The LuLac Edition #1722, August 17th, 2011

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WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

CIAVARELLA’S LAST TASKS

Just before he went off to jail, former Judge Mark Ciavarella was doing work for City Wide tower and community activist Bob Kadloboski. WBRE’s Joe Holden wrote the story for the Citizen’s Voice where he followed the former Judge around for a day. It is a nice piece of journalism.
Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. emerges from a garage on a hot day in early July. His Transitions lenses darken in the beating sun. He walks over and shakes my hand. Asked how he's doing, Ciavarella, the former Luzerne County judge, shrugs his shoulders and grunts, "How do you think I'm doing?"
I look at him blankly and wonder how the next few moments are going to go. Bob Kadluboski, Ciavarella's newfound boss and friend, interjects: "We gotta get stain."
The three of us jump into Kadluboski's older-model tow truck. Kadluboski drives, Ciavarella is on the passenger side, and I am in the middle. This space is tight. We're pressed together. Ciavarella's athletic shorts are stained by the white and beige smears of his new career as a painter.
Among other odd jobs, Ciavarella has been painting in the time between his conviction in February on a dozen felony corruption charges and the sentencing Thursday that ended with him en route to federal prison.
Ciavarella stares out the window as we ride through neighborhoods not far from where he grew up in South Wilkes-Barre.
I ask Ciavarella if he's uncomfortable. Kadluboski interrupts before he can answer. He says he needs coffee. We drop Ciavarella off at the neighborhood paint store and continue on to a nearby coffee shop. Kadluboski makes little of their newly forged friendship, saying only that he's known Ciavarella for years and that the ex-judge "needs the money."
Ciavarella agreed to meet after several requests through Kadluboski, who at times boasts about being Ciavarella's press secretary. The rumors of their alliance had begun trickling into the newsroom in early June. "Mark Ciavarella's towing cars with Bob Kadluboski," the callers would say.
Back at Kadluboski's McLean Street garage, Ciavarella candidly talks about what he's guilty of. As he did during his trial, Ciavarella admits to filing years' worth of incorrect tax returns. But, he strenuously objects to the three words he says have made his life hell: kids for cash.
He parses his guilt and innocence in his mind. He doesn't argue the false income tax statements, explaining that he expected his co-defendant, former Judge Michael T. Conahan, to pay the taxes on more than $400,000 in payments he received from millionaire real estate mogul Robert K. Mericle.
Ciavarella has steadfastly maintained the Mericle payment equated to a finder's fee for connecting him with the backers of the for-profit detention center PA Child Care in Pittston Township. Conahan, who preceded Ciavarella as Luzerne County president judge, pleaded guilty to racketeering. He is awaiting sentencing and has been spending the last few months in Florida.
Kadluboski floats in and out of the garage between tows, not paying much attention to our candid conversation. Ciavarella said he generally goes unnoticed in the community. At the paint store, they may know him. Walking around the block, people could make the connection. He said a neighbor once commented about the corruption case, asking, "When are they going to put that damn Ciavarella away?"
Ciavarella says he didn't disclose his identity to that neighbor because he didn't want to make trouble.
Ciavarella frequently becomes animated during our multiple, hours-long meetings at Kadluboski's garage. He is often aggravated. He shoots holes in media accounts of the case. He wonders why reporters never dug harder. He wonders why parents of juvenile offenders he supposedly railroaded were never asked to waive privacy to their case files to show the details of charges against their children.
Wearing a faded Titleist baseball cap, the 61-year-old wags his finger as he says "kids for cash." Ciavarella is as irritated as he's been during our conversations. Federal prosecutors never presented evidence at his trial of a "kids for cash" quid pro quo. Still, he says, that single notion has vilified him more than any other figure in the county's three-year-long corruption scandal.
After Ciavarella' conviction in February, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod said prosecutors never broached the "kids for cash" allegation because it was a state matter.
Ciavarella maintains it was Zubrod who first uttered the words "kids for cash." And after Thursday's sentencing, U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith reinforced the kids-for-cash element, saying every juvenile who appeared before Ciavarella was harmed by his actions.
On Tuesday, in the waning hours of his odd jobs, Ciavarella said his three grown children, Lauren, Nicole and Marco, and wife, Cindy, were doing as best they can. He sees them after work and on weekends. Asked why he was still working, he said he would go crazy if he didn't keep busy.
The man who says he once asked his secretary to schedule every single case he had been assigned for swift resolution, the self-proclaimed judicial workhorse, now paints, tows cars and strips and waxes floors. With living expenses, medical bills and insurance, he says he's barely making it. He works 14-hour days.
Asked about his days on the bench, Ciavarella reels back. "I just want to bitch-slap myself and say, 'Mark, what were you thinking?'"
I repeatedly asked Ciavarella to do an on-camera interview outlining his side of the story. He declined, saying he didn't want to bring any more heat onto himself than he was already facing. He pointed to a pre-sentence report compiled by the federal probation office recommending a life sentence. He sits back, seemingly unable to absorb the amount of time he may spend behind bars. He says he is now penalized for fighting the charges included in the federal indictment - a provision he says should be unconstitutional.
Ciavarella wanted to be heard. He wanted badly to speak on-camera, to tell his side of the story. But he always said he couldn't, not before sentencing.
On Thursday, U.S. Marshals took Ciavarella away, to prison for the start of a 28-year sentence. Had he been released and ordered to report to prison at a later date, the man who spent dozens of hours these last few weeks keeping busy, says he would have been back at the garage: towing cars, painting rooms and perhaps picking up some stain.
Joe Holden is an investigative reporter for WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre.