President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of a former judge in Northeast Pennsylvania who gained notoriety for a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks.
That commutation was part of a larger move from Biden, who commuted sentences for about 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes.
It was the biggest single-day act of clemency in U.S. history.
The sentence of former Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Conahan was commuted by Biden on Thursday.
The 72-year-old former judge was convicted in 2008 along with another Luzerne County judge for what came to be known as the Kids-for-Cash scandal.
Conahan and former judge Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups, the PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care in Butler County.
Conahan pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges for his role in the scheme and was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison in 2011.
Biden said in a statement Thursday that America was built on “the promise of possibility and second chances.”
“As president, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses,” Biden wrote.
During the pandemic, Conahan petitioned the courts for a “compassionate release” on the grounds that he was in danger or dying from the virus. He was released to home confinement in Florida under federal supervision in June 2020.
The move to include Conahan in the large commutation effort has drawn harsh criticism from at least one of victim’s family affected by the Kids-for-Cash scandal.
Sandy Fonzo, whose son died by suicide in 2010 after he was placed in juvenile detention by Ciavarella, told Wilkes-Barre’s The Citizen Voice that Conahan’s commutation was “deeply painful.”
“I am shocked, and I am hurt,” Fonzo said in a statement. “Conahan’s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power. This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer.”
In 2022, Conahan and Ciavarella were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.