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May 22, 2026 | Local 10 News (WPLG), Miami, Florida
Reporter Caroline Coles of Local 10 News profiled Dr. Topeka K. Sam for a segment on women rebuilding their lives after incarceration. The story follows her from a federal drug conviction, through the years she spent inside, to the presidential pardon she received in 2020 and the national organization she built in response.
Read and watch the full story on Local10.com
From a federal sentence to a calling
Dr. Sam grew up in a stable home. A series of decisions pulled her into the drug trade, and a federal sting operation ended with her arrest and jailing in Virginia. She was 35 and facing decades. She has been open about how completely it undid her at the time, and about what she saw once she was inside: women living in degrading conditions, treated as though their lives had already been decided for them.
She describes the turn as a calling rather than a plan. While still incarcerated, she resolved to build an organization for the women around her. In 2020 she received a presidential pardon. She has since been awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity from New York Theological Seminary in recognition of the work.
Why she built The LOHM
Dr. Sam told Local 10 that the work is not optional for her:
"I have to help because I believe that it is a requirement of me."
That conviction became The Ladies of Hope Ministries, which supports women and girls impacted by the criminal legal system with safe housing, reentry support, education, healthcare access, entrepreneurship, and living-wage employment. The organization is founded and led primarily by women of color, including formerly incarcerated leaders, on the principle that the people closest to a problem are closest to its solution.
The women the work reaches
The segment introduced two of them. Judith Negron came home after receiving clemency partway through a sentence in a healthcare fraud case, and spoke about finding a place where she belonged. Alina Feias found the organization after her own release and now works there full time. Both point to the same thing the model is built around: reentry holds when there is housing, income, and a community that expects you to succeed.
Inside Turner Guilford Knight
Local 10 also previewed a day Dr. Sam went on to host that July inside Miami-Dade County's Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. The focus was encouragement and self-care, built around a message she carries into every facility she enters: a sentence is not the end of a person's story.
Book Dr. Topeka K. Sam to speak
Dr. Sam speaks on reentry, women's leadership, justice reform, healing, and economic empowerment for audiences across the country. Request a speaking engagement or explore her speaking topics and experience.
