During his sentencing Friday in federal court at Scranton, former Luzerne County judge Michael Conahan said the system wasn't corrupt, but "I was corrupt."
Let's get out the microscope and examine this one further.
Conahan blamed his father for a lot of his problems. Stop that! No one had a Norman Rockwell childhood. Having an abuse father is no reason to steal millions and help lock up kids, who didn't have the benefit of legal representation.
Dear old dad was a grand chap while Michael Conahan was pocketing millions and living the high life in Florida. The late papa Conahan became an SOB after sonny got caught.
There was ample time to say "Whoa, stop the clock" and go on the straight and narrow. The epiphany came after the feds came knocking at the door. Please! I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.
The money was too good, too much, too easy. Michael Conahan abused his power right under our noses. That's not my assertion. He admitted to it.
Conahan might have been right when he said the system wasn't corrupt. First of all, he railroaded the closing of the county's juvenile detention center and the leasing of a private one past the commissioners, who weren't on the ball enough to ask the right questions and who had no regard for the taxpayers. One of those commissioners was current federal inmate Greg Skrepenak, and considering his track record, every decision made while he was in office now has a huge cloud over it.
Then, there was the district attorney's office, who did nothing as all this was happening, plus all those kids were appearing in court, before co-conspirator Mark Ciavarella, without representation.
The system might not have been corrupt, but it was lazy and incompetent and broken and filled with apathy. Again, not my assertion. An investigation into the "Kids for Cash" scandal lays it all out. It's unfortunate the things mentioned in this paragraph are not federal crimes as well. If they were, Conahan and Ciavarella would have a lot of company in the lock up.
