Pubdate: Sun, 16 Aug 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Sari Horwitz

UNLIKELY ALLIES

A Bipartisan Push for Sentencing Reform Unites President Obama and 
the Koch Brothers, but Many Are Still Waiting Behind Bars

The gleaming black granite tower where conservative billionaire 
Charles Koch oversees an empire of multinational corporations is 
1,500 miles and worlds away from the California prison cell of Weldon Angelos.

But Angelos sits at the intersection of an unusual alliance between 
the industrialist and President Obama - longtime political nemeses. 
Their cooperation illustrates the depth of a bipartisan effort to 
reduce the nation's

Serving a 55-year sentence, Weldon Angelos is the face of the Koch 
campaign for criminal justice reform. overcrowded prisons and undo 
the show-no-mercy sentences meted out to drug offenders in recent decades.

As Koch has emerged as one of the most influential advocates of 
sentencing reform, he has seized on the Angelos story to illustrate 
the inequities of the American criminal justice system. And Angelos 
is one of thousands of prisoners who have applied for clemency from 
the president under an initiative launched by the Obama 
administration. The onetime rapper from Utah was sentenced in 2004 to 
a mandatory 55 years in federal prison after he was arrested for 
selling a total of about $1,000 worth of marijuana in three separate 
transactions with a police informant.

"I obviously did something illegal, which was stupid," said Angelos, 
now 36, in an interview at the federal prison in Mendota, Calif. 
"I've accepted responsibility for everything, and I've already served 
12 years of my life because of my mistakes. I lost the family I 
started, my career and my father's final days. I just want to move 
on. My main goal in life is to get out and take care of my children."

He was 25 when he was sent away, and he will be nearly 80 when he 
gets out. The federal judge who put him there expressed his 
frustration and anger at the "irrational" sentence he was compelled 
to impose and urged then-President George W. Bush to commute it.

"Monstrous," said Koch, 79, of the Angelos case. "Obscene. Somebody 
makes one mistake, violates a law - and I'm not talking about people 
who are violent criminals who are hurting people and destroying 
property - and their lives are ruined by these massive sentences."

Koch and his brother, David, have used their vast wealth to counter 
Obama at almost every turn, from the administration's initiatives on 
climate change to health-care reform. But the recent detente began 
with a 45minute meeting at the White House between one of the 
president's most trusted confidantes and the top lawyer for Koch Industries.

Last month, when Obama granted clemency to 46 inmates and just before 
he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, he 
gave a shout-out to the Koch brothers in a speech during an NAACP conference.

"This is a cause that's bringing people in both houses of Congress 
together," Obama said. "It's created some unlikely bedfellows. You've 
got Van Jones and Newt Gingrich. You've got Americans for Tax Reform 
and the ACLU. You've got the NAACP - and the Koch brothers." The 
audience started laughing. These, after all, were the brothers that 
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) called "un-American" 
and spoke of their role in political life as "the shadowy influence 
of two powerdrunk billionaires."

But Koch Industries is urging support of the same legislation in 
Congress that is backed by Obama as his administration tries to 
reduce the burgeoning prison population, cut the billions spent on 
inmates and reverse severe drug-sentencing policies that began with 
the crack cocaine epidemic.

Obama interrupted the laughter. "No, you've got to give them credit," 
he said. "You've got to call it like you see it."

Unjust sentences

When he gives speeches, Charles Koch says he asks those in the 
audience to raise their hand if they have never made a mistake that 
could have gotten them in serious trouble.

"I've never had anyone raise his or her hand," he said in his office 
on the sprawling Koch Industries campus here. "There, but for the 
grace of God or good luck or good fortune, go all of us."

The industrialist said his interest in overhauling the criminal 
justice system is not new. For 12 years, Koch Industries, the 
country's second-largest private company with a $115 billion 
valuation, according to Forbes, has been working with the National 
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and is providing funding to 
train lawyers who represent indigent defendants. The group honored 
Koch Industries a few years ago with its Defender of Justice Leadership award.

