Judge Ciavarella sentenced to 28 years in prison

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 This StoryPosted: August 11
Updated: Today at 2:09 AM
Judge Ciavarella sentenced to 28 years in prison

Following is the full, written text of the statement Mark Ciavarella read prior to his sentencing Thursday.

Editor's note: Your ProbateShark does not normally comment prior to an article. However, listening to this hypocrite cry, makes this shark want to vomit. Beware judges in the Probate Court of Cook County...


Even though I have privately apologized to my family, I believe it is important to publicly apologize to my wife, Cindy, children Lauren, Nicole, Marco, and their spouses and fiancé for the hurt and embarrassment I have caused them by my irresponsible acts. I would also thank them for standing by me at a most difficult time in my life.


I would be remiss if I did not also express to my sisters, uncle Joe, my in-laws Gerry and Helyn, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, John and Debbie, and friends how sorry I am for the pain and hurt my conduct has caused them to endure.


I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the citizens of Luzerne County for violating the trust they placed in me, and I hope, someday, they can forgive me for misplacing that trust.


I also want to apologize to the Luzerne County bench and bar for casting a cloud of corruption over them. The Luzerne County bench and bar should not have been painted with the brush of my wrongdoings. For having caused this to happen, I am truly sorry.


I want to apologize to all the judges that have been affected by this scandal and my involvement in it. My conduct has made a difficult job even more difficult. Our judicial system can only properly function if the public has faith and trust in it. My actions have clearly strained that trust. I pray that with time, the public will come to understand that one person who makes bad decisions should not reflect poorly on the good men and women who make up our judiciary.


To all the juveniles who appeared before me, I would also apologize to them and ask that they forgive me for being a hypocrite by not practicing what I preached. I would hope that they would learn from my mistakes and realize that everything we do in life has consequences and that there are dire consequences when we make decisions we know are wrong.


Lastly, I want to publicly say how sorry I am for all the criticism and ridicule the juvenile probation department and staff received because of my conduct. The juvenile probation staff were always dedicated to helping the children that came within the system.


For them to be seen as anything other than hard-working individuals who wanted nothing more than what was best for those children is probably one of the biggest tragedies of this scandal. I am humbly sorry for causing such dedicated workers to suffer any unwarranted criticism because of what I did.


Your honor, I think it is important for me to express – and for the public to hear – what I am about to say. In the press, I have been called everything from ignorant, cocky, arrogant, and unrealistic for defending against those crimes that I did not commit. Please do not accept what I am about to say as being ignorant, cocky, arrogant, or unrealistic. It is truly not meant to be. My words are an expression of what I believe happened and how I got to be standing in front of you today to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment.


So it is clear, I blame no one but myself for what has happened. I don’t blame Robert Mericle, Michael Conahan or Robert Powell. I had the opportunity to say “no” to taking money that I believed was legal to receive, but knew that I should not take this money even if it was legal because it was wrong and unethical for me to do so, especially in my capacity as juvenile court judge.


Rob Mericle and Mike Conahan, like me, made wrong choices and bad decisions. And like me, they will face the consequences of those choices and decisions. But so it is clear, Rob and Mike are good people who have reached out and helped more people in our community than everybody in this room put together. On the other hand, Bob Powell is a liar and a self-centered individual who would say and do anything to protect himself.


I first learned of the government’s investigation into my activities in the late summer or early fall of 2007. Sometime in early November of 2007, I approached Attorney (William) Ruzzo and told him the facts of the case as I knew them, I told him of Mericle’s payments to me and how they came about. I told him of Powell’s rent payments and how those payments came about.


Based upon what I told Attorney Ruzzo, he told me I did not have a bribe or kickback issue, but I had an honest service fraud problem because I failed to indicate on my ethics statement the outside source of income from Mericle and Powell. He explained to me that there were three types of honest service fraud. There was an honest service fraud for kickbacks, one for bribes, and one for conflict of interests.


