Radio Daze

I don't listen to a lot of local talk radio anymore and missed much of the the latest manufactured controversy about Luzerne County Bureau of Elections Director Leonard Piazza posting a flippant remark on his Facebook page during office hours that may have taken a minute or two out his day. The afternoon shock jock of WILK decided to make this into a big deal after convicting Judge Chet Muroski of DUI a few weeks ago despite a lack of evidence. Sometimes he does a good job of exposing problems in the Luzerne County Government like Clerk of Courts Bob Reilly selling used cars when he should be in the office but jumping down Piazza's throat was stupid and unfair.

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The Lu Lac Political Letter agrees that this is making a mountain out of a molehill and defame the character and work ethic of a good man.

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I have found Leonard Piazza to be one of the most responsive people in our county government. Whenever I have asked him a question he has always got back to me in a few hours. He has been a good leader and manager and the best measurement of that is he has hired very good people to do the job. They keep their cool even when some candidate wanders into the office at 5 minutes to 5PM demanding all sorts of documents and keep them there for hours after closing time. Many times I have emailed or called him after business hours and he has always answered.

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So I put this down to his usual bufoonery like backing Hillary for President then switching to McCain because Sarah Palin was on the ticket.

The judges

We have 2 new members of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County. Bill Amesbury won both party nominations in May and Tina Gartley came in second on the Democratic side virtually ensuring their election in the fall. Yet another reason to get rid of cross filing in judicial and school board races in the primary when the fewest people vote. That is not a shot at Gartley or Amesbury as I think they are good people. It is a shot at the Wilkes-Barre Area School Directors who recently selected an accused criminal as Board President but that is another subject.


I will give props to our esteemed jurists for selecting the only Republican on the bench, Tom Burke, as the new President Judge. Burke just won his retention vote despite my urging of a no vote on him and PPO-2 on principle. My lawyer friends tell me he is one of the best people on the bench and will hopefully continue the efforts of Chet Muroski to clean up the mess. I still find it hard to believe that these guys didn't know what was going on in Ciavarella's courtroom. Muroski says he went to FBI about the shenanigans going on in the courthouse but Ann Lokuta was the only one to put it in writing. For her efforts Michael Conahan orchestrated a campaign to remove her from the bench that the Court of Judicial Discipline has upheld in an apparent case of CYA.

Man of the Year

Martin Carlson


The former United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania was recently honored as "Government Lawyer of the Year" by the Pennsylvania Bar Association. His leadership of investigators from the FBI, IRS and other government agencies resulted in blowing the lid off of many of the criminal practices that have been normal in Luzerne County for as long as I can remember such as job selling and kickbacks for contracts. That is a set of crimes that would have not been possible to bring to light without the uncovering of the Juvie Brothers scheme of selling kids up the river. He is a career prosecutor who has been promoted to U.S. magistrate judge in Harrisburg, Pa and was succeeded in the office by Dennis Pfannenschmidt
who has continued the investigation. Mr Pfannenschmidt will be busy in 2010.

The Times-Leader named Luzerne County President Judge Chet Muroski Person of the Year. I can agree that Muroski has done many things to try to clean up this mess and restore trust in the courts but I can't get by the question of why it took so long. Talk of something being remiss in the courts has been out there for a long time. So far 3 judges have gone down with the rumor that a 4th will soon be charged. Let me ask you this, if you had a criminal or legal matter pending would you want your case heard in a Luzerne County Court?

The Newsmakers of the Year were the Juvie Brothers. Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella
got the attention of Michael Moore, the New York Times, the BBC, the CBS Evening News, ABC's 20/20 and even the TV drama "Law and Order."

Stephen Colbert complimented the Judges on their privatization efforts.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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This also made TPM's Golden Duke awards.

