When President Joe Biden announced his clemency spree last week — where he went beyond Hunter and began going full Oprah, basically saying “You get a reduced sentence, and you get a reduced sentence, and you …!” — the White House said it was part of the administration “taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”
“These commutation recipients, who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic, have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance,” said Biden — or whoever wrote this for him, because clearly we’re beyond the point of diminishing returns with linguistic clarity when it comes to president No. 46.
“I will take more steps in the weeks ahead,” the statement continued, almost as a warning. “My Administration will continue reviewing clemency petitions to advance equal justice under the law, promote public safety, support rehabilitation and reentry, and provide meaningful second chances.”
Well, it turns out that one very violent offender included in the clemency spree is getting a fourth chance — and given her history, the odds of her needing a fifth chance to see the outside of a prison again are definitely nonzero.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, unnoticed in the clemency-a-thon was the commutation of the 40-year sentence of Virginia Gray for the murder of three lovers, two husbands and a boyfriend, between 1974 and 1996, in insurance fraud.
“Biden, in order to correct historical ‘injustices,’ granted clemency to those ‘convicted of non-violent crimes who were sentenced under outdated laws, policies, and practices that left them with longer sentences than if the individuals were sentenced today,’ the White House said,” according to the Free Beacon.
“Gray, who collected $165,000 from the three insurance settlements, was charged with murder by Maryland state authorities but ultimately convicted in federal court in 2002 for insurance fraud for violating what’s known as the ‘slayers rule,’ which prohibits killers from receiving inheritance and insurance proceeds from their victims’ death,” the Free Beacon reported.
“Witnesses at Gray’s various trials accused her of using intimidation tactics — including threats of voodoo — to coerce them into remaining silent. ‘It was the witchcraft, mostly,’ Lenron Goode, the brother of Gray’s third victim, told the Washington Post in 2002.”
Yes, those non-violent voodoo-practicing partner-killers so prolific they garnered the nickname “The Black Widow.” She was apparently deadly enough that she received a 40-year sentence in prison in 2002, which was upheld in 2006 after several appeals.
Maryland’s state attorney didn’t even bother to hold a trial, in fact, because Gray’s federal sentence “ensures she will die in prison.”
Whoops! Might have rethought that one; I guess he didn’t figure on a pandemic that created home confinement conditions for prisoners like her and then set them up for release by a president who, now that he’s on his way out, is treating clemency or pardon petitions like Mel Brooks’ governor in “Blazing Saddles.”
And as for the federal prosecutor who handled her case, he said it “puts the lie to [Biden’s claim that] these are non-violent offenders.”
“It p***es me off, as you can imagine,” former U.S. attorney James Trusty told the Free Beacon.
“This doesn’t feel like a ‘rule of law’ moment for the Biden administration,” he added.
And the so-called non-violent offenders don’t look too much better, either.
“Biden also commuted prison sentences for a Mississippi cancer doctor who diluted chemotherapy drugs as part of a Medicare fraud scheme, an Illinois comptroller who embezzled $53 million in the biggest municipal fraud case in the nation’s history, and the 15-year sentence of Wendy Hechtman, a former journalist convicted of manufacturing and selling a drug considered more potent than fentanyl,” the Free Beacon noted.
“An Omaha police detective who investigated Hechtman said her drug operation was suspected in at least six overdose deaths. That investigation ‘now feels wasted,’ Chris Perna, the Omaha investigator, told the Free Beacon.”
And then there was the infamous William Conahan, the former Pennsylvania juvenile judge who sent more than 2,000 minors to prison under what prosecutors called the “Kids for Cash” bribery scheme.
This even earned him the ire of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who said, “I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
“Some children took their lives because of this. Families were torn apart,” Shapiro said. “There was all kinds of mental health issues and anguish that came as a result of these corrupt judges deciding they wanted to make a buck off a kid’s back.”
Yes, but did he kill three lovers and then threaten to use voodoo to keep the deaths silent? That’s what I thought; although it’s really hard to pick the worst of these, this certainly seems to take the cake.
Even more troubling, however? He’s not done yet, as he’s made clear. Be worried, America.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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