AUDREE Levesque’s phone pings and she soaks up the steamy sexual messages from her husband – a man under lock and key in a nearby prison.
Jeffrey, 30, stands convicted of an unthinkable crime yet he has somehow managed to convince Audree he is innocent – and she desperately wants to be intimate with him in real life.
Audree Levesque and Jeffrey fell in love after being penpals[/caption]
The prisoner makes gifts for Audree and she is adamant she loves him regardless of his conviction[/caption]
Audree has never been able to consummate her marriage because Jeffrey is eight years into a 21-year jail sentence for predatory sexual assault which he began in 2017.
While Jeffrey later tried to appeal his case, it was denied.
It was three years ago when Audree first struck up an unlikely relationship with the prisoner – initially as his penpal – and the couple married last year.
Now, they see each other every two weeks because although they could apply for conjugal visits where they’d get 48 hours together in a trailer located in the prison grounds, Jeffrey would have to admit guilt for his crime first – something he’d never do.
But mum-of-one, Audree, 28, is adamant she loves Jeffrey regardless – he now treats her three-year-old daughter ‘as his own’ and she wants children with him too.
She says: “I believe that everything he’s ever told me is the truth. There’s no way that he did it.
“I’ve never felt unsafe and for me to bring my daughter to see him, I wouldn’t if I had the slightest doubt.”
During prison visits Audree is allowed six hours with Jeffrey before he is taken back to his cell – but the pair are never allowed any alone time together.
Branded desperate for her decision to even befriend Jeffrey, Audree hopes to someday have a baby with him.
She admits there was no doubt in her mind that Jeffrey was ‘The One’ when they first met in October 2022, and she even moved closer to the prison to make visiting easier.
Audree first made contact with Jeffrey earlier the same year because she wanted to ‘be part of his support system’, after working in a youth prison. She had come across his profile on a prison penpal website and followed the instructions by getting in contact with him using an app.
He told me, ‘A lot of people can and will say they’re innocent but I don’t want to just say it, I want to prove it to you’
Audree Levesque
In his messages, Jeffrey quickly set about trying to convince Audree he wasn’t guilty of the crime he’d been convicted of and she began to believe him.
She explains: “It was small talk at first. There were a bunch of things we could connect on like how our dads were both drag racers. I knew of the struggles prisoners faced.
“We really got to know each other as friends with no expectations.”
Audree had been with her daughter’s dad for two-and-a-half years before they split up just a couple of months before she began messaging Jeffrey.
“It quickly escalated because we both had a lot of questions such as about our childhoods, our dream jobs, and after things escalated, what they were looking for in a partner. We’d send each other super long text messages throughout the day everyday,” she explains.
“We did a lot of talking about what had happened and had led up to his arrest. He told me, ‘A lot of people can and will say they’re innocent but I don’t want to just say it, I want to prove it to you’.
“He printed 2,000 pages of his case and evidence and so many things and sent them all to me. It was little details like that that made me start to fall for him.”
After just two weeks of messaging back and forth, Jeffrey sent her phone number in for approval and the pair were able to start calling and texting a week later.
In October 2022 Audree gained access to the prison which she says cemented her feelings.
“When I met my husband in person that’s when I knew,” Audree adds.
Jeffrey’s mum accompanied her to the first visit as she didn’t know her way around the prison.
Despite feeling nervous, after his mum left they spent most of the time kissing and taking photos together.
Audree recalls: “We didn’t do a whole bunch of talking but a lot of kissing and dirty talk. There’s a lot of build up to that visit. It got a little bit heated.”
Audree struggled to see Jeffrey regularly in the beginning and would have to wait up to a month because she could only go during weekends when her daughter was with her dad.
However, once she started bringing her daughter along she was able to go every other week.
Audree decided to move to be closer to Jeffrey so she was just thirty minutes away from the US prison in Buffalo.
Just five months later, they were engaged.
Audree made Jeffrey get down on one knee and propose the old-fashioned way[/caption]
“We were sitting at the visit table and we were close in proximity and having a heart-to-heart conversation and he proposed. He didn’t have a ring or anything,” Audree reveals.
“It was kind of perfect. I went to his mum’s after the visit and he had his grandmother’s ring which was the one she picked out for me.”
The next day Audree visited Jeffrey and made him get down on one knee.
After getting engaged Audree remained confident in her decision.
“I knew in my heart nothing would change my mind. To me, he’s my soulmate and that’s that. I’m so sure about it, whether I marry him now or later, it’s going to happen anyway. I never had any second thoughts about it,” she explains.
We would love to try for one child together but that depends on when he gets out
Audree
“The first person I told was my sister. Obviously, she was sceptical and wasn’t fully for it at first. The more that she saw us interacting together when I called him in front of her and at our wedding and pictures of us she started to come round pretty quickly.
“My dad’s main concern was that he can’t provide for us financially but it brought him a lot of relief to see us interacting at the wedding. He could tell Jeffrey was sincere.”
Locked up
The pair married in the prison in April 2024 with Audree’s dad and sister present as she was only allowed to have two guests.
She recalls: “It wasn’t like a regular wedding and it was very different from what I ever dreamed of as a child and a young woman.
“I love horses so I’d imagined a barn type of wedding all lit up and nicely decorated and I’d come in on a horse and a nice, long dress. Not a prison wedding where I’m wearing a tracksuit.”
The pair were given just over six hours together before Jeffrey was locked back up.
“At the same time it was everything for me just to be standing there with him and holding his hand and exchanging our rings.
The couple on their wedding day which wasn’t what Audree dreamed her special day would look like[/caption]
“I could have worn a dress if I wanted to but I just went in there in white sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I put our initials on the sleeve.”
Despite initially being nervous about introducing Jeffrey to her young daughter, they met for the first time in June 2023.
“I had spoken to my mum about it and she had reservations about me bringing her [to prison],” Audree says. “As much as I knew that my daughter would love him, we’re still in an environment that’s unpredictable.
‘He wouldn’t hurt my daughter’
“It did take a while before bringing her to see him. We were engaged and I knew him like the back of my hand and I know there’s not one bone in his body that would hurt her; he really does treat and love her as his own.”
Audree, a publisher, who lives in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, says Jeffrey still maintains his innocence.
And while her family now supports the relationship, Audree says it’s strangers who judge.
“They say how I’m desperate to be with someone in prison,” she says. “People who know and love me know the truth and know that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
“I just think you have to follow your gut, you know your relationship better than anyone.”
Having a child with Jeffrey is also part of Audree’s future plan.
The couple still see each other fortnightly at the weekends but she could visit every weekend if she wanted to.
I’m called ‘desperate’ for being in a relationship with someone in prison – but I know the truth
Audree
Audree doesn’t tell people the full story and has to deal with work colleagues questioning why she doesn’t take her partner to events.
She says: “When we have work events they always ask if we want to bring a plus one. I always show up by myself and they always ask, ‘When are we going to meet Jeffrey’. I don’t go into details, especially not with work.”
The mum admitted she and Jeffrey are careful with what they say around her daughter too but that she has no idea what she will tell her once she gets older.
“She doesn’t know what prison is. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to tell her,” Audree adds.
The couple photographed on one of Audree’s prison visits[/caption]
Audree wants to have a baby with Jeffrey soon and says he treats her daughter like his own[/caption]
“She does just call him ‘Jeffrey’. I think it would be so different if he was home because she’d see him way more often. It’s not something either of us want to push on her.”
She adds: “We definitely would love to try for at least one child together but that depends on when he gets out.
“My clock is ticking and I don’t want to be 40 and be pregnant. The earlier the better.”
