Decatur Victim: Don't Pardon Mark Wahlberg

By Deb Belt and Mike Bednarsky

A Decatur woman who was the victim of racial slurs and rock throwing by a young Mark Wahlberg says that he should not be pardoned for his youthful offenses.

One of Wahlberg’s victims from a 1986 incident told the Boston Globe that she doesn’t believe he should be pardoned for the attacks that a prosecutor says were racially motivated, Patch earlier reported.

“For him to try to get it overturned and make it seem like it never happened? I don’t think that’s fair,” said Kristyn Atwood, now of Decatur, who was on a school field trip in Dorchester in 1986 when three boys yelled racial slurs and threw rocks at her and a black classmate.

One of the boys was Wahlberg, now 43, according to court records. The state’s attorney general filed a civil complaint against him and his friends, which was dismissed in 1987.

Atwood, 38, was not aware that one of the teens who harassed her and her classmate was Wahlberg, who spent time in a juvenile facility before gaining fame as a rapper and actor.

‘‘I don’t think he should get a pardon,’’ Atwood said in an interview with The Associated Press.

‘‘I don’t really care who he is. It doesn’t make him any exception. If you’re a racist, you’re always going to be a racist. And for him to want to erase it I just think it’s wrong,’’ she told the wire service.

In December, Wahlberg told the Associated Press he had apologized many times for his actions.

‘‘The first opportunity I had to apologize was right there in court when all the dust had settled and I was getting shackled and taken away, and making sure I paid my debt to society and continue to try and do things that make up for the mistakes that I’ve made,” Wahlberg told the AP.

The actor and former rapper also attacked a middle-aged Vietnamese man in 1988 and filed an application with the Massachusetts Board of Pardons in hopes of erasing the crime from his record. He considers the pardon formal recognition because of his charity work through the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dorchester.

Wahlberg was arrested and initially charged with attempted murder for the attack, although it was later reduced to criminal contempt with a maximum sentence of 10 years, Patch reports. After pleading guilty, he was given a two-year sentence at the Deer Island House of Correction in Boston but only had to serve 45 days in the correctional facility.

The Board of Pardons still needs to investigate the petition and decide if it warrants a public hearing before it is recommended to Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker. If the governor approves, it still needs to get the approval of the governor’s council.

The attorney who prosecuted Wahlberg -- Judith Beals, who was an assistant attorney general during the 1988 incident -- wrote an editorial for the Boston Globe on Jan. 12 stating that the actor “has never acknowledged the racial nature of his crimes.”

“Even his pardon petition describes his serial pattern of racist violence as a ‘single episode’ that took place while he was ‘under the influence of alcohol and narcotics,’” she continued. “For a community that continues to confront racism and hate crime, we need acknowledgment and leadership, not denial.”

»Image courtesy of Cummings Photography in Framingham for a Patch story in August.

For more on Mark Wahlberg:

• Mark Wahlberg Seeks Pardon in ‘80s Assault Case
• Victim from 1988 Mark Wahlberg Case Speaks Out