“One of the people who got their sentenced commuted by Biden was one of the Kids-for-Cash judges who accepted kickbacks in exchange for sentencing over 2,500 kids to a for-profit prison,” notes journalist Yashar Ali. “Some of the kids ended up taking their own lives. These sentences had a devastating impact on them.” The kids were given excessively long sentences in order to keep the for-profit prison full — sentences disproportionate to the minor offenses they committed.
Former Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Conahan, who gained notoriety for wrongfully imprisoning juveniles in the Kids-for-Cash scandal, is one of nearly 1,500 inmates whose sentences President Joe Biden commuted Thursday… Conahan, 72, was convicted along with former judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 74, of funneling juvenile defendants to two private, for-profit detention centers in exchange for $2.1 million in kickbacks.
Conahan pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges and was sentenced in 2011 to 17½ years in prison. However, he petitioned the courts for a “compassionate release” during the COVID-19 pandemic…He was released to home confinement in Florida under federal supervision in June 2020…Conahan’s case is one of 1,499 commutations the outgoing president granted….White House officials said Biden is granting clemency to nonviolent offenders “who were sentenced under outdated laws, policies, and practices.”
Sandy Fonzo, who famously confronted Ciavarella outside federal court over the suicide of her son after he was placed in juvenile detention, called the development “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.”
The judges were convicted of accepting millions in kickbacks in exchange for populating for-profit juvenile prisons with offenders whose sentences were often disproportionate to their crimes. The scheme involved a former Drums attorney, Robert Powell, paying $770,000 to Ciavarella and Conahan, who in turn funneled juvenile defendants to two private, for-profit detention centers Powell partly owned….Real estate developer Robert K. Mericle, who paid $2.1 million to the judges, was charged with failing to disclose to investigators and a grand jury that he knew the judges were defrauding the government by failing to report the money on their taxes. Mericle served one year in federal prison.
Other beneficiaries of Joe Biden’s commutations included fraudsters who stole tens of millions of dollars, drug cartel leaders, Chinese spies, and the brother of Hamas’s founder.
