Advocate Arrested: She did the time, still doing the crime
Posted 11 January 2024
For a decade, Amber Letchworth has been an outspoken advocate for the anti-incarceration and criminal rights movements in Washington State.
She has been featured in sympathetic news stories, received scholarships and community awards, has a social worker certificate, lobbied in the WA legislature, is (or was) a law student, co-founded and sits on the board of a Spokane-based criminal rights organization. She now sits in a Kootenai County, Idaho jail for moving meth & fentanyl armed with a sawed-off shotgun.
At Left (above on phones): Amber Letchworth as photographed by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office January 2, 2024
According to multiple 509-area news reports including KHQ NonStopLocal on January 2, 2024:
“Amber N. Letchworth, 32, of Colbert, was stopped by a Kootenai County Sherriff's Office (KCSO) deputy in the early hours of Jan. 2. According to KCSO, the smell of marijuana was coming from the vehicle.
Deputies developed probable cause to search the car, where they found about one pound of methamphetamine, 1,000 fentanyl pills, and three guns, including a sawed-off shotgun and a stolen handgun, marijuana, and paraphernalia.
Letchworth was arrested on her outstanding warrants, unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of stolen property, trafficking methamphetamine, possession with intent to deliver, possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia.”
Photo by Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office of the Letchworth’s possessions on January 2, 2024
Amber Nichole Letchworth and her husband, Joshua Dean Letchworth are being held on $200,000 bonds in the Kootenai County Jail. According to Idaho’s iCourtPortal, Amber Letchworth is being represented by attorney Chris Schwartz, likely appointed by the Kootenai County Public Defender.
On January 8, 2024, Kyle Simchuck of KREM posted a follow-up on the Letchworth case revealing that Amber is a recent law student and co-founder of Revive Center for Returning Citizens, a nonprofit that connects previously incarcerated people to housing, employment and counseling.
Public contracts served by Revive include:
Mental health services at “Camp Hope” (Washington State’s largest homeless protest site, now closed), and
“Wraparound” services at the controversial TRAC shelter on Trent Ave. in Spokane.
With public funds and public trust on the line, an investigation must immediately begin involving Amber Letchworth’s affiliation with Revive and Revive’s past and current practices and procedures. Entire contracts have been pulled for far less.
Simchuck interviewed the executive director (video above) of Revive, Kurtis Robinson, who spoke about his experiences with Amber Letchworth:
"She was very dedicated, very driven, very heavily engaged and then over time that changed," Robinson said.
Robinson wouldn't go into details, but said Revive parted ways with Letchworth in October 2022.
Robinson and Letchworth are also leaders of the organization “I Did the Time” a group that “supports individuals and families who are working to overcome barriers associated with past offenses with political advocacy and organizing.”
In the KREM story above, Robinson is also quoted regarding Letchworth (emphasis added),
"It is our responsibility organizationally and humanely to make sure that if there are some things that are some of those red and yellow flag indicators, that we address it," Robinson said. "And so, we absolutely did that with Amber and made sure that there were copious amounts of invitations to go ahead and shift trajectories."
While Robinson “won’t go into details,” the public has no way of knowing whether Letchworth was working with and/or had access to vulnerable people and the drug-addicted at “Camp Hope” and the TRAC shelter. Also of concern is Robinson’s reference to “copious amounts” of intervention invitations.
Those in a position of public trust, especially in a healthcare/public safety capacity should not be afforded “copious” amounts of opportunities to do harm. It is necessary that Robinson come clean about what he knew and when he knew it regarding Letchworth’s downward trajectory and whether those receiving public, taxpayer-funded services have been compromised.
This is not the first time Kurtis Robinson has commented on a colleague in counseling caught dealing drugs.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
For most, it would seem, an arrest and prison time at 20 years old (Amber’s first, over a decade ago: see below) would serve as a serious wake-up call. Some are simply scared “straight.” Others take decades, even the rest of their lives to work through the throws of addiction involving a continuum of recovery experience from the highs of sobriety anniversaries to the lows of relapse. Many quietly dedicate their lives to helping themselves and others to avoid mistakes or repeat mistakes through anonymous organizations that adhere to a program based on accountability to self and society. Others celebrate recovery publicly at weekly services. There are as many approaches to recovery as there are those in recovery, however all successful approaches involve high levels of personal accountability inventory.
