Grammy-winning rapper John Forti½’s 14-year cocaine-smuggling sentence was commuted by President Bush last night after singer Carly Simon and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch lobbied for him.
The Brooklyn-born Forti½ was convicted of smuggling liquid coke into the country in 2000 after he was busted at Newark Airport. The former Fugees producer is serving time at the Fort Dix, NJ, federal prison.
Simon and Ben Taylor, her son by singer James Taylor, had lobbied the feds to commute Forti½’s sentence, arguing he was a first-time offender.
Ben Taylor and Forti½ had become friends at the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Taylor often took him to visit his family, and Forti½ once worked as a backup singer for Simon.
When Forti½, 33, was charged with possession with intent to distribute coke after being nabbed with a briefcase containing $1.4 million of the drug, it was Carly Simon who ponied up $250,000 toward his bail.
Once convicted, he was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 14 years.
“John has become sort of my full-time responsibility,” Simon told The Boston Globe in 2005. “I feel like I just want to defend him in every possible way.”
She even wooed to her side Utah Sen. Hatch, a fellow music lover. He wrote to the Justice Department and Bush on Forti½’s behalf.
Forti½ will now be released Dec. 22 after serving just over seven years at the Fort Dix prison.
Forti½ began his career with The Fugees in the early ’90s and co-wrote and produced two songs on their Grammy-winning 1996 album, “The Score.”
“The president carefully considered recommendations for pardons and commutations on a case-by-case basis and made his determinations,” said White House spokesman Carlton Carroll.
Bush yesterday also pardoned 14 people and commuted one other sentence.
He had earlier pardoned 157 people and commuted the sentences of another six – including former vice-presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted of obstructing justice in the federal probe into the leak of CIA official Valerie Plame’s identity.