ALBANY --The imprisoned former New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress and someone not even sentenced yet are among the last-minute pardon requests outgoing Gov. David A. Paterson has received.
Asked today if any out-of-the ordinary pardon requests had come through in his final weeks in office -- akin to the posthumous pardon outgoing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is considering for the late Jim Morrison of the Doors -- Paterson thought for a second.
"Somebody asked me to pardon Plaxico Burress, the Giants wide receiver. Somebody asked me for a pardon and they haven't even been sentenced yet," the governor said.
The Burress request came from some Giants fans, the governor said, and he declined to say who is asking for a pardon before being sentenced.
"I don't want to say. It was just somebody who told me about this problem. I said,"Well, you know you could go to my office." And he says, "Well, I need this quick because I'm going to be sentenced in a couple weeks,' " Paterson said.
He did not offer up what he would do with any pardon requests, except one. "I think I'm going to pardon the Legislature," he said of a body he has tangled with nonstop since become governor.
Burress has been in prison since September 2009 on a gun conviction.
Pardons traditionally are issued by governors during the month of December. Paterson has issued relatively few of them. His last one came this spring when he pardoned a Queens man -- recommended for the pardon by even the sentencing judge for a mugging committed years earlier while a teenager -- who was facing deportation.
--Tom Precious
