A FELON'S WELL-CONNECTED PATH TO CLEMENCY

On Monday, Harvey Weinig, a 53- year-old lawyer, onetime idealist and
convicted felon, is scheduled to walk out of federal prison in Fort Dix,
N.J. Mr. Weinig, a not terribly well-known beneficiary of former President
Bill Clinton's midnight clemency orders, had his sentence of 11 years cut by
half.

There to meet him will be Alice Morey, Mr. Weinig's wife and the tireless
architect of his release. For Ms. Morey, a City University law professor who
met her husband when they were both young law students interested in social
justice, the sweet moment outside Fort Dix will conclude an exhausting
personal campaign.

Over several years, including a final six intense months, Ms. Morey enlisted
the help of a cousin who had been a speechwriter for Mr. Clinton. She
lobbied the president's former deputy chief of staff, whose children had
gone to the same school as hers. And she hired a politically connected
former Justice Department lawyer who put together a voluminous application
detailing her family's anguish and what she believed was her husband's
unduly harsh prison sentence for his part in a drug money laundering
conspiracy.

The effort to use unusual access to maximum advantage paid off last Jan. 20
when Mr. Clinton's final clemency orders were announced, and Mr. Weinig was
on the list.

Mr. Clinton's clemency decisions have ignited a set of Congressional
hearings and one wide-ranging influence-peddling investigation. Those
inquiries are examining whether money or votes played a role in the cases of
everyone from Marc Rich, the fugitive financier, to several Hasidic men from
Rockland County, N.Y.

There is no evidence that Harvey Weinig's good fortune resulted from any
global conspiracy or promise of money. The formal process, including
affording his prosecutors the chance to respond, was followed.

But how Ms. Morey and her husband ultimately prevailed is a powerful
illustration of what critics in law enforcement and Congress say is flawed
about the clemency process: the primacy of personal connections, the
jockeying for the president's ear.

No one ever argued that Mr. Weinig was innocent. He pleaded guilty in 1995
to being a member of a conspiracy that laundered $19 million in the proceeds
of drug sales, money the authorities said was wired overseas and ended up in
the hands of Colombian drug traffickers. He also pleaded guilty to failing
to tell the authorities about a kidnapping which had been carried out by
another defendant, one of his clients.

"The prosecution of Harvey Weinig, probably more than most cases, sent a
message that the law applies equally to everyone, regardless of their
wealth, status and influence," said Lev L. Dassin, a former prosecutor in
the case. "I think that President Clinton's actions perverted that message.

"It's troubling because the pardon power is designed to correct injustices
in the system," Mr. Dassin said, "and when it's used in such a glaring
example of where it should not be, it undermines the credibility of the
system."

But Ms. Morey and her lawyer made a passionate argument that his sentence
was much longer than any of his co-defendants. They do not deny that their
success was due in no small part to the ability to turn friends into the
best-positioned advocates.

No one involved in the case, though, apologizes for how it all happened -
how Ms. Morey's cousin, the White House speechwriter, buttonholed John D.
Podesta, Mr. Clinton's chief of staff, while jogging in a Washington park to
press her husband's case, or how Harold M. Ickes, a Clinton confidant, spoke
directly to the president out of a sense of friendship for the parents whose
children had gone to school with his.

Mr. Podesta and Mr. Ickes explain their efforts by saying they were
persuaded of the moral merits of the argument that Mr. Weinig's sentence was
disproportionate to others imposed in the case. They believed, too, that his
two sons were suffering grievously.

For his part, Mr. Clinton would not comment, but his lawyer, David E.
Kendall, said the former president had decided all the cases "on the merits
as he saw them."

Mr. Kendall said, "Exercise by the president of his constitutional clemency
power is almost always controversial."

All of those who advocated in the White House for Mr. Weinig did say they
recognized the disquieting reality that not every deserving case received
such personal attention.

"If you look to the bigger questions, `Well, shouldn't everybody have this
kind of situation looked at?' the answer is, in the ideal world, yes," Mr.
Ickes said.

"We're not in the ideal world. You know, some get attention and some don't.
That's the way the world works. I'm not justifying it. I'm not applauding
it. I felt fortunate to be in a position, when the president asked me about
this, to be able to say I knew him, and that I hoped he would take a hard
look."

The Conviction

Conspiracy to Launder

Money for Drug Cartel

In the story of Harvey Weinig's commutation, one thing was always
unquestioned: his guilt.

"Although I did not initiate this money laundering activity," Mr. Weinig
told a federal judge while pleading guilty in 1995, "there is no avoiding
the fact that I engaged in serious illegal conduct for which there is no
excuse."

At another point, he told the judge that "I eagerly and greedily shared in
the proceeds of the transactions."

To Mr. Weinig's family and friends, his confession was a shock. Born in
Brooklyn, Mr. Weinig attended the Hofstra University School of Law, where he
met his future wife. After his 1974 graduation, he became a teacher in
Hofstra's poverty law clinic. Later, when he was in private practice in
Manhattan, his friends said, he offered free legal help to neighbors, baby
sitters, housekeepers, elevator operators, even his doorman.

The law school dean at the time, Monroe H. Freedman, recalled of the couple,
"They did stand out, both of them, in terms of being extremely nice,
conscientious, bright people."

But by 1994, Mr. Weinig had developed a dark side, prosecutors said. They
charged that Mr. Weinig and his partner, Robert Hirsch, had become leaders
of the "New York cell" of a sophisticated ring that laundered proceeds for
Colombian drug lords.

Prosecutors contended that Mr. Weinig and his partners helped facilitate,
through a network of couriers, cash pickups of drug money from the street.
The money was then delivered to a Citibank branch in the Bronx, wired
overseas and sent to Colombia. At another point, prosecutors said that Mr.
Weinig and his partners skimmed $2.4 million to keep for themselves.

Late in 1994, the government arrested Mr. Weinig and 22 others, including a
Hasidic rabbi from Brooklyn, a Bronx hospital worker and a New York police
officer, in what it called one of the largest money laundering operations
ever uncovered in the city.

After contesting the charges for months, Mr. Weinig eventually pleaded
guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Sept. 21, 1995, agreeing to
forfeit his law firm's assets and a house in Amagansett, N.Y.

At the sentencing in March 1996, Mr. Weinig's lawyer contended that his
client had been drawn into the illicit world and that he had played a
marginal role.

Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy was unmoved.

"Nineteen million dollars in drugs is a lot of money; that much drugs is a
lot of pain," Judge Duffy said. The judge said that if Mr. Weinig's sons
were using the drugs, "you would be singing a different story, an entirely
different song."

Mr. Weinig received the highest sentence allowed: 11 years, 3 months.

The StrategyLawyer Who Knows

Justice Dept.

About a year later, two friends of Ms. Morey were playing host at a dinner
in their apartment in a turn-of-the-century building at 82nd Street and
Broadway. The night's topic: how to free Harvey Weinig. The guests included
prominent lawyers and scholars and some former prosecutors who had worked
for the United States attorney's office that had convicted Mr. Weinig.

The dinner was lovely, the prognosis grim. An appeal was not an option.
Parole for the federal crime did not exist. And Harvey Weinig could not be
described as a sympathetic victim of some kind of Rockefeller-era state law
that imprisoned people for decades for merely possessing or dealing drugs.

As one friend, Thomas J. Concannon, a longtime Legal Aid Society lawyer in
Brooklyn, put it, "I remember being absolutely convinced that nothing could
come of it, other than for all the anxious people who were rooting for
Harvey and Alice to come to terms with it, almost like a death."

