Two judges plead guilty in kickbacks for jailing teens

This is one of the strangest stories I have ever seen. Corrupt judges sending children to jail and getting kickbacks for each child incarcerated. If it were in a novel I wouldn't believe it.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/13/america/judges.php
2 judges plead guilty in kickbacks for jailing teens

By Ian Urbina and Sean D. Hamill
Friday, February 13, 2009

At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.

Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.

She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.

...
The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

While prosecutors say that Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
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