Prosecutors Urge Judge To Release 91-Year-Old Drug Mule Who Worked For Mexican Cartel

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - Prosecutors have asked a judge to grant the release of a 91-year-old man who was convicted of taking more than a ton of cocaine to Michigan for a Mexican drug cartel.

Leo Sharp of Michigan City, Indiana, was sentenced to three years in federal prison in May 2014 after admitting he drove loads of cocaine into Michigan. He was reportedly paid more than $1 million for his services.

Prosecutors on Monday made the request for a judge to approve a compassionate release for Sharp. The request is sealed, but federal law requires it include "extraordinary and compelling reasons." Sharp's attorney, Darryl Goldberg, has previously said he was suffering from health problems, including dementia.

"I have been of the position Mr. Sharp should not have been incarcerated in the first place," Goldberg told The Detroit News. "I commend the Bureau of Prisons and the government for its compassion and recognition that based on the circumstances, Mr. Sharp should be immediately released from prison."

Sharp is currently serving his sentence at a federal medical facility in Minnesota.

Sharp was running more than 100 bricks of cocaine, over 2000 pounds, from Tucson, Arizona, to Detroit when he was pulled over by Michigan State Police on I-94 near Chelsea, 60 miles west of Detroit, after making a bad lane change in 2011.

When a state trooper approached, Sharp was upset and declared, "Just kill me and let me leave this planet."

Sharp, a WWII veteran who has no criminal record, later told police he was forced by a Mexican drug cartel to transport the cocaine or else his family would have been killed. He's one of 19 people under indictment in a case connected to Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel.

"The government is not aware of a single courier, in recent memory, who has transported the volume of cocaine to southeast Michigan that the defendant did in the 21-month time period he was active in this organization," the prosecutor wrote.

Requests for compassionate release are typically rejected.

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