President Joe Biden granted clemency Thursday to 1,538 people, including commuting the sentences of 71 individuals whose cases originated in Georgia and who served at least part of their time under home confinement during coronavirus lockdowns.
“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,” Biden said in a statement.
The Georgia connections include Jason Cole Votrobek and Roland Castellanos, the former owners of a pain clinic in Cartersville convicted of illegally distributing mass amounts of oxycodone, and Kawana Champion, a former postal worker who took bribes in exchange for delivering cocaine in metro Atlanta.
The people on the list range in ages from 38 to 89. The majority had release dates in 2025, 2026 or 2027. Most were convicted on nonviolent drug charges or of financial crimes.
The latter group includes George Houser, a Sandy Springs resident who owned a nursing home operator in Rome and was convicted of Medicare and Medicaid fraud after the conditions in his facility were deemed unlivable. Cheryl Singleton, the owner of a tax preparation service in Atlanta, was convicted of wire fraud after being accused of filing fraudulent return documents to help clients get refunds they didn’t deserve.
Biden said the commutations include people facing long sentences who were incarcerated in federal prisons but assigned to house arrest as the COVID-19 pandemic spread. Of the more than 12,000 people sent home under those emergency measures, most have been allowed to continue serving their sentences under home confinement.
By commuting their sentences, or lessening the terms under which they were to remain under custody, those on the list will soon be released from their homebound inmate status.
A report from the Department of Justice said that fewer than 1% of the people sent to complete their sentences at home during the pandemic were returned to lockup for committing new crimes while home.
Biden also granted pardons to an additional 39 people, although none from Georgia. These individuals were all accused of nonviolent crimes, often drug related. The White House said this announcement represents the largest single-day clemency announcement from any president in modern history.
This is Biden’s eighth round of clemency announcements since taking office. The most recent and most controversial occurred on Dec. 1 when he announced he was pardoning his son, Hunter Biden, of gun and tax evasion charges.
Digital storytelling editor Charles Minshew and staffers Alexis Stevens, Henri Hollis, Caroline Silva, Shaddi Abusaid, Rosie Manins, Vanessa McCray and Kevin Whaley contributed to this article.
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