This is the kind of thing that privatization breeds, especially when it comes to prisons built to incarcerate victimless criminals. You know, the kind of ‘criminal’ Stephen Harper is planning to go after (growing pot chief among the ‘crimes’).
The ex-judge, Mark A. Ciavarella, Jr., 61, was given the harsh sentence after he told the judge that he apologized for unethical behavior but had never taken “cash for kids.”
He was found guilty in February of twelve counts of racketeering, conspiracy, fraud and filing false tax returns. The jury acquitted him on 27 other counts of bribery and extortion, as he pointed out to the judge before he was sentenced.
Ciavarella, for years the head of juvenile court in the county, was charged with the former president judge there in a $2.8 million scheme to enrich themselves through their control of juvenile justice in Luzerne County.
The other ex-judge, Michael T. Conahan, 59, pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, as are other key conspirators in the plot, including the builder and an owner of a for-profit juvenile detention center that was at the heart of the corruption.
