ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Former Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski is being released from prison Thursday.<\/p>\n
Pawlowski is going straight from prison to a halfway house in Philadelphia. He will need a job in the Lehigh Valley in order to move home.<\/p>\n
He was convicted in 2018 on 47 counts of corruption in a pay to play scheme.<\/p>\n
He served seven and a half years in federal prison.<\/p>\n
Throughout the trial and during his incarceration Pawlowski has maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n
But in October he released a letter of contrition to the community.<\/p>\n
It reads in part:<\/p>\n
“I owe each of you my apology for the foolishness. When I leave the confines of the places where I’ve paid my debts, I recognize that my employment options are limited, but God surely has plans for me, one of which I am sure is to do community service in my beloved Allentown.”<\/p>\n
As mayor, Pawlowski played a major role in the revitalization of Allentown’s Hamilton Street.<\/p>\n
His prison resume includes teaching GED classes, leading Bible study and training service dogs. He also played drums in several prison bands.<\/p>\n
Former Community Action Executive Director Alan Jennings, who is helping Pawlowski find a job so he can return to Allentown after his release, says Pawlowski is highly qualified for a leadership position of some kind.<\/p>\n
In a Corrlinks email to 69 News, Pawlwoski talked about his release and plans afterward.<\/p>\n
“I’m very excited to return to my family and to once again be in the city I love. I’m looking for ways where I can continue to help people and make an impact in the community,” said Pawlowski. “I have learned much during my time away. I want to use my experience to assist others who’ve been incarcerated transition back into society.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Former Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski is being released from prison Thursday. Pawlowski is going straight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154],"class_list":["post-227756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}