Perfectly Flawed: The Kristy Laschober Story

What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?

When I sat down with Kristy Laschober, I knew I was about to hear something extraordinary. But nothing could have prepared me for the raw honesty of her story, a journey from the beaches of Southern California to the maximum security walls of a Texas federal prison, and the remarkable transformation that followed.

From Disneyland to Maximum Security

Growing up across the street from Disneyland might sound like a fairy tale, but for Kristy, childhood was marked by something far more complex. Born with Veral syndrome, she underwent more than 40 surgeries before age 27, spending countless months in Children’s Hospital. The pain medications that kept her comfortable became the foundation for a decades-long struggle with addiction.

After nearly 10 years of sobriety and the end of her marriage to a police officer, Kristy’s world collapsed. Her father was dying of cancer, her husband was having an affair, and when she ended up back in the hospital, she made a choice that would change everything. “I remember the exact feeling of her giving it to me and knowing that I was going to be in a different place,” Kristy told me, recalling that moment when she accepted the pain shot she knew she didn’t need.

What started as emotional relief spiraled into methamphetamine addiction. In a twisted logic that only addiction can create, Kristy thought trying meth would help her avoid opioid cravings. That single decision launched her into a nightmare she never saw coming.

The Priest, the Headlines, and the Reckoning

The story that landed Kristy in national headlines began with what seemed like a simple transaction. Through a boyfriend’s connection, she found herself selling drugs to someone in Connecticut, someone who turned out to be a Catholic priest later dubbed “Monsignor Meth” by the media.

“I’m an entrepreneur at heart,” Kristy explained, describing how easily she slipped into thinking of drug dealing as just another business venture. But reality hit hard when a Mexican mafia associate pulled her aside: “Christie, let me tell you, with the amount of drugs that are here in this house right now and the money, I’m never going to tell you when I’m going to be here. People get killed all the time for this.”

The federal takedown came in a Las Vegas hotel room. The woman who once styled wardrobes for clients in Southern California found herself face-down on the floor, federal agents shouting about guns she’d never owned. Instead of the minimum-security camp she’d expected, Kristy was sentenced to 60 months and shipped to a maximum-security medical facility in Texas, a place her mother discovered online was called the “Hospital of Horrors.”

Rock Bottom as the New Beginning

Five different facilities. Two years without seeing the outside. A drug program that ended with a counselor telling her, “Thank God you couldn’t have children, Kristy. You would have been a terrible mother.” The cruelty was designed to break her, but instead it became the catalyst for something else entirely.

When Kristy was released in 2017, she had lost everything, her business, her condo, her old life. But she also had something new: a fierce determination to transform her pain into purpose. She moved to Oregon, enrolled in college, and graduated with honors from Southern Oregon University.

Today, Kristy is a powerful advocate for prison reform, fighting to remove criminal history boxes from college applications and creating opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals. She’s the author of “Perfectly Flawed: Uncovering Your Greatest Purpose” and founder of the Freedom Exchange Project.

“Once you really deeply go into and discover things about yourself, then you get to decide if you want to interact with them or not instead of having a judgment about somebody,” she reflected. “And that’s freedom.”

Kristy’s story isn’t just about falling down, it’s about the courage to get back up, the strength to own your truth, and the power that comes from leading with your story instead of hiding from it.