Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover has wife, ex-NY mob prosecutor push parole board to free him

A former New York mob prosecutor stood up Tuesday for Larry Hoover, the king of the Gangster Disciples for decades in Chicago.

John Gleeson said he prosecuted criminals similar to Hoover — people like John Gotti, the notorious "Teflon Don" and boss of New York's Gambino crime family.

But Hoover is different, Gleeson said. He's "grown up" and is remorseful, Gleeson told the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, which is considering the 75-year-old former gang leader's request for clemency from Gov. JB Pritzker.

"Larry Hoover poses no risk of danger to the community," said Gleeson, who became a federal district judge and a member of the U.S. sentencing commission and is part of Hoover's legal team.

Dozens of people, including Hoover's wife Winndye, attended a prisoner review board hearing in downtown Chicago where a three-member panel heard testimony from Hoover's supporters, along with prosecutors who oppose his freedom.

One of them, Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Enrique Abraham, said a grant of clemency for Hoover would ignore the seriousness of the killing he's locked up for, would minimize the crimes he later committed in prison and would put the public in danger.

Abraham said Hoover ordered the 1973 killing of William "Pooky" Young "to show everyone that he would protect his criminal enterprise at all costs.” Even though he's now aging, his freedom would still pose a risk because "his criminal acts have almost always been carried out vicariously through surrogates," according to Abraham.

"William Young never got a second chance," Abraham said.

Despite that opposition, Hoover and his supporters have increasing hope for his release despite decades of rejections in the state's separate parole process. That's because Hoover won a separate grant of clemency last year from President Donald Trump for a federal drug conspiracy sentence.

Last summer, Hoover was freed from the federal "supermax" prison in Colorado and transferred to a different prison to serve his state murder sentence. Authorities said they won’t reveal the location of where he’s being held because of security concerns.

The state's prisoner review board holds hearings both for requests for parole and for executive clemency.

The board will consider the testimony given Tuesday and forward a confidential clemency recommendation to the governor, who makes the final decision. The panel typically takes about two months to give a recommendation to the governor.

The board didn't hear from Hoover, who wasn't at Tuesday's hearing. His wife Winndye told the board her family is ready for him to come home to Chicago after he missed his children's high school and college graduations and other momentous occasions.

"He's not a monster," she said. "His family loves him."

Hoover's lawyer Justin Moore acknowledged his client's criminal past.

Hoover ran a $100 million-a-year drug operation, and his gang expanded to more than 30,000 members in Chicago and across the country, authorities say. It been tied to countless killings.

"We are not here to excuse what happened in Mr. Hoover’s life," Moore said. "We are here to talk about accountability."

Moore echoed other supporters in saying Hoover reformed his life in federal prison, where he was held since the late 1990s until his recent move to the state prison system.

"Justice too long delayed is justice denied," Moore told the board, invoking the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Hoover and fellow gang member Andrew Howard were both sentenced to 150-200 years in state prison for Young's killing. They also were suspected in the fatal shooting of a man who cooperated with Chicago police in the investigation of Young's murder.

Howard was paroled in 1992.

Moore said Howard's freedom and Hoover's continued incarceration highlights the unfairness of the criminal justice system.

Moore also pointed out that Hoover's prison term was handed down under a state sentencing structure that no longer exists.

In the late 1990s, Hoover and his top leaders were convicted in federal court in a drug conspiracy case. Hoover was caught on a hidden microphone directing the street operations of the gang while he was in state prison.

Hoover was then moved to federal prison to serve a life sentence and spent much of that time in isolation in the supermax prison in Florence, Colo. Even though Trump granted Hoover clemency in his federal drug case, his state murder conviction has remained intact.

In a court filing, Hoover's lawyers said he renounced his ties to the Gangster Disciples and that his continued imprisonment is a “slow, state-sanctioned death sentence.”

“Hoover did not create the fire,” the petition said. “He grew up in it."

Among those who have backed Hoover’s bid for freedom is Arne Duncan, former President Barack Obama's secretary of education. Duncan now runs Chicago CRED, an anti-violence organization. Other supporters have included Chance the Rapper, the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Board member Matthew Coates presided over Tuesday's clemency hearing alongside members Carmen Terrones and Jeffrey Grubbs. They didn't indicate how they're leaning on Hoover's request.

In 2024, the prisoner review board was thrown into turmoil when two members quit after approving the release of a felon who later stabbed his former girlfriend and killed her son. The tragedy prompted Pritzker to sign a law that reformed the board, which now has nine members and six vacancies.