A 48-year-old Connecticut drug kingpin who killed a mother and her 8-year-old son to keep her from testifying against his brother has been pardoned as part of former President Joe Biden’s nearly 2,500 federal prisoners he described as “non-violent”.
Adrian Peeler, a Bridgeport drug dealer, killed Karen Clarke’s wife and her 8-year-old son just weeks before they were to testify against his brother, who is accused of shooting Clarke’s boyfriend in front of the child.
The mother and son were ambushed as they walked home to their apartment in January 1999. Police found the boy with a bullet hole in the back of his head on the stairs and Clarke riddled with gunshot wounds and her hand outstretched inches from the phone, toward CT Post.
BIDEN PARDONS ‘POLICEMAN KILLERS’
Oswald Clarke, left, brother of Karen Clarke, is helped to her casket by funeral home employee Kevin Mitchell, Jan. 20, 1999, during a service at Community Church of God in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, file)
Peeler, the alleged killer, beat a capital charge of murder and served 25 years in state prison for conspiracy to commit murder. He also took a federal cocaine plea deal charges of human trafficking. After serving his sentence in Connecticut, he was transferred to federal custody to serve more time.
Peeler’s last appeal was rejected in October last year, but he had previously persuaded a judge to take 20 years off his sentence because of his good behavior and the young age at which he committed the murders. It would be released in 2034.
Biden’s last-minute pardon also surprised Clarke’s family.
“I’m sick and tired, and I’m disgusted,” her brother Oswald Clarke told The Associated Press. “It’s a very shocking thing. My family is very distraught about it. It’s like we’ve been traumatized all over again.”
In this July 1, 2016 file photo, Russell Peeler Jr. speaks in Bridgeport Superior Court in Bridgeport, Conn., where he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for ordering the killings in an 8-year-old murder trial. witness and the boy’s mother in 1999. His brother, Adrian Peeler, was the alleged killer. (Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, File)
On January 17, The White House boasted that Biden has issued more pardons and commutations “than any president in US history.”
“Today I am commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses who are serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy and practice,” Biden said in a statement.
Even top Democrats were surprised by this move.
“It seems to me that somebody dropped the ball here to let this person go free,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. CT Post. “This was a really cruel killing that changed our laws. It also highlights how we need to look at the pardon system to see how it can be improved.”
The killings prompted Connecticut officials to beef up the state’s witness protection program, and Bridgeport officials named a park in Clarke’s honor, the paper said.
BIDEN’S COMPLETE LIST OF PARDONS AND REMOVALS REVEALED
Peeler’s brother, Russell Peeler, was sentenced to death for ordering the killings, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole after Connecticut abolished the death penalty.
Biden’s list of “non-violent” pardon recipients, released separately, included more violent felons than just Peeler.
Two Virginia men serving life sentences in connection with a drug bust that killed a Sussex County police officer in 1998 have also been freed.
Ferrone Claiborne and Terence Richardson, known as the “Waverly Two,” both admitted to playing a role in the death of Officer Allen Gibson, but were later acquitted of murder charges at trial due to an apparent lack of evidence. However, they were convicted of lesser charges and sentenced to life in prison anyway.
President Joe Biden at the Department of Defense farewell ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Jan. 16, 2025, in Arlington, Va. In his last days in office, he granted thousands of pardons. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Gibson, 25, stumbled upon a drug deal in Waverly involving Richardson and Claiborne. According to the authorities, two men attacked and disarmed him. He was later found with a gunshot wound to his stomach, just under his bulletproof vest.
Richardson pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and Claiborne pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact. They later went to trial in federal court, where prosecutors failed to convince a jury they were guilty of murder, but secured convictions on drug-trafficking charges.
“I am absolutely outraged by what happened,” Crissana Gibson, the slain officer’s daughter, said in a statement released by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares. “It breaks my heart to know that the people who killed my father will be released from prison and will be able to walk the streets freely.”
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Regardless of the “non-violent” bans, Biden ignored pleas from former FBI Director Christopher Wray and ordered the release of Leonard Peltier, a left-wing activist convicted for his role in a 1975 ambush shooting that killed two FBI agents in South Dakota.
On his last day in office, he commuted Peltier’s sentence to life in prison and at the last minute granted preemptive pardons to his family members and allies, including his siblings, Ph.D. Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley and members of the Committee on January 6. He had previously pardoned his son Hunter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
