by Damon West
Advance Praise for
THE CHANGE AGENT
“His story is very compelling because of the sacrifices he had to make to get his life back to where it needed to be. The message about helping other people and the power of controlling yourself, what you do and what you say, is so important. I’ve never heard it said as well as Damon.”
—NICK SABAN, Head Football Coach, University of Alabama
“Easily one of the top most powerful messages I’ve ever heard. Unbelievable. A great story and very inspirational.”
—DABO SWINNEY, Head Football Coach, Clemson University
“Everyone should hear Damon’s story. There’s not another one like it in the world of sports or anywhere else in the world. Period!”
—BOB BEAUDINE, bestselling author of The Power of Who and 2 Chairs
“Outstanding. His story is a remarkable story, and I think everyone should hear it.”
—MARK DANTONIO, Head Football Coach, Michigan State
“Damon West is one of the best, if not the best speaker we’ve ever had. His message hits home to all different types of people. His story is one that needs to be heard, one that is really remarkable. His personal battles, his personal growth, his personal fall and rise can be utilized by any organization.”
—KEVIN SUMLIN, Head Football Coach, University of Arizona
“Wow! Very impactful. Very powerful. Very poignant. We will be displaying his messages throughout our building.”
—TOM HERMAN, Head Football Coach, University of Texas
“WOW! He does an incredible job of telling his story and showing how the small things, socially, can lead to much larger issues.”
—PAT NARDUZZI, Head Football Coach, University of Pittsburgh
“The Damon West story is one of perseverance, faith, and recovery against great challenges. He has become a role model of servant leadership through his tireless efforts to inspire all walks of life with a stirring account of personal growth.”
—JOE TORTORICE, JR., Jason’s Deli Founder
and Chairman of the Board
“Your message stirred our community beyond what you could imagine. I met with the principal from the largest public high school in our area, sharing with him the emotional and spiritual experience from which you were the impetus. I did not ask him if wanted to share the message of your life with his students; I told him he NEEDED to share it…and that some student in his school was waiting and needing to hear the message from YOU.”
—DEACON CHRISTOPHER FONTENOT, Principal,
St. Louis High School, Lake Charles, LA
“The more I read Damon’s story, the angrier I became at this fool’s trashing of opportunities I could only have dreamt of – athletic abilities, personality and intelligence. The further I read, the more impressed I became with God’s power to transform him. Damon let grace strengthen him to face himself more courageously and honestly than most non-criminals do. He let God lead him out of prison and then back again as a lay evangelist. God opened doors to locker rooms so he can motivate young athletes with hope to overcome life’s struggles. I love this man, his story and his book, and I hope everyone learns from him to confront all obstacles and opportunities.”
—FR. MITCH PACWA, S.J., Ph.D. Host of EWTN Live and other shows on the Eternal Word Television Network, the Global Catholic Network
A POST HILL PRESS BOOK
The Change Agent:
How a Former College QB Sentenced to Life in Prison Transformed His World
© 2019 by Damon West
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-64293-102-0
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-103-7
Cover photography by Justin DeYoung and Michael Orta
Cover art by Cody Corcoran
Interior design and composition by Greg Johnson, Textbook Perfect
All names of people incarcerated have been changed for their protection and their privacy, as have the names of many others.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author
and publisher.
Post Hill Press
New York • Nashville
posthillpress.com
Published in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to my family.
Without them, there is no story.
Mom, Dad, Brandon, and Grayson,
thank you for never giving up on me.
I am so sorry for the pain I caused.
Mr. Walter Umphrey, Sue Greenway, Chris Kirchmer, and the entire Provost Umphrey Law Firm:
Thank you for the amazing second chance you all have afforded me.
There is no possible way I can ever pay it back.
BUT I CAN PAY IT FORWARD!
Contents
Prologue: Rock Bottom
Chapter 1: The Escape
Chapter 2: Innocence Lost
Chapter 3: Better Days
Chapter 4: Youth Is Wasted on the Young
Chapter 5: Menagerie of Miscreants
Chapter 6: Fork in the Road
Chapter 7: Debts Demand to Be Paid
Chapter 8: Proximity to Power
Chapter 9: You Don’t Have to Win All Your Fights
Chapter 10: You Cannot Give What You Do Not Have
Chapter 11: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
Chapter 12: Misery and Time
Chapter 13: The Coffee Bean
Chapter 14: The Animal I Have Become
Chapter 15: You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive!