Koch describes his focus on sentencing reform as part of his 
libertarian philosophy of limited government and his commitment to 
removing barriers of opportunity for the poor. He said Obama should 
do more and do it faster to rectify the effects of mandatory minimum 
sentences, especially for the disadvantaged and men and women of color.

"Clemency for a few - to me, that isn't just," said Koch, noting that 
the president has not granted clemency to Angelos despite appeals to 
do so from a large group of bipartisan lawmakers. "If you have 1,000 
people who got unjust sentences, to give clemency to [a few] - what 
about the others? Why should they suffer?"

But some Democratic groups remain skeptical about any recasting of 
the Kochs' image as anything other than megadonors who have long 
backed Republican politicians, including tea party candidates.

They've ridiculed the effort as "Kochshank Redemption," playing off 
the name of the 1994 movie "Shawshank Redemption," about an inmate 
sentenced to two life terms.

Liberal blog ThinkProgress has questioned how the Kochs can support 
criminal justice reform while also supporting candidates such as 
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R). As a state legislator, Walker 
sponsored dozens of tough-on-crime bills, including ones to increase 
mandatory minimum sentences and not allow parole for many offenders.

Critics have also noted the Kochs' support for the American 
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an advocacy group that helped 
push for mandatory minimum sentences, tough threestrikes laws and 
privatization of the prison industry.

Liberal watchdog group Bridge Project last month released a report, 
"The Koch Brothers' Criminal Justice Pump-Fake," attacking their work 
on criminal justice issues, saying the Kochs' interest in reform 
stems from a 97-count indictment and prosecution charging the Koch 
Petroleum Group and several employees with violating the Clean Air 
Act at its refinery in Corpus Christi, Tex.

David Uhlmann - the federal prosecutor who was head of the 
environmental crimes section of the Justice Department - described 
the lawsuit as "a classic case of environmental crime: illegal 
emissions of benzene - a known carcinogen - at levels 15 times 
greater than those allowed under federal law."

"Koch pleaded guilty and admitted that its employees engaged in an 
orchestrated scheme to conceal the benzene violations from state 
regulators and the Corpus Christi community," said Uhlmann, now a law 
professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

Uhlmann and other critics are reluctant to accept the Kochs' support 
for criminal justice reform at face value and think there must be a 
deeper political agenda-possibly to include the later pursuit of 
legal reforms that will benefit corporations.

"Their advocacy for less draconian drug laws could prove to be a 
stalking horse for their longstanding efforts to protect corporate 
criminals and roll back environmental, health and safety laws," he said.

Koch Petroleum was fined $10 million in the Corpus Christi case and 
ordered to pay another $10 million to fund environmental projects. In 
a plea agreement, the charges were dropped against the four employees.

In Charles Koch's opinion, the federal case was unjust.

"We had four innocent employees indicted," he said. "Okay, the 
company can handle it. Okay, we pay a fine and so on. What's so 
upsetting is seeing what it did to them personally and their families."

And Mark Holden, Koch Industries' general counsel and senior vice 
president, said the company "was railroaded" and that its experience 
in the Corpus Christi case "is what really started us working on 
criminal justice issues."

Of the skeptics, Holden said: "People are going to believe what they 
want to believe. We've been working on these issues for 12 years now. 
Charles has had these views his whole life, by and large. Just judge 
us by our actions. We're in this for the long haul."

In a nod to the moment, Holden has a T-shirt in his office with the 
words: "Koch. Not Entirely Awful," playing off the words of a recent article.

Van Jones, the president of #Cut50, a group seeking to cut the 
incarcerated population by 50 percent over the next 10 years, and the 
former special adviser on Obama's Council on Environmental Quality, 
defends the Kochs.

"In a democracy, when you disagree with somebody, you should really 
work hard against them," Jones said. "We oppose the Koch agenda when 
it comes to their pro-polluter, extremist agenda for the environment, 
and we fight real hard. But when you agree with them, you should work 
really hard alongside them. On criminal justice reform, we're very 
proud to work alongside them."

