Former Luzerne County Common Pleas Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. leaned back in his chair with his hand on his chin during opening arguments of his federal racketeering trial Tuesday, listening as the prosecution told the jury that he and former Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Conahan had “turned the court of common pleas into a criminal enterprise.”
During the course of his arguments in U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Edwin M. Kosik’s courtroom, federal prosecutor Gordon A. Zubrod alleged Ciavarella and Conahan had accepted kickbacks from builder Robert K. Mericle for the construction of two private juvenile detention centers, PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care, and had extorted millions of dollars from the facilities’ former co-owner, Robert J. Powell.
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