Judge Gets 28 Years in "Kids-For-Cash" Case

Pa. judge gets 28 years in 'kids for cash' case
The Associated Press by Michael Rubinkam  -  August 11, 2011

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — 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.

FBI PRESS RELEASE:

Former Pennsylvania County President Judge and Juvenile Judge Mark Ciavarella Sentenced to 28 Years in Prison
U.S. Attorney’s Office  -  August 11, 2011  -  Middle District of Pennsylvania  - (717) 221-4482

SCRANTON, PA—Mark A. Ciavarella, former president judge of the Court of Common Pleas and former judge of the Juvenile Court for Luzerne County, was sentenced in federal court in Scranton, Penn., today by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Edwin M. Kosik II, announced Peter J. Smith, U.S. Attorney for Middle District of Pennsylvania. Senior Judge Kosik sentenced Ciavarella to 28 years in prison and ordered restitution be paid in the amount of $965,930 to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for his judicial salary and $207,861 in restitution related to the tax charges. Ciavarella and his co-defendant, Michael Conahan, who also served as president judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County, were initially charged in January 2009 with honest services mail and wire fraud and tax fraud in connection with the use of privately owned juvenile detention facilities. The charges were the result of a federal investigation of alleged corruption in the Luzerne County court system. The inquiry began in 2007 and over the next four years expanded to include county government offices, state legislators, school districts, and contractors in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Both defendants agreed to plead guilty. In July 2009, Judge Kosik rejected the proposed plea agreements because the defendants did not appear to accept responsibility for their conduct.  In September 2009 and September 2010, a grand jury in Harrisburg, Penn., returned superseding indictments charging both defendants with racketeering, honest services mail fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery, tax violations, and conspiracy. The government also sought the forfeiture of approximately $2.8 million in assets allegedly acquired by the defendants through racketeering and money laundering. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in United States v. Skilling, the 2010 indictment specifically charged that bribes and kickbacks were paid to the defendants.

After an 11-day trial in Scranton in February 2011, a jury found Ciavarella guilty on 12 of 39 counts: racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, four counts of honest services mail fraud, and four counts of filing false income tax returns. The jury also found that Ciavarella should forfeit $997,600, the sum he received from Robert Mericle, the developer who built the juvenile detention facilities.  Ciavarella testified at trial, claiming that the payments he received from Mericle were “finders fees” or “honest money” with no connection to Ciavarella’s actions as a judge, and denied that he received payment from Robert Powell, owner of the facilities.  The evidence established that Conahan closed the Luzerne County Juvenile Detention Facility when he was chief judge and helped arrange the financing for the private facilities; that Ciavarella, as juvenile court judge, sent juveniles to those facilities; that both men obstructed efforts to question the county’s use of the facilities and their financial relationships with Mericle and Powell; and both judges used bank accounts, straw parties and real estate vacation property to hide and launder payments received from Mericle and Powell. The evidence also showed that Ciavarella failed to report receipt of the funds on annual financial interest statements he was required to file as a judge and failed to report the income on his federal income tax returns. Mericle and Powell have pleaded guilty pursuant to plea agreements and are awaiting sentencing.  Conahan pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy in April 2010. He did not testify at trial and has not been sentenced.  The judicial scandal, described as the worst in Pennsylvania’s history, and the federal prosecutions have had major consequences: Ciavarella and Conahan resigned from the bench in 2009. Reform and housecleaning are underway in the Luzerne County court system. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was compelled to vacate thousands of juvenile convictions in Luzerne County as a result of Ciavarella’s conduct as a juvenile court judge. A State Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice was established to study what happened and to recommend changes in the state’s justice system aimed at safeguarding the constitutional rights of juveniles and improving the oversight and disciplinary process for judges in Pennsylvania. In June 2011, a committee of the American Bar Association reviewed and made recommendations to improve procedures in the state’s Judicial Conduct Board. A procedure was established in Luzerne County for compensation of victims of the activities of Ciavarella and Conahan.  Ciavarella voluntarily surrendered at the end of the sentencing hearing and was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals.  In the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the prosecution was conducted by a team consisting of Senor Litigation Counsel Gordon A.D. Zubrod, Assistant U.S. Attorneys William S. Houser, Michael A. Consiglio and Amy Phillips, and Criminal Division Chief Christian A. Fisanick.  The case was investigated by the agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigations and the FBI’s Scranton office.