The Story of Lenny & Vandy Singleton
(AMAZINGLY THIS INTRODUCTION WAS WRITTEN MAY 9TH, 2014. LENNY WASN’T PARDONED UNTIL
JANUARY 12, 2018 AND WASN’T RELEASED UNTIL JUNE 27, 2018)
Welcome! We are very happy that you have found your way to our website. We have such great news to share with you. Whatever situation you might find yourself in, there is hope. We have an extraordinary story to share with you. Our story is about our lives, our Love and through living our journey, we discovered many Truths – Keys – Secrets – Tips. We discovered how to transform your life into what you want it to be. But first, let us share our story so when you read about these Truths you will understand that these aren’t just words, but a Truth we have lived.
My name is Vandy Singleton. I can remember one spring day in May of 2012 asking for Love to return to my life. I had never been an overly zealous religious person so it was not often that I addressed God directly. That day my kitties raced past me in the throes of spring-time zeal – that was in such sharp contrast to the emptiness and despair I was feeling. I felt devalued on all fronts – as a wife, as a friend, as an employee (I was an Advisor for the local college) and as an artist. I was truly unhappy. I was horribly overweight – I just didn’t care anymore – my body was a reflection of my internal emotional state.
Does this sound familiar to you? Are you happy with your present circumstances? Do you feel devalued? Do you need Love to return to your life? Believe me, I understand. There is so much dis-satisfaction in the world.
In October of that same year (2012), I reunited with a friend of mine from my high school days. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in almost 28 years although I had been searching for him off and on over the years with the advent of Facebook and Classmates.com. Unfortunately, when I did finally find him, I discovered that he had been incarcerated with 2 life sentences plus 110 years. His case, as I was to learn, was a horrid case of injustice. His brother, Lionel Maybin, had built him a Facebook page, a website, and an online petition, after visiting him for the first time in 20 years and seeing that his brother was a reformed man. He calls Lenny his hero. Through Lionel's commitment to secure his brother's freedom, I was finally able to find Lenny. His crimes -- He committed a series of “grab & dash” robberies under the influence of crack cocaine and alcohol – he never had a gun, no one was physically injured, no one was murdered – in fact, there weren’t any victim impact statements made against him. These were his first felony offenses. Before his addiction got the better of him, he had earned his Bachelor’s in Business and had served several years in our Navy. His court-appointed lawyer suggested that he might get 11 to 18 years for his crimes by his calculations, but the judge disregarded his recommendation and gave a sentence usually reserved for murderers, rapists, repeat violent offenders, and child molesters.
I was completely appalled that he should have received such a horrendous sentence. He hadn’t even stolen a total of $550 dollars – he hadn’t hurt anyone – why should that ever warrant 2 life sentences plus 110 years? On top of that he couldn’t appeal and would never be eligible for parole. I remembered my friend as someone special. I just knew he would go on to do something amazing. He just had that sort of personality. We had been close in high school. I wanted to help my friend in any way that I could; so, we began writing each other. Eventually we decided to write a book together. I told him I’d be his lifetime pen pal if need be.
When I was in college, I reached that point where I had to decide my direction. Finally, making my decision, I earned my Bachelors in English. I wanted to be a writer. Time and necessity changed the course of my life. I worked in Education as an instructor, counselor and advisor for over 20 years. I went on to earn my Master’s in Administrative Leadership from the University of Oklahoma.
As Lenny and I began to write each other, examining our pasts, I remembered my strengths, I saw the terrible neglect I had suffered in my marriage, I found my voice. All of a sudden, someone in my life valued me. I realized the horrid state of my being and knew I had to make some changes. I started by focusing on myself and began eating better and walking every day.
Today, I can’t even begin to tell you the significance of finding Lenny. He changed my life. Because of the simple change of eating better and walking, I lost over 45 pounds, and by the beginning of the New Year (2013) I filed for divorce. I also discovered a lump in my armpit because of all the weight I had lost. By the end of March, it was diagnosed as triple negative breast cancer. A PET scan was scheduled to see if there were any other areas of cancer in my body.
On May 29th, 2013, the day of my PET scan, my oncologist called me and ordered me to go to the nearest emergency room. I had a tumor at the base of my neck threatening to paralyze me from the neck down. Two back-to-back neck and throat surgeries later, I had a cadaver finger bone, plates, screws and wires fusing me from my skull to the C7 vertebrae. I had lost my voice, my neck was in a hard brace, and I was experiencing the very worst pain of my life, but I was alive and I wasn't paralyzed. The fact that the breast cancer had metastasized to my spine now placed me in the Stage IV “incurable” category.
I have had 7 surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. The chemo damaged my heart and I had to stop while I had a heart ablation done. When I stopped the chemo, my tumor markers went back into the danger zone; so once that surgery was done, I was put back on chemo and did a complete year of it. I have been off the chemo now for over three years. My last year of PET scans show “no active disease within my body” – there is no cancer anywhere! I also had MRI's done of my complete brain and spine and nothing shows any active disease. It is a true Miracle that I am walking and alive today. If I had not reunited with Lenny when I did, I was headed towards paralysis and death.
How did we secure Lenny's freedom, you might be asking? Well, once I discovered Lenny, not only did I begin to write him, I also began to write everyone and anyone that we thought might be able to bring awareness to his case. I wrote two Virginia Governors -- McDonnell and McAuliffe -- on several occasions. We wrote President Obama on several occasions. I wrote every Senator and Congressman several times. I wrote entertainers, talk show hosts, educators, criminal justice advocates, lawyers, singers -- basically anyone we could think of. I did this faithfully, almost every day, even while going through the surgeries and chemo. In 2014, we also hired John Coggeshall to help write our petition. I also began writing comments on articles about criminal justice reform, excessive sentencing, mass incarceration, drug addiction -- any online article that remotely related to Lenny's case. The Marshall Project -- an online advocacy organization for criminal justice reform -- finally posted one of my comments. For their comments, you had to be selected -- you couldn't just leave a comment. That comment was seen by Timothy Williams of The New York Times who was looking for stories about people who had excessive sentences without the possibility of parole. Lenny's case was a match. Mr. Williams reached out to me on Dec. 22nd, 2015 -- incidentally, the very same day that Lenny received notice that his petition had been received in the Governor's Office. For months, I sent Mr. Williams articles about people in Virginia who had committed violent crimes; yet received much less time than Lenny. Mr. William's article came out on online July 4, 2016 and on the front page of The New York Times on July 5th, 2016. This article garnered state, U.S., and international attention. In fact, the Conference held in Geneva that summer looking to end the War on Drugs in America used the article and Lenny's case as a reason to end that War. It also gained the attention of Merris Badcock of WTKR, a CBS affiliate out of Norfolk, Virginia who ran a story on Lenny broadcasting in November of 2016.
In the interim, because we had worked so well together on Lenny's case, our lawyer hired me to help him on all of his petitions. Years later we were to learn that the NY Time's article sat on the coffee table of a man named Jason Flom. Mr. Flom is CEO of lava records and a huge criminal justice advocate participating on the boards of the Innocence Project and Families Against Mandatory Minimums. He contacted his friend named Ginny Grenham who knew everyone in Virginia and she hooked Mr. Flom up with Governor Terry McAuliffe to set up a time that they could meet. Meanwhile, Mr. Flom contacted Mr Coggeshall about Lenny and a few other cases. In preparation for that meeting, I devised one page flyers bulleting points for all of our petitioners, 7 total, including Lenny's who was now my husband. I married Lenny while incarcerated on Aug. 20th, 2015 at Nottoway Correctional Center. My thought was that Mr. Flom needed to be able to leave something with the Governor and so he came prepared to that meeting with Governor Terry McAuliffe. On January 12th, 2018, within the last 30 minutes Governor McAuliffe was in office, he pardoned not only Lenny but two other of our clients as well, something unheard of anywhere, but especially unheard of in Virginia. That was a joyous day. I traveled to Virginia, after Lenny completed a re-entry program, and picked him up on June 27th, 2018 and brought him home to Utah on July 1st, 2018. No one stands in more awe of our story than us. We have both been truly blessed and it is our hope, that through our story, we are able to touch the lives of millions of people.
Together we have discovered a way to change what you don’t like in your life – no matter how futile it looks. We were both served “death” sentences – incurable cancer and 2 Life Sentences + 110 years – and we have overcome these huge obstacles. Whatever is going on in your life, you can overcome it. Today, Lenny and I are together sharing our miraculous story with the world. I no longer have cancer in my body and Lenny is no longer incarcerated with 2 Life Sentences plus 110 years. We are happily in love and married living our dream life traveling the world sharing our story spreading hope, love, and gratitude wherever we go.
Explore our site and learn how we were able to overcome such huge obstacles. All that I ask is that you remain open to the ideas presented and practice our suggestions more than just once. Blessed Be!
Lenny Here: It truly is amazing to “see” Life unfold right before your very eyes. Vandy’s beginning was different from my beginning, but we both wound up in the same place. Vandy reached a place of desperation where she wanted “Love” to return to her life, and I reached a place of desperation where I wanted to be released from an excessive prison sentence. Vandy had no idea that she had cancer growing in her body at the time. We were both two very desperate people searching for different things, not realizing that the answer was IN US! When I say, “In us,” I mean that what Vandy needed, I had, and what I needed, she had. Our love for each other “drove” us to attempt things most people would never dare to attempt. November 2011, I made a DECISION to stop everything I was doing in the prison system to focus on doing whatever I could to bring attention to my situation. For seventeen years prior, my life consisted of teaching and mentoring. I was also working for Virginia Correctional Enterprises. I was working 12-15 hour days, Monday through Friday. My monthly income was a whopping $150.00 dollars. That was considered the best job in the prison system. After seventeen years of working long hours and being in leadership in the Church, I grew frustrated. It dawned on me one day that if I kept doing what I was doing, I was going to die in prison! Once again, I made a DECISION to do nothing but work on trying to bring attention to the EXCESSIVE SENTENCE I was under. In three months, after making that decision, my brother Lionel showed up to visit me. I hadn’t seen him in twenty years nor had we talked. His Uncle died who lived in Washington, D.C., so while he was there attending a funeral, he came to see me. Now mind you, my brother lived in Anchorage, Alaska! Vandy and I have learned and we share in our “Lessons Learned Along The Way” that one committed decision CAUSES Providence to move. Some people say Providence, some say Universal Intelligence, others say God or Allah. All I know is that when we Human Beings DECIDE to do something (really decide), the Universe begins to line up with our intentions. People and resources SHOW UP seemingly out of nowhere! My brother showed up out of nowhere and then my eventual wife, Vandy, showed up six months later. Little did I know that she had been searching for me for twenty-eight years. When she found me, that is when things really started to happen. Opportunities for exposure started surfacing like mushrooms. We were literally learning “New Principles” on the go. Principles like, “Our Thoughts Create Our Realities,” and “Two people who are in AGREEMENT can move mountains.” As you go through our website, you, too, will learn some of the “key” Principles that led us to OVERCOMING two death sentences, one from cancer and the other a “slow” death in prison. Our goals and objectives are to help as many as possible realize their God-given potential so that they too can overcome the seemingly impossible situations occurring in their own lives.
My name is Vandy Singleton. I can remember one spring day in May of 2012 asking for Love to return to my life. I had never been an overly zealous religious person so it was not often that I addressed God directly. That day my kitties raced past me in the throes of spring-time zeal – that was in such sharp contrast to the emptiness and despair I was feeling. I felt devalued on all fronts – as a wife, as a friend, as an employee (I was an Advisor for the local college) and as an artist. I was truly unhappy. I was horribly overweight – I just didn’t care anymore – my body was a reflection of my internal emotional state.
Does this sound familiar to you? Are you happy with your present circumstances? Do you feel devalued? Do you need Love to return to your life? Believe me, I understand. There is so much dis-satisfaction in the world.
In October of that same year (2012), I reunited with a friend of mine from my high school days. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in almost 28 years although I had been searching for him off and on over the years with the advent of Facebook and Classmates.com. Unfortunately, when I did finally find him, I discovered that he had been incarcerated with 2 life sentences plus 110 years. His case, as I was to learn, was a horrid case of injustice. His brother, Lionel Maybin, had built him a Facebook page, a website, and an online petition, after visiting him for the first time in 20 years and seeing that his brother was a reformed man. He calls Lenny his hero. Through Lionel's commitment to secure his brother's freedom, I was finally able to find Lenny. His crimes -- He committed a series of “grab & dash” robberies under the influence of crack cocaine and alcohol – he never had a gun, no one was physically injured, no one was murdered – in fact, there weren’t any victim impact statements made against him. These were his first felony offenses. Before his addiction got the better of him, he had earned his Bachelor’s in Business and had served several years in our Navy. His court-appointed lawyer suggested that he might get 11 to 18 years for his crimes by his calculations, but the judge disregarded his recommendation and gave a sentence usually reserved for murderers, rapists, repeat violent offenders, and child molesters.
I was completely appalled that he should have received such a horrendous sentence. He hadn’t even stolen a total of $550 dollars – he hadn’t hurt anyone – why should that ever warrant 2 life sentences plus 110 years? On top of that he couldn’t appeal and would never be eligible for parole. I remembered my friend as someone special. I just knew he would go on to do something amazing. He just had that sort of personality. We had been close in high school. I wanted to help my friend in any way that I could; so, we began writing each other. Eventually we decided to write a book together. I told him I’d be his lifetime pen pal if need be.
When I was in college, I reached that point where I had to decide my direction. Finally, making my decision, I earned my Bachelors in English. I wanted to be a writer. Time and necessity changed the course of my life. I worked in Education as an instructor, counselor and advisor for over 20 years. I went on to earn my Master’s in Administrative Leadership from the University of Oklahoma.
As Lenny and I began to write each other, examining our pasts, I remembered my strengths, I saw the terrible neglect I had suffered in my marriage, I found my voice. All of a sudden, someone in my life valued me. I realized the horrid state of my being and knew I had to make some changes. I started by focusing on myself and began eating better and walking every day.
Today, I can’t even begin to tell you the significance of finding Lenny. He changed my life. Because of the simple change of eating better and walking, I lost over 45 pounds, and by the beginning of the New Year (2013) I filed for divorce. I also discovered a lump in my armpit because of all the weight I had lost. By the end of March, it was diagnosed as triple negative breast cancer. A PET scan was scheduled to see if there were any other areas of cancer in my body.
On May 29th, 2013, the day of my PET scan, my oncologist called me and ordered me to go to the nearest emergency room. I had a tumor at the base of my neck threatening to paralyze me from the neck down. Two back-to-back neck and throat surgeries later, I had a cadaver finger bone, plates, screws and wires fusing me from my skull to the C7 vertebrae. I had lost my voice, my neck was in a hard brace, and I was experiencing the very worst pain of my life, but I was alive and I wasn't paralyzed. The fact that the breast cancer had metastasized to my spine now placed me in the Stage IV “incurable” category.
I have had 7 surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. The chemo damaged my heart and I had to stop while I had a heart ablation done. When I stopped the chemo, my tumor markers went back into the danger zone; so once that surgery was done, I was put back on chemo and did a complete year of it. I have been off the chemo now for over three years. My last year of PET scans show “no active disease within my body” – there is no cancer anywhere! I also had MRI's done of my complete brain and spine and nothing shows any active disease. It is a true Miracle that I am walking and alive today. If I had not reunited with Lenny when I did, I was headed towards paralysis and death.
How did we secure Lenny's freedom, you might be asking? Well, once I discovered Lenny, not only did I begin to write him, I also began to write everyone and anyone that we thought might be able to bring awareness to his case. I wrote two Virginia Governors -- McDonnell and McAuliffe -- on several occasions. We wrote President Obama on several occasions. I wrote every Senator and Congressman several times. I wrote entertainers, talk show hosts, educators, criminal justice advocates, lawyers, singers -- basically anyone we could think of. I did this faithfully, almost every day, even while going through the surgeries and chemo. In 2014, we also hired John Coggeshall to help write our petition. I also began writing comments on articles about criminal justice reform, excessive sentencing, mass incarceration, drug addiction -- any online article that remotely related to Lenny's case. The Marshall Project -- an online advocacy organization for criminal justice reform -- finally posted one of my comments. For their comments, you had to be selected -- you couldn't just leave a comment. That comment was seen by Timothy Williams of The New York Times who was looking for stories about people who had excessive sentences without the possibility of parole. Lenny's case was a match. Mr. Williams reached out to me on Dec. 22nd, 2015 -- incidentally, the very same day that Lenny received notice that his petition had been received in the Governor's Office. For months, I sent Mr. Williams articles about people in Virginia who had committed violent crimes; yet received much less time than Lenny. Mr. William's article came out on online July 4, 2016 and on the front page of The New York Times on July 5th, 2016. This article garnered state, U.S., and international attention. In fact, the Conference held in Geneva that summer looking to end the War on Drugs in America used the article and Lenny's case as a reason to end that War. It also gained the attention of Merris Badcock of WTKR, a CBS affiliate out of Norfolk, Virginia who ran a story on Lenny broadcasting in November of 2016.
In the interim, because we had worked so well together on Lenny's case, our lawyer hired me to help him on all of his petitions. Years later we were to learn that the NY Time's article sat on the coffee table of a man named Jason Flom. Mr. Flom is CEO of lava records and a huge criminal justice advocate participating on the boards of the Innocence Project and Families Against Mandatory Minimums. He contacted his friend named Ginny Grenham who knew everyone in Virginia and she hooked Mr. Flom up with Governor Terry McAuliffe to set up a time that they could meet. Meanwhile, Mr. Flom contacted Mr Coggeshall about Lenny and a few other cases. In preparation for that meeting, I devised one page flyers bulleting points for all of our petitioners, 7 total, including Lenny's who was now my husband. I married Lenny while incarcerated on Aug. 20th, 2015 at Nottoway Correctional Center. My thought was that Mr. Flom needed to be able to leave something with the Governor and so he came prepared to that meeting with Governor Terry McAuliffe. On January 12th, 2018, within the last 30 minutes Governor McAuliffe was in office, he pardoned not only Lenny but two other of our clients as well, something unheard of anywhere, but especially unheard of in Virginia. That was a joyous day. I traveled to Virginia, after Lenny completed a re-entry program, and picked him up on June 27th, 2018 and brought him home to Utah on July 1st, 2018. No one stands in more awe of our story than us. We have both been truly blessed and it is our hope, that through our story, we are able to touch the lives of millions of people.
