Biden commutes 10-year sentence of Harlem steakhouse co-founder busted for dealing drugs
A Queens Navy veteran who co-founded a popular Harlem steakhouse before being busted by the feds dealing kilo quantities of heroin and cocaine was among those receiving commuted sentences Tuesday from President Biden.
Eddie Mateus, 50, will serve the remainder of his 10-year sentence at home thanks to Biden’s mercy, the Justice Department announced. The veteran of Operation Desert Storm founded the successful Ricardo Steakhouse in 2004, only to have his cocaine addiction send him down a dark path in 2011 where he received kilogram quantities of heroin from traffickers in Colombia and Mexico and resold them to drug dealers in the city, court filings show.
“I was aware of what I was doing to myself, my family and my restaurant,” Mateus wrote to the court before he was sentenced in 2017 for drug conspiracy charges. “After each multi-day cocaine and alcohol binges, I would come down from the high and feel absolutely horrible.”
Efforts to reach Mateus and his family were unsuccessful. Legal filings show that he endured brutal conditions during the early months of the pandemic in Otisville prison. His lawyers argued he suffered from lung problems related to his military service.
“America is a nation of laws and second chances, redemption, and rehabilitation,” Biden said in a statement. “Elected officials on both sides of the aisle, faith leaders, civil rights advocates, and law enforcement leaders agree that our criminal justice system can and should reflect these core values that enable safer and stronger communities.”
The Daily News could not determine who represented Mateus in his successful push for clemency. A who’s who of Harlem political power players wrote letters to the court prior to his sentencing, including then-Congressman Charlie Rangel, former Councilwoman Inez Dinkens and former Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez.
In the letter to the court, Mateus recalled opening the popular steakhouse in 2003 with his brother, Jimmy, after serving more than five years in prison for a different drug case.
“As the restaurant grew in popularity and it started to become a hot spot for celebrities, politicians, pretty women, and people in shady business (drug dealers, wise guys, etc), I was offered opportunities many times to get back involved in narcotics or other shady dealings. I always turned them down,” he wrote the court. “Additionally, I could not run two restaurants and sell drugs, there is not enough hours in the day.”
Biden also issued pardons to a trailblazing Black Secret Service agent and two people who served harsh sentences stemming from drug offenses in the 1990s.
Abraham Bolden Sr., 86, the first Black agent to serve on a presidential detail, was convicted in 1964 of trying to sell a copy of a Secret Service file, for which he served several years in prison. Betty Jo Bogans, 51, was convicted in 1998 in Texas on charges of selling crack cocaine, and Dexter Jackson, 52, was convicted of using his Athens, Ga., pool hall to traffic marijuana.
The White House announced the clemency recipient list along with a series of job training and reentry programs for formerly incarcerated people.
The 75 people who received commutations, including Mateus, were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses and will primarily serve the remainder of their sentences at home. Many would have received significantly shorter prison terms had they been tried today due to the 2018 bipartisan sentencing reform.
Civil rights and criminal justice reform advocates have long pushed the White House to work harder to reduce racial and class disparities in the legal system fueled by marijuana, which is now legal in 18 states, and the failed war on drugs.
Biden bears responsibility for some of the unfair sentences, having played a leading role in passing the 1994 crime bill experts say resulted in marginalized groups and the poor making up a disproportionate share of the nation’s incarcerated population of 2 million.
With the pardons and commutations, Biden has issued more grants of clemency than any of the previous five presidents at this point in their terms, according to the White House.
President Donald Trump granted 143 pardons and clemency to 237 people in four years. Most notably, Trump issued pardons to prominent allies accused of crimes involving his campaigns, including Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort.
