Tami Eldridge is serving a prison sentence of 57 years to life at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She will not be eligible for parole until the age of 83 in 2056.

Tami was determined to rise above the abuse, homelessness, and lack of education she experienced as a child. She earned her GED, moved to Louisiana, and got a job cleaning hotels to support herself and her young daughters. She couldn’t afford childcare, so when her boyfriend needed to go to court in New York for robbery charges, she went with him, spending her rent money on their hotel room. Soon, they ran out of money, and Tami learned she was about to lose her job and her apartment back in Louisiana. In desperation, she tried to steal a car in order to drive herself and her daughters home. When the victim refused to get out of the car, Tami made the worst decision of her life and shot him. After learning her boyfriend had confessed to the crime, she came forward and told the government they had the wrong person, that it was she who had stolen both a car and another person’s life. The prosecution charged her with the murder and robbery and offered her a plea deal of 15 years to life, but the judge would not permit the plea deal until she implicated the boyfriend who originally confessed, even though Tami insisted he had not been present. Eventually, Tami caved and said what the judge wanted to hear. But when her boyfriend’s defense attorney called her as a defense witness at his trial, Tami found herself stuck — her plea deal would be taken away if she didn’t continue to implicate her boyfriend, but she did not believe in lying. She eventually admitted on the stand that the truth was that her boyfriend had nothing to do with the crime. Her prosecutor and her judge were furious, and she was sentenced to 41 years instead of the 15 that had been agreed upon. Meanwhile, she was being mistreated by guards at Rikers, involuntarily tranquilized, inhumanely chained, and kept in solitary confinement and psych wards. She was full of rage and got into fights with other people, which then led to her being convicted of felony assault and receiving an additional 16 years of prison time. A decade ago, despite all the horrors she had been through, she became determined to change herself and her life for the sake of her daughters. She earned her Associates, Bachelors, and Masters degrees, founded new programs to help younger incarcerated women, and became a role model and mentor. But under current law, none of that has any impact on her sentence of 57 years.

Please sign Tami’s change.org petition, which was started by her daughter LaQuintae. Please tell everyone about Tami’s story and encourage them to sign her petition, too. If you know anyone influential who the governor might listen to, please contact Tami’s attorneys at natalie.baker@law.cuny.edu and zeidman@law.cuny.edu. Thank you for doing what you can to help #freetami.