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Update: Ciavarella, Conahan plead guilty to Luzerne County corruption charges
Mark Ciavarella arrives at the William J. Nealon Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Scranton for a plea hearing. (Warren Ruda / Times-Shamrock Photo)
Published: Thursday, February 12, 2009 Updated: Thursday, February 12, 2009 3:31 PM EST
Luzerne County Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan pleaded guilty this afternoon to corruption charges. They face 87 months in prison, according to their plea agreements.
[Forum: Tell us what you think about the courthouse corruption Pleas won't bring quick trip to prison]
1:33 p.m.
Attorneys are reviewing evidence during the plea hearing for suspended Luzerne County Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan. Their guilty plea agreement on two corruption charges each has not yet been finalized.
Federal marshals opened a second courtroom in the William J. Nealon Federal building to accommodate the over-capacity crowd in Courtroom 1.
About two dozen people are watching the proceedings on large projector screens in Courtroom 2 and a throng of cameramen, photographers and reporters from local, state and national media await the conclusion of the proceedings on the sidewalk outside the building.
12:35 p.m.
Former Luzerne County Judge Ann H. Lokuta arrived at the federal courthouse in Scranton just before noon.
"This is my true day in court. I've been waiting for this day for many years," she said. "This is real justice."
Suspended Luzerne County Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan testified in her trial before the state Judicial Conduct Board that ended with Lokuta being removed from the county bench in December for being rude to witnesses, court staff and attorneys, and often being late or absent for court proceedings during her 17-year career.
Lokuta requested more time to file documents with the State Supreme Court in her appeal of the ruling after the plea agreements for Ciavarella and Conahan were announced.
Susan Mishanski came to court today with a sign for the accused judges.
"Kev's free, Ciavarella and Conahan not!" it said, a reference to the marked twist in the fates of her son, Kevin Williamson, who spent 57 days at a juvenile detention camp after appearing in Ciavarella's court, and the judges who could spend more than 7 years in prison.
Ciavarella and Conahan are accused of taking $2.6 million in kickbacks to facilitate the development of a juvenile detention center in Pittston Township and a similar facility in Butler County.
"He owes a whole lot of people a whole lot of apologies," Mishanski, of Hanover Township, said.
Williamson, 18, is a senior at Hanover Area High School.
The hearing has also drawn spectators without ties to the two judges. Robin Guerrero, of Swoyersville said she's been planning her trip to Scranton for a week to witness the plea hearing, even though she doesn't have any ties to the case.
"I think it's horrible" Guerrero said. "The money they took is horrible. The corruption is horrible. What they did to the kids is horrible."
11:35 a.m.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod arrived at the federal courthouse in Scranton around 11 a.m. He is the lead prosecutor in the federal corruption case against Luzerne County Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan.
Under a plea agreement, the two judges would serve 87 months in prison on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud.
A federal judge will hold a plea agreement hearing at 1 p.m.
10:52 a.m.
Luzerne County judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan made a quick entrance into the William J. Nealon Federal Building in Scranton when they arrived for their preliminary hearing Thursday morning.
The judges and the lawyers pulled up to the courthouse steps at about 9:45 a.m. for their plea hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m.
The plea agreements signed by Ciavarella and Conahan carry 87 months in prison for the corruption charges.
Oakland Police to 11 Officers: You're Fired dinsdag 27 januari 2009 1:05:22 • by GunsAndBibles • 13 replies • 559+ views MSNBC ^ | 1/16/2009 | NBCBayArea The Oakland Police Department Thursday notified 11 officers, including two sergeants, that they will be terminated for their involvement in the falsification of search warrant affidavits over the past several months, according to the city attorney's office. An internal investigation found that the officers knew or should have known that information in their affidavits about the testing of drugs was false. Officers were also found to have made untruthful statements in response to questions from Internal Affairs investigators, who did determine that allegations against one officer were unfounded, according to the city attorney's office.
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NY man pleads guilty to Obama racism attacks dinsdag 27 januari 2009 0:43:44 • by BuckeyeTexan • 7 replies • 518+ views AFP via Live News Australia ^ | 01/27/2009 | AFP A New York man has pleaded guilty to a series of racist assaults allegedly meant to protest the election of President Barack Obama, authorities say. "Brian Carranza pled guilty this morning ... to conspiring to assault African-American residents in Staten Island, New York, in retaliation for President Barack Obama's election victory," the prosecutor's office for the eastern district of New York said on Monday. Carranza is charged with hate crimes along with two others over a series of incidents on election day. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years, although entering a guilty plea in court usually leads to...
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Crooked judges sent kids to jail in exchange for kickbacks- Juvie injustice! from "agentX" — African American (Black) Opinion Blog Grabbed 24 Days Ago
Smart Keywords: Conahan Ciavarella Pennsylvania Grim Luzerne County --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The San Francisco Examiner today reports on 2 Pennsylvania judges busted in a bribery scandal. See, these judges were paid off by the private jail company to send juvies there for long terms since the private jail gets paid per body by the county.
