The Judges

Jennifer Rogers (REP/DEM) . . . . . 41,706
Fred A. Pierantoni (REP/DEM) . . . . 39,881
Joe Sklarosky Jr. (REP/DEM) . . . . 39,535
Michael T. Vough (REP/DEM). . . . . 35,739
Dick Hughes (REP). . . . . . . . ......... 34,995
Lesa Gelb (REP/DEM) . . . . . . . ...... 34,755
Molly Hanlon Mirabito (DEM) . . . . 34,014


This is a bit of a surprise.

Luzerne County Judges

We will be electing 6 new Judges of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas next month. There are 7 candidates and I have met 6 of them. They are all good people that will replace the disgraced Juvie Brothers Conahan and Ciavarella. LuLac tells about them: These convicted Judges were sneaky, conniving, vindictive, powerful and ruthless bastards. Ask a former Judge named Lokuta. I don't want to open the whole Lokuta thing again but me and the Yonk agree that she was fucked over by Conahan and the Judicial Conduct Board that had a few of his acquaintances sitting in judgement of her. She was not convicted of a crime and probably deserved a kick in pants but overturning an election is extreme.


5 of the 7 candidates secured the nomination of both the Democratic and Republican party's in May. I hate cross filing for Judge and School Board because these are political positions and we should decide in the general election not the primary. The convential wisdom is that the 5 who got double nominations will win although anything can happen. That's why we have elections.

The double five are:

Jennifer Rogers

Lesa Gelb

Mike Vough

Joe Skarosky

Fred Pieratoni

That leaves the odd man (person) out. The race for the 6th spot is between Rebublican Dick Hughes and Dem Molly Mirabito

This is a tough call for me. I have had a few discussions with Hughes and Molly. They both came to Blogfest and the lawyers I know highly recommended them both.

My solution to this delimma is to bullet vote for Mirabito and Hughes.

Looking to the fall-Luzerne County Judge

I got it wrong last night as 5 (not 4) candidates won both nominations. Barring some unforeseen scandal 5 of our 6 new Judges of the Court of Common Pleas will be:

Fred Pierantoni
Michael Vough
Joe Sklarosky
Lesa Gelb
Jennifer Rogers

I base that prediction on the fact that almost 10,000 people voted the straight party ticket in the 2009 election and the top vote getter in the Judicial election won with just over 38,000. Dick Hughes is again the odd man out topping the ballot on the GOP side but like 2009 he failed to garner the Democratic nomination. Molly Hanlon Mirabito snagged the Dem nomination so it is down to those 2 for the remaining fitting of robes on the 3rd floor. I have been hearing a lot of carping today that Terry Casey and Luzerne County GOP couldn't deliver the vote for the other 3 Republicans ( Haggerty, McMonagle, Saporito) on the ballot. I think that is unfair as judicial races are strange creatures. Let's see how the Republican candidates for county council do before we make judgements on his leadership. But I do think that they miss the organizational skills of Renita.

Another observation is I really don't like cross filing. The fewest voters have just decided an important election. The same goes for school director races. And don't get me started on state wide judicial elections.

Early returns

Hey, where is everybod?


With 28% of the precints in the leaders are on the Democratic side:


Fred A. Pierantoni . . . . . . . 4,138 9.04 4,138 0
Lesa Gelb . . . . . . . . . . 4,117 9.00 4,117 0
Michael T. Vough . . . . . . . . 3,947 8.63 3,947 0
Molly Hanlon Mirabito . . . . . . 3,869 8.46 3,869 0
Joe Sklarosky Jr.. . . . . . . . 3,549 7.76 3,549 0

The Republican Judge hopefuls:

Dick Hughes. . . . . . . . . . 3,842 10.17 3,842 0
Jim Haggerty . . . . . . . . . 3,161 8.37 3,161 0
Fred A. Pierantoni . . . . . . . 3,138 8.31 3,138 0
Michael T. Vough . . . . . . . . 2,947 7.80 2,947 0
John Aciukewicz . . . . . . . . 2,816 7.46 2,816 0
Lesa Gelb . . . . . . . . . . 2,800 7.41 2,800 0


In about an hour we should have the final numbers.

Predictions

It has always been a feature of this blog to predict the winners of the elections the Saturday before Tuesday but this time I have no idea. I usally get it wrong anyway.

In the race for Luzerne County Judge 16 lawyers are chasing 6 spots on the bench. My favs are Lesa Gelb, Jen Rogers, Joe Saporito and Vito DeLuca who I just might bullet vote.

The Luzerne County Council is a new beast with almost 50 people aspiring to be elected. The good thing is there will be some Republicans elected to this new body in the fall although I think the D or R label doesn't matter much in local government.

