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Alan Crotzer, the man who spent 25 years in state prison for a rape he did not commit asked the Governor for a fresh start today and got it.  Crotzer and his attorneys appeared before the Executive Clemency Board asking for a complete pardon for two earlier crimes; a 1979 robbery, and a 1991 controlled substances violation when he was in prison. Telling the panel that he is “Not the monster they make me out to be”, the former inmate says he was 18 and outside a convenience store when his friends went inside to steal cases of beer. In prison, he says a guard forced him to sell marijuana.

Crotzer is now working part time and volunteering for the Department of Juvenile Justice, hoping to dissuade other kids from making their first mistake and paying huge consequences like he has paid. He also told the Governor and Cabinet he would like to be a Prison Inspector after getting a college education so he can expose the problems he found while incarcerated.

Governor Charlie Crist made the motion to grant not only a full pardon but a compete expungement of the criminal records. The motion started a discussion of whether the panel could order an expungement under a 2004 Supreme Court decision to the contrary, to which the Governor asked rhetorically….”aren’t there two new judges over there now…and two more to come?”

Someone would have to file suit to challenge the vote to grant the expungement. Crotzer says he feels “like he is finally off to a fresh start in life”.