PA Child Care

Last updated

PA Child Care is a juvenile detention center [1] in Pittston Township, Pennsylvania. It was opened in February 2003. [2] It has a sister company, Western PA Child Care, [3] in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Treatment at both facilities is provided by Mid Atlantic Youth Services, and both were involved in the kids for cash scandal in 2008. [1] [4] Gregory Zappala took sole ownership of the company when he purchased co-owner Robert Powell's share in June 2008. [5]

Contents

Western PA Child Care

PA Child Care's sister facility, Western PA Child Care, houses 99 beds in Allegheny Township, Butler County. It was opened in 2005. The company has been criticized for its costs, which ranged as high as $315 per child per day. Butler County paid Western PA Child Care about $800,000 in payments between 2005 and 2008. Butler County did not renew Western PA Child Care's contract after an extension of the contract ran out at the end of 2008. [5]

Building lease controversy

Robert Powell, an attorney and co-owner of PA Child Care, was involved with the leasing of the PA Child Care building as he was also the county planning commission solicitor. County minority commissioner Stephen Urban complained that Powell should have fully disclosed his involvement with PA Child Care because of this conflict of interest. Powell ignored the subsequent and repeated written and verbal notices from county officials to file financial disclosure forms as required by the state ethics commission covering his years of solicitorship employment with the county. As of 2009 Powell had still not filed the forms. Powell was only discovered to be involved with PA Child Care in April 2002, nine months after the lease proposal had been sent. [2]

Kids for cash scandal

PA Child Care is infamous for its involvement in the kids for cash scandal. Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella pleaded guilty to receiving $2.6 million in payments from PA Child Care [6] in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh sentences on juvenile offenders in order to ensure that the detention centers would be utilized. [7] [8]

In July 2009, Robert Powell pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony and being an accessory to tax evasion conspiracy in connection with $770,000 in kickbacks he paid to Ciavarella and Conahan in exchange for facilitating the development of his facilities. [9] In November 2011, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. [10]

Gregory Zappala was not accused of any wrongdoing in the scandal; [5] Zappala's brother, Stephen Zappala Jr., is the Allegheny County District Attorney. [11]

The scandal is featured in Michael Moore's 2009 documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story , and in the 2014 documentary Kids for Cash .

Related Research Articles

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act U.S. law

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.

Pittston Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Township in Pennsylvania, United States

Pittston Township is a township in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The population was 3,179 as of the 2020 census. The township is located within the Greater Pittston region. As of 2010, the total population of Greater Pittston was 48,020. The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport is located in Pittston Township.

Vincent L. Leibell III is a former American politician from Putnam County, New York. After a long career in the New York State Legislature, Leibell ran for and was elected county executive in 2010, but resigned prior to taking office following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation which led to his arrest and subsequent conviction on federal corruption charges.

Bryan Charles Kocis, also known as Bryan Phillips, was a director of gay pornographic films and founder of Cobra Video, a gay porn film studio. Kocis was murdered at his Dallas Township, Pennsylvania home on January 24, 2007; arson was used in an attempt to disguise the circumstances of his death. Two escorts, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes, were charged and convicted for Kocis' murder and subsequently given a sentence of life imprisonment without any possibility of parole.

August Byron Kreis III is an American neo-Nazi leader and convicted child molester. He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the Posse Comitatus, and Aryan Nations.

Gerald Phillip Garson was a New York Supreme Court Justice who heard matrimonial divorce and child custody cases in Brooklyn. He was convicted in 2007 of accepting bribes to manipulate the outcomes of divorce proceedings. Garson was imprisoned from June 2007 until December 2009.

Greater Pittston Region in Pennsylvania, United States

Greater Pittston is a 65.35 sq mi (169.25 km²) region in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in reference to the area in and around Pittston. As of 2010, the total population of Greater Pittston is 48,020. This region includes Avoca, Dupont, Duryea, Exeter Boro, Exeter Township, Hughestown, Jenkins Township, Laflin, Pittston Township, West Pittston, West Wyoming, Wyoming, and Yatesville.

Federal Prison Camp, Pensacola

The Federal Prison Camp, Pensacola is a minimum-security United States federal prison for male inmates in unincorporated Escambia County, Florida, near Pensacola. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.

