Prosecutors add charges against 2 Penna. judges

ALLENTOWN - Federal prosecutors have ratcheted up their pursuit of two former Luzerne County Court judges accused of taking $2.8 million in kickbacks to place youth offenders in private detention centers.

Former Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan were charged in a 48-count indictment Wednesday with racketeering, extortion, bribery, money laundering, fraud, and other crimes. The indictment was made public yesterday.

The judges pleaded guilty in February to two counts - honest-services fraud and tax evasion - in a deal with prosecutors that called for a sentence of 87 months in prison, far below federal guidelines. But Senior U.S. District Judge Edward M. Kosik rejected the deal last month, saying the two had not fully accepted responsibility.

The pair then switched their pleas to not guilty, and prosecutors took the case to a grand jury, adding counts against the two. The judges have an initial court appearance Tuesday.

Al Flora, Ciavarella's attorney, said his client would plead not guilty.

"Even though you now have an indictment handed down, the indictment is nothing more than allegations made by the government. My client is presumed innocent under the law," Flora said.

Conahan's attorney declined to comment.

The addition of so many counts will give prosecutors a bigger margin of error and greater leeway to introduce evidence at trial, said University of Missouri law professor Frank O. Bowman III, a former federal prosecutor.

"There's an element of theatrics in this, as well," he said. "The government is basically saying, 'We're throwing the book at these guys.' "

The indictment accused Ciavarella and Conahan of extorting kickbacks from the former co-owner of PA Child Care L.L.C. and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.

Conahan shut down Luzerne County's existing juvenile-detention facility in 2002, saying it was unsafe. In 2004, the county entered a 20-year, $58 million agreement with PA Child Care to lease its new Pittston Township facility.

The indictment said that Ciavarella, as juvenile court judge, sent youths to PA Child Care and later to its sister facility while he was accepting payments. To keep the prison beds full, Ciavarella routinely deprived young defendants of their right to counsel, ordered them into detention even when probation officers did not recommend it, and pressured probation officials to change their recommendations, the indictment said.

The allegations in the indictment are nearly identical to those that prosecutors first made in court papers in January.