Kim Kardashian West Has Helped Release 17 People From Prison In The Last Three Months

“She’s using her platform to shine a light on this issue," Kardashian's lawyer told BuzzFeed News.

Kim Kardashian West has helped free 17 federal prisoners in the last three months.

Lawyers Brittany K. Barnett and MiAngel Cody confirmed Kardashian’s involvement in funding the 90 Days of Freedom Campaign in response to President Trump’s signing of the First Step Act, which allows some people imprisoned on federal drug offenses to seek sentence reductions, particularly those serving life terms.

“She’s using her platform to shine a light on this issue,” said Barnett, who is Kardashian West's personal lawyer and one of the co-creators of the Buried Alive Project. “She really helped us with the work we’ve already been doing, and she’s helping us amplify the voices of the people who are buried alive.”

Kardashian West made headlines last year when she went to the White House to talk to Trump about criminal justice reform, a meeting that was arranged by the president's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

That meeting in turn led to Alice Johnson — a woman in her sixties serving a life sentence for a first-time drug offense — being granted clemency.

“This wasn’t just a one-off thing,” Barnett said of Kardashian West. “This is a real passion for her.”

Great meeting with @KimKardashian today, talked about prison reform and sentencing.

Kardashian West also recently revealed that she's studying 18 hours a week to take the bar exam and become a lawyer, perhaps as early as 2022.

“People get out of prison when powerful women link arms. Brittany and I linked arms years ago, and Kim has come and linked arms, too," Cody, Barnett’s co-counsel on the 90 Days of Freedom Campaign, said. “It’s about using what resources you have to shine a light on the underbelly of American injustice."

The team had hoped to help get more inmates released, but Cody said the group of 17 "were the only ones eligible for that sort of narrow provision that allowed them to go back into the courts.”

The two lawyers are launching the Third Strike Project, which will look more broadly at the hundreds of men and women serving life sentences under three-strikes laws that were implemented in the early ’90s, but who aren't covered by the First Step Act.

We have hundreds of people that we need to bring to the forefront and help free that are serving life sentences under a law that has changed, but just did not reach back to help them,” Cody said.


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