FILE PHOTO: This Feb. 6, 2009 file photo shows the privately owned PA Child Care youth detention center in Pittston, Pa. Prosecutors allege that Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella and a second jurist, Michael Conahan, took millions in kickbacks in return for guaranteeing the placement of juvenile offenders into youth lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC.
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
FILE PHOTO: This Feb. 6, 2009 file photo shows the privately owned PA Child Care youth detention center in Pittston, Pa. Prosecutors allege that Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella and a second jurist, Michael Conahan, took millions in kickbacks in return for guaranteeing the placement of juvenile offenders into youth lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC.
(Philadelphia) — A federal judge upheld the 28-year prison sentence of a disgraced Luzerne County judge who locked up thousands of juvenile offenders while he was taking kickbacks from the owner and builder of for-profit detention centers, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Mark Ciavarella, a former Luzerne County juvenile court judge, had been seeking a lighter sentence after three of the 12 counts of his 2011 conviction were overturned on appeal.
U.S. District Judge Christopher C. Conner ruled this week that Ciavarella, 70, was not legally entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
“To be abundantly clear, if we were authorized to reduce Ciavarella’s sentence, we would decline to do so,” wrote Conner, citing Ciavarella’s “abuse of public trust by an elected jurist and the resulting harm to vulnerable juvenile victims.” He said Ciavarella “refuses to acknowledge the scope of his remaining crimes” and stands convicted of taking bribes.
Pamela Suchy / AP Photo/Times Tribune
FILE PHOTO: Luzerne County Judges Mark A. Ciavarella, center, and Judge Michael T. Conahan, far left, leave the William J. Nealon Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Scranton, PA., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009, after pleading guilty to corruption charges.
In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.
Prosecutors said Ciavarella ordered children as young as 10 to detention, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes. The judge often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to say goodbye to their families.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out some 4,000 juvenile convictions after the scheme was uncovered.
The judges “betrayed their community and deserve the substantial punishments they received,” U.S. Attorney David J. Freed said in a written statement Wednesday.
Conahan, 68, the other judge in the scandal, was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison. He was recently released to home confinement with six years left on his sentence because of coronavirus concerns.
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