Testimonies - Robert Spiers
Convicted felon welcomes new start at law office
Robert Spiers says his new life began after his Nov. 8, 2001, arrest for robbing a southcentral Kentucky bank.
The Bowling Green man, who served 12 years in prison after robbing a total of three banks, has been a paralegal at Coffman Law Office since September. He is enrolled in Western Kentucky University’s pre-law program majoring in history and religious studies. He also is in the paralegal program.
“The kid doing that stuff died Nov. 8,” he said of the bank robberies.
Spiers has been a good employee, attorney Brad Coffman said. He has found Spiers and other employees who have had brushes with the law to be “confident, productive and extremely loyal.”
“He’s had a pretty uneventful transition. He was recommended by several people in the community,” Coffman said. “I’ve given people second chances. He’s not the first one. Won’t be the last.”
Since being released from prison, Spiers has had to make major adjustments, Coffman said.
“He came out of prison wanting to prove himself. He has a real desire to prove himself,” he said.
So far, he’s succeeding.
“He hasn’t tried my patience too much. He works with supervision, but he works well without supervision. He comes in on time. I adjust his schedule so he could continue his work at Western,” Coffman said. “He has a girlfriend and is in a stable living situation. He has a good relationship with his probation officer as far as I can tell. When I see (his probation officer), he’ll ask me how Robert is doing.”
Coffman mentors Spiers just as other attorneys have mentored him over the years.
“He’s come to me and asked for advice. I’ve been around and seen so much, there’s not many situations I haven’t run into,” Coffman said. “I think Robert has a real interest in the law, and I’m going to do everything I can to encourage him.”
Spiers grew up in a broken home, shuffled among his father, mother and grandmother during his early years in California.
“I had no way of establishing some kind of stability,” he said. “I was raised predominantly by my maternal grandmother.”
While living with his father, he suffered a lot of abuse from his stepmother, he said. He was kicked out at 15, and although the deal was that he’d go live with his mother, he chose to be homeless instead.
“I was homeless for several months,” he said.
By this time, his grandmother had sold her ranch and moved to Kentucky. He had been living with a family in Sacramento, Calif., for a couple of months when his sister picked him up to take him to Kentucky. Some time later, he moved to Nashville, where he was in what he called “a horrible relationship.”
Then in 1998, he was hit with a big loss.
“My sister died in 1998. It woke me up to how self-defeating I was,” he said.
Downward spiral
It still wasn’t enough to break his spiral. Spiers said his days were filled with waking up, smoking marijuana and working. He managed to get his GED and applied to WKU.
“I dreamed to walk on the basketball team,” he said. “I was trying to become academically eligible.”
Spiers was at WKU, but he was still fighting his demons. He did just enough to stay in school during his first year, but he flunked out his second year. He had been confining himself to his dorm room.
“(The Nashville relationship) was the most stability I knew. I never dealt with my sister’s death very well,” he said. “I never dealt with the homelessness. I had a nervous breakdown.”
After flunking out of school, he met another girl and they decided to move to Spiers’ native California. They got as far as Colorado before they needed money. That’s where Spiers robbed his first bank May 31, 2001, using an unloaded gun to get $4,000.
“We were going to take the money I had and establish ourselves,” he said. “I was scared to death over there. I was crushed that I could scare people.”
They lived with Spiers’ father for a while before they were asked to leave. They moved into a hotel room.
That was where they lived on a morning that shook the nation. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists struck New York and Washington D.C. Spiers decided to take his girlfriend back to Kentucky. She had family who lived in New York and would eventually go there from Kentucky. The couple needed to fund the trip, so Spiers robbed a bank in California on Sept. 18, 2001. This time, he didn’t use a gun. He got $4,000.
“I walked in the bank, jumped over the counter and told them to open the drawer,” he said.
Some time after they got back to Kentucky, the couple broke up, but it wasn’t long before Spiers decided he wanted to go to New York to be with his ex-girlfriend. By this time he was living with a friend and wanted to buy a car for the trip. He robbed Farmers National Bank in Scottsville, taking $11,400.
“I had gotten away with it two times. This brought me back to my nervous state by the fact that I’m a two-time bank robber,” he said. “My gut ate me up. All I wanted to do was not feel pain anymore.”
Spiers raced back to Bowling Green. He pulled into a day care parking lot and made a phone call to a friend from Fabric World. When the police started coming, he took the loot and ran into a field. One of the law enforcement officials was standing close enough to where Spiers could hear his radio. He was described as armed and dangerous, and the officials were given permission to shoot him on sight, he said.
“I think these people are going to kill me,” he said.
Then he heard what he believes was the voice of God saying, “Close your eyes my son and breathe.”
