In testimony, a closer look at Luzerne court doings

By John Sullivan

Inquirer Staff Writer

ALLENTOWN - Mark A. Ciavarella, one of the former judges at the center of the Luzerne County juvenile justice scandal, said in his first extended testimony yesterday that he did not take bribes or extort payments in return for sending juveniles to a detention center in Pittston.

Ciavarella called the $2.6 million in payments that he and former Judge Michael T. Conahan received over five years a "finder's fee."

Ciavarella and Conahan have said little since pleading guilty to federal corruption and tax charges earlier this year.

But this week, during an unrelated hearing at a dowdy courthouse in Allentown, testimony offered up illuminating revelations about the corrupt inner workings of the Luzerne County Courthouse. The sprawling corruption tale features a reputed mobster, his close ties with Judge Conahan, and claims that Conahan fixed a defamation case against the local paper to protect a longtime friend, according to court testimony.

Yesterday's hearing was ordered by the state Supreme Court to review a defamation case Ciavarella heard against the Citizens' Voice newspaper of Wilkes-Barre. In the aftermath of the judges' scandal, the newspaper argued that the $3.5 million verdict against the paper was fixed.

In his testimony yesterday, Ciavarella acknowledged he was corrupt but said there was nothing illegal about the payments he received. His crime was failing to report them.

He said attorney Robert J. Powell, a former owner of a detention center, was a "downright liar" for alleging that Ciavarella shook him down for the money. Powell, who pleaded guilty in Scranton on Wednesday to federal charges that he hid hundreds of thousand of dollars in payments to the judges, wore a wire to help agents break the case.

'Positive outcome'

Prosecutors said in court Wednesday that Powell stuffed six FedEx boxes with cash and had employees of his firm deliver them to Conahan.

An attorney for Powell declined to comment.

At the hearing Wednesday, a judge also heard testimony that reputed Bufalino crime boss Billy D'Elia frequently met with Conahan over eggs at a local restaurant to talk about cases, walked unfettered into the courthouse through a private prisoners' entrance, and had a security guard deliver more than 10 large envelopes to Conahan since 2003.

Businessman Robert Kulick, who occasionally attended the breakfast meetings with Conahan and D'Elia, testified that Conahan promised D'Elia a "positive outcome" in the defamation case.

In the case, Thomas Joseph, a businessman and longtime friend of D'Elia's, sued the Citizens' Voice for defamation over stories related to raids of Joseph's home and business and of D'Elia's home. Joseph was never charged. His lawsuit claimed the newspaper defamed him by citing anonymous sources who connected him to suspected criminal activity.

Conahan, the county's top judge at the time, apparently assigned the case to Ciavarella, although he was not slated to hear it, according to testimony.

No bearing?

Ciavarella testified that the Joseph defamation suit was not fixed and that neither Conahan nor D'Elia ever spoke to him about the Joseph case.

Joseph's attorney, George Croner, said that while Ciavarella's testimony may have been revealing for what it said about the judge's handling of the juvenile cases, it had no bearing on the Joseph case. He said the paper has tried to use the judges' scandal to question a just verdict.

Croner pointed out that Kulick has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in August on a federal weapons charge.

Kulick acknowledged that he hoped his cooperation with the government would earn him a reduced sentence but that he was truthful.

D'Elia, who is serving nine years for federal money-laundering and witness-tampering convictions, did not testify, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He has denied that he had anything to do with Joseph's lawsuit, according to the Associated Press.

Contact staff writer John Sullivan at 215-854-2473 or johnsullivan@phillynews.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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