Man given clemency by Obama going back to prison

sentenced to life in prison in January 1995 for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 139.8 grams of cocaine. Obama commuted the sentence in March 2015, and Rogers was released shortly thereafter.

Rogers was required to spend 10 years on probation after his release from federal prison. The maximum sentence Rogers faces for a federal probation violation is five years. Steve Bradley, an attorney who represented him in the state case, said the range recommended by the U.S. Probation Office is between 1½ and two years.

U.S. District Judge John Adams has not set a hearing date in Rogers’ federal case.

Bradley said Monday that his client immediately owned up when investigators approached him in November.

“It’s like he won life’s lottery after having served 22 years,” Bradley said of when Obama commuted Rogers’ sentence, “and it’s really pretty tragic to think he’s going back.”

Obama and his White House undertook major efforts to shorten the sentences of a record number of people, part of a way to attack the consequences of decades of stiff sentences for people convicted of drug crimes. The majority of the sentences Obama commuted were for drug cases.

Jeffrey Lazarus, Rogers’ federal public defender, said in a 2015 interview that Rogers was “a pretty typical streetlevel drug dealer” when he was arrested for selling crack cocaine in 1992. U.S. District Judge John Manos imposed the life sentence on Rogers, who was found guilty at trial, because Rogers had two prior drug felonies.

Rogers got a job and had a stable residence after his release from prison, he said in a 2015 interview. Problems started emerging the following year, though, according to court records.

He failed drug tests; urine samples in March and April 2017 showed that he had ingested cocaine. He also failed other tests in 2016 and 2017, according to an order Adams wrote in May 2017.

At the time, Adams ordered Rogers to complete a 30-day minimum in-house treatment program. The judge also ordered weekly drug testing once Rogers finished the treatment.

Rogers appeared to be back on the right track by July 2017, when court records from a hearing said he “was commended for his positive actions.”

Not long after, state and federal investigators arrested Rogers. They had reason to believe he was receiving large shipments of drugs.

A Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Rogers in December, charging him with trafficking marijuana, as well as marijuana possession and possessing criminal tools. Rogers was also indicted on cocaine-related charges. Charges for cocaine trafficking and other crimes were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea.