Former Luzerne District Court Judges Michael Conahan, front left, and Mark Ciavarella, front right, leave the United States District Court in Scranton, Pa., in 2009. Two Pennsylvania judges orchestrated a plan to bring the case. children entering prison for profit in return were ordered to pay over $200 million to the hundreds of children who became victims of their crimes.
Mark Moran / AP
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Mark Moran / AP
Former Luzerne District Court Judges Michael Conahan, front left, and Mark Ciavarella, front right, leave the United States District Court in Scranton, Pa., in 2009. Two Pennsylvania judges orchestrated a plan to bring the case. children entering prison for profit in return were ordered to pay over $200 million to the hundreds of children who became victims of their crimes.
Mark Moran / AP
Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to prison for profit in exchange for kickbacks have been ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they were victims of in one of the scandals. worst judicial scandal in US history.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in punitive damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a protracted civil action against the judges, writes the plaintiffs. single as “tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions”.
In the so-called child-for-money scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, closed a juvenile detention center run by the county and accept $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit keys. Ciavarella, who presided over the juvenile trial, has promoted a zero-tolerance policy that ensures a large number of children will be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.
Ciavarella ordered the detention of children 8 years and younger, many of whom were found guilty for the first time for petty theft, reckless running, truancy, smoking in the school yard and other misdemeanors other small. Judges often order young men he finds guilty to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to defend themselves or even say goodbye to their families.
“Ciavarella and Conahan reneged on their oath and violated the public’s trust,” Conner wrote Tuesday in his explanation of the ruling. “Their heinous and despicable acts have fallen victim to a group of vulnerable young people, many of whom are suffering from emotional problems and mental health problems. .”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court handed down about 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 children after the scheme was uncovered.
It’s unlikely that now-adult victims will see even a small fraction of the eye-watering damages award, but a lawyer for the plaintiffs said it was recognition of the magnitude of the damage. greatness of the crimes of the disgraced judges.
“It’s a huge win,” Marsha Levick, co-founder and chief counsel of the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center and attorney for plaintiffs, said Wednesday. “For an order from a federal court to recognize the gravity of what the judges did to these children during the most critical years of their childhood and development, the matter is very important. big, whether the money is paid or not.”
Another lawyer for the plaintiffs, Sol Weiss, said he would begin investigating the judges’ assets, but did not think they had the money to pay the verdict.
Ciavarella, 72, is serving a 28-year prison sentence in Kentucky. His expected release date is 2035.
Conahan, 70, was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison but was release to detention in 2020 – with six years left in prison – because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Conner made the ruling after hearing often emotional testimony last year from 282 people who appeared in Luzerne County juvenile court between 2003 and 2008 – 79 of them under the age of 13. when Ciavarella took them to a juvenile detention center – and 32 parents.
“They recounted his repressive and authoritarian nature, his disregard for due process, his abrupt abruptness, and his cavalier and licentious behavior in the courtroom,” he said. Conner wrote.
An unnamed child victim testified that Ciavarella “ruined my life” and “just didn’t let me have my future,” according to Conner’s judgment.
Another plaintiff said: “I feel like I’ve just been sold out for no reason. It’s like people are just standing in line to get sold.”
Another victim described how he swayed uncontrollably at a regular stop – a consequence of the traumatic impact of childhood incarceration – and had to present his mental health records in court. to “explain why my behavior is so erratic.”
Some of the childhood victims who were part of the lawsuit that began in 2009 died from drug overdoses or committed suicide, Conner said.
To calculate compensatory damages, the judge decided each plaintiff was entitled to a base rate of $1,000 per day of wrongful detention, and adjusted that amount based on the circumstances of each case. Conner wrote substantial punitive damages because the disgraced judges had inflicted “indescribable physical and mental harm”.
The damages award covers only claimants who have opted in to the settlement.
Other protagonists in the case settled years ago, including builders and owners of private locks and their companies, for a total payout of about $25 million. .
