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Former USC football player Owen Hanson, once dubbed the “Cocaine Quarterback” for his role as a logistics coordinator for a Mexican drug cartel, credited President Donald Trump’s First Step Act for giving him a second chance after he earned years off his federal prison sentence.
“I remember when the counselor called me in his office,” Hanson recalled Saturday.
“He said, ‘Owen, you’ve earned three years off your sentence for going back to school and getting your degree.’ He said, ‘You also earned another two years of halfway house.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, you have hope.'”
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Speaking to Fox News’ Lara Trump, Hanson recounted his journey from playing football for USC and winning national championships to finding himself deep in debt to a Mexican drug cartel.
“They gave me ultimatum. They said, ‘We’re going to either kill you or you’re going work for us and pay it back,’ and I became their logistics coordinator, ‘the signal caller’ for this cartel that I won’t name a name, but I had to work for them, and it cost me 10 years of my life in prison,” he shared.
Hanson described the First Step Act as fundamentally changing the way incarcerated people like himself viewed rehabilitation by rewarding those who pursued educational opportunities and other programs aimed at reducing recidivism.
The criminal justice reform measure, enacted in 2018, expanded opportunities for eligible federal inmates to reduce their sentences by participating in qualifying programs and productive activities.
Before the law’s passage, Hanson said federal inmates largely expected to serve at least 85% of their sentences with little opportunity to shorten their time behind bars. The prospect of earning additional time off through good behavior and education, he said, gave him and others a renewed sense of purpose.
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Hanson ultimately earned a master’s degree while incarcerated and credited the law with helping prepare him for life after prison, where he now speaks to student-athletes about the dangers of drugs and crime.
“It’s a very humbling experience, and in the beginning when the judge sentenced you to nearly two decades in prison, and they tell you it’s time to rehabilitate, you kind of wonder, and you look at yourself in the mirror while you’re in your prison cell and maybe the judge is doing me a favor,” he said.
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“And I tell people [that] prison’s the best thing that could have happened to me, [it] saved my life. [I was] able to get sober, get my master’s degree, come out and help others is like the biggest flex for me.”
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