import re

prohibitedWords = [r'[Tt]o:\s*','\b002;\s*',"\s*<([^<>]*)>"]
mystring = 'To: John Lennon <John.Lennon@gmail.com> \b002; Paul McCartney <Paul.McCartney@yahoo.com> \b002;'
big_regex = re.compile('|'.join(prohibitedWords))
the_message = big_regex.sub("", str(mystring)).strip()
print(the_message)