Judge to serve 28 years after making $2 million sending children to jail

http://rollingout.com/criminal-behavior/judge-must-serve-28-years-after-making-2-million-for-sending-children-to-jail/

by rubikscube • 13 years ago

314 166 13 years ago

sp332• 13 years ago

The big news: Once Ciavarella was convicted, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed out 4,000 convictions issued by the judge. Will the kids or their families get any restitution for wrongful imprisonment?

rayiner5• 13 years ago

Pennsylvania has no wrongful imprisonment statute: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/us/table.wrongful.con.... See: http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Compensating_The_Wro....

Dylan16807• 13 years ago

Are they immune from being sued? Is such an immunity definitely constitutional?

PeterisP• 13 years ago

Well, Pennsylvania has voters, and at least now thousands of them have both motivation and moral standing to push for such statutes.

One shouldn't think of laws as something that exists to be obeyed - laws are (or should be) the written down consensus of We the People about how we want our society to be, and any [lack of] such law can and should be fixed.

ojbyrne3• 13 years ago

"He was also forced to pay $1 million in restitution."

I'm not sure who else other than the families would get that.

samstave• 13 years ago

Lawyers

glesica2• 13 years ago

So about $250 per family, that seems fair...

unreal37• 13 years ago

The IRS. He was convicted of wire fraud and tax fraud.[1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?pagewanted...

mmanfrin• 13 years ago

It is an absolute travesty that PA Child Care, the people paying the bribes, have had hardly a punishment at all.

Zimahl• 13 years ago

I'm sure they'll be included with the state and judge in a class-action case to be filed shorty (if not already).

apalmer2• 13 years ago

No, really Yes but No... I dont think that if your corporation purposefully bribes judges to imprison children for profit, i dont think a civil court fine is sufficient. These guys should be going to jail for decades.

ajiang• 13 years ago

You can wrongfully send kids/people to jail as long as you don't make money off of it.

ars2• 13 years ago

The assumption is people won't do that since there is no reason for them to.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

Philosophical, religious or political motivations can be reason enough to many.

dlhavema• 13 years ago

the title referenced "black children" specifically, but the article didn't mention it at all, is it supposed to be assumed all/majority of the kids sent to jail were black?

pessimizer• 13 years ago

It's a black site. The girl who got sentenced for the myspace page was white (or whitesque): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?pagewanted...

VladRussian22• 13 years ago

how in hell a child can get charged, let alone sent to do actual time, with crime for a mocking page? ok, judge is corrupt. Fine. Happens. Nevertheless, the judge wasn't the one who complained, arrested, charged the child. A lot of adults were involved and they actively facilitated this travesty happening.

People like to blame evil for evil things, yet evil would be able to do much less without reasonable, supposedly good, people actively helping evil things to happen.

jccc• 13 years ago

The actual ugliness of the story here is a bit obscured by the distorted framing of that headline. But that seems to be the modus operandi across this Web site:

"President Obama turns 52" (... with a photo from way back when he looked like a completely different man) http://rollingout.com/politics/happy-birthday-president-obam...

"[Tavis] Smiley’s hate of President Obama" (... really absurd if you know the history) http://rollingout.com/politics/funniest-twitter-responses-to...

"Cornel West’s rampage against President Obama" (... same) http://rollingout.com/politics/twitter-blasts-cornel-west-fo...

vegor5• 13 years ago

Should have gotten the lethal injection.

malandrew• 13 years ago

Or sent him to the same prison before all those kids got released for wrongful imprisonment.

sukuriant2• 13 years ago

Yeah, because we in the States really love to make a big thing and encourage the abuses that can happen in prison.

Wow...

viggity2• 13 years ago

how about 28 years in the electric chair?

Roboprog2• 13 years ago

Bart! Stop shocking your sister! Bzzzt! (non-lethal version for ongoing fun & games :-))

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

What about one of those skin tight spandex suits with shock electrodes in it? Then give the kids a smart phone with an app that allows them to shock on demand. Every time they feels angry or frustrated at their lives being ruined, then can seemly shock the judge...

"Shock the Judge".... Now there's a game show I'd watch.

mistercow2• 13 years ago

It seems to me that this is an example of exactly the kind of shenanigans that are why we should not allow the government to execute people. If a single judge can wrongfully imprison 4,000 children - and not out of ineptitude, but for profit - then how can we possibly trust the rest of the judicial system not to convict innocent people of capital crimes?

meepmorp• 13 years ago

It seems to me that if anyone deserves the death penalty, it's people like this judge.

