A former juvenile court judge in Luzerne County, Pa., who accepted
nearly $1 million to send juveniles to for-profit detention centers has
been sentenced to 28 years in prison. The court also ordered the former
judge, Mark Ciavarella Jr., to pay $1.17 million in restitution.
In what became known as the “kids for cash”
scandal, Ciavarella and another former judge, Michael Conahan, received
payments from the owner and builder of two privately-run juvenile
detention facilities to close down the county’s own juvenile detention
center and direct juvenile offenders to the private facilities, the
Christian Science Monitor reports.
An investigation found that thousands of juveniles
were shipped to the private centers on minor or questionable charges,
the Associated Press reports. Half of the children who appeared before
Ciavarella were not represented by a lawyer and were never advised of
their right to counsel. Of those unrepresented children, up to 60
percent were ordered by Ciavarella to serve time at a detention
facility. The more children they housed, the more profit the centers
made.
In 2009, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court directed that all adjudications
involving the roughly 4,000 children who appeared before Ciavarella
between 2003 and 2008 be vacated and their records expunged.
In February, a federal court in Scranton, Pa., convicted Ciavarella of
12 charges, including racketeering conspiracy, filing false tax returns
and money laundering.
"Mr. Ciavarella abused
his position of trust and inflicted a deep and lasting wound on the
community he vowed to service," U.S. Attorney Peter Smith said following
the sentencing on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Ciavarella has insisted that he never accepted a bribe but only a
finder’s fee for introducing the owner of the detention center business
to a builder who was later awarded the contract to build the juvenile
centers, the Christian Science Monitor reports. "Never took a dime to
send a kid anywhere.... This case was about extortions and kickbacks,
not about 'kids for cash,’ ” Ciavarella said after the verdict in
February, according to the AP.
Conahan pleaded guilty last year to a single count of racketeering and is awaiting sentencing.
The U.S. Attorney's office said more than 30 local and state government
officials and contractors have been convicted or are awaiting trial in
the case, Reuters reports.
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