[00:38:07] And if they do, they, like I said, we get paid five, paid $5 and 25 cents a month. A pack of tampons in there is like $10 and it's one of those tiny, small boxes. And that's even if they have it. So women would make their own tampons. Outta desperation and end up getting infections, uhhuh. And you like, they'd run out of pads and you'd have female guards telling you I don't care if you bleed on yourself.

[00:38:34] It's not my problem. So the game became, go up to the biggest, most masculine officer, male officer, and make him feel as uncomfortable as possible, and he will bring more than enough pads for everybody.

[00:38:47] Bob Gatty: All righty, then Playing, that little play, that little sex game are ya,, huh? 

[00:38:52] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: No it's, not even about a sex game. It's listen, I'm, what do you want us to do? Bleed all over ourselves? Because that's what's gonna happen. We can't get the stuff for ourselves. And as soon as you put it to them, like in some way like that, right?

[00:39:06] Bob Gatty: They're like okay, I'll go get you whatever you need. 

[00:39:09] Yeah, I can see that. I'd done that if I was one of those guards, but, amazingly you said that the, female guards didn't give a crap, right? 

[00:39:20] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: Yeah. They don't not all of 'em, but some the female guards that are vicious and view you as less than human will make your life really awful. 

[00:39:30] Bob Gatty: Man. Ah, okay. All right. Okay. Right here. Tell us, so you're working with state legislators in Maine on this stuff, right? Yep. 

[00:39:39] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: And they passed a bill mandating all jails in Maine provide tampons and pads free of charge. So that was like a victory right there. I was super that, but that law needs to go like across the board, like across the country, like they buy the stuff in bulk. It's not that serious for you to give women hygiene products in prison when they have no way of getting it for themselves. And the other bill that I got passed so they, the homeless problem like skyrocketed. In, Bangor, like we went from two homeless encampments to 10, and so these landlords were charging all of these application fees and getting triple the rent in these application fees and not even renting the apartment.

[00:40:29] And oh, they were also charging processing fees as well. So this was driving the homeless problem up. Like you've had 50 people apply to your apartment and you couldn't find a single person that you thought would make a good tenant. No, this is a scam and I'm all for capitalism, but not when it's sociopathic and you're just ripping people off, and causing a homeless crisis. So the state representatives wrote a bill saying you could only charge an application fee if a lease was signed in the state of Maine, and I'm hoping that will help the homeless crisis. But I think that should be across the board. It's like banks and they're overdraft fees.

[00:41:12] Sure. It's free money to them. Sure. It's sociopathic and it's predatory and it's destroying this country. We don't even have a middle class. Yeah, like my generation did what we were supposed to do. I was born in 1986. I'm a millennial, right? Like we went to college, we took our loans out, we did what we were supposed to do, and now we're swimming in debt.

[00:41:32] Can't even get a job to pay those loans off. And then we trusted our doctors. When we had anxiety, when we had adhd, when we had depression, when we broke a bone and were, we were given opioids and amphetamines and benzodiazepines and antidepressants, and then when we got addicted, they locked us up for it.

[00:41:52] Oh man. 

[00:41:54] Bob Gatty: So tell me what would you like to tell women who are in abusive domestic situations or are otherwise struggling in, their situation? 

[00:42:05] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: You don't deserve it. You don't deserve it. Whatever he's telling you, whatever you know, your trauma is telling you don't deserve it. And you know you deserve peace.

[00:42:18] For the longest time, like I didn't realize that I was like addicted to my trauma. Like peace was agonizing to me. Like it was that waiting for Something to hit the fan and pop off. And it was that chaos felt more normal to me than Peace did. So I was like subconsciously putting myself in more dangerous situations without realizing it because I was fulfilling my own trauma and self-fulfilling prophecy type thing.

[00:42:52] I didn't know how to just sit and be okay. With myself and feel safe and be like, okay, I, it's fine. Nothing's gonna happen. I was always on guard and it, I would search out, like subconsciously search out, like I wouldn't do it on purpose. Like I didn't like this lifestyle, I didn't like the things that were happening to me, but I was still getting myself in these situations because I was in the midst of my own trauma and I couldn't get sober until I dealt with my trauma.

[00:43:25] And you have to get to the bottom of why you are doing drugs or why you're getting high before you can really become sober and for any woman out there you don't deserve it. Your kids don't deserve it. Like your kids do not need to see you getting hurt by someone who's supposed to love you and protect you. And take pictures.

[00:43:49] Tell people when it happens. I, knew, I know that's totally hypocritical for me to say because I didn't tell anybody. I pretended like nothing was wrong. Sure, But tell people it. It will go better in court for you and take pictures because these, courts are designed for white men.

[00:44:11] I, was in prison with so many women who stood up for themselves and they were getting life after being brutally beaten repeatedly for years, and they finally snapped and stood up for themselves. And the law is not meant for women to defend themselves. It's meant for white men like Kyle Rittenhouse to defend themselves.

[00:44:30] Yeah. And get away with it. Okay. 

[00:44:33] Bob Gatty: Okay. Is there anything else you'd like to add Elizabeth? No, I don't think so. We covered it. Good. Yeah, I think we covered it. All right. Great. All right. We thank you very much for being with us on the Lean to the Left podcast. And you guys if you have an opportunity check out her her clothing line and, other products that she's got all the art she created in while she was in prison.

[00:45:02] And it's pretty cool. 

[00:45:05] Elizabeth Mikotowicz: I have a poem. I have the poem that I won a writing contest. Oh, you did? And I got it published if you guys wanna hear it. Sure, go ahead. Close that. Okay. This is called Flying Black Balloons. Four years in my Recovery, but I am not recovered. A sad and awful truth that I have faced and suffered.

[00:45:23] My chains and shackles gone, only felonies remain reminders of my past. Like they don't carry any shame. My friends are mostly gone, just had memories left and said a sea of black balloons, big farmers, markers of the dead, their kids are all now orphans. Been taken to the state. It showed me prison was a blessing.

[00:45:41] I escaped a darker fate. With all this death and chaos, you'd think the government would care. They took their cut right to the bank. Such corruption in the air with the prison numbers rising and the rehab's all a mess, 94% their failure rate. No refunds nonetheless. The disease just keeps on spreading capitalist needles on every street.

[00:46:01] Homeless faces everywhere. More injustice. We can't beat. As the rich keep getting richer from all this insanity and pain. The politicians, they don't care. They have so much to gain. So we fly these black balloons to remember all of you, the ones that we have lost and those that barely made it through. Our American dream is shattered, endless lives, left all a mess.

[00:46:22] Replacement drugs the only way they say you'll ever rest. And who has tried for all these crimes? The addict. None the less.. Their form of rehabilitation. Slow torture at its best. Are you tired of this nightmare of this dystopian land? I know that I am. I think it's time we take a stand.

[00:46:40] Bob Gatty: Okay. That was great. And if you send me the text, I'll put it in the notes so people can see it. Oh, cool. Thank you. Okay. All right.