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Jailing Kids For Cash

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Ursus:
[Local news video coverage of the following story accessible from title link.]

Local news / Wilkes-Barre, PA
Corruption Story Featured in People

Reported by: Andy Mehalshick
Thursday, Apr 9, 2009 @07:00pm EST

WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY- The probe into corruption at the Luzerne County Courthouse is once again gaining national attention. People Magazine did a feature story this past week.

The magazine details the allegations against former judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. It also highlights some of the teenagers who say they were sent away to detention for no good reason.

Ciavarella and Conahan admit to taking kickbacks in what prosecutors call a "kids for cash" scheme.


Copyright (c) 1998 - 2009 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc.

Oscar:
Our cooperators over at Minors in residential placement research center has issued this press-release:


--- Quote ---Judgment day in the Kids for Cash case

For many years Luzerne County in Pennsylvania was known for its strict policy against juvenile crime. It was a model for those who plea for justice and a fight for less crime among adolescents.

But it did turn out that the tough sentences had nothing to do with a wish to fight crime. It was all done for greed. The owners of boot camps, wilderness programs and other residential options had paid the judges to impose tougher sentences.

Children charged with only minor crimes were put in prison taken out of courts in handcuffs and shackles as they had murdered several persons. It is needless to say how what was supposed to be a lecture in right and wrong instead turned out to be a life-changing turning point in the lives of every of the children who were put through this experience.

Many suffered for years feeling being permanent branded as criminals and some did later take their own lives.

The Pennsylvania Kids-for-Cash scandal is now well-known in our culture. An episode of Law- and Order was broadcasted world over letting everyone know how dangerous a system where minors are placed in various residential options without proper political supervision can be. Still in many countries audit of systems where case workers and judges have sole control with the faith of children and especially who they will grant the care of a specific child is basically missing.

The people we citizens vote into office must see to that they supervise the structure. They need to watch how money exchange hands very carefully. They must demand results and move out of their chair and visit children placed outside their home.

The hidden money transactions are not only a problem for Pennsylvania. As far away as Denmark and Sweden you can see stories in the media about children placed in public care which are abused and mistreated in group homes and in the foster care system - Cases where reports of alleged abuse have entered the system for over 20 years only to disappear.

The politicians should have asked to obvious question: Who caused these report to disappear? Who forgets to report when two minors at a group home have sexual encounters? In a country like Denmark it is reported that such encounters take place twice at month. Children aged down to 7 are abused by older children and the employees of the group homes are not educated to treat the victims who in extreme cases can cause them to grow up and become abusers themselves.

But the politicians have failed their jobs. They have not asked to have put every single contract between their administration and group homes and foster families on the table so they can discover suspicious patterns. We are talking huge amounts which are changing hands.

It is time for the citizens to step up and write the persons they have elected for office to ask them to dig into this area not leaving it up to a closed circuit of deals made in the dark.

Today it is judgment day in the Pennsylvania Kids-for-Cash scandal, but tomorrow it should be judgment day for all sick systems with the potential of corruption and possible damage of children’s lives.

Source:
Parents: Give him the max (The Times Leader, August 11, 2011)

--- End quote ---

For more information please see Wikipedia's article about this case until Fornits Wiki's entry is online again.

Dethgurl:
Pa. judge gets 28 years in 'kids for cash' case

http://http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/pa-judge-gets-28-1097263.html#.TkQxB9DimYM.email

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
The Associated Press

SCRANTON, Pa. — A northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered Thursday to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of juvenile convictions and left lasting scars on the children who appeared in his courtroom and their hapless families.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking a $1 million bribe from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids for cash."

Ciavarella, who denied locking up youths for money, had no reaction as the sentence was announced. From the gallery, which was crowded with family members of some of the children he incarcerated, someone shouted "Woo hoo!"

In the wake of the scandal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he'd already been punished enough.

"The media attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly branded as the 'Kids for Cash' judge," their sentencing memo said.

Al Flora, Ciavarella's lawyer, called the sentence harsher than expected. The ex-judge surrendered immediately but it was not immediately known where he would serve his time. He plans to appeal both his conviction and sentence.

Ciavarella, in a 15-minute speech before the sentence was handed down, apologized to his family, the Luzerne County bar and the community — and to those juveniles who appeared before him in his court. He called himself a hypocrite who failed to practice what he preached.

"I blame no one but myself for what happened," he said.

Then, in an extraordinary turnabout, Ciavarella attacked the government's case as well as the conclusions of the state Supreme Court and the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, a state panel that investigated the scandal. Both said Ciavarella engaged in wholesale rights violations over a period of many years.

Ciavarella denied it.

"I did everything I was obligated to do protect these children's rights," he said.

He also criticized Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod for referring to the case as "kids for cash," saying it sank his reputation. (Zubrod said outside court that he doesn't remember ever calling it that.)

"He backdoored me, and I never saw it coming. Those three words made me the personification of evil," Ciavarella said. "They made me toxic and caused a public uproar the likes of which this community has never seen."

In court, Zubrod said Ciavarella had "verbally abused and cruelly mocked children he sent away after violating their rights." He called the ex-judge "vicious and mean-spirited" and asked U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik to punish Ciavarella's "profound evil" with a life sentence.

"The criminal justice system (in Luzerne County) is ruined and will not recover in our lifetimes," Zubrod added.

Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking more than $2 million in bribes from Robert Mericle, the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers, and of extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Robert Powell, the facilities' co-owner.

Ciavarella, known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom demeanor, pocketed the cash while filling the beds of the private lockups with children as young as 10, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes. Ciavarella often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to say goodbye to their families.

