A nonprofit leader who supports at-risk New Orleans youth. A social worker who fosters animals. A postdoctoral researcher.
They are among the roughly 1,540 people whose sentences were commuted or who were pardoned by President Joe Biden on Thursday in what was the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
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But not everyone was pleased by Biden’s decisions. A Republican state senator said a commutation for a woman who stole $54 million from a small town in Illinois was “a slap in the face” to residents. The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania said Biden "got it absolutely wrong” when he commuted the sentence of a judge who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks.
Here are some of their stories:
TRYNITHA FULTON, 46, OF NEW ORLEANS
Fulton was pardoned after pleading guilty to participating in a payroll fraud scheme while serving as a New Orleans middle school teacher in the early 2000s. She was convicted of a felony and sentenced to three years of probation in 2008.
Fulton, who has two children and works as an elementary school teacher, said that for years she had lived with “a sense of embarrassment and shame” about the felony conviction.
Even though she completed a master’s degree in educational leadership in 2017, Fulton felt that her criminal record disqualified her from applying for principal positions she felt she could handle.
“The conviction has served as a mental barrier for me, limiting my ability to live a full life,” Fulton said.
Nearly a decade after she first applied for a presidential pardon, Fulton this week received a phone call informing her that it had been granted. “It was astonishing for me, I wasn’t expecting a call,” Fulton said, adding that the pardon will enable her to explore more career opportunities.
A White House news release commended Fulton as “someone who goes above and beyond for her community.” For years, Fulton has helped lead a nonprofit supporting at-risk New Orleans youth with hot meals, clothing and shelter and mental health referrals.
STEVONI DOYLE, 47, OF SANTAQUIN, UTAH
Doyle applied for a pardon six years ago. It had been so long that she had all but forgotten about it — until Wednesday.
“I was in shock,” Doyle said of the call she received from a Justice Department pardon attorney. “And honored.”
Doyle, who was once addicted to meth, had pleaded guilty to drug possession and check forging charges when she was 24. She served more than two years in state and federal prison.
Released in 2006, Doyle resolved to stay clean. She started a family, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees and now works as a social worker with a behavioral health center.
Doyle applied for a pardon in 2018 and heard nothing until 2020, when the FBI reached out — and the vetting began.
“They talked to my boss, my boss’ boss, they talked to my mother’s boss, they called my doctors," Doyle said. “Just pretty much anybody that had any type of relationship with me in the past 20 years they contacted.”
After the vetting was over, she would have to wait some more: four years, it turned out.
“I just want people to know that are in the throes of addiction, or families to know that when they have somebody in their family that is addicted, that there is hope,” Doyle said Thursday. “This has just brought so much joy to me and my family and is just the continuation of my recovery.”
She has five children and three grandchildren, volunteers in her community, fosters animals and competes in roller derby.
RITA CRUNDWELL, 71, OF DIXON, ILLINOIS
Crundwell was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison in 2013 for stealing about $54 million over two decades when she was in charge of finances for Dixon, Illinois.
She was released to a halfway house program in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic before moving to home confinement. Biden’s commutation releases Crundwell from any restrictions.
Paul Gaziano, a lawyer who represented Crundwell in federal court, declined to comment Thursday.
Dixon Mayor Glen Hughes said he believes most of the town is probably stunned, and maybe even angry, that Biden would provide clemency to Crundwell. Republican state Sen. Andrew Chesney called Biden’s act “nothing short of a slap in the face to the people of Dixon.”
Dixon, best known as the childhood home of President Ronald Reagan, sued auditors and a bank after Crundwell’s theft was revealed and recovered $40 million in settlements.
Crundwell, who was a horse breeder, told a judge in 2020 that more than $15 million was repaid from the sale of her horses and other assets.
“I am going to do everything possible to make up for my mistakes," she told the judge in a handwritten letter that described various health problems. “I have taken responsibility for my actions since the first day.”
MICHAEL CONAHAN, 72, OF NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
Conahan was sentenced to 17 years in prison for helping orchestrate one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history: a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks.
Biden’s decision to commute his sentence angered many in northeastern Pennsylvania, from the governor to the families whose children were victimized by the disgraced former judge. Conahan had already served the vast majority of his sentence, which was handed down in 2011.
“I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said Friday.
A message seeking comment was sent to an attorney who recently represented Conahan, the former judge of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas.
In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Conahan and Judge Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from a friend of Conahan’s who built and co-owned two for-profit lockups.
Sandy Fonzo, whose son killed himself at age 23 after Ciavarella locked him up as a teen, called Conahan’s commutation an “injustice.”
“I am shocked and I am hurt,” Fonzo said in a statement provided to The Citizens’ Voice of Wilkes-Barre. “Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power."
The Juvenile Law Center, which represented plaintiffs in a $200 million civil judgment against Conahan and Ciavarella, said it “supported President Biden’s actions” but wants to see the “same kind of compassion and mercy” extended to juvenile defendants around the country.
When he pleaded guilty in 2010, Conahan apologized to the youths he had hurt.
“The system is not corrupt,” Conahan said at the time. “I was corrupt.”
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KELSIE LYNN BECKLIN, 38, of NEW BRIGHTON, MINNESOTA
Becklin was 21 when she got into trouble, which she said was due to trying to get money to support her drug addiction. She pleaded guilty to a nonviolent felony charge for failing to provide information to police about a 2007 bank robbery. She served four months in a halfway house, four months of home confinement and three years of probation.
She found out she was pregnant after she’d been out of custody for about a year. She said she had her “aha moment” when her son was 1 year old.
“And I was living at home with my parents. I had, like, no job, no education, no future,” Becklin said. “Had a felony on my record. I had substance use history, you know, all these things. And he was 1. And I just remember, like looking at him and realizing that his whole life was, like, really dependent on what I did with mine.”
Within days, she said, she enrolled at a community college. She recently earned her doctoral degree in comparative molecular biosciences at the University of Minnesota. For her doctorate, she used stem cell biology and genetic engineering to better understand how pediatric cancers grow and develop. She’s still working in the cell and gene therapy space, now as a postdoctoral researcher at the university.
The White House noted in its announcement that Becklin also mentors currently and previously incarcerated people who are seeking to pursue higher education. She said she does it as part of a program called Prison to Professionals. They help guide people on the unique issues they’ll face in higher education and provide them with a support network.
She said she still doesn’t know exactly how being pardoned and having her record cleared will affect her future.
“I think there was a point in my life where it really mattered if I, like, had a certain career path or if I did that. But I have found that, kind of wherever I am, I find my purpose and my need there. And, you know, it’s kind of a beautiful way to live,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans, Ed White in Detroit, Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyo., Michael Rubinkam in Pennsylvania; Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis; and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Wash., contributed to this report.