Lawyers for Larry Hoover, founder of the Gangster Disciples, are asking Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to grant him state clemency following Donald Trump’s commutation of his federal life sentence earlier this year.
In a petition filed on Oct. 22 with the prison board, lawyers for Hoover, 74, say his health is deteriorating, noting he has suffered three heart attacks while performing prison labor, the most recent in September, and describe his treatment as “a slow, state-sanctioned death sentence,” ABC News reports. They are urging Gov. Pritzker to acknowledge his transformation and allow Hoover to spend his remaining years in freedom after more than 50 years behind bars since his 1973 state murder conviction.
“To deny clemency now is not a neutral act,” attorney Justin Moore said in the petition. “It is a willful decision to let a 74-year-old man with significant health challenges die in a cage.”
Despite receiving federal clemency from Trump in May, Hoover still faces a state sentence for his 1973 murder conviction. His lawyers say he remains in “extreme conditions of confinement” at the Colorado State Penitentiary. Since his transfer from the supermax, they allege, he has been subjected to “excruciatingly intense labor,” including kitchen duties that require stacking trays by the dozens under strict time pressure.
“It’s very excruciating,” Moore said. “He’s the oldest person on the work line that he’s working by a gap of 10 to 15 years. He’s been rushed to the hospital at least once, and there’s great concerns that the condition that he’s in could lead him to actually die in prison due to the labor conditions. He’s effectively being worked to death.”
Hoover, who founded the Gangster Disciples on Chicago’s South Side in the late 1960s, was sentenced to 200 years under Illinois’ former indeterminate sentencing system after being convicted of ordering the 1973 murder of 19-year-old drug dealer William “Pooky” Young, accused of stealing from the gang. More charges came in 1997, following a 17-year federal investigation that found Hoover guilty of directing gang operations from prison. He was convicted on 40 counts, including drug conspiracy and racketeering, sentences that Trump commuted earlier this year.
Hoover’s 39-page clemency petition is now before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board and Gov. Pritzker, featuring two personal letters where he reflects on his decades-long journey toward redemption and acknowledges the “disservice” he has done himself by remaining silent about his public persona.
“People, when writing about me in the papers, always use photos of me depicting the way I appeared 40 years ago, as if I’m still a young, strong and rebellious gang leader. That man no longer exists,” Hoover wrote in a typed letter to the yet-to-be-determined judge.
“I am no longer the Larry Hoover people sometimes talk about, or he who is written about in the papers, or the crime figure described by the government. That man has over these many years, transformed into the man I am today. It is true that some men never learn, or that prison makes some into monsters; I’ve seen it, but for me, over time, prison — this prison in particular — became a place of reflection.”
In his letter, Hoover expressed “immense remorse” for the damage caused by his past actions, admitting he squandered his talents on decisions that harmed Chicago, his community, and society at large. He stressed that he has long renounced all ties to the Gangster Disciples and any criminal activity, affirming that he wants nothing to do with that life “now and forever.”
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