Man freed early from life sentence by Obama back in jail

Robert Gill spends time at his sister's home for lunch and laundry in San Antonio on Friday, Jan. 29, 2016. After months in a halfway house, then living in a warehouse at his brother's business, Gill had settled into his own place. He had seen his life prison sentence for drug distribution conspiracy commuted by President Obama, but on Friday, he was back before a federal judge on another drug charge. less Robert Gill spends time at his sister's home for lunch and laundry in San Antonio on Friday, Jan. 29, 2016. After months in a halfway house, then living in a warehouse at his brother's business, Gill had ... more Photo: Lisa Krantz, San Antonio Express-News / San Antonio Express-News Photo: Lisa Krantz, San Antonio Express-News / San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Man freed early from life sentence by Obama back in jail 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

A San Antonio man who was freed from life in prison by President Barack Obama is back behind bars after allegedly crashing his vehicle into another motorist and undercover police cars while fleeing from a drug deal Thursday.

Robert M. Gill, 68, whose life sentence for cocaine and heroin distribution conspiracy was commuted by Obama and expired in 2015, was profiled last year in the Express-News about his readjustment to life on the outside.

Jailed from the time of his arrest in 1990, Gill earned a legal education inside prison libraries and successfully petitioned the then-president for a second chance after his court appeals were exhausted.

He was taken to federal court Friday, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad ordered him held without bond pending a bail hearing on Feb. 16. Gill is charged with possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.

He again faces a potential sentence with a mandatory minimum, five years, and could get up to 40.

Gill was one of about 1,700 federal inmates whose sentences Obama commuted as part of a broader campaign to give relief to nonviolent offenders serving long prison terms that dated to a frenzied period in the nation’s war on drugs.

Obama wrote in a signed notification that he granted Gill’s application “because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around. … Now it is up to you to make the most of this opportunity.”

In interviews last year, Gill said he sustained hope even as his three co-defendants died behind bars.

“I believed there were people in government with rational minds who sooner or later would realize that the sentence wasn’t fair,” Gill said last year. “Yes, you have the thought that you’re going to die in prison — that’s a human reaction. But there’s always the possibility that they’ll acknowledge the injustice.”

Gill was employed as a paralegal for local criminal defense law firm LaHood & Calfas.

Read the whole story at ExpressNews.com or in Saturday’s Express-News.

gcontreras@express-news.net