Former Luzerne County Judge Ann H. Lokuta has asked the state Supreme Court to exercise its King’s Bench powers and remove Court of Judicial Discipline Judge Richard A. Sprague from her case.
Lokuta’s application for extraordinary relief, filed Friday, is another, perhaps more dramatic, attempt to force Sprague to step away from her case. The former judge has repeatedly drawn attention to Sprague’s attorney-client relationship with Luzerne County attorney Robert J. Powell and PA Child Care, a private, for-profit juvenile detention center. Both are at the heart of the county’s judicial corruption scandal that led to two former judges — Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. — admitting they received more than $2.6 million from Powell and the builder of PA Child Care, Robert K. Mericle.