I will go out on limb and predictict that Tom Leighton will win renomination as Democractic nominee for Mayor of Wilkes-Barre and James O'Meara will be the nominee for Republican candidate for Plains Township Commissioner. Also Jackie Mo will be the next District Attorney.

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.

20 and counting

To no one's surprise Luzerne County Judge Michael Toole has copped a plea. We have speculating about this since last spring and it was just a matter of time after he announced that he was taking a vacation 2 weeks ago.


WILKES-BARRE - Luzerne County Judge Michael Toole has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges of honest services fraud and filing a false income tax return, the U.S. Attorney's office announced today.

CV: The U.S. Attorney's Office alleged Toole ruled in the unnamed attorney's favor in a case involving a vehicle insurance arbitration. Toole is also accused of concealing a $30,000 cash referral fee in 2006 and failing to report it on his tax return.

The charges

The plea agreement

One and done

I had a great conversation a few days ago with an old Air Force pal who is now an assistant US Attorney in another part of the country. He couldn't comment on what is going on around here but told me how the Department of Justice deals with public corruption cases. The first goal is to get the crook out of office and by the time someone gets a target letter their goose is cooked. To get the offender out of office and avoid a long expensive trial a deal is offered. Plead guilty to one charge, resign your office and go to jail for a short time or we will take it to trial and hit you with a list of charges that you know that you are guilty of and spend more time behind bars. This works as long as the judge is willing to go along with it.

A case in point. The Juvie Brothers, Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella, agreed to to plead guilty to 2 charges in exchange for a 7 year sentence. Federal Judge Ed Kosik rejected the plea and a 48 count indictment was then filed by the US Attorney. It will take some time to bring this to trial.

On earlier threads some commenter's defended a few of our local crooks saying taking some clothes or travel money was no big deal if that was the only thing they did. What else did they do? The feds know.

Juvie brother makes the Colbert Report

Via Big Dan

Arizona wants to privatize their prisons. We all know how well that has worked out in Luzerne County.

Steven Colbert rips local NEPA judge Mark Ciavarella on "The Word":

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - The Green Mile
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

No bears were harmed during the filming of this segment.

Judge of the Court of Common Pleas

William H. Amesbury (Dem/Rep). . 37,125 36%


Tina Polachek Gartley (Dem) . . . . 35,482 35%


Richard Hughes (Rep). . . . . . . 30,154 29%


WITH 188 OF 189 PRECINCTS COUNTED

Peter Paul Olszewski Jr is unemployed

With 93% of the precicnts counted it looks like that Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr has been not been retained as a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. No Luzerne County Judge has even lost a retention race before, this is history. Even Conahan and Lokuta won retention.


No. . . . 30,844 56%

Yes . . . . 24,715 44%

Although I advocated a No vote as a reflex to what has been going on and out of habit I really can't say anything bad about PPO-2. He was a good District Attorney and he slapped around his incompetent successor from the bench after he dropped the ball on paperwork and procedure in the Hugo Selenski case. But that picture on the front page of the CV sunk him. Even though he lost this job I'm sure he will land on his feet and will not worry where his next meal is coming from.

Judge Burke hangs on with a Yes vote of 34,261 61% to No 21,697 39%. Normally a Judge wins retention with 70 or 80 percent of the vote.

Predictions-The Judges

In the retention races I think that Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. is going down. Tom Burke may survive but I doubt it.

Tina Gartley will be the top vote getter for one of the two open seats and Dick Hughes will win the other spot. Bill Amesbury is also a very well qualified candidate but this is the first time in my memory that having both nominations may not help.

Retain the Judges?

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Luzerne County Judges Thomas Burke and Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. are up for retention to the Court of Common Pleas this year and they are feeling the heat of the fallout of the Juvie Brothers scandal that may result in them losing the yes/no vote. They may meet a similar fate as Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro? In 2005 Nigro lost his bid for retention because the state legislature voted themselves an outrageous pay raise in the middle of the night and the voters took their wrath out on him. They have not been accused of any wrongdoing but Conahan and Ciavarella are not on the ballot and they are. People I talk to are in a throw the bums out mood.

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PPO-2 has been in full campaign mode with a website up and has been raising money. Judge Burke hasn't raised a dime, doesn't have a website but has been pressing the flesh asking people for their vote and answering every question thrown at him.

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Olszewski’s trip to the Florida condo has been well documented and just may sink him. I've never heard anybody say a bad thing about Judge Burke and I even had him for jury duty recently and thought he was very fair. Then again I had Ciavarella for jury duty a few years ago and was impressed by him. Shows what I know. But I just can't get by this from a local attorney:

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Olszewski and Burke claim they did nothing wrong. "It wasn't me, It was them. I didn't know. How could I know?" Just men had a duty to discover the truth. Olszewski said the hearings took place a half a mile away in another building. How could he hear? How did an advocacy group over 100 miles away in Philadelphia hear enough to file lawsuits on behalf of more than 500 children? How did the FBI know enough about it to raid juvenile probation? Olszewski says if he knew he would have told the FBI. If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, oh what a party we'd have.