Ordinary citizens don't have the power to deprive citizens of their civil rights at such a scale, it requires the extraordinary power of the state. The trust we need to have in judges makes such corruption not only more likely, but much more dangerous. So for cases like this, the punishment ought to be as extraordinary as the power needed for the crime.

I personally oppose the death penalty, so the suggestion is only half-serious, but I find the reasoning for reserving executions for egregious political corruption to be more compelling than for more common crimes.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

I feel like I fell for link bait - awful title.

That said, this is hardly a fair sentence. He should have to serve time equal to all those lives he destroyed. How about surrendering the money and life in prison?

andrewmunsell• 13 years ago

Considering his age, he'll likely be in prison for the majority of the rest of his life (if not the entirety of it).

viggity2• 13 years ago

for non-violent offenses, with good behavior you typically only serve 30-40% of your sentence (at least in iowa, my wife is a social worker and deals with people in the system).

clarky07• 13 years ago

At 63, 28 years is very likely to be a life sentence. If he makes it, he'll be 91 when he gets out.

WalterSear• 13 years ago

Still too soon.

robertfw• 13 years ago

He'll probably serve a fraction of that :(

grecy• 13 years ago

That's a special kind of evil.

noloqy3• 13 years ago

It's sad that in my country, where prisons are currently run by the government, there exist plans for privatization. With privatization there's almost no benefits, and a lot of opportunities for trouble; it the Dutch government feels the urge to repeat the mistakes of others.

justinmk2• 13 years ago

"Privatization" where the government contracts to third parties, is not privatization. When the decision is centrally-managed, and the revenue raised by force (taxes), you haven't addressed the central problem. So calling it privatization is misdirection. It's a confusion of terms that is meant to keep people arguing in circles.

Actual privatization removes centralized decision-making. We should be able to opt-out of governments and opt-in to alternative sovereigns. The fact that governments are allowed to claim authority on the basis of geography is why they're still in business, and it's why these messed up situations occur.

jeltz4• 13 years ago

I am a proponent of strong government but I agree about your point about this fake privatization which most of the time works the same way as before but with more overhead and corruption. It is just switching a government agency to a company filling exactly the same role in the same way.

noloqy3• 13 years ago

How would you describe the central problem you're referring to? I think the main issue here is that "the system" allows for the possibility of an unjust justice system due to commercial interests.

Everybody agrees that what has happened was illegal and should not have happened, and that it is the sovereign's responsibility to create a system in which the risks of such events are minimized, simply because the consequences can be so far stretching. This can be done by ensuring financial independence of judges; eliminating the role of parties who benefit from outcomes that are not necessarily aligned with society's benefits.

I don't yet see how decentralizing decision making reduces this risk.

falk• 13 years ago

""Privatization" where the government contracts to third parties, is not privatization."

Yes it is. The definition of privatization is simply "denationalization: changing something from state to private ownership or control."

kghose• 13 years ago

If the privatization plan had no incentive for increasing occupancy, then this problem would not occur. Regardless of whether things are government run or privately run the key is oversight by independent bodies that have as little incentive to be biased in one way or the other.

noloqy3• 13 years ago

True - you would have to set rules in place that would prevent any kind of incentive for increased occupancy, and then create government bodies that enforce these rules. Also, you would have to set rules in place for many kinds of standards for living conditions for inmates, and set up bodies that enforce those as well.

The thing is that when commercial incentives come into play, companies will go out of their way to find ways to increase profits. Privatization essentially starts a race to the bottom; a race that can only be slowed down by regulatory institutions. In the end, the company always wins and society loses. Banks have showed us that.

jlarocco• 13 years ago

Privatized prisons will always have an incentive to increase occupancy because they will always benefit by having more prisons and providing more jobs.

The problem with having an independent body provide oversight is that in the worst case it's just another level of corruption. Even in the best case they have an incentive to keep the prison system larger because it means more work (aka money) investigating and auditing.

I'm not a big fan of the government, but I think prisons are one thing the government should do itself.

aswanson3• 13 years ago

The privatization is just getting started. Look at this insanity: http://www.mockprisonriot.org/exhibitors/Pages/default.aspx

protomyth7• 13 years ago

The concern isn't the privatization[1], it is the profit motive of the contract does not align with the a just system. If the contract was based on potential cells as opposed to the actual number[2], then bribing to get more profit couldn't happen. The minute any groups profit incentive doesn't match your goal is going to give you problems.