“I exhaled every piece of terror in my body,” he said. “I open my eyes, and this (police) dog is staring at me.”
Instead of barking at Spiers’ presence, however, the dog ran away, he said. Then he began feeling something poking him and felt blood on his face. He had run into a briar patch.
Crown of thorns
“I thought of Christ and this crown of thorns shoved on his head,” he said. “I felt like he was saying, ‘Look what I did for you.’ ”
Spiers wept for everything that had ever happened in his life.
“It was the most cleansing cry in my life,” he said. “I stayed there until night time looking at the money. I was disgusted by it. I put it in this tree. I took $1 to use a phone.”
Spiers went to a house to use a phone and was asked if he had heard about the robbery. They didn’t recognize him and gave him a ride back into town. He went to a neighbor’s house. He was going back to his friend’s house when he was accosted by the police. It was a peaceful arrest, he said.
“It was like God said, ‘I’m not going to let them arrest you in a bad way.’ I felt God saying, ‘The truth will set you free,’ ” he said. “I took them to the money. I didn’t want to get in trouble. I spilled my guts about everything that happened.”
For the bank holdups, Spiers pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 32 years in prison. He spent time at federal facilities in Beckley, W.Va., Beaumont, Texas, and Lexington.
“After two years in prison I started an internal push to redefine myself,” he said. “I was very much guided by my faith in God.”
He found himself moving away from the “gangsta” images he had learned on the streets, choosing instead to take on the qualities he considers to be held by “a real man,” including being responsible, a helper of others and “doing the right thing even if there’s nobody else around to see it.”
“I was learning how to create the man God wanted me to be,” he said.
His case was revisited, and he was released in 2013 after serving 12 years of his sentence.
A purpose in life
“God is giving me this chance for a purpose,” he said. “I want to become part of the cure for society.”
After immediately re-enrolling at WKU, Spiers began looking for a job. The search was difficult because he is a convicted felon. He became a participant in the Barren River Area Development District job training program and got his current job at Coffman Law Office. The OTJ program helps those who are receiving federal assistance get jobs. Employers get reimbursed 50 percent of their wages up to $3,000 for up to 12 weeks.
“Robert came into the Bowling Green Career Center and met with one of our case managers, Connie Kington. Connie met with him to discuss with him what his goals were,” said Amy Walker, BRADD Workforce Investment Area director. “He was able to do something that got her attention. There was a drive about him.”
Spiers told Kington he wanted to go into the legal field. The next time she saw him he was dressed in business attire, Kington said. People in the front office thought he was her new boss.
“(Kington) asked him to go into the local legal firms. He hit the pavement that day,” Walker said.
While many customers go to Kington needing help in writing a résumé, Spiers already had one, and he was willing to take any job even if it wasn’t related to the legal field, Kington said.
“He came in strictly for help finding a job knowing that he had a barrier. He had his résumé. We gave him 50 copies,” she said. “I Googled law offices and gave him that list, a highlighter and a pen. He had no transportation. When he came back he had highlighted every one of them. He was out of résumés and had blisters on his feet.”
A retired WKU professor had called the career center to recommend Spiers for his character and determination. He also had more than 20 letters of recommendation from prison guards, educators inside and outside the prison walls and family members. He had also worked in law libraries while he was in prison and had helped some of his fellow inmates get their sentences reduced. He didn’t name drop though, Kington said.
“He just tried to go by his change in prison,” she said. “He knew he owed it to society. He knew it was up to him to change society’s opinion of him.”
Walker believes Spiers will do well. It became even more apparent to her when he recently spoke during a BRADD meeting.
“I can see a future in him if he wanted to pursue a law degree. It’s not a lot of people who could get up in front of a larger group and tell their story like that,” she said. “He’s not blaming what happened on anyone else. He’s taking responsibility for what he did. He’s also taking advantage of opportunities given to him. That shows someone who’s going to be successful.”
Spiers said he has paid back the money he stole and hopes to eventually become a lawyer. According to Anna Columbia, administrative assistant of the Kentucky Office of Bar Admissions, it could happen.
“They have to pass through the character and fitness committee,” she said. “As long as they keep a clean record from then forward, then odds are they wouldn’t be an issue.”
Depending on the committee at that point and time, there may be conditional admissions, she said.
“They look at not only the past, but also the whole record, not one specific time period,” she said. “There are no guarantees, but it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t become an attorney.”
Spiers doesn’t let that possible hindrance deter his goal. He lives by Colossians 3:23 which, in the New International Version of the Bible, states, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
“If we focus on God, we will do our best,” he said.
He wants people to understand that felons are human.
“That mistake that we made really doesn’t define who we are as people if we don’t want it to,” Spiers said.
