Gov. Bill Owens announced Friday that he has pardoned two men – a 29-year-old federal prison official convicted of second-degree assault as a teenager and a 38-year-old man who said he needed the pardon to keep his business.
Owens pardoned Bennie Salazar of Pueblo and Troy Gill of Aurora.
In 1992, Salazar, then 16, stole several cartons of cigarettes from a Pueblo convenience store and was involved in an ensuing fight. He was sentenced to 90 days of home detention.
Since 2000, Salazar has been a correctional officer at the maximum security prison in Florence.
Gill was sentenced to probation in 1996 after stealing $680 in merchandise from a Target store in Greeley.
“I did something really stupid,” Gill said. “I did it to make ends meet and I did it once. Since then, I’ve picked myself up from my own boot straps.”
He has opened a firm that handles mostly insurance investigations. He told Owens he wouldn’t be allowed to do investigations for major insurance companies because of his felony conviction.
Owens has granted seven pardons in his seven years as governor.
