Decade-old Families Against Mandatory Minimums Expands Agenda

Pedro Riveiro waited anxiously at a federal prison in South Carolina for the news.

In 1989, the college graduate had briefly peddled drugs for his boss at a Miami cell phone business. He was arrested four years later, after his former boss snitched in exchange for a reduced sentence of 16 months.

On Jan. 20, Riveiro, six years into an 812-year sentence for cocaine distribution, learned he was one of 21 drug offenders whose sentences had been commuted by President Bill Clinton. "It was a shock, a total shock," says Riveiro, 34, who now lives in Key Largo, Fla.

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