In this episode I will be talking to Paul Kratsas about his story that starts in 1990 when a drug deal went bad. Paul's last drug deal ended in him being shot in the face, robbed, car jacked, and being arrested in the hospital as the perpetrator of a crime. * Paul was sentenced to life with out the possibility of parole for one count of conspiracy to sell 5 kilos of cocaine even though there were never any drugs present at the scene of the instant offense, or anywhere else for that matter. * Paul refused to take a plea deal and went to trial and and lost. He was punished with a life sentence that the judge didn't want to give him, but his hands were tied. In 1994 when the crime bill was passed it doubled the mandatory minimums for drug offenders and took the judges discretion away from them in sentencing. * On February 5, 2021 Paul received a compassionate release from federal prison due to the first step act that was a bipartisan criminal justice bill that was signed into law by President Trump in December of 2018. Below is the section of the law that pertained to Paul. * Title IV makes a variety of sentencing reforms. Section 401 amends the Controlled Substance Act (21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.) to constrain the application of sentencing enhancements for defendants with prior drug felony convictions by redefining “serious drug felony” and “serious violent felony,” to reduce the mandatory minimum sentence for a second violation from 20 years to 15 years, and to reduce the mandatory minimum sentence for a third violation from life to 25 years. It makes similar revisions to the Controlled Substance Import and Export Act at 21 U.S.C. § 960(b). * * Please sign these petitions: * Petition for release: