Carmen María Montiel - Stolen Identity

On Thursday, all of my lawyers (criminal and family), my brother and Alejandro went to court. I waited at my lawyer’s office.

Alejandro said he did not have the Venezuelan passport. To which my lawyer said, probably he already shredded it! His lawyer insisted to the judge that I was a flight risk and should not be left free—that I should be back in prison to await trial there!

How could he? He knows I did nothing and I am the mother of his children.

The best way to defend yourself is by staying free. You find a way. You are free to talk with family and the lawyers; you are free to find ways to pay for your defense. Alejandro withdrew all the money from our bank accounts, leaving me penniless.

Ultimately, I was free to brainstorm with my lawyers. But in prison? Forget it! And prison was a card he was going to wave at the family judge every second. As he did with this charge.

And that is what Alejandro was trying to do. Trying as best as he could to lock me up. But God was on my side and the side of the truth. My lawyers turned in the American passport and that was enough for the judge. I proved I did not have the Venezuelan passport with all the motions presented by my family lawyers.

José, his brother, also was there. Funny, because they had not had a relationship ever since he got married. Now, they are best buddies. And José is missing work often to be with Alejandro. As usual, José was hitting on one of Alejandro’s female criminal lawyers. The people in his family are all the same. My brother told me everything in the afternoon, including how Alejandro and his lawyers—even after everyone left court—were working in the Federal Building trying to get me locked up.

One of his lawyers on a previous occasion told me: “Carmen, get out of this marriage. I have seen many women ruining their lives because of a man like him.”

Not only did she know whom she was defending, but also now she was helping him ruin my life and wrongfully put me in prison just as she had warned me about. Today 75% of women in jail are victims of domestic violence. Many do not live to see another day.

By Friday I met with my legal team. That is everybody: family lawyers and criminal lawyers. “My God, this divorce is becoming so expensive. Where am I going to get the money to pay for this?” I asked myself while sitting there. It was all part of Alejandro’s master plan. If I could not pay the lawyers, then I could not defend myself from prison or get what was rightfully mine in the divorce. In the end, what he wanted was to keep it all and not have to split the marital estate with me. All we have made together. He was a medical student when we met and he did not come from money. His father was a Lebanese immigrant and his mother was his father’s secretary.

Once in prison, I would lose all my rights and, while I was locked up, he would leave me with nothing, not even my credibility. I knew too much about him. Alejandro could not risk that, because he did not know where his illegal Venezuelan passport was. My own children would never see me again. And he would destroy them. My oldest daughter said Kamee would commit suicide in her father’s “care,” and she and JD would end up in juvenile prison. Alexandra saw it clearly. It broke my heart that my beautiful children had to go through this.

I prayed and prayed, asking God to help me.

My family lawyer looked at me in the meeting and said: “Well, this divorce just hit the target of half a million dollars or more with the indictment. Carmen, do you have the funds for this or a rich boyfriend or some money stacked somewhere?”

“I will find a way,” I whispered.

Some money stacked somewhere? All he wanted was to get his hands on it and leave me with no means—as he ended up doing. He took over $400,000 for less than three days in court and six months of work. When he got all of the money he could from me, he fired me. Could he be part of Alejandro’s master plan?

With all that happened to me, I came to realize how people lost respect for me. Not only that, they felt they could abuse me. Because they knew that if I acted out, it could prove Alejandro’s version of the story.

My lawyer talked about the case. He told the team it was a silly charge and more than likely he would be able to get it dropped. He also said that if it fell in the court of one of those older male judges, it would be dropped. However, I ended up in the court of a female judge for whom every case merited a trial—she never let a case go away. Everyone had to go to court or settle with the government. How scary!

I started to deal with my divorce and this charge at the same time. My life was so complicated.

I wondered what would have happened if I had not filed for divorce. The answer came months later when listening to recordings I made before my divorce of conversations with Alejandro to have them translated into English. In one of them he said: “You are going to prison, Carmen. You are a felon. Don’t worry —I will take the children to visit you once a year.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “I did nothing!”

“Tell that to the judge,” Alejandro replied laughing.

This happened right after the airplane incident, when my lawyers thought there was never going to be a charge. It was a discussion between Alejandro and me. My lawyers said it was a domestic dispute and the maximum the airline could do was fine us. But that was even before everybody knew the airplane returned due to weather. They were never going to fine me. I then understood that Alejandro was already talking with someone at the FBI. That is why two months before the indictment he already knew I would be indicted. Had he planned this?

Later, I read his interview with the FBI, full of lies. He even said I had mental problems. How could he? He was my husband. Was not he supposed to protect me?

I was lonely and weak. I was full of fear. I was even afraid of my shadow. I had lost all confidence and hope for living. I was afraid to drive. I could not afford to get pulled over. One day, I got pulled over for changing lanes. Oh, my God, no! I was on my way to meet my lawyer with my daughter Kamee. I almost had a panic attack. Kamee was trying to calm me down while the officer took my driver’s license. “This is it,” I thought to myself. He is going to see in the computer I am on bond. The officer came back to the car and told me a long story of his sacrifices as an officer and gave me a warning.

I arrived at my lawyer’s office devastated. When I showed him the warning, he said, “This is nothing. Calm down. You are a cry-baby.”

“Calm down? Do you know what I am risking here?”

“But this is nothing, Carmen.”

Well, it was something to me while it was happening.

I had lost so much weight that I looked sick. But I had to be strong for my children. My mother came, and finally I had a shoulder to cry on. She did not know anything about the abuse because I had never told her. Just as I had never told anybody. How could I? My mother and friends would hate him. Victims always stay silent.

I was trying to fix my marriage for my family’s sake. I could not reveal such a thing because I was expecting this to go away.

I just told my mother once that I was having problems with Alejandro. We were both in Venezuela. I told her about the cheating—that, I could tell her! I wanted her advice on what to do. My mother told me to fix it.

“Carmen María, this is probably a phase. It will pass. Are you going to destroy your family for that? Fix it!”

It was the common consensus for cheating… fix it! Even my friends told me that. But they did not know about the abuse.

In fact, the cheating and abuse went hand in hand. The more he cheated, the worse the abuse got. The more I told him his behavior was going to end in divorce, the worse his abuse got.