President Biden commuted the prison sentences of 31 federal inmates Friday — including a woman caught smuggling 15.7 pounds of heroin aboard an Amtrak train — while leaving almost all of the estimated 2,700 federal pot prisoners behind bars.
Lori Broadway, 41, won the rare reprieve despite pleading guilty to transporting the large drug haul from Houston to New Orleans, where she was arrested in January 2016.
Authorities busted Broadway after discovering she had made similar suspicious trips from Houston to New Jersey aboard Amtrak in October and December 2015, stopping off in New Orleans along the way, according to court documents.
When confronted by police in New Orleans, she said she had “a lot” of “cocaine” in her bags, but six brown bricks tested positive for heroin.
“Total weight of the heroin was 15.7 pounds,” charging documents said. In pleading guilty, Broadway admitted in June 2016 to transporting between three kilograms and 10 kilograms — or 6.6 to 22.0 pounds — of heroin.
Broadway, who had prior drug busts, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and five years of supervised release. Before Biden’s clemency, she was scheduled to be released early — in August 2024.
A White House press release listing clemency grants said that Broadway’s “sentence [is] commuted to expire on June 30, 2023, with the remainder to be served in home confinement, leaving intact and in effect the five-year term of supervised release.”
Most of the other clemency recipients were jailed for methamphetamine offenses. Three of the commutations went to people convicted only of smuggling large amounts of marijuana — a substance that is now legal to possess and sell for recreational use in 22 states.
It’s unclear if Broadway had special mitigating circumstances. Some documents in her court case, such as presentencing reports, are not publicly available through the online PACER court records platform.
An attorney who represented Broadway did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the US attorney’s office in New Orleans declined to comment.
“We were hoping to see more cannabis cases among the first recipients, since they were prioritized during the Biden-Harris campaign as prisoners that would receive mercy if Biden was elected,” said Amy Povah, founder of the CAN-DO Foundation, which advocates for clemency for non-violent offenders.
“We are also surprised to see that everyone will serve out the remainder of their time on home confinement, which is a new twist we’ve never heard of before,” Povah added.
The list released Friday appeared to be assembled by the Justice Department rather than the byproduct of more ad hoc lobbying.
The latter was often the case under former President Donald Trump, who has made seeking the death penalty for drug kingpins an emphasis of his 2024 campaign.
Biden in October issued a mass pardon for roughly 6,500 people convicted federally of simple marijuana possession in what he said was a fulfillment of his campaign promise to release federal pot inmates.
However, cannabis advocates complained bitterly that Biden’s clemency didn’t free any of the 2,700 or so people actually imprisoned for pot, some of whom have life sentences.
Activists have campaigned in vain for the release of several high-profile inmates, such as Pedro Moreno, 63, who has a life sentence for distributing marijuana imported from Mexico from 1986 to 1996.
Another federal inmate, Luke Scarmazzo, 42, has served more than 14 years of a 22-year sentence for running a medical marijuana business in California.
On a primary debate stage four years ago, Biden said, “I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period. And I think everyone — anyone who has a record — should be let out of jail, their records expunged, be completely zeroed out.”
Biden’s pre-midterm mass pardon angered marijuana campaigners, who staged a protest outside the White House blaring audio of Biden’s campaign promise to free “everyone” in prison for pot — while prisoners said they felt Biden’s promise was unfulfilled.
“Biden fed us rancid hamburger and the media is celebrating as if he served up filet mignon,” inmate Joseph Akers, 40, of Philadelphia, told The Post after Biden’s mass clemency. His 16 1/2-year sentence for taking part in a marijuana dealing conspiracy is scheduled to end in 2031.
Daniel Longoria, 57, who is set to be released in 2040 after completing a sentence for distributing marijuana in Texas, said last year, “This long awaited news does not free anyone. It is hard to digest this when you’re a first-time offender with non violent history serving a 30-year sentence for cannabis.”
Biden wrote or advocated for some of the nation’s harshest drug laws in the 1980s and ’90s — sending some pot dealers away for life without parole — before he pivoted in 2019 to fend off rivals for the Democratic nomination. About 68% of Americans, including half of Republicans, support pot legalization.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/28/joe-biden-frees-inmate-busted-with-15-pounds-of-heroin/
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