As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) prepares to finally step down tomorrow, the disgraced outgoing governor handed out several pardons and commutations, including for a convicted murderer and domestic terrorist, as reported by the New York Post.
On Monday, Cuomo issued four commutations and one pardon, as well as a referral to the state parole board for a 76-year-old prisoner who was convicted on three counts of second-degree murder and four counts of first-degree murder in 1981. David Gilbert, a member of the far-left terrorist organization Weather Underground, had been sentenced to 75 years in prison for his role in the Brink’s armored car robbery in 1981, which led to the deaths of two police officers and one Brink’s guard.
Originally sentenced to have no chance at parole until the year 2056, Cuomo’s office had been lobbied about Gilbert’s case by none other than Gilbert’s son Chesa Boudin, who currently serves as San Francisco’s District Attorney. Gilbert’s wife Kathy had also participated in the robbery and, after pleading guilty to felony murder and robbery, was paroled in 2003.
Cuomo said that Gilbert would be referred to the parole board for a possible early release, citing his “significant contributions to AIDS education and prevention programs,” in addition to his time spent as “a student tutor, law library clerk, paralegal assistant, a teacher’s aide, and an aide for various additional facility programs.”
The four sentence commutations issued by Cuomo were given to the following convicted murderers: Paul Mingo, 68, convicted of murdering a Queens couple in 1980; Robert Ehrenberg, 62, convicted of robbing and killing a man in 1992; Ulysses Boyd, 66, convicted of committing murder at a Harlem crack house in 1986; and Paul Clark, 59, convicted of killing a 17-year-old at a block party in 1980.
The single pardon that Cuomo issued was for Lawrence Penn III, the founder of private equity firm Camelot Acquisitions, who had pleaded guilty in 2015 to stealing over $9 million from his investors. He served two years in prison.
Cuomo announced his resignation on August 10th, roughly a week after a damning report was released by State Attorney General Letitia James (D-N.Y.) finding that Cuomo had sexually harassed or assaulted at least 11 women who worked in his office. After universal calls for his resignation, including from Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, Cuomo announced his resignation, handing power to his Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.). Cuomo may still face criminal charges for his conduct even after leaving office, and is also facing scrutiny for his administration’s coverup of the true death toll of elderly New York residents in nursing homes, after Cuomo ordered that patients who tested positive for the coronavirus be placed in such homes anyway.