Bush Pardons a Hip-Hop Artist With Famous Supporters

Brad Haynes reports on politics. Though President Bush’s clemency decisions yesterday included none of the high-profile supplicants or sweeping pardons that some are expecting, he did commute the sentence of a Grammy-winning hip hop artist with some prominent supporters. After songwriters from Carly Simon to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch pitched his plea, former Fugee producer John Forte is a free man, having served half of his 14-year sentence in connection with cocaine offenses. Forte, who studied violin at Phillips Exeter Academy on a full scholarship, has always protested his innocence and says he has never tried cocaine. After the Fugees’ Grammy-winning 1996 album, Forte’s solo career floundered and he says he made the mistake of associating with the wrong people at a desperate time. Still, when federal agents recorded him telling an associate’s couriers to “put the ice cream in the tub,” Forte says he understood the conversation to be about money – not the $1.4 million ... (link)