Federal prosecutors will not pursue retrial against Ciavarella on vacated convictions

Federal prosecutors have decided not to pursue a retrial against disgraced Luzerne Count Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. on convictions that were previously vacated by a federal judge.

The announcement came via a filing from Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Consiglio on Friday.

Ciavarella, 69, who is currently in the midst of a 28-year federal prison sentence, had convictions on charges of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit money laundering overturned by Chief U.S. District Judge Christopher C. Conner in January 2018.

Conner’s overturning of these charges came in response to a motion for relief filed by Ciavarella, in which Conner also denied to overturn most of the charges of which Ciavarella was convicted. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld Conner’s decision and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Ciavarella’s petition to hear the case, which meant the only thing left to do was to retry Ciavarella on the overturned charges.

But that won’t be happening.

“In light of the convictions that remain, the United States has elected to not pursue retrial on the vacated counts of conviction,” Consiglio wrote in his memo.

Ciavarella’s attorney, Craig E. Kauzlarich of the Carlisle-based firm Abom & Kutalakis, said via email that the defense team would be pushing for re-sentencing on the remaining counts.

Ciavarella, along with former judge Michael Conahan, were the center of the juvenile justice scandal that was the focus of the “Kids for Cash” documentary.

A jury in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Scranton, convicted him in 2011 on charges related to the scandal that prosecutors said was connected to nearly $3 million in kickbacks for the construction of two, private for-profit juvenile detention centers in Pittston Township and Butler County. He has been serving his sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky.

Ciavarella claimed ineffective counsel, saying his trial lawyers did not raise a statute of limitations defense, leading to Conner’s decision to strike down three of the 12 charges of which he was convicted. But Conner declined to vacate all of the charges, saying the specific ineffective counsel claim only applied to the racketeering charges.

Conahan, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in 2010 to racketeering charges, and has been serving a 17-and-a-half year sentence at FCI Miami.