1) do some reading on prison worker unions and you'll see the perversity isn't restricted to private enterprise

2) we will pay you a fixed X for your Y number of cell facility

digikata2• 13 years ago

Really the thing incentivized should be pushing down the recidivism rate (maybe in an x year period after release).

ojbyrne3• 13 years ago

Usually when "restitution" it always seems to be significantly more than the amount actually taken. In this case, not, and I wonder why:

"...received more than $2.6 million from privately run youth centers owned by PA Child Care. In 2011, Ciavarella was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 28 years in prison. He was also forced to pay $1 million in restitution..."

cmsmith• 13 years ago

(in 2011)

looks like one of his latest appeals was denied recently.

drcube2• 13 years ago

... received more than $2.6 million ...
... forced to pay $1 million ...

Moral: crime pays.

pstuart• 13 years ago

There are limited shopping options in prison.

drcube2• 13 years ago

At least his kids' futures are secured. Good job, dad.

jack-r-abbit• 13 years ago

... Ciavarella and his colleague, Judge Michael Conahan, received more than $2.6 million ...
... He was also forced to pay $1 million ...

We don't know his cut of the $2.6M or what the other guy's fine is/was (assuming other guy also has to pay). But yes... they basically just had to give the money back. (And go to prison for a bit)

x0x0• 13 years ago

sentences:

this judge, Ciavarella, got 28 years;

the other judge, Conahan, who not only sold kids but also helped prevent use of the county's facility, got 17.5 years in prison; [2]

Robert Powell, an attorney that passed the bribes and part owner of the facility, got 18mos in prison and $60k in fines (it is unclear how much he will serve), plus he gets to serve in Miami to be close to his family. He did apparently cooperate and wear a wire. [2]

Robert Mericle, the real estate developer who built the two facilities, paid $2.15MM to fund childrens' health programs and will likely serve 1 year or even just probation;

And then you read, from the wiki article [1], "Sandy Fonzo, whose son Edward Kenzakoski committed suicide after Ciavarella gave him a jail sentence, despite Kenzakoski's first-time offender status" and I sit here amazed. Millions of dollars of theft, bribes accepted not only for children but in cases as well, children sold for cash, children pushed into suicide... I'd say all of them got a slap on the wrist.

The other thing, unremarked upon by the wiki article, is I wonder who else knew about this? Just like Annie Dookhan, who was faking drug test results in Boston and sent hundreds at least to prison, possibly tainting thirty four thousand verdicts, or Jonathan Salvador, who was doing similar things in texas [4], tainting five thousand convictions, I'd bet good money there where people who saw this happening. Did you read some of the convictions? "He once sentenced a teen to three months in jail for creating a MySpace page that mocked her school’s assistant principal." Many of these fucking pigs knew what was going on, knew how to fuck a kid who was mouthy or didn't kiss their asses and send them to the judge that would send the kid up the river. Moral: never trust a pig.

from [4]

   Worse yet, the lab Salvador worked for knew he was doing a bad job for 
   years. A DPS investigative commission found that Salvador was asked to 
   correct mistakes in about a third of all the tests he ran. Periodic job 
   evaluations noted that Salvador struggled with an overall understanding of 
   chemistry and that his problems were very systemic and his work right on the 
   edge of tolerable, though not catastrophic. 
   
   It could probably be described as catastrophic now. Twenty cases have been 
   overturned so far, voiding almost 160 years of prison sentences. If all of 
   Salvador's cases are thrown out, which is looking more likely, the lost 
   sentences will total more than 10,000 years.

   In Walker County, DA David Weeks has already given up. His 
   office tried to retest evidence from Salvador's cases, but the results were 
   haphazard, Weeks told the Hunstville Item. In a case where [Salvador] said 
   there was drugs, there wouldnt be. And when he said there were no drugs, 
   there were drugs. "Its clear that all the cases [Salvador] worked on are 
   irreparably damaged, Weeks said. He's already making arrangements to expunge 
   the records of every affected defendant. It blew up in our faces.

I'd bet if anyone looked hard enough in the kids for cash trade, there were at best a bunch of other people not seeing what was plain as day in front of them.

sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

[2] http://citizensvoice.com/18-month-sentence-for-powell-kids-f...

[3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210168/Boston-state...

[4] http://www.texasobserver.org/fake-lab-results-endanger-thous...

[5] http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Drug_War_Eats_Itse...

edited: I accidentally clicked submit while still editing

rossjudson• 13 years ago

I am stunned that Robert Mericle, who paid these judges to sentence children to his facility has apparently been able to buy himself a get-out-of-jail free card.

The message being sent here is, if YOU own a prison and YOU do this, it might cost you some extra money if you get caught (and some token prison time).

PhasmaFelis• 13 years ago

"I'd say all of them got a slap on the wrist."

The two judges are in their 60s. They'll probably die in prison. I'm satisfied with that.

