FORMER JUDGE CIAVARELLA CONVICTED

Former Luzerne County Pennsylvania Common Pleas Court Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. was found guilty of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, honest services mail fraud, money laundering conspiracy and a host of tax fraud charges in what has become known as the“Kids for Cash Scandal.” As a juvenile court judge, it was alleged that Ciavarella received money from a for profit company in exchange for sending children to the company’s private jail. Many of the children were sent to the facility for lengthy periods of time while being denied various rights guaranteed by the constitution. Often Ciavarella denied the children their right to counsel before sending them to the private jail.

It was a mixed verdict with Ciavarella being cleared of extortion, bribery and honest services wire fraud charges. Overall he was convicted of 12 of the 39 counts, including most of the serious allegations, in the indictment. But it is not exactly clear what the jury believed. For example it convicted him of racketeering and honest services fraud but it found him not guilty of bribery. Honest services fraud is a rather complicated crime. It is defined in 18 U.S.C. §1346 as a “scheme or artifice to defraud includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” The Supreme Court has limited it to cases which involve a “fraudulent schemes to deprive another of honest services through bribes or kickbacks supplied by a third party who ha[s] not been deceived”. In the case of Ciavarella he received money from the private corporation to deprive the Common Pleas Court of his “honest services.”

Racketeering is a form of conspiracy under which money is obtained illegally often by extortion. The jury found that Ciavarella illicitly obtained $997,000 in kickbacks from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers.

While this trial did not concentrate upon the juveniles’ denial of constitutional rights, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed 4000 juvenile convictions in Ciavarella’s court.

Furthermore there remains a pending civil suits by thousands of juveniles ¹ who appeared before Ciavarella.