Hello, my name is Trey Richardson. I am 39 years old and I am trying to get a fundraiser for medical bills and lawyer fees. In 2006, at the age of 19, I was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to 55 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections. In July 2024, I was released based on medical issues. Currently, I am blind. I have glaucoma in both eyes, cataracts on both eyes, and an eye disease known as uveitis, which is an inflammatory issue. It causes the pressures to rise, the eyes to be in pain, and to ache. A lot of people do not know that you can go blind from glaucoma. The first thing it does is cause an angular closure, which shuts down your peripheral vision, and then it closes the eye itself. I also suffer from an autoimmune disease known as sarcoidosis. It is a rare illness affecting roughly about 200,000 people, a little more than half of whom are women; it is less common in men. I first started noticing issues with my eyes around 2021-2022, but they were aching from the pain they withdrew. I would wake up in the morning and my eyes would be protruding out of my face, kinda like balloons blowing up. I sought medical help in the facility, but no one would help me—the medical staff, the health administrators. I would notify my family, my girlfriend, my mother, my sister, my brother, friends, aunties, and uncles. They would call the administrators, and they would elect to do nothing to treat me. They told me what I was going through was not as serious as I was making it out to be, and the pain that I was experiencing was not pain; it was just me crying out for help and wanting some attention. As of July 1, 2023, I woke from my sleep at about 3 AM, opened my eyes, and found that I was completely blind in my right eye, and I could not see. I instantly started crying for help. While I was incarcerated, the officer instructed me there was nothing he could do. I let her contact my family and my friends and kept applying pressure to the Department of Corrections central office in Washington, DC, and any person that I could get the attention of. I was in the midst of taking a shower one day when roughly about 7 to 8 officers, sergeants, and lieutenants came and escorted me out of the shower, took me down to the medical building, and I had a meeting with the administrators of health. The HSA who led the meeting stated that what I was going through was not an emergency and that until I went blind in my left eye as well, they would not consider it an emergency. They said I only had cataracts, but as I know from doing my medical research and my family as well, you cannot go blind from cataracts. Once my family kept applying pressure, I was sent out to the ER at a local hospital in downtown Indianapolis. About two weeks later, I was seen by a number of different eye specialists, who told me that not only did I have cataracts on both eyes, but I also had glaucoma in both eyes and uveitis, which is the eye disease—all of which could have been prevented if I had gotten help in the proper manner. During that stay at the hospital, which was roughly about four days, I wound up having surgery. In total, I've had five surgeries: one on my left eye and four on my right, with multiple more to come. Once I arrived back at the facility, I was admitted into the infirmary at the Department of Corrections for roughly about six months. Quite honestly, I was scared for my life due to the mistreatment from the officers and the medical staff there. I was given the wrong medicine, if it would be medicine at all. Most of the time, more often than not, my medicine would be late. I would call home and have my family document and keep track of everything that I was going through. I would have them make calls as I was being threatened and bullied by the officers and the medical staff. My medicines were being thrown away by custody, which is the correctional officers, and my glasses were being broken by the correctional officers—all of this is well documented. As I stated, I am blind. I could not see the medication that I was taking, so I had to put it in my mouth or sometimes feel it around my hands and just rely on my faith and say a prayer to God to ask for this medicine to not do my body any harm if it was not going to do my body any good. Luckily, I was able to link with an attorney in central Indianapolis, and I also had some great people working on my case to help correct my conviction, like the Innocence Project, known in Indianapolis as the Integrity Unit. They reached out to my alibi witnesses who were present at the time of trial but whose names wound up on the prosecutor's witness list. Once it was pointed out to them, they were escorted from the county building by the sheriffs, and I was not able to have a proper defense. They reached out to the victim's family, who stated that they never believed that I committed the crime anyway, and they gave me their blessings to be released. I came home based on medical issues because my illness was so dire. I even had a medical staff member who worked at the Department of Corrections come back and testify on my behalf to all the mistreatment that was going on in the Department of Corrections. I was given a choice: either stay in prison and continue fighting to get my conviction overturned and be subjected to the same treatment that was being put forth, or get out and get the best medical help I needed for my eyes and my health issues. So, I chose my freedom rather than being subjected to those same penalties and punishments from the officers and medical staff who were supposed to care for me. This is September 2025. I've been home roughly around 14 months now. I was released on home detention, on house arrest, which they make me pay $16 a day for, which has recently just been knocked down to $8 a day. I'm unable to work due to my vision and my health complications. I filed for disability when I came home, but I was denied. I was unable to obtain an attorney. I filed for disability again, and there is no waiting limit on how long, if, and when it will be approved. It could take six months, a year, two years—who knows? I rely on my family and my friends to carry me financially, but I know medical bills, along with house arrest, along with fighting my criminal case by myself, and I also have a civil suit against the Department of Corrections for malpractice, negligence, and civil rights violations—all of which I am doing pro se. These expenses are adding up. I'm seeking assistance from anyone who can help point me in the right direction to obtain some legal advice, whether it be prayer or monetary, but I'm fighting an uphill battle, one I'm afraid I may not win if I'm not equipped with the proper weaponry. So, I just ask whoever's eyes and ears this may touch, please be a blessing to me, and in the same way, God will bless you. Thank you.