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Kim Kardashian is lobbying Jared Kushner for Trump to pardon a great-grandmother serving life in prison

The reality TV star has her personal lawyer working on the case

Ilana Kaplan
Thursday 03 May 2018 22:26 BST
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Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian (Getty Images for Bumble)

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Kim Kardashian West is lobbying Jared Kushner to pardon a 62-year-old great grandmother named Alice Marie Johnson.

The celebrity mogul has contacted Kushner about Johnson's case since he's been working on his own prison-reform bill.

Johnson - who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996 - was convicted of a first-time non-violent drug offence.

Kardashian West's petition for clemency was rejected by the Obama administration, but now the celebrity mogul is hoping to convince President Trump to pardon Johnson.

The case is now being reviewed by White House lawyers, reports Mic.

"It'd be nice if she got out before Mother's Day," Johnson's daughter Catina Scales told the BBC. "I'm grateful to God for bringing Kim along."

Last fall, Johnson's story caught Kardashian West's attention after seeing a video about the case.

She then shared the video with her 59.9m followers with the video acquiring 3.84m views.

Kardashian West requested her personal lawyer Shawn Holley get involved in Johnson's case.

"We would provide her with the documents to corroborate all the things she was saying about Alice being a wonderful person who's served her time very well," says Ms Holley, who passed along messages between Johnson and Kardashian West.

When Johnson was convicted, she was an unemployed, recently-divorced single mom who became a "telephone mule," passing messages between drug distributors and sellers.

Johnson received a life sentence without parole partially due to the fact that she went to trial.

"I participated in a drug conspiracy and I was wrong," she wrote in 2016. "It's hard to imagine that I have now served 20 years of my life sentence for that one mistake."

Johnson was denied parole despite the fact that she fit the guidelines for the Obama-era Clemency Project 2014, serving over a decade in prison with good behaviour and no gang ties.

However she was denied release just before Obama left office.

While the program no longer exists in the Trump administration, the president has pardoned three individuals while in office: former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier and to former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby.

Trump's response to Kardashian West's request on behalf of Johnson could come any day now as conversations with the White House have "intensified."

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