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PennDOT awards contract for Route 92 repair in Exeter, work to begin Monday

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Remember When: Chickens in the yards; baseball in the streets

<p>A federal appeals court Friday affirmed a mixed-bag ruling of a lower court in the case of former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, convicted in 2011 in the so-called &#8220;Kids for Cash&#8221; juvenile justice scandal.</p><p>A three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia sided with a judge&#8217;s decision to vacate racketeering and money-laundering conspiracy charges in January 2018.</p><p>But the panel also denied Ciavarella&#8217;s attempt to add his mail fraud convictions to the list of vacated charges on the grounds the jury instructions were faulty in light of a Supreme Court ruling that came down after his trial.</p><p>The appeal centered on the agreed upon point that Ciavarella&#8217;s trial attorneys failed to raise a statute of limitations defense and whether it was prejudicial to the defendant.</p><p>The effect of the ruling on Ciavarella&#8217;s 28-year prison sentence could not be determined Friday.</p><p>The U.S. Attorney Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, which prosecuted the case, said it was still reviewing the order that had just been issued.</p><p>A call to Ciavarella&#8217;s attorney Jennifer Wilson of Duncannon was not immediately returned.</p><p>Ciavarella, 69, has been serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky, on other charges unaffected by the ruling.</p><p>As of Friday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons&#8217; website listed his release date as Dec. 30, 2035.</p><p>Federal prosecutors charged Ciavarella and former county Judge Michael Conahan with participating in a $2.8 million kickback scheme that involved the construction of two, for-profit juvenile detention centers and the placement of youths in the facilities in Pittston Township and Butler County.</p><p>Conahan, 66, has been serving a sentence of 17&#189; years in federal prison in Miami, Fla., for his guilty plea to racketeering. His release date is listed as Dec. 18, 2026.</p><p><strong>&#8216;Official act&#8217;</strong></p><p>The scandal led to legislative efforts to enact reforms and prevent a re-occurrence of children being denied their constitutional right to legal representation in the courtroom as was often the case when Ciavarella presided. It also provided the subject matter for filmmaker Robert May, whose &#8220;Kids for Cash&#8221; documentary debuted in 2014 and featured teenagers sent away by Ciavarella.</p><p>While many of the juveniles had no lawyer to defend them, Ciavarella argued in his appeal that his lawyers were ineffective because they failed to challenge the timeliness of some charges, namely those that occurred before 2004. He noted that a mail fraud count challenged in an earlier appeal was vacated because it was beyond the statute of limitations for prosecution.</p><p>Judges Thomas L. Ambro, L. Felipe Restrepo and Morton I. Greenberg heard the appeal. The order written by Ambro said for Ciavarella to meet his burden of prejudice he &#8220;must show a &#8216;reasonable probability&#8217; that absent his counsel&#8217;s error, the outcome of his trial would have been different.&#8221;</p><p>The jury at Ciavarella&#8217;s trial found him guilty of receiving kickbacks in 2003, beyond the five-year statute of limitations, and acquitted him of kickback-related charges from 2004 and afterward, the opinion said. The jury also convicted him of racketeering and money-laundering conspiracies alleged to have occurred between 2001 and 2009.</p><p>The lower court accepted Ciavarella&#8217;s argument that there was a &#8220;reasonable probability&#8221; that the conspiracy convictions were based on the 2003 kickbacks alone and not on the fraudulent financial filings from 2005, 2006 and 2007, the opinion stated.</p><p>&#8220;We cannot say for certain whether the jury believed that the racketeering and money-laundering conspiracies ended before 2004. But such a belief seems &#8216;reasonably probable&#8217; in light of the jury&#8217;s acquittal on all kickbacks after 2003,&#8221; the opinion said.</p><p>The panel rejected Ciavarella&#8217;s argument the mail fraud convictions related to financial statements filed in 2005, 2006 and 2007 also should be vacated. The underlying conduct for the fraud happened before 2004, but the criminal act of filing the fraudulent statements occurred afterward, the opinion said.</p><p>The third and final issue up for review was the effect of the 2016 Supreme Court ruling that clarified the meaning of &#8220;official act&#8221; as it related to bribery-related charges. Ciavarella argued he should be granted a new trial with the jury&#8217;s instructions including the clarification.</p><p>Even though the clarification had not come down at the time of the trial, attorneys for Ciavarella had the opportunity to raise a similar style challenge to the meaning of &#8220;official act,&#8221; the opinion said. Furthermore, it added, Ciavarella&#8217;s actions still satisfied the legal meaning of &#8220;official act&#8221; even after the clarification was issued.</p><p>&#8220;If sentencing hundreds of juvenile offenders to excessive terms of incarceration is not an &#8216;official act,&#8217; then nothing is,&#8221; the opinion states.</p>
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<div class="neCaption">Ciavarella </div></div><div class="metaInfo">https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_Mark-Ciavarella-2011-3.jpgCiavarella </div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></div><div class="metaInfo"><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.</p></div>

Appeals court ruling could affect Ciavarella’s sentence