A repeat offender once described by federal prosecutors as a ‘danger to the community’ was set to be released Thursday after receiving a sentence commutation signed with an autopen in the final days of former President Joe Biden\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
Oscar Freemond Fowler III had been serving a 12-year, six-month federal sentence after pleading guilty in 2024 to being a felon in possession of a gun and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Federal prosecutors urged the court to impose at least 150 months in prison, citing his lengthy criminal history and arguing he posed an ongoing threat to the public.<\/p>\n
Fowler was included in a Jan. 17, 2025, executive grant of clemency commuting the sentences of more than 2,500 inmates under the Biden administration. The warrant, issued in Washington and bearing Biden\u2019s signature, was one of three clemency documents critics say were executed using an autopen.<\/p>\n
While the Biden administration said the commutations were relief for non-violent drug offenders, the Oversight Project, a conservative investigative group for the Heritage Foundation, argues that Fowler\u2019s history of violence makes him a clear danger to the public.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Oversight Project issued a warning to Florida officials this week about Fowler\u2019s release.<\/p>\n
‘He is a dangerous criminal who\u2019s supposed to be in jail for a very long time,’ Oversight Project President Mike Howell told Fox News Digital. ‘This is the exact person that should be in federal custody.’<\/p>\n
The most serious allegations in Fowler\u2019s past involve the death of Naykee Bostic in St. Petersburg. Bostic was found with 25 gunshot wounds shortly after Fowler had been released from a previous federal stint in 2013. While Fowler was acquitted of the murder in 2017 after two prior mistrials, the Oversight Project points to a 2024 sentencing memorandum stating that Fowler made a video-recorded admission to the killing and expressed a willingness to use violence again.<\/p>\n
Howell said the case contradicts prior characterizations of the clemency actions as focusing on nonviolent offenders.<\/p>\n
‘We agree with the Biden administration\u2019s own Justice Department officials who flagged that these people were violent,’ Howell said. ‘Stop saying they\u2019re nonviolent. The documents speak for themselves.’<\/p>\n
Howell also questioned the legality of the autopen process.<\/p>\n
‘The president has said these autopen commutations are null and void,’ Howell said. ‘DOJ had a choice to make \u2014 keep him in custody or release him \u2014 and they chose not to follow that direction.’<\/p>\n
The Florida attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
The release of Fowler comes after the House Oversight Committee’s GOP majority released a 100-page report in October 2025 detailing findings from its monthslong probe into Biden\u2019s White House, specifically whether his inner circle covered up signs of mental decline and if that alleged cover-up extended to executive actions signed via autopen without Biden\u2019s full awareness.<\/p>\n
‘The Department of Justice should immediately conduct a review of all executive actions taken by President Biden between January 20, 2021, and January 19, 2025. Given the patterns and findings detailed herein, this review should focus particularly on all acts of clemency. However, it should also include all other types of executive actions.’<\/p>\n
In an interview with The New York Times<\/u> in July, Biden affirmed he ‘made every decision’ on his own.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A repeat offender once described by federal prosecutors as a ‘danger to the community’ was set to be released Thursday after receiving a sentence commutation signed with an autopen in the final days of former President Joe Biden\u2019s administration. Oscar Freemond Fowler III had been serving a 12-year, six-month federal sentence after pleading guilty in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetradingdictionary.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}