Together we have discovered a way to change what you don’t like in your life – no matter how futile it looks. We were both served “death” sentences – incurable cancer and 2 Life Sentences + 110 years – and we have overcome these huge obstacles. Whatever is going on in your life, you can overcome it. Today, Lenny and I are together sharing our miraculous story with the world. I no longer have cancer in my body and Lenny is no longer incarcerated with 2 Life Sentences plus 110 years. We are happily in love and married living our dream life traveling the world sharing our story spreading hope, love, and gratitude wherever we go.
Explore our site and learn how we were able to overcome such huge obstacles. All that I ask is that you remain open to the ideas presented and practice our suggestions more than just once. Blessed Be!
Lenny Here: It truly is amazing to “see” Life unfold right before your very eyes. Vandy’s beginning was different from my beginning, but we both wound up in the same place. Vandy reached a place of desperation where she wanted “Love” to return to her life, and I reached a place of desperation where I wanted to be released from an excessive prison sentence. Vandy had no idea that she had cancer growing in her body at the time. We were both two very desperate people searching for different things, not realizing that the answer was IN US! When I say, “In us,” I mean that what Vandy needed, I had, and what I needed, she had. Our love for each other “drove” us to attempt things most people would never dare to attempt. November 2011, I made a DECISION to stop everything I was doing in the prison system to focus on doing whatever I could to bring attention to my situation. For seventeen years prior, my life consisted of teaching and mentoring. I was also working for Virginia Correctional Enterprises. I was working 12-15 hour days, Monday through Friday. My monthly income was a whopping $150.00 dollars. That was considered the best job in the prison system. After seventeen years of working long hours and being in leadership in the Church, I grew frustrated. It dawned on me one day that if I kept doing what I was doing, I was going to die in prison! Once again, I made a DECISION to do nothing but work on trying to bring attention to the EXCESSIVE SENTENCE I was under. In three months, after making that decision, my brother Lionel showed up to visit me. I hadn’t seen him in twenty years nor had we talked. His Uncle died who lived in Washington, D.C., so while he was there attending a funeral, he came to see me. Now mind you, my brother lived in Anchorage, Alaska! Vandy and I have learned and we share in our “Lessons Learned Along The Way” that one committed decision CAUSES Providence to move. Some people say Providence, some say Universal Intelligence, others say God or Allah. All I know is that when we Human Beings DECIDE to do something (really decide), the Universe begins to line up with our intentions. People and resources SHOW UP seemingly out of nowhere! My brother showed up out of nowhere and then my eventual wife, Vandy, showed up six months later. Little did I know that she had been searching for me for twenty-eight years. When she found me, that is when things really started to happen. Opportunities for exposure started surfacing like mushrooms. We were literally learning “New Principles” on the go. Principles like, “Our Thoughts Create Our Realities,” and “Two people who are in AGREEMENT can move mountains.” As you go through our website, you, too, will learn some of the “key” Principles that led us to OVERCOMING two death sentences, one from cancer and the other a “slow” death in prison. Our goals and objectives are to help as many as possible realize their God-given potential so that they too can overcome the seemingly impossible situations occurring in their own lives.
"We cherish all people --no matter their religion, race, culture, political affiliation, or geographical origin. We believe that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but rather, spiritual beings having a human experience. While we might refer to various spiritual texts, we do not label ourselves to any particular belief system. All people are our brothers and sisters, and we believe in making connections, not enemies. Love is the greatest power on Earth & we operate every aspect of our lives within that power." -- Lenny & Vandy Singleton
What is an overcoming life? What does that look like to you? Overcoming sickness and disease? Improving the quality of your relationships? What about improving your own self-image? Ultimately, an overcoming life is up to you and it is about living life on your own terms. You don't have to be a millionaire to live an overcoming life, you just have to "discover" who you are and what you were meant to do in this life. Start today with the articles, videos and lessons Vandy and I have learned along this journey that we've been on. We have made them available here to help you on your journey to OVERCOME your life's biggest obstacles.
If your school, organization, or business is interested in our presentation, please feel free to contact us.
We can tailor it to meet your needs.
CONTACT US
If your school, organization, or business is interested in our presentation, please feel free to contact us.
We can tailor it to meet your needs.
CONTACT US