Former nursing home CEO included in Biden’s sweeping clemency grant

Former American Senior Communities CEO James Burkhart, who was convicted in 2018 for leading a massive health care fraud scheme, was among the nearly 1,500 people who had their sentences commuted by President Joe Biden on Thursday.

In the largest single-day act of clemency in modern U.S. history, Biden pardoned 39 individuals and commuted the sentences of 1,499 others.

Burkhart was chief of Indiana’s largest chain of nursing homes before being indicted on 32 fraud counts in 2016. He was sentenced to 9-½ years in prison in June 2018 after he admitted to orchestrating what prosecutors called a $19 million overbilling and kickback scheme involving American Senior Communities vendors.

The commutations announced Thursday were for people who “were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities.”

Burkhart, 60, served part of his sentence at a minimum-security prison in Montgomery, Alabama, before being transferred to a residential reentry management field office in Detroit that oversees home confinement, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Under his initial sentence, he hadn’t been scheduled for release until 2026. The Federal Bureau of Prisons now lists his release date as Dec. 22.

Burkhart was among five men who received criminal punishment for their involvement in the American Senior Communities kickback scheme.

Former Chief Operating Officer Daniel Benson, Burhart associate Steven Ganote and Burkhart’s younger brother Joshua Burkhart admitted to fraud charges.

Benson was sentenced to 4-1/2 years in federal prison, Ganote received a five-year sentence and ordered to pay $7 million in restitution, and Joshua Burkhart was given a four-month sentence and ordered to pay $420,000.

David Mazanowski, founder of the Fishers-based landscaping firm Mainscape Inc., admitted to overbilling American Senior Communities and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail, wire and health care fraud.

After helping the FBI build its case against his co-conspirators, Mazanowski was sentenced to six months in a halfway house followed by six months of electronic monitoring. He also was fined $60,000 and ordered to pay $808,000 in restitution.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in October 2016 unsealed a 32-count indictment alleging that James Burkhart, Benson, Joshua Burkhart and Ganote used shell companies and inflated invoices to enrich themselves from 2009 through the fall of 2015.

The victims of the fraud were Indianapolis-based ASC, which is owned by the Jackson family of Indianapolis; the Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County, which hired ASC to operate its nearly 70 nursing homes; and federal health care programs.

Biden is still reviewing clemency petitions and more announcements are to come, White House officials said.

The pardons and commutations represent a dramatic action by Biden at a moment when he has few such options and a shrinking window to accomplish them, given President-elect Donald Trump’s assumption of the presidency on Jan. 20.

Unlike executive orders, clemency decisions cannot be reversed by a president’s successor, so they are among the few actions Biden can take now with the knowledge that Trump will not undo them.

In Thursday’s press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the day was historic, and that his actions “build on the president’s record of criminal justice reform to help reunite families, strengthen communities and reintegrate individuals back into society.”

“As the president has said before, America was founded on the premise of second chances,” Jean-Pierre said. “For far too long, our criminal justice system has closed doors, [eliminating] an opportunity for too many people who should have the chance to once again participate in daily life and contribute to their communities.”

But the White House faced added questions about the president’s decision two weeks ago to pardon his son Hunter Biden, who was found guilty of gun-related charges in Delaware and had pleaded guilty to tax evasion in California.