Kids-for-cash judge to stay in prison

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — A disgraced Pennsylvania judge who locked up thousands of juvenile offenders while he was taking kickbacks from the owner and builder of for-profit detention centers has lost his bid to be released from prison because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mark Ciavarella, a former Luzerne County juvenile court judge, had requested compassionate release from a federal lockup in Kentucky. The 70-yearold cited his age, his underlying medical conditions that put him at heightened risk of serious illness from COVID-19, and the virus outbreaks that have swept through the prison.

U.S. District Judge Christopher C. Conner ruled this week that Ciavarella, who is serving a 28year prison sentence, should remain behind bars even though he “arguably established extraordinary and compelling reasons for compassionate release.”

Ciavarella “continues to understate the seriousness of his offense conduct,” Judge Conner wrote, and “persists in downplaying the overall criminal scheme and his role in it.” He noted Ciavarella has served less than half of his sentence.

In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a countyrun juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and coowner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.

Prosecutors said Ciavarella ordered children as young as 10 to detention, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes. The judge often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to say goodbye to their families.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out some 4,000 juvenile convictions after the scheme was uncovered.

Conahan, 68, the other judge in the scandal, was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison. He was released to home confinement last year with six years left on his sentence because of coronavirus concerns.

Last year, Ciavarella lost his bid for a new sentencing hearing after three of the 12 counts of his 2011 conviction were overturned on appeal.