President Donald Trump on Wednesday released seven prisoners with life sentences for marijuana — including some jailed without parole under President-elect Joe Biden’s 1994 crime bill.
Paraplegic Michael Pelletier, 65, and Corvain Cooper, 41, are among the men who received prison commutations from Trump.
Pelletier had a life sentence for smuggling pot from Canada into Maine in the early 2000s. Both jurisdictions later legalized the drug.
Cooper had a life sentence for his role transporting marijuana from California to North Carolina, also under the three-strikes provision of Biden’s law.
The crime bill’s mandatory life sentence for a third serious drug conviction was reduced to 25 years by Trump’s First Step Act, but the reduction wasn’t retroactive. Cooper’s initial two strikes were later thrown out, but that, too, didn’t apply retroactively.
Cooper’s attorney Patrick Michael Megaro told The Post in November that “Biden is responsible for the 1994 crime law that [resulted in] Corvain Cooper being sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for marijuana and the Obama-Biden administration was directly responsible for the prosecution.”
Megaro told The Post on Wednesday that “the system failed Corvain Cooper; Barack Obama’s promises not to seek lengthy prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders and to grant clemency to those that were unjustly impacted proved to be hollow promises.”
Pelletier, who was paralyzed as a child in a farm accident, told The Post in a recent email from prison that he endured a harrowing experience with COVID-19.
“I don’t have much strength in my arms due to lack of physical therapy, so the prison staff hired another prisoner to push me around the compound. He died from COVID,” Pelletier said.
“I also contracted COVID, but fortunately I survived, even though I have [type] 2 diabetes. My clemency petition was submitted during the Obama clemency project, but was never ruled on. It’s still pending today and I honestly believe President Trump will be the man who will end this nightmare and reunite me with my family.”
Pelletier’s case was championed for years by Amy Povah, founder of the CAN-DO Foundation, which lobbies for clemency for lesser-known people.
Povah said she is “elated that [Pelletier’s] sentence has finally been commuted.”
“He served over 14 years and will be reunited with his brother, Dave Pelletier, numerous other siblings and family members,” she said. “Michael is an amazing artist who will continue to pursue his artistic expressions through several mediums, and he yearns to go fishing.”
Also commuted was John Knock, 73, who was arrested in 1996 and ultimately jailed for life for his role in a smuggling ring moving marijuana through the US, Canada and Europe. Knock’s sister Beth Curtis created the website LifeforPot.com to document life sentences for non-violent marijuana crimes.
President Barack Obama denied Knock’s clemency request in 2017.
Recreational marijuana is legal under local law in 15 states, two US territories and Washington, DC, though it remains federally illegal. Biden opposes legalizing marijuana but Vice President-elect Kamala Harris supports legalization. The Biden administration is expected to tolerate state-legal pot businesses, as Trump did.
Trump issued 73 pardons and 70 prison commutations early Wednesday. Rapper Lil Wayne, Death Row Records co-founder Michael “Harry-O” Harris and former White House strategist Steve Bannon were on the list. The lineup omitted more hotly debated names such as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The other marijuana “lifers” being released are Ferrell Damon Scott, Anthony DeJohn, Craig Cesal and James Romans, according to the White House’s clemency release.
Trump also freed Oregon medical marijuana provider Brian Simmons from a 15-year sentence. California medical marijuana dealer Noah Kleinman was released six years into a 20-year sentence and Staten Island pot dealer Jonathon Braun was released five years into a 10-year sentence. Way Quoe Long, 58, was released halfway through a 50-year pot sentence.
