Feb. 13 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has pardoned five former professional football players convicted on a range of crimes from perjury, drug trafficking and counterfeiting U.S. currency.
Alice Marie Johnson, often called Trump’s “pardon czar,” announced on X late Thursday that the president had granted pardons to Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry and Billy Cannon, who died in 2018.
“As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace and the courage to rise again. So is our nation,” Johnson said in a statement on X.
No formal justification for the surprise pardons was provided.
Since returning to the White House, Trump granted clemency to more than 1,700 people, mostly those charged and convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, along with a smaller number of political allies and associates.
Today, the President granted pardons to five former NFL players-Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry, and the late great Dr. Billy Cannon.
As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again. So is our nation.
Special thanks… pic.twitter.com/Y4FC5lQwGE— Alice Marie Johnson (@AliceMarieFree) February 13, 2026
On Thursday night, Johnson, who was pardoned by Trump during his first administration, posted a picture of herself holding the pardon Trump signed for Newton, saying Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was who informed his former player of the development.
“What a blessed day,” Johnson said.
Newton, 64, was sentenced to 30 months behind bars in August 2002 after pleading guilty that April to charges stemming from hundreds of pounds of marijuana found in his truck on two separate occasions in early winter of 2001.
The offensive lineman played for the Dallas Cowboys from 1986 to 1998, and with the Carolina Panthers in 1999, his last year in the NFL.
Klecko, 72, a former New York Jets All-Pro defensive lineman, was sentenced in April 1993 to three months in prison followed by three months house arrest. UPI reported at the time that he was one of 67 people indicted for their roles in a scheme to defraud insurance companies through phony auto damage claims. Klecko pleaded guilty in the case.
The two-time NFL defensive player of the year played in the NFL from 1977 through 1988 with the New York Jets for all but his last season, which he played for the Indianapolis Colts.
Lewis, 46, was sentenced to four months in prison in January 2005 for using a cellphone to facilitate a drug deal in the summer of 2000.
The NFL star running back served his sentence in the middle of his NFL career, which began in 2000 and ended in the late 2000s.
Henry, 47, was sentenced in 2009 to three years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
The running back played for the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans and Denver Broncos during his 2001-2007 NFL career.
Cannon was sentenced to five years in prison in 1983 on counterfeit charges. Authorities said Cannon, a dentist at the time, was the ringleader of a gang that printed millions of dollars in counterfeit U.S. bills. He was released after serving three years in a Texas federal prison, UPI reported at the time.
The Heisman Trophy winner played 11 professional football seasons from 1960 to 1970 in the AFL and later the NFL following their merger. He died at the age of 80.
Johnson served 22 years of a life sentence in federal prison for a nonviolent drug offense when she was granted clemency by Trump in 2018. Two years later, Trump granted her a pardon.