President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of notorious former gang leader Larry Hoover after being lobbied for years by Kanye West.
Hoover, now 74, was the leader of the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples and was convicted in 1997 for running the criminal enterprise.
He was serving a 200-year sentence in a Colorado supermax prison, but after the president’s intervention, he will be transferred to a state prison in Illinois to see out the rest of the sentence.
Prosecutors described Hoover as “one of the most notorious criminals in Illinois history.” In court filings, they said that he was responsible for directing “violence and drug trafficking in Chicago from at least 1970 until 1995.”
Hoover’s attorneys welcomed the move from Trump and said that Hoover has demonstrated “considerable growth and complete rehabilitation” behind bars.
“Despite the Court’s unwillingness to do the right thing, Mr. Hoover has been able to keep his voice alive through the incredible work of many advocates and supporters,” they said in a statement to CBS News. “Thankfully, Mr. Hoover’s pleas were heard by President Trump who took action to deliver justice for Mr. Hoover.”
Hoover’s legal team was told Monday that the commutation was going ahead, according to The New York Times.
“This is an older gentleman who has a lot of health concerns and who has aged out of criminality,” Justin Moore, one of his lawyers, said.
Trump was lobbied to commute the gangster’s sentence by West, which intensified after Alice Marie Johnson, the president’s “pardon czar,” was appointed to advise the White House, according to Moore.
“WORDS CAN’T EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR OUR DEVOTED ENDURING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP FOR FREEING LARRY HOOVER,” West said in a post on X, even though Hoover will remain locked up.
West met with Trump at the White House in 2018 where he said it was “very important” to him to free Hoover.
“ I have to go and get him free because he was doing positive inside of Chicago, just like how I’m moving back to Chicago, and it’s not just about, you know, getting on stage and being an entertainer and having a monolithic voice that’s forced to be a specific party,” West said, according to a transcript of the meeting.
In 2022, Hoover claimed he is “no longer the Larry Hoover people sometimes talk about, or he who is written about in the papers, or the crime figure described by the government.”
He claimed he was “anecdotally” aware that “some misguided people” had used him as a symbol, adding that he wished “this were not so.”
“I am no longer a member, leader, or even an elder statesman of the Gangster Disciples,” Hoover wrote. “I want nothing to do with it now and forever.”
Federal prosecutors claimed that Hoover has continued to orchestrate gang activity in some capacity while imprisoned, and have stated that they believe he would attempt to reclaim his position as the gang’s leader if released.
In July 2020, Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, US Attorney John Lausch, told the judge that it would be a “miscarriage of justice to reduce [Hoover’s] sentence in any way, shape or form”.
