Pennsylvania Judges Imprisoned For Kickback Scheme
February 9, 2010
Two judges have each agreed to plead guilty and serve more than seven years in prison for receiving kickbacks from a private juvenile detention facility. Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, both of the Luzerne County Common Pleas Court of Pennsylvania, were alleged to have received over $2.6 million for decisions from the bench that benefitted the construction, expansion and operation of a private juvenile detention center and also to the placement of juveniles in those facilities. In one case in 2004, it is alleged that an agreement resulted in the placement of juvenile offenders worth $58 million.
The judges have been formally charged with “engaging in a scheme to defraud the public of their honest services, and with conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, in connection with a multi-million dollar honest services fraud scheme involving the placement of juveniles in juvenile detention facilities.”
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