Bentley Hatchett Shares His Reentry Journey After Serving Time For Cannabis

Mikelina Belaineh • May 23, 2023

Bentley joined LPP's Director of Impact, Mikelina Belaineh, via Zoom for an hour-long interview. Bentley shared about how he became incarcerated for cannabis and the impact it has had on his life. The content of this article is informed by Bentley’s words, but they are not verbatim. Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity, and have been reviewed and approved by Bentley.


Tell me your story of cannabis criminalization, how did you get to be here with me today doing this interview? 


I grew up in Austin, Texas. When I was about to go into kindergarten my mother started talking about wanting to go back to college to finish up her degree. My dad had an old-school mindset that the wife should stay at home, and he said he wouldn’t allow it. My mother wouldn’t stand for that, so my parents ended up getting divorced in 1978. My dad made it very difficult for my mom financially, and she ended up only with the bare minimum of what she needed to take care of us. She provided for us, but there was never enough to fully address our family’s needs. My father’s absence took a real toll on me, he became just a voice on the other side of the phone. It was harsh, all I really wanted was my dad there, and then I’m watching my mother struggle trying to take care of us on her own. Pretty early on, I started finding ways to help. I couldn’t stand to be a burden to my mother. 


 Eventually, my older brother started running with people that were selling cannabis and other drugs. I got looped in and started helping my brother with the business. By 15, I was making insane money, especially for a teenager. This is back in the late eighties. It felt great to be able to contribute to the family. I've never done what I've done to be the man, I only sold cannabis to help my family. Come 1989, my brother encountered some trouble, and he ended up getting busted and sentenced to 14 years. That was my first taste of what incarceration does to a family. My mother and I were devastated, it's still painful for me to remember. For the first 2 weeks after he got sentenced, I don't think my mother, or I left our beds. Both of my male role models had been ripped from my life. I fell into a darkness, struggling mentally and emotionally. I started doing cocaine and other hard drugs, I was in bad shape. It got to the point where my friends had to intervene to get me cut off. I was still going to school, functioning, but just barely.


Fast forward, I go to my first Grateful Dead show and get introduced to psychedelics. Psychedelics and cannabis combined ended up having a very profound effect on my life. Once introduced, I was able to use LSD, mushrooms, and cannabis to facilitate deep introspection and healing. I came to understand how I had been using hard drugs to avoid and escape my emotional pain. Psychedelics reframed my afflictions and gave me space to open up and dive into my experience. As a junior in college, I decided to leave school, move out to California, and join the emerging Psychedelics movement. My goal was always to be a part of serving the greater good. 


In the late nineties, it was still in the early stages of cannabis in California. The weed wasn’t great, so a lot of people were getting their product from Canada. Me and my friends figured we could probably grow some great weed outdoors in California. The first time I got arrested, I got in trouble because of my ties to the psychedelic community. I was charged because my name had been thrown around. I had introduced one person to another person, I didn’t sell anything, and I didn’t get paid for anything. 


 The DEA lied to the prosecutor about my involvement in the case, and the government withheld evidence that would expose the truth. The judge gave the prosecution one week to get all of the missing discovery to my lawyer. Of course by the evening before the 7th day, when we were supposed to return to court, they still had not complied with the Judge's orders. The prosecutor calls my lawyer that night and says that if took a plea deal she would drop my conspiracy charge (which held a sentence of 6-9 years) to a misprision of a felony charge which would end up having me 1 year incarcerated and 1-year paper. So of course I took the deal, even though the underlying charge was based on lies and government misconduct. 


So, I served my time, and when I got out. I was like, okay. I'm never going to do anything that's going to lead me back to prison. Once I got off paper, I moved back out to California and started doing the medical thing there. There weren’t many people in the medical game at the time, and I had a lot of experience under my belt—things were going well for me. A childhood friend of mine was living in New York and asked me and my partners to source cannabis for them. I was naïve and agreed to work with them in a limited capacity, thinking I could avoid being implicated if things went wrong. Eventually, my friend ended up getting in trouble for grow houses he had in Texas. One thing leads to another, and people start getting arrested and giving names. Next thing I know there’s a warrant for my arrest. I was looking at a 10-year sentence, and I wasn’t willing to tell on someone else to get out of punishment—so I went on the run. I sent my family away, got them set up, and then disappeared into the woodwork. I was on the run for 8 years total. 


