Four individuals battling drug addiction voluntarily chose a path to recovery after being charged with drug-related crimes or violations of probation/parole.

Three men and one woman graduated last Tuesday from Drug Treatment Court, earning certificates from President Judge David Ashworth at the Lancaster County Courthouse. The graduates have the opportunity to have their charges expunged if they complete an aftercare program following graduation.

One of the graduates had their charges eligible for dismissal as they paid all their fines and costs in full. A previous graduate also had his charges dismissed and expunged during the ceremony.

Lancaster County’s Drug Treatment Court is in its 17^th year of existence and was the first Drug/DUI Problem Solving Court accredited by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in January 2012.

“Drug courts combine intensive judicial supervision, mandatory drug testing, treatment and incentives to help offenders with substance abuse problems break the cycle of addiction and crime,” according to the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania website.

The graduation began with a welcome from Judge Ashworth and an introduction of the Drug Court Team including Drug Court Coordinator Karen Andreadis; Probation Officers Mark Arnold, Joseph Grippo, and Emily Yecker; Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Smith; Assistant Public Defender David Romano; David Miller of the Drug & Alcohol Commission; Meredith Lasdin of Behavior Health and Developmental Services; Kelly Shpunt of PA Counseling Services; Community Liaison Frank Burnside; Christina Fluegel and Ryan Forbes of Lancaster County Prison; and Trina Brown-Hinton, Clerical Support.

Next was a speech from keynote speaker Brandon Flood of The Lazarus Firm in Harrisburg, a reentry-based company that provides administrative support to prospective applicants for expungement and executive clemency, provides general consultation to county prisons, and dispenses with guidance to Pennsylvania-based employers that are interested in developing reentrant-friendly employment screening policies.

Flood served as the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons from 2019-2022 and was responsible for modernizing the state’s executive clemency process, streamlining the Board’s filing and administrative review protocols, increasing the overall number of clemency applicants by more than 400%, and making the executive clemency process as accessible as it’s ever been since its inception in 1872.

Flood received a pardon from Governor Tom Wolf in March 2019 for previous drug and firearm violations.

Flood spoke about knowing when to look inward and when to seek assistance, exhausting all options and knowing when to lean on support systems, speaking goals into existence until your visions and ideas align, and treating everyone with dignity. He said what got him over the hump was believing in himself and that the graduates were all reinvented people now with a new outlook on life.

Two Drug Court participants advanced to the next phase of the program before the previous graduate had his charges dismissed and expunged.

Then the four graduates were presented with certificates of completion by Judge Ashworth after speeches from each graduates’ respective probation officer, who spoke on how each individual has grown through the process.

The graduates gave words of advice to the audience before a fishbowl drawing revealed a prize for a Drug Court participant.

MEDIA CONTACT: Sean McBryan, semcbryan@co.lancaster.pa.us; Twitter: @SeanMcBryanLanc.