Former President Barack Obama's plan to cut prison sentances short has had a devastating backlash years after the program let out several dangerous criminals.

Obama's 2014–2017 clemency initiative and the federal First Step Act have resulted in the reduction of sentences for thousands of federal prisoners nationwide.

Among those prisoners were three offenders whose stories were highlighted by the Chicago Sun Times, who have found themselves back behind bars after gervious offenses once they were back on the outside.

An Inmates Story

Burgos, 74, was highlighted in a 2016 Washington Post article titled "One year out," which featured brief accounts of former criminals who profited from Obama's clemency program.

He praised his early release from a 30-year narcotics sentence, but admitted he was unprepared, lacking knowledge of even how to sue a cellphone. He also noted that life was difficult for some ex-offenders from Chicago. Burgos moved in with a girlfriend and reportedly began writing a “trilogy” of books.

Burgos became a drug-trafficking suspect in 2018 after his phone was wiretapped by the DEA.

His Midland, Texas phone rang on April 13, 2019 at the Greyhound bus station, and DEA officers detained him on his way to Chicago.

Investigators recovered 1,983 oxycodone pills with 212 grams of fentanyl in his backpack. Burgos had two federal narcotics convictions, including one in the early 1990s that Obama pardoned in 2015. Burgos, charged with drug distribution in 2020, is in Rockford's Winnebago County Jail and unavailable.

More Re-Offense

Initially leading the push to free prisoners serving lengthy sentences for drug-related offenses, Alton Mills, 54, was incarcerated for life after being found guilty of cocaine trafficking.

“I hung out with a bunch of goldfishes that was dealing with some sharks, and the sharks caught the goldfishes up, and we were the ones that ended up going to prison,” Mills said in an interview on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) branded Mills a “neglected casualty” in the War on Drugs after his 2016 release.

However, Mills is currently in Cook County Jail awaiting murder trial. The Illinois State Police reported that Evergreen Park resident Mills was involved in a road-rage incident on the Interstate 57 northbound on-ramp in Posen at 3:15 a.m. on May 14.

He's accused of shooting Linda Chattman in the head and killing her in a car.

A judge denied Mills' request to be released until his trial on Wednesday, saying police indicated he was “angry that the victim cut him off” and fired three times into the automobile.

Julian Wyre, a father of eight and 46-year-old resident of Chicago, was sentenced to seventeen years in prison in 2008 for trafficking crack cocaine. Obama granted Wyre clemency in 2016, and he was released the following year.

Federal prosecutors claim that in 2019, Wyre began transporting cocaine from Chicago to Sterling and Rock Falls, west of Rockford, approximately one ounce at a time, with the intention of arranging for the powder to be cooked into crack.

Wyre faced charges in 2020 regarding the sale of cocaine to an informant. He was convicted guilty by a jury on Thursday following a four-day trial.