Anguished mom talks to CNN - VIDEO

By Jerry Lynott jlynott@timesleader.comBusiness Writer

The woman who confronted former Luzerne County Judge after the verdict in his corruption trial and blamed him for her son’s suicide appeared on CNN over the weekend.

Sandy Fonzo shows her frustration after shouting down former Judge Mark Ciavarella following Friday’s trial at the federal courthouse in Scranton.

Pete G. Wilcox/The Times Leader

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Sandy Fonzo of Wilkes-Barre screamed and cursed at Ciavarella as he stood outside the federal courthouse in Scranton after a jury convicted him on 12 of 39 charges Friday afternoon.

She said her son Edward Kenzakoski was never the same after Ciavarella sentenced him for a first-time offense of possession of drug paraphernalia.

The video of the confrontation captured by local media covering the trial was played to a much larger audience Saturday night when Fonzo appeared on the “CNN Newsroom.”

In Fonzo’s interview with CNN’s Don Lemon she said she went to the courthouse with the understanding that Ciavarella would be taken out in handcuffs to prison. She became enraged when she learned he was allowed to remain free with his family.

“Do you remember my son? Do you remember my son? He was an all-star wrestler and he’s gone. He shot himself in the heart,” she yelled at Ciavarella whose back was turned to her outside the courthouse. “You scumbag, you ruined my (expletive) life.” Ciavarella eventually turned to look at her as she tried to get closer to him, but said nothing.

Ciavarella committed her 17-year-old son to 30 days in the PA Child Care juvenile detention center in Pittston Township in 2003 and then to a boot camp for four months.

But his dealings with the judge continued even though he was no longer a juvenile. Kenzakoski, who wrestled at Coughlin High School, Wilkes-Barre, did not get the athletic scholarship his mother expected him to receive. He developed anger issues from his detention and as an adult was charged, tried and convicted for aggravated assault. He was 23 when he shot himself last June.

“My son was my life. That’s all I had. Now it’s gone,” she said in her interview.