In 2007, Pennsylvania Attorney General Republican Tom Corbett began investigating $3.8 million in public bonuses which were paid to state legislative staffers in the Pennsylvania General Assembly to work on party politics and campaigns. While the bonuses themselves are not illegal, state law forbids state employees from performing campaign work while on the job and forbids payment for campaign work out of taxpayer funds.

Mark Ciavarella American convicted felon and former judge

Mark Arthur Ciavarella Jr. is an American convicted felon and former President Judge of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, who was involved, along with fellow judge Michael Conahan, in the "Kids for cash" scandal in 2008, for which he was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison in 2011.

Kids for cash scandal Judicial kickbacks case in Pennsylvania

The "kids for cash" scandal centered on judicial kickbacks to two judges at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, US. In 2008, judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were convicted of accepting money in return for imposing harsh adjudications on juveniles to increase occupancy at the PA Child Care for-profit detention centers.

Michael T. Conahan is an American convicted felon and former judge. He received a J.D. degree from Temple University and went on to serve from 1994 to 2007 as Judge on the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. During the last four years of his tenure, he was the President Judge of the county.

Juvenile Law Center, founded in 1975, is a non-profit public interest law firm for children in the United States.

<i>Kids for Cash</i> 2013 documentary film directed by Robert May

Kids for Cash is a 2013 documentary film about the "kids for cash" scandal which unfolded in 2008 over judicial kickbacks in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Two judges were found guilty of accepting kickbacks in exchange for sending thousands of juveniles to detention centers when probation or a lesser penalty would have been appropriate. Some juveniles were sent to detention centers for incidents as minor as theft of a CD from Walmart.

Corruption in Illinois has been a problem from the earliest history of the state. Electoral fraud in Illinois pre-dates the territory's admission to the Union in 1818. Illinois had the third most federal criminal convictions for public corruption between 1976 and 2012, behind New York and California. A study published by the University of Illinois Chicago in 2022 ranked Illinois as the second most corrupt state in the nation, with 4 out of the last 11 governors serving time in prison.

Robert May is an American film producer. He was a producer of The War Tapes and The Station Agent, an executive producer of Stevie and The Fog of War, and the director and a producer of Kids for Cash. The Fog of War won the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the appeal of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell's conviction under the Hobbs Act. At issue on appeal was whether the definition of "official act" within the federal bribery statutes encompassed the actions for which McDonnell had been convicted and whether the jury had been properly instructed on this definition at trial.

Operation Mississippi Hustle was a federal investigation initiated in 2014 by the United States Attorney and prosecuted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. It examined the relationship between officials of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and various for-profit prison contractors and subcontractors, who have provided services to the five private prisons in the state. One, Walnut Grove, closed in September 2016 but has since reopened.

References

  1. 1 2 "Juvie papers' destruction blocked". Times Leader . June 10, 2010. Archived from the original on March 8, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  2. 1 2 Learn-Andes Jennifer (January 30, 2009). "Powell May Eat Words About PA Child Care". Times Leader .
  3. ↑ Urbina, Ian (February 26, 2009). "70 Youths Sue Former Judges in Detention Kickback Case". The New York Times . Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  4. ↑ Sisak, Michael. "Powell pleads guilty". The Times Tribune. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Bumsted, Brad. Roche Jr., Walter F (January 29, 2009). "W. Pa. center entangled in judges' scheme". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review . Retrieved July 7, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ "Text of U.S. Attorney's charges against Ciavarella and Conahan" (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. January 26, 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-02-20. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  7. ↑ Frank, Thomas (April 1, 2009). "Thomas Frank Says 'Kids for Cash' Incentivizes the Prison Industry". Wall Street Journal . Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  8. ↑ Urbina, Ian (March 27, 2009). "Despite Red Flags, Judges Ran Kickback Scheme for Years". New York Times . Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  9. ↑ Sisak, Michael (July 1, 2009). "Powell pleads guilty". The Times-Tribune . Scranton, PA. Archived from the original on February 12, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  10. ↑ Neil, Martha (November 4, 2011). "Lawyer Who Paid $725K Kickbacks to Judges in Pa. 'Kids for Cash' Case Gets 18 Months". ABA Journal. Chicago, IL: American Bar Association. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
  11. ↑ Mandak, Joe; Jackson, Peter (February 23, 2013). "3 political sisters in Pa. convicted of corruption". Yahoo . Retrieved February 23, 2013.

Coordinates: 41°10′17″N79°44′56″W / 41.17127°N 79.74898°W / 41.17127; -79.74898

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.