Cuomo grants six more clemencies before leaving office
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Greg Mingo was one of six men to have their applications for clemency granted by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. Photo courtesy of the Free Greg Mingo campaign
By Jacob Kaye
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo granted clemency to six men late Monday night in the final hours of his last day as New York’s top executive.
Last week, Cuomo granted clemency to 10 people and was quickly encouraged by criminal justice advocates to grant more on his way out.
Five of the men had their prison sentences commuted Monday, including 76-year-old David Gilbert, 62-year-old Robert Ehrenberg, 66-year-old Ulysses Boyd, 59-year-old Paul Clark and 68-year-old Greg Mingo. Lawrence Penn, a 51-year-old man who was convicted of falsifying business records in 2015, was granted a full pardon.
Mingo was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison for a in a double murder committed in Queens in 1980. Prior to the granting of his clemency application, Mingo, who has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested in 1981, wouldn’t have been eligible for parole until 2031, when he’ll be 78 years old.
In recent years, Mingo’s family, friends and advocates teamed up to help run a campaign to get him out of prison.
Last week, Diana Scholl, who has spent the past year campaigning to free Mingo, told the Eagle that she was hopeful that Cuomo would grant more clemencies before resigning but that she also had her sights on using now-Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration or other legislative options to free the 68-year-old man.
On Tuesday, Scholl told the Eagle that she was “shocked” by the 11th hour announcement.
“We were just starting to be like, ‘Okay, we're not going to call it till 11:59, but it’s time to start figuring out the next steps and we'll get him out one way or another, it's just going to take a while,’” Scholl said. “And then to have it happen yesterday, was just, it was incredible. I'm so happy.”
Evonne Nemes, Mingo’s sister, was around 25 years old when her brother was arrested and convicted. Nemes said the fact that her brother will be home in about a month feels “surreal.” Mingo’s been incarcerated for the majority of Nemes’ adult life.
“It was really a surprise,” Nemes said. “I’m most excited that he will get to live the rest of his life outside of prison. However that life looks – whether he does legal work, takes up painting, whatever, however it looks for him and what he wants to do.”
“That’s what’s most important right now,” Nemes added.
Greg Mingo, who served nearly 40 years in prison for a double murder he claims he didn’t committ, was granted clemency on Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. Photo courtesy of the Free Greg Mingo campaign
Mingo was one of an estimated 2,500 incarcerated New Yorkers to have their applications for clemency cross the governor’s desk in 2020, according to the Release Aging People from Prison campaign.
Steve Zeidman, an attorney and professor at the CUNY School of Law who worked with all five men who had their sentences commuted on Monday, said that while all five, and thousands of others, are equally deserving of clemency, Mingo’s case was “emblematic” of so many other incarcerated people’s cases.
“In Greg's case, he's 68 years old – we have an increasingly aging population in New York State prisons and you have to ask yourself, what purpose is served by keeping people in their 60s and 70s until they perish in prison?” Zeidman said. “Greg has been in 40 years, we have more and more people who have served sentences unknown to any other industrialized nation. I mean, off the charts.”
In both 2015 and 2017, Cuomo announced that his administration was making a push to process more clemency applications. The power to grant clemency rests solely in the hands of the governor. Some attorneys and advocates said they felt let down by Cuomo, who they say didn't use his power to the full extent.
“The numbers don't live up to the promise and he's not unique in that way,” Zeidman said. “It’s not as if there are a lot of governors using this vast clemency power.”
“I think it's obviously politics,” he added. “It's fear of being labeled soft on crime. Yet, we're living in an era where everyone agrees we have a problem with mass incarceration and that requires mass clemency.”
Zeidman said that he hopes Hochul will break from tradition in the way clemencies are granted in New York. Instead of primarily granting clemencies around the holidays, he instead suggested clemencies be granted on a rolling basis throughout the year.
“It's supposed to be this act of mercy consistent with the holidays and the new year, but it seems to me that someone who merits clemency on Dec. 24, surely they merited it on Nov. 24, Oct, 3, June 5, pick your date,” he said.
All of the five men to have their sentences commuted this week were either convicted of murder or of crimes related to murder, something Jose Saldana, the director the RAPP Campaign said was important.
“The most credible messengers are the old timers who did a lot of time,” Saldana said. “Those who were mentors inside for decades, are now the most successful credible messengers being a valuable asset to their communities and addressing a lot of the social ills that impact our communities.”
Chel Miller, the communications director with the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault said that clemencies like those issued this week show that people are not defined by the worst thing they may have done.
“We believe that we are all capable of meaningful accountability when our humanity is recognized, and we have access to hope and resources and community support,” Miller said. “The reality is that those are not available in prisons on a large scale...The stories of David Gilbert, Greg Mingo, Robert Ehrenberg, Ulysses Boyd and Paul Clark and Lawrence Penn, show that they are more than the moments that they can never change.”
Mingo is scheduled to leave prison next month, when he’ll return to live with his family. His family says that Mingo has plans to fight to get his conviction overturned in the near future. His sister said that she’s not sure what to expect.
“It was just 40 years of firsts so I don’t know what this is going to look like,” Nemes said. “I just know that our family supports him, we love him, we miss him and we can’t wait for him to be here.”
“I just want to make sure that however it works out, that he’s happy and that he has a better life than he had the last 40 years,” she added.
