United States of America v. Mark Ciavarella, Jr. and Michael Conahan

Middle District of Pennsylvania Docket Number 3:09-CR-00028 and 3:09:CR-00272
 
The following court documents are in Adobe PDF format:

• Kosik Order Rejecting Plea Agreements
  
  
• Conahan plea agreement
  
  
• Conahan Statement to the Court by Government Counsel in connection with guilty plea colloquy; Acknowledgment by defendant
  
  
• Superseding Indictment
  
  
• Ciavarella verdict
  
  
• Ciavarella Amended Judgment
  
  
• Conahan Judgment
  
  
  Press release links by date:

• 1/26/09: Filing of federal fraud and tax charges
  
  
• 1/29/09: Date announced for guilty pleas
  
  
• 2/12/09: Judges plead guilty to fraud and tax charges
  
  
• 7/31/09: Statement regarding Judge Kosik's order rejecting plea agreements relating to Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan
  
  
• 9/09/09: Two former Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judges indicted on racketeering, fraud, money laundering, tax and related charges
  
  
• 9/29/10: Mark Ciavarella, former Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge indicted on racketeering, fraud, money laundering, tax and related charges
  
  
• 4/18/11: U.S. Attorney's Office files brief in response to Ciavarella's post trial motions
  
  
• 8/11/11: Former Pennsylvania County President Judge and Juvenile Judge Mark Ciavarella sentenced to prison term of 28 years
  
  
• 8/11/11: Statement by United States Attorney Peter J. Smith after the sentencing of former Judge Mark A. Ciavarella
  
  
• 9/23/11: Former Pennsylvania County President Judge Michael Conahan sentenced to prison term of seventeen and a half years
  
  
• 9/23/11: Statement of Assistant United States Attorney William S. Houser at the sentencing in United States v. Michael Conahan

Case Outcome:

Michael Conahan: Former President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Luzerne County was sentenced in federal court to a term of seventeen and a half years of imprisonment. Restitution in the amount of $874,167.37 was ordered to be paid to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for his judicial salary and a fine of $20,100.00. Conahan previously forfeited his right to his state pension.

 

Mark Ciavarella: Former President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and Former Judge of the Juvenile Court for Luzerne County was sentenced in federal to a term of twenty-eight years imprisonment. Restitution in the amount of $965,930 was ordered to be paid to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for his judicial salary and $207,861 related to the tax charges. Ciavarella voluntarily surrendered at the end of the sentencing hearing and was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals.

Case Summary:

President Judge and former Juvenile Court Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, Jr. and former President Judge Michael T. Conahan, both of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, were charged with conspiring to impede the Internal Revenue Service in the collection of federal income taxes and with having devised a scheme to defraud the citizens of Luzerne County and of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania of the right to their honest services by concealing their receipt of more than $2.6 million between January of 2003 and April of 2007.

The defendants were alleged to have engaged in honest services fraud by taking millions of dollars from two unnamed persons in connection with the construction, expansion and operation of juvenile detention centers in Luzerne County and elsewhere. Between 2004 and 2007, both judges filed materially false annual statements of financial interests with the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts in which they failed to disclose the sources of income they received from these unnamed persons, and in which they failed to disclose their financial relationship with these businesses. At the same time the Judges were allegedly concealing these payments and financial ties, it is alleged the Judges took discretionary actions in a number of matters involving the juvenile detention facilities without recusing themselves from those matters and without disclosing to parties involved in the proceedings their conflict of interest . These actions are alleged to have included:

–Taking official action to remove funding from the Luzerne County budget for the Luzerne County juvenile detention facility, effectively closing that facility;

–Ordering juveniles to be sent to these facilities in which the judges had a financial interest even when Juvenile Probation Officers did not recommend detention;

–Entering a “Placement Guarantee Agreement” to house juveniles in a facility in which the judges had an interest guaranteeing that the Court of Common Pleas would pay an annual “Rental Installment” sum of $1,314,000, without disclosing payments received by the judges; and,

–Summarily granting motions to seal the record and for injunctive relief in a civil case relating to a juvenile detention facility in which the judges had a financial interest.

The defendants received the payments into businesses that they controlled, and in some instances falsely identified the payments as rental fees for a Florida condominium. The defendants conspired to impede the Internal Revenue Service by making false entries in business records and falsely characterizing the payments they received.