Empire State Today

Alice Johnson, a former federal inmate and current criminal justice reform advocate, wants the world to hear that message. She wrote a letter as part of Underwood’s February 2020 clemency petition.

In 1988, Underwood was arrested on conspiracy drug charges, and was among the first to be sentenced under the 1987 Federal Sentencing Guidelines and 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. He was convicted in four counts, including two RICO conspiracy charges and one drug conspiracy charge. The fourth, a continuing criminal enterprise charge, ultimately put Underwood in prison for life without possibility of parole.

Before his arrest and imprisonment, Underwood was a busy promoter and manager of popular ‘80s and ‘90s music acts. Prior to that, he left a gang that sold drugs and committed violent acts.

He is the father of four, grandfather of three and has an exemplary record of achievement and a clean disciplinary record, Johnson wrote.

The memorandum in support of Underwood’s clemency bid notes that the law has changed and that evidence supports his claim that he no longer participated in a criminal enterprise beyond the effective federal sentencing guideline date. Furthermore, the FBI investigation report from April 21, 1986 noted that “due to the lack of current updated information concerning subject’s alleged activities, this case is being closed at this time.”  

Yet he was arrested 2.5 years later.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Alleyne vs. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013), that "any fact that increases a mandatory minimum sentence is an element of the crime that must be submitted to and accepted by a jury," rather than determined by a judge at sentencing—which is what happened in Underwood’s case.

If Underwood's jury had found him no longer involved before the new guidelines went into effect, he would have been sentenced to between 10 years and life with an opportunity for parole.