BonosSaint
Rock n' Roll Doggie
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2004
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From today's Wall Street Journal
J
We've been waiting for months for this to go down. I work about a block and a half from their courthouse and it's been an open secret that the Feds were in investigating the judges. And from what I understand, this is just a piece of what is being investigated.
The pleas haven't been entered yet. And Ciavarella is making noise that although he has preliminarily accepted the prison sentence, he won't admit to all the charges and may withdraw his plea.
My favorite part of the announcement was the IRS official at the press conference saying they still owe taxes on the bribes.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/01/28/judges-to-plead-guilty-in-scheme-to-exchange-juvies-for-cash/
J
January 28, 2009, 9:05 am
Judges to Plead Guilty in Scheme to Exchange Juvies for Cash
Posted by Dan Slater
Here’s a unique scenario: Judges channeling juvenile offenders into a private detention facility in exchange for payments from the facility’s owners.
The Legal Intelligencer reports that two Pennsylvania judges — Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan — have conditionally agreed to plead guilty and serve more than seven years each in prison for their roles in the scheme. U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson reportedly indicated that the indictment against the judges was the first set of charges and that the investigation was ongoing.
The criminal information, released Monday, reportedly alleges that between June 2000 and the end of April 2007, Ciavarella and Conahan collected more than $2.6 million in exchange for decisions from the bench that benefitted the owners of a private juvenile detention center including a 2004 agreement for the placement of juvenile offenders worth $58 million.
Conahan’s lawyer, Philip Gelso, declined comment. Ciavarella attorney Al Flora said that the charges were just “allegations” and the plea agreements were “conditional” on the defendants accepting the facts to be presented by prosecutors at a plea hearing that has not yet been scheduled.
Sad - but nobody should be surprised. Money corrupts. A news story this morning (1/28) reports that passengers on the US Air flight are seriously thinking about filing lawsuits to recover for “mental distress.” That one report says it all.
Comment by Mark D. Olson - January 28, 2009 at 10:20 am
And it looks like the judges are in store for a host of civil suits against them for sending them to their co-conspirators’ juvenile jails for piddly trangressions - more inmates meant more money for all. Here’s an excerpt from this morning’s Citizen’s Voice, a local newspaper:
“We feel that the people responsible for the scandal are child abusers because they abused children for profit.”
Jessica Van Reeth, now 19 and in college, was listed as a plaintiff on a lawsuit filed last April in which the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center accused Ciavarella of ignoring rules of procedure and running young defendants through the system without legal representation.
The state Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case, but Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, said the allegations against Ciavarella have led the organization to contemplate a federal class-action lawsuit against the judge.
“It’s very difficult to sue judges for violations of rights of any sort, but we have a unique situation here, where we have a judge who appears to have acted outside the scope of his judicial responsibilities,” Levick said Tuesday.
Attorney Barry H. Dyller of Wilkes-Barre said Tuesday he is also considering filing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of families of juveniles sentenced by Ciavarella.
Comment by DKoire - January 28, 2009
We've been waiting for months for this to go down. I work about a block and a half from their courthouse and it's been an open secret that the Feds were in investigating the judges. And from what I understand, this is just a piece of what is being investigated.
The pleas haven't been entered yet. And Ciavarella is making noise that although he has preliminarily accepted the prison sentence, he won't admit to all the charges and may withdraw his plea.
My favorite part of the announcement was the IRS official at the press conference saying they still owe taxes on the bribes.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/01/28/judges-to-plead-guilty-in-scheme-to-exchange-juvies-for-cash/