"And," Jones added, "I never met a single person in prison who said, 
'I sure hope the Republicans and the Koch brothers don't help me.' " 
A former prison guard

The Koch-Obama alliance began to take shape at the Washington 
Marriott Wardman Park hotel in March. In a hotel ballroom, #Cut50 
held a bipartisan criminal justice summit, hosted by former Obama 
administration official Jones and former Republican speaker of the 
House Newt Gingrich.

Roy Austin Jr., a deputy assistant to President Obama, approached 
Holden at the gathering and they traded business cards.

"Both our bosses care a lot about these issues," Austin said, 
according to Holden. He later invited him to the White House.

When Holden walked into a West Wing office to meet Austin on April 
16, one of Obama's closest advisers, Valerie Jarrett, was waiting for 
him, along with other White House officials.

"I decided to participate in the meeting to signal to him how 
important this effort is to President Obama," Jarrett said in an interview.

Jarrett was struck by Holden's sincerity and personal engagement with 
the issue.

"Mark was very forthcoming about why he thought it was important to 
his company and also why it was of personal importance to him," 
Jarrett said. "He shared his story about working as a prison guard."

After high school and during summer breaks in college, Holden had 
worked as a guard in a prison in Worcester, Mass., where he grew up. 
He said there weren't "a lot of rich people in prison" and that many 
of the inmates were kids he knew who had drug problems.

But what convinced Jarrett of Koch Industries' commitment was when 
she asked Holden's position on "ban the box," the effort to remove 
the criminal check box from job applications. It is a defining issue 
for reformers because the box has proved to be a critical barrier to 
getting former prisoners into the workforce. Employers tend to see 
the tick and dismiss the application.

Holden told her that Koch Industries, which has about 100,000 
employees worldwide, had joined Wal-Mart, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond 
and others in the "ban the box" movement.

Surprised, she asked Holden if he was willing to talk about it 
publicly and encourage other companies to do the same. He said he would.

"You have made my day," Jarrett said.

She told Obama about the meeting and said that she thought Holden and 
the Koch brothers were "very committed" to criminal justice reform. 
Obama didn't hesitate. The president's message to us was "work with 
whoever will help form that coalition of the willing," Jarrett said. 
"He's always been willing to work with people with whom he disagrees 
on many issues, searching for that common ground."

At the Aspen Ideas Festival in June, Jarrett met Charles Koch's 
brother, David, and in her speech there, mentioned the Koch brothers. 
The next month, Obama would do the same.

Holden, who is Charles Koch's point person on criminal justice 
reform, said he is focused on persuading more Republicans to pass 
criminal justice legislation, including the Safe, Accountable, Fair 
and Effective Justice Act introduced in June and sponsored by Reps. 
F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-Va.).

The bill would impose mandatory minimum sentences on highlevel drug 
traffickers rather than low-level, nonviolent ones; apply life 
sentences for drug trafficking only in egregious cases; and allow 
eligible offenders to petition for resentencing under new trafficking laws.

The criminal justice effort is being led by Charles Koch, Holden and 
a Koch Industries team in Washington. Much less involved is the 
network of conservative advocacy groups backed by Koch, such as 
Americans for Prosperity, which is more focused on energy regulation 
and government spending, and the LIBRE Initiative, which is working 
on immigration and education.

Holden declined to discuss the funding and resources dedicated to 
sentencing reform, except to say they were "significant." He also 
said Freedom Partners, which oversees the donor network the Koch 
brothers created, sent a questionnaire to all the 2016 presidential 
candidates that included two prominent questions on criminal justice issues.

Holden sometimes talks to people about Angelos, who was featured in a 
video that the Kochs helped produce.

