If You Own It Sell It

In this episode, Katrina McLarin and Cheryl Womack discuss the complexities of managing life and assets before and during incarceration. They break down the critical moves you must make before surrendering—like selling off assets, choosing who (if anyone) you can really trust, and understanding the brutal legal and financial fallout that comes with a conviction. Cheryl shares her no-holds-barred personal experiences, revealing the tough lessons she learned the hard way about protecting yourself when everything is on the line.

Transcript

Katrina McLarin (00:36)

Welcome to the podcast. Today's episode is titled, If You Own It, Sell It. It's based on the book, How to Go to Camp, Surviving in a Women's Federal Prison by V. Womack. It's available now on Amazon. So Cheryl, I wanted to sort of pick up on this episode. What are the differences of the different types of prisons that you can go to? Because I didn't really understand what the difference was between a camp and maybe a federal prison.

Cheryl Womack (01:00)

Well, there are three types of prisons. So in a prison, you're going to a low security prison, which is behind bars, 10 minute walks. Often prisons have wherever, where you go, you're shackled. And chances are you're escorted with two guards, not one, maybe one guard on the minimum. Then there's medium security where it's

you're in a rougher situation with the kind of clientele that's there. And then there's a maximum security where they could have death row in a section of it and they have, you know, more heinous crimes and you will go everywhere with two guards and you will be shackled to go everywhere you go. And there are 10 minute walks again in all of these things. And then the best case scenario of which they're closing some, and I've heard that they might even be rebuilding some new ones, which would be nice, but the least security you can get as to get into a woman or man's federal prison camp.

At my camp, there were few guards. There were no barbed wires. Now, if you went to the medium prison behind me where the camp sits in front of, we look like administrative offices, but the camp behind me was a medium security one. And every time the men were brought out of that as a town driver, I saw them often, especially out in medical areas. And they always had two guards and they were always completely shackled.

That's how you could tell it's a very different situation.

Katrina McLarin (02:18)

So really it's about different levels of security is what it boils down to. I mean, either way, even though you're in a prison camp and it may be less a security, you're still in a prison camp. So if we pick up on the story where we left off, you now know you've got 30 days, you're putting all your affairs in order. What would you suggest around assets and belongings that you own in your life?

Cheryl Womack (02:38)

think this is one of the hardest things for someone to deal with. If you have been involved in drugs and you are surrounded by other people who have been involved in drugs, it could seem like it's going to be okay to let them rent your house or to care for a house you're renting or take care of some of your property. Time and again, I saw the girls that I spent time in camp with lose their property, lose their assets, have their rental

go into foreclosure, have problems with them, utilities not being paid, the person they asked to take care of the property really didn't know how to manage and maintain the property, the lease ran out and they didn't know how to release the property. There are all sorts of problems with knowing how to manage that stuff. So I encourage the person to think about what kinds of things can they sell off and get rid of and hold the funds as opposed to keeping the items when they go in because again,

It's very difficult. mean, think about it. I'm telling you this story because I trusted someone to do all the accounting for my books that I trusted implicitly. Now you have people trying to do things for you that aren't bookkeepers or don't manage a car, things like that. So I think it's really important for you to think about the people that you trust and how far you should trust them at this time. It's really time to take in task what you're going to let other people do and not do.

Katrina McLarin (03:55)

So you've got to make those

decisions about who you've got in your life that you and you kind of have to let go, let God a certain degree and have a bit of faith and trust in some people in your life. But it does put a strain on relationships. Talk a little bit about that because you've sort of got,

you know, you've got to set people up, who's going to pay your property taxes? You know, you've got the trust in maybe a spouse or a partner grown children.

how did that affect your situation?

Cheryl Womack (04:19)

Again, like we talked about a little bit in the past, you might think you have everything set up and then you have these boomerangs that come around where suddenly the bank's saying, I don't want to do your checking accounts anymore, or now you're going to have higher insurance premiums and you'd set a budget and left enough money to pay a budget. If you have an automobile, let me suggest to you that I don't care who's driving the automobile, if they run a red light or they get into some sort of problem or

they find drugs in the car and they impound your car, that car is gonna pick up an impounding fee and ongoing fines all the way through till you can deal with that and interest. And that's something that you'd have to deal with just to get your car out where it would have been better to just to sell your car and have the cash put away to get another car when you get out.

Katrina McLarin (05:02)

a really interesting point because depending on the time that you're going to serve, say you've got a stretch of two years or something that you're to do, your car can't just sit there. It's going to need major repairs by the time you come out. But then you also run the risk if you lend it, as you said, to a family member or a close friend, they could actually get into a car accident and you could be liable for that. So you are liable.

Cheryl Womack (05:22)

You are liable. You are liable. Your name is

on it and you are liable.

Katrina McLarin (05:26)

So you'd recommend if you've got something like a vehicle or a motorbike, sell it. Sell it.

Cheryl Womack (05:30)

Sell it. Sell it for

the best price you can get. Two years later, if you have to sell it and now it's been damaged, you're going to get less money than you're getting now if you just tear off the bandaid and sell it.

Katrina McLarin (05:40)

And so what would you recommend doing with the money then if you've got it, if you, sort of starting to liquidate some assets like that.

Cheryl Womack (05:46)

Put it in savings account, the best interest-bearing savings account you can put it in. You might want to apply some of it toward the cost of living for your kids if they're somewhere. So you might need to get into something that makes automatic transfers of funds monthly so that you're not giving them all the money at once, but monthly amounts to pay to help with the kids support. You might want to set up the fund where it makes transfers automatically to put into your account for you to use for personal funds.

Katrina McLarin (06:10)

So you'll cut like into your prison account. Yeah. Yeah.

Cheryl Womack (06:12)

Yes. Yeah. So

you set it up on an ACH or something where it's an automatic withdrawal that you put it in place and these things are going to pay. Again, you're not putting all the money in somebody's hands, but you're putting them in increments so that if something goes wrong with it, it's not all your money.

Katrina McLarin (06:26)

what about financial assets like bank accounts? would you do there? I mean, in your case, you were fortunate that you could trust a family member to actually take on a power of attorney. Would you recommend that maybe people look at a power of attorney? mean, everything has a risk, but things need to be managed.

Cheryl Womack (06:41)

can't tell you how many bank statements my husband collected at the house because people didn't have somewhere to send their bank statements home because if they did and somebody in the family knew they had some money in the bank, they tried to figure out how to get the money in the bank. They just didn't trust them. There were other inmates that would say, I please send these to your husband where I can just hold them and keep them for

Katrina McLarin (06:54)

So these were other inmates.

Cheryl Womack (07:02)

They don't want to send their bank statements into prison.

It's a complicated thing. You do need to try to find somebody that you can trust to get your bank statements. And that's as simple as it is. And again, you've made it much simpler. If you have no checking, you only have savings because you can do six wires out of a savings account or what have you and get your money moved. You have to make sure you're managing your money as best you can. Again, go meet with the banker and sit down and say, I'm putting this money in this account if that's what you need to do. Go to a credit union.

maybe set it up there, sometimes that might be an easier way to go.

Katrina McLarin (07:34)

What about the risk of owning your own home? Because that comes with its own set of obligations as well.

Cheryl Womack (07:39)

Again, if you have a lot of debt against the home, unless it's a free and clear home, and if it were free and clear, I'd sell it. Because let's say you're going in for five years and you come back out. What hasn't been maintained? What HVAC? What if the plumbing broke and something burst in the I've had in-laws stay at a farmhouse we've had where they didn't watch for anything until a ceiling fell in with a pipe burst.

surely they should have seen something there. That's just a family member staying at another property we had. So I can't imagine if you're gone for five years and you've got friends or family staying there and they're not maintaining the place the way it should be. don't know if the utilities are staying on the way they should be. The problem with a home is it has more expense than just the mortgage. It's got insurance, it's got property taxes, it's got the utilities, it's got all those ongoing expenses and it's got maintenance.