How much is a teenager's freedom worth? If you're Judge Mark Ciavarella or Judge Michael Conahan of the Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, courts, depriving teenagers of their freedom has been worth 2.6 milion dollars. That's the amount of money they raked in for sentencing teenage offenders to privately run juvenile detention centers.
Whether the money came from bribes or extortion is an open question. The judges claim they were straight-up kickbacks; Robert J. Powell the former co-owner of PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care, says the corrupt bench-warmers held him up for payments in return for sending shackled kids his way.
Either way, "justice" was served at a small additional charge.
Judge Conahan apparently shut down the county's own detention centers in 2002, paving the way for the scheme he and his buddy, Ciavarella, cooked up to charge private prisons for the lucrative privilege of housing juvenile offenders .
One of the duo's more egregious moves was to sentence Hillary Transue to three months in a wilderness camp in 2007 for creating a MySpace page that made fun of her school's assistant principal. It was bad enough that she fell afoul of the courts' widespread refusal to recognize that the First Amendment applies to 15-year-olds as much as to 40-year-olds. Now it's apparent that her freedom was sold for a bank deposit. She was even denied the right to counsel -- a right guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court over 40 years ago.
Mark Ciavarella has had the good grace to resign from the bench. In a letter (PDF) disputing unrelated charges, he concedes, "your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and i only have myself to blame."
Michael Conahan, on the other hand, has stayed mum -- probably hoping that things he doesn't say can't be held against him. It doesn't matter. Both judges were stripped of their judicial status (PDF) by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court "In view of the compelling and immediate need to protect and preserve the integrity of the Unified Judicial System and the administration of justice for the citizens of Luzerne County."
And now both Ciavarella and Conahan have pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court. They are expected to serve more than seven years in prison.
The next step is to review what has passed as juvenile justice in Luzerne County. The appropriately named Judge Arthur E. Grim will have the difficult job of digging through (PDF) all the juvenile cases overseen by the corrupt judges to determine who was, essentially, sold into temporary slavery, who was denied their right to counsel, and what remedies are appropriate.
The Grim report is expected within 120 days.
I don't need to wait for no Grim report. One long-running suspicion has now been confirmed- juveniles are receiving disportionate sentences not based on their crimes and circumstances but on profit margins for private jails!
The NPSCTAPP (National Public Service Council To Abolish Private Prisons) has been covering issues related to privately run prisons in the USA.
As you have noticed from this article, private prison are supposed to be more efficient than state-run agencies. But as you have noticed, they receive a profit from the state or county serviced based on the number of prisoners they hold. In other words, more prisoners, more money. Disporportionate sentencing 'guidelines' and ineffective drug/immigration legislation is jacking up these private prison's profit margins. This judge scandal clearly highlights a pay-for-play mentality within the system where Wall St. fatcats make bank off and pass the bills onto the taxpayer, and aid this blatently corrupt transfer of wealth and unjust imprisonment with well-placed bribes. NPSCTAPP has document serious issues with private prisons such as this bribery scandal as well as the potential strike in a West Texas facility that just sustained a riot due to poor prisoner treatment.
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Maybe is a person does not violate the law they will not end up in a private prison huh Egmond?
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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^I thought you weren't politically right-wing AP? This is a typical unthoughtful right-wing response to a situation obviously more complex. No need to hide your agenda. Posts: 4021 | From: Bay Area, CA | Registered: Mar 2007
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You either obey the law or you do not Sundjata. Most black people never go to jail because they never violate the law.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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Bush, Jr. broke the law on multiple Occasions and did no jail time Bernard Madoff broke the law and did no jail time. Neil Bush was found guilty of bank fraud and did no jail time. The CEO of the Peanut company murdered children and did no jail time. What do these criminals have in common?
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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The peanut murderer and Madoff case is still pending right? maybe they will do time.btw too bad the peanut guy did'nt pulled that stuff in China.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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Madoff is in the midst of a plea bargain and will very likely end up with 10s of millions when all is over and done. The Republican Peanut dummy was allowed to chapter 11 his company, also keeping his loot. Highly doubtful that either will see even 1 day of prison time.
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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Bush W bombed Americans with ‘vaporised’ planes on 9/11 and no congressional committee in sight!
What’s missing from much reporting is that these hideous criminal judges were sending black kids to their doom.
Then I saw a photo of a huge, American bill board of a wanted criminal who looked like a coloured person. We also have police shows over here which only show crime’s by ‘negroïd’ and ‘Mediterranean type’s’ meaning Moroccans.
So the idea that coloureds, Muslims and blacks are criminal is burned in the Dutch soul every given night.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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Egmond, George Bush did more for the people of Africa than any man who has ever lived. You need to do a little research.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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