4 WOMEN GRANTED CLEMENCY BY CLINTON

They Had Received Long Drug Sentences

In a rare move, President Clinton has granted clemency to four women
imprisoned on drug conspiracy charges because they received stricter
sentences than the men who were involved in their crimes.

White House officials gave scant details of the releases and did not
want to discuss them. But Amy Pofahl, released from the Federal
Correctional Institution in Dublin, said yesterday that the three
others included Serena Nunn, whose cause, like Pofahl's, had been
taken up by publications and several members of Congress. All four
women were first-time drug offenders.

Pofahl was happy to be out but bitter about the near-decade she had
just spent behind bars. Pofahl became an outspoken advocate for women
imprisoned for long terms under the nation's mandatory drug and
sentencing laws.

"I lost my entire 30s to the system," Pofahl said in an interview. She
had served more than nine years of a 24-year term and marked her 40th
birthday three months ago, in prison.

Pofahl received news of her imminent release at 9 a.m. Friday at the
federal women's lockup near Dublin and was free and among friends by
noon.

"It was a bittersweet victory," said Pofahl, who slept last night at
her grandmother's house in Arkansas. "I had to leave so many people
behind who are in the same situation."

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Pofahl, Nunn and two other
prisoners -- Louise House and Shawndra Mills -- were released Friday,
but the bureau refused to elaborate.

One man, Alain Orozco, was also set free after serving time on a drug
conviction.

The clemencies came on the eve of a day designated by Catholics
worldwide to show compassion to prisoners.

"The president felt they had served a disproportionate amount of
time," said White House spokesman Jake Siewert. "They received much
more severe sentences than their husbands and boyfriends."

Clemency advocates have criticized Clinton for granting comparatively
few prison-release requests from nonviolent drug offenders and
white-collar criminals.

Last year, Clinton used his clemency power to free a group of Puerto
Rican nationalists locked up in New York -- a move that prompted
criticism because he released men who had been convicted of promoting
terrorism. Some in Congress accused Clinton of making the clemency
offer to help first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign.

Before that clemency, Clinton cut short the sentences of only four
other federal prisoners.

Pofahl, who was convicted in Texas, and the three other women were
first-time drug offenders convicted under federal mandatory
minimum-sentencing laws for drug conspiracies, the advocacy group
Families Against Mandatory Minimums said in a statement yesterday.

Conspiracy laws carry the same penalties as drug trafficking, and they
are often used to convict people only marginally involved in a drug
offense, such as dealers' wives or girlfriends, according to the group.

Pofahl was convicted of transferring money between bank accounts that
the government said had been generated illegally by her husband, who
prosecutors contended was a major distributor of the drug Ecstasy.

Pofahl's husband, Stanford-educated Charles P. Pofahl, cooperated with
authorities and served no federal prison time, though he served prison
time in Germany, where he was first arrested.

His wife, convinced she would not be convicted of a major drug
conspiracy, did not go along with prosecutors.

"They want to gain information on whoever the target is," she said.
"They say, `If you don't cooperate, we will indict you for
conspiracy.' I did do some stuff that ensnared me to the
conspiracy."

Two years after U.S. agents unsuccessfully sought her cooperation,
Pofahl was indicted. Her eventual punishment was exceptionally long
because the laws under which she was convicted carried mandatory
minimum terms.

Such automatic sentences were created by Congress in the 1980s at a
time when the use of crack cocaine was spreading in the nation's cities.

"The laws were designed to get the kingpins and put them away for a
long time, but the kingpins have a lot of information to trade, and
that's valuable," said prisoners' rights advocate Mikki Norris of El
Cerrito.

"A lot of these women are so minor and have no information to trade,
so they get stuck with the long sentences," she said.

Norris said the new clemencies are a significant step in pointing out
the disparity. "It could have significant ramifications for many women
in prison who are in on these outrageous conspiracy charges," she said.

Virginia Resner, the California coordinator for Families Against
Mandatory Minimums, said the clemencies are a step toward what she
hopes will be amnesty for all nonviolent drug offenders.

For some, however, the plight of Amy Pofahl was as personal as it was
political.

"Her story broke my heart," said Mark Balsiger, a prisoners' rights
advocate from El Paso, Texas, who led the push for Pofahl's clemency
only to fall in love with her and become her boyfriend. "I think we
saved a life."

E-mail Chronicle staff writer Rick DelVecchio at rdvoak@sfgate.com and
Debra Saunders, whose column appears three days a week, at
saunders@sfgate.com. Chronicle wire services contributed to this report.