In 2018, police arrived at my home with an arrest warrant for two counts of Federal Sexual Misconduct. The accusation was false. The evidence would eventually prove it. But none of that mattered as I was processed and locked in a concrete cell.
This isn’t a story about heroic resilience or finding silver linings. It’s about the actual experience of wrongful incarceration: the panic attacks, the institutional indifference, the way time distorts in a windowless cage. About a kid covered in tattoos who shit-talked by day and wept at night. About discovering that small acts of service—even cleaning a shower no one asked you to clean—can be a path back to yourself.
I spent four days and three nights in Scott County Jail. I missed my 60th birthday party and saw our daughter through a video screen instead of in person. This episode is the beginning of a five-year legal ordeal that changed everything.
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