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Report states Ciavarella testimony aided newspaper’s appeal in defamation case.
The appearance of former Judge Mark A. Ciavarella as a witness hurt his own case but aided the appeal of The Citizens’ Voice to vacate the $3.5 million verdict he returned against the newspaper, according to a report filed with the state Supreme Court.
The court on Monday received the report of Lehigh County President Judge William H. Platt that recommended the verdict be vacated and a new trial be held with a Luzerne County judge presiding.
The report drew mixed e-mail responses from the principals in the case.
“We are relieved and pleased Judge Platt has recommended a new trial and we look forward to a fair and transparent process going forward,” said Greg Lynett, publisher of The Citizens’ Voice and The Standard Speaker newspapers.
Attorneys for Thomas A. Joseph, who filed the defamation complaint, had the opposite reaction.
“We find it impossible to reconcile Judge Platt’s legal conclusions” with the state rules of evidence and a legal standard for the “appearance of impropriety,” said attorneys George W. Croner and Christina Donato Saler. They said they will file exceptions to the report with the state Supreme Court within 30 days.
Platt, specially appointed to review the newspaper’s appeal after it obtained information from convicted felon Robert Kulick of alleged case-fixing, issued a 44-page report that examined the unusual route the case took through Luzerne County Court guided by the hands of Ciavarella and former Judge Michael T. Conahan.
The report is the latest turn of events for the judges who were charged earlier this year in federal court with participating in a $2.6 million kickback scheme related to the construction of two juvenile detention centers and the placement of youths in the facilities.
On Friday, Senior U.S. Judge Edwin Kosik rejected their plea agreements that would have limited their sentences to 87 months in prison. Kosik indicated the pair have not lived up to their agreements, with Conahan obstructing justice and not accepting responsibility and Ciavarella denying he received money for placing youths in the centers.
In his report, Platt referred to the hearing he held last month in Allentown to determine whether there was any impropriety in the judges’ conduct.
Conahan invoked his constitutional right against self incrimination and refused to testify, but Ciavarella took the witness stand.
“His testimony was one of the factors that persuaded me there was and is an appearance of impropriety and a need for a new trial in this case,” Platt wrote.
Ciavarella presided over a non-jury trial in May 2006 and ruled in favor of Joseph, who sued the newspaper’s parent, The Scranton Times L.P., its officers and former reporters James Conmy and Edward Lewis for defamation regarding a series of stories written in 2001. Lewis is a reporter with The Times Leader. Joseph claimed the pieces wrongly tied him to a money-laundering investigation that involved reputed mobster William D’Elia, who had a business relationship with Joseph.
Kulick, who came forward with the intent of receiving a break on his pending sentence on a firearms charge in federal court, also testified before Platt and detailed the meetings he, D’Elia and Conahan had and their discussions of cases pending in Luzerne County Court.
D’Elia, according to Kulick, indicated there would be a positive outcome for Joseph in his trial before Ciavarella.
Platt noted the rules on how the case was to be assigned were not followed and pointed to the action taken by Ann Burns, a deputy administrator in the Luzerne County Court Administrator’s Office. She suspected something was amiss and made a notation in court database to protect herself.
“The questionable acts in the trial assignment were Conahan’s role in making the assignment and Ciavarella being assigned as the trial judge,” Platt wrote.