Two local men who were convicted of federal crimes more than 25 years ago received pardons Monday from President Barack Obama.
Francis J. O’Hara Sr., 84, of Camden and Robert S. Baines, 60, of South Thomaston were among 78 people nationwide who received pardons Monday for their crimes. Another 153 people received commuted sentences from the president.
That was the highest number of clemencies granted in a single day by any president.
The president has pardoned a total of 148 people and granted 1,176 commutations – a historic number – for federal inmates under the clemency initiative that he and former attorney general Eric Holder launched two years ago, according to The Washington Post, and plans to issue more commutations before he leaves office in January.
Obama has already issued more commutations in his two terms in office than the previous 11 presidents combined, according to the White House.
O’Hara had pleaded guilty in August 1990 to rigging bids for the sale of frozen seafood to the Defense Department from 1981 through September 1989. The false documents related to where the fish originated.
He was sentenced in September 1991 in U.S. District Court in Portland to six months in prison, fined $200,000 and ordered to pay restitution of $950,000 after being convicted of conspiracy to restrain, suppress and eliminate competition by rigging bids; conspiracy with others to knowingly and willfully make and use false documents containing false statements.
At the sentencing hearing, the federal prosecutor John Hughes said O’Hara was the cornerstone of the conspiracy that made a mockery of the federal government procurement process. Three fishery companies in Massachusetts and five officials from those companies were also convicted in that investigation.
The prosecutor said at the hearing that the conspiracy continued even after the participants were aware that an investigation was ongoing and that O’Hara even had his office swept for wiretaps and other listening devices.
O’Hara’s attorney, Hugh Scott, had said at the 1991 sentencing hearing that his client rigged bids in an effort to keep his seafood business afloat during tough times.
Baines was pardoned for a conviction in 1986 for conspiracy to possess, possession with intent to distribute over 1,000 pounds of marijuana.
Baines, who was 30 years old at the time, was sentenced to six years in federal prison.
He was part of a group that the federal government said smuggled large amounts of marijuana into southern Maine from 1983 through the spring of 1986.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
