Tyler Perry Hires Former Inmate Once Serving Life Sentence

ATLANTA, GA — Tyler Perry offered a job to a man who had been serving a life sentence since 1991, reports WSB-TV. The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office launched The Conviction Integrity Unit and heard of 52-year-old Darrell Hall’s case last year. In December they went to court to end his sentence and bring him home. On Wednesday at a banquet to celebrate the new unit, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard surprised Hall with the news.

“Mr. Perry says you can start to work on Monday,” the DA told Hall from the stage, says the station. He was handed a piece of paper with a name and phone number of a man who Perry said could fill him in on the new job. Howard didn’t say what the job would be.

“It’s a blessing,” Hall said, adding he didn’t care what the job was.

The office’s new unit will review Fulton’s potential wrongful convictions, in addition to cases where people may have been ordered to serve unfairly long sentences. The unit consists of an eight member panel to decide which cases to take. Its members include: three Fulton prosecutors, a defense attorney, an attorney from the Georgia Innocence Project, a local minister, an attorney or administrator from a local college or law school and an attorney from the Georgia chapter of the NAACP.

In Hall’s case, he was sent to prison in 1991 to serve a life sentence. After 13 years he got parole, but went back twice through the years for violating it. He said he failed to pay his fine and fees.

“I’m almost ashamed to tell you what he was convicted for,” the DA said. “Two grams of cocaine.”

Howard said he learned that Hall wasn’t having much luck with finding a job so the DA’s office reached out to Tyler Perry.