#Michael conahan

[randomwikiarticles]

The kids for cash scandal centered on judicial kickbacks to two judges at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, US.[1] In 2008, judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were convicted of accepting money in return for imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles to increase occupancy at a private prison operated by PA Child Care.[2]

Ciavarella disposed thousands of children to extended stays in youth centers for offenses as trivial as mocking an assistant principal on Myspace or trespassing in a vacant building.[3] After a judge rejected an initial plea agreement in 2009,[4][5] a federal grand jury returned a 48-count indictment.[6] In 2010, Conahan pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison.[7] Ciavarella opted to go to trial the following year. He was convicted on 12 of 39 counts and sentenced to 28 years in federal prison.[8]

In the wake of the scandal, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned hundreds of adjudications of delinquency in Luzerne County.[9] The Juvenile Law Center filed a class action lawsuit against the judges and numerous other parties,[10] and the Pennsylvania state legislature created a commission to investigate juvenile justice problems in the county.[11]

[arctic-hands]

In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.

Ciavarella ordered children as young as 8 to detention, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes. The judge 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.

"Ciavarella and Conahan abandoned their oath and breached the public trust," Conner wrote Tuesday in his explanation of the damages award. "Their cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental health concerns."

Ciavarella "ruled with breathtaking arrogance and an unfathomable disregard of due process," Conner wrote.

Ciavarella was known for a "zero-tolerance" approach to juveniles, and his sentencing decisions were often capricious. One 16-year-old in his courtroom for driving the wrong way down a one-way street was sentenced to 11 months in prison, because that was the number of buttons the offender had on her shirt, according to Conner's decision.  Another juvenile who went in for a release hearing was instead sentenced to an additional  eight months because the teen picked the wrong sports team. 

Several of the youths who were sentenced by Ciavarella or Conahan have since died of drug overdoses or suicide, Conner wrote.

After the scheme was uncovered, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out 4,000 juvenile convictions entered between 2003 and 2008...

[ammg-old]

"When you tell a kid they're bad, they can either fight against it and say ... I'm a good kid. I made mistakes. Or you can say, you're right, I'm bad. It's too hard to fight back. Being bad is easier," she said. "The wrong choice is really easy."

Teen recovers after courthouse kickbacks scandal

[sarcasticcynic]

Pennsylvania judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan have pleaded guilty to collecting more than $2.6 million in kickbacks for sending an estimated 5,000 teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

The scheme was straightforward. First they shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, claiming that it was in “poor condition” and that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers. Then Conahan secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders.

Ciavarella, meanwhile, took advantage of the fact that juvenile proceedings are typically kept closed to the public to impose unusually harsh sentences for minor infractions--even on first-time offenders--so they could keep those detention centers filled. A couple of examples:

A “stellar student who had never been in trouble” built a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school. The page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke. Ciavarella “sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.”

Another boy who “had never been in trouble” got into a fight with another boy and gave him a black eye. Ciavarella “sentenced [him] to 90 days in a detention facility” on a charge of assault.

“He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10. He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.”

Despite pleading guilty to felony charges in federal court, Ciavarella still denies “sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.”

POSTSCRIPT: Both judges, by the way, are white. We have no information on the race or ethnicity of the 5000 juveniles whose lives they ruined.

[arthropooda]

Two Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200m to hundreds who fell victim to their crimes.

US district judge Christopher Conner awarded $106m in compensatory damages and $100m in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions”.

'Kids for cash' judge gets 28 years in Pennsylvania bribery case

In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8m in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups.

[reverseracism]

[pennsylvaniaprelawland-blog]

Attorney Misconduct And Corruption In Pennsylvania Courts

By Mark Catherman, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Class of 2022

December 17, 2021

Attorney misconduct and corruption within the courts are significant issues in Pennsylvania. Over the last ten years, residents of Pennsylvania have seen corruption from Magisterial District Court Judges to the Attorney General of Pennsylvania. Most recently, residents have seen two elected district attorneys arrested in one year.

About ten years ago, corruption in Pennsylvania was put in the world's spotlight. In 2011 the scandal was known as "kids for cash" was busted wide open. Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were indicted on 48 counts. The indictment included charges for bribery, racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, and federal tax violations. Along with the judges, three others were arrested, including Robert Powell. He was an attorney and owner of private juvenile facilities, and Sandra Brula, a Luzerne County Juvenile Probation deputy director. The scandal began when Conahan and Ciavarella made agreements with Mr. Powell; they agreed to each other's terms that the judges would receive kickbacks in exchange for sending more juveniles to the facilities owned by Mr. Powell. The agreement began in roughly 2004 and lasted for four years until 2008, when the judges were finally investigated after hundreds of complaints made by victims and family members of victims. Finally, justice was served, and all three participants were convicted in 2011. The first to stand trial was Judge Mark Ciavarella; he was convicted on 12 of the original 48 counts and sentenced to 28 years in federal prison.[2] Mr. Ciavarella will be 85 on his estimated release date in 2035. The second to face justice was Judge Michael Conahan. He pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison. However, he was released in June 2020 due to coronavirus concerns with his elderly status. Finally, Mr. Powell pleaded guilty to accessory to tax conspiracy and failure to report a felony. Mr. Powell was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and released on April 16, 2013.

After the conviction of these two judge's things seemed to be calming down in the corruption department for elected officials in Pennsylvania, but this did not last long. In August 2016, Attorney General Kathleen Kane was arrested on nine criminal charges, including perjury and obstruction. The charges against former PA Attorney General Kane steamed from her office, leaking secret grand jury information to the press. As expected, Ms. Kane contested the acquisitions made against her and was ultimately found guilty by a trial of her peers in October of 2016. She was convicted of two counts of perjury and seven misdemeanors. [6] Shortly after her conviction, she resigned from her post as Attorney General of Pennsylvania and resigned from the state bar before a disbarment hearing was to be held. [9]

Shortly after former Attorney General Kane's arrest, we began to see a common trend of elected district attorneys being arrested for misconduct and corruption within their offices. A few months after former AG Kane was convicted, the District Attorney in Philadelphia found himself behind bars. Former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams was arrested in March of 2017 on 23 federal charges ranging from bribery and fraud to extortion. Mr. Williams pleaded guilty and was consequently sentenced to five years in federal prison and disbarred from the practice of law in Pennsylvania. [5] After Mr. Williams was sentenced, only months passed before another district attorney in Pennsylvania was arrested. The Bedford County DA Bill Higgins was under investigation since 2015 for allegations that he provided plea deals for sexual acts. At first, Mr. Higgins proclaimed his innocence but ultimately pleaded guilty to the accusations and was given house arrest and eight years of probation. Higgins was also disbarred from the practice of law in Pennsylvania in 2018 after being convicted.

Once again, things seemed to be calming down concerning corruption and misconduct within elected attorney offices for a couple of years. Nevertheless, that all changed in 2021 when Pennsylvania was put in the spotlight again for the non-related arrest of two district attorneys in PA. The first in 2021 was former Bradford County DA Chad Salsman. Mr. Salsman was investigated for about a year. State police uncovered evidence that he had sexually assaulted multiple women in lieu of legal services in the rural county. In July of 2021, Mr. Salsman was sentenced to 1.5 to 5 years in state prison, followed by 72 months of probation. [7] Mr. Salsman was disbarred shortly after being convicted and sentenced. [2] Four months after the conviction of Chad Salsman, another DA was arrested; this time, it was the Somerset County District Attorney Jeffrey L. Thomas. Former DA Thomas is accused of entering a female friend's home in November and sexually assaulting the woman. He is currently charged with indecent assault, rape, simple assault, and criminal trespassing. [8] Mr. Thomas was suspended from the practice of law in October of 2021. [4]

Pennsylvania is on the rise to significant change, however. We can almost take the recent convictions of District Attorneys in Pennsylvania as a good sign that we are taking misconduct seriously and holding people accountable that abuse the power of their office and that brighter days are ahead in the courts of Pennsylvania.

