A Maryland woman who murdered two of her husbands and her boyfriend for the insurance payouts is the recipient of Joe Biden's "historic" clemency executive action that saw 1,500 criminals have their sentences commuted, with 39 others pardoned outright.
We were assured by the White House when the clemency was announced that only "non-violent" criminals would be released. But Josephine Virginia Gray was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2002 after a trial on federal charges for insurance fraud connected to the murders. Maryland's state attorney decided not to prosecute her for the three murders, claiming the federal sentence "ensures she will die in prison."
When the clemency action was announced, I wrote, "Just because someone wasn't convicted of a violent crime doesn't mean they haven't committed violent crimes for which they were never caught." I wouldn't be surprised if a careful examination of those 1,500 clemency recipients turned up more cases like Josephine Gray's.
Gray collected $165,000 in insurance payments for the murders. Despite her not standing trial for the cold-blooded killings, there is very little doubt of her guilt.
According to prosecutors, Gray admitted to a friend in 2000 that she "had killed both her husbands and another gentleman." Gray told her friend that she shot her first husband, Norman Stribbling, and left his body on the side of a road to make it look like a robbery. Gray confessed that she killed her second husband, Robert Gray, with "help" from her boyfriend. That man, Clarence Goode, would be the Black Widow’s third victim. Gray told her friend "she had to get rid of" Goode because he threatened to blackmail her over Robert Gray’s murder.
Police found Goode’s blood stains at Gray’s house and a 9mm bullet casing that matched the one used in the murder.
According to prosecutors, Gray schemed to have all three of her victims designate her as the beneficiary of their life insurance policies and then murdered them to receive benefits after their deaths. Gray tried to take out an insurance policy on a fourth man, Andre Savoy, whom she promised to buy a Mustang GT with proceeds from the Goode insurance settlement. Savoy testified at Gray’s trial that she admitted to murdering Robert Gray, her second husband, after sneaking into his house dressed as a man.
Gray, who is 78, was released to home confinement as part of Biden's pandemic policies. According to the White House, Biden saw the pandemic as an opportunity to "advance equal justice under law and remedy harms caused by practices of the past." You don't remedy injustice by committing another injustice. Gray's crimes — those she was convicted of and those she wasn't — deserve the 40-year sentence she was given. Her appeal of that sentence was denied.
What about the families of her murder victims? What kind of justice did they receive?
Biden says he granted the mass clemencies "to correct historical injustices." The White House said he granted clemency to those "convicted of non-violent crimes who were sentenced under outdated laws, policies, and practices that left them with longer sentences than if the individuals were sentenced today. "
Not being convicted of a crime doesn't denote innocence.
But Gray’s body count "puts the lie to [Biden’s claim that] these are non-violent offenders," according to a former federal prosecutor who handled her case.
"It pisses me off, as you can imagine," James Trusty, who prosecuted Gray as assistant U.S. attorney in Greenbelt, Md., told the Washington Free Beacon.
"This doesn’t feel like a ‘rule of law’ moment for the Biden administration," said Trusty, who said he learned of Gray’s commuted sentence after receiving a notification of Biden’s action through an alert on the court docket for Gray’s case.
The radical left is disappointed. They think Biden should have gone much further. Salon.com called the 1,500 commutations a "half measure."
Related: O'Keefe's Latest Sting: NSC Officer Says 'Joe Biden Is, Like, Dead'
There are a lot of people in prison who don't deserve to be there. There are a lot of people walking free who should be locked up. The American justice system is imperfect, sometimes unfair, sometimes corrupt, and always something to be avoided.
And it's not any better anywhere else.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member