Legal News

State Supreme Court Suspends Former PA Child Care Owner

By Brian Harris

By Peter Hall
Of the Legal Staff

Robert J. Powell, the lawyer and former juvenile detention center owner at the core of Luzerne County?s judicial corruption scandal, has been placed on temporary suspension by the state Supreme Court.

In a one-page order posted Monday, the court announced Powell?s suspension and ordered him to comply with the state Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement requiring him to notify clients of his suspension.

The order also said Powell?s matter would be referred to the Supreme Court?s Disciplinary Board.

Powell?s attorney, Mark B. Sheppard, of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, said the suspension is the result of a joint petition by Powell and the state Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

?Robert agreed to a temporary suspension because he truly believed it was in the best interest of the legal profession,? Sheppard said.

He declined to discuss Powell?s reasons for consenting to the suspension, but noted that such suspensions usually occur once a conviction has been finalized.

Powell pleaded guilty June 9 to failing to report a felony to federal authorities and to being an accessory after the fact to a tax conspiracy in connection with a $2.6 million back room deal that, federal prosecutors allege, motivated two former judges to steer kids toward a for-profit detention facility.

Under the plea agreement, Powell is pleading guilty to misprision of a felony and accessory after the fact.

Federal prosecutors filed the charges as a result of investigations into payments Powell and PA Child Care builder Robert Mericle made to former Judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr.

A statement of offense conduct filed after Powell?s arraignment in June says Powell paid the judges $772,500, disguising the payments as rent for a yacht slip at the judges? Florida condominium. Powell also allowed more than $2 million to pass through his bank accounts in connection with a ?finders fee? that Mericle paid the judges.

From 2003 to 2008 Powell helped conceal the honest services fraud being committed by Conahan and Ciavarella by helping create false records "designed to hide, disguise and mis-characterize" the income the judges received, a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said.

In addition, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Powell transferred "tens of thousands of dollars in cash" to Conahan "with the intent that the cash not be traceable as income."

Conahan and Ciavarella withdrew their guilty pleas to honest services wire fraud charges last month after U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik rejected the judges? plea agreements, citing self-serving comments by Ciavarella and obstructionist behavior by Conahan.

Mericle has also agreed to plead guilty to a charge that he failed to disclose his knowledge of a crime.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on September 01, 2009 (boomark / email).