The Region - News from Nov. 6, 1985

Thomas (Tootie) Reese, a longtime major drug dealer in the Los Angeles area, should be resentenced by a federal judge who in July, 1984, sent Reese to prison for 35 years for selling cocaine and heroin, a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. The court said the sentencing was “improper” because Reese’s defense counsel was denied access to certain documents and testimony during the trial’s sentencing phase. Reese, 48, who was a “godfather” figure in the local black community, is in federal prison in Otisville, N.Y. U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner, who last year urged U.S. District Judge Richard A. Gadbois Jr. to impose a 45-year sentence on Reese, said he expected to go before the same judge in a few weeks and again ask for a stiff prison term. “Forty-five years is the sentence the government believes is appropriate based on the conviction in this matter,” Bonner said.