President pardons New Athens man convicted in 1959

NEW ATHENS -- A little over two years ago, James Albert Bodendieck Sr. learned that to renew his gun holder's license he would need a presidential pardon for his conviction in 1959 on a charge of transporting a stolen car.

He applied for the pardon, and on Tuesday the 70-year-old man received word that President George Bush had granted his request.

"I was very shocked," Bodendieck told the Belleville News-Democrat. "It's been all this time, and I had never heard a word about it."

In all, Bush pardoned 29 convicts and reduced the prison sentence of one more in the end-of-the-year presidential tradition.

A second Illinois man, Rudolph J. Macejak of Morton Grove, received a pardon for his 1989 conviction on a possession of an unregistered firearm charge

Bodendieck was 19 years old when he was convicted in 1959 of transporting a stolen vehicle across state lines and was sentenced to three years of probation.

Bodendieck said he was convicted because the vehicle was in his possession when FBI agents located it. He said he bought the vehicle from a friend, who had bought it from someone who had stolen it. That friend was the one who transported the car from Missouri to Illinois, he said.

Bodendieck said he wasn't aware at the time the vehicle had been stolen, or that his friend had driven it across state lines.

Bodendieck said he wasn't going to file for the pardon, figuring it wouldn't be worth it, but his son encouraged him to go through with it.

"The main thing was for hunting purposes," he said.

Bodendieck said he was told a certificate of his pardon would be mailed to him in the next few days. He said he will then have to take a copy of the pardon to state police to renew his license.

Bodendieck's pardon was among those Bush granted to carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner and a violator of election laws. The president did not pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his vice president's former top aide who was convicted in the case of the leaked identity of a CIA operative.

Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Bush has granted 142 pardons and commuted five sentences since taking office in 2001 -- lagging far behind the pace set by most modern presidents.