Ruling may help ex-judges

The cases of three former Luzerne County judges charged in the ongoing public corruption probe could be influenced by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the honest services fraud law, a key component of the criminal cases against them.

The ruling Thursday in the appeal by Jeffrey Skilling, former chief executive of Enron, focused on the lack of clarity in the law and barred prosecutors from applying it in instances of public and private officials not disclosing conflicts of interest. It kept intact its use in cases of bribery and kickbacks.

Federal prosecutors used the non-disclosure element to build their cases against former judges Mark A. Ciavarella, Michael T. Conahan and Michael T. Toole.

They also outlined a $2.8 million bribery and kickback scheme in the racketeering indictment filed last year against Ciavarella and Conahan.

Ciavarella’s attorney Al Flora said he, the other defense attorneys and prosecutors were awaiting the high court’s decision.

He offered general comments on the ruling and said, “The statute is basically void for vagueness where it attempts to cover non-disclosure for conflict of interest.”

Flora’s next step was to go through the indictment to review the charges against the former judges, he said.

In a prepared statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said it is reviewing the rulings and would have no immediate comment

The plot by Conahan, 58, of Mountain Top and Ciavarella, 60, of Kingston, to conceal the payments and not disclose their interests in judicial and governmental matters before them deprived the citizens of the state of their right to the honest services of the pair, according to prosecutors.

Congress enacted the honest services fraud law in 1988 as a reaction to a Supreme Court ruling that stated the statute against mail fraud was limited to the protection of property rights in a case from Kentucky involving kickbacks paid to a state officer in charge of selecting the state’s insurance agent.

The new law, quickly passed a year after the court’s ruling, stated mail fraud applies to “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.”

In writing the opinion for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted the law’s intent was “to reach at least bribes and kickbacks.”

But to expand the range of offenses under the law “would raise the due process concerns underlying the vagueness doctrine,” she said.

Thursday’s decision does not necessarily mean that any of the 19 counts against Skilling will be thrown out, Ginsburg said. At the same time, by a 6-3 vote, the court rejected Skilling’s claim that he did not get a fair trial in Houston because of the harsh publicity surrounding the case in Enron’s hometown.

The new limits on honest services prosecutions also will lead to new a hearing for former newspaper magnate Conrad Black and could mean the end of federal prosecutors’ case against former Alaska lawmaker Bruce Weyhrauch.

The ongoing prosecution of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and the convictions of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman and ex-HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy also could be affected.

The ruling also affects the pending cases of former Lackawanna County commissioner Robert Cordaro and sitting commissioner A.J. Munchak, who were charged in March in a wide-ranging 40-count indictment alleging they solicited and accepted cash payments and gifts from people and companies seeking to do business with the county.

In the Luzerne County cases, Ciavarella and Conahan were accused of participating in a kickback scheme related to the construction of two for-profit juvenile detention centers and the placement of youths in the facilities.

Conahan agreed to plead to a single count of racketeering. A federal judge delayed a plea hearing for Conahan in anticipation of the high court’s ruling.

Toole, on the other hand, was charged separately with honest services wire fraud for not disclosing his financial relationship with an attorney who had a civil case pending before him. Toole, 50, of Wilkes-Barre, also accepted things of value from the attorney including free use of the attorney’s beach house. The gifts and use of the house were not included in the financial interest statements Toole filed with the state.

He also faces a tax evasion charge for failing to report $30,000 he received for referring a case to an attorney.

The former judges are among the 30 people federal authorities have charged since January 2009 in the probe into corruption in county and municipal governments and school districts and of businessmen and contractors who were paid for work at least partly with public funds.