george martorano

[The Streets Don't Love You Back]

About George Martorano

George Martorano is a now in a MEDIUM security federal prison, serving his twenty-sixth year of a life sentence. He was just recently moved from the Max. USP, were he had spent most of his sentence. The Bureau of Prisons can verify that George is the longest serving non-violent first-time offender in the history of the United States, and possibly the WORLD. After being caught with a truck of marijuana, George was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This was in 1982, when the War on Drugs had strong momentum. Other people who had committed similar crimes received a maximum of twenty years. Manuel Noriega, contrasted with George, is one of the most infamous drug traffickers of all time, yet only received a forty year sentence–with the possibility of parole.

So why was such a harsh sentence handed to George Martorano? We believe that in the prosecution’s effort to send a message to George’s father, Raymond “Long John” Martorano, an alleged mafia figure, he was given the maximum sentence allowed by law; life with no parole. Because he remained silent, they “locked him up and threw away the key,” put him in solitary confinement for four and one half years, and kept him in America’s most notorious prison: Marion, which is completely underground.

Then George began to write. He wrote and published a book about growing up in the old Italian-American neighborhood in Philadelphia, “South Philly.” He now has over twenty works depicting life in prison as well as life on the outside. He teaches reading and writing, yoga, and even counsels suicidal inmates. He has a spotless prison record without an incident of violence in all of his twenty-two years in America’s toughest jails.

By writing to President Obama, saying that a non-violent first time offender such as George deserves a second chance, you will be helping to send him home. Studies show that is costs $40,000 a year in tax payers’ money to keep a federal prisoner. The prisons are overcrowded with non-violent drug offenders who are “warehoused.” Why should this clearly rehabilitated man be kept in jail until the day he dies? If George is released, he plans to help educate young men who are on the wrong path in life. Until then, by writing President Obama, you could help George on his quest for freedom.think