Former Lucerne County, Pennsylvania Juvenile Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in Federal prison for excepting bribes from a company that builds private jails in exchange for sending children to the company’s facilities in the “Kids for Cash” scandal. He received a million dollar from the companies building the private jails and he attempted to extort money from the owner of the jails. A colleague on the bench, Michael Conahan, who is yet to be sentenced on related charges, received another million dollars.

In his rush to send juveniles to the private prisons he often denied juveniles their basic constitutional rights. He did not offer them appointed counsel and he demanded statements from them in violation of their right to remain silent. A fifteen year old girl was sentenced to three months for mocking the assistant principal of her school on her MySpace page and a 13 year old boy was locked up for trespassing in a vacant building. As a result the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed over 4000 convictions

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.

Between 2003 and 2007 judges Mark Ciavarella was the chief juvenile judge in Lucerne County, Pennsylvania. During that time he arranged for the closing of the county juvenile facility and to send juvenile offenders to facilities owned by a private corporation, PA Child Care.

Ciavarella was a tough judge. He sent numerous children to the PA Child Care facilities. A ten year old was sent when she accidentally set her room on fire. Another girl was sent for shooting a bird at a police officer. A boy was sent for throwing a piece of steak at his mother’s boyfriend. Another girl was sent to the facility for mocking an assistant principal.

Not only was he a tough judge, but according to Federal prosecutors he was a corrupt judge. At the same time that he was sending children to PA Child Care facilities he was receiving kickbacks from the corporation. According to the prosecutors Ciavarella and Judge Michael Conahan received $2,600,000 in kickbacks.

He was charged, along with the presiding judge, Michael Conahan in 2009 and they plead guilty, each was to receive 87 months according to the plea bargain. However the chief Federal judge did not like the sweetheart deal and rejected it. Judge Edward M. Kosik found Ciavarella and Conahan insufficiently contrite. Conahan plead guilty, again, to one count and is awaiting sentencing. Ciavarella’a trial is set to start today.

Two Pennsylvania juvenile court judges were indicted for accepting kickbacks in exchange for sending children to a private jail.

Often former Luzerne County (Wilkes Barre) Court of Common Plea Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan sentenced juveniles to the private jails without appointing lawyers for them on minor offenses. Among the charges for which children were placed in the private jail were for stealing loose change from cars, writing prank notes, possession of drug paraphernalia and mocking an assistant principal on myspace.com.

The judges received 2.8 million dollars in kickbacks from the private jails.

Last year Ciavarella and Conahan plead guilty to a sweetheart deal that would have given them 87 month sentences but the pleas were rejected as being too soft by United States District Court Judge Edward M. Kosik and the pleas were withdrawn.

Conahan plead guilty last week to one count of a racketeering corruption charge. There is no plea agreement and Judge Kosik could sentence him up to the maximum of twenty years. Ciavarella also withdrew his plea after Judge Kosik refused the 87 month deal and he is facing trial.