“It Broke Him”: Mother Who Lost Son in “Kids for Cash” Scheme Slams Biden’s Clemency for Corrupt Judge

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden is facing fierce condemnation for granting clemency to former Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan, one of two judges jailed in the notorious “kids for cash” scandal. In 2011, Conahan was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years for accepting nearly $3 million in kickbacks for sending 2,300 children, some as young as 8 years old, to for-profit prisons on false charges.

On Friday, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro criticized Biden’s decision.

GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO: I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania. This was not only a black eye on the community, the “kids for cash” scandal, but it also affected families in really deep and profound and sad ways. Some children took their lives because of this. Families were torn apart.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, Democracy Now! spoke to Washington Post columnist Heather Long, who had covered the “kids for cash” scandal as a reporter in Pennsylvania.

HEATHER LONG: This was a huge mistake by President Biden to grant clemency, to reduce the sentence for Michael Conahan, the former judge from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, who was one of the two judges involved in that really heinous “kids for cash” scandal. We’re talking about sending thousands of kids to for-profit detention facilities, many of whom were first-time offenders who probably should have had community service or some sort of slap on the wrist, and instead, they were sent to a detention facility for months, in some cases years. So many negative consequences happened because of that, that many of those young people ended up depressed, addicted, didn’t graduate high school. Some lost scholarships. It was just a chain event of tragedy.

And Michael Conahan willingly did this. He knew about it. He purposely blocked a county government facility being built, so that these for-profit centers could be built. Some of the cash kickbacks were delivered as cash in a shoe box or routed through a Florida condo that he and the other judge set up to funnel money. I mean, there was just so much that was knowingly done that was wrong here, and then an attempt to stymie any attempts to stop it or any attempts to prosecute it. So, it’s just really hard for anybody who lived through this in Pennsylvania — I got my start there as a journalist — to believe that President Biden could do this and, you know, would want to give this particular person, who gave no one a second chance, this kind of leniency.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Washington Post columnist Heather Long. Her new article is headlined “Biden gave ‘kids for cash’ judge clemency. That’s how broken this process is,” unquote.

The scandal was the focus of the 2013 documentary Kids for Cash, directed by Robert May, who will join us in a minute. This is the film’s trailer.

UNIDENTIFIED: She was a good kid. She was happy.

HILLARY TRANSUE: I was known for being the jokester.

SANDY FONZO: Eddie, he was always a fireball.

HILLARY TRANSUE: We were talking about how funny it would be if we made a fake MySpace page about my vice principal.

AMANDA LORAH: I was trying to stay out of trouble. That’s when everything started.

MARK CIAVARELLA: Whatever sins you have committed, you can’t go back and undo it.

TERRIE MORGAN–BESECKER: Ciavarella was a no-nonsense, zero-tolerance judge. He always jailed kids.

MARK CIAVARELLA: You are going to experience prison. I’ll be glad to put you there.

UNIDENTIFIED: The way Ciavarella ran the courtroom, you could have had F. Lee Bailey there, and the kids would have gone away.

MARSHA LEVICK: There’s a mechanism that takes over that keeps kids in that system.

HILLARY TRANSUE: No one listened, because we were kids.

UNIDENTIFIED: There was never any instance of guilt or innocence. They were locking him up.

MARSHA LEVICK: Really high number of kids appearing without counsel.

SANDY FONZO: We have no rights. He’s in their custody now.

UNIDENTIFIED: It is unbelievable. We’re talking about children.

MARK CIAVARELLA: I wanted them to be scared out of their minds. I don’t understand how that was a bad thing.

MSNBC REPORTER: Former Luzerne County judge faces charges tonight.

GREGG JARRETT: In a scandal known as “kids for cash.”

ABC NEWS REPORTER: $2.6 million.

STEPHEN COLBERT: In return for sentencing kids to juvenile detention.

MARK CIAVARELLA: I’ve never sent a kid away for a penny. I’m not this mad judge who was just putting them in shackles, throwing kids away.

SANDY FONZO: He went there as a free-spirited kid. He came out a hardened man, I’d say.

LAURENE TRANSUE: Here I was saying, “We can trust that judge to be fair.” And that’s not what happened.

AMANDA LORAH: I was scared every day.

CHARLIE BALASAVAGE: I was only 14. All those years I missed.

AL FLORA JR.: This is not a cash-for-kids case.

SANDY FONZO: You scumbag! You ruined my life!

AMANDA LORAH: I still wake up from nightmares.

AMY GOODMAN: The trailer from the film Kids for Cash, directed by Robert May. He’s joining us from Pittston, Pennsylvania. And in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania, we’re joined by Sandy Fonzo. The other judge involved in the “cash for kids” scandal, Mark Ciavarella, sentenced Sandy’s 17-year-old boy to 30 days in a juvenile boot camp for a minor charge of having drug paraphernalia. At the time, Ed was a star wrestler in high school. Sandy Fonzo says her son’s sentence started him on a path to the adult court system that culminated in his death by suicide.

Robert May and Sandy Fonzo, welcome to Democracy Now! And I also — even before we start with Sandy’s story, I want to give out the suicide hotline number. It’s 988. Whenever we deal with suicide, it’s so important for people to know that there are people to talk to. Sandy Fonzo, take us back in time. Talk about what happened to Ed.

SANDY FONZO: This is very emotional, very heavy, just hearing and having to relive all of this. I mean, this has just reopened wounds that have never healed. And this is very, very difficult, very, very heavy. I shouldn’t be having to relive this, especially at Christmastime. I mean, this is just — it’s unacceptable.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m so sorry, Sandy, that we are asking you to do this. You have been so incredibly brave in talking about this over the years. And I’m so sorry this has been all reopened for you at this moment with President Biden’s pardon of one of the judges. So, if you —

SANDY FONZO: And I need to talk about it. I need to defend my son, because he’s not here to defend himself. And I am his mother, and I always will be. So, I am — I appreciate being here and getting to talk to you. It’s just very difficult for me.

AMY GOODMAN: It just shows how brave you are. So, if you could take us back in time and explain what happened? For people who don’t know Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and what happened, why did your son end up in court to begin with?

SANDY FONZO: My son did nothing more than anything that most of us as kids did, you know, experimenting and living his life and making mistakes, that we usually all get to just learn and evolve and grow from. He did nothing more than be at an underaged drinking party with tons of other kids, but he was caught.

And he went in front of Judge Ciavarella because this is the process that they had. And, you know, you’re trusting in this system that these are — this is, you know, good for our kids. And I was told this is, you know, just to scare him, to get him back on track, to make sure everything is well. And he went into the county juvenile detention center for a month.

And in that time, he wanted nothing more. He understood what he was missing in his life. He just wanted to get back home. He wanted to get back. It was his senior year about to begin. He wanted to get back into his wrestling training, just get back into his life. And I had the teachers. I had his coaches, myself, talking and sending letters to the judge’s chambers, you know, of my son’s character and explaining all of this. And I was 100% sure. There was no doubt in my mind that when we went in front of that judge, my son was coming home with me that day.

But that didn’t happen. And he was sent to that juvenile detention center in Pittston, and I believe it was like eight months. He lost his senior year. He never had the chance to wrestle again, any chance that he had for a scholarship. He came out of there very bitter, very angry, pent up with anger. He couldn’t look you in the eye. I don’t know what happened in that facility. My son was a very big, strong, proud boy, and he came out broken. I don’t know what happened. I try to not think about what happened, and he would never talk about it. But something not good happened to him in there.

And it snowballed. He just never recovered. He got into a fight and had to go in front of — back into the court system. And actually, those charges were dropped. They were not found. But because he was on probation from Judge Ciavarella, he sent him away again, even though he was found not guilty of those charges. And this time he was sent to their other for-profit center, which was five hours from our home. It was in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. And he did a year — a year — there, and then was released if he would do this boot camp, which he excelled, and they couldn’t talk more good about my son and his character and the discipline that he showed. But he — it just never ended. It just snowballed. It changed him. It broke him. It stole his youth, his childhood. He would never, ever recover. And it just became too much, and he shot himself in the heart.

And we were fighting this. We knew something was not right. We could not get into that courtroom with media. Anything that was trying to be done was shot down. Judge Lokuta tried to step up, and she was ousted and thrown out of the court. These judges had this power, and they did what they wanted. And they started their own for-profit centers. And at the time, Judge Conahan was the president judge. So he appointed his friend, Michael Ciavarella, as the juvenile judge, who he knew would send these kids into the system. And they funneled them in and collected the money for every bed that was filled. And until this money line was seen, that’s when the feds stepped in and all this came out. But —

AMY GOODMAN: And it was exposed that they were getting kickbacks from these for-profit jails. Sandy, I wanted to go back to when you confronted the former judge, now jailed, Judge Ciavarella, outside the courtroom after your son’s sentencing.

SANDY FONZO: My kids not here! He’s dead! Because of him! He ruined my [bleep] life! I’d like him to go to hell and rot there forever!

SECURITY GUARD: Ma’am, come on.

SANDY FONZO: No! You know what he told everybody in court? They need to be held accountable for their actions. You need to be! Do you remember me? Do you remember me? Do you remember my son? An all-star wrestler? He’s gone! He shot himself in the heart! You scumbag!

