Posted on Thu, Jul. 2, 2009
SCRANTON - A lawyer at the center of a $2.5 million kickback scheme involving two judges and hundreds of juvenile criminal cases pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday. Robert Powell, 49, pleaded guilty to concealing a felony and being an accessory after the fact for his role in paying two judges who sentenced juvenile offenders to a pair of private detention facilities he owned.
The Hazleton lawyer was charged after former Luzerne County Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella pleaded guilty in February to accepting the payoffs. The judges' admissions of wrongdoing prompted the state Supreme Court to overturn hundreds of juvenile convictions issued by Ciavarella.
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