Read the full project, Meth: The Prison Pipeline, here:
Inmates in federal prison — unlike those in state prison — are not eligible for parole. That means even first-time, nonviolent offenders often lose their freedom for decades.
Mercy typically only comes in the form or what might be described as winning the criminal justice lottery: presidential clemency.
And that’s rare. Only between 2% and 6% of clemency applications have been granted by presidents since 1990, according to a Pew Research study.
Such were the daunting odds faced by Sydney Melissa Navarro and Tara Perry — two women who met at a federal prison in Fort Worth; two moms who faced the prospect of missing decades of their children’s lives.
Their backstories are not so dissimilar to many of the more than 34,000 inmates who are locked up in federal prison because of methamphetamine — the nation’s most popular drug.
Both grew up with parents addicted to drugs. Both became teen moms who started taking drugs. Both were arrested for selling meth. Both pleaded guilty.
Navarro was sentenced to 27 years. Perry was sentenced to 20 years.
Those sentences reflect what many consider an inequity. Sentences for meth crimes are longer than for any other drug, even fentanyl. And no place are they longer than in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
A Dallas Morning News investigation found that, in the 10-year period from October 2013 to September 2023, the Northern District of Texas had the highest median meth sentences in the nation — 10 years compared to six nationally.
Born into a life of drugs
Navarro was born and raised in Fort Worth into a family that struggled with addiction. Her parents were drug addicts, and she became pregnant with her first child at 14.
“I was kind of born into a family of drug dealers,” she said. “I pretty much became a product of my environment.”
She left high school after the 10th grade and had six more kids, two of whom she gave up for adoption because she was on drugs and couldn’t care for them. Despite her growing family, Navarro managed to find a job as a medical assistant for a time, drawing blood at a plasma donation center.
But her insecurities over her weight and her looks — and mixing with old friends from the neighborhood — drove her to start using meth again.
“I got addicted to the money and the drugs,” Navarro said.
When she smoked crystal meth, she felt better about herself and lost weight. She gained confidence and forgot her problems. Navarro met a drug dealer with a long criminal history. Soon, she said, they were selling meth out of motel rooms.
Whatever money she made, she spent quickly. At one point, she didn’t own a car. Her first serious drug bust landed her in state court. The most time she did was almost two years in state prison.
But then, in early 2013, she caught a federal charge, her first. The agents leaned on her. They wanted information, she said. Other names.
“But there was nothing for me to give up,” Navarro said. “Everyone had already pointed the finger or the blame.”
She was a street dealer with no idea where her meth came from, she said. Navarro pleaded guilty to a meth conspiracy charge in August 2013.
Thinking herself a “peon,” she expected to get perhaps 10 years. She would soon realize just how harsh meth laws are.
Pregnant and terrified
Perry was born in Dallas to a mother with a drug problem. Her father was never in her life. She started smoking pot at age 12 with friends in the theater school she was attending, and she first tried meth at 13. Perry dropped out of school in ninth grade and began selling drugs to support her habit when she was 16.
Soon after she was using meth again.
“You stay awake, you have all this energy. You feel like you’re on top of the world,” she said. “I loved the way I looked. I loved the way I felt.”
She started dating an older man, a drug dealer, who got her involved with meth. She began selling drugs and committing petty crimes to earn enough money to support her habit.
“It always ends up with a guy, for women,” she said. “You follow the guy, and he gets in trouble.”
Perry said she sold meth on the streets, a few ounces at a time. Someone gave the Drug Enforcement Administration her name, and she was picked up. It was her first federal case. She was about five months pregnant at the time and terrified. No physical evidence tied her to drugs — just the word of other drug dealers. Yet prosecutors linked her to more than 66 pounds of meth.
Perry considered going to trial. But her lawyer warned that most defendants lose and she could get life in prison. She had three children and was pregnant with a fourth.
She pleaded guilty in July 2013 to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Then she saw the recommended sentence: 30 years to life.
“A part of me died.”
A tough judge, a harsh reality
Navarro might have considered herself a peon in the meth world, but the presentence report developed by prosecutors and presented to the judge suggested she spend as much as 34 years in prison. The punishment had been increased, at least in part, because of a finding that she maintained a drug premise. That was based on an informant who told agents Navarro and her boyfriend sold meth out of motel rooms, although, according to court records, they were never caught doing so.
In December 2013, Navarro stood in a Fort Worth courtroom to learn her fate. She was nervous, with knots in her stomach, feeling like she was about to throw up.
She had reason to be nervous. People had told her horror stories about her judge.
U.S. District Judge John McBryde, who died in 2022, was notoriously tough. The News’ analysis showed that even by North Texas standards he was an outlier — handing down an average sentence for drug crimes of 17 years.
Navarro’s attorney, Derek Brown, asked McBryde to consider the role drug addiction plays in personal decision making.
