Good morning to you all,

As you may be aware, Governor Andrew Cuomo has resigned. On his way out the door, he granted clemency to only ten incarcerated individuals. I was also just informed that denial letters were issued by the former Governor to some individuals who were deemed no longer eligible for clemency because their possible release date is within a year. At this point, we have not received a denial letter so we assume Patrick’s clemency request is still pending. In any case, the denial letters technically hold no weight if that is the reason cited for the denial. There is technically no criteria for clemency other than the approval of the Governor, who is now Kathy Hochul.

So our attention and eyes are now on the newly appointed Governor Kathy Hochul. We are continuing to apply pressure in hopes that she will treat incarcerated New Yorkers and their families with the care and compassion and mercy that former Governor Cuomo painfully withheld. Please continue to keep Patrick in your prayers. He is 9 months away from his earliest release date, but we are still hopeful that Governor Hochul will review his clemency request and send him home immediately.

Also, Patrick is still working on a few blogs/articles that he can’t wait to share with you! He has been struggling to use a defective tablet for the past several months. He finally received new tablet but now JPay (the company that provides correctional services including money transfer, email, video and tablets) has removed the draft function in their latest update. This makes it much more difficult for Patrick to work on his writing and forces him to use stamps in order to email me his drafts (which means he is now spending money to save his drafts). This is unacceptable and advocates are pushing JPay to fix this egregious removal of the draft function. Their organization is supposed to help us be more connected with our loved ones, not to make it more difficult and to stifle our loved ones’ voices.

I know it’s been a while since my last update, so it was important for me to address the recent changes. As always, thank you for your continued love and support! 

- Alana Stephens (Patrick’s sister)