SCRANTON, Pa. (WBRE/WYOU) — President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of disgraced “Kids for Cash” Judge Michael Conahan, and one victim is expressing anger over it.
Conahan and fellow Judge Mark Ciavarella, both of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, were convicted in connection with a scheme that sent thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks.
NewsNation affiliate WBRE spoke with Amanda Lorah, a victim of the Kids for Cash scheme. She called the clemency for Conahan simply wrong and an injustice.
“It’s a big slap in the face for us once again,” Lorah said after hearing that Biden had commuted the Conahan’s sentence.
“We had no time to get any time taken away from us. We had no one to talk to, but now we’re talking about the President of the United States to do this. What about all of us?” she asked.
Lorah was one of the thousands of juveniles wrongly imprisoned as part of the Kids for Cash scheme that involved Conahan and Ciavarella.
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The judges received $2 million in kickbacks in exchange for sending juveniles to two private detention centers in which they had a business interest. The scandal gained national attention.
Ciaveralla was convicted in 2011 on 12 of 39 counts and sentenced to 28 years in prison.
In 2010, Conahan pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison.
He was released to home confinement in 2020 because of COVID-19 health concerns.
Lorah was sent to detention for five years for being involved in a fight at a high school volleyball game.
“So he wants to talk about Conahan and everybody else, but what is Joe Biden doing for all of these kids who absolutely got nothing and almost no justice in this whole thing that happened? So it’s nothing for us, but it seems that Conaan is just getting a slap on the wrist every which way he possibly could still today,” Lorah explained.
The White House released a statement on the commutation for non-violent offenders that read in part:
These commutation recipients, who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic, have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance.
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But Lorah says she and other juveniles were never given a second chance.
“There’s never going to be any closure for us … . There’s never going to be, somehow, some way, these two men are always going to pop up, but now, when you think about the president of the United States letting him get away with this, who even wants to live in this country at this point? I’m totally shocked, I can’t believe this,” Lorah said.
This means the two years or so that remains on Conahan’s home confinement now goes away.
WBRE’s attempts to contact Conahan for comment have so far been unsuccessful.
