Ciavarella jury to return tomorrow morning
The Citizens Voice by Dave Janoski - February 17, 2011
SCRANTON, PA -- The jury in the kids-for-cash trial of former Luzerne County judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. has ended deliberations for the day and will return tomorrow morning at 8:30. U. S. District Judge Edwin Kosik announced the jury was leaving for the day at 3:55 p.m. after meeting for nearly 7 1/2 hours. The jury is trying to decide the guilt or innocence of Ciavarella, who is accused of accepting $2.8 million in kickbacks and bribes for placing juvenilies in for-profit detention centers. Ciavarella, his attorneys and several of his family members made small talk with members of the news media throughout the day outside of Kosik's courtroom. Federal prosecutors awaited the verdict in the U. S. Attorney's Office on another floor of the federal courthouse. Ciavarella could face decades in prison if convicted.
*********************Corrupt Kids For Cash Judge Trial Recap:
Monday, Feb. 7:
A six-man and six-woman jury is chosen from eight counties to hear the case of the United States of America v. Mark A. Ciavarella Jr.
Tuesday, Feb. 8:
IRS agent Ben Wylam details tracking payments to Ciavarella and another former judge, Michael T. Conahan. Nicholene DiPasquale of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts testifies Ciavarella did not report income prosecutors say he received from companies connected to two for-profit juvenile detention centers. Ex-Luzerne County Commissioner Thomas Makowski testifies to the closing of a county-owned juvenile detention center, opening the way for a private, for-profit center. Developer Robert K. Mericle begins his testimony on payments he made to Ciavarella as a reward for helping his company secure contracts to build two for-profit detention centers. Wednesday, Feb. 9: Mericle says he paid his close friends Ciavarella and Conahan $2.1 million in what he considered legal finder's fees for their help in securing construction contracts for the detention centers. He initially lied to federal agents and a grand jury about the payments to protect Ciavarella, he testifies. Robert J. Powell, former co-owner of the detention center, tells the court Ciavarella and Conahan pressed hard for kickbacks. He says he paid $590,000 to the judges disguised as rental payments on a Florida condo in 2004. He says he had another $143,500 in cash delivered to Conahan at Conahan's and Ciavarella's urging in 2006.
Thursday, Feb. 10:
Powell testifies Ciavarella and Conahan schemed to subvert a federal investigation into their finances. FBI agent James Glenn details how Ciavarella spotted his surveillance van outside a meeting he held with Conahan and Powell and repeatedly tried to open the van's locked doors. Patrick Owens, ex-treasurer of Powell's law firm, tells the jury he and another firm employee wrote and cashed more than a dozen checks, each worth less than $10,000 to avoid scrutiny by the U.S. Treasury Department, to amass $143,500 in cash at Powell's request in 2006. Powell testified the cash went to the judges. Former Conahan tipstaff Nick Callen testifies he delivered a sealed envelope and two sealed boxes from Powell to Conahan in 2005-2006. Powell law partner Jill A. Moran testifies she delivered two sealed boxes from Powell to Conahan in 2006.
Friday, Feb. 11:
Moran explains she delivered a FedEx box stuffed with cash to then-president judge Conahan at Powell's request in 2006. Doris Crowe, a state accountant, testifies the county received $6.5 million in federal funds to help pay for detaining juveniles at PA Child Care and other centers in 2002-2005. Paul McGarry, county human resources director, testifies Conahan instructed him to delete funding for a county-owned detention center from the proposed 2003 court budget. That cleared the way for Powell's for-profit center. Attorney Stephen Carpenito testifies he represented a company sued by Mericle before Ciavarella in January 2007. Ciavarella revealed he knew Mericle, but said they were not friends. Senior Deputy Attorney Timothy Keating testifies Conahan took steps to seal the record of a suit filed against two state Department of Public Welfare officials by Powell's PA Child Care LLC in 2004. Conahan did not reveal his friendship or financial ties to Powell, Keating said. Attorney Lawrence Durkin testifies Ciavarella ignored a motion to move a case against Mericle out of Luzerne County even though his client was from New York and the case involved a Lackawanna County property. Ciavarella did not reveal his ties to Mericle. Attorney Jeffrey McCarron testifies Ciavarella became irate when he asked if the judge had a personal relationship with Powell that would make it impossible for Ciavarella to be fair in a trial in which Powell represented the plaintiff. Lisa Davidson, the bookkeeper for Conahan's company, says Conahan instructed her to make false entries in the company's books to hide the fact $610,000 from Mericle went to Ciavarella, Conahan and a friend of Conahan's, Angela Sallemi. Accountant Michael DeCosmo, who prepared tax returns for Beverage Marketing and Pinnacle Group of Jupiter LLC, a company prosecutors say the judges used to launder kickbacks, tells the jury figures he used to prepare what prosecutors say were false returns came from Conahan and/or Davidson. Accountant Barry Spanial prepared personal tax returns for the Conahans and testifies Conahan asked him about the tax consequences of adding $105,000 to his 2003 income, but never reported that money when supplying tax documents to Spanial.
