One of the architects of the most notorious judicial crime in Pennsylvania history, "kids-for-cash," has scored a hearing to argue for overturning some of his convictions.
Former Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Ciavarella, 67, was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison in 2011 for accepting $2.8 million in kickbacks along with fellow Judge Michael Conahan to sentence low-level juvenile offenders to a private, for-profit youth detention facility.
The disgraced ex-judge was convicted on 12 counts including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, honest-services mail fraud, money-laundering conspiracy and tax fraud.
The hearing was granted by U.S. District Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner of the Middle District of Pennsylvania and is scheduled for Sept. 14 at the Harrisburg federal courthouse.
Ciavarella argued in court papers that the money he received in the kickback scheme was not a bribe.
In a June 15 letter sent from his prison cell in Kentucky to Conner, Ciavarella complained about the two-and-a-half year wait in getting consideration for his motions to have his convictions thrown out.
"While the delay in resolving the issues raised in both my motions is not due to inaction on your part or circumstances over which you had control," Ciavarella wrote to Conner, "I am herewith respectfully requesting that the court promptly take whatever actions it deems appropriate to raise a decision on the issues I raised in the motions now pending."
Ciavarella's court-appointed lawyer, Jennifer Wilson, did not return a call seeking comment.
Since the outset of the case, Ciavarella considered himself unfairly portrayed as a villain.
Reading a prepared statement at his February 2011 sentencing hearing, Ciavarella said he had been demonized by the prosecution and the public, claiming Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod had ignited a public outcry when he used the term "kids-for-cash" to describe Ciavarella's crimes after he agreed to plead guilty to receiving payment from the builder of the two detention facilities to which he and Conahan sent juveniles.
Ciavarella said that statement made the public view him as "the personification of evil, the Antichrist, the devil."
According to Ciavarella, Zubrod "backdoored me and I never saw it coming."
After his former defense attorneys Albert Flora and William Ruzzo implored U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik not to consider in his sentencing any allegations with which Ciavarella was either never charged or never convicted, Zubrod said Ciavarella's argument appeared to be that he "was not selling kids retail."
"We agree, he was selling them wholesale," Zubrod added.