Just when you think you’ve heard the lowest-of-the-low, along come these two judiciary scumbags who shipped helpless American children to jail in return for money kickbacks. This is no joke. Pennsylvania judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan received 28 years and 17 ½ years, respectively, in prison for what’s known as the Kids For Cash scandal. These two legal low-lives sentenced hundreds of defenseless children—some as young as eight—to jail time in a for-profit U.S. prison. The kids’ “crimes” included petty theft, smoking on school grounds, jaywalking, truancy, and other indiscretions.

You’d think this could only happen in some despotic hell-hole, but it took place in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania beginning in the early 2000s. Judges Conahan and Ciavarella made a pact to close their publicly funded, juvenile detention center and contract incarceration services with an allied, for-profit, private facility. What was in it for these two despicable bench-bastards was $2.8 million in under-the-table rewards.

Besides being jailed themselves, the dishonored your-honors were sued by their victims and assessed at over $200 million in settlements. How could this travesty happen in a hell-hole, let alone in America? Let’s look at how the Kids For Cash scandal occurred.

Michael Conahan was born in 1952. He earned his law degree at Temple University in Philadelphia and went on to serve as a Judge on the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County. During the last four years of his tenure, Conahan was the county’s President Judge. He controlled the lock-up budgets with that position.

Mark Ciavarella was born in 1950. His law degree came from Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh and he also served as a Judge on the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County. As well, Ciavarella was a President Judge prior to Conahan.

It was during Ciavarella’s presidency that the Kids For Cash scheme hatched. For years, Ciavarella observed a major flaw in the county’s public detention and corrections system. It was terribly inefficient with spending and rehabilitation—a bad bang-for-the buck and a revolving door, especially in the juvenile department.

Ciavarella explored the private corrections model which was cropping up across America. Privately-run jails have always been controversial with the biggest concern being poor treatment of inmates at the expense of excessive profits. This was exactly the profit center that interested Ciavarella, and he took Conahan into his vision of turning the publicly run juvenile detention facility (which he held financial supervision of through his role as president) into a newly constructed, privately funded and for-profit business.

By 2002, Ciavarella and Conahan had their framework in place. They conspired with two other cockroaches—Robert Mericle, a Pennsylvania building contractor, and Robert Powell, a co-owner of the for-profit business—to construct and operate two new jails. The deal was simple. Powell and Mericle would form the company, build the facilities, and operate them. Ciavarella and Conahan would funnel public county money to fund the projects and then stock it with sentenced kids.

In return for cash kick-backs.

Between 2003 and 2008, Ciavarella and Conahan funnelled hundreds of children to the PA Child Care and the Western PA Child Care for-profit juvenile detention centers. In exchange, the two court crooks received and split $2.8 million in kickbacks. What they did with the money is a sick and shameful story of the seven sins.

It was well known that Ciavarella and Conahan ran kangaroo courts where due process was a façade. Youths and their families were lured into waiving their right to counsel with 54.8% of the children not beingrepresented. This was compared to 7.4% in all other parts of Pennsylvania. Further, juvenile offenders were 10 times more likely to be incarcerated in Luzerne County, again compared to all other PA counties.

Judge Ciavarella was particularly brash and abusive towards children in hearings that routinely lasted under five minutes before Ciavarella sent them off to the lockup. Despite dozens and dozens of adult witnesses to Ciavarella’s bad behavior—including court staff, prosecutors, defense counsel, bailiffs, probation officers, police officers, and other judges—no one took Ciavarella to task until word leaked that he was receiving kickbacks from the detention facility operators.

That word came in April 2008 from a confidential source which triggered a multi-disciplinary investigation. The source originally implicated Conahan alone who was the initial focus of a complaint laid by the Philadelphia-based advocacy group called the Juvenile Law Centre. They petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to investigate Conahan which started the ball rolling.

Soon the disciplinary probe discovered there had been four previous complaints laid against Conahan to Pennsylvania’s Judicial Conduct Board. These were between 2004 and 2008 in which none were investigated nor documented. The probe also found the FBI was tipped off about Conahan’s as well as Ciavarella’s kickbacks and the federal law enforcement force also failed to act.

Conahan’s and Ciavarella’s Achilles Heel came in the form of another sleazy judge who turned them in to save her own skin. Ann H. Lokuta was removed from the bench in Luzerne County by the Judicial Conduct Board in November 2008 and was facing indictment for using court workers to do her personal bidding. She “squealed” on Ciavarella and Conahan which kicked the dominoes and flushed a trail of evidence so thick that the two bottom-feeders eventually negotiated guilty pleas to multiple corruption charges. These included racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery, and federal tax violations.

On August 11, 2011, Mark Ciavarella received a 28-year sentence. He’s serving it at a Kentucky federal prison and is set for release in 2035. Ciavarella will be 85 when he’s unlocked.

Michael Conahan faired better. He got a 17 ½ year prison term. It was also in a federal penitentiary until Covid came along and he was released in June 2020 to serve his remaining time under house arrest.

The criminal charges weren’t the end of legal troubles for these two despicable pieces of judicial shit. They were pursued in a class action lawsuit laid by nearly 300 plaintiffs. In August 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Conner ordered Ciaverella and Conahan to pay the victims $106 million in compensatory damages plus $100 million in punitive damages. Conner’s compensation package was based on $1,000 per wrongfully incarcerated day per plaintiff.

To quote Judge Conner: “The plaintiffs are the tragic human consequences of a scandal of epic proportions. The children endured unspeakable physical and emotional trial all for the greed of two despicable men.”

“Despicable.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a strong enough word, so I looked it up. The dictionary defines despicable as “Deserving hatred and contempt.” It also has synonyms of loathsome, reprehensible, detestable, and abhorrent.

Yes, despicable is the right word to describe Michael Conahan and Mark Ciaverella.

But, there are other despicable people in this horrible event. Those are the systematic professionals who stood by and allowed this kangaroo court and for-profit prisons to operate, wilfully oblivious to the greater graft.

Those people should also be held accountable in the despicable kids for cash scandal.