He told me my failure to report my outside sources of income and the fact that I was the juvenile court judge created a conflict of interest and thus an honest service fraud violation. I asked him to provide me with his research on honest service fraud. I reviewed it and based upon what was provided me, I also concluded I had an honest service fraud problem.


I told Attorney Ruzzo there was little doubt in my mind that I had violated the honest service fraud statute conflict of interest provisions, and that we should begin negotiating with the government a plea to bring this matter to a conclusion.


I told him I would plead guilty to any crime I committed and would fight any crime the government said I committed which I believed I did not. I told him I never received a kickback, bribe, or extorted Bob Powell. I told him the money I received was not a quid pro quo and that I would never plead guilty to a kickback, bribe, extortion, or quid pro quo. I told him if those crimes were the basis for a plea to tell the government I would go to trial.


As a result of long and drawn-out plea negotiations, a plea was negotiated where I agreed to plead guilty to an honest service fraud violation based upon a conflict of interest and income tax fraud. My plea to honest service fraud was not based upon a kickback, bribe, extortion, or quid pro quo as reported by the media. It was based upon a conflict of interest, nothing more and nothing less.


In the days leading up to the submission of my guilty plea, your honor held a meeting attended by my lawyers and attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Before that meeting, I asked both Attorney Ruzzo and Attorney (Al) Flora to ask if at the time of the plea it would be permissible for them to clearly explain that my plea was not based upon a kickback, bribe, extortion, or quid pro quo.


Your honor indicated to all in attendance that you would prefer no one make any statements until after the plea was accepted and to wait until the time of sentencing if a statement was to be made. My attorneys honored that request. But unfortunately, for me, Attorney (Gordon) Zubrod did not.


After my plea was presented to you for your consideration and acceptance or rejection, Attorney Zubrod made a statement to the press and uttered three words that changed the whole tenor of this case and the public’s perception of the underlying basis of the honest service fraud crime to which I was admitting having committed.


As we all know those words were “kids for cash.” He stated those words knowing full well I would have never entered a guilty plea for receiving cash for kids. He back-doored me and I never saw it coming. I did not even know he had said it until the next morning when I saw the “kids for cash” headlines.


Those three words made me the personification of evil. They made me the anti-Christ and the devil. Those words caused untold hurt and agony for me and my family. They made me toxic and caused a public uproar, the likes of which this community has never seen.


He uttered those three words knowing full well there was little or no evidence of me receiving a dime to send a child into placement. He uttered those three words knowing full well I would never plead guilty to receiving cash for kids, but even worse, he never gave me a chance at the time of my trial to defend against those words because when he had the chance to put up or shut up, he failed to put up. He shut up because once he learned how the juvenile system operated and the real facts of this case, he realized there was no connection between the money I had received and the children I placed at “PA Child Care.”


As your honor knows, every good prosecutor worth his salt wants to present evidence to a jury that would paint the defendant in a bad light. They want to present evidence that would inflame the jury and cause them to despise the defendant. What evidence would be more inflammatory and despicable than evidence that a juvenile court judge received money to send children into placement? I can’t think of any. Knowing that believable, credible “kids for cash” evidence would be beneficial to his case and devastating to mine, he did not present such evidence.


The reason Attorney Zubrod did not present this type of evidence at my trial was because there was no believable, credible evidence that would establish a connection between the money I received and the children I placed. It never happened. But because of those three words, I have been publicly convicted of a crime I never committed. I will live the rest of my life with the stigma of placing children for money. A crime which never occurred and more importantly, for which I never had the opportunity to defend against.


So you and the public don’t think my words are just hollow words, and being said just to be said, I am ready to back up what I have indicated never happened by asking the government to release my entire investigative file and make it available to the media and the public for review. Instead of all the innuendos and half truths, instead of the piecemeal releasing of information by the government to the press, let it all become public and allow everyone to judge based upon the evidence amassed against me, if there is any believable evidence that I received money to place juveniles.


You see your honor, this case has never been a search for the truth. It has always been “let’s get a conviction at any cost and let’s get that conviction even if the credible, believable evidence indicates the crime never occurred.”


