Former judges who sent kids to jail for kickbacks must pay more than $200 million
NPR, August 18, 2022: Former judges who sent kids to jail for kickbacks must pay more than $200 million
“Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.
“U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are ‘the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.’
“In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.”
Additional reading:
The Philadelphia Enquirer, August 18, 2022: The Pennsylvania ‘kids-for-cash’ judicial scandal, explained
The New York Times, March 29, 2013: Undue Process
AP News, February 19, 2011: Pa. judge guilty of racketeering in kickback case