"They all shake their heads and say, ' That was an unintended 
consequence and an outlier,' " Holden said. "I say, ' Well, maybe, 
but Angelos is more than that. He's a human being. And it's wrong. 
He's just one of many, many stories like that. The bad news is that 
this happened. The good news is we can fix this.' "

'Gun stacking'

Angelos has never met Charles Koch or anyone from Koch Industries. 
While people in Washington and Wichita debate sentencing reform and 
Justice Department lawyers sift through clemency petitions, he and 
thousands of others are still waiting for relief.

But he is acutely aware of the interest of politicians and activists 
in his case. Recently, he was holding up a radio to the window to get 
better reception and listen to a talk show on criminal justice 
issues. He heard Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul invoke his name.

"I heard him say, ' There's this guy, Weldon Angelos, and he got 55 
years' and I was like, 'Wow, he's talking about me!' "

He is hopeful that the influence of the Koch brothers and others 
could secure his release through presidential clemency and help other inmates.

"Their support is definitely going to make a difference," Angelos 
said. "I think it has already. Their coming out on this and telling 
Obama to grant these commutations and pass these bills has brought 
some Republicans around. We need that conservative support."

The son of a Greek immigrant, Angelos grewup poor and on food stamps. 
His escape was music. In his early 20s, Angelos founded a Utah-based 
rap label, Extravagant Records. Trying to break into the industry, he 
wrote and produced songs with several well-known artists, including Snoop Dogg.

"It was really promising," Angelos said. "But I just didn't have the 
financial backing I needed." In 2002, when he was 23, Angelos was 
arrested for selling marijuana to a Salt Lake City police informant.

"It ruined my career and my life," he said.

In the cell he shares with another inmate, Angelos has a small 
library of books. He is taking classes to get a college degree. Every 
night he calls his children. He hasn't had a visitor in three years.

Angelos hasn't seen his two boys - Anthony, 18, and Jesse, 16 - in 
eight years because they can't afford to travel to California. The 
boys and their mother recently moved in with Angelos's sister near 
Salt Lake City after they were evicted. His 12-year-old daughter, 
Meranda, who has a different mother, lives nearby. He last saw her 
three years ago.

Anthony reflected on his father's life in a video produced by 
Generation Opportunity Institute, a group backed by the Koch 
brothers, and Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the group that 
first told the Kochs about the Angelos case.

"I think it's cruel," he said. "I'm not saying he doesn't deserve 
anything, but he did serve his time, and I think he's in there long 
enough. The minimum should have been five years maybe. Fifty-five 
years is way too much. Way too much."

Angelos never used or pulled a gun, but the informant later testified 
in court that he saw one in Angelos's car during the first buy. He 
said that during the second buy, Angelos was wearing an ankle holster 
holding a firearm. Officers later searched his home and found guns.

The sentence Angelos received as a nonviolent first-time offender 
fell under a law called 924(c).

Federal drug laws require five-to-30-year mandatory minimum sentences 
for possessing, brandishing or discharging a gun during a 
drug-trafficking crime. For each subsequent gun conviction, there is 
a mandatory sentence of 25 years that must be served consecutively. 
This is often referred to as "gun stacking," which is why Angelos 
received 55 years without parole.

He received five years for the gun in the car; 25 years for the 
second gun charge, having one in an ankle strap; and another 25 years 
for a third firearms charge, the gun police found in his home. He got 
one day for the marijuana.

At Angelos's 2004 sentencing, Utah U.S. District Court Judge Paul G. 
Cassell, appointed by President George W. Bush, compared Weldon's 
sentence (738 months) with the guideline sentences for the kingpin of 
three major drug trafficking rings that caused three deaths (465 
months), a three-time aircraft hijacker (405 months), a second-degree 
murderer of three victims (235 months) and the rapist of three 
10-year-olds (188 months).

"This is the most difficult case that I've faced since taking the 
bench 21/2 years ago," said Cassell, now a professor at the 
University of Utah's law school.

"I believe that to sentence Mr. Angelos to prison for what would 
essentially be the rest of his natural life is unjust, cruel and even 
irrational."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom