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Getting Juice To Your Door With Richmond’s New Natural Wine Service

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RichWine is a new delivery-based wine shop that has begun to make a name for itself in Richmond. Not only are they a small operation specializing in natural wines, they also represent a growing movement in the wine world toward increased diversity and delivery-based service.

Kristen Beal and Lance Lemon both fell in love with wine as they traveled the world working in fine dining during their respective careers. After learning everything they could about wine through studying and following wine trails around the world and across Virginia, the duo decided that it was time to make their mark in Richmond with a wine shop, which they called RichWine. Sadly, before they could open a brick and mortar store, the pandemic derailed their plans and pigeonholed them into operating a delivery service. 

“We found our niche [in Richmond.] We both like wine and we both like business; we both happened to be around wine and work with it,” said Beal. “It’s even better that we can bring diversity to a wine business and into the wine world.”

“Everyone eats; everyone needs food,” she said. “Wine is so close to food, and is meant to be paired with it. We’re here to help people shop, because the varietals and blends can be so overwhelming.”

While living in Brooklyn, Beal and Lemon experienced a shift in the food and wine industries towards a focus on natural and sustainable sourcing. While they were educating themselves on wine, they were introduced to the world of natural wines. 

“Everyone’s expanding what the wine world can be in all aspects; how wine can be made, what people are liking, and just trying to broaden everything. Wine in general has been a trend recently, but it’s been around since Jesus himself. Now people are starting to take the time and say, ‘Yo, there’s some cool stuff out there,’” said Lemon. “I think craft beer had its time — and still does, especially in Richmond — but wine is beginning to turn heads. Really, it’s kind of the same as beer. People share things they like and are like, ‘Try something new! Try this! Try that!’”

Because of this new attention, winemakers and vineyards now can make some cool stuff and go off of the beaten path, ultimately expanding what wine can be. The delivery-based wine shop/bar has become a trend during the COVID pandemic. Such shops had existed in larger cities like New York and Los Angeles prior, but began to tap into smaller markets during the pandemic, as new players like San Francisco’s Bar Part Time and Pasadena’s Good Luck Wine Shop have emerged. 

RichWine, like many of these other companies, has built up their business by emphasizing a focus on natural wines. These pesticide-free, holistically harvested by hand wines have stolen the limelight in the wine world because of their natural fermentations; the fact that they contain no added sulphurs or sugars; and, for lack of a better term, their unique “funk” and natural taste. Beal and Lemon say that some of their favorites are the 2018 Valdisole “Agape,” 2019 Il Farneto Giandon Rosso, 2019 Le Mas de mon Pere Tu M’Intresses, and the 2019 Las Jaras Glou Glou. (All of these are such kick-ass bottles, especially the Giandon.)

“We look at how things are made and how the story [of the farmers and vineyards] matters…we look at all of that before we bring stuff in. It goes back to making sure things are honest farmed, because those [natural] certifications are expensive,” said Beal. “If you don’t want to spend $50,000 a year on a certification but you’re practicing and have been practicing [natural production], then that’s fine.”

Historically, the wine world has been predominantly white and has been an industry that has been built on colonialism. There’s a reason why wine and wine bars have a posh connotation and cater to a certain market. Beal and Lemon are two of many people of color who have begun to make a name for themselves in the wine world and create a more accessible and diverse community. 

“It’s good to be in this space; we’ve been focusing on accessibility. Wine education is super important for us and I think there’s a space at the table for wine for everyone,” said Beal. “Price doesn’t necessarily dictate how much you’re going to like the wine; you can find really good wine at every price point. That’s something we wanted to make more accessible to everyone, because the idea of going to a vineyard and chilling for a day has an uppity nature to it… Think about how it’s presented in Hollywood. All of that has a downstream effect and you notice who’s participating where. We hope that the path we’re paving creates more POC who are interested in wine and winemaking. There’s space for everyone; we want to take that ‘uppity’ filter out of it. The accessibility is so important.”

“As much as we care about diversity, we care about Black. We love our people and our culture,” said Lemon. “We’re people who love wine that happen to be Black. We didn’t get into this business because we were like, ‘You know what? We’re Black, let’s start our own wine business!’ It wasn’t like, ‘We’re Black, let’s go bowl or play croquet!’ You know what I mean? There’s a wine for everybody — Black, white, green, or orange – we’re going to find something you like.”

Despite only operating on delivery, RichWine says that business has been good for them. It’s been something of a blessing in disguise, as they put it; because they’ve been able to set up a delivery service and online shop before establishing a brick-and-mortar shop, when normally it’s the other way around. 

“People are really digging it,” said Lemon. “Everything’s online now; putting alcohol online is even smarter. Even if people don’t order on the website, they might come into the future turn-key retail shop to see things for themselves.”

Post-COVID, Lemon and Beal hope to establish a permanent location for their wine shop. They say that they don’t want it to be a restaurant nor a bar, but rather a shop that holds tastings, has some food options, and operates more like a cafe, offering a space for people to relax, spend time, and get work done.

“We hope we can get our ducks in line and work towards a physical storefront. We want to create a space where people don’t feel the need to be on their phone,” said Lemon. “People want a place to drink and have fun and not always feel like they’re going on a date… That’s a big thing with wine spots. You don’t want to go there with your boys and just kick it. If you want to come in at 2:00 p.m. and post up and get loose on some wine, we’d like to be there for you to do it.”

Photos by Noah Daboul

Writing Stories At A Distance

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Virginians Kendall Street Company explore introspective themes on their latest album, The Stories We Write For Ourselves, which had to be completed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A crowd is mingling as the sun sets, with the strum of a guitar drifting through the air. Kendall Street Company presides over this crowd at Virginia Beach’s Elevation 27, an outdoor venue. The site would seem to some almost foreign now: it’s a concert. 

The performance is outdoors, with spread-out tables for parties to maintain social distance. Everything, from the assigned seats to the attendees meticulously applying hand sanitizer, reeks of attention to detail. 

Earlier in 2020, a sight like this seemed unlikely. Kendall Street Company had just returned home from a long tour when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the final touches on their newest album, The Stories We Write for Ourselves, were completed remotely. 

However, as summer transitioned into fall, the band was able to start playing smaller, socially distant shows again, with safety still the paramount priority. They’re not touring, nothing like normal, but it’s still live music with a crowd; almost normal. 

This attention to detail is reflected in the album itself, which lead singer Louis Smith defines as separate from their previous work due to the “sensitive nature of the songwriting.” 

While it would be easy to associate the introspective, sometimes melancholy album with the current world, Kendall Street Company actually began writing the album in 2016, beginning with the song “Earth Terms.” The songwriting process stretched almost four years, with “Waiting on a train” written over quarantine during the summer of 2020. 

The album is structured like a book or epic movie, starting with a prologue and ending with an epilogue. While the initial notes of the prologue are slow, it ends with the voices of the bandmates at the beginning of “Snowday in the Fan,” the last song of the album. The epilogue is a bookend, returning to the same song. As a whole, the album is remarkable for it’s little bursts of sound and exclaimed questions by the band. 

The Stories We Write for Ourselves also differs from Kendall Street Company’s previous work due to the found sounds the group blended with their instruments throughout the album. 

“We took some rain sounds and some talking and some piano,” Smith said. “And all five of us played piano on that track at the same time.” 

The second interlude uses sound to create a sense of place. 

“We sampled a train, and we had this thing that Dan was doing on guitar in the basement, that we layered over [the sample],” Smith said. “And then just some sounds from the Kendall Street Beach, which is our namesake street in Virginia Beach, where I’m from.” 

The record seeks to combine folk rock, post-rock and Americana. Smith hopes that it carries a sense of hope, and that things will get better. 

“The record delves into a lot of heavy stuff: life, death, time passing, cycles of life, things like that,” Smith said. “But I think overall it’s a hopeful message.” 

He hopes that the album makes listeners think, and leaves them with a different perspective than before they listened, ideally a more hopeful one. 

Photo via Kendall Street Company/Facebook

With restrictions on crowd sizes tightening as we move further into winter, the future of even socially distant concerts like the one at Virginia Beach is up in question. 

“We’re always kind of waiting to see what’s going to happen next,” Smith said. “And nobody knows.” 

The Stories We Write For Ourselves is currently available digitally on iTunes and Spotify. The album’s vinyl version, which is expected to ship later this month, can be pre-ordered at Kendall Street Company’s website.

Top Photo by Graham Barbour, via Kendall Street Company/Facebook

Instabowl Wants to Be the Go-To for To-Go

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The latest restaurant to enter Richmond’s ever growing food scene is Instabowl, a fast-casual eatery offering a variety of take-out only bowls from the chef that brought you Perch.

Across the country, restaurants are adjusting their businesses model to adapt to a COVID-19 pandemic world. Many dining establishments are pivoting to strictly takeout and delivery operations as they forge ahead amid the pandemic. 

Instabowl, the newest concept from Perch chef-owner Mike Ledesma, recently opened with the pandemic and its restrictions in mind. Located in the Fan, the fast-casual eatery is purpose-built to serve to-go bowls aiming to serve a variety of cuisine that rotates approximately every 30 days. 

“A lot of restaurants with this kind of format keep the same menu for a long time, but I feel like we can go seasonality,” Ledesma told WTVR. “We can go with what people are wanting to eat, and we can see the trends and make changes faster.”

Restaurant-goers can find dishes similar to Perch staples on Instabowl’s menu, such as its vegan crab cakes and tuna poke bowl, adjusted to fit the virtual to-go concept. In addition to its signature bowls, Instanbowls offers breakfast bowls, soups, and salads.

Its current winter 2020 menu offers dishes with influences from all over Asia — South Asia with its Sri Lankan-inspired kesel muwa curry bowl, Southeast Asia with its seafood pho, and East Asia with an Korean-fused bowl. The restaurant plans to serve dishes inspired by Mexican and Caribbean cuisine, according to Richmond Magazine.

Ledesma told Richmond BizSense he has done research to perfect the take-out experience, making it more immersive and elevated.

“We’re taking what we learned at Perch and expanding it to our new location,” Ledesma said, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “The one key difference is that everything we make at InstaBowl is purposely designed to taste best when you get home, to work, wherever. Between thoughtful preparation and eco-friendly packaging, our InstaBowls are built to travel.”

Instabowl is located at 2601 W. Cary St. and is open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Photos via Instabowl RVA/Facebook

Central Virginia Food Bank Provides Hunger Relief During Pandemic

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Feed More has always focused on providing Central Virginians in need with food. During the COVID-19 pandemic, their services have been more in need than ever, and this nonprofit is rising to the occasion.

When COVID-19 was declared a national emergency at the beginning of March, Feed More, a hunger-relief organization serving Central Virginians, was serving roughly 161,000 food-insecure individuals. 

Fast forward to early June, and Feed More was assisting more than 241,000 food-insecure individuals, according to Doug Pick, CEO and president of Feed More. 

“It [the pandemic] increased the number of folks that weren’t sure where their next meal was coming from by about 50 percent,” Pick said.

That 50 percent increase, he said, was largely from those who were newly unemployed as a result of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity throughout Virginia and across the country. With 2020 coming to a close, food insecurity is lingering in many Virginia households as hunger-relief organizations and local officials scramble to curb one of the pandemics’ consequences.

Food insecurity is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as limited or uncertain availability or accessibility to nutritionally adequate food. Nearly 10 percent of all Virginians — or almost 843,000 people — are struggling with hunger, according to Feeding America, a nationwide hunger-relief organization.

An additional 447,000 Virginians will experience food insecurity because of the coronavirus pandemic, Feeding America estimates. Across the country, millions of Americans have lined up in their cars or by foot for miles at food banks awaiting their next meal.

Photo courtesy Feed More.

Nationwide, food banks also have to grapple with the dilemma of increased demand while maintaining their agencies network. In 2019, Feed More distributed about 32 million pounds of food, Pick said. This year, he estimates the organization will distribute between 40 to 44 million pounds of food. The nonprofit distributes food with the help of agencies, including churches, emergency shelters, rehab centers, soup kitchens, and other organizations. 

“We worried about that network collapsing because most of those agencies are run by volunteers, and a lot of them are seniors,” Pick said. At one point this year, Feed More lost 13 percent of its 270 agencies.

Feed More did not witness the phenomenon of long lines other regions experienced and was able to meet the community’s food crisis, Pick said. 

“We put out some guiding principles early on that said: stick with our infrastructure, never abandon the infrastructure you built unless you have to,” Pick said. “So, we didn’t panic.”

Those guiding principles upheld Feed More’s mission while adhering to COVID-19 safety precautions. 

Feed More’s Meals on Wheels program usually serves meals daily, but it is now delivering these meals frozen, once a week. The organization’s community kitchen, which preps approximately 20,000 meals a week, now is divided into two kitchen spaces – a prepping kitchen and a cooking kitchen – in two separate buildings, according to Pick.

Recent research found that the number of families who experienced food insecurity increased by 20 percent in the United States as a result of the pandemic. The study was co-authored by Elizabeth Adams, a postdoctoral fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Massey Cancer Center. 

“We all know (the pandemic) had so many profound effects across so many aspects of people’s lives and has gone on for a long time,” Adams said.

The study methodology surveyed households across the country in late April and May with different food security levels – high food security, low food security and very low food security – about food consumption during the pandemic.

The survey saw a 73 percent increase in home cooking across all food security levels. The amount of in-home food availability increased 56 percent for food-secure families but decreased 53 percent for low food-secure families.

“For very low food-security families, we saw an increase in pressure to eat,” Adams said, “which means that parents are pressuring their children to eat more.”

Food is prepared for distribution at FeedMore, one of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) partner agencies, located in Richmond, Virginia. USDA Photo by Preston Keres.

Adams said she hopes the government takes notice of the data on how widespread food insecurity is across the country, which she said disproportionately affects low-income Black and Hispanic families. 

While bringing awareness to the importance of government assistance programs and other food assistance initiatives, Adams called for these programs to “really up the benefit that they are providing at this time, because we see that a lot more people likely need them.”

Programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, saw an increase in enrollment during the initial months of the pandemic’s spread in the United States, reported the New York Times. According to data collected by the New York Times, SNAP grew 17 percent from February to May, three times faster than any prior three-month period.

In March, 687,984 Virginians were enrolled on food stamps. That number jumped to 746,608 the following month, an 8.5 percent increase, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Since March, eligible Virginians have been granted SNAP emergency benefits during the pandemic, according to The Virginia Department of Social Services. The agency recently expanded these benefits through December, with more than 245,000 households eligible for emergency benefits.

The state recently launched the Virginia Roadmap to End Hunger initiative that seeks to end hunger by developing policies, programs and partnerships.

Feed More and its partners had a stable food supply and community support because of government assistance, Pick said. Such assistance includes the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program. Food banks, such as Feed More, and other nonprofits were able to give out family-sized boxes of produce and meat products that the department purchased from farmers and distributors affected by the closure of restaurants and other food-service businesses.

Governor Ralph Northam also announced in November $7 million in Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act funding. The funding will be allocated to the Federation of Virginia Food Banks, which Feed More is a member.

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the already serious problem of food insecurity in Virginia and across the country,” Northam stated in a press release. “This funding will help Virginia food banks and other food assistance programs meet the increased demand for their services and ensure every Virginian has continued access to nutritious food during these challenging times.”

Feed More will use its allocated $1 million to provide refrigeration, freezer, racking, and vehicles to its partner agencies.

However, Pick said he is concerned for the following year as the pandemic continues. He said there needs to be long-term government policies to address food insecurities beyond food banks’ control. 

“The food banks have always been here for emergency purposes. When people get to a tight bind,” he said. 

For now, Pick said Feed More will continue its best to provide food assistance to Central Virginians.

“The need is out there,” Pick said. “The jobs are not coming back overnight, and this (food insecurity) is just going to continue on.” 

Written by David Tran, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Feed More Meals on Wheels volunteers. Photo courtesy Feed More.

The Amazon Trail: But…

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At the end of a long, extremely difficult year, Lee Lynch tries to find the silver linings to the many clouds that hung over us all in 2020.

The year 2020 wasn’t a total bust, except for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who should not have died or have been permanently harmed by COVID-19. In the U.S., many lay those deaths and disablements at the hands of the greedy, power hungry 2020 administration and its followers. 

Personally, I’ve been taking inventory of the bad and the good with my sweetheart, and finding some surprises. 

Yes, over seventy-four million Americans voted to keep the traitorous officials in office, but eighty-one million plus voted to restore our democracy. 

There are arms-bearing fanatics at the gates, but they have served to expose long-entrenched enemies of this country: racism, misogyny, religious zealotry, fear of any kind of difference, from xenophobia to homophobia. I trust many Americans are finally acknowledging these defects in ourselves. 