Best Scandal -- Local Venue

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan not only took kick-backs for sending kids to a private juvenile prison facility where the state or local communities had to pay top dollar to house young delinquents but they sent kids to jail for the pettiest of offenses, good kids who had made minor mistakes, kids who had no business being sent to prison. A few examples make the point: as in their sentencing a 17-year-old for five months because he helped a friend shop lift a DVD from a Wal-Mart; sending a 15-year-old off for three months in their co-conspirators' juvenile camp for mocking a school official on a MySpace page; sentencing a 13-year-old weekend confinement for trespassing in a vacant building - the list is long but you get the gist. These two judges earned not less that $2.6 million running this kickback racket while ruining young lives for their own illicit gain before they were caught red-handed. For me, this local scandal pales all others nominees.

The next Luzerne County Commssioner

68 people have applied for the vacancy created by Greg Skrepenak's resignation and President Judge Chet Muroski has stated that the judges will interview all qualified applicants and vote on replacement tomorrow. I'm sure that not all the applicants will make the cut because some will be disqualified because they don't meet the registration requirement, filed after the deadline or made mistakes filling out the application. Challenges will heard 10AM tomorrow.

I could have field day ripping apart some of the names on the list and so could you, please don't.

The judges have set themselves an ambitious goal of deciding this tomorrow. Even if the field gets whittled down to 40 and you give them each a 10 minute interview that will run into at least 6 hours. And no matter who they pick it will create a firestorm. If they pick a fresh face people will complain that they have no experience and if they pick someone with government experience the cry will be the fix is in.

The Yonk gives some helpful interview tips.

Reading the applications this one caught my eye

Joseph J Gombeda

"I honestly do not have any qualifications for the office of commissioner; however neither did anyone else for that matter."


My prediction is that Frank Trinisewski will return to the courthouse.

Skrep is sacked

23 and counting


SCRANTON – Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak has signed a plea agreement to a corruption charge and will resign from office today...Skrepenak signed the plea agreement on Wednesday with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

This confirms what me and other bloggers have known for a few months. He sure sounded like he knew he was going down and refused to testify before the state Juvie Commission on the advice of his attorney. He even skipped yesterday's budget work session not that he has been diligent about showing up for work lately.

Chet Muroski and the rest of out esteemed Luzerne County jurists will get to pick a replacement.

To add to today's fun under the dome District Attorney Jackie Mo is investigating a report of missing money in the Prothontary's office.

What's that Chet?

“I have read some blogs that all people laid off in probation are back to work, and they’re not accurate. That’s absolutely untrue.” -Luzerne County President Judge Chester Muroski

I'm not sure what he is talking about. I can count on one hand the number of blogs that write about Luzerne County politics that I read everyday and none of us has said any such thing as far as I know. Maybe he is confusing blogs with comments made on one of the newspaper sites. If you really do read blogs your honor please contact me because I have a few questions.

Judges look at cutting budget

What did I miss?

I took a few days off from blogging and will play catch-up for a bit. The long awaited 20/20 piece about the Juvie Brothers aired on ABC on Friday and we made the New York Times on Saturday. Another claim to fame for the area. It was just a matter of time before Luzerne County was named as a defendant in one of the lawsuits and new President Judge Chet Muroski wants former judge Mark Ciavarella’s seat placed on the May 19 primary election ballot.



Acting Controller A. J. Martinelli made some news when he was accepted into the ARD program after his spectacular performance when he got popped for DUI in January. No word on if he will required to wear a belt. And in the latest misuse of county funds to come to light Martinelli was the benefits coordinator when 2 unpaid members of the prison board were given health coverage. He claims he can't remember the details of the applications.


And the price of smokes is going up.

Juvie brothers update

There are now 3 class action lawsuits on behalf of the children who were the victims of Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella who railroaded them through the juvinile justice system. The suits says the judges and other defendants conspired to perpetrate "what ranks as one of the largest and most serious violations of children's rights in the history of the American legal system.



Luzerne County President Judge Chet Muroski confirmed that the probe involves more than the PA Child Care investigation. This thing is expanding into allegations that civil cases were being fixed.



