Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash

Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash

www.syracuse.com

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.

The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is outrageous!

These two judges ruined hundreds or even thousands of young peoples lives by sending them to two different privately run juvenile detention facilities for some offenses that were as little as stealing loose change in cars or even writing a prank letter. Many of the children or teenagers had never been in trouble before.

Prosecutors said one of the Judges, Conahan, shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped two private companies receive contracts worth many millions of dollars, with some of it being dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.

The two judges received about $2.6 million in cash kickbacks., and may have to spend over 7 years in prison according to a plea deal they made. They are going to be charged with fraud.

One of the teenagers sent away had never been trouble before. Accused of being a lookout for a friend that was caught stealing, he plead quilty even though he said he didn't know what his friend was doing, and was sentenced to 3 days in one detention center, and 4 months in another wilderness camp run by another operator. After that experience he quit school. Now he says he just wants to get his life back on track by getting the record expunged and getting his high school equivalency diploma.

Many teens lives were seriously affected by this situation.

What do you think should be done to the two Judges who abused their position of trust in this way?

www.syracuse.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by sezsue


hate to tell you this.... but there was a thread started on 2/4/09 about this already:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It has been up for 7 days.

reply to post by questioningall
Thanks, I even searched this topic???? And, someone else posted the same thing today around the same time!

Sorry.......