In 2003, a low-level cannabis case would end Weldon Angelos’ budding and promising career in the music industry. But it would also give birth to a national movement to reform our country’s criminal justice system, uniting far right conservatives like billionaire Charles Koch and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) with liberals such as Senator Corey Booker, Van Jones and musicians Alicia Keys, and Snoop Dogg.
Weldon Angelos was a “rising star” whose world was turned upside down when he was targeted by a confidential informant and a UTAH drug task force in sting operation that, according to The Nation, “reeked of entrapment.” Weldon sold $350 worth of cannabis to a confidential informant on three occasions. Utilizing the ever-expanding federal criminal code, prosecutors turned the three small transactions into 20 distinct federal crimes, including five counts that mandated a total of 105 years of prison time if convicted. This would radically alter the fate of Weldon Angelos.
As noted by the New York Times, the story of Weldon Angelos “spurred intense soul-searching” and sparked a movement that would unite the most interesting figures in politics and entertainment paving a road to a presidential pardon, a life of unwavering activism, the signing of the first meaningful criminal justice reform in a generation and ultimately working with old creative collaborator, Snoop Dogg to secure a presidential pardon and release for the financier of Death Row records, Michael "Harry-O" Harris.
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