by Patrick H. Moore
Move over Jerry Sandusky! Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr., has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for routinely sentencing children to private jails and prisons for periods of time two to three times longer than what normally might have been required. Ciavarella was found guilty of racketeering earlier this year. His case is a textbook example of the abuses that can result from the privatizing of prisons.
Ciavarella, who was known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom demeanor, pocketed millions of dollars for filling the beds of private jails with children who were often no older than 10 and who were often first-time offenders convicted of minor crimes such as petty theft. Ciavarella’s unconscionable courtroom style included ordering the youths to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and hauled away without even the chance to say good-bye to their families.
This case, which became known as the “kids for cash” operation, resulted in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturning 4000 convictions of kids in cases that the judge had been involved in between 2003 and 2008.
Kristen Watts of the Daily Unconstitutional writes:
It’s was called by prosecutors a $2.8 million “kids for cash” scheme, and was not limited to judge Mark Ciavrella Jr. It also involved Robert Mericle, builder of the PA and Western, PA Child Care juvenile detention centers, but judge Mark Ciavrella Jr. was at the middle of it all.
Judge Ciavarella has been accused of perpetrating a “profound evil”. He has been found guilty of illegally accepting money from a private juvenile detention facility developer to sentence minors who were seen in the court he presided over to time in the juvenile detention facility. He sentenced thousands of young people to incarceration that otherwise would have had much lighter sentences or been found innocent.
Ms. Watts cites examples of the young people affected by Ciavarella’s immoral and illegal behavior:
- 15-year-old Hillary Transue was sentenced to three months at a juvenile detention center for mocking an assistant principal on a MySpace page.
- 13-year-old Shane Bly was sent to a boot camp for two weekends after being accused of trespassing.
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One of the saddest cases is that of Edward Kenzakoski, a 17-year-old all-star wrestler who was expected to be awarded a college scholarship before he landed in Ciavarella’s courtroom on a minor drug paraphernalia charge. Edward, who had no prior criminal record, “spent months at the private lockups and a wilderness camp and missed his senior year of high school.”After his ordeal, which included God knows what kind of abusive behavior, “Kenzakoski emerged an angry, bitter and depressed young man. He committed suicide last June at the age of 23.”Naturally, Edward’s mother, Sandy Fonzo, feels ex-Judge Chiavarella is responsible for her son’s suicide.
After lengthy proceedings, Chiavarella was convicted in February on 12 counts that included racketeering, money laundering, mail fraud and tax evasion. In addition to being sentenced to 28 years in prison, Ciavarella was ordered to pay nearly $1.2 million in restitution. At his sentencing, Ciavarella, who made no secret of his contempt for the proceedings, “acknowledged his illegal acceptance of money from Mericle, but he denied ever jailing a juvenile in exchange for money.”
This appalling story was discussed in detail in an excellent article by Ian Urbina that appeared in the New York Times on March 27, 2009. Mr Urbina writes:
Things were different in the Luzerne County juvenile courtroom, and everyone knew it. Proceedings on average took less than two minutes. Detention center workers were told in advance how many juveniles to expect at the end of each day — even before hearings to determine their innocence or guilt. Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them. They would not be allowed to speak anyway.
“The judge’s whim is all that mattered in that courtroom,” said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a child advocacy organization in Philadelphia, which began raising concerns about the court to state authorities in 1999. “The law was basically irrelevant.”
According to the indictment, and more than 40 interviews with courtroom workers and other authorities, the scheme began in June of 2000 when “Robert J. Powell, a wealthy personal-injury lawyer from Hazleton, Pa., and longtime friend of Judge (Michael) Conahan (who was also indicted), wanted to know how he might get a contract to build a private detention center. Judge Ciavarella thought he could help.”
Thus began the scheme that county officials would later describe as a“freight train without brakes.” Ciavarella put Powell in touch with an old friend, developer Robert K. Mericle, who was tasked with finding a site for the detention center. In early 2002, Judge Conahan was named “President Judge,” which gave him control of the courthouse budget. Conahan then signed a secret deal with Powell agreeing that the court would pay $1.3 million in annual rent, in addition to “tens of millions of dollars that the county and the state would pay to house the delinquent juveniles.” Conahan then systematically knocked out the competition “by eliminating financing for the county detention center.”
“They were unstoppable,” said Judge Chester B. Muroski, who sent a letter to county commissioners raising concerns about detention costs, only to be transferred days later to another court by Judge Conahan. “I knew something was wrong, but they silenced all dissent.”
After county controller, Steve Flood, leaked a state audit describing the state’s lease of the center as a “bad deal,” the center’s owner filed a “trade secrets” lawsuit against him, and Judge Conahan sealed the suit to make sure the other documents did not see the light of day. Conahan’s decision was later overturned.
“Everyone began to assume that the judges had some vested interest in the private center because they were pushing it so doggedly,” one courthouse worker said.
The ambulance-chasing lawyer Robert J. Powell, who built the private detention centers, was not charged, apparently in return for cooperating with the investigators. Powell claimed that the judges had coerced him into paying the kickbacks.
Various county officials, including probation officers who fought for lighter sentences, say that they were overruled at every turn.
The prosecutors have stated that Judge Ciavarella was typically sentencing juveniles to twice the state average. By late 2003, the two judges were struggling to hide their windfall, which led them to buy a $785,000 condominium together in Florida to help conceal the payments.
“We did what we could to stop it,” said Commissioner Stephen A. Urban, who repeatedly argued that the county should build its own center rather than lease the private one. “There were so many red flags that no one could mistake them as any other color.”
One red flag was the 56-foot yacht in front of the judges’ Florida condo, where they and Mr. Powell started spending much of their time. Owned by Mr. Powell, the $1.5 million boat was named the Reel Justice.
Click here to read the rest of of the New York Times article:
This case highlights the disturbing manner in which even self-made men such as Judge Ciavarella (he grew up in a rough East End neighborhood in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) can be corrupted by power, greed and opportunity. It is especially distressing when children are the victims of a corrupt individual and his cronies. It is noted that Judge Michael Conahan was sentenced to 17 and 1/2 years in prison in 2011.
It would be ironic if Judge Ciavarella ended up sharing a prison cell with convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky. The two might have a lot to talk about.
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