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Topic: Two Pennsylvania judges plead guilty in kickback scheme (Read 670 times) |
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Blunderov
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Two Pennsylvania judges plead guilty in kickback scheme
« on: 2009-02-13 08:11:10 » |
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[Blunderov I think I may have mentioned previously that I'm against free-enterprise prisons? Quite apart from overt corruption as in the following account, imagine facing a judge and jury all of whom, perhaps, have shares in the local prison.I suppose it might be argued that such persons could be called upon to recuse themselves but this seems to me unlikely to ever happen. Reductio absurdio, the case could turn out to be impossible to bring to trial and would thus impede the warm flow of luscious profit. Snowballs in hell are still in the game by comparison.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3734166
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100587066
2 Pa. judges plead guilty in kickback scheme
from The Associated Press
SCRANTON, Pa. February 12, 2009, 03:37 pm ET · Two Pennsylvania judges charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send youth offenders to privately run detention centers pleaded guilty to fraud Thursday in one of the most stunning cases of judicial corruption on record.
Prosecutors allege Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, possibly tainting the convictions of thousands of juvenile offenders.
The judges pleaded guilty in federal court in Scranton to honest services fraud and tax fraud. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years in prison. They were permitted to remain free pending sentencing.
The gray-haired jurists said little at Thursday's hearing, and declined to comment to reporters afterward.
Prosecutors described a scheme in which Conahan, the former president judge of Luzerne County, shut down the county-owned juvenile detention center in 2002 and signed an agreement with PA Child Care LLC to send youth offenders to its new facility outside Wilkes-Barre.
Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, sent youths to the detention center while he was taking payments, prosecutors said.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters' constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before, and some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it. Many of the youths didn't have attorneys.
Ciavarella has specifically denied sending kids to jail for cash, and had indicated he would not go through with the guilty plea if the government offered that as evidence.
Thus prosecutors left out any mention Thursday of a quid pro quo, presenting only enough evidence to establish that crimes had occurred.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubron said after the hearing that the government continues to allege a quid pro quo. "We're not negotiating that, no. We're not backing off," he said.
The prosecutor said it will be up to U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik to settle the matter. Kosik could reject the proposed sentence as too light if he decides there was a quid pro quo.
"I think there will be significant disagreements as to what the facts are," Zubrod said. "Was there a connection between the payments and the money, and young people going to prison? Those are issues that are going to be addressed later by the court. There's going to be plenty of time to fight about that."
The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.
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Blunderov
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Re:Two Pennsylvania judges plead guilty in kickback scheme
« Reply #1 on: 2009-02-19 03:18:25 » |
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[Blunderov] The two reptile judges involved seem to be getting away with what verges on murder. 87 months of soft time? "Chycho" at bellaciao.org reflects on the true enormity of this crime and the witches brew that spawned it.
February Thursday 19 2009 (08h43) :
US Judges involved in human trafficking www.chycho.com
At this point in my life I am against the death penalty, mainly because I know the system is corrupt, however I have been a supporter of the death penalty in the past and may become one in the future, so I have a question for those who support the death penalty in the United States of America, or anywhere else for that matter. Would you execute the members of a criminal syndicate responsible for child trafficking?
Specific Example
On Thursday, 12 February 2009, “judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.”
“While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“‘In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,’ said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.”
Definition of human and child trafficking
Before we continue, let’s eliminate any misgivings some may have concerning this crime by defining human and child trafficking.
The International Save the Children Alliance defines Child Trafficking as follows:
“…there are some basic elements of trafficking that are widely agreed upon, such as violence, deception, coercion, deprivations of freedom of movement, abuse of authority, debt bondage, forced labour and slavery-like practices, and other forms of exploitation or use of force.”
Wikipedia defines trafficking of children as:
“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation.”
The United Nations defines human trafficking as:
“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation".
Now that that’s clear, let’s return to specifics of this case and do some number crunching.
Profits and Costs
These judges sold 5,000 children in five years for $2.6 million. This means that on average they sold approximately three children per day for $520 each for a net profit of $1,560 per day. These are the numbers that have been revealed so far.
In Ohio the cost of housing a juvenile is $90 per day but in Pennsylvania prisons are among the nation’s most costly facilities at $93.21 per adult inmate per day. The cost of incarcerating juveniles is in general higher than adults, so for our calculations let’s assume the cost to be $100 per child per day.
Considering that judge Mark A. Ciavarella sentenced Hillary Transue, “a stellar student who had never been in trouble”, to three months at one of the private juvenile detention centers “for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school”, I believe it would be safe to assume that the average sentence per child would have been much higher than that. Let’s assume the average sentence to be approximately six months to one year. If we assume this estimate to be in the right ballpark, then PA Child Care and its sister company, Western PA Child Care, would have made between $18,250 to $36,500 per child sentenced by the judges. Multiplying this by 5,000 children brings the cost to Pennsylvania taxpayers to between $91,250,000 to $182,500,000.
All that money explains how PA Child Care was able to afford the two judges and the expansions to their facilities all the way up to 2008.
It should also be noted that the above judges “shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition… and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers. Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.”
This is the cost of the Prison-industrial complex in the United States and the difference between good infrastructure and bad infrastructure. This is what the system has been doing to our children, so just imagine what they have been doing to minorities and the poor. Keep in mind that “the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners”, with "1 in 100 U.S. adults behind bars.”
Consequences and Implications
Amazing isn’t it? Child trafficking in the United States of America by a criminal organization which included two judges and numerous other people who may or may not be charged in the future. The only thing we know so far is that the first two people charged with this specific crime may only serve “87 months in federal prison” and be forced to “resign from the bench and bar.”
In prisons everyone is threatened by physical, sexual and mental abuse, and this criminal organization was responsible for systematically forcing thousands of children and their families and loved ones to endure the pain and anguish of this reality. So my question to those who support the death penalty is this: after all the investigations are done and everyone who was involved in commoditizing our children is arrested, charged and prosecuted for human trafficking, would you execute them?
Keep in mind that these people did not accidentally destroy the lives of these children and their families, nor did they do it because they were mentally ill. They committed these crimes against humanity for money. They abused and victimized the most vulnerable in our society because they wanted to accumulate a fiat currency. They treated other human beings, our children, as a commodity in a private prison industrial complex that makes profit from incarcerating as many people as possible.
Tip of the Iceberg
Our civilization is sick and in need of help, and if you think this is just one isolated case of child abuse by the government, then watch the following 1994 documentary: “Conspiracy of Silence”.
Conspiracy of Silence (51:48)
www.chycho.com
By : chycho
February Thursday 19 2009
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Two Pennsylvania judges plead guilty in kickback scheme
« Reply #2 on: 2009-02-19 12:45:55 » |
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2009-02-13 08:11:10 [Blunderov I think I may have mentioned previously that I'm against free-enterprise prisons? Quite apart from overt corruption as in the following account, imagine facing a judge and jury all of whom, perhaps, have shares in the local prison.
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I can't begin to tell you how much against private prisons I am. In any civil society valuing human rights, taking people's liberty via criminal justice should be an exclusively governmental task -- it has VERY little to do with efficiency and very much to do with accountability. I don't mind private contractors running a prison commissary but other than a few details like that, private industry is the wrong tool for legal incarceration and a recipe for corruption and human rights disasters.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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