I couldn’t see my family this year, but I can call them without the long distance charges that accrued when I was a kid and my mother dialed her family once a week at low Friday night rates, if no one was on the party line.

To compound that loss, our much-loved niece is sick and in pain from cancer treatments, but the treatments will cure her and then she’s going to treat herself to Disneyland. 

We lost our good and gorgeous gray cat Bolo, but we’ve adopted a shelter cat and a foster dog.

A long-term couple, old friends of ours, are no longer together, but are finding their ways. 

Our perfect lesbian neighbors are moving away, but now are our fast friends and are trying to find a buyer compatible with us.

We endured colonoscopies, but have clean bills of health.

COVID isolation made me put on the pounds, but I’ve already lost more than I gained. 

My sweetheart has a demanding job with long hours, but with her sacrifice, we can afford our goofy, loving cat and dog.

We had to give up feeding seed and suet to the birds when rodents discovered the food source — and our house — but our sugar water feeders were so swarmed by hummingbirds that everyone, from friends to delivery people, delighted in coming to our door. The hummers outnumbered humans enough to relax their shimmery bodies and let us watch them from inches away. Other neighbors provided for the birds we lost.

The roof needs replacing like, last summer, but by staying home we’ve saved enough money to get it done next spring.

Our neighborhood cancelled the monthly potlucks, but I’m no longer exposed to that ridiculous number of homemade desserts.

Speaking of food, the women’s lunch, the Mexican lunch, the men’s breakfast, and worst of all, Butches’ Night Out — all were cancelled in 2020, but have I mentioned my clothes suddenly stopped shrinking?

My county just entered the extreme risk category for COVID, but I know no one who has gotten sick and we tested negative, thanks to our ability to isolate. 

A beloved old friend died, but we had one last joyous visit in the mountains around Crater Lake in Oregon before her last decline and her spouse is going to, slowly, be alright.

Top conferences like the Golden Crown Literary Society and Saints and Sinners went virtual. I missed getting together with friends, other readers, and writers, but the popularization of Zoom and Duo and Skype have strangely given us perhaps more in-depth encounters than hurried lunches and large group dinners.

Shopping became an infrequent, rushed chore, but impulse buying, useless accumulation, and shopping as fun may help save the planet.

Between the plague and the threat of a Totalitarian state, I feared my time on earth had been shortened, and it still might be, but day to day I’ve had more time than ever to finish a book, start another, be with my sweetheart, and just be.

For me, the word “but” has become synonymous with the word “gratitude,” as in: the 2020 occupier of the White House severely damaged our country and my gratitude to everyone who helped oust him is strong — no buts about it. 

Copyright Lee Lynch 2020. Top Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash.

The Psychological Cost of RCJC Quarantine

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In the Richmond City Jail, COVID safety protocols look a lot like torture.

If anyone doubts how little the City of Richmond values the emotional well-being of incarcerated people, they should look no further than the Richmond City Jail’s harsh (and unacknowledged) quarantine measures. Over the course of five months, from June through October, Theresa Young spent a total of two and a half months locked for 23 hours per day inside a small cell. She was not put in isolation because she had done something wrong. (In fact, she says, staff recognized her as cooperative and dependable, asking her to clean as a volunteer.) Nor was her confinement an anomaly or a violation of jail policy. Young’s torturous months of medical isolation were simply incarceration-as-usual in RCJC during the era of COVID-19.

Even more than some other jails in the area, RCJC has been aggressive in using solitary isolation to combat the coronavirus. Though numerous lawyers, activists, and incarcerated people confirm that RCJC’s stated “two-week quarantine” policy means two weeks of emotionally trying and legally inconvenient isolation, the Richmond City Sheriff’s Office (RCSO), which runs the Richmond jail, has failed to publicly acknowledge the details of its quarantine procedures. This failure — perhaps a success in the minds of some — has effectively obscured from judges, prosecutors, medical officials and the public the profound callousness that underlies the jail’s response to COVID-19. 

“It’s hard for us as advocates,” Young’s lawyer, Lauren Whitley said. “Our clients are telling us things, and we have no reason not to believe our clients, and then nobody will verify it. It’s this weird form of gaslighting.”