"Frankly, I don't think Ciavarella or Conahan themselves really personally cared where the juveniles went, as long as they could use their power to place the juveniles as leverage or control over Mericle and Powell," U.S. Attorney Peter Smith said Thursday.

Speaking of Ciavarella, Smith added: "There's no true remorse and there's a blind unwillingness to admit the overall seriousness of his conduct."

The jury returned a mixed verdict following a February trial, convicting Ciavarella of 12 counts, including racketeering and conspiracy, and acquitting him of 27 counts, including extortion. The guilty verdicts related to a payment of $997,600 from Mericle.

Conahan pleaded guilty last year and awaits sentencing.

Sandy Fonzo, whose son committed suicide last year at the age of 23 after bouncing in and out of Ciavarella's courtroom, said Thursday that justice was done.

"This judge was wrong, what he did to my son, what he did to all of our children, what he did to our families, and today proves that," said Fonzo, who dramatically confronted Ciavarella on the courthouse steps earlier this year.

Susan Mishanski also applauded the sentence. Ciavarella had ordered her son to spend three months in a wilderness camp for scuffling with another kid.

"They did not even tell him where they were taking him. It was like someone kidnapped my son," she said. "It was awful."

Ciavarella and Conahan initially pleaded guilty in February 2009 to honest services fraud and tax evasion in a deal that called for a sentence of more than seven years in prison. But their plea deals were rejected by Kosik, who ruled they had failed to accept responsibility for their actions.

:beat:

wdtony:
Oh it is nice to see some justice served. This really shows how underhanded the private sector is when it applies to management of teen prisons. Not to mention private programs and prisons for adults.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwI5ufaI3kE

And one mother is really pissed, she has every right to scream...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCExlbGTX_M

wdtony:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/ ... 0762.shtml



Ex-judge gets 17 1/2 years in Pa. kickbacks case

September 23, 2011 12:31 PM


(AP)  SCRANTON, Pa. — A former judge who orchestrated a massive kickback scheme involving for-profit youth detention centers was sentenced Friday to 17 1/2 years in federal prison, closing a major chapter on a scandal that prosecutors said shook Pennsylvania's judicial system "to its very foundation."

Appearing in a federal courtroom in Scranton, former Luzerne County President Judge Michael Conahan, 59, apologized to the incarcerated youths, the legal community and the public for his role in the notorious "kids for cash" case.

"The system is not corrupt," said Conahan. "I was corrupt."

Conahan, a once-powerful man who regularly met for breakfast with the reputed boss of a northeastern Pennsylvania Mafia family, offered a direct apology to the children who spent time in a pair of youth lockups from which he and another former judge derived millions of dollars.

"My actions undermined your faith in the system and contributed to the difficulty in your lives," said Conahan, who pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy last year. "I am sorry you were victimized."

Federal prosecutors said Conahan and former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. took more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities' co-owner.

Ciavarella took the case to trial and was convicted of some of the charges. He was sentenced last month to 28 years in prison.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned about 4,000 juvenile convictions after Ciavarella and Conahan were charged, saying that Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, routinely trampled on youths' constitutional rights in his eagerness to send them to the for-profit jails.

Unlike Ciavarella, who denied jailing youths for money and defiantly attacked the government's case at his sentencing, Conahan accepted responsibility, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Houser acknowledged Friday. But he said Conahan's crimes required a stiff sentence.

"Mr. Conahan abused his power to enrich himself and his friend, Mark Ciavarella," Houser said. "The justice system in Pennsylvania was shaken to its very foundation."

Ciavarella and Conahan initially pleaded guilty in February 2009 to honest services fraud and tax evasion in a deal that would have required them to spend more than seven years in prison. But their plea deals were rejected later that year by U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik, who ruled they had failed to accept responsibility for their actions.

Conahan's attorney, Philip Gelso, told Kosik on Friday that his client was a changed man from two years ago.

Conahan got counseling from a psychologist who helped him face his repressed "lifelong demons," many of them having to do with his father, a funeral director and former mayor of Hazleton, Pa., who dominated his son and made him feel insecure, incompetent and inadequate, Gelso said.

Gelso recounted an episode in which a teenage Conahan was "beaten mercilessly" when he failed to tend to the funeral home's coal stove.

"These factors excuse nothing, but they explain a great deal," Gelso said.

Conahan, who had faced up to 20 years behind bars, had requested a prison term similar to the seven-plus years Kosik rejected two years ago. Gelso said outside the court that Conahan was "bitterly disappointed" by the 17 1/2-year sentence but that it would not be appealed.

"There's a stark contract between Mark Ciavarella and Mike Conahan. Mark Ciavarella fought this tooth and nail. Mark Ciavarella antagonized all of you, antagonized every child, every juvenile," Gelso told reporters. "But Mike Conahan didn't do that. Mike Conahan realized that people need to heal."

In sentencing Conahan, Kosik spoke of the deep-rooted political culture that produced him, one in which corruption is tacitly accepted. The federal government's four-year investigation of public corruption in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties has snared more than 30 people, including state lawmakers, county officials, school board members and others.

In a letter to Kosik, Conahan's sister recalled their father, dealing with a long-ago ethics investigation, couldn't understand why it was wrong to award a contract to a friend. Kosik said Conahan probably felt the same way about the juvenile-center kickbacks: "That everyone would benefit and no one would get hurt."

Investigators disclosed earlier this year that they were led to the judges by reputed mob boss William D'Elia, who became a government informant after his 2006 arrest on charges of witness tampering and conspiracy to launder drug money. He and Conahan regularly met for breakfast.

Kosik recommended that Conahan be placed in a federal prison camp in Florida so he can be close to his family.

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