I was hopping from Airbnb to Airbnb, staying with friends, when unbeknownst to me, someone had called the U.S. Marshalls and alerted them to my moves. I had no idea that I was being tracked. One evening, I was in the lobby of my hotel and this guy comes up to me and say, “Is your name Bentley Hatchett?” I say no it’s not; I had no idea who this guy was, he didn’t identify himself as an officer. He throws me up against the wall and grabs my passport out of my back pocket. He ends up arresting me for narcotics trafficking out of New York City. I told him I had never sold narcotics, but it didn’t matter.


I was incarcerated pre-trial, without bond because they deemed me a flight risk. They bounced me around to a few different facilities until I got sent to MCC Manhattan, where I stayed. It was terrible, basically a glorified county jail. Soon after my arrival, in April of 2020, we went into Covid lockdown. Everything was shut down and the entire system was frozen. Conditions went from bad, to unimaginable. Rats were running amuck, toilets on multiple levels were overflowing, and staff and guards weren’t showing up to work. For 18 months I didn’t see the sun or feel fresh air on my face and was left to languish in a facility not fit to sustain human life. 


 I was lucky to have a good lawyer. He believed in the merits of my case and hustled to work the system on my behalf. The prosecutor told him that the DA’s office doesn’t really care about weed anymore, they’ve got f*nt*nyl, human trafficking, and issues of violence on their plate-- weed was not on his mind at this point. Plus, the original prosecutor and judge for my case were gone by this point (it had been 8 years). The Prosecutor said if I did a self-proffer, then he would go easy on me. Everyone in the original conspiracy had already done their time and were off supervised release. So, I sat down with him and explained my involvement. All I did was vet and round up Californian herbs for the program, I was never part of the shipping or movement of product in the NYC market. I was able to get the prosecutor to understand that I was only involved in 470 kg, versus the 1850 kg the government was trying to hold me accountable for. 


The judge presiding over my case was overseeing cases of other people in my unit and became aware of how bad the conditions in the MCC facility were. God bless her, she went through the sentencing guidelines and found a way to reduce each of our sentences based on the amount of time we had been locked down. I got 16 months taken off my sentence. They ended up shutting down MCC Manhattan and moved most of us to MDC Brooklyn. 


What has life after incarceration been like for you and your family? 


Reentry's been hard. You can't get just walk into any place and get a job as a convicted felon, even if it's non-violent. But I've been very lucky to have people helping to prop me back up, friends giving me opportunities to work. I do have opportunities in the legal cannabis space, but I can't accept them. The judge said I can’t be a part of the cannabis industry whether it's legal or not, because I was convicted in a Federal court. I’m on paper for 3 years, if I violate the conditions of my supervised release, I go back to prison. So, I do what I must to get by. All I can do is keep moving forward, how things unfold is dependent on my mindset. The whole experience was so destructive to my family. I missed out on so much with my kids. I wasn't there for the soccer games, and taking them to school, just doing the day-to-day stuff that children need. It's a damn shame that my kids couldn’t grow up with their father. I do my best to be a great father to my 5 kids now, to take steps to make amends and heal, but it’ll take time. It’s really frustrating to not be allowed to participate in the industry, but I feel so blessed to be free, no longer looking over my shoulder out of fear. 


There are so many people that are incarcerated right now for nonviolent drug offenses and don't need to be. Under different circumstances, they could have been CEOs, people of stature, and status in our community. I was sitting in the cell watching New York legalize and thought “The only difference between me and these ‘businessmen’ is that I was a little bit ahead of the curve.” I know I could’ve made different choices to avoid some of the things that happened to me, but I believe in what I did. I provided cannabis to folks who need it, I did it to heal people. 


