>Sender: >To: >X-Original-Message-ID: <001b01bf1855$bf993980$9acf69cf@pacbell.net> >From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: now is the time for your tears >Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 21:11:55 -0700 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >Pubdate: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 >Source: New York Daily News (NY) >Copyright: 1999 Daily News, L.P. >Contact: voicers@nydailynews.com >Website: http://www.nydailynews.com/ >Forum: http://townhall.mostnewyork.com/mb/index.html > >A LOVING DAD DIES IN PRISON > >Ed Garcia buried his 68-year-old father the week before Labor Day. >Jose Garcia, who suffered from chronic heart trouble and used a >wheelchair for nearly a decade, succumbed to a final massive heart >attack the morning of Aug. 22 in Green Haven prison. > >A Cuban immigrant who came to this country in the 1950s, he had worked >for most of his life as a hotel banquet waiter, was married to the >same woman for 41 years, and put his son and daughter through Catholic >schools. > >"He was a fantastic father, looking after us constantly," Ed Garcia, >38, who is now a Wall Street broker, said last week. > >His father always taught them to obey the law, Ed recalled. But a >decade ago, already sick and disabled, Jose Garcia made a foolish >mistake and violated his own teachings. > >The crack epidemic was at its height then, with so much fast money >chasing the next big high that some corners of Washington Heights >mushroomed into round-the-clock drug bazaars. > >Jose Garcia agreed to become a lookout for a drug gang on his block. >Cops busted the operation in 1989. > >Prosecutors knew it was Garcia's first brush with the law, that he was >58 and already very sick. They offered him a chance to cop a plea in >exchange for a four-year sentence. All he had to do was testify >against the other gang members. But gang leaders sent word that if he >sang they'd go after his family. > >Garcia refused the plea and was convicted at trial of an A-1 drug >felony. > >He faced a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life under the >Rockefeller drug laws, even though nobody involved in the case thought >he deserved that much time. > >"It was never the People's contention that he was the brains, or >mastermind of the operation, or the head of the organization," >prosecutor Arlette Hernes told the court in an unusual request for >leniency in sentencing. > >"I think it is sad," replied Supreme Court Judge Leslie Crocker >Snyder, who's known as one of the toughest judges in town. "You were >not a major figure here....Unfortunately, I have no choice as to what >the sentence will be, because I certainly would have been happy to >impose a lesser sentence. In your case, I can only hope your health >won't suffer too much." > >Garcia was immediately shipped to Green Haven's Unit for the >Physically Disabled, where he ended up in a wheelchair. > >His wife, Hilda, children and grandchildren continued to visit him >regularly, and several of them joined the campaign to reform the harsh >Rockefeller laws. > >"It tore my family up," Ed Garcia said. "A man who had done so much >for us spending his last years this way." > >In late 1994, the family got State Sen. Olga Mendez to appeal to the >governor for a medical parole. > >"Jose is suffering from a debilitating heart condition, which coupled >with his advanced years may have tragic results," Mendez warned. > >Later that year, Mendez got a response. Garcia's application was under >consideration, the letter said. > >The next year, George Pataki took office as governor. Several years >passed before the family got a decision from the Pataki >administration. > >"Insufficient basis to warrant the exercise of the governor's clemency >powers," James Murray, the director of the governor's Executive >Clemency Bureau, wrote on July 21, 1998. > >By then, reporters at this newspaper had exposed how the Parole Board >under Pataki had granted freedom to 1,277 felons, including 158 >imprisoned for the same serious drug charge as Garcia's. > >Among those freed were two Israeli mobsters, Ziv Oved and Moshe Cohen, >who were convicted of running multimillion-dollar international drug >rings. Both were released and deported after Brooklyn businessman Leon >Perlmutter, a Pataki friend and fund-raiser, made an appeal. Cohen had >served only six years of an 18-year-to-life sentence. > >Another man who got early release was John Kim, convicted of three >armed robberies in Queens. A second Pataki fund-raiser had interceded >in Kim's behalf. > >But Jose Garcia got no mercy. > >His son talked to Garcia by telephone on Aug. 21. They discussed the >usual things sons and fathers talk about: the baseball season, >politics, the family. > >About 7:30 the next morning, a guard making the rounds at Green Haven >noticed inmate Garcia lying on the floor of his cell. One of the >oldest Rockefeller law inmates had completed his maximum sentence. > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------