Pubdate: Wed, 27 Dec 2000
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2000 The Miami Herald
Contact:  One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693
Fax: (305) 376-8950
Website: http://www.herald.com/
Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald
Author: Susan Ferrechio

PARDONED BROWARD MAN LIVES CLEAN LIFE

After 25 Years, Home Restorer's Rights Restored

He was young, desperate for money and willing to risk his freedom
hauling hundreds of pounds of hashish into the U.S. from Morocco and
India in false-bottom suitcases for distribution to drug dealers.

Then Peter Dionis got caught. He was 25 when he was convicted of drug
trafficking in federal court, served 18 months and returned to his
hometown, Fort Lauderdale, looking for a fresh start.

After living a clean life here for the next 25 years, Dionis, who now
lives in a modest ranch house in Wilton Manors, wanted a clean record,
too. He got it on Friday, becoming one of only about 200 people
pardoned by outgoing President Bill Clinton during his two-term presidency.

Dionis, 50, doesn't do drugs anymore and he doesn't drink or
smoke.

He also doesn't know why he was pardoned. Clinton officials, following
a longstanding rule, won't tell him, or anyone else for that matter,
unless expressly ordered to do so by the President.

Not wanting to push his luck, Dionis accepted the pardon without
explanation.

"I'm happy," said Dionis, a born-again Christian who has struggled
to find happiness since serving a prison term. "I don't see it
changing my life but I'm happy I got it."

Mom Wanted It

Dionis, who restores old houses and resells them, had twice applied
for the pardon at the request of his now-deceased mother, who hoped to
"clear the family name," he said.

After being turned down for a pardon by officials during the Reagan
Administration and again during Clinton's first term, Dionis gave up,
thinking he would never get pardoned without political
connections.

Then last week, the phone rang. It was a lawyer from the Department of
Justice, asking him if he was still interested in being pardoned.
Dionis said he was, and days later his wish was granted. The news was
relayed to him by his sister, who had read about his pardon in the
newspaper.

"It was hard, let me tell you," said Dionis, a Vietnam War veteran
and graduate of Fort Lauderdale High School. "It took me 20 years to
get it."

His name was released, along with 58 others, as a recipient of an
official statement of forgiveness by President Clinton, who also
commuted the prison terms of three people.

A pardon will not erase the felony conviction, but it restores an
ex-convict's civil rights -- including the right to own a gun, work in
certain professions and vote. Dionis already had his right to vote
restored in the mid-1980s.

Dionis was one of the lesser-known people pardoned on a list that
included former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan
Rostenkowski, D-Ill. and chicken company executive Archie Schaffer
III.

Rostenkowski, 72, served time after pleading guilty on two counts of
misusing public funds. Schaffer was convicted of trying to influence
former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy by inviting him to a company
party.

No Angel

Dionis, reading over the list of the pardoned, says he is
uncomfortable seeing his name listed next to people convicted of mail
fraud and bribery. But in the 1970s, Dionis was no angel.

With a group of friends from high school, he imported hundreds of
pounds of hashish from overseas beginning in 1972, sneaking the drugs
into the United States via Fort Lauderdale, then later through Montreal.

One drug run yielded 90 pounds of the drug, earning Dionis $100,000
for a two-week effort.

Dionis said he spent the money on a boat, a new car and on the costs
of continuing the drug business.

But within a few years, drug enforcement agents began closing in,
cutting off their supply of drugs and money. Dionis was arrested in
1975 after an undercover narcotics agent promised to help him recover
20 pounds of hashish from a field in Canada. Around the same time, he
was convicted in Broward County of trying to buy 18 pounds of
marijuana sold to him by an undercover agent. Dionis got probation in
the Broward County conviction and was sent to federal prison on the
charges of trying to bring the hashish into the U.S. for
distribution.

Stayed Straight

After getting out of prison, his friends tried to lure him back into
drug dealing. The money was tempting, Dionis said, but he had become a
born-again Christian and considered drug money to be tainted. "I was
addicted to the money more than anything else," Dionis recalled.
"You get pushed out of the work force and you don't have skills
anymore to get back in."

He resisted the temptation and stayed clean, which is one of the
reasons Clinton pardoned him, say officials from the U.S. Justice Department.

"What we're generally looking for is evidence of rehabilitation,"
said Sam Morison, a lawyer in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, a
branch of the justice department that recommends to the president whom
should be pardoned.

Morison said he was not allowed to talk about the specifics of Dionis'
case, but that officials considered such factors as the kind of
offense, when it occurred, whether there were victims and what the
person has done since being released from prison. About 250 people
nationwide ask for pardons each year, Morison said.

"A pardon is an official sign of forgiveness by the government,"
Morison said. "We're looking for evidence that someone is not likely
to commit another crime."

Other than helping to clean trash off the streets of Wilton Manors,
Dionis has not been a civic activist.

Justice department officials said Dionis will receive an official
Pardon Warrant in about two weeks. Dionis plans to hang it on the
wall, next to his associates degree in criminal justice, which he
received from Broward Community College before he began dealing drugs.
"It will be something to show I've made it through another
milestone," Dionis said. "Then we'll see what happens next."
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