Simply Judge for Yourself
If found guilty -- especially for what would constitute a crime against humanity -- the two longtime scoundrel judges of Luzerne County should be imprisoned for 70 years, not merely seven.
Entrusted to obey and administer the law, Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan have been indicted for accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks to make sure the Pennsylvania Child Care LLC -- a detention center for youth-- was filled to the rafters with juveniles.
What they have done -- for the moment, let's forget the money -- was operated in their court room the very same way as Hitler and his Third Reich who sent innocent people to concentration camps during World War II.
Many of the youth "imprisoned" were ordered there even though, in countless cases, juvenile authorities informed the bench that their punishment certainly needn't go that far. They may have had their problems, it was argued, but these kids certainly weren't criminals.
How many young lives have you ruined, Judges Ciavarella and Conahan, because of your lust and greed for money?
The only reason it was done is because the higher the occupancy rate at the detention center, the more and more kickbacks that would be forthcoming in your despicable scheme.
Information in the federal documents indicates the two judges were playing ball with attorney Robert J. Powell, former co-owner of the detention center, and also with contractor Robert Mericle, whose company had constructed the facility in Pittston Township.
Both Ciavarella and Conahan have been charged with receiving $2.6 million in kickbacks and already have signed plea agreements that would result in prison sentences of more than seven years, removal from the bench and disbarment providing the agreements are approved by a federal judge.
Meanwhile, a youth advocacy group in Philadelphia has reported that it's contemplating launching a federal class action lawsuit against Civarella for accepting kickbacks for placing juvenile offenders into privately owned detention centers.
The Juvenile Law Center has several young clients who claim they were deprived of their civil rights when they appeared before him.
"It's very difficult to sue judges for violations of rights of any sort," said Marsha Levick, the center's legal director. "But we have a unique situation here, where we have a judge who appears to have acted outside the scope of his judicial responsibilities."
The indictment against two longtime Luzerne County judges is the perfect example of why the anthracite region has long been the dumping ground for toxic and hazardous waste, with a blatant disregard by law-enforcement authorities and corrupt, disgusting politicians who have shown they have a blatant disregard for human life.
It is indeed ironic that the remaining Luzerne judges now want county residents to trust them. How naive of them to think that they knew nothing about the corruption that was going on for the longest time inside the court house.
The fact is, the Luzerne court house needs a complete housecleaning -- same with the local scum bag politicians -- and start all over again. It's time to open all the windows to let the stink out.
Luzerne's court house has been morally and spiritually bankrupt -- blind to our past, blind to the present and blind to our future.
With the county a toxic hell hole which has caused our horrendous health statistics and, as we've now become aware, the ruination of those young individuals who un deservedly had been locked up in the county's detention center -- with no regard for their lives or their futures -- is nothing short of barbarisms.
The county's political structure is just as guilty with its disregard for human life, who think only of their own self-gratification and their desire to have themselves plastered in the Northeast Pennsylvania news media with plaques and praise for a job well done.
But these Luzerne County pillars of society are only fooling themselves because John Q. Public is well aware they are nothing more than con -- and -- bullshit artists.
The local news media -- Times-Shamrock, in particular. but also the three Northeast television stations -- is just as demeaning while it continually prints or airs slanted self-serving messages conveying a totally false image of their integrity and sense of fair play.
You can be assured that, when sentencing is eventually passed, the Scheming Judges will be ordered to spend their time at Lewisburg, the Resort Hotel of America's Prisons.
I'd strongly recommend that they instead become permanent occupants of A REAL PRISON -- but at least allow them to have their friends send them frequent packages of Vaseline and Preparation H.