How else can you explain the government threatening to indict my daughter, Lauren, on a section of a federal law dealing with interfering or injuring officers or jurors generally, and laundering of monetary instruments? The only reason this threat was made was to get me to plead to the crimes they wanted and not the crimes which I actually committed.


At that time the only reason I did not enter into a plea was because my daughter, Lauren, told me if I did not fight for what I believed in and fight against those crimes which I did not commit she would never speak to me again.


How else can you explain the government in its investigation never speaking to Greg Zappala, the partner of Bob Powell, in “PA Child Care?” Not one question even though he might have information that could have been beneficial to the government’s case. I would hope that the government’s failure to speak to Mr. Zappala had nothing to do with who he was and who his family is or because his partner, Robert Powell, stole $3 million dollars from their company and the Government did not want that fact to be known about their star witness.


How can it be a search for the truth when my first indictment in September of 2009 never indicted me for a kickback or bribe relative to Robert Mericle’s payments to me. The government threw everything they had at me in that indictment but did not indict me on a bribe or kickback theory relative to Robert Mericle’s payments.


You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that if they had evidence linking Mericle’s money to me as being a bribe or kickback, they would have included it in the indictment. But in 2010, when a superseding indictment was filed, without the addition of any new evidence, the Mericle money was now alleged to be a kickback. All the evidence given to me by the government clearly indicated no new evidence was uncovered to change the Mericle money from a conflict of interest theory to a kickback theory. It will always be a mystery to me as to how I could be indicted in September, 2010, on an allegation that Mericle’s money was a kickback when the same evidence in September of 2009, in the governments viewpoint, was not a kickback.


Your honor, I stand here today knowing in my heart that the money Robert Mericle paid me was not a kickback. I have always admitted to those crimes which I committed and told anyone who would listen that I would defend against those crimes I did not commit.


The government charged me with illegally receiving money on.16 occasions. The jury found me guilty of one illegal payment and not guilty on the other 15. They found me not guilty on any payments that could have remotely been construed to be a payment to me for sending kids into placement. They found me not guilty on every payment Bob Powell said he paid because he said I was extorting him. They found the garbage he was trying to sell to save himself from going to jail for many, many years to be unbelievable.


Because of the decisions I made and only because of my making those ill-advised decisions, I have lost everything that I have ever worked for or cared about. I lost my reputation and have tarnished the once-proud name of Ciavarella to the point where my son can’t even consider returning to this area to practice law. I lost my job and am financially ruined. I am about to lose the physical presence of my family, a loss which is almost unbearable to shoulder, but I will never lose my will to fight against individuals who say I took cash to put children in placement when I never did.


I was convicted of receiving a kickback for the construction of a building. The money was paid before the “PA Child Care” facility was even opened. This payment had nothing to do with the sending of children to that facility. To reiterate, I was found not guilty on all other payments received by me. But yet today, I stand before you guilty for being the “kids for cash” judge when the allegation was never presented by the government to the jury and for which I was never convicted.


While I respect the jury verdict that the first payment I received from Mericle was a kickback, I disagree that the evidence presented at trial established or warranted such a verdict. But it no longer matters what I believe the verdict should have been. Today, I stand before you about to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment. I would only ask that the sentence be for the crimes I was found guilty of committing and not for a crime or crimes I did not commit. Punish me for what I did, not what the government said I did but never proved or gave me the opportunity to defend against, or for which the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.


Thank you for giving me this opportunity to say what I had to say.



Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was given a sentence that may not be for life, but will keep him in prison until he is 89 years old. U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik sentenced Ciavarella to 336 months in prison - 28 years for a man who is 61 Ciavarella agreed to voluntarily surrender himself immediately

The sentence came after Ciavarella opened remarks with apologies to family, friends, the public and juveniles,then turned defiant and repeated his claim that he never took money in exchange for sending juveniles to private detention facilities.

U.S. Assistant District Attorney Gordon Zubrod cited that defiance as proof Ciavarella remains unwilling to acknowledge his crimes and actions.

Ciavarella initially apologized to family "for the hurt and embarrassment I caused them by my irresponsible acts." He apologized to the "Citizens of Luzerne County for violating the trust they place in me, and I hope they can some day forgive me. He apologized to the court bench and attorney's bar for shattering public trust. And to the thousands of juveniles who had appeared before him.

"Forgive me for being a hypocrite by not practicing what I preached. I would hope that they would learn from my mistakes and realize that everything we do in life has consequences and that there are dire consequences when we make decisions we know are wrong."

Ciavarella was widely known as a tough judge with a zero tolerance policy who gave juveniles stern advise on staying on the straight and narrow.

But shortly after the apologies, Ciavarella turned to a theme he has struck since first signing a plea agreement in January, 2009 that he later withdrew: He repeated his contention that he never took money in exchange for sending juveniles to private, for profit detention facilities."I Have been called everything - ignorant, cocky, arrogant and unrealistic - for not admitting to crimes I did not commit," he said.

While acknowledging wrongdoing of two others snared in the FBI probe that brought him to this point, Ciavarella also defended former judge Michael Conahan, who has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentence, and Robert Mericle, who built two juvenile facilities in question and paid Conahan and Ciavarella millions in "finder fees" for helping him get the work.

Ciavarella insisted that, despite their flaws, Conahan and Mericle are not as bad as they've been painted.. "Rob and Mike are good people who have reached out and helped more people in our community than everybody in this room put together," he said. Then he offered a bitter rebuke of Attorney Robert Powell, former co-owner of the juvenile facilities who had testified that Ciavarella had extorted money from him in order to keep the facilities full.

"On the other hand, Bob Powell is a liar and a self-centered individual who would say and do anything to protect himself." Ciavarella said.

Ciavarella also attacked the prosecutors in his case, insisting they had put out the allegation that he took money in exchange for sending juveniles to the facilities, yet never presented evidence in court. This resulted in him being "convicted of a crime I never committed" in public opinion. Ciavarella then urged the government to release all investigative files and let the public decide. The ex-jurist said prosecutors had attempted to indict his daughter twice, including on a money-laundering charge - in an effort to him to plead guilty.

Ciavarella likewise criticized a report from the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, a special body formed by the state legislature expressly to investigate the situation and recommend changes to prevent future re-occurrences. The Commission had roundly criticized what it characterized as systemic failures in Luzerne County Juvenile Court under Ciavarella. He said he felt the commission had not done enough investigation.

"I had people ready to testify that my court was no different than any other. I don't do anything different from any other judge in this area or in Luzerne County," Ciavarella said, rigorously rejecting claims that he had denied juveniles their legal rights in his court.

U.S. Assistant Attorney Gordon Zubrod cited Ciavarella's statements as yet more proof that he did not accept responsibility for his actions.

"He says the Interbranch Commission got it wrong. He says this court got it wrong. He says the jury got it wrong," Zubrod said. "I leave it to the court to decide if that reflects on his character."

Zubrod recounted one instance from a court transcript in which Ciavarella ordered a juvenile removed in shackles and said for all to hear "Put cuffs on him take him out of here. We're having a good day.

"This is a man who verbally abused and cruelly mocked children,' Zubrod said.

"Mr. Ciavarella's argument is that he was not selling kids retail," Zubrod said at one point. "I agree with that. He was selling them wholesale."

U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik handed down the 28 year sentence with scant comment, evoking abrupt applause from several audience members. Ciavarella agreed to voluntarily turn himself over immediately. By 10:08 a.m. the hearing was over. By noon, Ciavarella had been whisked away in a vehicle for immediate incarceration.

Please read complete article at link below:


http://www.timesleader.com/news/Ciavarella-sentencing-long-line-long-wait.html

Editor's note: Again, your ProbateShark asks the question, why can't our Illinois Federal law enforcement go after the crooked judges in the Probate Court of Cook County?  Look to the example of the PA Federal Law Enforcement jailing that hypocritical criminal Ciavarella. The entire 18th floor of the Daley Court House is a criminal enterprise that exceeds the Mafia.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com