Amy Povah’s CAN-DO Spirit

Imagine falling in love with someone. They are everything you’ve hoped to find in a person. Smart. Funny. Incredibly successful and well-respected. You completely trust them and commit to spending the rest of your life with them.

Now imagine just a few years into the marriage, your soulmate has been arrested and detained in a foreign country, and you learn for the first time they are a major drug kingpin.

This exact scenario happened to Amy Povah.

Amy’s husband, Charles, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six years in a German prison for manufacturing and distributing MDMA, also known as Ecstasy. While federal prosecutors requested that Charles be extradited to the U.S., German authorities refused, arguing it would be double jeopardy.

Amy traveled to Germany several times during the trial to be by her husband’s side and to receive money on his behalf for bail. Charles served only four of the six years of his sentence and is now free in Germany.

That was the end of Charles’ nightmare. But Amy’s was just getting started and would last for the next decade.

The DEA Pays a Visit

Charles owned a dozen successful businesses, and Amy worked in one of them for two and a half years. But she had no knowledge of the other eleven. She repeatedly told the DEA agents that paid her a visit that her now ex-husband could have easily hidden illegal activity from her.

In a sane world, a woman with no prior criminal history that never sold any of her husband’s drugs would be left alone to live her life. But Amy refused to testify against her husband and the other co-defendants (because she didn’t know anything), and well, federal agents don’t like to be told “no.” And so Amy was subsequently charged in the conspiracy to manufacture and import MDMA as well as a money-laundering charge.

A Circus Trial

For an entire year, Amy was assigned a court-appointed attorney and held without bail in a county jail in Waco, Texas. Prosecutors had nothing on her. In fact, most of the evidence presented at trial was against her estranged husband. But since he was in Germany, the feds decided to go after the next best thing, his uncooperative wife.

It is worth mentioning that even though Charles had entered into a plea agreement with the United States, federal prosecutors did not bring him back to the U.S. to testify against Amy. Does this make any sense? It does when you realize their entire case was smoke and mirrors. The feds portrayed Amy as involved in every aspect of the conspiracy from the very beginning. Charles’ testimony would have completely destroyed their case against Amy.

By the end of the trial, Amy had been labeled as a ringleader of the conspiracy and sentenced to a mandatory 24 years in federal prison. The only two people who testified against Amy were co-defendants who offered fake testimonies in exchange for drastically reduced sentences. Both are free today.

And that’s how it works in our criminal justice system. The guilty, who lie to help prosecutors get another conviction and proverbial notch on their belt, get off scot-free. In contrast, innocent people who refuse to play the game and lie are punished to the full extent of the law.

Even Amy’s prosecutor told the journalist who broke Amy’s story in a 1999 Glamour magazine article,

“Had she…cooperated, I would say there’s a probability she wouldn’t have been prosecuted.”

In other words, countless innocent lives have been ruined in this country, not because people have committed crimes but because they have refused to become working informants for the feds.

Amy’s Appeal is Denied

Amy quickly realized it was going to be up to her to get herself out of prison. She collected six affidavits from co-defendants, who each swore she had no involvement in the conspiracy for which she had been charged.

These affidavits completely refuted the bogus charge by the feds that Amy had been a leader in the conspiracy from the very beginning.

There were other affidavits Amy was able to collect for her appeal. One was from a retired Dallas police officer who had known Amy her entire life. He had wanted to testify on Amy’s behalf during her trial. This former police officer was shocked that Amy’s court-appointed lawyer had never even met with him to discuss the particulars of her case. In his affidavit, he stated,

“In the course of my career, I have never witnessed an attorney with such bizarre behavior as he [Mr. Hurley] exhibited.”

Another affidavit was from Amy’s cousin, who also worked for one of Charles’ companies. He had agreed to testify on Amy’s behalf, but again, Amy’s attorney never contacted him.

In addition to the many affidavits she collected, Amy easily obtained plenty of character references.

But the district judge who presided over her appeal case was the same judge who presided over her original trial. This judge never so much as acknowledged the affidavits or character letters and denied Amy’s motion without providing any legal basis for doing so.

The same judge then denied her the right to appeal her motion to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which would move her case to a higher court. This judge had the final say on whether Amy’s case would ever be heard by another judge. When her final appeal was denied, Amy knew her only hope of freedom would come through Clemency.

It’s worth mentioning that the judge who repeatedly denied Amy an appeal has since become the subject of a renewed investigation into allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward women in his chambers. He retired, ending his 32-year tenure as a federal judge, and, get this… will still receive his full salary of over $200,000 a year as a lifetime appointment.

That’s justice for ya!

Working from the Inside

Amy kept her head down and tried to keep her spirits up on the inside. She never stopped working to free herself. She managed to get several media sources to cover the injustices of her case, one of them being Glamour magazine.

Amy then began to launch her own massive letter-writing campaign. She was soon joined by many friends, family, and activists who had been inspired by Amy’s story.

These efforts resulted in seventeen members of the House and Senate writing letters in support of Amy’s Clemency.

Amy has said,

“Glamour Magazine was a game-changer because it enabled key politicians to understand what happened in my case and as a result, they were not afraid to support my Clemency,”

The nightmare would finally end when on July 7th, 2000, President Clinton would Grant Amy’s Clemency, and she was set free after serving nine of her 24 years.

Together, We Can-Do This!

Though Amy’s nightmare had finally ended, her freedom would prove to be bittersweet. She had become close friends with many women who were still in prison. Some of these women had cases even more tragic than Amy’s.

