Pubdate: Thu, 31 Mar 2005
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2005 Newsday Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308
Author: Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws)

JUDGE REDUCES FORMER STUDENT'S ROCKEFELLER DRUG SENTENCE

An inmate, sentenced to 16 years to life in prison on drug charges
while he was a University of Pennsylvania student, should be home
within a week because of the reduced sentence he received Wednesday
from a Manhattan judge.

Christopher Clemente, 34, who originally was sentenced under the harsh
1970s-era Rockefeller drug laws, has been in prison for 14 years. His
resentencing to a shorter term was made possible by changes in the
laws recently enacted by the state legislature. Clemente was
resentenced to eight years by State Supreme Court Justice Richard B.
Lowe, who had imposed the original sentence in February 1991 after a
jury convicted Clemente of first-degree drug possession.

The new sentence means Clemente will be released from the Sullivan
Correctional Annex in Fallsburg, N.Y., as early as next weekend, said
his lawyer Ronald L. Kuby.

Clemente was 20 and a sophomore business major at Penn when he was
arrested Jan. 10, 1990, in a Harlem drug den on West 112th Street,
near Columbia University, with more than 2,000 vials of crack, $12,000
in cash and two handguns.

Defense lawyer William Kunstler said at trial that Clemente knew
nothing about the drugs, cash and guns, and that he had borrowed the
apartment while home on Christmas vacation to have sex with girlfriend
and codefendant, Leah Bundy, then 21.

But police testified that before Clemente opened the door to let them
in, he threw the guns, crack and a nail-studded baseball bat out of
the window into an alley below.

Bundy, also convicted in connection with the apartment drug stash and
sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, was granted clemency by Gov.
George Pataki after she had served 10 years of her sentence, Kuby said.
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