California Gov. Jerry Brown issued Christmas Eve pardons to 105 people — but ended up retracting one of them. And the man found out while celebrating Christmas Eve with his family.
It’s a Christmas Eve tradition to issue pardons in the Sunshine State typically for non-violent offenders, usually behind bars on drug charges. However, one man won’t be so lucky after the governor learned the man hadn’t disclosed recent discipline by financial regulators, according to an NBC News report.
Glen William Carnes had his pardon retracted based on a court-issued certificate of rehabilitation. Originally, he had been pardoned for a drug-related conviction that he had committed back in 1998 as a teenager, but it was withdrawn before it was signed by the Secretary of State when new details came to light.
Carnes was disciplined by investment regulators in May 2013 on charges that he made false and misleading statement. He didn’t admit guilt but signed a consent settlement with financial regulators. Specifically, authorities say that he violated the policy of a company he worked for by engaging in “an unapproved private securities transaction,” according to the report, and then lied to investigators about his involvement.
Carnes learned the news when an Associated Press reporter contacted him yesterday evening as he was celebrating with his family. He expressed shock at the decision, saying that his attorneys had told him it didn’t need to be disclosed because technically he wasn’t convicted.
He said the only mistake he made was not filing a form letter with his company that would permit him to do volunteer consulting on the side, and that he was never paid for his work. He didn’t challenge the allegations because he didn’t need the licenses anymore, he said.
Carnes, who said he had been waiting 20 years for this moment, pledged to contact the governor’s office because “this is wrong.”
In all cases, those who received pardons had committed non-violent crimes that were typically a decade old or longer. One person pardoned had drank expensive wine out of a wine cellar in 1986 and received three years of probation. Another had thrown a whiskey bottle through a pawn shp window.
All who received pardons had already served their sentences, and had been out for more than a decade without committing any other crimes. The governor’s office says it only awards pardons to those who have led “exemplary” lives since.
Brown has revived a practice that had become dormant in California in recent years. Former Governor Ronald Reagan granted 574 pardons during his two terms as governor, as did subsequent governors, but the practice declined with Gov. Pete Wilson, who was elected in 1990, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. So far, Brown has issued 510 pardons since 2011 when he took office.
Receiving a pardon from the governor does not mean the conviction goes away, but it does restore certain rights, such as the ability to serve on a jury, own a gun, who work as an officer for the state.
