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Court testimony in alphabetical order may seem a bit odd, especially if you’re used to the illusion of court hearings usually portrayed on TV. Yet if you are listening to hundreds of people talk about how their lives were radically impacted by the infamous “Kids for Cash” case, how else could you prioritize it?

Which life shattered by the greedy corruption of two Luzerne County judges gets higher priority? Which parent has the more poignant story of a family torn asunder so well-payed public officials could nearly triple their annual income? An alphabetical order in the recounting of these stories is as good as any.

Expected to last at least two weeks, the litany of lives altered has begun unfolding in the Wilkes-Barre Federal Court House on South Main Street before U.S. District Judge Christopher C. Connor, with neither disgraced judge Mark Ciavarella nor Michael Conahan present.

Both waived their rights to participate in the civil suit, making this a curiously one-sided affair, especially since other plaintiffs — attorney/developer Robert Powell, developer Robert Mericle and Mericle Construction — already settled.

Opening comments by the Philadelphia-based attorneys representing the plaintiffs could hardly be more understated, as Sol Wiess promised those providing testimony would “graphically relay their horror stories in a poignant, meaningful way.”

To say the least.

“He took my whole childhood away,” Mark Aguilar, the first to testify, said of Ciavarella’s sentence in juvenile court, “all of it.”

Being locked up for two years, Pasquale Allabaugh said, “I learned how to become a criminal.

“I should’ve been going to prom. Those were supposed to be some of the best years of my life. Instead I was learning how to sharpen a toothbrush.”

There may be an urge to dismiss this as belated, or as rehashing of old news. Charges were first filed against Ciavarella and Conahan in 2009. Protracted legal maneuvering followed. The convictions of an estimated 6,000 juveniles who appeared before Ciavarella over five years were overturned. Conahan pleaded guilty for a deal, but Ciavarella withdrew from a deal because he rejected the notion that he sent kids to a private juvenile detention center in exchange for payments from the center owners. He was tried and convicted February, 2011, and has fought the conviction and sentence ever since.

Hearings were held, rules and laws were changed, all to prevent the same fate befalling other children, closing the proverbial barn door too late. All those children still grappled with the consequences of Ciavarella’s money-tainted decisions. Some still do. So, no, this isn’t old news. Because the impact of the scandal ripples through thousands of lives, it is still with us.

And it’s important for us all to remember how it happened, and how avoidable it was.

Nicholas Barbose testified he was caught with a small amount of marijuana, and sentenced by Ciavarella after a hearing he contends lasted 42 seconds. “That’s how long it took him to decide to lock me up for 10 months.”

Ciavarella may indeed have not, in his mind, sent children away for money, but in the name of “zero tolerance,” he sent children to a facility from which he profited, a distinction without a difference to most.

The testimony in this case is not a rehash, it’s a reminder of what happened: Best case, good intentions were corrupted by money. Worst case, yes, it was simply “kids for cash.” Either way, those kids — now adults — deserve this opportunity, and we need to listen.

— Times Leader