And yet, Increasingly, a few are finding themselves addicted to aggressive anti-incarceration advocacy that seeks to discount the actions and accountability of the individual and instead, blames and demands sweeping justice systems reform. This is a troubling trend for several seasoned lawmakers and law-enforcement officials - especially as terms like “lived experience” and “implicit bias” are clouding our honest community conversation.
The criminal advocate trend is based on the self-fulfilling policy prophecy …
Not Putting People in Jail = Lower Jail Populations.
This is the logical policy equivalent of, “Less exercise equals fewer ankle injuries.”
Governor Inslee is a champion of this movement as reported by KXLY here:
“The order Inslee is signing will have nine state agencies with the goal of working together to improve conditions for successfully reentering after imprisonment. These agencies will work to improve access to behavioral health supports, vocational training, identification, housing, nutrition, and health coverage.”
Governor Inslee signed up Washington State as the second state to join ReEntry2030, a national movement with the stated mission: “to dramatically improve reentry success for people exiting prison and those under supervision.”
The Amber Letchworth case is a cautionary tale, if not a serious blow to the credibility of the criminal rights movement.
Amber the Advocate
Little Respect for Her Lawyer
One of Letchworth’s first forays into telling her story occurred in 2015. An Al Jazeera story, “Court fees trap ex-inmates in a prison of debt” includes the following (emphasis added):
“Blazina would have helped Amber Holly [Letchworth], a 23-year-old who works 80 hours a week at a local grocery outlet. She recalled that during sentencing for her first drug felony, the lawyer she refers to as her “public pretender” neglected to seek financial mercy. Last year, Holly was released from prison with approximately $18,000 in debt, a third of which was for “meth cleanup fees,” though she never cooked the drug herself, she said. Her husband, Joshua Letchworth, separately owes about $104,500 in fees, interest and victim restitution for a burglary. Combined, the couple pays at least $240 every month toward their LFOs [legal financial obligation]. “I pay that before I eat,” Holly said.”
The story above also features several of Letchworth’s fellow “I Did the Time” activists. Amber’s defiant activist attitude was already taking form at the age of 23 (about a decade ago).
The Right to Not Vote
In a January 15, 2021 Spokesman-Review article, “Legislature could allow felons to vote while in community custody,” Jim Camden wrote,
“The bill had a range of supporters testifying virtually from around the state, including Amber Letchworth. A Spokane Valley resident and formerly incarcerated felon, she now works with the organization I Did the Time to help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. When she was released from prison, Letchworth said, she was on community supervision for two years and couldn’t register to vote, although she worked with groups encouraging others to register.”
Amber is currently registered to vote in Spokane County, however has not done so since 2020. She did not vote in 2023 election which included Spokane County Measure One, a correctional facility and program support ballot item, which her organization, “I Did the Time” actively opposed.
Making, not Breaking Laws
During the past few years, Letchworth has been a regular at the Washington State Legislature, testifying in support of bills including:
2021 House Bill 1078 “An act relating to restoring voter eligibility for all persons convicted of a felony offense who are not in total confinement under the jurisdiction of the department of corrections”
2022 House Bill 1412 “An act relating to legal financial obligations”
2022 House Bill 1818 “An act relating to promoting successful reentry and rehabilitation of persons convicted of criminal offenses” You can see Amber testify here (beginning roughly 1:46:30).
Letchworth is an ally of WA Rep. Tarra Simmons, the first formerly incarcerated state legislator in Washington history. Simmons has introduced and passed legislation including Senate Bill 5536 which establishes a pretrial diversion program for persons charged with possession. A defendant would be referred to an applicable program, which would perform a biopsychosocial assessment. Based on that assessment, the defendant would either be referred to treatment and services or if they were determined not to be in need of any services, be sentenced to up to 120 hours of community service. The defendant would then have their charges dropped if they substantially complied with treatment and services for six months or completed their community service.
