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Fla. Pardons Disabled Man Convicted Of Drug Charge

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TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) ― Richard Paey is a free man after Governor Charlie Crist pardoned him Thursday, but the man who was originally arrested on drug charges had an outpouring of support all along, which he got in the form of letters from the public.

Paey spoke to CBS4's Jennifer Santiago over the phone. Through her stories brought attention to his imprisonment, which many thought utterly unjust.

"I've been getting letters," said Paey. "In fact, if you watch your mail, at the end of last week I wrote a letter because I got a letter from a Navy veteran in Kentucky. The letter moved me so much, that I wanted you to read them."

The disabled former attorney was released from prison Thursday after Crist and the rest of the state clemency board pardoned his drug trafficking charges, ending a case that gained national attention as an example of overzealous prosecution of drug crimes.

Paey, 48, had served nearly four years on a 25-year sentence after prosecutors convinced a jury that he had forged so many prescriptions and purchased so many pain pills that he must have been selling them, even though there was no other evidence supporting that claim.

Paey, who is from Hudson in Pasco County, and his supporters have argued that he never distributed the drugs. They say he has been in constant pain since a 1985 car accident and needed large amounts of prescription narcotics to live normally. He also suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.

"We aim to right a wrong and to exercise compassion," said Crist, who moved for the pardon after the board heard emotional testimony from Paey's wife, two daughters, a son and neighbor.

"He's not a drug trafficker," Linda Paey told the board. "He's just a patient who needed pain medication."

The board, Crist, State Attorney Bill McCollum, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, voted unanimously to approve Paey's release, overriding the recommendation of the parole commission that his application be denied.

Paey's attorney, John Flannery of Leesburg, Va., said the case illustrates flaws in the law and how people who are dependent on strong pain medication can get tangled up in the government's war on drugs.

Flannery said Paey has been given more intravenous morphine in the past two days -- 3.6 milligrams -- than Paey had been charged for.

"I think our laws fundamentally are very much to blame for this," McCollum said. "Justice would truly have to have a blind eye not to grant a pardon."

State Attorney Bernie McCabe, whose office prosecuted Paey, has said Paey deserved the sentence because he offered several plea deals without prison time, but the former lawyer wouldn't accept them. Paey has said he thought he would win and didn't want to be branded a drug dealer.

Paey's case gained broad media attention and was featured on national news segments after the New Mexico nonprofit Pain Relief Network took up his cause. Siobhan Reynolds, the organization's president and founder, said his clemency is proof the tide is changing.

"Patients all over the country have been pleading guilty to circumstances like Richard for years and years, and nobody knew about it," she said. "Nobody actually dared them like he did and was willing to brave the consequences, which he did."

Paey was freed from the Tomoka Correctional Institution at Daytona Beach.

Linda Paey said she knew her husband would want "any pizza" after walking free.

She said that the family was "scared to death" after the parole commission recommended that Paey remain in prison. She said the commission didn't understand that sometimes a person can be in such pain that they need more narcotics that frequently.

"And they need to (understand) because all these war veterans are coming back" she said.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)