The wife of notorious Chicago gang leader and Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover wrote an open letter to Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker asking for her husband's state sentence to be commuted.

President Donald Trump commuted Hoover's federal sentence last week. He had been serving multiple life sentences in federal prison.

The 74-year-old was already serving a 200-year sentence in Illinois on state charges for the 1973 murder of a 19-year-old neighborhood drug dealer William "Pooky" Young.

Hoover was among 39 Gangster Disciples leaders indicted in August 1995 in Operation Headache, a six-year effort by the feds to infiltrate Gangster Disciples. Federal prosecutors had accused him of leading a criminal enterprise to continue overseeing the gang while in prison in Illinois.

In her letter, Winndye Jenkins writes that her husband has spend more than 50 years in prison, including nearly 30 years in solitary confinement. She noted his co-defendant in the Young murder trial, who she said admitted to being the shooter, served "just 20 years before being paroled."

"In those decades of isolation, Larry reflected deeply on his past," Jenkins wrote. "He has expressed genuine remorse for the harm he caused and renounced the gang affiliations of his youth. The man who went into prison in his 20s no longer exists. Today, Larry is an aging elder who seeks only peace, family, and the chance to live out his final years with dignity and love."

She asks Mrs. Pritzker, as "a wife and mother," to lend her voice to the plea for clemency for Hoover at the state level, saying, "Larry has served his time and then some. He poses no threat. He seeks no power. He asks only to return to his family and be part of a society he has decades to reflect on and learn from."

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has not yet commented on whether he is considering commuting Hoover's sentence at the state level. 

Please note: The above video is from a previous report.

Todd Feurer contributed to this report.

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