Corrupt Judge Follow-Up ... Wait, There's More!

Earlier this month, we posted "Here's One Look At Privatization", about the two Pennsylvania scumbag judges who were gaming the system, for their own profit, by jailing teenagers in a privatized institution.

Well, it seems their greed, lack of morals and ethics didn't stop there;

Judge Guilty in Kickbacks Is Accused of Fixing Suit

As for the defamation judgment, it dates from 2006, when Judge Ciavarella awarded $2 million to a businessman, Thomas Joseph, and $1.5 million to Mr. Joseph’s direct-mail marketing firm. 

Mr. Joseph had sued The Citizens Voice over a series of articles that tied him to a money-laundering case involving William D’Elia, reputed head of the Bufalino crime family in northeastern Pennsylvania, who had been convicted of witness tampering and conspiracy to launder drug money.

In its new petition, the paper said Judges Ciavarella and Conahan had improperly ensured control of the case by skirting established procedures for the assigning of cases and getting this one routed to themselves.

They had help in this, the petition said, from the court administrator, William Sharkey, Judge Conahan’s cousin. Mr. Sharkey pleaded guilty this week to stealing $70,000 in illegal gambling proceeds that were to be turned over to the county treasurer’s office.

The newspaper said the recent developments in the continuing investigation of the former judges’ conduct on the bench “have fueled rampant rumors and speculation that Judge Conahan and Judge Ciavarella were fixing cases at the behest of William D’Elia.” 

And, it said, it has a witness who can testify that Judge Ciavarella or Judge Conahan, or both, had direct connections to Mr. D’Elia. The witness was not identified.

Go to the CitizensVoices.Com for more on this considerably-less dynamic duo.

Here's One Look At Privatization

We have seen, with The Bush Grindhouse, the rush to privatize aspects of what was formerly government responsibilities.

We had these Private Profiteers providing dirty water to our soldiers, as well as electrocuting them.

And, electrocuting the rebuilding of Iraq that they were hired for was godawful substandard, and mired in over-costs and greed.

So, when I descried this headline this morning, it was a head-shaker;

Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit

The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.

This is/was a sick, demented rendition of "Bad Cop/Bad Cop".

With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.

They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.

Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.

So, these two assholes fucked up the lives of scores of teenagers (the one mentioned in the above article, for creating a MySpace page satirizing her school's assistant principle, earning her a profit-generating three-month sentence), so they could line their own pockets.

If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar. They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months. Lawyers for both men declined to comment.

Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.

The article states over 500 juveniles appeared before soon-to-be-ex-Judge Ciavarella.

Here's hoping the presiding Judge, who will have to decide on this plea bargain, rejects it, and hits these two cretins with a much stiffer sentence, say, a month for every kid they put away, strictly so they could make a profit.

Additionally, that they turn over their illegal gains to some youth program in the area.

And this presiding Judge should also look into the DA's office, or the local prosecutors - why are they placing so many teenagers, and those with relatively minor offenses (like building a MySpace page), into this hellhole of a system?

May a thousand MySpace pages get launched, mocking these guys.



Prosecutors say Judges Michael T. Conahan, and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., above, took kickbacks to send teenagers to detention centers.