What would you like to see happen in cannabis reform? 


Everybody has somebody in the family that smokes, and most people have probably tried it. A lot of folks believe it's not that big of a fucking deal and yet we still have people getting incarcerated, we still have people that have been incarcerated for it for decades. I share my story because I want to help advocate for these folks. Cannabis needs to stop being a money thing. The industry is working off the same good old boy network that’s been running everything. Politicians need to listen to the people on the ground and front lines, not these big-money MSOs.

"Nobody Should Be Locked Up for a Plant": Kelly Barbieri's Story of Loss, Resilience, and Reform

By Mary Bailey • August 20, 2026
For Kelly Barbieri, incarceration for a cannabis offense in Georgia cost her far more than her freedom. It cost her time she can never get back with her family, time she needed most when tragedy struck at home. Her story is one of grief, community, and an unshakable belief that no one should ever go through what she and her family endured. A Family Rooted in Tradition Kelly and her husband, Dan, have been married for more than 30 years and have raised two sons together, the younger of whom is autistic. Kelly describes their household as very traditional: the couple made sure a parent was always home, even when that meant working separate shifts and sacrificing time together. Kelly eventually left her teaching job to homeschool her younger son. Family life centered on simple pleasures: cooking, watching old movies, spending time outdoors, caring for their dogs, cats, and chickens, and tending a garden of food, flowers, and medicinal plants. Everyone in the family is a devoted Grateful Dead fan, a shared love of music that has long been part of their household. How It Began In March 2018, the family's Georgia home was raided after Kelly provided cannabis to a friend whose mother had cancer. Unbeknownst to Kelly, that friend had become a confidential informant to help resolve his own drug charges; he later died of a fentanyl overdose. The case didn't go to trial until late August 2023, more than five years later. Kelly and Dan were convicted of manufacturing and distributing marijuana and sentenced to 10 years, with three to serve. The judge issued a modification order recommending early parole so the couple could return home to care for their special-needs son, but the parole board set Kelly's tentative parole date for October 2026, just two months before her maximum release date. A Hard Beginning Kelly's incarceration started with Diagnostics, an intake process she describes as the hardest part of her time inside. "We ate cold food out of Styrofoam trays, were often in lockdown, and it was just a gross place," she recalls. It was the only period, she says, when she felt genuinely unsafe. But even that hardship paled in comparison to what came next. An Unimaginable Loss While incarcerated, Kelly learned that her eldest son was sick. His health declined rapidly, and he died a week later. She was powerless to help. "If I had been home, I could have made him go to the doctor or hospital," she says. "That feeling of helplessness and being powerless was horrible." The loss shook her faith. "I think what helped me get through it the most was the other women in there with me who had been through similar experiences and supported me," Kelly says. "I don't know that it was any kind of faith that helped. If anything, I lost some faith in a higher power during that time." What carried her forward was her remaining son, and her determination to stay strong for him. Kelly recently attended her son's memorial, an experience she calls healing. "Seeing how many people loved him and came to honor him warmed my heart," she says. She still grieves every day, but has found grounding in nature, family, and keeping her son's memory alive. "I know the only way to get through this is to feel it, and remember that grief is the price we pay for love," she reflects. "I believe he would want me to live, and not just exist and survive." The Power of Community Even from behind bars, Kelly felt the support of people she'd never met. Letters from strangers reminded her she wasn't alone. "It's so nice to hear your name called at mail call, and then just hearing the validation from others that what I was going through was so ridiculous," she says. She saved every letter. "It still makes me feel good to know that there is a large community of people out there who want to help those in a similar situation to ours, and it definitely gives me hope." Last Prisoner Project's Role Kelly remembers the exact day she learned Last Prisoner Project would sponsor her case, a day that had started with the loss of her beloved dog. "I was so depressed, but then my son told me that y'all had accepted us to sponsor, and it really brightened my day," she says. The financial support meant she no longer had to rely on her sons to put money on her books, and a grant to her son eased the family's financial strain. "LPP was truly a blessing," she says. "It's easy to feel lost and alone while incarcerated, and knowing y'all were there helped so much." Reflecting on LPP's broader work, Kelly is direct: "Some organizations just pay a lot of lip service to cannabis policy change, while LPP is actually doing something to help, and that is huge." Looking Ahead Now home and back at work, Kelly is rebuilding the life she and Dan always envisioned, one centered on family, gardening, cooking, and caring for their special-needs son, while carrying the memory of the son they lost every day. But she's also clear-eyed about the work still ahead. "My husband and I should have never been sentenced like we were in the first place, and then for the parole board to keep us in there for so long, even months after our son died, was just unnecessary," she says. "Nobody should be locked up for a plant, period. No victim, no crime." Her call to action is simple: full decriminalization of cannabis at the national level, so state reform can follow. "Nobody stopped using cannabis because we were locked up," she says. "So the whole incarceration thing is pointless."  Kelly Barbieri is a Last Prisoner Project constituent. Her story is shared with her permission as part of LPP's ongoing work to end the incarceration of individuals for cannabis-related offenses and support their successful reentry.

