Blog

“Cash for Kids” Scandal Continues to Harm Justice

Dec 28 2024
Posted By:

It took place in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in the early 2000s and would become what would be known as thekids-for-cashscandal. It began when two Luzerne County judges, Mark Ciavarella, and Michael Conahan, initiated a scheme to shut down a county-run juvenile detention facility to accept $2.8 million in kickbacks from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit juvenile detention facilities—a person who happened to be a close friend of Judge Conahan. The scheme required Judge Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, to establish a zero-tolerance policy dealing with juvenile misbehavior that guaranteed a steady flow of juvenile offenders into the for-profit facilities at taxpayers’ expense—with one child being just 8 years old.

The scheme sent thousands of juvenile offenders—some innocent, many given overly harsh adjudications—to the for-profit facilities before the FBI received a tip in 2006 about improprieties in the Luzerne County juvenile court system. The tip led to a 2007 investigation. It would take two more years—years the children remained incarcerated under extreme conditions in the for-profit facilities—before a grand jury indicted both Conahan and Ciavarella and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated 4,000 of the two judges’ unwarranted adjudications involving 2,300 kids.

In 2010, Conahan pled guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy from a 48-count indictment and received a sentence of 17.5 years, while Ciavarella elected to stand trial on his 39-count indictment only to be convicted of 10 of those counts in 2011, resulting in a 28-year prison sentence.

Thekids-for-cashcriminal conspiracy that ruined the lives of so many people—the children and their families—has been called one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.

The scandal resulted in a long-running class action lawsuit by 300 people harmed by this criminal enterprise. U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Conner in August 2022 ordered Conahan and Ciavarella to pay the class action litigants $206 million in compensatory and punitive damages for what the federal judge calledthe tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.

“Ciavarella and Conahan abandoned their oath and breached the public trust,Conner added in his searing judgment rendered slightly more than two years ago.Their cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental health concerns.”

One would think that this harsh judgment alone would be a sufficient legal and political barometer for determining that both former judges should serve their full terms of imprisonment as they demanded of the innocent, mostly harmless kids they sent to their corrupt buddy’s for-profit monstrous penal facilities.

Apparently, President Joe Biden, who appeared tone-deaf to the harm caused by Conahan and Ciavarella, thought the sentences of the serial child abusers were too harsh. As part of the largest executive commutation package in modern history, the president grantedtime-servedclemency to Conahan and 1499 other federal inmates on December 12, 2024.

The former judge had been released to home confinement in 2020 with six years left on his sentence as part of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ efforts to stem the rampant spread of the COVID-19 virus in the federal prison system. At the time, he had six years left on his sentence.

In a prepared December 12th statement, the White House said that Conahan’s clemency and the clemency granted to the other 1499 offenders were justified because:Together, these actions build on the President’s record of criminal justice reform to help reunite families, strengthen communities, and reintegrate individuals back into society.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro didn’t see Conahan’s clemency through the same criminal justice lens. The day after the clemency order was announced, the governor told reporters,I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania. This was not only a black eye on the community,the kids-for cash’ scandal, but it also affected families in deep and profound and sad ways. Some children took their own lives because of this. Families were torn apart.”

Democracy Now reports that the clemency grant to Conahan hassparked widespread outrage, including from members of his own party.”

Indeed it has.

One of the juveniles, Edward Kenzakoski,  sent to a for-profit facility committed suicide. In response to Biden’s decision to release Conahan from prison roughly two years shy of his mandatory release date, Kenzakoski’s mother, Sandy Fonzo, said the decision… just [reopens] wounds that have never healed.”

Conahan’s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son’s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,the grieving mother told a local news outlet.This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer. Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back.”

An argument can be made that the Biden White House may not have been politically worried about the feelings of most people living in Luzerne County.  President-elect Trump defeated Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris by a sweeping 90,370 votes to Harris’ 59,966 votes in the county. The entire northeastern part of Pennsylvania where Luzerne County is located is Donald Trump country.

A native son of Scranton, located in the heart of northeastern Pennsylvania, Biden had to take it personally that Trump dominated Harris on the president’s home turf.

Was that enough to cause Biden to disregard community sentiment surrounding the Conahan case, or did he sign a list put in front of him by staffers?

We will never know. But given the fact that there was no legitimate criminal justice reform reason for granting clemency to Conahan, the question must be raised, considered, and answered. Why did the president commute the former judge’s sentence?

We understand that the president enjoys the absolute power to pardon or grant clemency for any reason or no reason at all. Under the nation’s historical constitutional scheme, the executive power to pardon is unchecked.

We do not question that power. What we question is the White House’s attempt to justify Conahan’s sentence commutation as part of criminal justice reform. The former judge had been in home confinement since 2020 before he received clemency. That was a Bureau of Prison decision. He had less than two years remaining on his court-imposed sentence. He should have been required to serve that balance in home confinement as well.

Ignoring some of the other high-profile political pardons, President Biden did incredible damage to the clemency process with Conahan’s commutation. The public and political backlash from that commutation is well deserved.

 

 

 

 

Categories

Archives

Take the first step toward protecting your freedom by contacting us now

Testimonials

John T. Floyd Law Firm IconJohn T. Floyd Law Firm

3730 Kirby Drive # 750, Houston

4.9 109 reviews

John T. Floyd is Board Certified in Criminal Law By the Texas Board of Legal Specialization

Request A Confidential Consultation

Fields marked with an * are required

"*" indicates required fields

I Have Read The Disclaimer*
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Our Location

Copyright © 2025 John T. Floyd Law Firm • All rights reserved.