Dirty Judges in Pennsylvania Sentence Juveniles to Detention Facilities for Profit

Two judges in Pennsylvania recently pled guilty to a federal tax evasion indictment involving $2,600,000 in kickbacks they received from sentencing thousands of juveniles to a youth facility owned in part by a well- heeled personal injury lawyer.

This outrageous scheme had two illicit levels. The first was when Judge Michel T. Conahan, who controlled the purse strings of Luzerne County, where the facility was located, virtually steam rolled the private detention center into existence by squeezing the competition, suffocating complaints and authorizing the money to build the center.

The next phase related to Judge Conahan’s friend, colleague and neighbor, Judge Mark A Ciavella , who worked the juvenile court in Luzerne County. Judge Ciavella sentenced juvenile offenders to the detention facilities at twice the rate that existed throughout the state in order to insure that the facility had a steady source of income. His illegal agenda became so notorious that defense lawyers refused to represent clients before his court because they were not allowed to argue their client’s cause . Incredibly, detention center workers were told at the beginning of the day how many inmates could be expected even before the judge heard the evidence or the juvenile’s defense. In one case, Judge Ciavella sent a 13 year old first offender to detention because he failed to appear, as a witness in a case where his parents never received notice. In another case, he sentenced a juvenile to five months in boot camp because he acted as a lookout for a friend who stole some DVD’s from a Walmart. He too was a first offender.

Both of these crooked judges will be sentenced under a plea agreement that will expose them to seven years in jail