Mark Wahlberg Seeks Pardon in '80s Assault Case

Movie star and Dorchester native Mark Wahlberg is trying to wipe a crime he committed in 1988 off of his record.

The actor and former rapper was in and out of Dorchester District Court as a teenager, getting in trouble with the Boston Police Department repeatedly for things such as drug-dealing and throwing rocks at African-American children.

In 1988, Wahlberg attacked a middle-aged Vietnamese man on Dorchester Avenue with a wooden stick, beating the man unconscious.

Education website “Today I Found Out,” noted that 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. After pleading guilty, he was given a two-year sentence at the Deer Island House of Correction in Boston. He only had to serve 45 days in the correctional facility.

NECN reported that Wahlberg, best known as starring in films such as “The Fighter” and “Ted,” admitted he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and had marijuana in his back pocket at the time.

Wahlberg has filed an application with the Massachusetts Board of Pardons, hoping to get his criminal record erased almost 27 years later. He says the pardon would be formal recognition because he was able to successfully turn his life around. The actor cites his involvement with the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dorchester as indications of his change of heart.

“The more complex answer is that receiving a pardon would be a formal recognition that I am not the same person that I was on the night of April 8, 1988,” Wahlberg said in his pardon. “It would be formal recognition that someone like me can receive official public redemption if he devotes himself to personal improvement and a life of good works.”

The Board of Pardons needs to investigate the petition and decide if it warrants a public hearing before it is recommended to the governor who will be Charlie Baker by that time.

If the governor approves, it still needs to get the approval of the governor’s council.

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