The psychological risk of isolation

Over the course of her life, Theresa Young has been diagnosed with both paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar depression. She suffers from claustrophobia and has a history of childhood trauma. Not surprisingly, she described her time in medical isolation as a painful, retraumatizing experience. “I’m one of those that can’t be confined in one spot. I even kind of flip out when I’m in an elevator,” Young said. “This has been the roughest time being locked up.” 

Young first entered solitary confinement in June after a court appearance in Henrico. Unlike some other local and regional jails, RCJC requires that all incarcerated people returning from court spend roughly two weeks in a quarantine pod. According to Young, she has been in solitary medical isolation for 15 days on three occasions, twice after returning from court; and for a full month on another. All of these confinement periods meet the UN criteria for torture. 

“Just being in isolation is a horrible experience,” said Yohance Whitaker, an organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center, who works with incarcerated individuals. “It’s taxing psychologically and emotionally and physically.”

During her periods of solitary confinement, Young struggled to keep in contact with her four-year-old daughter. “It’s not like being in isolation you can be on the phone whenever you want,” Young said. “When you’re on the fifteen days, you only come out for an hour, or half an hour. You have to choose if you want to be on the phone, shower, [or] do whatever on the time out.” 

Court appearances mean a lose-lose decision

RCJC requires all defendants who choose to appear in person to undergo a two-week lockdown after returning to the jail, despite the fact that they appear dressed from head-to-toe in Tyvek coveralls. As a result, Young and many like her must weigh the trying, potentially traumatizing experience of solitary against the probable legal cost of appearing before the judge on a video monitor, dressed in jail clothes. As one might expect, studies show that judges tend to be less sympathetic to defendants who attend trial remotely.  

“There’s something to be said for looking someone in the face when you’re going to lock them up or sentence them to imprisonment,” said Richmond’s Head Public Defender, Tracy Paner. “When they are not present in the courtroom, when they’re just a fuzzy image on a screen, the sentencing is harsher; the bond decisions are less favorable.” 

In October Paner told RVA Mag that, fearing isolation, none of her clients have chosen to appear in court since the policy began. “Folks who have mental health issues, pre-existing, suffer particular harm when they’re placed in isolation,” she said. “So I have folks who are like, ‘Ms. Paner, I can’t, I just can’t do it.’ I encourage them but I respect their wishes. I don’t want to hurt my clients.”

Photo via CGL Companies

Defense lawyers handicapped by lack of transparency 

Although RCJC’s use of isolation in quarantine is common knowledge among defense lawyers, activists, and people incarcerated in RCJC, the Sheriff’s Department has yet to acknowledge the jail’s widespread use of medical solitary confinement. An RCJC spokesperson ignored RVA Mag’s question and follow-up email regarding the use of solitary in medical quarantine, and both Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney (CA) Colette McEachin and Danny Avula, Director of the Richmond City Health District — the top officials at two public entities that work closely with the jail to coordinate a pandemic response — told RVA Mag they were unaware that RCJC’s medical quarantine involved long periods of solitary confinement. 

“I think one of the challenges of this work is that nobody has a sightline into what’s happening there,” Avula told RVA Mag. 

For her part, CA McEachin was skeptical of claims that individuals in quarantine were kept in solitary. “I don’t believe people are actually locked in a cell for 23 hours,” she said. “Obviously, I don’t want anybody punished or treated in an unhealthy, non-judicial way so, yes, it would be concerning if I thought that people were literally being locked in a cell with no opportunity to stretch or walk around for 23 hours a day. If there is no other way to do two things at the same time — which is to keep people in the jail until the court releases them, and keep those people who are in the jail in a socially distant, hygienic manner — and this is the best the sheriff can come up with, that may be the best that she can come up with. But I literally don’t know.”

Young’s lawyer, Lauren Whitley, said what most frustrates her is the misinformation or lack of information about what is happening inside the jail. Although RCJC is currently reporting zero COVID cases, after a large outbreak in September, Sheriff Irving has not been transparent about whether widespread testing has continued inside the jail. The result, according to Whitley, is that prosecutors and judges assume the jail is a safe environment, when that may not actually be true.

“You go in front of a judge, you want to advocate for your client credibly, and effectively, but we can’t do that,” Whitley said, “because there’s no information, or just blanket statements that seem inconsistent with our client’s experiences.”

Top Photo via CGL Companies