And none of those things are things that you can really do with your 10 minutes a day phone call time that you have allotted to manage those things. I strongly suggest that anything that you can figure out how to lump some cash out and handle, I'd get it cashed out and I'd get it in savings.

Katrina McLarin (08:46)

you run the risk when you're in prison and you're not allowed to conduct business while in prison. So trying to manage your assets or anything like that can be perceived as

Cheryl Womack (08:55)

of fact, when my loan got thrown out of the bank that I was at, it was for a substantial amount. literally,

penitentiary side, the bigger prison is the one who listens in usually to the calls. And they listened in when I was making the phone call about, I've got to figure out what I'm going to do about this XYZ loan. And it was a large amount. And because it was such a large amount, they thought I was conducting business and I got written up.

And I had to go to the assistant warden and I had to file an appeal and say, I'm sorry that you're not familiar with this big a loan on a house, but it's a house loan and it is not conducting business. So, and I, I got a shot.

Katrina McLarin (09:19)

Really?

So you got a shot. You got a shot to

try and just save your family home.

Cheryl Womack (09:32)

Yes, yes. And it was just

like, I'm not conducting business. It's a big loan. What can I say?

Katrina McLarin (09:37)

that's interesting because let's talk about that just for one second. You were with that bank and I won't name it, but for over 20 years, you always had a lot of cash sitting in that account. A lot of cash.

Cheryl Womack (09:47)

a lot. And several,

several businesses. So each business had its own separate account and had its separate funds. Yes.

Katrina McLarin (09:54)

so one of the ramifications this happening to you was that the way that people treated you changed and the perception of you

Cheryl Womack (10:01)

to be fair to the bank, the bank had been taken over by new owners out of Wichita. I didn't know the owners. I'd never met the owners. And I certainly didn't take my own advice and go in and try to meet the owners. I just didn't think about because I'd been there for 20 years, there'd be such a problem. And again, I was fortunate that the bankers that were handling my business were so mad that they were throwing the business out that one of them went to a new bank, started there and

worked with my son to get the business moved to the new bank.

Katrina McLarin (10:28)

But still, such an incredible shock when you've been with a particular brand for such a long period of time. They've made a lot of money off you. And the moment you have a criminal conviction, you're treated differently. It doesn't matter how much money you've got in the bank, the reality changes straight away.

Cheryl Womack (10:42)

And they waited until I literally pled guilty and got sentenced. You know, they could have said anywhere along the way through the course of this, all this time we were fighting courts, if you plead guilty or get found guilty, you have to get your business out of here. They didn't say that to me. So I'm leaving and I've got everything in good hands. people are not, you know, suddenly it makes it in the papers, Womack pled guilty, blah, blah, blah. you know, literally within two weeks of my going into

the camp, that my son got phone calls, demand, and it just horrified him. It was just, and it was a big amount of money to try to deal with for a loan and for the amounts of business to move over.

Katrina McLarin (11:20)

that was also his home. So he's got that threat hanging over him. my God, what do we do? So I can imagine it just raises so much confusion for everyone. And there you are two weeks into prison. I can imagine what your state of mind would have been like. And you've got 10 minutes a day in phone calls trying to figure out how to solve this. comes up for you, you get a shot. I'm assuming that in the end,

you got that shot was able to be removed or what happened about that?

Cheryl Womack (11:44)

They removed it. I had to set up a meeting and I think he went in and listened to it. And then I had a chance to sit down with him and explain that it was my home mortgage and that I had placed LOCs against my home to help pay for legal bills and that they were renewing, but I had to go to a different bank. And so then he just went in and had the shot removed.

Katrina McLarin (12:05)

you actually did go in, you actually paid all your restitution, everything upfront, that was a part of the deal, you agreed to that and that. So you didn't owe anything to anyone in that way when you went into prison. You know, talking about the assets and things of your own, what about like phones and tablets and computers? Because these are all quite high disposable things, but still valuable things.

Cheryl Womack (12:24)

Well, they're very valuable. And again, if you're to go in three to five years into prison, you think about how many times you've upgraded your phone or you have upgraded iPads, not so much, but computers or memory. All of those things again, are going to change. with technology changing as fast as it's changing right now, it's really critical for you to think, what's the best price I can get for these things? How can I sell them all and put the money in the bank?

Katrina McLarin (12:47)

Yeah, I mean, the reality is smaller items like that, they still attract a large ticket, but it can probably help by getting it into your commissary

Cheryl Womack (12:55)

get 500 bucks spending money if you sell your phone, even if you paid seven, 800 bucks for it. That's 500 bucks because when you get out, you'll never get 500 bucks for that phone.

Katrina McLarin (13:03)

Exactly. It's dated, it's gone. Technology's moved on and you're right, it's so rapid these days. And it's important for anyone listening too that all of the prison camps and the federal prisons, they're actually listed on the Bureau of Prison website. And on there, you can go to their links page and it actually has the sheet on there on how to wire money into your account. So it's important to get things like that set up before you get in.

So let's look at potential for legal and financial consequences, know, your credit scores and what can happen there.

Cheryl Womack (13:33)

Right, well, I mean, that's another part of if you've got a house and let's say you're managing to get the mortgage paid, but you're renting it out, you think somebody's renting it plus paying utilities, well, you maybe can survive, they didn't pay the rent, but you won't survive them not paying the utilities. That's gonna impact your credit score. It could impact the health of your home as your utilities are shut off. It'll really make it more difficult for you to get your utilities turned back on when you come out, whether you want to rent or own when you get out.

So there are long-term consequences to these things if they go wrong.

Katrina McLarin (14:03)

Well, I mean, you can have your vehicle repossessed, your home could be foreclosed upon. And there's the other thing is that, you know, how are you paying your taxes, your property taxes, everything else if you're incarcerated? You've got a job that you might, if you're lucky, get $20 to be paid for. That would be lucky.

Cheryl Womack (14:17)

I hope that would be really lucky.

Yeah, a lot of them are 85 cents a dollar an hour maybe.

Katrina McLarin (14:23)

So what did you get paid as a town driver out of curiosity?

Cheryl Womack (14:26)

I think I made about $85 a month. I was well paid as a town driver.

Katrina McLarin (14:30)

Well, that's not going to pay your mortgage though. Let's let's be realistic about that.

Cheryl Womack (14:33)

It didn't pay your bills to have money while you're in camp. It wouldn't cover your expenses in camp. But I was not ever, as a matter of fact, rather than getting paid, I donated mine because I was fortunate enough to have the funds to cover mine. And all you heard while you're in there is they're on a budget, they're on a budget, they're going broke, they're going broke. I don't know how, but they're always going broke. So I usually for teaching and the entrepreneur classes and things like that donated my time.

Katrina McLarin (14:58)

that's really commendable.

and that makes no difference to the time that you're serving. You're there serving your time. So really in a nutshell, on the cusp of heading in and let's talk a little bit about all the planning because if you've got something substantial, let's talk about if you sold your house and you might have a bit of a substantial nest egg then, I think it's probably really important to go about locking it up.

because relationships can If you're married, you could end up being divorced. Let's talk about that because you are very susceptible to theft occurring to you at this point in your life,

Cheryl Womack (15:33)

one of the girls who was in the camp with me came to camp and both her and her husband committed the crime. She said that she had cancer and did a GoFundMe and was raising money and he was part of it. And then she fell on the sword and said, I did it.

because they had an eight-year-old and she wanted him to stay home, take care of the eight-year-old, left the money, the house, everything with him. And once she got in, I wanna say within 60 to 90 days, he filed for divorce, he took the house, he took all the money, he took the kid, he took everything. And she was just left high and dry. had nothing to spend while she was in there. He wouldn't let her talk to her son. It was a mess. And that's because she just counted on him to take it. When in fact, he committed the crime right along with her, but she fell on the sword to...

keeps a parent there with the family.

