A Lake Station man serving a prison sentence for dealing narcotics was among 214 individuals to receive sentence commutations Wednesday from President Barack Obama.
White House officials said it was the largest batch of commutations on a single day in more than a century, including 67 life sentences. The releases — reflecting Obama’s push to lessen the burden on nonviolent drug offenders — will occur over the next two years, including that of Reinaldo Arocho, 50, of Lake Station.
Arocho was sentenced in January 2000 to 32 years and 3 months in prison on charges of drug conspiracy, maintaining a drug house, distribution of crack cocaine, carrying a firearm during drug trafficking, and attempting to corruptly persuade a witness, according to a White House press release.
A year later, Arocho’s sentence was reduced to 300 months, and now he’ll be released on Dec. 1, about halfway into his original sentence, according to the release. Arocho was also fined $5,000 and sentenced to 10 years supervised release.
Arocho, reputed in the late 1990s as a “crack” house operator in the 1100 Block of Clay Street in Gary, was convicted in U.S. District Court in Hammond along with Marc Flores, then 24, of Gary. Flores received 27 years in prison on charges of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, maintaining a place for that purpose and carrying a firearm during trafficking, court records stated.
A check of the federal prison inmate locater shows that Flores was released in 2012.
Jesse Colon, of Gary — a third suspect named in the eight-count federal indictment at the time — was sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years. A jury found him responsible for more than 1.5 kilograms of crack cocaine and 44.7 grams of heroin, reports stated. The inmate locater found a man by that name in a medium-security facility in Victorville, Calif., with a 2037 release date.
In subsequent appeals of their sentences, Arocho, Flores and Colon argued the court improperly calculated the amount of narcotics involved as determined by the judge in their trials rather than the jury. An appeals court ruled that the error in not sending the quantity of the drugs to the jury did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of the judicial proceeding.
Jim Masters is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
The Associated Press contributed.