Prestigious Policy Panel
Letchworth has served on important policymaking panels including the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, Seattle University School of Law, Task Force 2.0: Race and Washington’s Criminal Justice System as “Amber Letchworth, Revive Center for Returning Citizens & I Did the Time” published in October of 2022. Kurtis Robinson also served on this panel. Recall that Robinson stated recently that he parted ways with Letchworth in October of 2022.
A Most Prolific Publication
Published throughout Washington State in news outlets including The Seattle Times, in April of 2022, William Criscione of Investigate West wrote of Amber Letchworth’s struggles with meth and incarceration as a 20 year old. Criscione wrote:
Ten years ago, while driving to her nephew’s birthday party, Amber Letchworth was pulled over by an Asotin County sheriff’s deputy near the town of Clarkston. Letchworth says at the time, she was a 20-year-old college student in the midst of a mental health and addiction crisis following the death of her grandmother. On the floor of the car, the deputy found a dirty baggy. It contained meth.
Letchworth was taken to Asotin County Jail, in the southeast corner of Washington. She stayed there for the next couple weeks, unable to pay for bail, and with no access to pretrial services that exist today in many other jurisdictions meant to keep unconvicted defendants out of jail.
It spurred a downward spiral for Letchworth. She was homeless when she left the jail, and as her drug and alcohol addiction issues worsened, it led to more arrests and more jail time.
The story continues,
“Today, Letchworth is a law school student at Gonzaga University, co-founder of the Revive Center for Returning Citizens and a legal liaison for I Did the Time, an advocacy group working to help former inmates. But she still wonders how those dark years of her life would have been different if after that arrest, she had been let out of jail, able to keep her housing and referred to mental health or addiction treatment.”
“Letchworth is part of a movement of advocates, judges and public defenders in Washington pushing to release more defendants from jail while awaiting trial. They argue that alternative measures such as drug and alcohol testing, electronic home monitoring, and behavioral health treatment can help lift those accused of crimes out of the criminal justice system.”
and concludes,
“That change, however, can’t come soon enough for people like Letchworth. While she’s been able to move on from her arrests in Asotin County a decade ago, she still works with people every day who could benefit from a pretrial system that doesn’t default to jailing them.”
Amber the Academic & Award Recipient
On her LinkedIn page, Amber Letchworth lists her higher education as:
Gonzaga University School of Law, Juris Doctor, LawJuris Doctor 2020 - 2023
Eastern Washington University, Master of Social Work - MSW, Social WorkMaster of Social Work 2020 - 2021
Eastern Washington University, Bachelor's degree, Social Work, Minor in Women's and Gender Studies 2017 - 2020
In May of 2020, Amber received the prestigious Dean Jeffers W. Chertok Honored Student Award while studying at Eastern Washington University. A university announcement included:
“Letchworth has maintained a 4.0 GPA at Eastern, all while she has balanced work, a family and an active volunteer schedule. Furthermore, Letchworth has been accepted to the Advanced Standing Masters of Social Work Program at EWU for the 2020-2021 academic year.”
“Due to her tireless advocacy for social change, Letchworth was invited to be part of the Legislative Action Committee of the National Association of Social Workers – WA chapter. In addition to her academic excellence, Letchworth has demonstrated substantial service to her community through a variety of volunteer activities, including a major focus on providing and improving services to formerly incarcerated individuals who are now re-entering their community. In her volunteer roles, Letchworth has tangibly helped highly marginalized individuals from diverse backgrounds live more fully in our society.”
“Letchworth also received a Jeffers Chertok Scholarship award in 2019.”
In October of 2020, Amber was named “Emerging Philanthropist” by the Spokane philanthropy Awards. A video of Amber talking about her trauma work with victims including interactions with police and healthcare providers is included on the link.
On her LinkedIn page, Amber lists among her training; University of Cincinnati - College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, Core Correctional Practices (CCP) training and EPICS-I (Effective Practices in Community Supervision for Influencers), TOT (Train the Trainer). Especially noteworthy is Amber’s training in EPICS, which is described as:
“Teaches community supervision staff how to apply the core principles of effective intervention to community supervision. The goal of EPICS-I is to identify prosocial support (an “Influencer”) in an individual’s life, teach those Influencers core skills used within the EPICS-I model to identify risky situations and practice these skills with their individual to help successfully manage these challenges.”
