Last Updated on 3/18/2010

Published on 12/23/2008
Written by Jason Lesley

Keith Parker’s prayers were answered Tuesday.
Parker was among 19 people with convictions ranging from gun and drug violations to bank and mail fraud granted pardons by President Bush as he left Washington for the holidays.
Parker pled guilty to misprison of a felony — concealing information from authorities — in a case that involved some other Georgetown area men who found some packages of cocaine in the ocean.
Drug Enforcement Administration officers investigated the case and Parker was given probation for his guilty plea.
“This was an injustice,” Parker said on Tuesday after learning of the pardon. “It all stemmed from nothing.”
Parker said he wrote President Bush a letter requesting the pardon. Parker said FBI officers came to Georgetown and interviewed him and his neighbors.
“They figured that I deserved a pardon,” Parker said.
As a felon, Parker could not carry a gun to go hunting. “I have wanted to take my son hunting for years, but I can’t have a gun,” he said.
Parker said he didn’t realize that he had to re-register in order to vote and was turned away at the polls. “That was a bunch of mess,” he said. “It was embarrassing.” Parker said that he was able to vote in the last election.
He has led a quiet life in Georgetown, working as a tree trimmer.
“He just fell in with the wrong crowd,” said Georgetown County Sheriff Lane Cribb.
With this latest batch, Bush has granted a total of 191 pardons and nine commutations. That’s fewer than half as many as Presidents Clinton or Reagan issued during their two terms.
Included in the latest list is Charles Winters, who is considered a hero in Israel.
Winters, who died in the 1980s in Florida, was in the airplane business after World War II. He bought up former military cargo planes and used them to transport fruit and other products. He later started helping his Jewish friends who were shipping arms to Jews trying to found their own state in the Middle East.
Winters, a Protestant from Boston, could fly his planes in and out of the region without interference from authorities. In 1948, three of his planes left Miami, picked up weapons in Azores and Czechoslovakia and then left the planes and arms in Palestine.
Winters was convicted of violating the Neutrality Act, fined $5,000 and sentenced to serve 18 months in prison. The act is designed to ensure that financial assistance and arms are not provided to parties in foreign conflicts where the U.S. has not taken sides.
Two others, Herman Greenspun and Al Schwimmer, also were convicted of violating the act, but they did not serve time. President Kennedy pardoned Greenspun in 1961. President Clinton pardoned Schwimmer in 2000.
Reginald Brown, an attorney who worked on the Winters pardon, said Bush's pardon "rights a historical wrong and honors Charlie's belief that the creation of the Jewish state was a moral imperative of his time. ... Charlie Winters helped shape human history for the better."
Film director Steven Spielberg wrote a letter to Bush appealing for a pardon for Winters.
"There are probably many unsung heroes of America and of Israel, but Charlie Winters is surely one of them," wrote the director of "Schindler’s List” and other Oscar-winning movies. “While a pardon cannot make Charlie Winters whole, and regrettably he did not live to see it, it would be a fitting tribute to his memory and a great blessing to his family if this pardon is granted.”
In addition to Winters, others granted pardons were:
 • William Alvis III, of Flushing, Ohio. Possession of an unregistered firearm and cocaine distribution.
• John Allen Aregood of Riviera, Texas. Conspiracy to harbor and transport illegal aliens.
• Eric Charles Blanke of Parker, Colo. Counterfeiting.
• Steve Doyle Cavender of The Villages, Fla. Conspiring to import, possess, distribute and dispense marijuana.
• Marie Elena Eppens of Lynden, Wash. Conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.
• Lydia Lee Ferguson of Sun City, Ariz. Conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.
• Eduviges Duvi Gonzalez-Matsumura of Clovis, Calif. Aiding and abetting embezzlement of bank funds.
• George Clarence Greene Jr. of Gray, Ga. Mail fraud.
• James Won Hee Kang of South Barrington, Ill. Trafficking in counterfeit goods.
• Alan Stephen Maiss of Reno, Nev.
• Richard Harold Miller of Tallahassee, Fla. Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
• Delano Abraham Nixon of Neosho Rapids, Kan. Forging the endorsement on a U.S. Treasury check.
• John H. Overholt of Black Hawk, S.D. Concealment of information affecting Social Security benefits.
• Morris Keith Parker of Georgetown, S.C.
• Robert Truman Reece of Redondo Beach, Calif.
• Donald Edward Roessler of Harrison, Ohio. Embezzlement of mail matter.
• Issac Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, N.Y. False statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and mail fraud.
• David Lane Woolsey of St. George, Utah. Aiding and abetting violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.
Bush also commuted the prison sentence of Reed Raymond Prior of Des Moines, Iowa.
Prior was convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. He was sentenced in 1996 in the Southern District of Iowa to life in prison with 10 years of supervised release. His prison sentence is now set to expire on Feb. 23, 2009, but the terms of the commutation leave intact and in effect the 10 years of supervised release with all its conditions.

The Associated Press contributed to this story