South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
For couple, mercy follows mistake
Choice cost them 15 years in prison — apart, away from son
A moment after the pain pills and money changed hands, Dennis Green and his fiancee, Nicole Reliford, learned what a mistake they had just made.
“They came from everywhere,” Green Sr. said. “It felt like police were coming from parked cars, from the restaurant. They came from the trees.”
It was August 2004. Within 13 months, Green and Reliford would run through a cold and unforgiving justice system that saw them separated from each other and their 8-year-old son, convicted of trafficking in oxycodone and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Then, just two weeks ago, mercy came — not from an appeals court or a pardon, but from the very same office that worked so hard to lock them away in the first place.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office has identified and is pushing for the early release of nearly two dozen inmates, including Green and Reliford, serving lengthy sentences for trafficking in prescription drugs, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone.
The same inmates committing the same crimes today would have received a lesser sentence under a 2018 change in the law, which cut mandatory minimum sentences and increased the amount of pills necessary to bump a criminal charge up from possession and selling to trafficking.
“Although these prior sentences remain lawful under the law that existed at the time they were convicted, the Legislature has decided to treat new offenders differently,” said Broward Chief Assistant State Attorney Jeff Marcus. “We believe that it was an issue of fundamental fairness to initiate a review of these cases and reduce the sentences when appropriate.”
Eric Schwartzreich, the attorney who aided Reliford through the release process, thanked the prosecutors. “You have to give the State Attorney’s Office credit for seeing the logic here and doing the right thing by these defendants,” he said. “The original laws were draconian, and the judges’ hands were tied. We need to free people who don’t belong in prison.”
Green’s lawyer, Brian Tannebaum, agreed. “Broward has a reputation as a tough prosecutors’ office,” he said. “I hope their decision to take the lead on this sends a signal to other State Attorneys’ Offices to review their cases and recommend inmates for release.”
Tannebaum, chairman of the Innocence Project of Florida, who also sits on the board of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said he is not aware of any other districts undertaking the same effort.
Broward prosecutors enlisted the aid of the Innocence Project because they could not negotiate
“Money was low and … it shouldn’t have happened. I was raised better than that.”
Nicole Reliford, released early from 25 year sentence
directly with the identified inmates to offer the deal — a reduced sentence in exchange for dropping the right to appeal the original conviction.
For Green and Reliford, the deal meant freedom and a hastened reunion with not only each other but also their son, now 23. Their original expected release date was Nov. 10, 2025. Their sentence was cut from 25 years to 15. They were reunited July 21, more than five years earlier than they expected.
They admit their crime. Reliford had pain pills, and on Aug. 18, 2004, someone offered to buy them. It was easy money, and they needed it.
Reliford, Green and their son had been staying at a friend’s house in Dania Beach, but they needed a place of their own.
“Money was low and … it shouldn’t have happened,” said Reliford. “I was raised better than that.”
Their friend, Rosa Noriega, set up the sale. Reliford had more than 200 pills. She and Green drove to the McDonald’s on the north side of Oakwood Plaza in Hollywood to meet the buyer — a confidential informant for law enforcement. Dennis Green Jr., 8, was in the back seat playing with a toy.
They all remember the lights and the guns drawn by the police officers after the sting. The couple’s first thought, far too late, went to their son. “I was wrong for having my son in the car,” said Reliford. “All of it hurt my son the most in the end.”
They don’t even remember how much money they got for the pills.
Young Dennis was sent to live with his aunt and grandmother in Opa-Locka.
From then on, Green and Reliford only saw each other in court as co-defendants facing a maximum of more than 60 years.
They couldn’t process the gravity of it until Sept. 13, 2005, when Broward Circuit Judge John J. Murphy sentenced them each to 25 years in Florida State Prison, a mandatory minimum sentence.
“Live your life,” Green recalls saying to Reliford at sentencing. “We’ll make it through this.”
For the last several years, she was housed at the Homestead Correctional Institution.
He was a world away, a two-minute walk to the Dade Correctional Institution. They had not spoken or written to each other in years — Green Jr. would pass messages along during visits.
Prosecutors are not permitted to negotiate directly with defendants, so the Broward State Attorney’s Office contacted the Innocence Project of Florida last month to recruit attorneys for inmates who no longer had representation and offer them a deal: accept the reduced sentence and waive any appeal of the case.
For most, the chances of a successful appeal were minimal in the first place.
As of Friday, 16 of the original 21 inmates had been released.
Four had other sentences to finish. One, Michael Stidham, died in late June, after the resentencing effort was underway but before he could benefit from it. He was 64.
Two other inmates were added to the list this week — both are likely to be released soon.
Schwartzreich was assigned to Reliford’s case. Tannebaum took Green’s case.
Noriega, the friend who arranged the sale, had also been convicted and sentenced to 25 years. She was released recently as part of the same initiative.
Green’s freedom came on Monday. The next day, he saw Reliford again for the first time since Sept. 13, 2005.
“I don’t want to say it was something out of a fairy tale,” said the younger Green of his parents’ reunion. “I mean, they just got out of prison. But there was still magic.”
Reliford and Green, now living with their son, are still engaged.