Katrina McLarin (16:19)

So even

the closest relationships constrain and that's important to recognise as well is that you think you trust someone but do we ever really know the people in our lives because things change in a heartbeat. For you, that a hard thing to come to terms with having to relinquish control because you've always had quite a bit of control in your life and over situations.

Cheryl Womack (16:40)

Well, I think for me, the hardest part was to, you I had to delegate different parts to different people. And it was just trying to get all the right parts of the charity things went to one son and to take care of the business bills went to my son and an assistant and to take care of, you know, farm properties and some other things went to my husband. And it was just different people had to take care of different things, including, you know, maintenance in the house or just, it was just finding different people who could do all the different parts.

I don't think any of them all realize how many parts you have until you have to start delegating.

Katrina McLarin (17:10)

you know, until you actually live it and you're on your way there, you've just got so many parts that are moving continuously. The ball is up in the air and it's moving.

Cheryl Womack (17:18)

if you've got four, you know, businesses that are going and, and their rental properties and stuff, you've got to have somebody who's going to go in there and deal with tenants, make sure they stay rented, make sure the rents are collected, make sure the maintenance happens the way it's supposed to happen. I have a handyman we engaged full time who worked at our home a little bit, but did all the handyman and maintenance and yard work for all of the rental properties. And so, you know, they had to manage them and get them to the proper locations and to do what they do.

You know, again, to have happy tenants, to have them pay their bills, make sure you got your money collected, pay your property taxes. I had to count on people to get those things done. But then we had our house to take care of too. So all those things had to be taken care of. And I was very fortunate that I had a solid family. by the fact that I wouldn't recommend this to anybody, but by the fact that mine took so many years to go through, I'd probably tested the...

tested the boundaries of the relationships to know they'd survive, or sometimes these things could happen to you fairly quickly, and you haven't had time to really test your relationship and see if it's gonna make it through this. And unfortunately, I'd see a number of my friends when they get out, their relationship didn't make it through. They were like, I'm done, I don't wanna be involved in this anymore. Or I would see a girl come in and a friend was putting money on the books, her boyfriend for her when she got in, and within 60 days of her being gone.

She's not there. He realizes she's not there and not going to be there for seven years. And he's done putting money on her books. She was counting on that money.

Katrina McLarin (18:41)

Was that a concern to you? mean, it must have come up and run in your mind at some point, you know, will my marriage survive this? the kids forgive me, I suppose, in a way for this? Because you are being blamed indirectly, whether you're at fault or not.

Cheryl Womack (18:53)

can tell you honestly, it did not. I mean, again, I think I've sort of said, I thought about this, woe is me first, you know, and I thought more about, my gosh, how am I going to survive this a lot? knew my kids would make it through it. I felt pretty strongly. mean, hats off to my husband in 14 months, he missed, I think two times, two weekends in the entire time I was there that he didn't come see me. So I had really good support I'm blessed I had the support.

I won't say I wasn't supportive back because I certainly, you when I was out before and after I did my part to be a good partner and mother and all those things, I was very fortunate that mine sustained themselves and I felt very strongly that I'd be fine.

Katrina McLarin (19:31)

So we talked a little bit about the bank and what they did, how they sort of turned the tables on you and chose the moment when you were in prison. Did that happen with other business entities, insurance or things like that to you as well?

