We lived on coffee, adrenaline, and the hope of reprieve until June 16th. We were so anxious about what was to come and so expectant to finally find a bit of peace in our lives knowing there would be a few months until sentencing.
The hearing for Travis to enter his official plea was held over tele-conference. Travis and his attorney attended virtually from his attorney’s office with the presiding Magistrate Judge in Florida. I don’t think it even crossed our minds that Travis could be held in custody until sentencing. Considering this was the only thing we anticipated to occur in the case that did actually go our way, I now realize as I write this how blessed we were to have this time together and for him to have his freedom.
During the hearing, sentencing was set for October 6th which seemed like a lifetime away. Travis could complete a Presentence Report with the probation office if he desired, and he did desire to do so. Additionally, he would follow all recommended rehabilitation efforts which ended up including anger management, a psychological evaluation only offering a diagnosis of anxiety from this case and follow up appointments with a counselor to support his anxiety and stress.
I did not attend the hearing. Travis returned home a contradiction of emotion: sweating bullets with a side of relief. He had never been in a courtroom before with the exception of attending his brother’s hearings that didn’t take place because his brother hadn’t shown up. Travis didn’t know what to expect, and appearing as the defendant in the case was the most intense and nerve wrecking experience of his life.
We were thankful to have another step in the process behind us, and he was even more grateful to be able to return to work continuing to have impact, make progress, and have a sense of success. Travis truly loved this position and the challenges it brought to his daily life. He found great fulfillment in solving problems and being stretched to deliver for a company he loved and believed in.
In less than two hours upon returning home after the hearing, he received an unexpected text message from a friend in California he hadn’t heard from in a while. The text simply said, “Are you ok?” Travis read the message to me, looked at his phone, looked at me, and said “Do you think he knows? And if he does, how did he find out?”
Moments later Travis received another text from his friend, a link to the news article published by ABC about his case. ABC is covering the case in California?! That took a couple moments to process. If ABC was covering the case, then other news outlets must be too. A quick Google search left us stunned. Every major media outlet had released an article on the case all across the country. Travis Ford was currently a household name for anyone paying attention to mainstream media, and he was not becoming famous based upon a true and honest representation of his character. He was infamous.
We were both speechless. Words cannot express the extent of vulnerability, shame, embarrassment, and humiliation you experience when your reputation is shredded in national news coverage. It feels like a trap when only one side of the case can be presented, and you’ve entered a revocable deal if you ever deny guilt. The shame is so heavy and thick, you immediately want to shrink away from the world, withdraw, and hide.
Of course the media coverage reiterated the case being about election official safety. No one stopped to think about or question if threats had been made to six individuals and only one of them was an election official, is this really the entire story? Also being heavily covered in the news at the same time was the January 6th Committee Hearings. The way the two topics were covered, those who saw the articles were confused about whether Travis had been at the Capitol on January 6th and whether his case was connected to the insurrection. He absolutely had no part in January 6th or any riot, protest, revolt, radical uprising, lobbying, or political extremism. He hadn’t ever had any part in even advocating politically. Travis was steadfast and loyal to coffee, his job, being home with his family, and walking the dog.
The story was brilliant in sending a message of deterrence to the average American social media user: a middle-class American who goes to work every day, no criminal history, a contributing member of society who gets on their electronic device and morphs into a keyboard warrior, hate slinging, political radicalist. Since this case was admittedly by both the prosecutor and judge largely focused on deterrence, what more effective example, or profile, of a social media user would they want to discourage with profound consequences for what is said electronically? A picture painted; a message sent.
Really what the message was saying is the Department of Justice (DOJ) will protect election officials but if you are POTUS, VPOTUS, Speaker of the House, the Chief Medical Advisor to POTUS, or the CEO of a tech company better luck next time. The DOJ will pick and choose from the evidence to create the story they want to tell, but the way the story is told prevents many from taking pause to critically think about the details or look into additional factors in the case. I’ll back this perspective up with case examples in the near future. Stay tuned.
But how do you respond when YOU are at the center of national media coverage? Or do you even respond at all?
Trauma can cause you to take on a false identity of self. I noticed Travis began making comments like “I am a felon. I am ruined. This isn’t fair.” I appreciated all of those thoughts for being a transparent representation of where he was with his mindset, but I wasn’t going to stand by and watch him flounder helplessly in this place. One of the courses I taught while working in probation had a specific chapter come to mind: bad things happen to good people, to bad people, to all people. The things you experience in life are just that: an experience. They do not define who you are. The Travis I knew was generous, kindhearted, hard-working, protective, hilarious, confident, a dreamer, and ambitious. He was still all of those positive things, and the outside world had no right to convince him otherwise. The outside world didn’t even know the whole story.
But it was going to take a little time to regain a clear vision of who he was and who I was. We both were being forever changed by this experience, forged in fire. Would it soften us or harden us? Would we be refined or would we become crude and harsh?
As I sorted through my many thoughts and emotions, observing the complexity of being human, trying to find my new normal, grasping for a bit of steady ground in a very unsteady situation a glimmer of hope returned that maybe, just maybe, we could get more than a couple hours of sleep as we moved beyond this part of the process. Maybe things would settle down. This had to be rock bottom. It couldn’t possibly get lower than national news coverage, could it? It could, it would, and it was all going to happen tomorrow.
Lesson learned: When going through the worst experience of your life, have a team around you for support. You deserve it, and it could be the difference between bending and breaking. (I also believe this advice is relevant when going through life, period.) And no one gets to take the truth of your identity from you!
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Peace & Love,
Janessa