Brother documents sister's conviction in "The Sentence"
Photo courtesy of Tamica Jean-Charles.
“I got it! I got it!”
A teary-eyed Rudy Valdez appeared on the screen clutching his cellphone. His sister, Cindy Shank, had been granted executive clemency, or pardon, from President Barack Obama after serving over half of her sentencing.
The scene is part of “The Sentence,” a documentary following the nine and a half years Shank was in prison. The film was created and directed by her brother, Valdez. He shot over a hundred hours of content following the family’s almost ten-year battle with Shank’s sentence.
“We had a chance to be emblematic about a larger systematic problem. And I could tell that our family was going to be a great tool to help other people,” said Valdez to Student Media. “[My father] didn’t really understand, I did, and I know the potential the film had at that point.”
Shank was convicted for conspiracy charges over her ex-boyfriend’s drug find back in 2002 and originally faced 15 years due to mandatory minimum laws.
Shank’s boyfriend at the time was a drug dealer and was caught with a stockpile of cocaine. No charges were originally filed, and Shank’s boyfriend was killed months later. Six years later following a new marriage and the birth of three daughters, Shank was back in the hands of authorities.
Valdez said he remembers the day of Shank’s pardon vividly. He had just left Chipotle when he received the call from a Washington, D.C. number. It was Shank’s lawyer—the call meant either Cindy was coming home or she was going to wait out the rest of her sentence. Valdez said he had to circle his neighborhood because he was so emotional.
Valdez also took the initiative to hire lawyers and construct petitions to alleviate his sister’s ruling, besides taking on this documentary project.
“It was difficult going home to my family for nine and a half years and always feeling like everytime I went there I didn’t really get to spend time [with them]. I was always there for [the film], so that was a challenge for me to separate from my family,” said Valdez.
Financials were another challenge for Valdez during his film’s creation, especially as he lived New York City while his family was back in Michigan.
“If I wanted to film there was a big undertaking from me to fly, would I be able to take off from other jobs,” said Valdez. “I think the biggest challenge for me was physically doing it and financially doing it.”
For the first time in almost ten years, Valdez said he physically felt his body release the tension he held in for so long when he received the news of Shank’s release. The Valdez family, he said, had felt “a loss of hope” for her clemency because it was around the time of the 2016 elections.
“It truly felt like a miracle,” said Valdez.
Filming his family during Shank’s sentence posed a challenge for Valdez. Having to separate from his family, Valdez said, made the director contemplate his role as a family member and the director. Through the doubt, his family remained onboard with the entire project.
“They knew what I wanted to do and they knew where my heart was,” said Valdez.
Valdez’s father had the hardest time opening up to the camera, said Valdez. His father is normally reserved, yet broke down at different points in the film.
In one scene, Shank’s father is seen selling scraps of sheet metal for Shank’s commissary— the convenience store within the prison—fund. The camera pans away from the older man and the viewer only hears his choked back words about his daughter.
“I knew it took a lot from him to open up and speak in front of the camera. I turned him into a cry baby for this film,” said Valdez. “It was very tough.”
Valdez refused to bring his camera home once Shank returned. Shank’s girls, Valdez said, mostly saw their uncle behind a camera. He flew to Michigan after the phone call and was amused by his niece’s reaction to their camera-less uncle.
“I remember saying, ‘I’m not bringing my camera home this time, I’m leaving it at home,” said Valdez. “I go to their house and the first thing Annelise [Shank’s daughter] said is, ‘what’s up? Where’s the camera?”
“The Sentence” premiered Monday, Oct. 15, on HBO GO and HBO NOW. The documentary is available to screen online on HBO’s website.