Luzerne County Corruption

Wilkes-Barre Area school board member charged with accepting kickbacks

Wilkes-Barre Area School Board Member Brian Dunn was charged today with accepting and/or soliciting tens of thousands of dollars in return for influencing the hiring of teachers and awarding of school district contracts

Stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel.

billw wrote:The feds are going to have to build a new prison .......

Speaking of which if I remember correctly there was some funny stuff going on with that too such as plans for the new prison getting unilaterally changed mid stream by Guesto. In any event it's going to be interesting to see how far this expands.

Urban: Guesto should pay bill

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com
Luzerne County Reporter

If Luzerne County has to pay more for an unauthorized prison expansion, former chief clerk/manager Sam Guesto should foot the bill, county minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said Tuesday.

It's pervasive smitty but have no fear as many in this county never thought this day would come.

While on the topic the case where Judge Ann Lokuta who was removed from the bench with charges unrelated directly to the corruption probe has really opened some eyes. Underline mine.

Lokuta wants judge off her appeal

As the lead jurist on a three-judge panel that tried Lokuta in 2007-2008, Sprague rejected her arguments that former county President Judge Michael T. Conahan orchestrated the case against her because she talked to FBI agents probing courthouse corruption.

But in her latest court filings, Lokuta argues Sprague would have had inside knowledge about the corruption case, which had yet to become public, during her trial. At the time, Sprague’s client, Robert J. Powell, was under investigation for allegedly paying bribes to Conahan and Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, who also testified against Lokuta. The judges helped Powell’s former company, Pennsylvania Child Care LLC, secure county juvenile detention contracts.

Jim Height another Wilkes Barre School board director agrees to plead guilty.

http://citizensvoice.com/articles/2009/ ... 8_top2.txt
Jim Height, who abruptly resigned last week as the president of the Wilkes-Barre Area School Board, has agreed to plead guilty to a corruption charge after allegedly accepting $2,000 in cash from a district contractor, federal prosecutors said Monday.

Height took the payment earlier this year as a “reward” for previously supporting the contractor in its effort to obtain a lucrative district contract, federal prosecutors said.

Here's the 20/20 piece on the Judges errrrrr ex-Judges:

"I think that we had a conspiracy of silence going on in Luzerne County," Levick of the Juvenile Law Center said. "There were officers of the court, there were members of the district attorney's office, members of probation, private lawyers, public defenders, who were in the courtroom every day. And they had to know what was happening and whether it was by virtue of intimidation or an unwillingness to get involved. The fact remains that nobody stood up."

Oh my... in a surprising move at least to myself a Federal Judge has REJECTED the pleas of the two judges. Do you think their heart rates increased when they heard that? The pleas would have allowed them to spend 5 years in prison but that's all out the window now and they could face up to 25 years. A sentence like that would effectively be for life as they are both nearly 60.

http://www.citizensvoice.com/plea_deals_shot_down

No deal.

A federal judge Friday rejected plea agreements for disgraced former Luzerne County judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., rebuking them as “self serving” obstructionists who repeatedly failed to acknowledge the full extent of their involvement in the county kids-for-cash corruption scandal.

I'm a betting man and I'm guessing they get 10 years if they can negotiate a new deal, otherwise they might as well throw away the key. These men may not see the light of day again and rightfully so.

He rejected the plea agreement. If you read the CV article they have 3 choices either change their plea to not guilty, try and arrange a new plea agreement or stick with the guilty plea and roll the dice with the Judge. I'd assume only the first option could possibly get them less time but I'd doubt they would go that route because it's not as if they are going to be found not guilty. They have conversation taped between the Judges and Powell the lawyer besides all the other stuff stacked against them. That's probably why they immediately tried to plea the case to begin with. I don't believe the contents of those recordings has been released yet. In any event they have 10 days to make a decision so we'll find out shortly what they do.