On Feb. 28, 1997, John R. Wing, Mr. Weinig's lawyer, wrote to Mary Jo White,
the United States attorney in Manhattan, in a last-ditch attempt for a
reduced sentence. In a 34-page letter, he focused on the disparity in
sentences, noting that virtually every other defendant received prison terms
of three years or less, even probation. Ms. White's office rejected the
request.

Ms. Morey thus turned to the long-shot notion of clemency. "I had to do
something," she said.

A New York lawyer who was her friend advised her to hire a Washington
lawyer, and she turned to Reid H. Weingarten, a former Justice Department
attorney.

Mr. Weingarten said he agreed to work on the case for very little money,
moved in part by the trauma suffered by Mr. Weinig's two young sons. "I'm a
single father," said Mr. Weingarten, 51, who is divorced. "I felt for the
kids."

Among lawyers in Washington, if one's reputation is often defined by the
prominence of one's clients, Mr. Weingarten had reached elite status during
the Clinton administration.

By the end of last year, he had represented at least one client in almost
every recent Washington legal skirmish. His clients included the secretary
of commerce, Ronald H. Brown; the former secretary of agriculture, Mike
Espy; and Yah Lin Trie and Pauline Kanchanalak, who were both charged in the
Democratic National Committee campaign financing investigation.

Mr. Weingarten had also worked for 10 years at the Justice Department as a
senior trial lawyer in the Public Integrity Section, prosecuting major
corruption cases.

"I'm a department guy," he liked to say. "I grew up in the Justice
Department." Among his closest friends is Eric H. Holder Jr., who was the
deputy attorney general under Janet Reno. But he also knew the faceless
bureaucrats, the career staff.

"I mean, he's not a fixer. He's not one of those big lobbyist types," said
Margaret C. Love, the Justice Department's top pardon lawyer from 1990 to
1997. "He's a good lawyer. He makes people in the department feel
comfortable because he was there a long time. He knows the ropes."

As a private lawyer, he had filed two clemency petitions during Republican
administrations, winning one. Mr. Weingarten told Ms. Morey that they would
more likely succeed pursuing a commutation - a sentence reduction - rather
than a full pardon.

Ms. Morey said she did not care. "We just wanted him home," she said.

Mr. Weingarten began writing the petition in late 1999. He and Ms. Morey
collected testimonials from dozens of friends, former colleagues, and
therapists who had treated the couple's children. There were also letters
from inmates and a counselor at Fort Dix. In the cover memorandum, Mr.
Weingarten called Mr. Weinig a lawyer with a history of public service who
"made a horrible, life-changing mistake."

In early April 2000, Mr. Weingarten filed the thick petition with the pardon
attorney's office. "I believed," Mr. Weingarten said, "and I believe today,
that if someone reads this stuff, if someone looked at this, that we were
going to win."

Mr. Weingarten said he next called Mary Jo White, the United States attorney
for the Southern District of New York. Her deputy responded that Mr. Weinig
did not deserve clemency. "It was 1,000 percent clear that they were going
to oppose it," Mr. Weingarten said. "She was appalled that a lawyer would
engage in this kind of behavior."

Mr. Weingarten also made an appointment to see Roger C. Adams, the Justice
Department's pardon attorney. The pardon attorney's office has
responsibility for developing a formal recommendation to the president.

Mr. Weingarten said he did not believe that Mr. Adams would reverse Ms.
White's position. But Mr. Weingarten wanted to influence the final Justice
Department document, so he made what he called a kind of "closing argument."

Months later, though, the pardon attorney sent the president a report
strongly opposed to clemency. A former White House aide described the report
as all but dictated by Ms. White's office and transmitted without changes.

Nonetheless, Mr. Weingarten pressed his case when and where he could on
trips to the White House to Mr. Podesta; to Beth Nolan, the White House
counsel; and to Bruce R. Lindsey, another White House lawyer.

The Ties

Friends and Family

Lead to White House

If Ms. Morey's hiring of Mr. Weingarten was a smart move, it was not her
only one. And so as Mr. Clinton entered his final six months, she decided to
take what she called "the political route."

