Washington
CNN
—

Victims of major public corruption cases in Pennsylvania and Illinois are angry that President Joe Biden granted clemency to two convicted officials this week.

The commutations were announced Thursday as part of a historic clemency package for 1,500 convicted felons who, the White House said, “deserve a second chance.”

The two convicted officials whose cases sparked outrage — a corrupt Pennsylvania judge and a notorious Illinois fraudster — had both already been released early from prison and placed under house arrest during the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden’s actions now end that punishment.

The president has already faced criticism from both parties over the highly controversial pardon of his son Hunter Biden, who was convicted of 12 tax and gun crimes earlier this year.

A Biden administration official told CNN that the recent commutations were not individual decisions, but rather a unified decision granted to people who met certain criteria, such as a track record of good behavior while under house arrest.

Former Pennsylvania judge Michael Conahan was convicted in 2011 in the so-called “kids for cash” scandal, in which he accepted bribes from for-profit detention centers in exchange for falsely sending teenagers to their facilities. The case was widely regarded as one of the worst judicial scandals in Pennsylvania history.

Like all of the other nearly 1,500 people converted by Biden this week, Conahan was released from prison due to Covid. His house arrest was scheduled to end in 2026.

Misconduct by Conahan and another Luzerne County judge led the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to throw out 4,000 juvenile convictions, and the discredited state judges were ordered to pay $200 million to victims, according to the Associated Press.

Sandy Fonzo – the mother of Edward Kenzakoski, who died by suicide after spending time behind bars as part of the kickback scheme – said she was “shocked … and hurt” after learning of Biden’s decision to give up the remainder of Conahan’s sentence to convert.

“Conahan’s actions have destroyed families, including mine, and my son’s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,” Fonzo told Citizens’ Voice, a local media outlet. “This pardon feels like an injustice to all of us who still suffer. Right now I’m processing the pain that came back from this and doing my best to come to terms with it.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, also said Friday at an unrelated news conference in Biden’s hometown of Scranton: “I firmly believe that President Biden was absolutely wrong and has caused a lot of suffering here in northeastern Pennsylvania.”

Similar fallout occurred in Illinois after Biden granted clemency to Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller of Dixon, a city of about 15,000 people in the northern part of the state.

She pleaded guilty in 2012 to a $54 million embezzlement scheme that was considered the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history. She was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison, close to the maximum sentence, despite being placed under house arrest during the pandemic.

She was scheduled to remain under house arrest until 2028, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

“When I heard the news, I was in complete shock and disbelief, I was outraged and felt a complete sense of betrayal by the federal judiciary, the White House and the president,” Dixon City Manager Danny Langloss said in an interview Friday CNN.

Langloss, who said he was not affiliated with any political party, was police chief when Crundwell’s fraud was uncovered. He said he believes “justice has not been served here.”

“I don’t like the idea … that with a few more years left on her sentence, she can walk free in the community that she defrauded and stole from,” Langloss said.

Consequences of the pandemic

Margaret Love, who served as a U.S. pardon attorney at the Justice Department from 1990 to 1997, said the fallout from Biden’s recent pardons was a result of prison population reductions during Covid – under the Trump administration.

Congress passed the bipartisan CARES Act in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, which, among other things, paved the way for the federal government to move approximately 12,000 inmates from federal prisons to home confinement. Many of these people have now served their sentences, but many remain under house arrest.

“Many people who were sent home were convicted of white-collar or violent crimes and were viewed as having safe behavior in the community,” Love said, adding that she believes the decision-making was tainted by racial discrimination.

While some Republicans grumbled about sending these convicts back to prison, Love said Biden has “just wiped out this population” and taken that option off the table.

And to those upset about Biden releasing these criminals from house arrest early, “you should have complained four years ago when they were released from prison,” Love said.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg contributed to this report.