I was out on a run, just following the path I always take. I saw the gate open near the railroad tracks, so I figured it was fine to cut through. I wasn’t trying to cause any trouble. I was just out getting some air.
Next thing I know, an officer is jogging up to me. He’s calling out, asking me to stop. I stopped immediately. I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong.
“My mom’s a lawyer, by the way. That’s okay. ”
“What’s your name? Brian?
”
“Yeah. Is that your badge number, 2814? ”
“Yes, yes. So, the reason we’re stopping you, this is trespassing right here.
”
“Oh, I’m sorry, though. The gate was open over there. I was just walking out on a run here. ”
“Where are you coming from?
All the way over there? ”
“Yeah, yeah. ”
“Okay, so you just saw it looked open, so you walked in. This is considered criminal trespassing.
Reason why it’s such a big deal? People get hit by a train all the time. We want to prevent that, obviously. ”
I could hear the seriousness in his voice.
My heart started pounding. I hadn’t even thought about danger. I was just running. I asked if I could hold my phone, mentioningu it was at 2% battery.
He took it anyway. I called my mom. I knew she’d know what to do. She picked up, and I explained where I was and what was happening.
I handed the phone to the officer. “Yes, yes. I’m a former federal prosecutor. ”
“Okay, fair enough.
”
“He’s a Harvard graduate. He’s been advised. He’s not a criminal. He has no criminal record, no criminal history.
”
“Mhm. Yes, yes. No, no, I understand that. The issue is, like I told your son, this is considered criminal trespassing.
So, besides being illegal, it’s actually very dangerous for him to be around the railroad tracks. We get people that get hit all the time. ”
“All right, can we just get my mom on the phone? ” I asked again, my voice more desperate now.
“Of course, you can. ”
“Hey, Mom. Yes. Hey, um, so he said that can I grab my phone?
”
“Absolutely, go ahead. ”
“Um, and if the phone dies, can I call her back? ”
“Absolutely. ”
The officer handed me my phone back, and I put it to my ear.
My mom’s voice was calm, but I could hear the steel underneath. She didn’t waste time. She told the officer who she was. She told him I wasn’t a criminal, that I never been in trouble.
She said I teach fourth grade geometry, for goodness’ sake. She asked how I was doing, and I told her I was walking on the tracks because the gate was open. She called it an honest mistake. But the officer wasn’t budging at first.
He explainedt that he had to write a summons. But he juga said something that surprised me: normally this would be a misdemeanor, but they were going to write it down to a violation. It wouldn’t go on my record. It wouldn’t affect me or anything.
He said it was just a deterrent, because people get hit by trains all the time. It was dangerous, and they had to take it seriously. He handed me a citation with a court date. July 10th, 9:30 a.
m. , New Rochelle Criminal Court, 475 North Ave. He told me it wasn’t the crime of the century, that it wasn’t the end of the world. He said he wasn’t trying to be a rule buster, that he had a job to do, and he hoped I didn’t take it personally.
He said he appreciated how cooperative I was regardinghe whole thing. I took my citation, thanked him, and walked away, my face hot with embarrassment and my stomach in knots. . But what happened that day was just one part of a much bigger story for my family.
My mom is Sunny Hostin, one of the hosts of The View. And the reason she could make that call, and the reason she spoke with so much authority, wasn’t just because she’s my mom. It’s because she used to be a federal prosecutor. She knows the law.
She knows how to talk to police. She pulled rank, some people would say. She used her privilege, others would whisper. But to me, she was just standing between me and a mistake I almost made.
And then, while people were debating whether she was wrong to usethat card, I couldn’t help but think about what happened to my dad a little over a year ago. Because my dad, Dr. Emmanuel Manny Hostin, doesn’t just do any surgeries. He’s an orthopedic surgeon.
He’d operated on people even without insurance. He’s spent his whole career trying to do good. And then, in December of 2024, he was named as one of nearly 200 defendants in one of the biggest civil RICO lawsuits ever filed in New York. .
The lawsuit came from an insurance company called American Transit, which insures taxi, Uber, and Lyft drivers. They accused him of getting kickbacks by performing surgery and fraudulently billing them. They claimed he knowingly provided fraudulent medical services, including arthroscopic surgeries, and that the company was billed in exchange for kickbacks and or other compensation disguised as dividends or other cash distributions. .
It sounded devastating. It sounded like he was going to be in a whole lot of trouble. The news spread fast. People were talking about it everywhere.
I remember my mom talking about how broken the healthcare system is, how doctors suffer because of big corporations, how she wasn’t surprised that people were angry because this country was built on violence and a lot of people thought violence against the system was justified. But when the news broke, my dad’s lawyer released a statement. He said, “Hostin denies each and every allegation. ” He called the lawsuit a blanket scattershot meritless lawsuit by a near bankrupt insurance carrier.
He said it was meant to intimidate and harass doctors from collecting for care given to American Transit insured and their passengers. He said my dad had an impeccable record, and that American Transit rushed into the lawsuit without ever examining him or expressing any concerns to his lawyers. The real story, he said, was an insurance carrier abusing the legal system to limitand restrict healthcare benefits and write off its proper obligations. .
I didn’t know what to believe. I just knew my dad wasn’t a criminal. He was a doctor who worked long hours and tried to help people. And now, everything he’d worked for was being dragged through the mud.
It was terrifying. It was humiliating. And then, just like that, the case was dropped. It never even went to trial.
He was never proven to have done anything wrong. He got out of it scot-free, at least legally. But the shadow of it stayed. And now here I was, standing on the side of a road holding a citationfor trespassing, my mom having used her old job title to get me out of handcuffs.
And I couldn’t helpbut feel the weight of everything. The irony. The questionspeople kept asking: Did she pull rank? Did she use her privilege?
Did she violate her own principles? Did she think nobody’s above the law? Or was she just a mom protecting her son? I heard people say she was wrong.
I heard people say she was just doing what any mother would do. I heard people say she was abusing her power. I heard people say she was just trying to keep her kid out of jail. And I knew the truth was somewhere in between.
But I also knew one thing for sure: that if my mom hadn’t made that call, if she hadn’t been a former federal prosecutor, if she hadn’t known exactly what to say and how to say it, I might have spent the night in a holding cell over a mistake that was never meant to happen. It wasn’t about privilege, not to me. It was about her being there when I needed her. It was about her knowing the system well enough to navigate it.
It was about her refusing to let one stupid moment define the rest of my life. She taught me something that day, not about the law, but about what it means to have someone in your corner. Someone who will get on the phone, who will rush down to the scene, who will use whatever they have to protect you. Because that’s what mothers do.
That’s what my mom did. And I’ll never forget it. .
