Judge grants convict chance for better life

He was a gospel music star who got a president's attention as a child, sank into drug use and crime as an adult, and was asking for another in a series of chances to show he could change his life.

Tyrone Ford got that opportunity Friday, when a judge shortened his parole by a potential three years because of changes in New York's once famously harsh drug laws.

"I thank the court for reconsideration," Ford said, sounding humble but upbeat. He now could get off parole in 2016, instead of 2019.

Minutes later, he was handcuffed and taken back to jail, where he was serving three months on a parole violation -- the latest stumble in a life that has veered between promise and problems.

"This was not an easy matter to determine. You had a lot of chances, and you know you haven't taken advantage of all of them," Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Roger Hayes told Ford. "I think you've made some mistakes in judgment. And I think you recognize them."

Growing up in Washington, D.C., Ford was singing and playing piano by age 4. His childhood was streaked with loss; his mother died when he was a child, he was then separated from his younger sister, and he didn't meet his father until years later, according to court papers.

But Ford thrived: He had led three church choirs and appeared at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by the time President Ronald Reagan recognized him with a National Youth Hero Award and a mention in the 1986 State of the Union address.

Ford soon found himself the recipient of a piano from first lady Nancy Reagan and a promised college scholarship from the United Negro College Fund.

Then he began getting into trouble. He made a phony claim of being kidnapped after he disappeared from home for two weeks and his grandmother pleaded publicly for help finding him; and a drug arrest landed him in a drug-treatment boarding school at 15, with the Reagans' help, according to news accounts and prosecutors' court papers.

By the time he was 19, Ford's problems erupted in a strange episode in which he stole former Washington Mayor Marion Barry's car by taking the keys from Barry's office.

Ford, 38, estimates he's been arrested 20 times -- most recently for marijuana possession just three weeks after he was paroled in January.