SJ Drug Offender Gets Prison Reprieve From The White House
By KYW's David Madden
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A South Jersey man has seen his federal jail term on a drug conviction paired down by a decade by President Obama.
48-year-old Mark Lanzilotti of Sewell has done 16 years of a 30-year sentence, which via appeal had been reduced from a life term. The commutation cuts the sentence to 20 years, and given good behavior, he could be in a halfway house within a few months.
That's according to Philadelphia paralegal Vincent Motto, who's worked for more than two years on Lanzilotti's behalf. "His former prosecutor, now in private practice, sent a letter in saying that he believed that Lanziotti got a raw deal and he shouldn't have got that much time.," Motto told KYW Newsradio.
The White House announced more than a hundred commutations for non-violent drug offenders, bringing the total number issued by Mister Obama to 673, more than the past 10 presidents combined.
Motto says Lanzilotti has plans for when he becomes a free man.
"He got his certification in drug counseling and alcohol addiction while he was in the institution," he said, "and he wants to stay in that field."
That way, Motto says, his client feels he can "put something back into the community that he may have taken out."
