Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak told Newsmax on Monday that he's pushing to remove President Joe Biden's name from a Scranton-area expressway due to his recent pardoning of a judge involved in the Kids for Cash scandal.
Earlier this month, Biden issued a pardon to former Judge Michael Conaham, who was convicted for taking part in a scheme that involved himself and another former judge in Pennsylvania receiving bribes in exchange for sending juvenile offenders to a for-profit detention center. Conaham pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge in 2010 and was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison.
Chermak told "Wake Up America" that he was compelled to take action after seeing the reaction of Sandy Fonzo, a Pennsylvania mother whose son died by suicide after being sent to a for-profit juvenile detention center.
In an interview, Fonzo questioned how Biden could have made this decision and said that seeing his name on the expressway that leads into Biden's hometown of Scranton is "a slap in the face to all of us."
Chermak said on Monday that Fonzo's comments were "the final straw," which led him to write a letter to the Scranton City Council and mayor calling for Biden's name to be removed from the road.
"I wrote the letter, and I'm sure that nothing will happen," Chermak said. "But if we get enough public opinion out there and get people talking, I think maybe we could maybe do something about it, but it just shouldn't have happened."
He added that "what happened years ago and the lives that were altered, over 2,300 children, they were denied justice. A lot of them didn't even have representation. And it just shows the systematic failure of … the juvenile justice system."
Chermak said that the incident "really devastated our region for housing and trying to get these kids back on track. So it's been difficult."
He added, "I'm going to stay on this and just use my position as a commissioner to get … my constituents' voices heard."
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