Robert Spiers says his new life began after his Nov. 8, 2001, arrest for robbing a southcentral Kentucky bank.
The Bowling Green man, who served 12 years in prison after robbing a total of three banks, has been a paralegal at Coffman Law Office since September. He is enrolled in Western Kentucky University’s pre-law program majoring in history and religious studies. He also is in the paralegal program.
“The kid doing that stuff died Nov. 8,” he said of the bank robberies.
Spiers has been a good employee, attorney Brad Coffman said. He has found Spiers and other employees who have had brushes with the law to be “confident, productive and extremely loyal.”
“He’s had a pretty uneventful transition. He was recommended by several people in the community,” Coffman said. “I’ve given people second chances. He’s not the first one. Won’t be the last.”
Since being released from prison, Spiers has had to make major adjustments, Coffman said.
“He came out of prison wanting to prove himself. He has a real desire to prove himself,” he said.
So far, he’s succeeding.
“He hasn’t tried my patience too much. He works with supervision, but he works well without supervision. He comes in on time. I adjust his schedule so he could continue his work at Western,” Coffman said. “He has a girlfriend and is in a stable living situation. He has a good relationship with his probation officer as far as I can tell. When I see (his probation officer), he’ll ask me how Robert is doing.”
Coffman mentors Spiers just as other attorneys have mentored him over the years.
“He’s come to me and asked for advice. I’ve been around and seen so much, there’s not many situations I haven’t run into,” Coffman said. “I think Robert has a real interest in the law, and I’m going to do everything I can to encourage him.”
Spiers grew up in a broken home, shuffled among his father, mother and grandmother during his early years in California.
“I had no way of establishing some kind of stability,” he said. “I was raised predominantly by my maternal grandmother.”
While living with his father, he suffered a lot of abuse from his stepmother, he said. He was kicked out at 15, and although the deal was that he’d go live with his mother, he chose to be homeless instead.
“I was homeless for several months,” he said.
By this time, his grandmother had sold her ranch and moved to Kentucky. He had been living with a family in Sacramento, Calif., for a couple of months when his sister picked him up to take him to Kentucky. Some time later, he moved to Nashville, where he was in what he called “a horrible relationship.”
Then in 1998, he was hit with a big loss.
“My sister died in 1998. It woke me up to how self-defeating I was,” he said.
Downward spiral
It still wasn’t enough to break his spiral. Spiers said his days were filled with waking up, smoking marijuana and working. He managed to get his GED and applied to WKU.
“I dreamed to walk on the basketball team,” he said. “I was trying to become academically eligible.”
Spiers was at WKU, but he was still fighting his demons. He did just enough to stay in school during his first year, but he flunked out his second year. He had been confining himself to his dorm room.
“(The Nashville relationship) was the most stability I knew. I never dealt with my sister’s death very well,” he said. “I never dealt with the homelessness. I had a nervous breakdown.”
After flunking out of school, he met another girl and they decided to move to Spiers’ native California. They got as far as Colorado before they needed money. That’s where Spiers robbed his first bank May 31, 2001, using an unloaded gun to get $4,000.
“We were going to take the money I had and establish ourselves,” he said. “I was scared to death over there. I was crushed that I could scare people.”
They lived with Spiers’ father for a while before they were asked to leave. They moved into a hotel room.
That was where they lived on a morning that shook the nation. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists struck New York and Washington D.C. Spiers decided to take his girlfriend back to Kentucky. She had family who lived in New York and would eventually go there from Kentucky. The couple needed to fund the trip, so Spiers robbed a bank in California on Sept. 18, 2001. This time, he didn’t use a gun. He got $4,000.
“I walked in the bank, jumped over the counter and told them to open the drawer,” he said.
Some time after they got back to Kentucky, the couple broke up, but it wasn’t long before Spiers decided he wanted to go to New York to be with his ex-girlfriend. By this time he was living with a friend and wanted to buy a car for the trip. He robbed Farmers National Bank in Scottsville, taking $11,400.
“I had gotten away with it two times. This brought me back to my nervous state by the fact that I’m a two-time bank robber,” he said. “My gut ate me up. All I wanted to do was not feel pain anymore.”
Spiers raced back to Bowling Green. He pulled into a day care parking lot and made a phone call to a friend from Fabric World. When the police started coming, he took the loot and ran into a field. One of the law enforcement officials was standing close enough to where Spiers could hear his radio. He was described as armed and dangerous, and the officials were given permission to shoot him on sight, he said.
“I think these people are going to kill me,” he said.
Then he heard what he believes was the voice of God saying, “Close your eyes my son and breathe.”
