Ivie Demolina

After serving almost 26 years in New York State prison, our friend Ivié De Molina is still facing another 30 years of imprisonment in the state of New Jersey. Ivié is a friend, mentor and courageous Puerto Rican woman from Brooklyn who is being punished for surviving.

Ivié is a survivor of child sexual abuse and was punished for acts of survival stemming directly from the sexual violence she experienced. After the outpouring of powerful testimonies from the #MeToo movement, Ivié shared her own painful experience in this detailed article published on page 21 of the Free : Survivors newsletter:

"My name is Ivié De Molina and I have been incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
since 1994 and still face another 30 years to life in another state.
I am Puerto Rican born and raised in Brooklyn, East New York. By the age of 21, I was legally
earning six-figures. At 26 years old, I was hired to become the first female stockbroker for the
powerful Rosenkrantz investment firm on Wall Street. I did not take my dream job and decide a week
later to throw it out the window saying: “okay, today I wanna be ‘Poison Ivy’” (a tabloid headline
describing my case at the time.)
I had repressed the trauma of my childhood sexual abuse for over 20 years before I came
face-to-face with my abuser (my older half-brother) and I remembered everything. My life took a 180
degree turn. The recollection of this memory drove me to self-medicate with drugs, enter into sex
work, and 17 months later I was arrested for involvement in the murder of two men; one who had a
fetish for child pornography and the other was a sexual predator.
Twenty-six years ago, not one person asked me “what happened to you”?
My childhood sexual abuse never went public, nor was it ever mentioned in my court case. I went to
trial in the State of New York and lost. Today, I have learned that had I allowed my NY trial
attorney to disclose what happened to me, I may have received a lesser sentence. I did not allow for
this information to be used due to my mother’s courtroom presence. In New Jersey, I took a
consecutive plea of 30 years to life believing that I could have my cases run concurrently. A regretful
decision I later learned was not as simple as my New Jersey lawyer had led me to believe.
Twenty-six years ago, not one person asked me: “what happened to you”? Not one person cared
to. The outpouring of survivors’ testimonies from the #MeToo Movement has been too much for me
to ignore. I feel compelled to follow suit. To support their advocacy and bring forth my own voice in
hopes of finding a resolution and save the rest of my life.
Every new survivor who speaks out reminds me that I too am deserving of a second chance.
I found my voice when I reviewed a case on my abuser, Wilfredo Molina on July 20, 2018. After
coming across my abuser’s case, I knew that I needed to stand up and speak. When my husband
left me, it was like dying from a thousand little cuts, but coming across my abuser’s case did
something to me beyond a broken heart. The childhood sexual abuse my sister and I survived was
never revealed to the authorities. My abuser was never held accountable for the harm he caused. I
knew I needed to embrace my courage and tell my story.
Every new survivor who speaks out reminds me that I too am deserving of a second chance. I can
breathe and express that my life is worth fighting for, it is worth forgiveness. We’re all supposed to
forgive if we want to be forgiven because we all carry humanistic flaws. I have grown from my
mistakes, I own them and I have made peace with my demons, with what I have done and with what
I am responsible for. I cannot change the past, nor can I be erased from it. I am responsible for the
death of two human beings. I have learned to live and accept that two people died because of me.
I have also embraced that their passing should have never occurred. Equally, today I have a firm
grasp of owning my own journey, but now it is time to tell my story because the rest of my life
depends on it.
As I continue to heal, I am left with a profound sense of guilt and remorse. Although in neither of
these regrettable events was I the actual killer, nothing reduces the degree of my participation. I was
not myself back then due to the sexual abuse and trauma I experienced as a child. I made a terrible
mistake that I have lived with every day since and will continue to for the rest of my life.
I am an artist, author of the book 25 To Love: A True Pen-pal Fairytale Story with its sequel 25 To
Lies: Where Did the Love Go? Must Have Never Was coming soon, designer (holding for Fashion
Week), and musician (see www.rta-arts.org). I plan to further my education in the field of Psychology
by earning a doctoral degree. My desire here is to give voice to those who have experienced
childhood sexual abuse, with the intention that they too can learn to live with the heinous betrayal
and learn to love themselves again by holding their abusers to account.
My life was thrown into a spiral by a person I trusted. During the past 25 years of my incarceration,
I have continued to make a difference in the many lives of my peers. Whether mentoring, mothering
or just being a good friend. I have spent a quarter of my life pouring my heart out for the betterment
of others. I hope you find me as someone deserving of a second chance."