Better path: Cormier book encourages wiser choices for teens

Published 10:30 am Tuesday, November 13, 2018

 

By Ken Stickney

ken.stickney@panews.com

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But for her own inaction, Sarah Lynn Cormier might never have gone go to jail. She’ll tell you that plainly.

She had a good mother and some academic promise and a developed work ethic. She had two small children she loved and all the reason in the world to stay out of trouble.

Except she didn’t.

Cormier, 32, spent seven years, nine months and 21 days in the custody of the federal prison system, the consequence of a weak will and bad personal choices. She paid for that, but so did her mother, her children and the taxpayers.

Cormier’s not one bit hesitant to discuss her wrongs but, incarcerated and separated from her family, she’s struggled hard since her conviction and imprisonment to develop those things that are right about her.

“It’s a Conspiracy,” her self-published scrapbook about women she met in the Federal Correctional Institution at Waseca, Minnesota, where she served part of her 117-month sentence for conspiracy and abetting carjacking and a weapons charge for 2007 crime, is one step toward doing what’s right, she says.

“I wanted to do something to open the eyes of our youth that you can go to prison by knowing what someone else is doing,” she said over coffee last week at Chick Fil A, 8701 Memorial Blvd., Port Arthur. She’ll do a book signing there from 5-8 Thursday.

Accumulated wisdom

In her book, she republishes the accumulated wisdom of 100 women imprisoned there, most of whom faced drug charges but others who were doing time for crimes as violent as bank robbery or as evil as producing child pornography. Most got smarter in prison, or at least appeared to be.

Count Cormier among them. Born in Port Arthur the last of four children of an attentive mother and abusive father — her mother, Beulah, fled Louisiana to escape her husband — she was as protected as her hard-working single mother could make her. That meant locating as far away from “the tracks” as possible, she said, while her mother worked multiple jobs to pay the bills.

“She worked a lot to make sure we didn’t lack for anything. She taught us a lot about values,” Cormier said.

Nonetheless, her baby girl got found trouble — first, just mischief but by junior high, she’d hit the “downslope.” She fell out of honors classes after she was sent to alternative school; she got caught gambling in school, then ran away from police who came to school for her and was sent to lock-up for that. One teacher promised her she’d pass if she would just stay away from her class.

She rejected some good opportunities for advancement. She said she’d stopped “listening to authority figures” and stopped doing those little things that count toward success.

Months short of graduation, she dropped out and pass the GED.

“That’s a decision I regret,” she said.

Bad crowd

She had a child young but, alas, continued to hang out with a bad crowd.

She dated a man who’d just been released from prison, and became pregnant. The night she was going to tell him, the two and some friends went to play bingo. Her boyfriend, “Beehive,” lost money and, angry, said he needed to get some cash. That created the circumstances for her last stumble down a rocky path.

She said “Beehive” wasn’t someone to trifle with; hellbent on committing a crime, no one tried to stop him. Cormier said her boyfriend carjacked a woman, forced her to drive to an automatic teller machine and withdraw money. The machine’s video showed the car in which she and her friends were following Beehive; it was later traced to Beehive’s friend.

Why didn’t she get out of the car? She asks herself that question rhetorically.

“You don’t think about that. I think about things now I could have done differently. We followed them the whole time,” she said, not helping but not intervening or leaving. Arrested just shy of 23 years old, she went to trial and attempted to plea bargain. She said her boyfriend refused to plea bargain on her behalf, saying if he wouldn’t see their child, neither would she.

For most of the next eight years, she moved to and from various courtrooms, prisons and levels of incarceration. She saw her family once before her transfer to Beaumont and a halfway house.

Prison, she said, was where she turned it around. She developed myriad work skills. Jobs included working in a mailroom, driving a forklift, driving a truck, doing lawn care, performing clerical work. There were classes to appeal to her creativity, academic classes and lots of time for introspection and self-reflection.

“Some ladies inside wanted to become like hermits,” she said. Others found their creative sides.

Goal: Do better

Her scrapbook reflects on the thoughts of many women who, like her, reconnected with their faith, took responsibility for their crimes, vowed to do better. That’s the goal.

She’s missed years with her own children — her mother raised them in her absence — and they were frightened of her when she returned home. She’s had to work hard to re-establish bonds with them. She was amazed when a former boss at a fast-food restaurant not only promised her a job back after her arrest, but rehired her after she returned to the outside world.

She’s met her fiancé, a decent guy, and has tried to piece her life back together. She’s worked several jobs and has settled into one that looks like it has a future. Most important, she said, is that she has developed the strength to stay on a better path, to make good choices.

She said her book targets children 11 through teenager, suggesting that, unlike her, young people must make right choices to reach good outcomes.

Becky Tschirhart at Chick Fil A said Cormier is a regular customer there who recounted her story for her and told her about the book and its mission.

“I like the fact that Sarah took responsibility for her actions, did her time. A lot of people could be bitter,” Tschirhart said “She made the choice to be a better person over it, a better member of society, to mentor to children.”

That’s why she invited her to sell the book — there are 21 copies left — at the store at the Thursday book signing.