Conahan complaint held 2 years

PLAINS TWP. -- The state Judicial Conduct Board had an anonymous complaint accusing former Judge Michael Conahan of wrongdoing for nearly two years before it turned it over to federal authorities for a criminal investigation, according to testimony Tuesday before the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice.

Edwin Klett, a member of the JCB, acknowledged the board received the complaint in September 2006. But it was not given to the U.S. Attorney’s Office until June or July of 2008, Klett said.

What Klett could not, or would not, explain was why there was such a long delay in referring the case.

When a reporter pointed out that local businessman Patrick Judge, who once had business ties with Conahan, sat on the JCB at the time the complaint against Conahan was received, Klett summarily dismissed any implication of a conflict of interest.

Judge served on the JCB, which investigates allegations of wrongdoing against judges, as a lay member from 2003 until August 2007. Statements of financial interest filed by Conahan and Judge showed they each had a financial interest in Trans Med, an ambulance company in Forty Fort, and MCJ Holdings, a Florida corporation.

Questioned by reporters after his testimony, Klett refused to comment on why the JCB failed to act on the complaint for nearly two years.

But attorney Paul Titus, who was hired by the JCB to represent its officials at the juvenile hearing, said the public should not assume the JCB didn’t take any action.

The board’s investigators may very well have investigated and questioned people, but it is not at liberty to disclose that due to confidentiality rules, Titus told a reporter.

The JCB’s refusal to release information sought by the juvenile commission was a key source of contention between the commission and JCB during Tuesday’s hearing.

The commission was formed in August to investigate failings within Luzerne County’s juvenile system. Tuesday’s hearing at the Best Western East Mountain Inn was the fifth it has held.

Heeding Titus’ advice, Klett and Joseph Massa, chief counsel for the JCB, repeatedly refused to answer any questions relating to specific investigations the JCB has undertaken, including any involving Conahan or former Judge Mark Ciavarella.

The JCB’s reluctance to provide information prompted juvenile commission chairman John Cleland to blast the board in an opening statement.

Cleland said the JCB has, in principle, promised to cooperate fully with the commission. The reality has been far different, Cleland said.

“In our efforts to gather information from the JCB, we have asked for it formally, informally, on the record and off the record. Our request for meaningful information has been met with an unyielding refusal to provide that information based on the assertion of constitutional confidentiality,” Cleland said.

Titus, Klett and Massa insisted the JCB wants to cooperate, but they said their first priority is to protect the integrity of the process used to investigate judges. That process permits them to release information only if the JCB files charges against a jurist with the state Court of Judicial Discipline.

“If people cannot be assured that what they report to the board is confidential, how are we going to get people to report what they suspect may be wrongdoing?” Titus asked. “We are trying to protect the system and the process so that judges can be disciplined.”

But Cleland questioned why, if the JCB is so concerned about maintaining confidentiality, it has provided information, including the 2006 complaint against Conahan, to federal authorities.

The commission’s primary focus is to identify what went wrong in Luzerne County to ensure it doesn’t happen elsewhere. But it is also tasked with determining whether the JCB is doing its job in investigating alleged wrongdoing by judges, Cleland said.

“When the JCB is asked for information by (this) commission … we are refused and told it is protected by constitutional confidentiality,” Cleland said in his opening statement. “One is tempted to conclude that your definition of confidentiality is nothing more than a definition of convenience.”

Speaking after the hearing, Cleland said it’s likely the juvenile commission will never get a complete answer regarding what the JCB did or did not do to investigate the 2006 complaint filed against Conahan. The complaint, a copy of which was obtained by The Times Leader, accuses Conahan of engaging in case fixing and rampant nepotism, among other things.

“We’re in a difficult situation. We’re being asked to evaluate a process and procedure that we can’t get all the details on,” Cleland said.

Tuesday’s hearing also featured testimony from Zygmont Pines, court administrator for Pennsylvania, who spoke of the state Supreme Court’s role in overseeing the judiciary.

Pines acknowledged there were signs of trouble within Luzerne County’s juvenile system years ago, but they were missed by a number of agencies, who failed to report it to the Supreme Court.

Data collected by the Juvenile Court Judges Commission showed that more than 50 percent of youths who appeared before Ciavarella between 2005 and 2006 did not have an attorney – 10 times the state average. That information did not come to light until last April, when the Juvenile Law Center cited it in its petition seeking to vacate juvenile cases handled by Ciavarella.

“What concerns me is that while we were collecting data it seems to me we were not doing anything with it,” Pines said. “We did not do anything with it, perhaps, because there wasn’t anyone analyzing what the data signified.”

Pines also said no attorney or judge in Luzerne County ever raised concerns with the Supreme Court regarding decisions Conahan and Ciavarella made during their tenures as president judge.

Had issues been raised, the Supreme Court could have stepped in to order an investigation and, if warranted, taken action to remove either judge as president judge. He said steps are now being taken to ensure that information is properly analyzed and the results reported to appropriate agencies.

The JCB is also revamping its procedures to ensure the board takes a more hands-on role in investigating allegations of wrongdoing at an earlier stage, Klett told the commission.

Klett said the board believes its staff was given too much discretion in deciding how a case would be handled. Often the board would not learn of how staff exercised its judgment until after the fact, he said.

That’s precisely what happened with the 2006 complaint against Conahan. Klett said he never saw the complaint until this summer. He learned of its existence only after reading a story about it in the media.

Similarly, the decision to turn the complaint over to the federal authorities was made by Massa without any consultation with the board, he said.

“Our new rules regarding internal operating procedures deal directly with that,” Klett said. “Way too much discretion has been placed in the staff rather than the board. ... The internal operating procedures are intended to reclaim all that authority, including whether or not a matter is referred to another agency.”