The other two fuckers, yeah.

jeltz4• 13 years ago

I would say the judges got fair prison sentences, but they should also have been forced to pay all the 4000 kids damages.

All others involved on the other hand got a slap on the wrist.

mike-cardwell• 13 years ago

No amount of money is worth 28 years in jail.

sliverstorm3• 13 years ago

How about enough money to pay off your mafia creditors who are out for your head?

arthulia• 13 years ago

I wonder if he'll have to serve the full sentence.

guiseppecalzone• 13 years ago

There's no mention if there were any repercussions for the private juvenile facilities.

Roboprog2• 13 years ago

If there were any justice, the restitution that the bribing company was required to pay would bankrupt it (them?). But we know that won't happen :-(

I would have thought that at least somebody in the company would be thrown under the bus for signing the expense report for the bribes (regardless of the line item description used instead of "bribe"), though. This will allow the company to hire a new patsy to bribe new judges to continue their operation.

jdmt• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

This whole problem stems from the movement to privatize prisons. It's a disgusting abuse of power. The lives of many at-risk children (and their families) have been turned upside-down due to greed.

donohoe• 13 years ago

The question is - where else is this happening now?

forrestthewoods• 13 years ago

Can we also send all prosecutors who only care about maintaing a 100% conviction rate to jail? Their actions are the exact same as far as I'm concerned.

khuey• 13 years ago

A prosecutor maintaining a 100% conviction rate isn't necessarily a bad thing if it mean they only charge people against whom they can build an ironclad case.

bilbo0s• 13 years ago

Of course, they can build an ironclad case against ANYONE.

So...

dclowd9901• 13 years ago

I don't want a 100% conviction rate from a prosecutor. I want a conviction rate that reflects the statistical norm of a person being charged with a crime and being convicted. Anything outside of that within a few points margin-of-error is grounds for removal.

solistice2• 13 years ago

What really troubles me is what they'll do to help those 4000 children. I think they might lack the maturity to deal with their experience. Hell, if someone sent me to jail over something like that when I was in my teens, I would certainly have taken the wrong turn at that point.

noonespecial• 13 years ago

With that many kids, at those impressionable ages, I'd say there's a limited but real chance they may have created a "Joker" level villian somewhere in that bunch.

solistice2• 13 years ago

What scares me about it is that these kids have likely gotten used to juvenile detention (and detention in general), which'll lead them to view it more lax.

Adding to that the time they lost outside of the school system, the social stigma that goes along with having been to "jail" and you've got yourself more a more explosive cocktail than anything described in the anarchists cookbook.

If you're socially sidelined and have no options for a career, crime is enticing. Especially since you've been stamped a criminal allready, and you've been locked up (yes, they were aquitted, but they won't realize that, and their peers won't either).

Assuming they just took problem kids across the whole spectrum, assuming 500 non problem kids, you have 3500 problem kids. A rough guess of mine would be that 1-2% are too smart for school kids that cause trouble out of sheer boredom. So you've got 70 bored hacker type kids that suddenly have someone who's mistreated them, and I'd want to get back at them. A couple of them proably took the frugal coping mechanism of sociopathy.

If your school system gets kids to come to school armed, prepared to kill, how the hell will that play out?

protomyth7• 13 years ago

"Pennsylvania is one of just a handful of states that do not provide any money to counties to defend those who can't afford a lawyer."[1]

Perhaps the DA and Public Defenders office should have equal budgets.

I am hoping some very smart lawyer figures out how to sue the prison company for these children. I am sure their is a corporate veil, but it can be pierced in the cases of criminal activity. Public-private partnerships work in a lot of cases, but this one needs a serious hammer to show that pulling this crap is bad and will put some scheming folks in jail.

1) http://www.npr.org/2012/03/03/147876810/after-scandal-new-ru...

tracker12• 13 years ago

I would prefer that the public defenders office and the DA office have to rotate their staff out to eachother... so you cannot just serve as a DA.

aswanson3• 13 years ago

Brilliant. That would align incentives more along the lines of serving justice rather than sensationalism/careerism.

protomyth7• 13 years ago

That would be very interesting. Does any country do that? A pool of lawyers randomly chosen might be an interesting variant.

I do wish the $ were closer, but your idea would basically fix that.

agwa2• 13 years ago

That's how it works in the military. There was recently some interesting discussion about the merits of this idea amongst some defense attorneys (including some PDs and a lawyer with military justice experience) in the comments section here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130523171557/http://blog.simple...

Bottom line, there are advantages but also downsides to this approach.

