One woman who is cheering Gov. Paul LePage’s decision to release 17 prisoners early is Carol Blakeney of Cumberland.
“To be honest with you, I wasn’t a big LePage fan until now,” she says with a laugh.
Blakeney says her son has been told that he’s among several inmates at the Bolduc Correctional Facility in Warren whose sentence is being commuted by the governor.
Bolduc is a minimum security facility where prisoners typically spend the remainder of their sentences before being released. Blakeney says her son was supposed to serve another year for burglary and eluding a police officer, but now she’s hoping he could be coming home as early as this weekend.
“For the obvious reasons I am like the happiest. Right now I am the happiest person in the entire world. And I think it’s really a great thing for everybody. And if people just knew how much money they’re saving in taxes — you know there’s a lot of job openings right now that aren’t filled,” she says.
Blakeney says she’s convinced her 24-year-old son is a different person than when he first entered prison. And she says when he gets out he’s already got a job lined up.
