Dennis Bulin arrived in Zephyrhills as a skydiving bum in the late ’70s. He quickly moved to a new hobby, scuba diving.<\/p>\n
The inventor and entrepreneur combined those two passions into Zeagle Systems Inc., one of the leading scuba gear manufacturing companies and a pillar in the east Pasco business community. The company turned 32 this year.<\/p>\n
An owner of several patents, Bulin turned his company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. It’s nothing short of a small business success story.<\/p>\n
This week Bulin, 61, celebrated another milestone in a lesser-known chapter of his life. Against the worst of odds, he received a full pardon from President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
The rare decision from the president stemmed from a crime that happened more than two decades ago. Bulin was sentenced in March 1987 by a federal court in Alabama on a felony conviction of conspiracy to distribute more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana.<\/p>\n
He received five years of probation and had to pay a $20,000 fine. No further details of the arrest and conviction were available Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Fast forward nearly 25 years. On Monday afternoon, the White House quietly issued a news release announcing that Bulin and four others received a presidential pardon. Bulin is one of only 22 people to receive a pardon during Obama’s time in office, out of 4,625 applications.<\/p>\n
Bulin did not respond to an email and messages left at his office and Wesley Chapel home.<\/p>\n
The incident has rarely surfaced, and it appears few people even knew about the conviction. In a brief conversation Tuesday afternoon, longtime business associate Jim Wittstruck of St. Petersburg seemed genuinely perplexed about the news.<\/p>\n
“I’ve known him since 1983,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you.”<\/p>\n
After the conviction, it appears Bulin quickly moved on with his life.<\/p>\n
Only a year after the sentence, he was back in Pasco, lobbying county commissioners for a zoning permit to construct a warehouse on Chancey Road in Zephyrhills. The business had been in operation for nine years at that point and had outgrown its leased quarters.<\/p>\n
Then, in October 1992, Gov. Lawton Chiles and the Florida Cabinet restored Bulin’s civil rights. That gave him the right to vote, serve on a grand jury, hold public office and obtain several business licenses. He is registered to vote as a Republican.<\/p>\n
The only campaign contribution linked to Bulin is a $250 donation to the 1996 campaign of Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder. He has since avoided trouble with the law, as a check of Florida and federal courts shows no other arrests or convictions.<\/p>\n
But the 1992 restoration of his civil rights didn’t remove the stain of his earlier conviction. Only the president could do that.<\/p>\n
The federal conviction prevented him from owning a gun. And while he regained his rights in Florida, the felony restrictions would follow him if he moved to other states.<\/p>\n
The Florida Parole Commission does not release applications for clemency and the U.S. Department of Justice also does not release pardon applications.<\/p>\n
Bulin started his career by working at a small parachute equipment manufacturer, Eagle Systems. He later bought the company and tacked a “Z” onto the name for Zephyrhills. For a few years the company continued to sell parachute equipment, but quickly began selling only diving equipment.<\/p>\n