Heartbreak and frustration after verdict comes in - VIDEO

By Terrie Morgan-Besecker tmorgan@timesleader.comLaw & Order Reporter

SCRANTON – The distraught mother of a man who was jailed as a juvenile by former Judge angrily confronted him outside a federal courthouse Friday, accusing him of being responsible for her son’s suicide.

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Ed had been a star wrestler at Coughlin High School in 2003 when he was caught at an underage drinking party. It was his first offense, so Fonzo expected he would get a fine and be released. Instead he was detained at PA Child Care for 30 days then sent to a wilderness-style boot camp for four months.

Sandy Fonzo of Wilkes-Barre interrupted a press conference Ciavarella and his attorneys held after a jury rendered its verdict in his corruption trial, hurling expletives at him and telling him she hopes he “rots in hell.”

“My kid’s not here anymore. My kid’s not here anymore because of him. He ruined by (expletive) life,” Fonzo screamed through sobs shortly after Ciavarella’s attorney, Al Flora, began speaking.

Fonzo, who stood amid a crush of media interviewing Ciavarella, continued the verbal assault, pushing toward Ciavarella, who appeared stunned.

“Do you remember me? Do you remember my son? He was an all-star wrestler and he’s gone. He shot himself in the heart,” she screamed, her voice hoarse with emotion. “You scumbag. You ruined my (expletive) life.”

Fonzo was escorted away by security after she pushed forward and poked Ciavarella with her finger. She continued to yell at Ciavarella from across the street, gasping as she choked back tears.

“He was my son. I don’t have kids now. I don’t have anything. I’m not a mother. I’m not anything,” she sobbed.

Fonzo was among numerous parents The Times Leader interviewed in March 2009, two months after Ciavarella and former Judge Michael Conahan were hit with corruption charges that were the basis of Ciavarella’s trial on 39 charges.

Her son, Edward Kenzakoski, had been jailed by Ciavarella when he was 17 for possession of drug paraphernalia. He was never the same after he was released, becoming bitter, angry and plagued by depression, she said. That depression led him to commit suicide on June 1. He was 23.

Fonzo said she raced to the courthouse from her job in Kingston after hearing a verdict had come in so she could see Ciavarella being taken away in handcuffs.

She was incensed that he was allowed to remain free pending sentencing, even more so because Judge Edwin Kosik, apparently attempting to be light hearted, released him “to the custody of his pregnant daughter.”

“He’s going to go home with his pregnant daughter? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?” she screamed.

Ed had been a star wrestler at Coughlin High School in 2003 when he was caught at an underage drinking party. It was his first offense, so Fonzo expected he would get a fine and be released. Instead he was detained at PA Child Care for 30 days then sent to a wilderness-style boot camp for four months.

After his release, Ed was on probation and got in a fight. Fearing he would be sent away again, he fled to Florida. He eventually returned, but never notified probation officials. He lived without incident for the next two years.

Then, in 2005, he was involved in a minor traffic accident. Police learned there was a warrant for failing to appear on the juvenile case.

Ed was 19 at the time, but under state law juvenile court can retain jurisdiction over a person until age 21.

He went before Ciavarella and was sent away again, this time for 120 days to Western PA Child Care.

The sentence was all the more inexplicable because Ed, who was tried in adult court on the assault charge, was acquitted of the offense. By then he had already served his time at the juvenile center.

“He ripped him out of our home and family and school and put him in a place with gang members and murderers,” Fonzo told a group of reporters who followed her following her outburst. “The kid was never the same.”

Her son continued to have serious anger issues. In November 2006 he seriously beat a man in a fight. He was tried and convicted in 2008 of aggravated assault and was sentenced to three to six years in prison.

Fonzo said family members tried to help Ed once he was released from prison, but he couldn’t get past the emotional scars.

“It just snowballed. He was just destroyed. He was very depressed. There was nothing anyone could do. One night he took a gun and shot himself in heart,” she said.

Fonzo said she opted not to attend any part of Ciavarella’s trial because she did not believe she could control herself.

She thought that by coming to court Friday she would see him being taken to prison. She snapped when she saw his demeanor.

“I saw him being released with this stupid smirk on his face,” she said.

Fonzo said she was also incensed by a comment that Ciavarella’s wife, Cindy, made to the media on Thursday in which she described the case as being their “worst nightmare.”

“They asked her how she was holding up. She said it’s a nightmare and she can’t sleep. She wouldn’t do this to anyone. Do you know how many kids and families he did this to for all these years?”

Fonzo said she plans to attend Ciavarella’s sentencing to provide a victim impact statement. No matter what happens to him, it will never make up for the nightmare she lives each day.

“There is no justice. He will never get my sentence. You know the pain I’m living in every day of my life?”

Warning: Explicit Language