Judges Peter Paul Olszewski and Michael Toole have been interviewed by the FBI and we wonder if their stays at the condo in Florida has any thing to do with the feds interest.

Luzerne County Prothonotary Jill Moran is playing "Lets make a Deal" claiming that some people allegedly attempted, without Moran’s "full knowledge and consent, to use Moran to facilitate frauds.” Mark Guydish in the TL doesn't buy it. Moran has always claimed to be the unintentional political puppet, not the puppeteer; the piece being played, not the player. It’s a role she took on again this week with the deal struck in the federal courthouse investigation. She didn’t commit fraud, she was used by those committing it. She is the head of the W-Cat company that was suppossed to be building houses in Mountaintop. Some of her partners were the the Juvie Brother Judges and her law partner Robert Powell plus some people that I know that are going to be hurt .


Conahan's cousin Bill Sharkey was officially fired after pleading guilty to stealing more than $70,000 of seized gambling money over 10 years. He stopped reporting to his courthouse job on Aug. 20, a day after federal agents served a subpoena on his office for records connected to money seized in illegal gambling cases. During his leave from work, Sharkey maintained possession of a county vehicle and county mobile phone. Ciavarella approved the paid leave of absence for Sharkey. Who the hell is in charge, if anyone, of keeping track of county vehicles?

Conahan's brother in law millionaire psychologist Dr. Frank Vita and forger Sandra M. Brulo are also in trouble.

Muroski says he will clean house

Our new Luzerne County President Judge Chet Muroski has said he will review all the people hired by the 2 previous President Judges and accused criminals Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella. First he has to get a handle on who is actually employed by the courts which boggles my mind. “We don’t know who our employees are,” Muroski said. “We were not allowed to participate and nominate anyone for department head or supervisor positions. We didn’t even know what positions were available.”

Some of the people that should be worried are:

• Sam Guesto, specialty courts/alternative sentencing director, $78,160.

• Paul McGarry, who was promoted from probation services director to administrative services director, $78,160.

• Larry Saba, probation services director, $78,160.

• Don Tedesco, jury management supervisor, $45,652. Tedesco is Conahan’s brother-in-law.

• Jim Torbik, central court administrator, $60,100.

And many others.

If he follows through it will increase the unemployment rate in Luzerne County. I hate to see anyone lose their job but I'm sure that they will all land on their feet.

The White House Cafe

I usually don't write about crime and punishment in the local area, especially in Wilkes-Barre, because sadly there is so much of it. I could probably do a blog just about the police blotter. The latest outrage is that there was another killing outside the White House Cafe on Hazel St. and the locals want it shut down.

CV: Five shootings in 27 months, two dead, eight wounded, one stabbed. This is not acceptable in any city,” said Abbott Street resident Mike Martin. “This presents an obvious clear and present danger to people who live in the neighborhood.”A man died and two other people were wounded after a fight outside the city tavern on Sunday. The bar is a nuisance and neighbors don’t want to live in constant fear anymore, Martin said.

I can't say that I blame them. If this was going on in my street I would want the place padlocked. It may happen this time.

But there is a political component to the situation. Luzerne County Judge Chester Muroski's family has owned the bar for decades. Muroski’s daughter and son-in-law now own the place but they live in Philadelphia. And the perception is the place has gotten a pass because of his involvement and local law enforcement and politician's don't want to cross him.

There are many other bars in the area that get more visits from the police but it's usually just beer muscles and our local constables can usually calm down the situation. The Woodlands has had many incidents over the last few years that involved shootings and stabbings but nobody is demanding that they be shut down. The fact that many political fundraisers are held there probably has nothing to do with it.

There are many accusations that the bar is a haven for drug dealers that are unproven. Why many of the patrons carry guns can be explained that they are American citizens just exercising their 2nd Amendment rights. If more people carried guns we would all be safer, don'cha tink?

I can't argue with Mark who says we should teach our children well.