(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) In addition to pardoning his embattled son, Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden also granted clemency to a woman convicted of insurance fraud linked to the murders of her two former husbands and ex-boyfriend.
Josephine Virginia Gray, dubbed the “Black Widow,” was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison in 2002 for fraud schemes related to murders that took place between 1974 and 1996, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Gray is now free, even after being resentenced to the same penalties in 2006 following appeals. She was among the 1,500 individuals Biden extended clemency or pardons on Dec. 12.
Gray was accused of murdering her first husband, Norman Stribbling, in 1974, according to The Washington Post.
She was also accused of murdering her second husband, William “Robert” Gray, who was killed in 1992. In 1996, her boyfriend, Clarence Goode, was found stuffed in the back of his car after suffering a gunshot wound.
While the murder charges were dropped due to family members either declining to testify or going missing, Gray was convicted of insurance fraud after collecting $165,000 from three insurance settlements.
Josephine Gray admitted to killing her exes for $165k in insurance payouts. She took out a policy on another boyfriend, who later testified against her.
James Trusty, who prosecuted the case as assistant US attorney in Maryland, talked to us about it. https://t.co/mjF8D1ocMJ
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 19, 2024
Her conviction was based on the slayer’s rule, which prevents killers from benefiting from insurance or inheritance proceeds from their victims.
The murder charges were not pursued further because state prosecutors believed that the federal sentence ensured Gray would effectively “die in prison.”
Enter Biden.
Gray had been placed under home confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but with Biden’s clemency, she is now a free woman.
James Trusty, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, expressed his frustration in remarks to the Free Beacon: “It pisses me off, as you can imagine.”
Trusty added, “This doesn’t feel like a ‘rule of law’ moment for the Biden administration.” He was informed of Gray’s commuted sentence through an alert on the case’s docket.
Gray’s pardon is not the only one facing criticism. Biden also pardoned a Chinese national convicted of child pornography.
The lame-duck president also extended clemency to a former Pennsylvania judge implicated in the so-called “Kids for Cash” kickback scheme, which presumably resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of 2,000 juveniles.
Another controversial pardon was that of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who had been convicted of making a false statement on a federal gun purchase form and failing to pay millions in taxes. Biden falsely stated that his son had fallen victim to partisan prosecution, contradicting his earlier assertions that he would respect the judicial process and the jury’s verdict.
