The man who stole the show at the 2017 Academy Awards, “Gary from Chicago,” has some major crimes on his record.
According to Daily Mail, Gary Alan Coe was convicted of attempted rape and also served 20 years in prison.
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Coe and his fiancee Vickie Vines were part of the group of tourists Jimmy Kimmel invited inside the Dolby Theater during the ceremony Sunday night, gaining instant celebrity. The couple made an impression as they calmly snapped photos of the celebrities just inches from them, revealed they were engaged and even got fake-married by Denzel Washington.
Gary, a native of the South Shore of Chicago, was only able to attend the ceremony because he had been released three days beforehand, he told ABC7.
Reports state that one of those felonies is attempted rape, for which Coe, 59, is a registered sex offender. He was convicted of the crime in Chicago in March 1978 when he was 20-years-old. He committed two robberies after the crime, and in 1994 was first incarcerated in California, for grand theft.
Coe’s jail term was a life sentence handed down in 1997 for a separate crime, the theft of $79 of perfume from a Robinsons-May store in Los Angeles on Dec., 31 1996. He had been convicted at Torrance Court House, Los Angeles, after a four-day jury trial in June 1997.
It was a 25 years to life term, court records show, under the “three strikes and you’re out laws” in force at the time which made a third felony an automatic life with a minimum of 25 years term.
The two previous felonies which were counted as strikes were a December 1991 burglary conviction in his native Chicago, and an April 1994 grand theft conviction in San Francisco.
Coe appealed the felony conviction at the time on technical and procedural grounds to attempt to have it reduced to a misdemeanor, which would have voided the life sentence. But the appeal was rejected in 1999 and he remained in Los Angeles County State Prison. He also petitioned the California Supreme court unsuccessfully that year.
Karen Nash, who was his public defender, posted on Facebook that she had spent years working on Gary’s case and that his release only came on Friday.
‘I’m so proud of Gary!’ she posted on Facebook.
Gary told ABC7, “Change is possible. It’s a sad day to be in prison for 20 years and not be able to be a dad, granddad to your children.”
He added, “You know what my son told me today, man, and I almost come to tears. He said he’s proud of me. So to hear your children say that they’re proud of me means the world to me.”
Vickie had just declared Washington her favorite actor and later said she felt like she could have died and gone to heaven after meeting him during the ceremony.
Gary meanwhile got to pose with Mahershala Ali and to hold his award for best actor in a supporting role, as well as greet Nicole Kidman with a kiss on her hand.
The bizarre twist over Gary from Chicago’s past comes after the fiasco of the wrong film being announced as winner of the best movie Oscar.
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[H/T Daily Mail]
