"Kids for cash" judges indicted by federal grand jury
Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, who allegedly took millions of dollars in pay-offs for jailing juvenile offenders, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pennsylvania.
A federal grand jury has handed down a 48-count indictment against two former Luzerne County, Pa., judges, alleging the men engaged in racketeering and related charges, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced Wednesday.The indictment, a copy of which was not available at press time Wednesday, comes about 5 1/2 weeks after a federal judge rejected the conditional plea agreements of Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and nearly two weeks after the men withdrew their conditional guilty pleas in the matter.
The indictment charges Conahan and Ciavarella with fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery and federal tax violations while alleging they received "millions of dollars in illegal payments," according to Dennis C. Pfannenschmidt, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Lawyer Robert J. Powell, who partially owned the detention facilities that the children were sent to, admitted earlier this year to paying cash to Conahan and to falsifying records to help the judges hide their income. A plea deal with the two judges fell through, however, resulting in the current indictments.
According to law.com, more indictments against the judges may be in the works:
While the government's press release made no mention of any charges beyond those related to the juvenile detention center, several sources said they expected the government to come back at some point with a superseding indictment seeking additional charges against Conahan and Ciavarella.While the federal government's case against the former judges centers on their roles in taking money from attorney Robert Powell, the owner, and Robert Mericle, the builder, of a juvenile detention facility and the judges' alleged abuse of the rights of juveniles sentenced to the facility, sources close to the investigation and inside Luzerne County say the scam some in the media have labeled "kids for cash" was just the tip of the iceberg and only the most blatant example of the corruption allegedly overseen by the two judges.