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Sandy Fonzo confronting former Judge Ciavarella, who remains in jail, outside the courtroom after her son’s sentencing. Now, the man that President Biden pardoned is the president judge, as you described, Sandy, is Judge Conahan. When you heard about this pardoning, your response?

SANDY FONZO: I was working. I was in my car, and my phone was just going off. And I don’t know. I was in disbelief. I was in shock. You know, you would think nothing could ever shocked me again, but I was numb. I mean, I just pulled over and sat there trying to understand what was going on and how something like this could happen.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Robert May into this. Robert May is the director and producer of the documentary Kids for Cash. Your past films are The War Tapes, the Oscar-winning Fog of War. The first two episodes of your five-part docuseries Bucks County, USA will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this January. When you heard about the judge’s pardon, Robert May, about President Biden’s pardon, your response? And explain the relationship of these two judges, where Conahan was in Florida, and what exactly this means and where Ciavarella is today.

ROBERT MAY: Well, I was obviously shocked. I felt that they would be — Judge Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in prison, and Michael Conahan was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in prison, and the difference in the length of time was primarily because of Ciavarella did not acknowledge his full involvement in the scandal. They both did take money for the building of the two centers, but it quickly became known as the “kids for cash,” where they were accused of taking money for each kid that was put in the system, which isn’t exactly what happened. And so, Ciavarella started to defend himself vehemently. And Conahan, more or less, kept his mouth shut, and Ciavarella did not. And then, they had agreed to spend seven years in prison, and they — the judge at the time, Judge Kosik, didn’t accept their plea deal, and primarily because Ciavarella wouldn’t take responsibility for what he did do, although he said he did acknowledge the financial crimes, but he didn’t want to be labeled as the “kids for cash” judge.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert May, they made millions of dollars for putting these kids away, for the use of these two facilities?

ROBERT MAY: They made — the money was actually tracked. And the way that they did it was the facilities were built by a builder that was a friend of Judge Ciavarella’s and was financed by a friend that was a friend of Conahan’s. And so, they put the whole thing together. It’s true that there was a new facility needed. It’s also true that — to the best of our knowledge, that the county wasn’t going to build a new facility, or at least at that time. So it made it very easy for them to create this new facility. At the time, for-profit prisons and detention centers were something that was becoming more in favor. So, that’s where it all began. And Ciavarella, who sent kids away at very high rates during his entire term as the juvenile court judge, I mean, it seemed to make sense that they would have the facility more full than not, just based on his actual track record.

AMY GOODMAN: So, they — 

ROBERT MAY: I think — go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: They were found guilty of accepting $2.8 million in illegal payments. And I misspoke: It wasn’t that Conahan, the president judge, was pardoned. He was granted clemency, right? He was one of the many people who was considered to have committed nonviolent crimes, and during COVID, as an older man, he was released to home. And now he was granted clemency by President Biden, along with the 1,500 other people.

ROBERT MAY: That’s right. Right. He had about two more years to go, I think, on his sentence. The thing I think that — one thing that’s lost in all this, which Sandy can attest to, is that kids need special care and treatment. When they’re growing up, they have lots of issues, now more than ever, and literally now more than ever today. But back when this story all took place, I spent a lot of time with Sandy and the other kids and families, and it changed my life. And I have children. The juvenile justice system was broken then. It’s broken now. The way that — the difficulty in getting mental health for kids, it’s problematic, and it’s susceptible to the power of the courts. And I think that is one of the things that isn’t talked enough about. We had another kid that we followed, Charlie Balasavage, who was doing well. He tried — he struggled, and he also was jailed for a long period of time. And he missed his prom. He missed birthdays, and he missed so many things. And he never got the attention and care that he needed. Instead, he was locked up. And eventually, he died of a drug overdose, because he never got the care he ultimately needed and deserved.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Robert May, I want to thank you for being with us. It makes you question whether these are nonviolent crimes, these judges engaged in putting away thousands of children, some as young as 8 years old. Robert May, director of the documentary Kids for Cash. And, Sandy, thank you for taking this time and, most importantly, sharing in this very painful moment for you with everyone. It is a warning to all, what you had to say today. Sandy Fonzo’s son, sentenced in the “kids for cash” scandal, ultimately took his own life. To go back to Democracy Now!’s coverage 10 years ago of the “kids for cash” scandal, you can go to democracynow.org. And again, the suicide hotline is 988.

Coming up, as President Biden enters his final month in office, we’ll talk to Astra Taylor of the Debt Collective about how Biden could deliver debt relief to millions of student borrowers. Then we’ll look at a new film called The Bibi Files. Why can’t it be played in Israel? It’s about Netanyahu, who’s on trial for corruption. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Making Time” by The Creation. Producer Shel Talmy passed away in November at the age of 87.