Cindy Shank & Rudy Valdez Discuss “The Sentence”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Cindy Shank was married with three children when the federal government came to her door in 2008, charged with a crime in connection to her ex-boyfriend who was dealing drugs. She got mandatory minimum sentencing under the laws which meant she was given 15 years in prison. Luckily for Cindy, she only served eight but those were eight long years after she was granted clemency by President Obama. Now, over the course of her imprisonment, her brother Rudy picked up the camera [13:40:00] and started filming. The result is a new documentary, “The Sentence” which had its premiere on HBO this week. Filmmaker Rudy Valdez and Cindy herself spoke with our Hari Sreenivasan about what it was like to live through all of this.

HARI SREENIVASAN, CONTRIBUTOR: Rudy Valdez, Cindy Shank, thanks for joining us. Cindy, let me start with you. For someone who has not watched this documentary, set this up for us. In the late 90’s, you were in a relationship with someone who was dealing drugs and then what happened?

CINDY SHANK, DOCUMENTARY SUBJECT, THE SENTENCE: I was charged with conspiracy. I was also given three separate charges of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, crack and marijuana. But these were all estimations that somehow turned into actual weight.

SREENIVASAN: This is because the person you were involved with at the time, he was dealing drugs and conspiracy meaning you knew about it?

SHANK: Correct.

SREENIVASAN: You didn’t have to be doing it but you get his charges anyway?

SHANK: Yes. I mean he was deceased so they had nobody to charge. I was the only one left so they charged me with it. I was initially indicted in 2002 and my case was dismissed. I went ahead and moved on with my life, got married, had kids. And six years later, the federal government came and indicted me and I was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

SREENIVASAN: So this is just literally a knock on the door?

SHANK: Absolutely, literally a knock on the door.

SREENIVASAN: Yes. Let’s take a look. There’s a clip of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY VALDEZ, FILMMAKER, THE SENTENCE: Almost six years after all this happened with Alex, Cindy was finally settling into a life that she always wanted. And then came a knock in the door.

ADAM SHANK, HUSBAND OF CINDY SHANK: It was just the eerious knock. I mean it woke me up out of a dead sleep. Cindy jumped up and later she told me she knew. She knew the minute she heard that door knock. I said who would be knocking on the door at, you know, 6:30, quarter to seven in the morning, something like 7:00. I can’t quite remember exactly. And she didn’t say a word. She got up, grabbed the girls, you know, and went in their room and just was hugging them. And to me, I really wasn’t paying attention. I went to the living room and opened the front door. And they said they had a warrant for her arrest. And when I turned around and saw her, you know, hugging the kids, I was tossed. I was tossed because she knew already.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SREENIVASAN: Rudy, we hear you as the narrator. You’re also the filmmaker in this. And you also become your sister’s advocate. What was your sister indicted for? And how can you be indicted twice for the same thing?

VALDEZ: Yes. So there was a lot of confusion. You know, at the beginning of all of this happening when her ex was murdered, you know. We were led to believe that the state had dropped it. And then the federal government picked it up and they had dropped it. There was just a lot of — it wasn’t a very transparent, you know, process. So we believed that this was behind her. And we encouraged her to, you know, take full advantage of that and get your life back together. So she did. As you see in the film, she met a wonderful man and married and had two kids. And was actually pregnant with their third one when they came and knocked on her door for the first time. And, you know, was sentenced to 15 years after that. So I don’t know that she was indicted more than once. I think that it was just they waited to indict her until much later. There were other people that they were putting away prior to this.

SHANK: That was the first time I’d ever even been in trouble. I’ve never even had a speeding ticket. So prosecutor actually asked for 89 years for me. I was given the lowest that the judge could possibly go which was 15 years because of mandatory minimum sentencing.

SREENIVASAN: And you also say in the film, “Missing my daughters growing up, that’s what I was sentenced to.” That’s pretty powerful. How did you realize that that was a serious cost of this?

SHANK: Well, when I first went away, my daughters were so young. They were 4, 2 and 6-weeks-old. And I was literally being ripped away from them. That’s just exactly what it felt like, my heart was being ripped out of me. And when I got into the system and I realized what was actually happening to me, I wasn’t being rehabilitated. There aren’t programs. There aren’t a lot of things. You’re just being held. You’re just being told you can’t go back to your life, you know. Anything that I did while I was in there, you know, to better myself, that was something that I did a choice, that I made. So the only thing that kept coming up to me was you’re missing everything, you’re missing your girls, you’re missing everything. And that was everything, my life were my daughters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANK: Where’s mommy’s heart?

