Tag Archives: Weldon Angelos

Civil Liberties, Drug War, Featured, Marijuana Prohibition

Judge Who Sentenced Man to 55 Years for Pot Asks Obama to Set Him Free

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In 2002, then-24-year-old Weldon Angelos, a rap record label founder whose career was taking off after a collaboration with Snoop Dogg, sold $350 worth of pot to a police informant who happened to be a lifelong acquaintance on three separate occasions while in possession of a firearm for self defense.

Due to mandatory minimum sentencing laws, Angelos was arrested and sentenced to 55 years without the possibility of parole. Since then, Angelos has become a symbol of the injustice of mandatory minimum sentences. Those supporting his early release include U.S. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the billionaire Koch brothers, and even former federal judge Paul G. Cassell, who sentenced him in the case.

[RELATED: Koch Brothers Launch Fight for Justice for Man Sentenced to 55 Years for Pot]

According to The Washington Post, ex-judge Cassell wrote a letter to President Obama on Tuesday asking him to commute Angelos’ sentence.

“In 2004 when I was forced to impose that sentence, I wrote a lengthy opinion explaining why that sentence was ‘unjust,’” wrote Cassell. “Indeed, at the time, I wrote that ‘to correct what appears to be an unjust sentence, the court also calls on the President—in whom our Constitution reposes the power to correct unduly harsh sentences—to commute Mr. Angelos’ sentence to something that is more in accord with just and rational punishment.’ Now that Mr. Angelos has served more than twelve years in prison, I once again want to call on you to commute his sentence. I thus write in strong support of a clemency petition that he has filed.”

“The underlying problem in the Angelos case can be traced back to the [charge] ‘stacking’
feature of the crimes for which Angelos was convicted. As illustrated by his case, he
was able to rack up decades of prison time by possessing a gun in several separate
criminal offenses, even where those offenses are all essentially part of the same episode,” Cassell added.

Koch Industries attorney Mark Holden piled on in support of Angelos and said, “Judge Cassell’s letter articulates well the grave injustice involved in Weldon’s prison sentence.”

Cassell’s letter to President Obama concluded, “In 2004, when I sentenced Mr. Angelos, I thought his sentence was ‘cruel, unjust, and irrational.’ I am even more firmly convinced of that conclusion today, when the Angelos case has been widely discussed as a clear example of an unduly harsh sentence. Because his appeals have been exhausted, the only solution for Angelos is a Presidential commutation. I urge you to swiftly commute his sentence.”

[RELATED: DONEGAN: 46 Non-Violent Drug Inmates Freed, Thousands Upon Thousands Still Incarcerated]

Weldon’s sister Lisa Angelos wrote in a Change.org petition urging his release, “Senators Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch of Utah, and dozens of prominent celebrities, activists, book authors, legal scholars, business leaders (including Koch Industries), and former elected and appointed government officials have joined Judge Cassell in calling on President Obama to release Weldon from prison. But that hasn’t happened yet. After 12 years, Weldon is still in prison. It breaks my heart. My father feared he would die without ever seeing Weldon free from prison. And on January 4, 2015, that’s exactly what happen. Our father died without seeing his son free from behind bars.”

Obama administration spokesperson Brandi Hoffine told The Washington Post that the President does not comment on cases that are still pending and said, “The President expects to continue to issue commutations throughout the remainder of his time in office. But, clemency is just one of the tools the administration is using to address the vast inequities in the criminal justice system. We will also continue to work toward comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system in Congress.“

Drug War, Politics, US

Koch Brothers Launch Fight for Justice for Man Sentenced to 55 Years for Pot

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“I sometimes drive near the prison where he’s held, and I think, ‘Gosh he shouldn’t be there. Certainly not as long as I had to send him there. … That wasn’t the right thing to do. The system forced me to do it,'” said former federal Judge Paul Cassell in comments to ABC News about the plight of Weldon Angelos, a father and rap record label founder whom Cassell was forced to sentence to 55 years for three low-level marijuana sales due to mandatory minimum sentencing laws. In 2002, then 24-year-old Angelos, whose record label had recently attracted a collaboration with rap superstar Snoop Dogg, had also been moonlighting as a pot dealer. Federal authorities caught wind of his side gig and launched a sting operation against Angelos, purchasing small amounts of marijuana from him on three separate occasions through an informant. Angelos, who happened to be carrying a gun for protection which he did not brandish or use for any violent purpose, was subsequently tried and convicted on three counts of selling narcotics while in possession of a firearm. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws forced Judge Cassell to sentence Angelos to 55 years with no chance of parole, a near-life sentence for the Salt Lake City father of two.

“If he had been an aircraft hijacker, he would have gotten 24 years in prison. If he’s been a terrorist, he would have gotten 20 years in prison. If he was a child rapist, he would have gotten 11 years in prison. And now I’m supposed to give him a 55-year sentence? I mean, that’s just not right,” said Cassell of Angelos’ case.

According to The Daily Beast, Angelos’ plight caught the attention of the billionaire Koch brothers, whose millennial outreach group Generation Opportunity used some of the duo’s oft-demonized out-sized wealth to produce a documentary, which debuted last week at the Newseum in Washington DC, highlighting Angelos’ unjust sentence. The documentary release coincides with a broader Koch brothers initiative to promote criminal justice reform throughout 2015. A trailer for the film can be seen in the above-embedded video player.

“[This year] offers a unique moment in history in which people of different backgrounds and political leanings are coming together to facilitate a substantive dialogue on how to fix [the criminal justice system]. We can work towards a more just system that reflects the rule of law without overcriminalizing non-violent offenses,” said Generation Opportunity president Evan Feinberg in comments to The Daily Beast.

Weldon Angelos’ family requested two years ago that President Obama grant clemency for the father of two, who has already spent 11 years behind bars, but the administration has yet to respond. Lisa Angelos, Weldon’s sister, described the impact his incarceration has had on his children, “Being around them you can feel their heart ache, even though their laughter, and watching them play and do the fun stuff, you can still feel it. Seeing what they have gone through by losing their father, it just emotionally destroys me.”

The Koch brothers, who are often accused by left-leaning politicos of using their disproportionate wealth to buy elections in an effort to bend policies in favor of the rich and at the expense of the poor, have in the past used their hard-earned dollars to help poor people facing unjust prosecutions obtain legal representation.

Ben Swann took on the federal government’s mixed messages on marijuana prohibition in a September 2014 Truth in Media episode, seen in the player below.