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I always vote no on these questions no matter what is going on but that's just me and all my Republican friends tell me I'm wrong to vote no on Burke. As unfair as it may seem to be to these gentleman ( I doubt their judgement and tin ears not their integrity) we have to send a message about what has been going on in the Courthouse and the way to do that is to vote no on retention.

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So tell me in the comments why I'm wrong and vote in the polls on the sidebar.

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Luzerne County Judges

The headline election this year is the election of 2 new Judges for the Court of Common Pleas. After the revelations that the Juvie brothers, Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella, have taken public corruption to a level unseen anywhere in history of this country the choice is especially important. Taking a bribe to fix a case seems almost pedestrian (they did that too) but designing a scheme to conspire to build a private juvenile penal colony then railroading children through the court system to ensure the place makes money is beyond corrupt, it is evil. And they had lot's of help.


17 candidates ran in the primary and now we have the choice of 3 very qualified people to fill the 2 open seats. Wilkes-Barre district judge Bill Amesbury won both nominations which in past years would assure his election because his name would appear twice on the old lever machine ballots but with the new touch screens he will only be listed once. Tina Gartley has been running the most energetic campaign and has been all over the place and her online outreach has been impressive, I think John Dawe knows how to work the intertubes. Republican Dick Hughes has solid support from the local GOP and many Democrats and independents that I talk to also like him.

My prediction is that Gartley will be top vote getter with Amesbury and Hughes fighting it out for the second spot. Some Hughes supporters are urging a bullet vote for him. A bullet vote is casting a vote for just one candidate when you are allowed to vote for more than one. In this case you can vote for two.


You can cast a bullet vote in the Gort42 poll on the sidebar.

This guy has balls

I spotted this LTE in the CV written by an attorney that recently started practicing in Luzerne County. Under the previous regime of Conahan and Ciavarella he would never win another case in this county again. We will see if things change.


Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. claims he saw nothing, heard nothing and knew nothing about the injustice occurring in the courts of Luzerne County. I don't believe him. I do believe that he would do anything to save his $157,000 a year job, as would his fellow judge, Tom Burke.
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Terrorists at Guantanimo Bay had more rights than children did in Luzerne County. How would you feel if it were your child who was lied to, tricked and unjustly sent to kiddie concentration camp?
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Olszewski and Burke claim they did nothing wrong. "It wasn't me, It was them. I didn't know. How could I know?" Just men had a duty to discover the truth. Olszewski said the hearings took place a half a mile away in another building. How could he hear? How did an advocacy group over 100 miles away in Philadelphia hear enough to file lawsuits on behalf of more than 500 children? How did the FBI know enough about it to raid juvenile probation? Olszewski says if he knew he would have told the FBI. If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, oh what a party we'd have.
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I was a judicial law clerk in Schuylkill County. In my experience, what went on in the courthouse and in many of the cases was common knowledge among the judges, staff members and law clerks. Even then, almost 10 years ago, stories were coming out of Luzerne County from lawyers and litigants alike, that the judges were crooked, that the cases were fixed. It was not until I started practicing in Luzerne County that I realized that most of the gossip was true.
Peter Paul Olszewski and Thomas Burke have failed us. They have failed to protect us. They have failed to protect our children.

Now it is election time and they want you to know them as "Peter Paul" and "Tom." After they win retention they're back to being "Your Honor," and we the people are back to being nobodies. In this lawyer's opinion, Judge Olszewski and Judge Burke do not deserve to be retained as judges.
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Attorney Joseph A. Woitko
Beaver Meadows

The question I keep asking is how does everybody know what was going on in Lokuta's courtroom but nobody knew what was going on in Ciavarella's? Zen want's to know why the District Attornerys David Lupas (now Judge) and Jackie Musto Carrol and their staffs did not notice a gross disparity between the offense and the punishment that was meted out?

And how about the Probation Department and the Public Defenders?

PPO-2 answered my question a week ago and the TL has Tom Burke's defense today.


"I can tell you categorically I did not have a single incident where a lawyer came to me and said, ‘By the way, there’s something you should look out for because there may be abuses,’ ” Burke said. “We can look back now and say if there were more checks and balances, maybe these abuses would have been discovered sooner.”

Olszewski answers my question

Luzerne County Judges Thomas Burke and Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. are up for retention to the Court of Common Pleas this year and they are feeling the heat of the fallout of the Juvie Brothers scandal that may result in them losing the yes/no vote. That has never happened to a sitting judge in this county in my memory.