Monday, Feb. 14
Spanial says the Conahans reported $273,119 in taxable income on their 2006 return. An IRS agent later testified they actually had $394,580 in taxable income that year. Accountant Jerome Matlowski prepared the Ciavarellas' tax returns and says they never disclosed hundreds of thousands of dollars in alleged extra income in 2003 and reported more than $650,000 in rental income from a Florida condo in 2005 and 2006. Brian Bernston, a money laundering expert, testifies about various methods used to launder from illegal activity. IRS revenue agent Ray Eppley testifies Ciavarella and Conahan underreported income by $1.45 million and evaded $494,685 in federal taxes in 2003-2006. The defense began by calling Brian Stahl, Ciavarella's son-in-law, who testifies that Powell frequently visited the Ciavarella home in the company of the Conahans. Ciavarella's daughter, Nicole Oravic, testifies she worked part-time for the Powell Law Group in 2003-2005 and Powell was always very complimentary about her dad. Son Marco Ciavarella, testifies about a close, "very friendly" relationship between his dad and Powell. Wylam testifies he could not recall asking Powell in two interviews if Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. was present when Powell passed checks to Conahan. Under cross-examination, Wylam said Powell did tell him that he received instructions on wire transfers from Conahan and Ciavarella. Hazleton restauteur Gina Carrelli testifies she saw Powell pass cash to a state official, whom she did not name. She also testifies Powell claimed to have ownership stake in the Florida condo allegedly used to launder money.
Tuesday, Feb. 15:
Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. testifies he believed the finder's fees from Mericle and the rent payments from Powell were legitimate, but he admitted to filing false tax returns in 2003, 2005 and 2006 that omitted or mischaracterized the Mericle payments. Ciavarella denies extorting Powell and said he was unaware of any cash delivered to Conahan.
Wednesday, Feb. 16:
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod implores the jury to convict Ciavarella on all 39 counts, ranging from racketeering to money laundering. Defense attorney Al Flora Jr. concedes Ciavarella has admitted to filing false tax returns, but urged jurors to find Ciavarella not guilty on more serious counts of bribery and extortion.
This judge is an animal, and will burn in hell....
ReplyDeleteI wish the IRS would track some of New York's judges. Boy, would the IRS be in for a surprise.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the investigation of all of the multi-million dollar law suits Atty Bob Powell won with those judges presiding. Major law suits against genral motors, etc. Someone look up how many cases he won or lost in Luzerne county. See how many he tried outside the county. The kick backs had to be bigger than this scandal! Anyone care to comment on that!
ReplyDeleteTwo more reasons why Judges belong in jail with the general population.
ReplyDeleteRecruiting new children into the Global Child Sex Trafficking/Pornography Industry, worth trillions of dollars worldwide, works this way in the United States (especially in the corrupt New York City Family Courts):
ReplyDeleteA Prostitute, usually coming from this same industry, entraps and has a child with a wealthy but naive father who she then divorces and makes him pay a fortune in mandatory Child Support, about 21% of his income a year for 21 years.
All the while, she provokes and instigates him repeatedly until he reacts and she can then obtain Orders of Protection against him, so he can never even see his own kids, but still pays a fortune in support.
Usually some type of Domestic Violence Women's group will represent that con-artist woman/prostitute for free, said group routinely staffed with Pedophiles and Sexual Deviants who also support and actively partake in the Global Child Sex Trafficking Industry. Some of these "agencies" even are so bold as to have a "wing" of their organization devoted to "stopping or preventing child sex trafficking." (The Lady Doth Protest Too Much - William Shakespeare) to further obfuscate and cover their tracks and true intentions.
This is all the while the poor SOB Father has to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for lawyers who always lose, owing to the above, and the following:
The Family Court Judges in New York City and the Law Guardian chosen in these child custody cases (and the Court Appointed Forensic Psychologists) are also Perverts, Pedophiles, and they support and participate in the Global Child Sex Trafficking/Pornography Industry, and may even be willing and active participants.
The Family Court Judge and Law Guardian are literally hand picked by the "Domestic Violence Women's Lobbying Group" to ensure that those kids never ever see their Fathers (who can protect them) again, by repeatedly and consistently disallowing those Fathers to see their children, with less and less time, until finally the Father's Parental Rights are terminated for good, leaving those poor defenseless children in the sole custody of that vile, drug addicted, alcoholic, violent, deranged, descendent of the child porn industry prostitute mother, who now, free to do so without any prevention by the estranged and removed Biological Father - SURPRISE! sells those kids off to the highest bidder in the Global Child Sex Trafficking/Pornography Industry, again, worth trillions of dollars a year.
And then the cycle repeats itself a generation later with those "sold off children" doing it to their own kids, their souls having been lost forever.
Meanwhile the FBI, ICE, DHS, and other Federal and State Law Enforcement Agencies do absolutely nothing (many of them may be pedophiles, partaking of this child sex industry as well).
These "law enforcement agencies" will tell you "it's not in their Mandate" or "there's nothing we can do," and will tell you to refer it to the Administration for Childrens Services ("ACS") which is equally if not more corrupt, also staffed with incompetents and corrupt caseworkers, and at the higher levels perverts and pedophiles, and also just as beholden and owned by the Global Child Sex Trafficking/Pornography Industry as the specially selected Family Court Judges and Law Guardians.
All ACS ever does is sweep legitimate allegations and complaints about the above under the rug, while attacking and vilifying the Complainant.
In other words, there is a Grand Conspiracy of Global Child Sex Trafficking, completely fool proof and airtight, and no one can (or will) do a goddamned thing about it.
If you try and complain about it, or try and launch an investigation into it, both you and your world will be crushed by the awesome money, power, political connections, lobbying groups, and "professionals" in charge of maintaining and preserving this "industry."
Count on it.
Two more reasons why Judges belong in jail with the general population.
ReplyDelete