Cheryl Womack (19:42)

it happened with the insurance company. had, when my insurance came up for renewal, because I'm in there more than a year, then they basically came in and said, you're going into high risk insurance. And my agent explained that he would be able to get insurance placed, but it would be almost twice as high as it was going to be before. Again, if you had a very tight budget and everything was exactly set out the way you would be, you had intended it to be, and you'd set the budget to pay just so much.

that could create some serious consequences. I was fortunate that we had the extra funds to reach out and get, though I went through money a lot faster than I thought I would because of moving from one bank to another. was involved with a charitable trust and managed a property that belonged in the trust. And literally, we found an attorney who was trying to sneak up and look at the property and figure out how to sell it from underneath the trust while I was in prison. Yeah, while I was, yeah.

So, and literally I got up there and got an attorney on the phone with them and called down

said, you better at ease, this needs to stop right now. And it did, but you have to catch these things. And luckily I had good relationships with all these people that people reach out and go, this is happening. And I'd like, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? So, I mean, it just seemed like it was never a dull moment that some part of your life was going into turmoil.

Katrina McLarin (20:58)

It definitely seemed like it was a lot. And I mean, are you deemed high risk by the insurance company because you're now classed as a convicted felon? Is that, that's why.

Cheryl Womack (21:05)

Yes, that's the only

thing that happened to me is that I've now pled guilty and I'm a felon.

Katrina McLarin (21:10)

you know, we talk about that weekend, you really only had that weekend to make that decision about taking the plea deal. I don't know, did you really understand the ramifications of accepting that and admitting to being a convicted felon in effect?

Cheryl Womack (21:21)

No,

I really thought that I had my relationships in place only because again, this had been going on for nine years, five years of a lot of paperwork and four years of legal. And it had been going on for so long that it just, thought there's, I have everything established. I have everything where it needs to be, we'll be okay. I don't know how long I was going to have to go, but I thought whatever happens, it'll be okay. I'll figure out, I mean, I had to borrow money so that I could finish paying off some of the final things I had to pay off so I wouldn't owe anybody any money coming out.

That's why I had the home loan because I put it against my house. you can't know what people are going to try to do until you're not there. And they go, you know, it's just, it's all coming out in the paper and they're all telling them you're going away. And I had 30 days and I guess somebody would read it in the paper here or there. They go, okay, call that note. You know, what's funny is after they called the note and they said, move your business, then because they were charging stupid interest rates,

They weren't exactly pushing us out the door, but once we said we're working with another bank, because they liked making the interest income on the note, but at the same time, you had to move your business. It couldn't stay.

Katrina McLarin (22:26)

I'm not sure how anyone in a two day weekend or a three day, three day period could make these major life changing decisions

Cheryl Womack (22:33)

For someone going to prison, you can't fathom all the things that are going to occur, all the pieces of your life that are going to be touched. can't begin to come, mean, let's face it, you're making a deal, you're now trying to just set a hearing date to go in to have a hearing to find out what your time is going to be and how long and where are you going to go serve, or if you're going to have to go serve or if you get home confinement, which I was hoping for home confinement since

there was no, I was not a harmful person to society or anything like that.

Katrina McLarin (23:02)

just to interrupt one second, you didn't know when you accepted that plea deal if you were going to actually do time or you thought potentially you could be based at home. And for anyone that knows you, you'd love to be a hermit. that actually would have absolutely, yeah, that would be so in your wheelhouse. It's not even funny. So you, so when you,

Cheryl Womack (23:13)

It's to be very different than my life right now.

I am home incarcerated.

And

also let's say perhaps maybe I'm more home because I got used to staying

Katrina McLarin (23:28)

So when you did accept that plea deal, you did that without actually knowing that you could be doing jail or home confinement. You didn't know what those end terms were going to look like.

Cheryl Womack (23:37)

When I accepted that plea deal, did not want to accept that plea deal. I was more upset about what wording are you going to say that doesn't say I did anything wrong? I was so much more consumed with how are you going to make this sound to say, okay, I'm sorry for whatever I did wrong, but I don't think I did anything wrong.

Katrina McLarin (23:52)

So the optics,

you were caught up in the optics rather than the actual ramification of it.

