Crime

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) ― Susan LaSota saw what was happening but supported her son, Korey Sufka. And Sufka made that difficult.

Sufka began using drugs at 15 while a student at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School. Plenty of trouble followed, including Sufka spending time in half a dozen juvenile correctional facilities before he was 18 and then time in several Minnesota jails after he turned 18.

His list of convictions does not mention the word "drugs," but it was his drug abuse that led him to crimes ranging from theft to check forgery to domestic assault, he says.

LaSota saw all that.

What she cannot see is how Sufka is working on redemption. She died July 3, 2005, after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. Sufka was in jail and did not get to attend her funeral.

"If I could open myself internally and show you the amount of pain that I have every day (because) my mom never got a chance to see who I am today physically, I'm sure nobody on Earth would ever choose to live the life that I have lived," Sufka said.

But that was Sufka's old life, and the one he lives today is about help and hope. While he would like to quickly move away from his legal problems and reputation, there are links to his past that he continues to work on repairing.

He acknowledges his new life is a work in progress.

Sufka, 31, lives in St. Cloud and works as a mentor program coordinator for Central Minnesota Re-Entry Project. The project helps former inmates rejoin society after serving jail or prison sentences. Sufka recruits and trains volunteers to help former offenders transition back into society.

He often appeals to potential volunteers by telling his story. During presentations, he takes out a roll of paper, holds one end and asks someone to hold the other. On the paper are Sufka's mug shots, taken when he was charged with crimes in Stearns County.

"I feel blessed to have a job with the Re-Entry Project where I can have the opportunity to place positive people in these people's lives, to try to lower the recidivism rate for our communities," he said. "I'm the one that used to break the law in this area."

He wants to let them know death is permanent and you only have one set of parents.

Sufka's drug abuse and the way he treated his mother severely fractured the relationship he has with many people, including his siblings.

How severely? Sufka learned of his mother's death from a woman he had dated. She heard the news from a caregiver who had worked with Sufka's mom.

"My mom constantly defended me, helped me, bailed me out and loved me unconditionally," he said.

Sufka says he was working on getting clean and making positive changes before he went into jail while his mother was alive. LaSota's death, though, may have provided him with the lasting inspiration to do better.

"My mom dying was a huge wake-up call," he said. "I still yearn for that one day where I can sit alongside my mom and she can see me."

Carol Tembreull has known Sufka for about five years. She is on the Re-Entry Project's board of directors and got to know Sufka while volunteering for Residents Encountering Christ. REC is a two-day retreat for jail or prison residents designed to give them a chance to learn about how Christ can change their lives.

"He's told me that all he can think about is that (his mother) sees him now and that her prayers were answered," Tembreull said. "He has a picture of her by his desk."

Sufka said his parents' divorce, moving out of his hometown of Royalton and depression were factors in him turning to drugs when he was a teenager. He moved with LaSota to Sauk Rapids after the divorce.

After the move, he quit football, baseball and wrestling. He made friends with classmates in similar situations and began using drugs. "They were from divorced families or dysfunctional situations," he said. "We kind of formed a group and started smoking marijuana."

Sufka said he graduated to more and harder drugs. Theft and dealing drugs followed.

He and his mother lived in apartments, and the first thing he did when they moved was to remove his bedroom window screen so he could sneak out. With LaSota ill and working full-time for St. Cloud State University, he took advantage of his situation.

"My mom was in a wheelchair, so if she said, 'You're not going out with your friends tonight,' I was pretty much, 'How are you going to stop me?"' he said. "My mom was focused on work and the disease was rapidly eating away at her."

Sufka spent time in juvenile detention centers but eventually got his General Educational Development diploma.

He began using cocaine at 20. At 21, he tried methamphetamine.

"When people ask, 'Do you believe in hell?' I say, 'Yes, I've physically been there.' When you are neglecting the people that love you the most, when you are seeing things that physically are not there, when you are under total control of something else, I feel that's hell," Sufka said.

At 23, Sufka began dating a woman he'd met in high school. A few years into the relationship, they had a daughter, Kaileigh, who is 5. She has some memories he regrets.

"She can remember coming to see me and not being able to hug me because there was eight inches of glass separating us," he said of his daughter's visits while he was incarcerated.

Sufka now shares custody of Kaileigh.

While doing time, he began reading -- something he says he had never done before. It helped replace some of the emptiness he felt.

Included in his reading were books on methamphetamine and its effects on people. After he met Re-Entry Project Director Joe Gibbons through REC, he shared what he had learned.

"Because of that, I got involved in Stearns and Benton County Meth Coalition," Gibbons said.

The coalition started in 2005 out of community concern with the growing visibility of methamphetamine use.

Sufka speaks regularly at REC retreats these days with his roll of mug shots helping him drive home points.

"He'll say, 'I made this choice and this was the picture I had taken for it,"' Tembreull said of Sufka's mug shots. "He does that with each one.

"Then he says that it wasn't until he found Christ and started using his picture that life has been going much better for him," Tembreull said. "He doesn't ever glorify having done (drugs). There's always such a connection with the guys he talks to."

With his new job and his volunteer work, Sufka has become an addict to helping others, Gibbons said. But like others who have abused drugs, he is a work in progress.

"Korey is reaching out to everyone and trying to get everyone to improve their lives," Gibbons said. "He also has a lot of issues he needs to work with. It has caused problems, at times, with his progress toward his own recovery."

Sufka says he realizes it will take a lot of time to mend relationships he ruined and gain respect in his community.

"If you make bad choices and you spend 10 years being within the (correctional) system, breaking the law, you can't expect to do good things for six months and everyone is going to forget about it," he said. "I feel like I'm trying to prove myself to the community I live in, I'm trying to prove to law enforcement officials, my family and friends that who they see now is who I am."

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