Chapter 16: Footprints in the Sand
Chapter 17: Halftime Is Over
Chapter 18: Not on My Line
Chapter 19: Bench Warrant
Chapter 20: The Secret to Life
Chapter 21: Parole Hearing
Chapter 22: The Nightmare Is Over
Chapter 23: On-Chain
Chapter 24: The Carrot and the Stick
Chapter 25: Hat on Tight
Chapter 26: Three Tools to Begin Your New Life
Chapter 27: Living in Recovery
Chapter 28: The Good Thief
Epilogue: Life Coming Full Circle
PROLOGUE
Rock Bottom
Monday, May 18, 2009
Criminal District Court 7
Dallas, Texas
“MR. CHAVEZ, IT IS MY UNDERSTANDING that the jury has reached a unanimous verdict. Is that correct, sir?”
That was Judge Mike Snipes, presiding over my Dallas County organized crime case, speaking to the jury foreman. Before Judge Snipes was a criminal district court judge, he was a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Texas. I always knew him as Colonel Snipes. My buddy, big-time defense attorney Rankin Fulbright III, introduced us back in the late ’90s when we were all hanging out on Rankin’s yacht. The last time I saw him, in ’04 or ’05, I bought him a beer. We were at a trendy Uptown Dallas bar. That was a different life. A different Uptown.
Neither today, nor throughout the entire trial process, going back to the search warrant Snipes signed on July 30, 2008 (the day I was arrested), had I seen any hint of preferential treatment towards me from Snipes. And rightly so; I behaved horribly. I knew I deserved to go to prison. The question was, for how long?
How much time could a first-time felon, whacked out of his mind on meth while burglarizing dozens of homes, expect to receive?
I only hoped the jury would consider all the positive things from my
past. My attorney, Ed Sigel, was convinced (and in turn convinced me) it was prudent trial strategy to highlight my pre-meth/pre-criminal life. He sketched it all out: I grew up an All-American kid; I was a college quarterback; I worked in the United States Congress; I worked for a presidential campaign; I worked for one of the largest banks in the world (UBS); I came from a loving family, who instilled in me a value system despite my present predicament.
Unbowed, Ed remained confident in his plan. Thus far, I was unconvinced in the effectiveness of his strategy. I mean, he refused to call character witnesses like my brothers, Brandon and Grayson, or my best friend from childhood, Danielle Delgadillo.
I had mixed feelings about his plan to reveal the personal details of my life during the punishment phase of this trial. Being a victim of sexual molestation was embarrassing and painful on so many levels. It happened when I was nine, and I had hoped it would never resurface again. Alas, I am on trial for my life, and I am willing to use those dark memories to mitigate the damage I have done. After all, I can absolutely trace my substance abuse back to the molestation.
My poor parents sat in the first row of the gallery, directly behind me at the defense table. They sat through witness after witness for six days exposing their son for the crimes he committed. I was, after all, guilty—overwhelmingly so—of being involved in the Uptown burglaries. Hell, I was guilty of many more property crimes as well. What must have been going through their heads?
The jury deliberated for less than fifteen minutes before finding me guilty. On some level, I was surprised it took them that long. I barely had time to eat the two cold bologna sandwiches the county provided prisoners for lunch. The bailiff came to get me from the holding cell for my verdict, knowing full well after sitting through the voluminous evidence against me that my fate could only be guilty. He knew it, I knew it. It was no secret.
Now it was permanent record.
It is funny what you remember from events in history. Well, I don’t know if “funny” is the correct adjective. Perhaps peculiar, or odd, would be more apropos. Regardless, when Judge Snipes read my conviction to the courtroom on Friday, my initial thought was not, “Holy crap! I was just convicted of a first-degree felony.”
No, it was a more centralized, less obvious thought. “Damn, I will never be able to vote again.”
Judge Snipes wasted no time moving into the punishment phase of the trial. In Texas, there are two trials for a criminal offense. The first is to decide guilt or innocence; the second is the punishment phase. Since I was found guilty of a first-degree felony, my punishment could be anywhere between five and ninety-nine years, or life. As a first-time felon, up to ten years of probation would be on the table. However, I knew that was highly unlikely.
One juror in particular, the jury foreman, a younger Hispanic guy, looked at me with contempt. He hated me. That was clear. And why not? In front of him sat a guy who could have done anything, absolutely anything, he wanted to in life. Instead of living up to my potential, I’d “chosen” to be a meth addict and a thief. The prosecutor had hammered this point to the jury for over a week.
For the record, no one dreams of becoming a drug addict, an alcoholic, a thief, a burglar, a convicted felon...
My dreams were to play football, become a sports agent, a husband, a father, an elected official. Some of those dreams (husband and father) would be put on hold due to this prison sentence. Because of my conviction, other dreams (elected official) would never be fulfilled.
The jurors had heard from one witness who did me in more than anyone else. That witness was me, via jailhouse recordings. I said some really thoughtless, stupid, and selfish things on those phones. I must have been one of the dumbest criminals ever. My mother always said I talked too much. That’s probably what she was thinking when she heard the prosecutors replay those tapes of me trying to get money rounded up and people to do what I wanted. I turned out to be a real piece of trash.