“She’s expressed not only regret of her involvement but an awareness of the lifestyle that has developed over the course of her young life and the addiction to methamphetamine that has fueled this problem,” Brown told McBryde.
“Of course, that’s the reason the sentences are as severe as they are in methamphetamine cases,” McBryde responded. “It does ruin a lot of lives. It destroys lives, in effect.”
The judge then read from Navarro’s criminal history, citing her various theft and drug arrests. He mentioned a charge against her of marijuana possession under 2 ounces. She was 25 years old at the time and the case was dismissed.
“But,” McBryde said, “I can find from a preponderance of the evidence that you committed that offense.”
Two years after that, a grand jury decided not to indict her for a different drug charge. But McBryde made a similar finding: “I can tell from the information in the presentence report that you committed that offense.”
The judge explained his 27-year sentence.
“I’m hoping that once you quit using these drugs that maybe you will straighten out,” McBryde told her. “It’s a long sentence, but I’m going to sentence you at the very bottom of the guideline range.”
It took her a minute to catch her breath and calculate the time.
“I just felt numb,” she said. “It just took my whole breath away.”
Marshals led her away. It was two days before Christmas.
“All I could hear at that point was my mom,” Navarro said. “My mom is just crying.”
‘You peddled poison’
Perry’s mom was in the courtroom for her sentencing as well. So was her grandmother and her children, including her newborn.
Perry told U.S. District Judge Terry Means she was a changed person and would never commit another offense. She implored Means to allow her to spend time with her children.
“I have a relationship with my daughter now that I never had before, ever,” she said. “I do her makeup. I do her hair. We go shopping for clothes, and my little girl, Savannah, is only 3 months, and I want to spend all the time in the world with her.”
Perry also told Means that all she does is work at McDonald’s and then go home to be with her newborn.
“I want to make a difference in the world, and I don’t want to be locked away for the rest of my life and lose it,” she said. “And my baby, my baby, please don’t take me away from my baby, please. I beg you with everything in my heart.”
Meanssaid it was too late to make amends. Perry remembers crying out for her children. The marshals led her out.
“I didn’t have anything left in me,” she said. “I was just kind of broken inside.”
Means told Perry during her 2014 sentencing that he was sympathetic to her history of addiction but that there were other considerations that drove his 20-year sentence.
“I also have to keep in mind the fact that you peddled poison to other people’s children,” Means said, “and how many people were affected by the serious poison that methamphetamine is. It’s a terrible drug.”
A bond formed in prison
Navarro and Perry first met while in county jail after their arrests. But it was at Carswell federal prison in Fort Worth where they developed a deep friendship.
Perry became an inmate at Carswell in early 2014. Navarro joined her there later in the year after a brief stint at an Alabama prison.
Carswell also is home to a federal medical center that caters to elderly and sick inmates. It was a shock for Navarro. And a bit scary.
“You see everybody in wheelchairs,” she said. “You see people dying every day.”
Navarro and Perry joined a faith-based program in the prison that prepares inmates to reenter society through “a curriculum of personal, social and moral development.”
They also took part in a different program together at Carswell in which they spoke to juveniles and young adults on probation and shared their experiences.
“That’s where we really built our connection,” Navarro said. “We were very close.”
Navarro took prison classes, and took part in dance and sports such as softball and kickball. She said she enrolled in all the prison programs she could handle to “better myself” and so she could put them to use when she got out.
“Anything you can imagine I was involved in,” Navarro said. “Everything that you do in there counts. To help you get out or get where you want to be or use it when you’re home.”
Perry also took strides to better herself — and prepare for a better life outside prison.
She obtained a nursing assistant certificate and helped care for other inmates.
She became a mental health peer counselor and was also a hospice volunteer. She sang in the prison church choir. She took classes and qualified for the prison camp where she trained dogs.
Still, the days passed slowly and the future remained uncertain.
Then Navarro heard about an out-of-state law professor who’d been visiting other female inmates at the Fort Worth prison.
A lawyer with a cause
JaneAnne Murray had been an attorney for a New York law firm and also worked as a trial attorney with the Legal Aid Society of New York in Manhattan before opening her own practice focused on criminal defense.
She became especially troubled by the justice system’s treatment of nonviolent drug offenders. So much so, Murray scaled back her law practice to devote time and energy to clemency cases and became director of the University of Minnesota Law School’s Clemency Project.
Murray, who’s also a law professor at the school, hadn’t intended to focus on women. It happened when she began interviewing female prisoners at a federal prison in Minneapolis. Many, she said, were girlfriends and wives of career criminals and abusers.
“When you dig into the pasts of these women, there’s so much trauma and abuse,” Murray said. “It is disturbing to see these draconian sentences meted out to people who are as much victims as they are perpetrators.”
