A court diversion program saved his life. Now he guides others through the program

Michael Holder grew up in south Oklahoma City drinking and doing drugs.

By age 40, he'd been stabbed, arrested and even shot in the neck with a 9 mm pistol. The bullet missed his spine by 2 centimeters as it exited his back, he says.

What Holder expected would be a life of crime with an early ending changed in 2021, however, when an assistant public defender convinced him to enter into a drug court diversion program started at Oklahoma County District Court in 1995.

"I was headed down a bad path," says Holder, 42, who today is clean and works as a peer recovery support specialist at the Diversion Hub while pursuing an addiction counseling degree at Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City.

After that, he plans to obtain a psychology degree from the University of Central Oklahoma, and perhaps one day, a doctorate.

"I'm on a 10-year plan," he says.

For now, Holder enjoys his work at the Diversion Hub in Oklahoma City as a navigator helping people who are participating in the county's Court Ordered Outpatient Diversion program, a treatment-based program for criminal offenders whose problems are rooted in mental health issues.

"God had a purpose for me. I just wasn't ready yet," he reflects today.

Holder believes there are others like him who are looking for the same kind of help, and additional funds recently received by the county and Diversion Hub should help.

More: These Oklahomans needed mental health care. Instead, they died in jail

The $1 million grant made by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance will help significantly increase the diversion drug court's capacity over the next four years.

The money eventually will expand the program's capacity from the 150 participants it handles today to 250 at any given time, a release about the grant states.

The need definitely is there. Only 57% of those seeking to enter the program in 2022 were admitted, largely because of staffing shortages, the release states.

Specifically, the additional funds will help the county's drug court bring on an additional assistant district attorney and an additional public defender.

It also will pay to add a program navigator, who will work with 125 drug court participants each year to help them secure needed services by guiding them to appropriate resources.

Plus, the grant is paying to introduce new case management software to make it easier for the court's staff to supervise program participants, and it is setting aside other dollars to help participants pay for required urinalyses while they look for steady work.

Funding for the new navigator is critical, says Melissa Walton, strategic director of Oklahoma County's Treatment Courts program.

"When someone pleas into the drug court program right now, we have recovery navigators who help get them out of jail, help them get started doing urinalyses and put them in touch with their probation officers," Walton said.

"But as they go through latter stages of the program, they might need more help to get their IDs, GEDs and find jobs so they can finish the program, and that's a little bit harder if you don't have a support system," she said.

Nine diversion programs operated by Oklahoma County's courts system

Oklahoma County's jail population fell below 1,300 the first weekend of December, marking the first time since 1996 it has held so few prisoners.

The jail in early December also was no longer the state's largest. Its population on Dec. 5 was 1,325 detainees, compared to 1,419 in Tulsa County, jail CEO Brandi Garner told the Oklahoma County's jail trust on Dec. 4.

The per capita detainee rate for Oklahoma County stood at 166 per 100,000 residents, while Tulsa County's per capita detainee rate was 212 per 100,000, Garner said.

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"There is a lot of people who deserve credit for this," said Garner, who took an opportunity to thank Oklahoma County's judges, district attorneys, public defenders, bondsmen, her staff and Oklahoma County's diversion programs.

"It is astounding to see all of the teamwork" making that progress possible, she said.

There's no doubt that Oklahoma County's diversion programs help.

Including Drug Court, Oklahoma County's courts currently operate nine different diversion programs involving about 1,300 defendants, giving people charged with felony and misdemeanor crimes alternatives to jail and prison sentences. They include:

• ReMerge Court: A pre-trial diversion program serving high-risk, high-needs mothers facing nonviolent felony offenses.

• DREAMS (Diversion, Recovery, Engagement and Mental Support) Court: A program that serves individuals facing felony charges who suffer from mental illnesses, developmental disabilities or co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders.

• DUI Court: Offers participants facing that particular felony the tools they need for rehabilitation through individualized, evidence-based treatment.

• Community Sentencing: Program designed to assist individuals facing felony charges by providing them with supervision, treatment, personal development, and employment assistance services.

• Misdemeanor Diversion: Program that gives individuals charged with misdemeanors in Oklahoma County a chance to engage with appropriate treatment services to help them overcome barriers by using community resources to meet their needs.

