The “First Step Act,” that was passed in 2018 by the then-GOP-controlled Congress and former President Donald Trump then signed it into law, allowed the suspect charged with brutally stabbing a staff member for Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) in DC, to be released from prison earlier than expected.
Glynn Neal, 42, is accused of randomly stabbing Phillip Todd as he was exiting the Sol Mexican Grill in Washington, according to Breitbart News. Todd serves as the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee’s top economic adviser and works for Paul.
According to his family, Todd is presently recovering from the stabbing assault that caused deep wounds to his abdomen and head, a fractured skull, and a collapsed lung.
Neal had been released early from a Maryland federal prison the day before the stabbing assault, receiving “good time credit” as a result of the First Step Act, which was supported in 2018 by the majority of Senate and House Republicans, that included Paul, and was enacted by Trump.
After the First Step Act was approved by the GOP-controlled Senate in Dec. 2018, Paul issued a statement saying, “I am completely overjoyed with tonight’s passage of the First Step Act”:
“True to its name, this sentencing and prison reform measure is a desperately needed first step towards shifting the primary focus to rehabilitation as well as reentry of offenders, instead of taking every individual who has ever made a wrong choice with drugs, locking people up, and tossing away the key,” the bill’s sponsor said.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News in April 2019, Brooke Rollins, a former member of the Trump White House, said that the First Step Act would “go down as one of President Donald Trump’s top accomplishments.”
Rollins called the law “one of the greatest policy victories of our generation” and asserted that it would “improve public safety,” like many other Democrats and Republicans at the time.
Thanks to the First Step Act, more than 7,500 criminals have been released early from federal jail as of July 2022, at a cost to taxpayers of about $75 million annually. Violent criminals, including people found guilty of sex crimes, homicide, assault, and firearm offenses, have been among them.
Neil is not the only First Step Act recipient who is thought to have committed new offenses after being released from federal prison.
The “Almighty Latin Kings” gang leader Joel Francisco, 41, was famously released by the First Step Act and subsequently arrested for allegedly killing 46-year-old Troy Pine, as Breitbart News reported in 2019.
Francisco was first found guilty in 2005 of trafficking crack and powder cocaine. Days after being released under the First Step Act in February 2019, drug records show he started using cocaine again right away.