A Mother Still Behind Bars for Cannabis: The Story of Brandy Fisher

By Mary Bailey • May 18, 2026
A Mother Still Behind Bars for Cannabis: The Story of Brandy Fisher While legalization spreads across America, women like Brandy Fisher remain forgotten inside federal prison — serving out decade-long sentences for marijuana as the world outside changes without them. How It Began Brandy Fisher never imagined she would spend a decade in federal prison. Charged with distribution of 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, she became a target when family members and close friends she trusted were already working as federal informants — six of them. When agents approached her first and asked if she wanted to talk, she asked for a lawyer. That decision, the right one under any standard, did not protect her from what came next. “The 6 informants who were close family and whom I thought were best friends had turned federal agents,” Brandy recalls. She took a plea deal — ten years under Rule 11(c)(1)(C), a binding agreement that locks the sentence in place regardless of changes in law. And the law has changed dramatically. “Sitting back and watching the world change daily is amazing — how now the world can see that marijuana can be used to cure people of sicknesses.” — Brandy Fisher As state after state has legalized or decriminalized cannabis, and as federal reform conversations have grown louder, Brandy remains locked in. Her binding plea means no retroactive relief applies to her. She watches from inside, and she waits. While Brandy serves her sentence, her family carries the weight too. Her father has received a family support grant from the Last Prisoner Project to help offset the costs of caring for Brandy’s six-year-old son. And when Brandy is eventually released, she will be eligible for a Last Prisoner Project reentry grant — funding designed to help cannabis prisoners like her rebuild their lives from the ground up. Life at FCI Waseca Brandy first survived FCI Dublin — the California federal prison that became the subject of a federal investigation into widespread staff sexual abuse. She was transferred to FCI Waseca in Minnesota, which she describes as one of the worst women’s federal prisons in the country. The conditions she describes are a portrait of institutional neglect. The commissary is shut down for weeks at a time. The kitchen served her food with a live beetle on the tray — she no longer eats there. Women are denied body oils because, as Brandy recounts, the staff claim it draws unwanted attention from male officers. A captain reportedly declared that commissary soda was being removed because women there were overweight. Cleaning supplies — bleach, Ajax — are withheld, yet women are asked to clean bathrooms that handle used sanitary products, sometimes without gloves. An outbreak of H. pylori, a bacterial infection that can lead to stomach cancer if untreated, has affected a significant portion of the population. “They are trying to keep it on the low,” Brandy says. “We are run around by majority men officers — there are unpleasant comments made about women and their sexual body parts, comments about the way our clothes fit.” — Brandy Fisher The harassment, she says, is daily and institutional. The message from staff is clear: the needs and dignity of the women housed there are not a priority. Safety, Mental Health, and a Six-Year-Old Boy Brandy shares her room with three individuals convicted of serious child sex offenses carrying sentences of 25 or more years, as well as others convicted of drug offenses and one convicted of murder. The federal system houses people across these vastly different profiles together, and any refusal to comply with the arrangement risks placement in the Special Housing Unit — solitary confinement. For Brandy, the psychological weight is not abstract. She has a six-year-old son on the outside, being raised by his 80-year-old great-grandfather. Every night, she falls asleep thinking about child predators — the ones inside, and the ones who may be near her child. Mental health support at Waseca is, by her account, almost nonexistent. There is one mental health staff member. “I will not call her a doctor,” Brandy says, “because when she talks to you, she is angry herself and she doesn’t give good advice.” When Brandy first arrived at FCI Dublin, she was immediately stripped of all mental health medications she had been taking for four years. No taper. No transition. No plan. What Clemency Would Mean Brandy is currently pursuing clemency with legal support from the Last Prisoner Project. For her, release is not the end of the story — it is the beginning of one she has been carefully building in her mind, and on the page, for six years. She wants to return to real estate: flipping and staging homes, putting them back on the market. She is also planning a nonprofit bookstore dedicated to donating reading materials to federal prisons nationwide. Over the past year alone, she has read more than 200 books. It has changed her. “Reading gives me hope, and it makes my time fly by. I want to help feed the minds of others with learning materials, love stories, action-packed books — and let’s not forget the hood books that keep us all on edge.” — Brandy Fisher She points out that in six years, not a single author of the many book series her family has ordered for her has ever donated books to FCI Waseca or FCI Dublin. She intends to be the person who changes that. Brandy Fisher is not asking for pity. She is asking to be seen — and asking those with the power to grant clemency to consider what second chances are for, and who deserves them. Write to Brandy — Let Her Know She Hasn’t Been Forgotten One of the hardest parts of incarceration is feeling invisible. A letter from a stranger can be a lifeline. If Brandy’s story has moved you, take five minutes to write to her directly. Tell her you read her story. Tell her she matters. Tell her people on the outside are fighting for her. Brandy Fisher 47495-509 FCI Waseca P.O. Box 1731 Waseca, MN 56093 You also have the option to write your letter to Brandy on the Last Prisoner Project website, and we will print and mail it for you: https://www.lastprisonerproject.org/letter-writing Support the Last Prisoner Project Brandy’s family support grant, her legal advocacy, and her reentry grant when she is released — all of it is made possible by donors like you. Last Prisoner Project works every day to free cannabis prisoners, support their families while they are inside, and help them rebuild when they come home. To keep doing this work, we need your support. Donate here .

