Biden Announces Pardons

Biden PARDON Announcement – It’s Official!

(NewsReady.com) – Since 2017, America has recognized April as Second Chance Month. It’s a month for people who have completed their sentences to find new opportunities and become contributing members of society. On Tuesday, April 26, President Joe Biden issued his first set of pardons and commutations in honor of Second Chance Month.

The president issued several pardons and commutations, including a pardon for former Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden, the first black agent in the agency’s history. In 1964, he was charged (and later convicted) for trying to sell a Secret Service file, an allegation he always denied. Some of the witnesses who testified against him admitted to lying.

JUST IN: President Biden pardoned Abraham Bolden, the Chicago man who was the first Black Secret Service agent to serve on a White House detail, and who maintained charges against him that led to prison time were trumped up. https://t.co/xzv8kJGTGD

— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) April 26, 2022

Betty Jo Bogans, 51, and Dexter Jackson, 52, also received pardons. Bogans was served seven years in prison for transporting crack cocaine to her boyfriend; she was a first-time offender at the time of her conviction. Jackson allowed marijuana dealers to do business at his pool hall. In 2002, he was convicted for the crime.

The POTUS also commuted the sentences of 75 nonviolent drug offenders. Many of them would have been eligible for lighter sentences under former President Donald Trump’s First Step Act, which sought to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system.