"My goal," she says, "was to find someone - or many people - who had enough
of an `in' one way or another to get it to the president's attention."

"What I said was, `I'm not asking you to ask your friend to push Clinton to
sign this petition. I'm asking you to ask your friend to ask Clinton to read
it and do what's right."'

Ms. Morey and her husband were hardly major contributors to the president.
They donated $500 to Mr. Clinton in 1991 and $50 to Hillary Rodham Clinton
last year.

But Ms. Morey was not without tools. David E. Dreyer, a cousin by marriage,
was deputy White House communications director from 1993 to 1995, and then
was a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. She made her
pitch.

Mr. Dreyer, who said he was fond of his cousin Alice and occasionally saw
Mr. Weinig at bar mitzvahs and other family functions, responded
affirmatively. His friendship with Mr. Podesta, the president's chief of
staff, remained strong. Occasionally, they jogged together on a trail that
Mr. Podesta, an aspiring marathoner, had marked off in Rock Creek Park.

One day in July 2000, Mr. Dreyer, while visiting Mr. Podesta's office, gave
him the cover memo from Mr. Weingarten's petition.

"I asked him to take a look at it," Mr. Dreyer said, "and explained to him
the relationship, and why this mattered to me."

Mr. Podesta made no promises, Mr. Dreyer recalled, and asked if the petition
had been sent to the pardon attorney and White House counsel.

"He was certainly willing to look into it as an act of friendship," Mr.
Dreyer said. "But he is a person who lives, works and acts by the book."

When Mr. Dreyer raised the matter again last fall while the two were
jogging, Mr. Podesta said not to expect any action for several months.

Ms. Morey, meanwhile, also decided to approach another friend, Mr. Ickes, a
former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Clinton, who knew the Weinig family
through their children at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Manhattan.
Mr. Ickes said the friendship was part of the reason he agreed to help.

"I think what really drove it home to me was the disparity in the
sentences," Mr. Ickes said.

The case finally reached Mr. Clinton's desk. There was a presentation of 10
to 15 minutes. Mr. Podesta said that to him the issue was close, tilting
perhaps 55 to 45 in favor of clemency, with some lawyers from the White
House counsel's office opposed.

"I think that people were aware of what he had done, but that ultimately, I
think that based on the length of time he had served and based on a
humanitarian plea, while a difficult case, it seemed like the right
decision," said Mr. Podesta, who recommended clemency.

Mr. Ickes said the president raised the case with him.

"He asked me about it a couple of times," Mr. Ickes said. "I don't think he
was aware of all of the nuances, so I told him my view of it. It was the
sentencing issue. I said, `Look, this guy was sentenced. He pled guilty. And
nobody is claiming that he's a saint.' "

The family and Mr. Weingarten were jubilant when they received the news on
Jan. 20. Mr. Weinig called from prison and cried when they told him.

Some strongly attacked the commutation. Jeffrey Drubner, a former agent with
the Federal Bureau of Investigation who led the money laundering
investigation of Mr. Weinig, said, "It was his greed and his poor judgment
which landed him where he is. There's nothing so special about Harvey Weinig
and his family that distinguishes them from any other family that's been
broken apart because the father decides to go out and be a criminal."

In reflection, those who advocated for Mr. Weinig in the White House and
those who privately rooted back in New York concede there are inequities in
a system in which not every deserving case reaches the president.

"I understood that there were others similarly situated," Mr. Podesta said,
"and that weighed on me, but this was the case in front of us."

Thomas Concannon, Mr. Weinig's close friend and a veteran lawyer, said, "If
his case didn't get to the attention of the president, then some other file
in front of him on the desk - the one just before Harvey's - might have been
the last one before he needed to get something to eat."

At that point, Mr. Concannon added: "I wouldn't have wanted him to be
thinking about the larger philosophical questions. I would rather have him
touch what's right in front of him."