Mark Wahlberg - Several people connected with a case in the eighties when Mark Wahlberg was charged with racial assault and sentenced to 3 months in jail, have spoken out against the actor's pending petition with the State of Massachusetts to have his crime pardoned.
In a petition filed with the Massachusetts Parole Board in Nov. 2014, Wahlberg claimed that he was high on marijuana and narcotics on the night he attacked two Vietnamese men in Dorchester, Boston.
He told the press last week at the premiere of The Gambler that he is attempting to correct the mistakes he made in the past. "I've been working very hard to correct a lot of mistakes that I made since the day I woke up and realized, 'You know what? I need to be a leader instead of a follower," he said.
Reports indicate that in 1988, Wahlberg, who was 16 years old at the time, attacked two Vietnamese men. He struck the first man with a stick on his head while attempting to steal beer from him. The victim Thanh Lam, was rendered unconscious by the strike. Wahlberg then punched another Vietnamese man Hoa Trinh in the eye because he refused to help him escape as the cops sought him in connection with the attack on Lam.
Recently, Thanh spoke to MailOnline about Wahlberg's pardon petition. He said he did not sustain any serious injuries from the attack and that he feels the actor should be pardoned.
"He paid for his crime when he went to prison," Thanh said."He has grown up now. I am sure he has his own family and is a responsible man."
Although Thanh says he never knew Wahlberg had gone on to become a successful actor, and despite the Wahlberg's insistence that he is not trying to influence his pardon with his celebrity status, many critics have accused him of doing just that.
Two years before Wahlberg attacked the Vietnamese men, he had been issued a civil rights injunction for an assault on a group of African-American students who were in a segregated part of Boston. The students were reportedly on a field trip to the Savon Hill Beach when the incident occurred. Reports indicate that Wahlberg and a group of White boys chased the African American kids and their White teacher down the street while pelting stones and hurling racial insults at them.
One of the kids chased by Wahlberg, who claims to have sustained an injury from the incident, recently told AP that she doesn't think he should get a pardon. "I don't really care who he is," Kristyn Atwood said."It doesn't make him any exception. If you're a racist, you're always going to be a racist. And for him to want to erase it I just think it's wrong."
Judith Beals, the prosecutor who represented the fourth-grade students attacked by Wahlberg in 1986, has also noted that he should not be pardoned by the state. "I see no reason why that history should be erased from the public record through a pardon," she wrote in a op-ed to the Boston Globe. "While private acts of reconciliation and forgiveness can be an important part of our shared racial history, that history [Wahlberg's civil rights injunction] should never be erased."
Nonetheless, the teacher of the class attacked Mary Belmonte has noted that Wahlberg deserves forgiveness. "He was just a young kid - a punk - in the mean streets of Boston. He didn't do it specifically because he was a bad kid. He was just a follower doing what the other kids were doing," she said.
The Massachusetts Parole Board is expected to forward Wahlberg's pardon petition to Gov. Deval Patrick after reviewing it for his approval. But many experts say it is highly unlikely that the pardon will be granted.
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