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After Sentencing Overhaul Ruling, Tennessee Man Now Free

John McAllister
/
123RF Stock Photo

A Tennessee man who was one of the first inmates to be released under a new federal sentencing reform law is officially a free man.

Matthew Charles received national attention in 2018 after being resentenced and ordered back to prison two years after a judge ruled his sentence was unfair.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger specifically cited the First Step Act as the reason she was reducing the sentence as time-served for the 52-year-old Charles.

Later that day, WPLN-FM reports Charles was released from Grayson County Detention Center in Leitchfield, Kentucky.

Charles had been detained there for the past seven months. He was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison in 1996 for selling crack cocaine.

President Donald Trump signed First Step into law last month.

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