President Obama DID NOT Pardon 'Black Mafia Family' Founder 'Big Meech'

Fact Check

  • by: Alan Duke

Big Meeh Hoax.jpg

A fake story trending on social media purports that President Obama has pardoned "Big Meech" Demetrius Flenory and that the "Black Mafia Family" founder will be released from a federal prison in March.

It is a hoax story intended to lure unsuspecting readers to create huge traffic for a fake news website, Lead Stories can confirm.

The report does correctly (sort of) say that Flenory, 47, wrote a jailhouse letter asking Obama to pardon him from his drug trafficking convictions. But it was a letter written from prison in 2013, and not recently as the report stated.

Flenoy is serving a 30-year sentence in the U.S. Penitentiary at Lompoc, California, a medium security prison. He is scheduled for release in 2032.

Lead Stories' Trendolizer constantly scours social nets for trending hoaxes so that we may better inform you. Remember, just because it is trending, doesn't mean it's true.

This real-time graph shows the trajectory of the fake story on social media.


  Alan Duke

Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke co-founded Lead Stories after ending a 26-year career with CNN, where he mainly covered entertainment, current affairs and politics. Duke closely covered domestic terrorism cases for CNN, including the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, the UNABOMBER and search for Southeast bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. CNN moved Duke to Los Angeles in 2009 to cover the entertainment beat. Duke also co-hosted a daily podcast with former HLN host Nancy Grace, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace" and hosted the podcast series "Stan Lee's World: His Real Life Battle with Heroes & Villains." You'll also see Duke in many news documentaries, including on the Reelz channel, CNN and HLN.

Read more about or contact Alan Duke

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