Cheryl Womack (23:56)

Absolutely. When it hit me that I really have to take this seriously is when the judge said anybody can do 12 months and I assign you to 18 months and you have 30 days. And I mean, it just hits you like a boulder and you're like, this is real. This is really happening. It's not that I wasn't thinking about it and starting to write things down all before to sort of get ready in case it happened, but you get real serious when you've got that 30 days ticking.

Katrina McLarin (24:20)

the court when that happens, mean, obviously you didn't expect that. So that caught you completely off guard. What's your first reaction to that? I mean, do you even hear what the judge is saying? mean...

Cheryl Womack (24:30)

Oh yes,

you do. And you know, through all the hearings I went through, nobody came to them with me, but Dean. For this one, I had friends who wanted to come. My kids wanted to come with their spouses and I'm like, oh my God, I didn't want any of them to come because it was a free ring circus and the prosecuting, the attorney's office showed up, lawyers showed up, IRS people showed up. was just, it was a, you know, it was a big deal in Kansas City. It was a big deal to see me, you know, get time.

Katrina McLarin (24:44)

Sounds like a three ring circus to be honest.

Cheryl Womack (24:59)

you know, I was very fortunate that the judge didn't even make me ever stand up or come to the podium. He just let me sit there and, you know, and he didn't let them go on and on like I think they could have about what a bad person you are because they do get in and try to read in everything about you and make you fat sound, you know, like a bad person. I brought an accountant to pay to be there after he reviewed my numbers to try to explain.

you know, that I legitimately had the losses that I was substantiating over the last 10 years, in case he wanted to consider my losses, maybe to take against what I might owe, but they didn't even call the accountant up. My attorney didn't call the accountant up. They sure weren't going to call the accountant up. And I think I just spent, I mean, I just sat with my eyes burning with tears, just trying to not be mortified, embarrassed, mad and sad all at the same time.

Katrina McLarin (25:46)

It's a lot of emotion to go through. And the other thing is, that while you're fighting this for the nine years of total, you're not actually growing your business. So everything is at a standstill, I would imagine, and it becomes all consuming. So this is your life and your daily existence. So I could see how in the end, you're so worn down by feeling you have no other option but to take a deal.

Cheryl Womack (26:10)

So I just, the whole thing was just when I, I mean, I got by an attorney later, the one that we sued them with, they had, you know, seven, 10, 12 attorneys working on this that I had no idea that she was going to this attorney for advice or asking this attorney that and putting all those against my bill.

Katrina McLarin (26:24)

Wow. mean, I think at the end of the day, I think because it is your life and your hands, you need to be comfortable with the attorney that you have. And in hindsight, knowing what you know now, would you have changed?

Cheryl Womack (26:36)

I'd have gotten rid of her so fast. I mean, I think I had as many nightmares about her while I was in prison than I did everything I mean she is the part and dealing with that law firm is that it was more painful and more traumatizing than the prosecuting attorney's office because I really didn't have to deal with them for it they they didn't come see me to begin with and You know when they got to read anything they read about me mean I didn't even get to go through all the files They never let me come and look at files that they had to use against me because they just said you don't need to see them

And my attorney got one day to go, supposedly there were boxes and boxes of things in there. And she goes, well, that's an old trick we use where we put a whole bunch of boxes in and then we show you the one box that you start pulling things out of and we don't give you enough time to get through the others, but we didn't have anything in them. Who knows if they had anything in them or not, but she'd tell me the old tricks they use. And then it seemed like she did the old trick.

Katrina McLarin (27:23)

and the crazy thing is too,

at no time did they ever forensically go through your books to determine how much brandy embezzled from you.

Cheryl Womack (27:32)

what I paid her didn't pay in taxes. They never, for instance, went through my stuff either. They literally took her word for it and said, as she put the package together and said, here you go.

Katrina McLarin (27:34)

Yeah.

absolutely ludicrous. But Cheryl, I've got to say, if you've got an asset, what's your recommendation to our listeners?

Cheryl Womack (27:47)

If you own it, sell it.