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Former professional boxer Duke Tanner remembers witnessing a murder on his first day in prison in 2004.
“I watched the guy walk out the unit, blood seeping out of his neck. He dropped on the floor and ended up dying later,” Tanner told Fox News Digital, recalling his thoughts at the time.
“‘It’s my new environment. I got to survive. I’m not going to die in here. I’m not going to be him.'”
He wound up in jail after getting caught in a drug trafficking sting operation while trying to make additional money for his family.
“I thought it was a robbery at first. So, when I saw it was cops, I was really at peace,” he said.
He was sentenced to two life terms, ending his boxing career and separating him from his family, including his son, who was just 2 at the time, for 16 years. He dedicated his time in prison to embracing Christianity and taking up every rehabilitation program available.
And Tanner remembers the night in 2018 when he came to the realization President Donald Trump would be the one who would end his sentence.
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“I had a dream, and I woke up,” Tanner said. “I started writing a letter once a week to the White House after I had that dream, and, two years later, I was let go.”
After being denied by former President Barack Obama in 2016, Tanner was granted clemency by Trump in 2020.
Last August, Tanner published a book, “Duke Got Life: A Boxer’s Fight for Freedom and One Last Shot at Redemption,” detailing his story.
And then just last month, the former boxer was granted a full presidential pardon. Tanner even visited the White House to thank Trump in person.
“I got to thank him, and he remembered my case. And he said, ‘Man, you had a bad road, but you got a beautiful son. I hear you’re doing great things. And continue the good work. I’m watching you,'” Tanner said.
Weeks after Tanner received his presidential pardon, Trump floated the idea of giving a presidential pardon to hip-hop artist Sean “Diddy” while he’s on trial for sex trafficking.
Tanner, who admits he hasn’t followed the “Diddy” case closely and isn’t “at liberty” to discuss the rapper’s charges, revealed how he would feel about the idea of Combs getting a pardon from Trump.
“This administration is going to read every piece of paperwork. They’re going to get to the facts. They’re going to get to the bottom of everything. And if he decides to make that move, it’s a positive move, because he went through the system,” Tanner said, referencing Trump’s criminal trial last summer over alleged hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
“He knows what they did to him to try and make him a convicted felon, to make him get found guilty of all those counts. So, he knows the prosecution misconduct. He knows how they do it. He knows that it’s a broken system.”
Tanner also suggested Trump’s pardons are a means of holding those involved in the criminal justice system accountable.
“And he’s trying to show them, ‘You guys do y’all job right, or I’m going to come and fix it for you and embarrass you,'” Tanner added.
“So, with that being said, if he decides to do it, evidently he saw something, and he got the best lawyers around him. … I’m not at liberty to even speak on [the Diddy trial]. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m just saying I don’t care who it was. If the president said that he wanted to do it, believe me, there’s a reason behind it, and that the law wasn’t handled correctly.”
Tanner said he knows a lot of other people who are incarcerated who he believes deserve clemency.
“I definitely know there’s so many men and women that need clemency to be let out of the system,” Tanner said.
Tanner has already witnessed another president give a series of controversial pardons in the last year. Former President Joe Biden granted a series of pardons before leaving office in December, including to his son Hunter Biden, who was due to be sentenced for federal gun and tax convictions.
“I heard about it. He freed his son,” Tanner said. “It can never be comparable to my own because he never went to prison. He never even got charged. I did 16 years, six months and 21 days, taken away from my 2-year-old son. … He can never compare to the pain I went through. And then I came home still fighting for other people.
“What has [Hunter] done? Have we even heard from him since he got the pardon? Did he even speak about it? Did he even thank his father about it? So, we can never compare a guy like that to me.”
Still, Tanner said he’s not offended by Hunter Biden’s pardon.
Trump’s Justice Department is reviewing the list of people granted pardons by former President Joe Biden in response to new concerns about Biden’s use of an AutoPen to automatically sign documents and concerns about his state of mind in his final months in office, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Tanner declined to comment on the investigation.
The former boxer is focused on continuing to do community service and helping his 19-year-old nephew become a future boxing world champion.
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