Thankful for jail time

Amber Rae Tena left the Orange County Woman’s Jail at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, so anxious to walk out she could barely sleep the night before.

The last time Tena, 22, was released from jail in December she found herself arrested less than 10 days later for robbery after police found her and a friend stealing from a Wal-Mart. The knife Tena had in her pocket sealed the deal for prosecutors, she said.

And this time around things may have ended the same had it not been for Marie Kolasinski and Piecemakers religious group in Costa Mesa. Over the last few months the group has taken in a number of women seeking shelter in the initial days following their release.

It all began the week after Kolasinski’s one-week stay in January at the Orange County Jail after she was charged with operating a restaurant without a permit and blocking Orange County health inspectors. She was also sentenced to three years probation.

The 85-year-old received a letter from an inmate she met while on the inside who was looking for spiritual guidance or to discuss reported abuses.

“Thank the Lord for sending me to jail or I would never have known any of this was happening,” Kolasinski said.

Now six months later, Kolasinski fields 10 letters a day on average, 40-50 at heavier times. She has responded to nearly every one.

The women are sent reading materials from the group, or money to buy hygiene products since they are required to pay for supplies such as shampoo.

Kolasinski says she feels God has appointed her to tend to this flock who have been left to fend for themselves. The deck has been stacked against these girls, she said.

For Tena, that definitely seemed the case, with a mother serving 16 months in Chowchilla Prison for petty theft with a prior conviction, and a father serving 22 years at Calipatria State Prison for shooting in an inhabited dwelling, a charge which counted as his second strike.

Roughly 24 hours after being let loose, Tena was required to be seated in front of her probation officer with a living plan by 9 a.m. Thursday or else could have faced going back in, she said.

“They make it impossible for you to get back up on your feet,” said Kerry Parker, a Piecemakers staff member. “You pay for your own punishment,” she added, in reference to the monthly fees required for probation, usually putting many of the inmates further in debt before they leave their cell.

Parker has been Tena’s angel through the last few days, making calls to the girls’ probation officer, and helping her find a place to live.

“If I didn’t have the Piecemakers I would have had nowhere to go and the first thing I would have done was go back to my old habits and the same old friends,” Tena said.

“It started with basically running away,” Tena said as she recounted the long list of reckless behaviors and rash decisions that peppered her record, including credit card fraud and battery.

“I was sent sheltered as a child in private schools, catholic schools, never able to go out late, living with grandma,” she said. “And in high school I met the wrong people from [literally] the first day.”

All of this is enough to deal with for most people. Now add to the mix Tena’s 18-month-old son who was taken away by child services after her arrest and past habitual drug use. But her boy has given the Fullerton native something to work toward in the upcoming months.

Friday Tena was able to check into her new home at Mini Twelve Steps House, Inc., in Los Angeles where she will work at getting a parenting certificate, drug counseling and accomplishing all that the court requires her to do to get her son back. It would not have happened without Parker, she said.

“Inside me I had wanted to change,” Tena said. “It’s just I didn’t have anyone to help me with that first step. [Piecemakers are] actually helping me find something.”

“I feel like I’m a stronger person. They want you to feel weak in the system. I know I can do it this time.”

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MESSAGE TO HILTON

While scores of incarcerated women have contacted Marie Kolasinski through the mail in the months following her release from the Orange County Jail, she has now turned some of her attention toward shepherding recently imprisoned celebrity Paris Hilton.

In a letter sent to the heiress, Kolasinski shared her jail house blues, while noting that it was the “secondgreatest eye-opener I’ve experienced in my 85 years journeying through life,” the first being her relationship with an almighty creator, Kolasinski stated in the letter.

The owner of Piecemakers Country Store in Costa Mesa went on in the letter to point out how time behind bars has opened her eyes to the “wretchedness” of the present judicial system and the “arrogance of power over an individual’s life.”

“I pray this time for you spent away from the press and the throngs of people be one of solitude with our Savior who has a special purpose for your life,” Kolasinski stated in the letter.

“As hellish as it is in there it could end up being the highlight and the beginning of a new life where your life will be a light to others in darkness,” Kolasinski ended the letter.

Hilton is scheduled to be released from the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood early this week after serving roughly half of her 45-day sentence.