That led her to the Carswell women’s prison in Fort Worth.
She and her law students traveled there to speak with inmates. A familiar pattern emerged. Most of them were abused, sometimes sexually, and neglected as children. They dropped out of school, ended up in abusive relationships, had children, and became financially dependent on drug-dealing boyfriends who embroiled them in their activities. They also self-medicated, Murray said, with illegal drugs to cope with their predicaments, Murray said.
“Addiction and dealing occurs simultaneously in these women’s lives,” she said. “It’s such a tragedy.”
Navarro said another inmate told her about Murray. She contacted the law professor, who flew out to meet with her at the prison and hear her story. Murray filed an amendment to Navarro’s clemency petition.
Navarro then told Perry about Murray, who agreed to also help her friend.
Perry said Murray “fought tooth and nail for us.”
Murray took note of the circumstances that led to the women’s decadeslong sentences. As was often the case, the women had little valuable information they could have used as leverage in plea bargaining negotiations. As such, they were largely at the mercy of prosecutors – and mercy, Murray said, is a quality lacking in some North Texas prosecutors. Many seek the toughest possible sentences, she said, even when women cooperate and play relatively minor roles.
“Their charging decisions play a huge role,” Murray said. “The prosecutors have so many tools at their disposal.”
Clemency generally means reducing a person’s punishment for a crime without eliminating their criminal record. Most presidential grants of clemency come in the form of a pardon or commutation. A pardon is the forgiveness of a sentence, and a commutation is the reduction of a sentence.
A day unlike any other
It was Jan. 20, 2021 — Inauguration Day for incoming President Joe Biden — and Navarro was up early watching predawn news coverage leading up to the event on a TV in her room.
Little did she know it was the outgoing president, Donald Trump, who was about to change her life.
Navarro was at the time living in a low-security “camp” at Carswell that was actually a converted motel, sharing a room with five others. They were on lockdown because of covid.
Her supervisor appeared shortly after 5 a.m. — earlier than normal — and told her to come over.
“Has anyone told you anything yet?” he asked her. “You’re about to go home.”
“I’m like, no way, no way, no way,” Navarro recalled.
She was allowed to call her children.
“I’m coming home,” she yelled into the phone. Her daughter cried.
That same day, on the other side of the camp compound, Perry’s prison counselor asked if she’d heard the news. What news, she thought? He then called Perry’s mother and handed her the phone.
“Tara,” her mother screamed into the phone, “you got clemency!”
“I just started bawling my eyes out.”
Both had served about seven years when Trump, as one of his final acts in office, granted their petitions for clemency. No advance notice came.
A White House announcement gave the following reasons for Navarro’s sentence commutation.
“She has an exemplary prison record. In addition, Ms. Navarro obtained her GED, participated in extensive program work, and earned excellent work evaluations. Notably, Ms. Navarro was chosen to speak to at-risk youth in the community through the SHARE program.”
The announcement also mentioned Perry’s sentence commutation.
“She has maintained an exemplary prison record and has obtained her nursing certification. Ms. Perry also enjoys singing during the prison religious services.”
On Jan. 20, 2021 around 3 p.m., Sydney Melissa Navarro and Tara Perry walked out of Carswell together — as free women.
Symbols of hope
Navarro, now 40, works full-time in a warehouse as a forklift driver.
She immediately reconnected with her children: four girls and a boy. Three of them are in North Texas and two live in Arizona.
Perry, now 39, has since landed a job as an account manager for a firm, reunited with her children and has attended Tarrant County College to be a substance abuse counselor. She has a new car for the first time. She is doing everything she promised the judge she would do if she got a second chance. Her message to others is simple.
“There are people out there who are fighting for you,” she said. “Don’t let that system drag you down. Don’t let the system beat you.”
Both women serve as symbols of hope for others like them in prison. And both have made it their life’s mission to help young women who also grew up in dysfunctional homes and struggle with drug addiction.
Perry acknowledges that drugs are a problem in society but says users aren’t given adequate treatment and counseling to help them overcome what is essentially a health problem.
“I feel you need to treat the root of the problem,” she said, “and give people resources and hope and help.”
Drugs have taken much from her. When Perry was in prison, she said, her mother continued using drugs, and she eventually lost custody of her four children. All were adopted.
But those circumstances — and all those years in prison — have also inspired her. She wants to continue speaking to young people and women; specifically those who are stuck in a cycle of drug use, relationship abuse and prostitution.
“That’s my goal. To share my story and spread light and hope.”
Navarro still speaks to young people about her experiences. She has done so for a Fort Worth nonprofit transition home for women in need of all ages. Sometimes she’ll invite inmates she served time with to join her and share their stories.
Sometimes she invites her friend Perry.
Navarro’s message has never changed.
“Just keep fighting. Don’t give up. You never know what tomorrow will bring.”
