Disgraced Pa. Judge: I Didn't Discuss $3.5M Libel Case
A Pennsylvania lawyer initially portrayed by his counsel as a victim has now pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to a $2.5 million juvenile detention judicial kickbacks case that has already resulted in guilty pleas by two senior Luzerne County jurists.
But yesterday’s plea by Robert Powell is just the latest milestone in an ongoing inquiry into the extent to which the two judges, while they were still on the bench, may have been improperly influenced in rendering their verdicts.
At a hearing ordered by the state supreme court to look into a newspaper’s claim that a $3.5 million libel verdict was fixed, businessman Robert Kulick testified yesterday that then-Luzerne County President Judge Michael Conahan assured a reputed mobster of a “positive outcome” in the libel case, at one of the breakfast meetings that he, the judge and the reputed mobster regularly held, reports the Associated Press.
Although the reputed mobster, Billy D’Elia, held regular breakfast meetings with Conahan, according to testimony by Kulick and others, Kulick said he heard about Conahan’s alleged assurance to D’Elia from D’Elia rather than directly at the claimed meeting between D’Elia and Conahan, reports the Wilkes Barre Times Leader.
Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who pleaded guilty along with Conahan earlier this year in the $2.5 million kickbacks case, testified today that he never discussed the libel case with anyone and rendered a fair verdict, reports the Citizens Voice. The Citizens Voice is the newspaper that lost the libel case.
Conahan and a former Luzerne County court administrator asserted their Fifth Amendment right not to testify in the hearing.
Attorney George Croner, who represents the libel case plaintiff, told Lehigh County Judge William Platt that the libel verdict should stand because the Voice can’t prove that the two judges had any financial interest in the outcome of the case, which was fairly decided and upheld on appeal, reports the AP.
“A gift fell in their lap,” Croner contended. “They’re opportunistically seeking to exploit the terrible situation in Luzerne County.”
Meanwhile, attorney Robert Powell, 49, pleaded guilty yesterday to concealing a felony and being an accessory after the fact, concerning the part he played in making payments to Conahan and Ciavarella as they sentenced juvenile offenders to spend time in private detention facilities in which Powell held an ownership interest, according to an earlier Associated Press article.
He has promised to cooperate with authorities and wore a wire to help win the case against the two judges, reports WNEP.
Additional coverage:
Legal Intelligencer (reprinted in New York Lawyer, reg. req.): “Tale of the Judge and the Mob Bagman Adds Ugly New Chapter to Scandal”
ABAJournal.com: “Lawyer Admits Helping Pa. Judges Hide Income”
ABAJournal.com: “Tough Job for Problem-Solver Pa. Judge: Up to 1,200 Invalid Youth Convictions”
ABAJournal.com: “Continuing Luzerne, Pa., Court Probe: Were Auto Accident Cases Fixed?”
ABAJournal.com: “2 Pa. Judges, 2 Lawyers and Others Sued in $2.6M Jail-for-Pay Case”
Updated at 3 p.m. to add link to Legal Intelligencer article.
