A Houston man sentenced to life imprisonment following his 2005 conviction for narcotics trafficking is among those whose sentences were cut by President Obama.
In 2005, a federal judge in the Western District of Louisiana handed down the sentence to John Timothy Cotton, now 51, following his conviction for Continuing Criminal Enterprise. But, instead of spending his remaining years behind federal prison bars, President Obama on Thursday commuted Cotton’s sentence to 30 years. Now, his sentence will end in 2035
Cotton was the head of a multi-state drug ring based in Houston that brought in an estimated $43 million dealing crack cocaine in several states, including Texas and Louisiana. He also once hired a voodoo priestess for protection from federal agents, the Associated Press reported at the time of his conviction.
He is now being held at the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma.
