While incarcerated, the now-71-year-old endured the loss of both of his parents, his wife and his 23-year-old son. Now free, he wants to help free other nonviolent individuals from harsh prison sentences.
Richard DeLisi walked out of a Florida prison on Tuesday after serving more than 31 years of a 90-year prison sentence for trafficking marijuana.
According to DeLisi, he believes he was sentenced to 90 years behind bars in 1989 because the judge believed that he, an Italian New Yorker, was part of an organized crime ring.
The Associated Press noted the usual sentence for his marijuana trafficking charge was 12 to 17 years at the time. The Last Prisoner Project, which championed the 71-year-old’s release, dubbed DeLisi “America’s longest-serving nonviolent cannabis prisoner.”
“I’m a blessed human being, a survivor,” DeLesi said in a Wednesday phone interview with the Associated Press.
He told the outlet that he became a mentor to younger inmates while incarcerated.
“Prison changed me. I never really knew who God was, and now I know, and it changed the way I talk to people and treat people,” DeLesi detailed. “For me, being there so long, I was able to take gang members from gangs to gentleman.”
Now on the outside, DeLesi says he wants “to make the best of every bit of my time” and fight for the release of other inmates…
