Two Fort Worth brothers who were serving life sentences are out of prison and sharing their story for the first time.<\/p>\n
Edward and Joe Sotelo spent decades behind bars since their convictions in 1995, but had their sentences commuted earlier this year.<\/p>\n
They were released from federal prisons on May 29.<\/p>\n
\u201cNine-fifteen in the morning on May 29, they came and told me President Donald Trump just released you,\u201d said Edward Sotelo. \u201cSix hours later, I was landing in DFW Airport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Described as cocaine kingpins in the past, they were arrested in the mid-90s in Fort Worth and convicted of a non-violent drug conspiracy. Their sentence: Life in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kept telling him through emails, I said, \u2018I’m going to get us out. I\u2019m going to hammer on them until something breaks down, but I\u2019m not going to give up, I can\u2019t give up\u2019,\u201d said Joe Sotelo.<\/p>\n
From behind bars, they submitted pardon applications over the years with no luck.<\/p>\n
Then, earlier this year, President Donald Trump named Alice Marie Johnson the nation\u2019s first Pardon Czar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a historic appointment,\u201d Johnson told NBC 5.<\/p>\n
Johnson was granted a full pardon by President Trump in 2018 and says she was asked by the President in February of this year to look for prisoners who deserve a second chance.<\/p>\n
She says the Sotelos stood out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were sentenced under old mandatory laws that today, if they were sentenced, they would not have received a life sentence. What really struck me about them was their rehabilitation,\u201d explained Johnson.<\/p>\n
Thirty years into their life sentences, the brothers were granted clemency.<\/p>\n
They reunited in Fort Worth after decades apart.<\/p>\n
This week, the brothers celebrated with their mom, who turned 88 years old. They were joined by the Sotelo brothers’ attorney, Brittney Barnett, and Johnson, the Pardon Czar.<\/p>\n
The celebration took place at Tia\u2019s on the Bluff, the Sotelo family\u2019s restaurant in Fort Worth. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a long ride,\u201d said Edward Sotelo, emotionally.<\/p>\n
The brothers say they\u2019ve been working non-stop at the restaurant since their release 85 days ago, doing everything from bartending to fixing patios.<\/p>\n
Though they\u2019re focused on their future, they say they refuse to forget their past.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is emotional because I left a lot of good people behind in the same predicament that we were in, and I can\u2019t believe it,\u201d said Joe Sotelo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Fort Worth brothers who were serving life sentences are out of prison and sharing their story for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-165461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115070317618265336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}