______________________________________________________________

1.      https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/DisciplinaryBoard/out/20DB2021-Salsman.pdf

2.      https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/DisciplinaryBoard/out/26DB2012-Ciavarella,%20Jr..pdf

3.      https://www.padisciplinaryboard.org/for-the-public/find-attorney/attorney-detail/25900

4.      https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/DisciplinaryBoard/out/131DB2021-Thomas.pdf

5.      https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/DisciplinaryBoard/out/55DB2017-Williams.pdf

6.      https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/Report/MdjDocketSheet?docketNumber=MJ-38120-CR-0000381-2015&dnh=lqucsZnMZntaILVZJ1%2BAzQ%3D%3D

7.      https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/Report/CpDocketSheet?docketNumber=CP-08-CR-0000080-2021&dnh=1XFd62qcDZC4pMfgRvUqgQ%3D%3D

8.      https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/Report/CpDocketSheet?docketNumber=CP-56-CR-0000700-2021&dnh=%2FI60%2BmGqUoR5BXrDOyslBw%3D%3D

9.      https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/DisciplinaryBoard/out/17DB2019-Kane.pdf

[briefnewschannel]

Ex-Judges in ‘Kids for Cash' Scandal to Pay $206M in Damages

Ex-Judges in ‘Kids for Cash’ Scandal to Pay $206M in Damages

By TCR Staff | August 18, 2022 Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, two former Pennsylvania judges accused in 2009 of sending hundreds of teenagers to privately run youth detention centers in exchange for millions in kickbacks, and sentenced to decades in prison as a result, have been ordered to pay more than $206 million in damages, reports the Wall Street Journal. U.S. District Judge…

[noisyfiremusic]

Former judges who sent kids to jail for money must pay more than $200 million : NPR

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-mark-ciavarella-kids-for-cash The thief cometh

[arctic-hands]

In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.

Ciavarella ordered children as young as 8 to detention, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes. The judge 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.

"Ciavarella and Conahan abandoned their oath and breached the public trust," Conner wrote Tuesday in his explanation of the damages award. "Their cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental health concerns."

Ciavarella "ruled with breathtaking arrogance and an unfathomable disregard of due process," Conner wrote.

Ciavarella was known for a "zero-tolerance" approach to juveniles, and his sentencing decisions were often capricious. One 16-year-old in his courtroom for driving the wrong way down a one-way street was sentenced to 11 months in prison, because that was the number of buttons the offender had on her shirt, according to Conner's decision.  Another juvenile who went in for a release hearing was instead sentenced to an additional  eight months because the teen picked the wrong sports team. 

Several of the youths who were sentenced by Ciavarella or Conahan have since died of drug overdoses or suicide, Conner wrote.

After the scheme was uncovered, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out 4,000 juvenile convictions entered between 2003 and 2008...

[ammg-old]

After his initial release, Bodnar, now 24, was shipped off to a military academy. He now works as a cook. Transue, 22, eventually graduated from college.

A fender-bender landed Kenzakoski back in court when he was 19. Ciavarella again sentenced him to a juvenile facility. When he got out, said his mother, his demeanor was all pent-up anger, and a fight landed him in state prison.

He was released in January 2010. That Memorial Day, after a day of drinking and arguing with his father, Ed Kenzakoski placed a gun against his heart, and pulled the trigger. Had he lived, he would now be 27 years old.

The most harrowing moment in the film occurs during Ciavarella’s trial. As his lawyer holds a press conference outside the courthouse, Kenzakoski’s mother, Sandy Fonzo, who had been standing to the side, unleashed years of pain and anguish on the man she held responsible.

“My kid’s not here anymore! He’s dead! Because of him!” she screamed, pointing at Ciavarella as news cameras rolled. “He ruined my f—ing life!!! Go to hell, and rot there forever! You know what he told everybody in court — [the kids] need to be held accountable for their actions! You need to be!”

At the end of “Kids for Cash,” directed by Robert May, information flashes across the screen saying: “Two million children are arrested every year in the US, 95% for non-violent crimes”; that “66% of children who have been incarcerated never return to school”; and that “the US incarcerates nearly 5 times more children than any other nation in the world.”

  —  Corrupt ‘Kids for Cash’ judge ruined more than 2,000 lives

[theyoungturks]

Two former Pennsylvania judges, who put together a scheme to send children to for-profit jails, will have to pay $200 million to the victims. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://apnews.com/article/crime-trending-news-government-and-politics-6f30f575dc739415af1e5b47b1be50f0 "Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history. U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.” In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 220818__TA05 by The Young Turks

[hackernewsrobot]

Former judges who sent kids to jail for kickbacks must pay more than 200M

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-mark-ciavarella-kids-for-cash Comments