WASHINGTON — They were convicted of drug dealing, bid-rigging, eavesdropping, embezzlement, auto theft, bank fraud, gambling, destroying mail, firearms offenses, counterfeiting, shoplifting — and the illegal importation of tortoises.

They're members of the largest class of presidential pardons granted by President Obama.

As Obama has put more resources into using his clemency power to shorten mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, he's granted fewer pardons than any two-term president since George Washington.

Nearly 2,000 pardon cases remain pending, many since the early days of the Obama administration. As President-elect Trump brings an uncertain pardon policy to the White House, the eleventh-hour grants of presidential mercy are especially sweet to the 78 people who received them just before Christmas.

Unlike a commutation, which shortens a prison sentence but leaves other consequences intact, a full pardon represents a legal forgiveness for the crime and restores all civil rights. Many of those who received pardons said the public vindication means more to them than any of the rights they regained.

Serena Nunn got the news of her pardon through a phone call from her lawyer, Sam Sheldon, who asked her, "What do you want more than anything else in the world right now?"

"The symbolism that comes with a pardon, I'm just so blessed," she said.

Double dose of clemency

Nunn was 19 when she was caught dealing drugs with her boyfriend. "I've never tried to come across as some super-innocent person," she said. "You’re with a guy, the first time being in love, and whatever you see him doing, you do. You just don’t think about consequences or that certain things will happen to you."

She received a 15-year sentence in 1990 and served more than 10 of them before President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence in 2000. She finished college and — with the help of unprecedented character references from Clinton and the judge who sentenced her — was admitted to the University of Michigan law school. She's a public defender in Atlanta.

Obama granted her a full pardon.

Such a double dose of clemency is rare but not unprecedented. P.S. Ruckman Jr., a political scientist who has tracked clemency from President George Washington to Obama, estimates there have been more than 100 such cases in history, including publishing heir Patty Hearst, who was convicted of bank robbery in 1976, released from prison by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office in 2001.

"What I will say is, both of them are extremely important, and everybody who's been affected by President Obama's decision to grant as many as he's done are extremely grateful," Nunn said.

As a lawyer, she said she understands why commuting sentences has been a priority for the Obama White House.

"Most judges, when they're dealing with their calendars, they’re thinking about the people who are in custody, not those out on bond. When people's liberty is taken away, that's the priority, right?" she said. "People who are incarcerated because of mandatory minimums, for eight, 10, 12, 13 years — the only relief they’re able to get is through the commutation process."

Freedom Rider

In 1970, Sala Udin was convicted of transporting a firearm — and some untaxed homemade alcohol — across state lines into Kentucky.

For that, he received a five-year sentence.

To understand why Obama granted him a pardon, it helps to know what Udin was doing in Kentucky in the first place:

Udin, whose given name was Samuel Wesley Howze, was returning north with a car full of civil rights activists who had helped African Americans register to vote in Mississippi.

"I could not prove it, but there was no doubt in my mind at the time that we were followed out of Mississippi. They knew who they were tailing. And it had to do with our civil rights activities. That was undisputed in my mind," Udin said.

As for the contraband, Udin said, "We would rather have the police catch us with a gun than have the Klan catch us on a dark, lonely road without it."

A bit more mischievously, he added, "Also, nobody in Mississippi passes up the opportunity for Mississippi moonshine."

Udin returned to Pittsburgh, where he became a community organizer and served three terms on Pittsburgh's City Council.

"Whenever I ran for office — I ran for office three times, and every time I ran for office, the opponent running against me tried to get me kicked off the ballot based on the fact that I was a convicted felon," he said. "Now, they'd have to say I'm a pardoned convicted felon. That is such an important personal vindication for me.

"The conviction was a blemish on that history. The pardon wipes the slate clean," he said.

Obama's oldest pardon

Donald Gilbert said that how he got into trouble 52 years ago "isn't much of a story." He was in the Navy, stationed in Maine, and bought a used car.

"Now understand, back in 1964, a '57 Chevy was old. And $400 at the time seemed like a reasonable price, maybe a bit on the high side," he said. "But when I drove it across interstate lines, it turned out to be stolen."

That made it a federal crime, and Gilbert could have faced two years in prison — but instead he pleaded guilty and got 30 days. "Needless to say, 30 days in the brig was easy to do," he said.

Gilbert's case is the most extreme example of what's become a trend in Obama's pardons: granting clemency most often to cases in which the crime was committed more than a generation ago. Gilbert's conviction happened when he was 18. He's now 70 and lives in Phoenix.

Critics have said these "safe" clemency cases have diminished the clemency power, granting full pardons to those who need them the least. It's a problem Obama himself conceded.

"When I came into office, for the first couple of years, I noticed that I wasn't really getting a lot of recommendations for pardons — at least not as many as I would expect," Obama said last year. "And many of them were for older folks, and a lot of them were people just looking for a pardon so they could restore their gun rights. But sort of the more typical cases that I would have expected weren't coming up."

That's what happened with Gilbert. "I didn’t realize until I applied for a firearms permit that I was even guilty of a felony," he said. But the main reason he sought a pardon is more intangible.

"I applied for it because I just wanted to clear up my name before I went on," he said. "At least now, when I go into the hereafter, my name will be cleared up."

The tortoise and the ensnared

Ralph Allen Hoekstra is so respected in the world of tortoises that fellow hobbyists, biologists and authors often consult with him about rare Asian breeds.

Hoekstra's fascination with Indian Star tortoises got him in trouble in 2007, when he ordered 10 of them online. The threatened species is protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and importing them is illegal without a permit.

Hoekstra didn't have a permit.

"It was just a weird thing. I've got to admit, I knew better," he said.

When the tortoises arrived by mail, a postal inspector carried the package to his Huntington Beach, Calif., home. Hoekstra thought about refusing the package, but he was worried about the health of the tortoises. He accepted it.

"You would think it was a bank robbery, the way they came in. It was like a raid. They had a chance to play cop," he said. "They came with guns drawn. It was just over-the-top crazy."

Hoekstra received probation and gave away most of his tortoises. The conviction still hung over his head, so in 2013, he applied for a presidential pardon, which he received last week at the age of 78.

"I just wanted to clear my name. I didn’t need it for any other reason," he said. "It says if I want to buy a gun, I can buy a gun — which I don’t want to do. And I'm too old for jury service."