Biden Commutes Sentence of Judge Who Took Kickbacks for Sending Kids to For-Profit Juvenile Detention

Posted on Tuesday, December 17, 2024

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by Outside Contributor

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President Biden on Thursday commuted the prison sentence of Michael Conahan, a former judge who pleaded guilty to sending juvenile defendants to two private, for-profit detention centers in exchange for $2.1 million in kickbacks.

The 72-year-old judge pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges in 2011 and was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison for the “Kids-for-Cash” scheme.

He has been in home confinement in Florida under federal supervision since June 2020, when he requested a “compassionate release” because of the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing he was “in grave danger of not only contracting the virus, but of dying from the virus.” 

Conahan, whose commutation was first reported by the Citizens’ Voice, was one of 1,499 commutations Biden granted this week. Biden, who also issued 49 pardons, far exceeded the previous single-day record for acts of clemency, which was held by former President Barack Obama, who issued 330 acts of clemency in a single day before he left office in 2017.

“The nearly 1,500 individuals who received commutations today have been serving their sentences at home for at least one year under the COVID-era CARES Act,” the White House said in a statement. “These Americans have been reunited with their families and shown their commitment to rehabilitation by securing employment and advancing their education.”

Former attorney Robert Powell paid $770,000 to Conahan and former judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. to reward the judges for sending juvenile defendants to two private, for-profit detention centers Powell partly owned, oftentimes with sentences that were incongruent with the juveniles’ crimes. 

Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in prison and is scheduled to be released in 2034.

Powell served an 18-month prison sentence in connection with the scheme after pleading guilty to felony counts of failing to report a felony and being an accessory to a conspiracy. He also agreed to pay the juvenile defendants affected by the scheme more than $6 million in a settlement reached in 2015.

Real estate developer Robert Mericle paid another $2.1 million to the judges. He served one year in federal prison on charges related to 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. 

A mother whose son died by suicide while serving time in the juvenile detention under the scheme called Biden’s decision “deeply painful.”

“I am shocked and I am hurt,” Sandy 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. Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back.”

Others who had their sentences commuted on Thursday included Rita Crundwell and Eric Bloom, whom the the Chicago Tribune called “two of the Chicago area’s most notorious fraudsters.” Crundwell, 71, the former comptroller of Dixon, Ill., embezzled nearly $54 million from the town and pleaded guilty in 2012. Bloom, 59, the one-time head of a management firm, was convicted in 2012 of defrauding investors of more than $665 million, according to the paper.

Reprinted with permission from The National Review by Brittany Bernstein.

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