CINDY’S DAUGHTERS: In our heart.

SHANK: Where is your heart?

DAUGHTERS: In mommy’s heart.

SHANK: I love you. Our hearts are going to be together soon, aren’t they?

DAUGHTER: Yes.

DAUGHTER: We love you too, mommy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SREENIVASAN: I mean you’ve kept the last name but this also cost you a marriage. How stressful was that period leading up to the decision to part ways?

SHANK: It was very hard. I was probably after — well it was after I moved to Florida. I was actually moved. The prison I was at closed and I got moved to Coleman, Florida which was very far away. So it went [13:45:00] from missing the girls and my then-husband, you know, every six weeks and kind of having that regular routine to not seeing them at all. And then I think that compounded just the separation of what was already — how separated we already were. And I think it was just too much for Adam and he asked for a divorce and I completely understood. You know, it was hard, the whole family, and hard on him. And I knew, you know, he had a chance to actually have a life and I wanted that for him and the girls. It was hard on me. It was very devastating but I had to get through it. And I had to separate myself from that and just close that relationship and move forward. But I still had my daughters and I had to focus on that.

SREENIVASAN: Rudy, you were not a filmmaker when you started picking up the camera. Well, you were kind of making home videos for her to be able

to see?

VALDEZ: Yes. So this started with me just, you know — at the beginning, again, we are very naive about this entire process and I started to do research. The day she went away, I was googling what is a mandatory minimum. Like I was trying to figure out because I literally thought that there was an error, like a clerical error. And I was like, well, we’re going to figure this out. But until she comes home, you know, I don’t want to miss her daughters living. You know, we were going to be able to give her pictures and she was going to be able to talk to them on the phone. But I wanted her to watch them grow and run and laugh and do all the things that kids do that she was going to miss. And it sort of just organically turned into this documentary. I have flown back to Michigan to film her oldest daughter Autumn’s dance recital, something that I know Cindy wanted to go to so badly. I was filming her getting ready and completely unexpectedly Cindy calls. And I remember the time thinking should I turn off the camera? Like I was — I didn’t know if this was something I wanted to capture but I kept rolling. And she says that line to Autumn. She says, “Do you know what mom is going to do when you go to dance? I’m going to lay down in my bed. I’m going to close my eyes and I’m going to think about you.” And that was the moment that I became a filmmaker, that was the moment that this became a film because I realized that I had an opportunity to tell a story that you don’t get to see. A story about the children left behind, a story about the families left behind and the true ramifications of these sentences. You know I thought it was about rehabilitation. I thought it was about preparing people to come back on our streets and be contributing members of society. Cindy had already proven that she could do that, that she was that. And now all of a sudden, she’s separated from her family for 15 years. Her kids now have to grow up their entire childhood without their mother. And I thought myself who is benefiting from this? And why aren’t people completely up in arms about it? Because what I was also figuring out at that time was that Cindy’s case is not unique. There are thousands and thousands of other people with cases just like hers, people who are just as deserving to get out of Cindy, maybe more. And you must apply that by the amount of children left behind in the communities, it’s unbelievable.

SREENIVASAN: This does quite a good job of showing how the entire family is affected by this. We have another clip there I want to play.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CINDY SHANK’S MOTHER: I open these blinds and the moon comes in, the moonlight. And sometimes I can see the moon through the tree branches and

(INAUDIBLE) to my Cindy so I know she looks at the moon every night, speaks about the family and I think about her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SREENIVASAN: This is your family. You’re not a fly on the wall watching something clinically. How did you deal with the emotional consequences of covering your family in this grief or dealing with all the stuff that they had to deal with?

VALDEZ: Yes. It was extremely difficult. I knew what I had from the beginning was intimacy and trust and the ability for my family to let me be in these rooms and film. Like you’re saying, not as a fly on the wall, not as somebody standing on the outside watching a family but —

SREENIVASAN: You’re Uncle Rudy.

VALDEZ: Yes. You were watching the lens was always the son, the brother, the uncle. You were the conversation. You were in the conversation. And, you know, I’ll never forget the first time I’m filming my father and he breaks down crying. You know it was such a learning experience in a lot of ways. I remember something in me is saying put down the camera, turn off the camera, go and hug him, go and tell him it’s going to be OK, do it, be a good son, you know. And something else started fighting in me and it said, “Hold your shot, Rudy.” This is for the greater good.