(non-Wayback Machine link, where unfortunately the comments are no longer threaded: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/01/23/response-to-radleyba...)

gohrt6• 13 years ago

I worry that the corrupt DAs would just be more corrupt PDs.

norswap• 13 years ago

Nice idea, but wouldn't it lead to "win trading" (I let you win this case, then you let me win next)?

sixothree2• 13 years ago

I was a juror on a murder trial and the number one reason for me voting not guilty was the absolute glaring disparity between the budget of the defense and the budget of the prosecution. The defendant essentially had no representation. I would do it again without reservation.

nfriedly• 13 years ago

Good move. Another thing along these lines that's worth mentioning is jury nullification. You can believe that the person is 100% guilty as charged and still vote "not guilty" if you believe that the situation merited the actions or even if you believe that the action was wrong but the punishment will be too harsh. It's one of the checks and balances we (citizens) have over our government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

s_baby• 13 years ago

As I've read about this story for the past couple years not once have the bribers been mentioned. How much time will they be serving? Are these really people that should be trusted with the incarceration of minors?

batiste• 13 years ago

This is absolutely revolting and disgusting! Good think he got 28 years.

negamax• 13 years ago

Would the prison company be punished for this?

chris_wot• 13 years ago

4,000 kids? Each kid has at least 5 people who love and care for them.

20,000 folks who start an action group might start some change!

nokya• 13 years ago

They forgot the best part: 1) Statistical analysis of the children's ethnicity and religion. Where is it? 2) What about the personnel working in the prisons? Where they all completely unaware of that situation? 3) Private prisons are State-financed. Translation: money was taken from the pockets of US citizens to make sure these children would not have any chance of a bright future.

Meanwhile, in the USA...

argumentum3• 13 years ago

I've been following this case for a while .. extremely disturbing situation and the sentences were far too light for many of the offending parties, such as the builder of the facility who bribed the judges. Just imagine how it must have felt to be one of the kids. It's sick, really.

It seems that if you hide behind corporate structures and contracts you can transform the nature of charges against your actions. In this case, the offenses committed involved enslaving children for personal financial gain. If there is any offense worse than that, please inform.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

The judges received long sentences for their involvement. Robert Powell, co-owner of the facility and Robert Mericle, the developer who built the facilities, only pled guilty to failing to report a felony, failing to disclose money paid as a finders' fee, and conspiracy to tax evasion. They face one to three years each, but those sentences are consistent with the felonies to which they pled guilty.

The plea deal is light for the two developers probably because the prosecutor didn't have as much evidence to pin on them, and because they needed their cooperation to get the judges. Remember, news articles about a crime are not admissible as the factual record in a trial. Just because it's obvious from a news article exactly what happened does not mean that the prosecutor didn't need to bargain for certain peoples' cooperation to bring all those facts to light.

argumentum3• 13 years ago

failing to disclose money paid as a finders' fee

Umm .. they paid bribes to judges to enslave children. This isn't some tech startup recruiting employees.

icn2• 13 years ago

This is why I always object monetizing public services.

patmcguire• 13 years ago

I've not seen on a single story related to this about the actual bribers: they just name the company, but don't press criminal charges against individuals, or even sue the company? How is that an appropriate response?

beedogs• 13 years ago

I hope this asshole dies in jail, and I fear he's not the last crooked judge they'll catch doing this shit.

Private prisons are a disgrace to the justice system.

Expeck• 13 years ago

Wow! I remember these guys from Micheal Moore's movie "Capitalism a Love Story".There is part about private jails for teenagers. It says that 6500 kids were unjustly convicted. Some kids were locked up even when probation officers objected to detention. You can watch that part here: http://vimeo.com/39118828 00:30:30

orbitingpluto• 13 years ago

Those who prey on children tend to have a real bad time in prison when the prison population finds out.

Considering the number of people sentenced, good luck keeping their identities a secret. Neither of the judges is going to enjoy their stay.

canadiancreed• 13 years ago

When I first heard about this, I was thinking that it happened in a third world country. After reading that it occured in Pennsylvania....I'm just amazed, disgusted, and furious. Hopefully Harrisburg does a long cleanup of that section of the state's court system, that civil suit crushes those responsible for this, and the bastards that profited from such a bastardization of justice serve the entire sentence out in a Hell on earth.

spoiledtechie• 13 years ago

This might be news, but what the heck does this have to do with Hacker News?

mhartl• 13 years ago

Contra the OP, the problem isn't for-profit prisons per se; the problem is for-profit prisons in a political system highly susceptible to rent-seeking by special interest groups.

SloughFeg• 13 years ago

Anyone else want to create a HN spinoff with me? We can call it "SOCIAL JUSTICE NEWS" or just "SOCIAL J" for short.

Judge to serve 28 years after making $2 million sending children to jail

Related Stories