Prosecutors fight sentence reduction for murder convict

By DAVE COLLINS Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Federal prosecutors in Connecticut are fighting a proposed prison sentence reduction for former Bridgeport drug dealer Adrian Peeler that would allow him to walk free next year. Peeler is serving a 25-year state prison sentence for the 1999 killings of an 8-year-old murder trial witness, B.J. Brown, and the boy’s mother, Karen Clarke. That sentence ends next year and is supposed to be followed by a 35-year federal prison sentence for drug dealing. But Peeler is asking a judge to reduce the federal sentence to time served in state prison, under a federal criminal justice reform law. Prosecutors say the law wasn’t intended for violent offenders.