Vernon Jackson used a Station Square nightclub as a front for a heroin ring he operated in Pittsburgh and New Jersey.

Leroy Shepherd operated a multimillion-dollar drug ring in Western Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan. He was ordered to forfeit more than $1 million in proceeds when arrested in 2002.

Markus Perez-Vasquez, convicted of distributing crack cocaine, got extra prison time for possessing a firearm as part of a drug crime. The gun was tucked into the waistband of his pants when state troopers busted him for dealing.

Those three men are among about 30 federal inmates from Western Pennsylvania who will be released from prison Sunday and Monday because of retroactive changes to sentencing guidelines for high-level drug crimes.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission recommended the changes last year to reduce the federal prison population and temper harsh sentences established during the “war on drugs” in the 1980s. On average, it knocks off about two years from the sentences of eligible men and women in prison for nonviolent drug crimes.

A Tribune-Review search of court records identified 16 Pittsburgh-area offenders who will be released. Eight others who were arrested in Western Pennsylvania will be released in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Miami, Atlanta and elsewhere.

Some soon-to-be parolees were low-level offenders. Others led extensive drug networks, the Trib found. Some have few prior convictions, but some have lengthy records that include gun and assault charges. All but two are black, records show, and range in age from 25 to 57.

Nearing the end of their sentences, they live in two halfway houses operated by Renewal Inc. in Western Pennsylvania.

“It was supposed to apply to the kingpins,” criminal defense lawyer Adam Cogan said about the sentencing changes. “It was supposed to apply to the middle people. It was supposed to apply to everyone.”

Congress mandated that shorter sentences would be denied only in extraordinary circumstances, he said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh declined to comment for this story, but Cogan said the office “erred on the side of granting them.”

Since the changes became law last November, federal judges nationwide have reduced the sentences of 17,128 inmates, or about 74 percent of those who sought reductions. In Western Pennsylvania, judges reduced the sentences of 69 inmates, or about 63 percent of those who made requests.

About 6,000 inmates nationwide will be released during the first week of November and thousands more over the next few years.

Among them: Darin Burke, 26, of McKeesport, who shot someone during an armed robbery at age 16 and held a knife to a convenience store clerk's neck during a robbery when he was 19, court documents show. He pleaded guilty in March 2012 to conspiring to distribute heroin and was sentenced to 70 months in prison.

Despite his violent past, the government didn't oppose Burke's motion to reduce his sentence to 55 months based on the new drug quantity guidelines.

Federal prosecutors unsuccessfully opposed a motion by Orlando Cobbs, 36, of Duquesne to reduce his sentence from 46 to 37 months because Cobbs and a group of other men in 1999 beat another person. The court rejected that argument at Cobbs' sentencing in 2012 and found no reason to give it weight now, Michael Novara, first assistant federal public defender, said in court documents.

Novara, who represented several inmates seeking reduced sentences, couldn't be reached.

It's unclear how much scrutiny each inmate receives, said Douglas A. Berman, an Ohio State University law professor who studies criminal law. A streamlined process designed to keep sentence-reduction motions from clogging federal courts results in minimal public records of the reasons behind decisions, he said.

“It's not as though this is being done without some deliberation. It's just that it's not being done in open court,” Berman said.

Critics of the new sentencing guidelines are wary of putting parolees back on the streets — whether or not they have violent pasts.

Drug traffickers contributed to the 307 overdose deaths in Allegheny County last year, said Debra Kehoe, executive director of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Safe and Drug-Free Kids. She's worried that some inmates released early will have trouble finding jobs and might reoffend.

“That's a real concern,” she said.

Men and women who commit crimes to feed drug addiction need treatment more than they need jail time, said Neil Capretto, medical director at Gateway Rehabilitation Center. High-level traffickers are the real “career criminals” who exploit addicts.

“To me, throw the book at those people,” Capretto said. “That's being evil. They're making profits at the cost of people's lives.”

That's why judges try to determine how people might do on release, said Mary Catherine Roper, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. The first 6,000 people to be released are an experiment and a dramatic step toward prison reform, she said.

“It doesn't mean that none of these 6,000 can ever screw up again or it's a failure,” Roper said. “We have got to find another solution than locking people up for decades.”

Tim Stevens, CEO of the Black Political Empowerment Project and the Coalition Against Violence, said he supports giving inmates the opportunity to start anew outside prison, but he said judges need to apply “intense scrutiny” to those considered for early release.

Releasing someone who doesn't deserve it and commits another crime could be like a “torpedo” to a good program, Stevens said.

People need to understand that the parolees will need support to readjust to freedom, he said.

“You can't paint everybody with the same brush,” Stevens said. “Let's be honest, you can never totally know who you're releasing.”

Brian Bowling and Elizabeth Behrman are Trib Total Media staff writers. Reach Bowling at 412-325-4301 or bbowling@tribweb.com and Behrman at 412-320-7886 or lbehrman@tribweb.com.

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