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-   -   PA judges lock up teens for kickbacks (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=19527)

Undertoad 02-12-2009 06:14 PM

PA judges lock up teens for kickbacks
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29142654/

Quote:

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles’ records expunged.

Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.

Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.
The opening is a picture of a girl who was "sentenced to a wilderness camp for building a spoof MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal."

OK, my idea is, these two judges go to prison and go into a special section, specifically filled with people they sentenced.

Rounding up the unsavory and putting them into your buddies' for-profit prison? It simply couldn't get any worse. I want their bollocks.

TheMercenary 02-12-2009 06:23 PM

It is amazing. This is stuff you would have thought you read about back in the 70's when no one was looking.

Griff 02-12-2009 06:24 PM

Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC.

These buggers better do time.



I wonder when the mob angle will surface?

classicman 02-12-2009 06:34 PM

Unbelievable - Get everything they own and sell it all with the proceeds going to these kids. Everything.

TheMercenary 02-12-2009 06:42 PM

It's all about the money these days.

Griff 02-12-2009 06:47 PM

Uh huh these days, here we go again.

Beestie 02-12-2009 09:46 PM

I lived in Scranton back in the 60s. The level of corruption in that town would make an Illinois governor blush. Its been that way for a long, long time.

Sundae 02-13-2009 10:22 AM

I misread the thread title.
I was wondering how on earth teenagers were managing to get kickbacks so young.

glatt 02-13-2009 10:30 AM

This is really the worst. When you have corruption like this, I think life in prison is a fair sentence. Actually, they should go back and calculate the total time these guys incarcerated all the kids for and double it and lock them up for that long.

TheMercenary 02-13-2009 02:22 PM

Well stated glattster.

classicman 02-13-2009 03:07 PM

OH hell, I'm in a mood - lets just kill these assholes too!

Shawnee123 02-13-2009 03:47 PM

:lol:

I'll help...I'm in a mood too!

busterb 02-13-2009 06:03 PM

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A lawsuit has been filed against two Pennsylvania judges accused of taking more than $2 million in kickbacks to send youth offenders to privately run detention centers. The suit names Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan and 14 other defendants. It was filed in federal court late Thursday on behalf of hundreds of children and their families who were alleged victims of the corruption.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090213/D96ATN8G0.html

richlevy 02-13-2009 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by busterb (Post 534222)
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A lawsuit has been filed against two Pennsylvania judges accused of taking more than $2 million in kickbacks to send youth offenders to privately run detention centers. The suit names Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan and 14 other defendants. It was filed in federal court late Thursday on behalf of hundreds of children and their families who were alleged victims of the corruption.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090213/D96ATN8G0.html

The cool thing about this is that criminal cases need to be brought by the state. This means that the old boy network can allow a plea down to nothing. Civil actions, on the other hand, are brought by attorneys who actually work for the victim.

Even if these guys only end up doing 6 months, they're going to lose everything.

xoxoxoBruce 02-14-2009 03:12 AM

Clearly there is civil rights violations, doesn't that come under federal jurisdiction?

bluecuracao 02-14-2009 05:01 AM

It was filed in federal court, so that would be a yes.

DanaC 02-14-2009 05:15 AM

This kind of stuff is all but inevitable as long as the 'facilities' are being run by private firms.

wolf 02-14-2009 11:20 AM

The only thing I find surprising that this is a story from Upstate, rather than Philadelphia.

I guess Philadelphia has more experience in the art of the cover up.

Undertoad 03-26-2009 09:31 PM

Update: Convictions reversed

Quote:

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Pennsylvania's highest court on Thursday overturned hundreds of juvenile convictions issued by a corrupt judge who took millions of dollars in kickbacks from youth detention centers.

The state Supreme Court ruled that former Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella violated the constitutional rights of youth offenders who appeared in his courtroom without lawyers between 2003 and 2008.

''Today's order is not intended to be a quick fix,'' Chief Justice Ronald Castille said in a statement. ''It's going to take some time, but the Supreme Court is committed to righting whatever wrong was perpetrated on Luzerne's juveniles and their families.''

In one of the most egregious cases of judicial corruption ever seen, federal prosecutors charged Ciavarella and another Luzerne County judge, Michael Conahan, with taking $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in privately owned lockups.

The judges pleaded guilty to fraud last month and face sentences of more than seven years in prison.

classicman 03-26-2009 09:35 PM

Thats it? They fucked all those kids up and get only 7 years? How bout 7 free shots from each kid and then take all they own a give it to the kids.

Happy Monkey 03-27-2009 12:34 PM

"violated the constitutional rights" opens the way for civil suits.

classicman 03-27-2009 01:17 PM

Good - and I hope they are expedient trials too.

glatt 02-18-2011 01:18 PM

Update:
Ciavarella found guilty on 12 of 39 counts.

Guilty of racketeering, money laundering, and failing to disclose income. Not guilty of kickbacks and various bribery charges.

We'll see how the sentencing works out.

glatt 08-11-2011 09:49 AM

Ciavarella gets 28 years. I don't know if he will be eligible for parole. I wonder if anyone has bothered to add up the total number of years he sentenced all those juveniles to, in order to get the $2.8 million in kickbacks from the for-profit prisons?

classicman 08-11-2011 10:55 AM

I hope he gets buttfucked in the mouth daily for all of eternity.
Thanks for the followup.

SamIam 08-12-2011 02:13 PM

What a horrible thing to do to children who have done nothing more than play a prank. Even if they get their records cleared, the experience will leave them scarred for life. :(

Griff 08-12-2011 03:33 PM

There is a notorious suicide of one of these kids. He should have gotten life imprisonment.

richlevy 08-20-2011 07:49 AM

Quote:

"Those three words made me the personification of evil. They made me the devil. They made me the anti-Christ. They made me toxic," Ciavarella told U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik.
Well....yeah.

..and you deserved it. I certainly hope that he felt what all of those defendants who stood before him felt when many of them were railroaded. If he ends up going to a private prison, they should give a single share of stock in the company to each of his victims.


Quote:

Originally Posted by classicman (Post 749645)
I hope he gets buttfucked in the mouth daily for all of eternity.
.

On general principles, I really dislike the concept of prison rape as some kind of sanctioned addition to punishment. I believe that the impulse diminishes us as individuals and a society and might in some way lead to an institutional reluctance to treat the practice as seriously as it deserves.

That being said, I am at war with the impulse to see him further pay for his abuse of power. One part of me says that justice and the law were successful and that this is sufficient, and the other part does want him to become the 'prom queen' of his cell block. This is not one of my best moments.

DanaC 08-20-2011 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by richlevy (Post 751542)
Well....yeah.

..and you deserved it. I certainly hope that he felt what all of those defendants who stood before him felt when many of them were railroaded. If he ends up going to a private prison, they should give a single share of stock in the company to each of his victims.

Ha. Restorative justice in action.


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