• COOP (Court Ordered Out Patient) Diversion: Program that gives individuals access to treatment programs after they have been charged with misdemeanors because of mental health issues.

• Veterans Diversion: Program giving veterans charged with misdemeanors a chance to engage with appropriate treatment and community services to help them overcome barriers.

• Veterans Treatment Court: An 18-month-long program designed to give veterans who are struggling with trauma, mental illnesses and/or substance abuse issues opportunities to receive treatment and to work with case managers to apply for any Veterans Affairs benefits they have earned.

As for the Drug Court diversion program, Walton said 73.5% of its participants have completed the three-year program since July 1, 2022. She said 83% of them are living with their children, and 99.3% are employed.

Other grants awarded, sought by Oklahoma County

In November, the Oklahoma County district attorney’s office received a grant for about $1 million to bolster the county's Veterans Diversion program.

District Attorney Vicki Behenna said the office will use the grant to identify veterans being held on criminal offenses earlier in the adjudication process to get more of them into treatment.

Like Holder, participant David Onzahwah, who served eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a legal administrator including during Operation Phantom Fury in 2004 also credits it for changing his life.

Onzahwah entered the treatment program after being arrested in 2018 on a felony complaint of assault and battery by strangulation.

Today, he is a peer specialist at the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs offices.

“Veterans Treatment Court saved my life,” said Onzahwah. “Going through the program was like a mission assignment to me. It sparked a fight in me to keep improving myself in order to accomplish goals. I want the public to know that this program saves lives, reduces stigmas and helps heal veterans that are having trouble adjusting to the civilian lifestyle.”

“These veterans work hard and are eager to change their lives for the better. Veterans Treatment Court gives them an opportunity to make this change," said Oklahoma County District Court Judge Brent Dishman, who oversees that program.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma County Commissioners in December authorized the county's staff to seek about $2.4 million as its share of money set aside within Oklahoma's County Community Safety Investment Fund.

The fund gets its dollars from court-related costs savings brought about by the Smart Justice Reform Act.

Oklahoma County intends to use those dollars to expand Oklahoma County's diversion courts program further, said Walton and Assistant Public Defender Madison Mélon, who supervises programming and staff for all of Oklahoma County's diversion programs, plus represent defendants who are in the program.

Walton and Mélon credit the nearly two-dozen nonprofits that partner with the courts and Oklahoma County's Diversion Hub to provide those defendants with the services they need to help them succeed.

They are especially appreciative of the Diversion Hub for its willingness to hire former program graduates like Holder to be navigators for new defendants just coming into the diversion programs.

"We started in 2019 with just two peers provided through the Oklahoma City-County Health Department. Before that, we didn't have any," Mélon said. "I love these people and want to help them, but I have never been where they are. I can only do so much."

That's where people like Holder come in.

Before getting into the program in early 2021, Holder had been arrested and charged nine months earlier of two counts of unauthorized use of motor vehicle (he was in possession of a 2022 Lincoln Navigator and a 2020 Ford Focus that weren't his when he was arrested) and three counts of possessing and concealing stolen property.

He said it took a wake-up call in Oklahoma County's jail and finding God for him to be able to "basically just quit, just quit the stupidness and insanity I was going through."

When he meets someone getting out of the jail now, he shows them a lone image he keeps from his past — a mugshot of his most recent arrest.

He buried the actual picture he had of himself before then in a field off NW 122 and Pennsylvania Avenue during a funeral he gave himself, Holder said.

"I had to change my people, my places and my things. I cut ties with all of them," he said.

"I am somebody who has been there and done that as far as addiction and interfacing with the criminal justice system goes, and I am somebody who knows what it is like. I have lived it," he said. "People can see that.

"Drug treatment court saved my life. All these people combined really helped, and I am grateful for that every day. For people who want to follow it? It works."

Mélon and Walton would love to see more people like Holder working with their clients, they said.

"We now have three, four, five, soon-to-be six full-time peers that the Diversion Hub has hired for us working on the teams, and it has been the biggest blessing, in so many different ways both for participants and the the staff," Mélon said.

"They are a daily reminder of why we get up and come to work every day. I always say they are my favorite coworkers, more than anyone else. It is just different and fun to get to work with them," Mélon said.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma County Diversion Hub getting new federal grant