Rickyrich
OG
Included in this batch is Michael “Harry-O” Harris, who was sentenced to 19 years for his role in a cocaine trafficking ring. Apart from the public support he has attracted as a clemency candidate, he is best known as the initial financier of Death Row Records when the famed record label was getting its start. He petitioned for compassionate release in 2019, citing concern over complications that could arise from having contracted Covid-19 while also suffering from Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder. His petition was ultimately denied, though he was finally granted a full pardon in this last batch of presidential pardons.
“It feels like the weight of the world was just lifted off my shoulders,” Harry-O commented through an intermediary, Weldon Angelos of Mission Green, after learning the news of his full pardon over the weekend. Angelos, himself, received a full presidential pardon for his own cannabis conviction earlier this year.
Also instrumental in Harry-O’s pardon, says Angelos, was rap star and business mogul Snoop Dogg, who was on the phone with Jared Kushner’s office this past week lobbying for Harry-O’s release and full pardon. During a phone call the star can be heard saying, “I appreciate you giving brothas a chance to come home.”
Along with Angelos and Snoop Dogg, clemency activist Alice Johnson also played a pivotal role in many of the drug-related pardons. Johnson was herself pardoned by Trump after speaking at the Republican National Convention last year. She works with a number of groups, including Mission Green, Cut50, and others to personally appeal to the President, as well as the offices of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Angelos, Johnson, and others, along with a number of celebrities and other influential business people like NBA star Kevin Garnett and former senior vice president and general counsel of Koch Industries Mark Holden, delivered to Kushner’s office in November 2020 a list of 24 people who are currently federally incarcerated on cannabis offenses and who the activists think deserve pardoning. This followed a previous letter sent to the Trump administration, which had originally been sent in March 2020 without a list of names but advocating for the release of prisoners jailed on cannabis and other drug charges.
On the November list and likely to be included in the final batch of pardons is Luke Scarmazzo, who was sentenced to 22-years in prison for owning and operating a state-legal medical cannabis dispensary in Modesto, CA. Though it was legal to do so in California per Proposition 215, which legalized medical cultivation, sales, and consumption in the state, cannabis still remained a Schedule I controlled substance and therefore technically still subject to federal prosecution. Scarmazzo and his partner, Ricardo Montes, were prosecuted in federal court and sentenced to over 20 years imprisonment in 2008.
Montes had his sentence commuted by President Obama in 2017, but Scarmazzo’s petition was denied. It has been widely assumed by many in the cannabis activism community that Scarmazzo’s budding rap career at the time played a significant role in their arrests and eventual sentencing.
In particular, Scarmazzo appeared in a hip-hop video titled “Business Man” under his rap alias, Kraz, where he rapped about cannabis and the various spoils that come from selling it. In refrain, Scarmazzo is heard yelling, “Fuck the Feds!” The prosecutor on the case, Kathleen Servatius, said at the time that,“we don’t prosecute people because they sing songs. We prosecute people because they sold marijuana in violation of federal law.”
On behalf of Mission Green, Angelos said that he had been notified by the White House that Scarmazzo will also be coming home. The organization will be paying for Scarmazzo’s family to travel to Yazoo, MS, to pick him up.
Other notable pardons regarding drug offenses include Craig Cesal, who has been serving a life sentince without parole on a cannabis charge; Darrell Frazier, who has already served over 30 years of a life sentence on a drug conspiracy conviction; Michael Pelletier, who is serving a life sentence under a cannabis conspiracy charge; and Lavonne Roach, who is serving a 30-year sentence after being convicted with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamines
“It feels like the weight of the world was just lifted off my shoulders,” Harry-O commented through an intermediary, Weldon Angelos of Mission Green, after learning the news of his full pardon over the weekend. Angelos, himself, received a full presidential pardon for his own cannabis conviction earlier this year.
Also instrumental in Harry-O’s pardon, says Angelos, was rap star and business mogul Snoop Dogg, who was on the phone with Jared Kushner’s office this past week lobbying for Harry-O’s release and full pardon. During a phone call the star can be heard saying, “I appreciate you giving brothas a chance to come home.”
Along with Angelos and Snoop Dogg, clemency activist Alice Johnson also played a pivotal role in many of the drug-related pardons. Johnson was herself pardoned by Trump after speaking at the Republican National Convention last year. She works with a number of groups, including Mission Green, Cut50, and others to personally appeal to the President, as well as the offices of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Angelos, Johnson, and others, along with a number of celebrities and other influential business people like NBA star Kevin Garnett and former senior vice president and general counsel of Koch Industries Mark Holden, delivered to Kushner’s office in November 2020 a list of 24 people who are currently federally incarcerated on cannabis offenses and who the activists think deserve pardoning. This followed a previous letter sent to the Trump administration, which had originally been sent in March 2020 without a list of names but advocating for the release of prisoners jailed on cannabis and other drug charges.
On the November list and likely to be included in the final batch of pardons is Luke Scarmazzo, who was sentenced to 22-years in prison for owning and operating a state-legal medical cannabis dispensary in Modesto, CA. Though it was legal to do so in California per Proposition 215, which legalized medical cultivation, sales, and consumption in the state, cannabis still remained a Schedule I controlled substance and therefore technically still subject to federal prosecution. Scarmazzo and his partner, Ricardo Montes, were prosecuted in federal court and sentenced to over 20 years imprisonment in 2008.
Montes had his sentence commuted by President Obama in 2017, but Scarmazzo’s petition was denied. It has been widely assumed by many in the cannabis activism community that Scarmazzo’s budding rap career at the time played a significant role in their arrests and eventual sentencing.
In particular, Scarmazzo appeared in a hip-hop video titled “Business Man” under his rap alias, Kraz, where he rapped about cannabis and the various spoils that come from selling it. In refrain, Scarmazzo is heard yelling, “Fuck the Feds!” The prosecutor on the case, Kathleen Servatius, said at the time that,“we don’t prosecute people because they sing songs. We prosecute people because they sold marijuana in violation of federal law.”
On behalf of Mission Green, Angelos said that he had been notified by the White House that Scarmazzo will also be coming home. The organization will be paying for Scarmazzo’s family to travel to Yazoo, MS, to pick him up.
Other notable pardons regarding drug offenses include Craig Cesal, who has been serving a life sentince without parole on a cannabis charge; Darrell Frazier, who has already served over 30 years of a life sentence on a drug conspiracy conviction; Michael Pelletier, who is serving a life sentence under a cannabis conspiracy charge; and Lavonne Roach, who is serving a 30-year sentence after being convicted with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamines