A former Pennsylvania judge who was convicted of sending children to jail while receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks from the facility’s operator in the early 2000s was one of the nearly 1,500 people whose sentences were commuted Thursday by President Joe Biden.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WEAU) - President Joe Biden is granting clemency to two Wisconsin residents. According to the Clemency Recipient List released by the White House, Biden granted clemency to Jerry Donald Manning of Sun Prairie, Wis. and Audrey Diane Simone (Audrey Clark) of Prescott, Wis.

President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he is commuting the sentences of some 1,500 individuals and pardoning 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes – marking a broad use of the presidential clemency power just weeks from the end of Biden’s administration.

Instead, allies and criminal justice advocates say, Biden’s act of mass clemency on Thursday now feels like something of a consolation. And even as Democrats applauded the move

President Biden said on Thursday that he is commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 people convicted of nonviolent crimes in a sweeping act of clemency during his final weeks in office.

President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 others in an expansive act of clemency in the final weeks of his presidency.