Actor Mel Gibson’s firearm privileges were restored along with nine others, including a former NFL Hall of Famer for the Jets, after losing their rights over decades-old crime convictions.
Gibson, who had been prohibited from purchasing guns following a 2011 domestic violence conviction, had appealed to President Trump to restore his rights earlier this year.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office said the AG “established to her satisfaction that each individual will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief to each individual would not be contrary to the public interest.”
Gibson, 69, saw his rights restored after an upheaval in the Justice Department last month when pardon attorney Liz Oyer had refused to add his name to a pilot program looking at 95 non-violent offenders hoping to get their rights back.
She was then fired on March 7, claiming she was given no official reason for her termination and appealed the decision.
Oyer told congress on April 7 that she refused to add Gibson, who pleaded no contest for hitting his then-girlfriend in 2011, to the list out of “concerns about public safety.”
Gibson has been an ally of Trump and had been named a “special ambassador” to Hollywood for the Trump administration in January.
Along with Gibson, the AG’s office restored the firearms rights to former Jets defensive tackle Joseph Klecko.
Klecko, 71, who played as part of the Jets’ famed “New York Sack Exchange,” had lost his rights following a three month prison sentence for lying to a federal grand jury about insurance fraud in 1993.
Also listed in the pardons were Judy Broach, Danny Preston Condard, Timothy Lyn Dunham, Jessica Lynn Jacobson, Wayne Mertz, Charles Moehring, Jr.; Patrick Morgan and Ronald Joseph Willkomm.
All the petitioners, except for Gibson, had been convicted for non-violent crimes.
