CHANGED LIFE EARNS PARDON

Michael Krukar is a big college basketball fan, a fixture at the Carrs
Great Alaska Shootout whose voice takes on an excited edge when the
conversation turns to hoops.

A few weeks ago he was eager to see a Duke-North Carolina State game on
television. And out of that desire sprang a sequence of events that gave
Krukar his first inkling that he had been pardoned by President Clinton for
a drug conviction a decade ago.

On Christmas Eve, Clinton granted executive clemency to 33 Americans whose
crimes ranged from going absent without leave during the Korean War to
dodging taxes and stealing a car.

Among them was Krukar, a 42-year-old state worker from Anchorage.

"Praise the Lord, and good deal," he said Saturday.

Krukar was one of eight people busted in the summer of 1988 during an
undercover drug operation at the U.S. Postal Service's mail-sorting
facility at Anchorage International Airport.

He was charged with two counts of distributing marijuana, and later pleaded
guilty in federal court to a single felony count. Because he had no prior
criminal record, Krukar's sentence was a $2,800 fine and 240 hours of
community service. He also was fired from his job at the post office.

"It was tragic at the time," he said of his arrest, "but it changed my
life. It forced me to confront a problem that I had lost control of, and
that was my marijuana addiction."

Krukar said he hasn't done drugs for 10 years, a span of time during which
he got married and found religion.

He has also been on a new career path in social services. He started at the
Salvation Army before working several years as a ward clerk and later a
supervisor at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute. He now works as an
eligibility technician at the state Division of Public Assistance and is
enrolled in a master's degree program.

"To me it's all about the success of the system - that I was given an
opportunity and I was able to respond," he said.

He applied for a presidential pardon years ago, went through the requisite
FBI background check in 1996 and had been waiting ever since.

That's where the basketball game comes into the picture.

On Dec. 5, Krukar wanted to watch Duke, whose team stars Anchorage native
Trajan Langdon. He had only a stripped-down cable TV package, so he called
GCI Cable to buy the game on a pay-per-view basis. The $11-a-game price tag
left him with sticker shock, so he decided it made more sense to upgrade
his cable service.

Along with more sports, the upgrade also brought more news into his Muldoon
home. And on Christmas Day, he and his wife Fraya were tuned in to the
Cable News Network, half paying attention.

"We were just listening and talking, and they said somebody in Alaska got a
pardon and it was for distributing an illegal substance," Fraya Krukar
said. "We figured who else could it be?"

The Krukars say they haven't heard from the White House or any federal
agency about the pardon. They said, in fact, that while they were pretty
sure about the pardon, they still had a little doubt until a reporter
called Saturday.

The Justice Department receives hundreds of applications for presidential
pardons for federal crimes each year. Prisoners must wait at least five
years after conviction to apply for a pardon, which clears the person's name.

Typically, pardons go only to those who have long ago served their
punishment and returned to productive private life. Clinton issued 21
pardons at Christmastime last year and has granted executive clemency to
110 people since he took office in 1993.

Krukar said he's happy to be among that small number. But, he adds, the
pardon only affirms what he already knows - that he's going in the right
direction.

"What matters is my marriage and my life and my work today," he said. "What
I do today is my torch - the pardon is a validation of that, but only a
validation."

Checked-by: Richard Lake