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Chanting,
“We need Services, not Sentences”
“We need Schools, not Cells”
“We need Representation, not Incarceration”
Criminal activists insist that the formerly incarcerated are discriminated against when seeking their place back in society. They argue that it is less-expensive on society to treat, employ, educate, house and financially-assist people than keeping them, or ever place them in prison. Indeed, this would seem to be the case. But who pays the debts owed to society caused by crime?
Most medical professionals believe that addiction is a disease, not a character defect. Therefore, it is difficult to reconcile our government’s aggressive approach to pandemic prevention, requiring individuals to forgo personal freedoms for the greater good of society, when current drug crime policy trends are requiring society to forgo the greater good in favor of the individual addicted criminal.
Amber Letchworth had more access to resources than most people who have never broken the law. It seems that because of her criminal history, Amber has received academic, employment, financial, healthcare and all of the other social supports that are said necessary for success in society after incarceration.
The Other Amber
As one might imagine, all was not well with Amber for some time prior to her latest arrest on the second day of this year. Spokane County Superior Court documents reveal an intense altercation between Amber and Joshua Letchworth in late 2021. The below is from a Nov. 8, 2021 Statement of Investigating Officer filing, Case No: 2110272432 - LETCHWORTH, JOSHUA D. This incident occurred possibly as Amber was attending law school and through her college studies was trained in de escalation strategies. The most troubling - Amber and her partner are raising five children.
There was also financial stress in the family. On November 7, 2023 a lawsuit was filed by American Express on Amber and her business “Worthwhile Home Solutions, LLC.” Amber’s LinkedIn page states, “I started a small real-estate redevelopment company to begin saving for retirement and building wealth for my family. We are a small, veteran-owned business that focuses on buying distressed properties and turning them into affordable homes.”
Additional court documents in Washington State and Idaho reveal more of the troubles that have occupied Amber Letchworth’s young life. The purpose of posting the above is not to further expose Amber’s personal problems, but to underscore that Amber of all people should have recognized the warning signs of a life in need of support. She was trained to provide that support. Additionally, it appears that those (Amber’s allies and colleagues) also trained in identifying triggers and tell-tale signs of trouble looked the other way, until eventually “parting ways.” Were the “flags” referenced by Kurtis Robinson reported to authorities? Should they have been? Kurtis Robinson “Did the Time” but we need him to “Do the Details.”
Amber’s Allies
Pictured above, “I Did the Time” anti-incarceration activists celebrating at their banquet.
Two are currently Doing the Time. Again.
Far Left: Le'Taxione is currently in jail. From a 12/21/20 KHQ report, “According to court records, Le'Taxione was arrested [Le'Taxione is charged with one count of strangulation-domestic violence] December 17th, 2020 and will be arraigned on December 29th, 2020. As a former gang member, who lived violent lifestyle, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But in 2015, Governor Inslee commuted his sentence and since then he's been an anti-gang activist and a full-time student.”
Far Right: Amber Letchworth is currently in jail. She is facing charges of drug trafficking and felony weapons possession.
It is TIME that we realize that there are those among us that no matter how many services are available, no matter how many chances they are given - will continue to lead violent lives and bring death-sentence drugs into our communities. At what point are we going to eradicate the disease of the habitual criminal?
Wearing Hat: Kurtis Robinson is not currently in jail.
The Wolves Guarding the Henhouse
When individuals like Le’Taxione and Amber Letchworth are placed in positions of leadership in organizations that have the ear of lawmakers and are providing “services” for the homeless and drug-addicted, what chance do their clients and law-abiding citizens have to protect ourselves and our children?
Making the Same Mistakes
It is especially alarming to learn yesterday that another controversial organization, Jewels Helping Hands, the “Camp Hope Protest” organizers who earned the headline, “‘Like Lord of the Flies on drugs’: A look inside violent Camp Hope” have been selected by new Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown to lead homeless support shelters during our current cold stretch.