75 Years for Cannabis: The Story of Julian Andrade

By Mary Bailey • May 4, 2026
75 Years for Cannabis: The Story of Julian Andrade Julian Andrade is 22 years old. He was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and he has now spent three of those years inside a prison cell, serving a 75-year sentence for a nonviolent cannabis charge. He also received concurrent terms of 50 and 10 years. No one was hurt. No violence was involved. Just a young man from Fort Worth, still maturing, whose life was upended by a system that chose punishment over proportion. Julian is a father. His son was born while he was incarcerated, a milestone he could not share, a childhood he cannot witness in person. His aunt stands firmly by his side, advocating for him and helping make sure his story gets told. Together, they are determined that what happened to Julian will not stay silent. This is his story, in his own words. A Fast Life and Bigger Dreams Before his arrest, Julian was someone who poured his time into the people he loved. "Before incarceration, I would spend any and all time that I could with my family and loved ones," he says. Underneath that, he carried real ambition. His goals were not small. He wanted to open businesses and bring others along with him, to create something and share it. "The path I thought I was on at 19 was a fast life that I did not know how to get out of." It's a sentence worth sitting with. A teenager who wanted to build something, who wanted to lift people up, caught in circumstances he didn't yet have the tools to escape. That kind of nuance rarely makes it into a courtroom. Shock, Confusion, and a Quiet Resolve When the verdict came down, Julian didn't rage. He went quiet. "I was in shock, loss of words, hurt, but mainly confused. I didn't hurt anyone. It was only cannabis." The confusion is understandable. Cannabis is now legal or decriminalized in the majority of U.S. states. The substance at the center of Julian's case is sold openly in dispensaries across the country. And yet, in Texas, a 19-year-old received a sentence longer than most people's entire lives. Julian has refused to let that sentence hollow him out. Since coming to prison, he says he has grown closer to God and encourages others to do the same. He uses the time to mature and to become a better man, not just for the people waiting for him on the outside, but for himself. "Since receiving my time, my perspective has changed completely. I now use this time to mature, grow, and become a better man for my family, friends, and my release, but most importantly myself." A Father Behind Bars Julian's son came into the world while Julian was incarcerated. There was no hospital room, no first cry he could hear, no hand to hold. There is only the wondering. "I miss my son daily. It hurts me knowing I can't help or even watch him grow up. I'm always wondering what he is doing, what kind of kid he is, and what he likes. Hoping one day I can do the same things with him that my grandpa did with me." That last line carries everything. A grandfather's love, passed down through memory, now at risk of being cut off by a sentence for a plant. Julian's son is growing up without his father. Julian is getting older without being able to watch his child grow. "My child means the world to me." The Daily Weight Ask Julian what his hardest challenges are, and his answers are not about prison conditions or legal policy in the abstract. They are deeply personal. "The biggest challenge I face daily is missing home. Hoping I'm free before my grandpa or mom passes. Being able to still be in my child's younger years. And enjoying