Amy vowed to help as many other incarcerated people who needed guidance in their own pursuit of justice. Eventually, the CAN-DO Foundation was born.

Amy and her organization began advocating for many of the women she had bonded with during her prison sentence. One of them was her own roommate, Lau Ching Chin, who only passed one telephone message to a boyfriend who, unbeknownst to Lau, was involved in dealing drugs. She had no idea who the person on the phone was or what the message was about, but that one occurrence would result in Lau’s mandated 17-year sentence.

Lau’s Clemency was granted by President Clinton. And of the 105 women who received Clemency under President Obama, 44 were CAN-DO members that Amy and her team advocated for.

Amy and her team know that until the current drug laws in this country change, there will be a steady stream of innocent people being put away for decades. They also know a push for real justice reform can only come from an educated public, which is why they do as much as possible to educate anyone who will listen.

Too many people are unaware of our country’s current issues with mass incarceration, and fewer still know about the conspiracy law, the one responsible for sentencing Amy to 24 years behind bars. The conspiracy law transfers guilt from one co-conspirator to the next. Only those who do not cut a deal with the feds end up with long, mandatory sentences.

Currently, there are major efforts underway to abolish mandatory sentences, giving judges more leeway in sentencing. These efforts always get significant pushback from federal prosecutors, who claim they “need” mandatory sentences to force minor participants to help them catch “the bad guys.”

But Amy and her team at CAN-DO know the reality,

“In addition to my own case, we have a long list of cases where the “bad guys” were given leniency and are now free, at the expense of minor participants who went to trial and were hammered.”

Another myth Amy likes to dispel is that mandatory minimum sentences are triggered based on how many drugs a person is caught with.

“There are thousands of people in prison serving long sentences who were never caught with any drugs. No tangible evidence is required to support a guilty verdict in a drug conspiracy case. Only the word of a cooperating co-conspirator is necessary. In truth, mandatory sentences are triggered the minute a person says “no” to a prosecutor.”

To date, the CAN-DO Foundation has helped get 150 prisoners freed and back to their families. While Amy is proud of the work she and her team have done, she acknowledges the battle for justice reform is bigger than most people realize.

“We need a President and Congress with a moral compass and the willpower to say “ENOUGH.” We’re waiting. Our patience is growing thin. Those of us devoted to ending this War on Drugs are on the right side of history. American politicians know it. World leaders do too. And so do the millions of Americans left scarred from a war they never signed up for.”

NEW INFORMATION

Amy’s Story Comes Full Circle

Amy's fight for justice did not end with President Clinton's commutation.

On January 20, 2021, President Donald Trump granted Amy Povah a full presidential pardon. The White House described Amy as the founder of CAN-DO and noted that she had served nine years of a 24-year sentence before President Clinton commuted her remaining sentence in 2000. The White House also described her subsequent work as a voice for incarcerated people and a champion of criminal-justice reform. (CNBC FM)

For Amy, the difference was significant.

President Clinton gave her back her freedom.President Trump gave her a full pardon.

And by then, Amy had spent more than two decades fighting to give other prisoners the same second chance she had received.

The Fight Moved to the U.S. Sentencing Commission

In March 2025, Amy took her advocacy directly to the United States Sentencing Commission.

On March 12, 2025, she testified before the Commission during a public hearing concerning proposed amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines. She appeared on the panel addressing the perspective of sentenced individuals. (U.S. Sentencing Commission)

Amy also submitted written testimony to the Commission.

In that testimony, she returned to the central issue of her own case: federal conspiracy law and the enormous sentencing consequences that can flow from it.

She described being sentenced to 24 years for an MDMA conspiracy and argued that conspiracy law can hold a person accountable for the conduct of an entire organization. She also criticized the use of co-conspirator testimony and argued that people facing severe sentences can have powerful incentives to provide testimony that helps prosecutors. (U.S. Sentencing Commission)

During the hearing, Amy specifically raised concerns about the hearsay exception applicable to co-conspirator statements and explained how, in her experience, testimony from co-conspirators was used against her. (U.S. Sentencing Commission)

More than 30 years after her arrest, Amy was no longer sitting in a prison cell trying to explain her case.

She was sitting before the nation's sentencing policymakers, telling them what she believed needed to change.

CAN-DO Continued Its Work

The organization Amy created after her own release has continued advocating for prisoners seeking clemency and other forms of relief.

CAN-DO's current website documents numerous additional cases in which people supported by the organization have obtained freedom or sentence reductions. (CAN-DO Justice through Clemency)

Among the more recent examples:

Michael Montalvo — CAN-DO reports that President Biden granted him clemency after he served 37 years of a life sentence. Amy had been communicating with and advocating for Montalvo for decades. (CAN-DO Justice through Clemency)

Anabel Valenzuela — CAN-DO reports that President Trump granted her clemency on May 28, 2025, resulting in her immediate release after she had served 16 years of a 32-year sentence for a nonviolent drug conspiracy. (CAN-DO Justice through Clemency)

Angela Reynolds — CAN-DO reports that she received a full commutation of a 23-year sentence for drug charges, including relief from fines and probation. (CAN-DO Justice through Clemency)

These cases demonstrate that the work Amy began after her own release has continued across multiple presidential administrations.

Amy’s Story Has Become a Larger Mission

In 2000, Amy walked out of federal prison after serving nine years of a 24-year sentence.

In 2021, she received a full presidential pardon.

In 2025, she appeared before the United States Sentencing Commission to tell policymakers about the sentencing system that had once imprisoned her.

Amy's nightmare ended more than two decades ago.

Her fight never did.

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