President Donald Trump issued pardons to five former NFL players on Thursday, with White House Pardon Czar Alice Marie Johnson making the announcement on social media.
The five pardoned players are Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry and the late Billy Cannon.
“As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again. So is our nation,” Johnson wrote on X.
She then added that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones personally told Newton of the news.
Klecko, 72, was sentenced to three months in jail in 1993 for lying to a federal grand jury about an auto-insurance fraud scam in which he took part. He was a two-time All-Pro defensive lineman with the New York Jets from 1977-88. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2023.
The 64-year-old Newton, a two-time All-Pro and three-time Super Bowl champion offensive lineman with the 1990s Cowboys, was sentenced to 30 months in prison in 2002 after he was arrested with 175 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his car near Dallas.
Lewis, 46, pleaded guilty in 2004 to using a cell phone to try to set up a drug deal and was sentenced to four months. He played running back for the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns in his 10-year career. He ran for 10,607 yards and 58 touchdowns. His best season came in 2003, when he rushed for 2,066 yards and scored 14 touchdowns. He was Offensive Player of the Year that season and made All-Pro and the Pro Bowl for the only time in his career.
Henry played running back for the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans and Denver Broncos from 2001-07. He posted back-to-back seasons with more than 1,350 yards with the Bills in 2002-03. The 47-year-old received a three-year prison sentence in 2009 for financing an interstate drug ring.
Cannon served three years of a five-year sentence beginning in 1983 for taking part in a counterfeit-money-printing operation. A two-time All-Pro and three-time AFL champion, Cannon was perhaps best known for his days starring at half back at LSU in the late 1950s. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1959. He died at age 80 in 2018.
