Legal advocate, parent: Judge let down youths

TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER and ANDREW SEDER

tmorgan@timesleader.com

WILKES-BARRE – Under fire for his high juvenile detention placement rate, Judge passionately defended his philosophy in interviews a few months ago.

“I have never placed a kid for an improper reason,” Ciavarella defiantly told The Times Leader in an article that was published on May 10.

He was responding to the state Department of Public Welfare’s decision to intervene in a case filed by the Juvenile Law Center that sought to overturn rulings in cases where children appeared before Ciavarella without an attorney. DPW, Ciavarella maintained, was “more concerned about money than the care and treatment a child gets.”

The reality, according to federal prosecutors, is that Ciavarella was the one concerned about money – millions they allege were funneled to him and Judge Michael Conahan in exchange for rulings they made that financially benefited PA Child Care, the juvenile center utilized by the county.

The allegation is contained in a 22-page complaint filed by U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson that charges Conahan and Ciavarella with tax evasion and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.

Carlson alleges that in some cases Ciavarella would order children be detained at the center, even though the juvenile probation officer disagreed with that determination.

It’s an allegation that Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, said “makes us sick.”

“It is so disturbing and dismaying to think that an elected official whose charge is, above all else, to protect and look out for the best interest of children would accept financial remuneration in exchange for not placing their best interest as his highest priority,” Levick said.

It’s a feeling shared by Susan Mishanski of Hanover Township, whose son, Kevin Williamson, spent several weeks in a juvenile facility after he was charged with assaulting another youth.

Williamson was among hundreds of Luzerne County youths who appeared before Ciavarella without an attorney. He was released after the Juvenile Law Center intervened in his case and helped secure his release.

But the anger Mishanski feels for Ciavarella has not subsided.

“Now the shoe is on the other foot,” Mishanski said. “They’re not going to be able to wreck any more lives.”

Ciavarella, who served as the county’s juvenile judge from 1996 until May, when he stepped down, has repeatedly insisted that decisions he made in Williamson’s case and others were done solely for the best interest of the children.

“I’m not some despot who sits up here and says ‘You’re going away.’ I’m not here to punish these kids. I’m truly here to try to help,” he said in an article published on May 11.

But Mishanski and others had questioned his motives.

“I figured in time it would all come out,” she said.

Levick said it’s not clear what impact the charges against Ciavarella and Conahan might have on juvenile cases that have already gone through the system.

The state Supreme Court this month declined the center’s request to reopen the cases in question. She said the center is now considering whether it should refile the case with the Supreme Court, or seek recourse in some other court proceeding.

The plea agreement signed by Ciavarella and Conahan calls for them to serve 87 months in prison. The judges must appear at a hearing, which has not yet been set, to officially enter their pleas.

When the judges are sentenced, Mishanski said she hopes to be in the federal courtroom in Scranton “to look at their faces.”

“I want to be there when they sentence them and haul them off, just for the sense of satisfaction,” Mishanski said.

She suggested punishment should include a week at Camp Adams, a treatment center where her son and hundreds of other youth were sent, so that they can “get a taste of their own medicine.”