Conahan’s club interest revealing

While he was a district justice and when he became a Luzerne County judge, Michael T. Conahan held a $300,000 mortgage on The Golden Slipper Lounge outside Philadelphia.

People familiar with the area in Bristol Township, Bucks County, said the property has been home to several gentlemen’s clubs over the past 20 years or more when the thoroughfare was known as New Rodgers Road.

Conahan did not list the monthly payments from the lounge owner, 3025 M&M Inc., the judgment awarded him in 1995 stemming from a foreclosure on the mortgage or the satisfaction of the loan two years later on the financial statements he was required to submit to the state as a judicial officer.

Art Heinz, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts, which received the statements, said the judicial officers complete the forms on their own according to the accompanying instructions. “Our office doesn’t provide that kind of service for them,” Heinz said Friday.

Conahan, 57, of Mountain Top, and fellow former judge Mark A. Ciavarella, 59, of Kingston, face racketeering charges detailed in a 48-count-indictment handed up by a federal grand jury last month. The two men allegedly participated in a $2.6 million kickback scheme involving to the construction of two juvenile detention centers and the placement of youths in the facilities in Pittston Township and Butler County.

Included in the indictment are mail fraud charges, alleging the former judges failed to disclose payments received from their participation in the scheme and filed false financial interest statements to the AOPC from 2004 through 2007.

The two men were the first charged in an ongoing probe of public corruption that has spread from the court to county government and school districts. Conahan and Ciavarella are free pending trial in U.S. District Court, Scranton.

When he issued the 15-year mortgage on Jan. 29, 1990, Conahan was a district justice in Hazleton. Under the terms of the contract filed with the Bucks County Recorder of Deeds, 3025 M&M Inc. agreed to take a $300,000 mortgage at 10-percent annual interest rate from Conahan. In return the company agreed to make 180 monthly installments of $3,223 to Conahan for a total payment of $580,287.

Four years later, however, Conahan began legal proceedings to foreclose on the mortgage. At that time he was a newly seated Luzerne County judge, having won a tough contest against incumbent Joseph Musto, who was appointed to fill a vacancy on the bench. Conahan, a Democrat, won both nominations in the 1993 primary and was unopposed in the general election.

It would be another year before a $350,987 award was entered in favor of Conahan on Jan. 31, 1995, and an additional 11 months before the judgment was satisfied on Nov. 9, 1995, according to Bucks County court records.

By the time the case was terminated in 1998, the former owner, 3025 M&M Inc., paid the mortgage. A mortgage satisfaction document was filed on March 25, 1997, according to the Bucks County Recorder of Deeds.

Neither Delores R. McNeill, president of 3025 M&M Inc., nor Laurie F. Matz, treasurer, could be reached for comment.

Kenneth W. and Keith S. Borochaner of Bucks County bought it in 1995 for $1 from 3025 M&M. The Borochaners could not be reached for comment. Bucks County property records showed the Borochaners sold it in 1997 for $365,000 to Rt. 413 Inc., which operates Club Risque on Veterans Highway. A message left at the club was not returned Friday.

Similarly named companies were involved in the Jan. 29, 1990 sale of the property. 3025 J.F.S. Ltd sold it to 3025 M&M Inc. for $450,000, according to Bucks County real estate records. The two companies listed the same address of 3025 New Rodgers Road on filings with the Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Corporations.

The officers of 3025 J.F.S Ltd. were Albert R. Scalleat and James F. Sheedy. They listed their address as Suite 400, Courthouse Square Towers, Wilkes-Barre. A city directory from that time listed the address as the offices of the Zavada accounting firm.

The sale date and the issuance for the mortgage to 3025 M&M Inc. were the same and Conahan’s name appeared on both the deed and the mortgage. He represented the seller and also provided money for the sale to the buyer.

Conahan was the treasurer in Byrnco Inc., which also had an address of 3025 New Rodgers Road, according to a filing with the Department of State Bureau of Corporations. The company was created in 1985, a year before 3025 J.F.S Ltd.

Conahan’s address on the filing was PO Box 218, Sheppton, the same for Beverage Marketing of PA, a company he included on financial interest statements filed with the state. Byrnco, however, did not show up in any of his statements.