life in the free world while I'm still young." He is racing against time on every front, against grief, against his son's fleeting childhood, against his own youth passing inside a cell. And yet something keeps him going. "The world is changing. But mainly dreaming about the things I will do and the life I want to live upon my release." He means it literally, too. Julian says he looks forward to pumping gas, walking through a grocery store, and one day helping others who find themselves in situations like his. The smallest freedoms, the ones most people never think about, are the ones he dreams about most. What Julian Wants You to Know If Julian could speak to lawmakers, advocates, and everyday people, he would not ask for sympathy. He would ask for honesty. "I know what I did. I broke the law. But I don't think people like myself or others should be serving long sentences, especially for something nonviolent or accepted in more than half of America and other parts of the world. I was still a kid when I came to prison. I was still growing up and maturing, and still am today. I didn't hurt anyone, never did, and never will. I don't deserve all this time. I understand I and others have broken the law, but we should not be doing more than 5 years for a plant." His aunt echoes that call. She has stood by Julian since the beginning, advocating loudly and consistently, refusing to let the system's silence become the final word on her nephew's life. Her support is a reminder that behind every incarcerated person is a family fighting to bring them home. Julian hopes that one day he will be able to share his testimony from the outside, to stand in front of others who are struggling and tell them there is a way through. That vision is part of what keeps him moving forward. The Door to Clemency Is Almost Sealed Shut Julian would like to pursue a sentence commutation, but Texas makes that road extraordinarily difficult. And even the path to clemency is nearly out of reach. Texas requires a written recommendation from a majority of the current trial officials, the present prosecuting attorney, the judge, and the sheriff or chief of police of the arresting agency from the county and court of offense, conviction, and release, along with full compliance with the board rules governing commutation of sentence, just to be eligible to apply. The very system that locked Julian up is the same one he'd need permission from to get out. His aunt has stood by him every step of the way, fighting to make sure his story is heard. Now we're helping make sure it is. A System Out of Step Julian's case is a stark illustration of how dramatically cannabis sentencing diverges across state lines. In one state, a person can legally purchase the same substance that earned Julian 75 years in Texas. That disparity is not justice. It is geography. Julian did not commit a violent crime. He was a teenager from Fort Worth who made choices in a life he didn't yet know how to navigate. He is now 22, a man and a father, spending what should be some of the freest years of his life behind bars. The question is not whether Julian broke a law. The question is whether this punishment fits any honest definition of justice. We believe it does not. "I hope what happened to me and others like me stops happening." So do we, Julian. Julian Andrade is a constituent represented by the Last Prisoner Project. If his story moved you, please take action. Contact your representatives, support cannabis sentencing reform, and consider donating to Last Prisoner Project so that we can continue to fight for the freedom of cannabis prisoners like Julian.