SREENIVASAN: Cindy, you got out earlier than the end of your sentence. Thanks to a commutation from the president.

SHANK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: But as we find out getting the end of the film, [13:50:00] it’s almost a lottery ticket. You were a very select group of 16, 1700 people in the entire term of his presidency that were given this versus the thousands, I want to say somewhere around 30,000 or above. Do you remember the moment that you got the call that you were given clemency by President Obama?

SHANK: Yes, I remember that very clearly. When I received the call, I didn’t know who was calling me. You don’t get calls in prison. So when they tell you, “You have a phone call”, it’s quite, OK, it could be good, it could be most times it’s bad. So when I actually heard my attorney’s voice on the line, I held my breath because I knew this was yes or no. I knew this was that moment and all she got out was congratulations. And I just screamed and everything came out of me, just those years of pain, just scream that came out. And I literally fell to my knees and just started thanking her, thanking God. You know, just being so thankful.

SREENIVASAN: How was the readjustment process been like?

SHANK: You know it’s got a lot. It’s got its ups and downs. We’ve got a lot of things that I didn’t know I would — you know I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what things would kind of give me more trouble or what things I would have to adjust to.

SREENIVASAN: What’s been harder?

SHANK: I guess knowing the little intimacy that my daughters — you know, I know them. They’re my daughters and I knew them and we were close. But just little things that I’m like oh, yes, Ava doesn’t like cheese and you know, I forgot. I say joke with Rudy but I literally forgot to feed them the next day, the first day I came home. You know, I was like, oh, yes. I forgot to feed you. But they’re like, you know, we’re just in this whirlwind of being together and hold each other. And all I want to do is hug them and kiss them and tell them I love them but I did forget to feed them.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

SHANK: They did have lunch, maybe not breakfast.

SREENIVASAN: Yes. You know Rudy, there’s something that – and I don’t know. I’m projecting but when you watch the film, Autumn, the oldest daughter, as you watch her grow up, it’s almost like you can see that there’s a weight that she’s been carrying. And her eyes, something about her eyes changed when she was that little girl preparing for the recital and the young woman who’s waiting for her mom to come home.

VALDEZ: Yes. Yes, definitely. What I wanted to show in this film was time and what time does to somebody. And to this day, one of the toughest thing for me to watch in this film is towards the end when Autumn looks up at the camera and she says “Hi. I’m Autumn Shank and I’m 13-years-old” because you just see the weight of the world on her shoulders, the wear and tear on her as a 13-year-old, what she’s had to go through. And I would always ask myself who is this benefiting? You know, and then I’d get enraged again because who is benefiting are the people who are profiting off of the prison industrial complex, the people who are profiting off of the backs of disenfranchised communities, mostly brown and black people. And that enraged so much because it was pointless.

SREENIVASAN: Rudy, you had a bipartisan screening in Washington, D.C. Tell us about that.

VALDEZ: I wanted to make something that transcended politics in a way it would get the hearts and minds, the thing that I wanted you to feel with this. And because of that, like you said, I think I’m affecting people in a different way because they’re not feeling preached. They’re allowed to take this journey with the family and understand where they stand as a person, not as a politician or as somebody who aligns themselves with right or left or whatever. Two days after we premiered at Sundance, I was contacted by a Republican Senator from Utah, Senator Mike Lee. And he said, “Thank you for making this film. I believe in sentence reform. And this is such a great story that is emblematic of why we need true sentence reform.” And he teamed up with Cory Booker, Democrat from New Jersey. And together they brought the film to Capitol Hill in a bipartisan effort to say this is an example of why we want sentence reform.

SREENIVASAN: This is kind of a whirlwind from a film festival to interviews and all that. What happens when this all dies down? Are you prepared for what could be difficult repercussions of what your children have to live through?

SHANK: I guess as best as I can prepare myself, I am. I just take things as they happen one day at a time. I try and just, you know, be the best person I can be, always be honest and live my life that way. And I don’t think any repercussions can come from that. You know whatever happens, happens. I know if I speak my truth, then — I love my children and do the best that I can and work hard, and everything will be OK.

SREENIVASAN: Cindy Shank, Rudy Valdez, thank you both.

VALDEZ: Thank you so much.

SHANK: Thank you for having us.