Judge urges Obama to commute harsh sentence he imposed

Judge urges Obama to commute harsh sentence he imposed

(AP Photo/File)


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — In 2004, Judge Paul Cassell sentenced Weldon Angelos to prison.

Now, Cassell has sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to let Angelos out.

In 2004, Cassell — now a University of Utah law professor and victim rights advocate who resigned as a federal judge in Salt Lake City — presided over the case of Angelos, the founder of the Utah-based rap music label Extravagant Records. A jury convicted him of dealing marijuana, gun possession and money laundering. It was Angelos' first drug offense.

Angelos made two $350 marijuana deals with an undercover agent while carrying a handgun that he never used or pulled out.

Based on the sentencing guidelines, Cassell was forced to sentence Angelos, then 24 and married with two young children, to a minimum-mandatory sentence of 55 years behind bars.

During the sentencing hearing, Cassell expressed his extreme displeasure with the guidelines he was required to follow as set by Congress, calling it a "draconian" prison sentence that was "unjust, cruel and even irrational." At the time, Cassell called on President George W. Bush to commute the sentence to one that was more in line with Angelos' crimes, suggesting possibly 18 years. Nine of the 12 jurors who convicted Angelos, when questioned, agreed that a sentence of 18 years was appropriate.

Tuesday, Cassell made a renewed call for a president to commute Angelos' sentence, this time sending a letter to President Obama.

"Now that Mr. Angelos has served more than 12 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. In looking back on the case, it was one of the most troubling that I ever faced in my five years on the federal bench," Cassell states in his letter. "If my hands had not been tied by these draconian provisions, I would have imposed a substantially lower sentence — a sentence that would have likely led to him having already been released."

Cassell also notes in his letter that on the same day he sentenced Angelos to 55 years in prison for a drug deal, he sentenced a man to 21 years in prison for murder based on the same guidelines.

"Because his appeals have been exhausted, the only solution for Angelos is a presidential commutation. I urge you to swiftly commute his sentence," he concluded in his letter.

A University of Utah news release issued Tuesday said the Angelos case was "the chief reason Cassell chose to step down from the federal bench." Yet when Cassell resigned in 2007, he said that case and his frustration over minimum-mandatory sentences had no bearing on his decision but he looked forward to speaking freely about such issues.

In 2013, a letter signed by a group of 120 former judges, prosecutors, government officials, and prominent authors, scholars and businessmen also sent a letter to Obama asking that Angelos' sentence be commuted. Among those who signed the letter were former Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, former Gov. Norm Bangerter, former Utah Sen. Jake Garn, the Rev. Francis Davis of Salt Lake's Calvary Baptist Church, former Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Zimmerman and musician Bonnie Raitt.

An online petition started by Angelos' sister now has more than 260,000 signatures asking the president to grant clemency.

"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 Jan. 4, 2015, that's exactly what happened. Our father died without seeing his son free from behind bars. The Constitution provides the president with the power of commutation to reach a humane, merciful, just result," Lisa Angelos wrote in her petition.

She hopes Cassell's letter is a turning point. She said her brother has spent his time in a prison in California earning a business degree, working in the institution's dental lab and tutoring others.

His sons, now 17 and 19, recently saw their father for the first time in years, she told the Associated Press. "He's missing out on basically their entire lives," Lisa Angelos said.

Related stories

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

U.S.UtahPolitics
Pat Reavy

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast