ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas was informed Wednesday that President Barack Obama has commuted the life sentence of Thomas' grandmother.
Thomas was notified as he left the team's weight room following practice. Minnie Pearl Thomas had been serving a life sentence for a drug conviction in Georgia. Her prison sentence will now expire Dec. 1.
"I just found out right when I came in from weights," Demaryius Thomas said. "I was surprised, and I was excited.
"It's a blessing, and I'm super excited. ... Looking forward to Dec. 1."
Minnie Pearl Thomas' sentence was one of 214 for federal inmates, including 67 with life sentences, that President Obama commuted Wednesday.
Last July, he also commuted 46 sentences, including the sentence of Thomas' mother, Katina Smith, who had been scheduled to be released in 2017.
In June, Demaryius Thomas wrote a letter to President Obama, thanking him for commuting his mother's sentence, and he gave the letter to the president when the Super Bowl champion Broncos visited the White House. During his exchange, he said Obama briefly discussed Thomas' grandmother as well.
"I still remember him talking to me," Thomas said. "I was talking about my mom and said, 'Thank you,' and he talked about my grandma. I knew something was going to happen.''
Thomas was only 11 when Smith and his maternal grandmother were each arrested for narcotics trafficking in 1999.
When Smith's sentence was commuted and she was released from prison, she went to a halfway house for a required stay in Georgia, Thomas' home state, before she was then fully released to live on her own. Thomas said Wednesday his grandmother is likely to follow the same path after her release.
Minnie Pearl Thomas is currently serving her sentence -- for distribution of cocaine, as well as conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine -- in a federal prison in Florida. Demaryius Thomas said that at one point at the prison, in Tallahassee, Florida, his mother and grandmother shared a cell.