A top Bush administration pardon lawyer was fired for making racist remarks in the case of a beloved Brooklyn minister facing deportation, the Daily News has learned.
"This might sound racist, but [the applicant] is about as honest as you could expect for a Nigerian. Unfortunately, that's not very honest," pardon attorney Roger Adams said as he recommended President Bush deny clemency to the Nigerian immigrant under consideration.
That Nigerian turned out to be Park Slope minister Chibueze Okorie, sources familiar with the case told The News.
Adams was forced out in January because of his anti-Nigerian comments.
The top lawyer "appeared to have improperly considered one applicant's Nigerian origin when deciding not to recommend clemency for that applicant," according to a scathing report in December by the Justice Department's inspector general.
After the report came out, horrified employees of the pardon attorney office quietly pulled Okorie's case from the White House, sources told The News.
A Justice Department spokesman said the case is pending but would not elaborate.
Okorie, who learned of the incident from a reporter, said he hoped his clemency plea would get a fresh look. "This may open the door," he said. "I pray people will hear my cause."
The 46-year-old Nigerian immigrant was arrested in 1989 for being a driver for a heroin ring in East New York. He served 18 months in prison and then turned his life around.
As minister of evangelism at the Church of Gethsemane in Park Slope, he has devoted his life to counseling prisoners and ex-cons.
A 1996 federal law boots immigrants convicted of crimes, no matter how old the arrest. Okorie's lawyer Raymond D'Uva has fought deportation, arguing his client will be imprisoned and tortured if returned to Nigeria.
Okorie's best hope may be a presidential pardon.
His pardon request, first submitted in 2000, was backed by churches and political leaders across New York, including Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Okorie's son Chigozie, 9, even wrote to the President and First Lady Laura Bush, begging them not to deport his father.
Last month, the boy got a response to the note he sent the First Lady from a Justice Department lawyer, but no promises were made.
When questioned by the inspector general's office last year, Adams stood by his view that an applicant's national origin was a valid consideration when considering a pardon.
"In general and on average, Nigerian immigrants, they commit more crimes than other people," Adams said, a redacted copy of the report shows.
"This was a serious drug case that this guy committed. ... I believe he had not described it honestly. ... We are giving advice to the President. If the case goes south, it comes back on him and on me," Adams told investigators.
Officials from the pardon office and the inspector general's office declined to comment on Okorie's case or to confirm that he was the Nigerian named in the probe.
Adams declined to comment about any specific cases when reached by The News last week, but he denied race played any role.
"Every single case I handled fairly and impartially," he said.
agendar@nydailynews.com
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