Kim’s my hero – like Rosa Parks
A grandmother serving a life sentence for a first-time drug offense sent a letter thanking Kim Kardashian for personally asking President Trump to set her free — comparing the reality queen to civil-rights icon Rosa Parks.
Kardashian, 37, was so moved by the story of Alice Marie Johnson that she set up a meeting with Trump Wednesday to appeal for clemency.
Kardashian also helped raise funds to assemble a legal team for 63-year-old Johnson, who has been locked up for 21 years with no chance of parole.
“I was so humbled by what you are doing and have already done on my behalf,” wrote Johnson in a letter Kardashian posted on Instagram on Thursday, along with a red heart emoji.
Johnson had just been told by attorney Shawn Holley — who represents Kardashian and is helping Johnson — that the reality star was her secret “benefactor,” she wrote.
“When [Holley] disclosed the name of my benefactor, I had to take time to process and digest the news that you were the one she was alluding to,” Johnson wrote.“I was drowning and you have thrown me a life jacket.”
Johnson, who was sentenced in 1997 after admitting to acting as an intermediary for drug pushers, said that the work Kardashian was doing would be recognized one day as being on par with Rosa Parks’ pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955.
“There are defining moments in history that have shaped the destiny of this nation. I believe we are part of a defining moment. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus . . . that was a defining moment. She was an ordinary woman whose courage ignited and united the heart of America to stand together against a very present evil that could no longer be tolerated,” Johnson wrote.
“I believe that history will record that Kim Kardashian had the courage to take a stand against human warehousing and was a key figure in meaningful criminal justice reform becoming a reality.”
She concluded the letter with “THE BATTLE IS ON!”
Neither Holley nor a rep for Kardashian responded to a request for comment.
We had some Page One fun with President Trump’s parley with reality star Kim Kardashian, but we’ll admit she had fair points to make. Kardashian was lobbying for criminal-justice reform and, in particular, clemency for great-grandmother Alice Marie Johnson, who at 63 has done 21 years of a life sentence for drug conspiracy and money-laundering.
True, Johnson went down the wrong path when — after a divorce, the loss of her job and house and the death of her youngest son — she hooked up with a drug ring. “I made one of the worst decisions of my life to make some quick money,” she admits.
She says she just passed along messages, and adds that her offenses were non-violent — though her case involved Colombian drug dealers “trading tons of cocaine for millions of dollars in cash,” The Tennessean reported back then.
We won’t minimize the lives lost and ruined thanks to such trafficking. Yet her life sentence with no possibility of parole still seems overly harsh. Her conviction was her first, and she has a good prison record. She has already lost a big chunk of her life behind bars; she seems deserving of a second chance.
Others surely do, too. Mandatory sentences, often with no chance of parole, became popular at the height of America’s crime wave. Yet numerous nonviolent inmates with good records may be able to lead perfectly constructive lives if freed.
In May, the House passed the First Step Act, which aims to reduce recidivism and cut the prison population (and costs) through rehab and training programs for low-level convicts. The Senate should, too.
And Congress absolutely must revisit the overly tough sentencing laws that have now become outdated and counterproductive. After all, you don’t have to be a reality star to understand today’s troubled criminal-justice realities.