Free Republic

(Black News) Mark Ciavarella Jr, a 61-year old former judge in Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for literally selling young juveniles for cash. He was convicted of accepting money in exchange for incarcerating thousands of adults and children into a prison facility owned by a developer who was paying him under the table. The kickbacks amounted to more than $1 million. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned some 4,000 convictions issued by him between 2003 and 2008, claiming he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles – including the right to legal counsel and the...

It's official: He's broke. A federal judge Tuesday declared former Luzerne County Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. a legal pauper, allowing him to proceed with an appeal of his corruption conviction without having to pay filing fees and other court costs. The ruling, from U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik, came a day after Ciavarella filed a handwritten financial disclosure form listing his last day of employment as Aug. 8 - just days before his sentencing - and his estimated income as $2,500 per month. Kosik sentenced Ciavarella on Aug. 11 to 28 years in prison after his conviction in...

SCRANTON - At first, it was a seemingly chastened Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. who stood at a podium Thursday to address the court. The former Luzerne County judge apologized to his family, to the county bench and bar, to the juvenile probation officers who worked in his courtroom. Reading from a prepared statement, he asked the people of Luzerne County to forgive him for "violating the trust they placed in me" and told the juvenile offenders who appeared in his court that he had shown himself to be a "hypocrite by not practicing what I preached." Then Ciavarella's statement took...

A defiant Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in prison and ordered to pay $965,000 in restitution this morning after reading a statement to the court in which he denied trading "kids for cash." "Those three words made me the personification of evil. They made me the devil. They made me the anti-Christ. They made me toxic," Ciavarella told U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik. Ciavarella, 61, was taken into federal custody following the sentencing. Ciavarella, while admitting to tax charges and fraud for taking nearly $1 million from the builder of a for-profit detention center, forcefully...

Sandy Fonzo, the aggrieved and grieving mother who confronted Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. outside a federal courthouse last week after his conviction in the kids-for-cash case, blames her son's suicide on the former Luzerne County Juvenile Court judge, who jailed her son at 17. Her son's father, Edward R. Kenzakoski Jr., at least in part, blames himself. "I basically framed him with my buddies," Kenzakoski said Tuesday. Kenzakoski, a 44-year-old Bear Creek Township man employed in construction, said he planted drug paraphernalia in his son's truck about seven years ago, leading to his initial appearance in juvenile court. Fonzo alleges...

In Pennsylvania, two elected judges received kickbacks for jailing kids in a detention center for cash. While some of the kids deserved their punishments, others did not. This is known as the “Kids-for-Cash” juvenile court scandal. The judges took $2.6 million in kickbacks for sentencing thousands of children to detention facilities run by two privately owned companies. Prosecutors say young offenders were brought before these judges, often with no prior record with charges as small as stealing change from cars or writing prank notes. The judges then shipped them off to private facilities which got county money to house them....

The mother of man who as a juvenile was incarcerated by fomer judge Mark Ciavarella angrily confronted him outside the courthouse, screaming at him that he was responsible for her son's suicide nine months ago. Sandy Fonzo of Wilkes-Barre was pushed away from Ciavarella by security after she jabbed at him. She had raced to the courthouse from her job in Kingston after hearing a verdict came in so that she could see him taken away in handcuffs. She was incensed that he was allowed to remain free pending sentencing. Fonzo's son, Edward Kenzakoski, had been jailed by Ciavarella when...

SCRANTON - Mark Ciavarella admitted he pocketed up to $20,000 from donations to his retention campaign in 2005. About 15 minutes later, Ciavarella's attorney William Ruzzo finished a brief redirect and Judge Edwin Kosik closed the testimony for the day. The admission came after Ciavarella admitted he had recieved business deals through Robert Powell that the average person could not get. He conceded he e had received half ownership in a Florida condo without paying a penny, and that he got involved in W-Cat, a business promising him up to $300,000, without paying any money. Ciavarella said he had to...

SCRANTON – Attorney Al Flora lost his bid to have a mistrial declared in former Luzerne County judge Mark Ciavarella’s corruption trial Friday, but he planted the seed for an appeal should Ciavarella be convicted, several attorneys said. Flora requested U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik declare a mistrial after Kosik objected, for the third time in two days, to questions Flora sought to ask prosecution witnesses regarding Robert Powell. The judge denied the motion. The objections, which were raised by Kosik and not prosecutors, precluded Flora from introducing evidence he contends is important to Ciavarella’s defense of a 39-count federal...

SCRANTON – Mark Ciavarella never disclosed his financial relationship with attorney Robert Powell or developer Robert Mericle even when the men stood before him in court, witnesses said Friday in fifth day of the former Luzerne County judge’s corruption trial. Prosecutors have charged Ciavarella with 39 counts of racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering, honest services fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion. Jurors heard testimony from three attorneys who argued cases before Ciavarella that involved either Mericle or Powell during the interval in which prosecutors allege Ciavarella had a financial relationship with the men. All three lawyers said they would have...

SCRANTON – Mark Ciavarella approached the van parked along the roadway and tried to enter, first pulling the passenger-side door handle, then the rear. It was July 30, 2008, and Ciavarella, then a Luzerne County judge, suspected he might be under surveillance. He was right. Inside the van sat James Glenn, an FBI agent, and several co-workers. The men had been recording a conversation attorney Robert Powell, a government witness, was having with Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. Glenn saw Ciavarella approaching and hurriedly shut down the recording devices, fearful Ciavarella would hear the humming noise they made. The agents then...

SCRANTON – Robert Mericle said he sensed something was amiss the day in November 2007 when he met then-Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella in his chambers. “I walked in and said ‘Hi Mark,’ ” Mericle testified Wednesday. “He put his finger to his lips to be quiet, then sat down and opened a desk drawer and wrote out, ‘Wired? Yes. No. Circle one.’ ” Mericle had gone to the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre that day to inquire about Ciavarella’s mother, whom a mutual friend had told him was ill. He was taken aback by the note, but did as he was...

SCRANTON – Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the corruption trial of former Judge Mark Ciavarella will begin questioning a pool of 95 potential jurors this morning in hopes of finding a panel of 12 jurors and four alternates. Jury selection is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik in the federal courthouse in Scranton. Attorneys in the case have estimated the process will take at least a week, possibly longer. Ciavarella’s attorneys, Al Flora and William Ruzzo, had requested that each juror be questioned individually, arguing it would allow attorneys a better opportunity to detect...

SCRANTON – Former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan is willing to testify at the corruption trial of his one-time co-defendant, Mark Ciavarella – a decision federal law experts say could help reduce the potentially lengthy sentence Conahan is facing for his role in the scheme. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod identified Conahan as a “potential” witness during a pre-trial conference held before U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik on Aug. 5, according to a transcript of the proceeding. The transcript, publicly filed on Friday, also reveals that one of Ciavarella’s attorneys, William Ruzzo, has asked the court to pay his legal...

SCRANTON – Aware he and fellow judge Mark Ciavarella were under investigation by a federal grand jury, Michael Conahan met with attorney Robert Powell in July 2008 and issued a dire warning: “I’d never do anything to hurt you, but I never got the cash from anybody. That’s the story, and you better stick to it.” It was July 2008, federal prosecutors say, and Conahan had met with Powell to discuss how they and Ciavarella could thwart the investigation into their alleged financial connections to the PA Child Care juvenile detention center that was then co-owned by Powell. He had...

SCRANTON - Luzerne County judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan have agreed to plead guilty in connection to concealing $2.6 million from January 2003 to April 2007, and have agreed to serve 87 months - 7.25 years - in federal prison, Martin Carlson, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, said. Ciavarella and Conahan also agreed to resign as judges within 10 days of federal court approval of their plea agreements, Carlson said during a Monday afternoon news conference. Carlson called the acts, "A scheme to defraud the citizens of Luzerne County and the people of...

A White Haven man and his parents believe he, too, was sentenced unjustly as a youth several years ago in the alleged “kids for cash” scandal. They filed on Monday a lawsuit against a slew of familiar defendants. Raul Clark, now 21, was a 14-year-old Coughlin High School freshman in 2002 when he was arrested on misdemeanor charges of violating curfew and drug-paraphernalia possession. He was sentenced by former county Judge Mark Ciavarella to six months’ detention and was forced to face several other hardships of the legal system unjustly, the lawsuit contends. The lawsuit contends Clark’s rights under the...

The 23 criminal cases filed by federal prosecutors since January fall into three main categories, the courts, the schools and county government. The school and government cases largely involve business owners who paid cash or made gifts to public officials who supported their efforts to secure government contracts awarded without competitive bidding. State law allows no-bid contracts for certain services and under some circumstances. While two former judges accused of taking payoffs for jailing juveniles in for-profit detention centers face trial on 48 counts that carry maximum sentences of decades in prison, most of the other defendants face sentences ranging...

Former Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak said Thursday the "legal issues" that drove him to resign from office and sign a plea agreement with federal prosecutors stemmed from a clash between longtime cultural practices in county politics and the higher standards of public office and the law. In an interview at his Jenkins Twp. condo, cluttered with boxes of ornaments and unwrapped gifts, the former NFL lineman said the ongoing federal investigation that has shaken the courthouse means the end of the pay-to-play atmosphere that has pervaded political life in the county. "There's just a fine line of what you...

Video only.