Two judges prosecuted for taking bribes, putting children in for-profit prison - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Two judges have been prosecuted for taking bribes to put children in for-profit prisons.

First the judges misused their power to get the county-run juvenile detention center to close, allegedly in exchange for $2.8 million from the co-owner and builder of two for-profit jails.

But even worse than that, the judges are believed to have used their positions to sentence children to be sent to these for-profit facilities, making the decisions based on considerations personal financial gain, or trying to benefit the owner of these facilities in exchange for the bribe money.

These are children who probably would not have been otherwise been sent to these juvenile facilities if not for the corruption of the judges.

The two judges were in Pennsylvania, Mark Ciavarella, 72, and Michael Conahan, 70.

US District Judge Christopher Conner has awarded almost 300 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the judges, with $106million in compensatory damages and $100million in punitive damages.
The victims are "the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions", Conner wrote in the judgment explanation. "Their cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental health concerns."

Ciaverella presided over juvenile court and held to a zero-tolerance policy that resulted in many children, as young as eight years old, winding up at the for-profit facilities, Pennsylvania Child Care or Western Pennsylvania Child Care. Many of the kids were sent for minor infractions like smoking, truancy, jay walking and petty theft, and had no prior violations.

Ciaverella was sentenced to 28-years in prison. Conohan was sentenced to more than 17-year sentence but was released to home confinement with six years left in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

After the scheme was uncovered, the state Supreme Court threw out about 4,000 juvenile convictions that more than 2,300 children had been subjected to under these judges.

"To have an order from a federal court that recognizes the gravity of what the judges did to these children in the midst of some of the most critical years of their childhood and development matters enormously," said Marsha Levick, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, who is the co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania: US judges took millions in bribes to send kids to prison | Metro News, Jessica Kwong, August 18, 2022
https://metro.co.uk/2022/08/18/pennsylv ... -17202790/
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