Fort Worth brothers granted clemency by Trump, free after over 30 years
Thirty years after they were sentenced to life in prison on drug-related charges, two Fort Worth brothers are free, according to the Department of Justice.
President Donald Trump commuted the sentences of Edward Sotelo and his brother Joe on May 29, according to the clemency warrants signed for them by Trump. Described as cocaine kingpins and convicted of a non-violent drug conspiracy, the brothers had been in prison since the mid-1990s, according to NBC DFW.
The brothers submitted multiple pardon applications over their more than 30 years in prison, but all of them failed. That was until earlier this year, when President Trump named Alice Marie Johnson the United States’ first Pardon Czar.
“Nine-fifteen in the morning on May 29, they came and told me President Donald Trump just released you,” Edward Sotelo told NBC DFW. “Six hours later, I was landing in DFW Airport.”
Johnson was pardoned by Trump in 2018 and Trump asked her in February of this year to look for prisoners who should be granted clemency.
The Sotelos stood out to her because they were sentenced under old mandatory-minimum sentencing laws that would not apply if they were sentenced today, Johnson told NBC DFW.
This week, the brothers celebrated their freedom (and their mother’s 88th birthday,) at the family’s Fort Worth restaurant, Tia’s on the Bluff. In the 85 days since their release, the brothers have been working at the restaurant, doing everything from fixing patios to slinging drinks, they told NBC DFW.
“It is emotional because I left a lot of good people behind in the same predicament that we were in, and I can’t believe it,” Joe Sotelo told NBC DFW.
This story was originally published August 22, 2025 at 9:05 PM.
