Joe Biden recently announced the largest day of clemency, which involved pardoning 39 individuals and commuting the sentences of 1,500 others. The outgoing president said the beneficiaries included teachers, judges, and other professionals.
Many of those pardons raised eyebrows, leading many to question how they even were pitched and justified to Biden in the first place.
Biden claimed that the pardoned or commuted individuals “have shown successful rehabilitation and a strong commitment to making their communities safer” – while providing no evidence.
Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan, who was involved in the mass incarceration of minors for petty offenses in return for kickbacks, was among the prisoners whose sentences were commuted. Conahan shut down a county juvenile detention center to become a co-owner of a private correctional facility, earning him $2.8 million. He condemned juveniles to harsh sentences for minor offenses to keep the facility running.
Another corrupt judge Mark Ciavarella was also involved in the abhorrent “kids for cash” scheme. He sentenced first time young offenders to the institution for extremely minor offenses such as jaywalking or schoolyard smoking.
Children found guilty were often handcuffed and immediately thrown into detention without bidding their parents goodbye, leaving both parties traumatized.In 2010, Conahan pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering. He was serving at least 17 years in prison before he was released to home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. He still had six years left of his sentence.
Sandy Fonzo is the mother of Edward Kenzakoski, a juvenile detainee who took his life after serving eight months at the facility for underage drinking. Fonzo told Fox News that Kenzakoski “was not the same person” after leaving the detention center. He was angry and bitter and could not look people in the eye.
“I can’t imagine, and I try to not think about what happened to him in that facility, but he never recovered from that.”
Kenzakoski’s mother pleaded with the Biden administration to remove the corrupt judge’s name from the list of clemency recipients.“I want to see his name removed because that’s just… another slap in the face, another injustice, on top of all of the grief that everybody in this community has already endured,” she lamented.
After the appalling kid-for-profit scheme surfaced, the justice system cleared over 2,300 juveniles of over 4,000 convictions. Conahan and Ciavarella were also ordered to pay over $200 million to more than 300 persons.
With some having lost their lives to suicide while others still struggle with depression, it remains unclear if the victims will ever be compensated.
