Ashley Marie Torres is “very happy” after receiving the governor’s pardon

Ashley Marie Torres Feliciano has already received the news that she will be released from prison soon and is preparing to comply with the restrictions imposed through the conditional pardon granted today by Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced, said the lawyer and founder of the Project Innocence of the Inter-American University, Julio Fontanet.

“She is very happy, very aware of the challenges that await her once she is released from prison,” said Fontanet, dean of the Faculty of Law at Inter.

Torres Feliciano is imprisoned 11 years ago, convicted as co-perpetrator of her brother’s murder in 2009. She was sentenced to 111 years in prison, while the perpetrator of the murder was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Fontanet indicated that four lawyers went to the Bayamón Correctional Complex this afternoon after the president’s announcement. Two of them were able to speak with the 28-year-old mother, who had learned she was pardoned because the news spread among the inmates, she said.

Vázquez Garced announced today that he granted 31 executive inclemencies, including the conditional pardon to Torres Feliciano. As part of the conditions, Torres Feliciano will have to spend a year under house arrest under electronic supervision. He must then remain at his residence from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am and may not commit any crime or use controlled substances, among other restrictions, prior to being able to receive a full pardon that would clean up his criminal record.

The governor noted that the year of house arrest will serve to adjust to life outside of prison.

“She has to make this transformation from prison life to normal life … This is expected for a young woman who has been in prison since she was 16,” Fontanet said.

The date of the granting of the clemency complicates that the bureaucratic formalities can be completed before next week, the lawyer explained.

“I think that if it weren’t for December 31st, all this could have happened today, but today is 31st, tomorrow is 1st (January) and then it’s Saturday and Sunday. The bureaucratic process, I know it’s already started, I know that has already begun, and we are very grateful. Everything should be able to culminate on Monday, “he said.

Due to the restrictions that the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation has imposed on visits to prisons to prevent contagion with COVID-19, Torres Feliciano is unlikely to receive his relatives in prison. The meeting would be when it leaves, possibly on Monday, Fontanet said.

“The important thing here is for this young woman to come out,” he stated.

The first executive granted a conditional pardon to Torres Feliciano after meeting last week with Fontanet in La Fortalesa. The request for executive clemency was made more than a year ago. When she was Secretary of Justice in 2018, Vázquez Garced was in charge of announcing that a new trial against Torres Feliciano would not be allowed, as soon as Project Innocencia indicated that exculpatory evidence had been suppressed during the first judges.