“I exhaled every piece of terror in my body,” he said. “I open my eyes, and this (police) dog is staring at me.”
Instead of barking at Spiers’ presence, however, the dog ran away, he said. Then he began feeling something poking him and felt blood on his face. He had run into a briar patch.
Crown of thorns
“I thought of Christ and this crown of thorns shoved on his head,” he said. “I felt like he was saying, ‘Look what I did for you.’ ”
Spiers wept for everything that had ever happened in his life.
“It was the most cleansing cry in my life,” he said. “I stayed there until night time looking at the money. I was disgusted by it. I put it in this tree. I took $1 to use a phone.”
Spiers went to a house to use a phone and was asked if he had heard about the robbery. They didn’t recognize him and gave him a ride back into town. He went to a neighbor’s house. He was going back to his friend’s house when he was accosted by the police. It was a peaceful arrest, he said.
“It was like God said, ‘I’m not going to let them arrest you in a bad way.’ I felt God saying, ‘The truth will set you free,’ ” he said. “I took them to the money. I didn’t want to get in trouble. I spilled my guts about everything that happened.”
For the bank holdups, Spiers pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 32 years in prison. He spent time at federal facilities in Beckley, W.Va., Beaumont, Texas, and Lexington.
“After two years in prison I started an internal push to redefine myself,” he said. “I was very much guided by my faith in God.”
He found himself moving away from the “gangsta” images he had learned on the streets, choosing instead to take on the qualities he considers to be held by “a real man,” including being responsible, a helper of others and “doing the right thing even if there’s nobody else around to see it.”
“I was learning how to create the man God wanted me to be,” he said.
His case was revisited, and he was released in 2013 after serving 12 years of his sentence.
A purpose in life
“God is giving me this chance for a purpose,” he said. “I want to become part of the cure for society.”
After immediately re-enrolling at WKU, Spiers began looking for a job. The search was difficult because he is a convicted felon. He became a participant in the Barren River Area Development District job training program and got his current job at Coffman Law Office. The OTJ program helps those who are receiving federal assistance get jobs. Employers get reimbursed 50 percent of their wages up to $3,000 for up to 12 weeks.
“Robert came into the Bowling Green Career Center and met with one of our case managers, Connie Kington. Connie met with him to discuss with him what his goals were,” said Amy Walker, BRADD Workforce Investment Area director. “He was able to do something that got her attention. There was a drive about him.”
Spiers told Kington he wanted to go into the legal field. The next time she saw him he was dressed in business attire, Kington said. People in the front office thought he was her new boss.
“(Kington) asked him to go into the local legal firms. He hit the pavement that day,” Walker said.
While many customers go to Kington needing help in writing a résumé, Spiers already had one, and he was willing to take any job even if it wasn’t related to the legal field, Kington said.
“He came in strictly for help finding a job knowing that he had a barrier. He had his résumé. We gave him 50 copies,” she said. “I Googled law offices and gave him that list, a highlighter and a pen. He had no transportation. When he came back he had highlighted every one of them. He was out of résumés and had blisters on his feet.”
A retired WKU professor had called the career center to recommend Spiers for his character and determination. He also had more than 20 letters of recommendation from prison guards, educators inside and outside the prison walls and family members. He had also worked in law libraries while he was in prison and had helped some of his fellow inmates get their sentences reduced. He didn’t name drop though, Kington said.
“He just tried to go by his change in prison,” she said. “He knew he owed it to society. He knew it was up to him to change society’s opinion of him.”
Walker believes Spiers will do well. It became even more apparent to her when he recently spoke during a BRADD meeting.
“I can see a future in him if he wanted to pursue a law degree. It’s not a lot of people who could get up in front of a larger group and tell their story like that,” she said. “He’s not blaming what happened on anyone else. He’s taking responsibility for what he did. He’s also taking advantage of opportunities given to him. That shows someone who’s going to be successful.”
Spiers said he has paid back the money he stole and hopes to eventually become a lawyer. According to Anna Columbia, administrative assistant of the Kentucky Office of Bar Admissions, it could happen.
“They have to pass through the character and fitness committee,” she said. “As long as they keep a clean record from then forward, then odds are they wouldn’t be an issue.”
Depending on the committee at that point and time, there may be conditional admissions, she said.
“They look at not only the past, but also the whole record, not one specific time period,” she said. “There are no guarantees, but it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t become an attorney.”
Spiers doesn’t let that possible hindrance deter his goal. He lives by Colossians 3:23 which, in the New International Version of the Bible, states, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
“If we focus on God, we will do our best,” he said.
He wants people to understand that felons are human.
“That mistake that we made really doesn’t define who we are as people if we don’t want it to,” Spiers said.