Re: [OPE] Farewell Venezuela!

Subject: 2 Pennsylvania. Judges Admit Jailing Kids For Cash

>2 Pa. Judges Admit Jailing Kids For Cash
> Plead Guilty To Fraud For Taking $2.6M In Kickbacks To Send Teens To
> Private Detention Centers
>
> WILKES-BARRE, Pa., Feb. 12, 2009
>
> (CBS/ AP) Two Pennsylvania judges charged with taking millions of dollars
> in kickbacks to send youth offenders to privately run detention centers
> pleaded guilty to fraud Thursday in one of the most stunning cases of
> judicial corruption on record.
>
> Prosecutors allege Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael
> Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups
> run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, possibly tainting the
> convictions of thousands of juvenile offenders.
>
> The judges pleaded guilty in federal court in Scranton to honest services
> fraud and tax fraud. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than
> seven years in prison. They were permitted to remain free pending
> sentencing.
>
> The gray-haired jurists said little at Thursday's hearing, and declined to
> comment to reporters afterward.
>
> Prosecutors described a scheme in which Conahan, the former president
> judge of Luzerne County, shut down the county-owned juvenile detention
> center in 2002 and signed an agreement with PA Child Care LLC to send
> youth offenders to its new facility outside Wilkes-Barre.
>
> Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, sent youths to the detention
> center while he was taking payments, prosecutors said.
>
> For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was
> ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters' constitutional
> rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention
> centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
>
> Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for
> stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug
> paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before, and some were
> imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it. Many of
> the youths didn't have attorneys.
>
> Ciavarella has specifically denied sending kids to jail for cash, and had
> indicated he would not go through with the guilty plea if the government
> offered that as evidence.
>
> Thus prosecutors left out any mention Thursday of a quid pro quo,
> presenting only enough evidence to establish that crimes had occurred.
>
> But Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubron said after the hearing that the
> government continues to allege a quid pro quo. "We're not negotiating
> that, no. We're not backing off," he said.
>
> The prosecutor said it will be up to U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik to
> settle the matter. Kosik could reject the proposed sentence as too light
> if he decides there was a quid pro quo.
>
> "I think there will be significant disagreements as to what the facts
> are," Zubrod said. "Was there a connection between the payments and the
> money, and young people going to prison? Those are issues that are going
> to be addressed later by the court. There's going to be plenty of time to
> fight about that."
>
> The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the
> Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.
>
> Fifteen-year-old Bernadine Wallace was sentenced to a month in lock-up for
> a threatening note she posted on her MySpace page, reports CBS News
> correspondent Seth Doane.
>
> "I was thinking to myself, 'I don't deserve this. I don't think that I did
> that much wrong. I'm not a criminal'," she said.
>
> "You saw the judges come out of court today. How were you feeling?" Doane
> asked Wallace's mother.
>
> "Angry," Flo Wallace said. "How did they get to walk out with all these
> charges? When she went in front of them, she got out of shackles."
> Kurt Kruger, now 22, pictured at left, had never been in trouble with the
> law until the day police accused him of acting as a lookout while his
> friend shoplifted less than $200 worth of DVDs from Wal-Mart. He said he
> didn't know his friend was going to steal anything.
>
> Kruger pleaded guilty before Ciavarella and spent three days in a
> company-run juvenile detention center, plus four months at a youth
> wilderness camp run by a different operator.
>
> "Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get sent away.
> I was completely destroyed," said Kruger, who later dropped out of school.
> He said he wants to get his record expunged, earn his high school
> equivalency diploma and go to college.
>
> "I got a raw deal, and yeah, it's not fair," he said, "but now it's 100
> times bigger than me."
>

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Alejandro Agafonow
  To: OPE List
  Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 7:33 AM
  Subject: [OPE] Farewell Venezuela!

  Venezuelans have voted to diminish the Venezuelan democracy.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_7891000/7891841.stm

  Another philosophical conundrum comparable to the popular support of the Nazi regime.

  Again, Socialists discrediting the socialist program. Socialism had not been so far ever.

  Farewell Venezuela!

  Alejandro Agafonow

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Received on Mon Feb 16 19:06:37 2009