I was preparing myself for the worst news possible because my co-counsel, Karen Lambert, informed me that the jurors had sent Judge Snipes a question during deliberations.
“They wanted to know if they could sentence you to life without parole,” Karen said.
“Are you serious? That’s stupid. These are property crimes, not capital murder,” I said.
“Nevertheless, they seriously asked Judge Snipes if they could sentence you with an LWOP.”
“And what did Judge Snipes tell them?” I asked, more than a little concerned now.
“He told them, ‘You can give him life, but not life without parole,’” Karen replied.
I remembered Ed telling me this was not an organized crime case. Apparently, the jury did not subscribe to the same definitions of criminal offenses as Ed. Not for the first time, I was feeling that sixth sense, what I call the God-wave, telling me this was going to end badly for me.
“You need to be prepared to hear the absolute worst, the maximum, from the foreman’s mouth. I am sorry, Damon.” And with that, we ceased talking because the jury reentered the courtroom.
Even with Karen’s warning of what was to come, my senses were on highest alert. I still hoped for a sentence of about twenty years. Given the parole laws for non-aggravated crimes (meaning no one was physically hurt), I could be eligible for parole in a few years, provided I stayed out of trouble in prison. I had been thoroughly educated on this by the guys with whom I was already locked up.
Basically, this is how it worked on a nonviolent crime like mine. For each day I serve without getting into any trouble, I will earn an extra day of good time credit. For each day I work, I will receive a half-day of credit toward my sentence. All of this is to build up 25 percent of the total sentence I will receive, which is the point at which I become eligible for parole on a non-aggravated sentence. Twenty-five percent of my sentence is my best, first chance at freedom.
I sat there crunching numbers in my head.
Given what Karen shared with me, I was losing hope of that twenty-five-year sentence. What was it that “Mr. Jackson” told me about maximum sentences? The sentencing chart stopping at sixty years, and I asked why it did.
“Sixty years is a natural life sentence. You must be seventeen years old to go to prison; add sixty to that and you have the natural life span of a man,” said Mr. Jackson, one of the more knowledgeable inmates in the jail.
“So, when someone gets life, they are really getting sixty years?” I fired back. “Why don’t they just cap it at sixty and say that’s what you’re getting? Seems pretty misleading.”
“West, for a college boy, you aren’t too smart. This is all about making juries feel good and justified. Victims, too. A life sentence gives them closure. Can you imagine trying to explain this chart to a jury? Prosecutors would love to do that but are prohibited from doing so. Juries would do the math on how long you would be in prison before you are eligible for parole, which, I can assure you from my own experience in TDCJ, making that first parole is not a sure thing, instead of the amount of time they feel you deserve for your crime.
“Be thankful your jury doesn’t have a clue about how parole works. Your punishment range is the scariest because there is no cap to it. I would be nervous as hell if I were you. Anything can happen at a trial,” he told me.
I will never forget what Mr. Jackson said to me before I left for my first day of trial, when I would experience picking my jury, or voir dire.
“West, keep in mind you are putting your life in the hands of twelve people who either could not figure a way out of jury duty like everyone else seems to be able to do, or they did not want to get out of jury duty, my biggest fear. Who wants to sit on a jury for ten dollars an hour, a meal, and a parking pass?” Mr. Jackson asked, one eyebrow raised.
The gravity of that final conversation a week ago weighed down on me like an anvil.
“Please stand to receive the verdict,” Judge Sni
pes said, glaring at me.
I stood on wobbling legs, took a deep breath, and exhaled.
The verdict was read. “We, the jury, having unanimously found the defendant guilty of engaging in organized crime as charged in the indictment, assess his punishment at sixty-five years’ confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and a fine of ten thousand dollars.”
I was stunned.
Did he just say sixty-five years?
Oh, no, my poor parents. What have I done to them?
Please, God, let them survive this. I have no right to ask anything of you, oh Lord, but I am, nonetheless. Please limit their suffering. Forget everything I have asked about my survival. Help them through this….
What should I call this? A phase? A period?
This was a life sentence.
Everything slowed down; time stood still. I wanted to scream, but at who? I’d done this to myself. I did this to them. I did this to the victims of these burglaries as well. But sixty-five years? What the hell? I didn’t kill or rape anybody; no one was ever home during these burglaries. Ol’ Jackson was right about trusting my life to a jury.
And I had paid counsel. Perhaps I am one of the few people who would have been better off with a court-appointed attorney. I couldn’t have gotten more time had I represented myself.
Judge Snipes looked me in the eyes. “The defendant having nothing to say, it is the order of the court that you, Damon West, being judged to be guilty of the offense of organized crime, a felony, in Case Number F09-00248, and whose punishment has been assessed at sixty-five years in prison at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division and a fine of ten thousand dollars, be delivered by the sheriff of Dallas County to the director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division.”