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Reflecting Decades of Integrity, Local Nonprofit Leader Awarded Presidential Pardon

By Jim Melwert

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. (CBS) -- A Bucks County woman who has spent the last 30 years of her life working to help people transition from prison back into society has, herself, recieved a presidential pardon.

Diane DeBarri is CEO of the Kintock Group, a nonprofit organization that runs halfway houses and other services.  She worked her way to the top of the company after starting nearly 30 years ago with an entry-level postion, not long after she served a three-month sentence for a 1984 conviction for distribution of methamphetamine.

She says it's been a long process and more than three years of work to get the presidential pardon.

She tells KYW Newsradio this a Christmas gift to her family who, she says, went through a lot in supporting her.  And she hopes the people she's worked with over the past three decades will see the pardon from President Obama, and see where she is now, and realize that hard work pays off.

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