Federal judge Conaboy dies in Pennsylvania at age 93

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Senior U.S. District Judge Richard P. Conaboy has died at a Pennsylvania hospital. He was 93.

His son-in-law Larry Moran, Sr., says Conaboy passed away Friday morning at Scranton Regional Hospital. He says Conaboy died with his wife holding his hand and surrounded by his 12 children. He didn’t give a cause of death.

He says his father-in-law was a “great man.”

The Times-Tribune reports former Vice President Joe Biden, also a Scranton native, visited Conaboy in the hospital on Sunday.

Conaboy was nominated by President Jimmy Carter in May 1979 to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and was confirmed that July.

He was a Lackawanna County judge for 17 years before being named a federal judge. With Biden’s help, he was named chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and had that post 1994 to 1998.