A few days ago I asked how does everybody know what was going on in Lokuta's courtroom but nobody knew what was going on in Ciavarella's?

His response is in the CV today:

Not only were the vast majority of Judge Ciavarella's juvenile court proceedings closed to the public, they were conducted at Penn Place, located approximately ½ mile away from my courtroom in the Luzerne County Courthouse. Furthermore, during my 10 years on the bench, not a single parent, prosecutor, police officer, probation official or judge ever complained to me that Judge Ciavarella routinely denied juveniles their right to counsel. Nor did I know that he accepted "finder's fees" or sentenced juveniles illegally.

PPO-2 has been beat up in the local press and talk radio the last few days over that frat boy picture with Conahan and Ron Bellitiere that was anonymously provided to the local papers. Fair or not a picture is worth a thousand words.

Knowing that he is in trouble Olszewski is now in full campaign mode with a website up and filed a finance report with the PA Department of State indicating that he is raising money.

The website is:

Vote Yes to Retain Judge Peter Paul Olszweski, Jr.

The hompage lists 10 reasons to vote yes including a bunch of awards that he won and winning death penalty convictions when he was District Attorney that more than likely will never be carried out. Overall I think that PPO-2 was a pretty good DA especially when you compare his record to his incompetent successor.

There is not much on the campaign finance report yet and it includes a couple of errors such as listing his party as Republican and listing the office he is seeking as being in the 14th Judicial District (Fayette County).

I have always resisted the guilt by association argument. Heaven knows I've had my picture taken with some unsavory characters over the years. How much this hurts his chances remains to be seen. I always vote no on these questions no matter what is going on but I'm just a contrarian bastard.

Spring Break

(L to R) Judge Peter Paul Olszewski, attorney John Kennedy, Ron Bellitiere and and former Judge Michael Conahan


CV: "It's obviously being done to embarrass me before the election," Olszewski said of the photo...In a tense, hour-long interview with The Citizens' Voice editors and reporters Thursday, Olszewski said he believes the June 2005 photo was mailed anonymously to the media by Conahan and/or his codefendant, former county Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., to hurt his bid for a second 10-year term in November.
"If you publish this, you're doing Mark's bidding," Olszewski said. "You're doing what the most corrupt judges in the world want you to do."...Through his attorney, Al Flora Jr., Ciavarella said the accusation that he was the source of the photo was "absolutely not true." Conahan declined comment through his attorney.

I never get invited to any of the good frat parties. It looks like these guys were playing some serious blender games. McGruff wants to know Who took the picture?

Luzerne County Judges

This was supposed to be a comment over at Lu-Lac.

The question that I have is how does everybody know what was going on in Lokuta's courtroom but nobody knew what was going on in Ciavarella's?

Lokuta was right

The big headline today is that the Juvie Brothers have been hit with a 48 count indictment including racketeering, extortion, bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax violations. The details of the indictment haven't yet been reported on the US Attorney's website or in the press. Senior Judge Edwin M. Kosik rejected Michael Conahan's and Mark Ciavarella's plea agreement last month charging them with only 2 crimes and agreed with many of us that 7 years for taking bribes to lock up kids wasn't enough jail time for these 2 crooks. The maximum sentence is 25 years and the judge said the plea called for less jail time than normal sentencing guidelines. Reading his order he was especially miffed at their conduct since the guilty plea.

The Legal Intelligencer detailed many of their other crimes in a story in July and drops this bomb today.

A detailed complaint was filed against former Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Conahan with the Judicial Conduct Board in 2006, alleging wide-spread corruption including case-fixing, mob ties and the improper placement of juveniles in a privately owned juvenile detention facility.

When asked who might have filed the complaint, several sources speculated that Lokuta had written it. Lokuta denied authoring the complaint.

Asked who had, Lokuta replied: "One of my staffers."

I think Ann may have had some input in writing the complaint. The JCB that voted to remove her from the bench also allowed Conahan and Ciavarella to testify against her. Conahan's business partner, Pat Judge, was one of the people who sat in judgement of her. Her fate is in the hands of the State Supreme Court.

Ex-judges hammered with 48 counts

Ex-judges hit with 48 counts

Yes or No

Will Luzerne County Judges Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. and Thomas F. Burke Jr. suffer a similar fate as Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro? In 2005 Nigro lost his bid for retention because the state legislature voted themselves an outrageous pay raise in the middle of the night and the voters took their wrath out on him. There were other issues involved but it could be argued that he was a victim of "guilt by association."


So now the question is will Olszewski and Burke suffer because of the actions of the Juvie Brothers? They have not been accused of any wrongdoing but Conahan and Ciavarella are not on the ballot and they are. I don't have any polling to back it up but people I talk to are in a throw the bums out mood. That's why I also think the Republican row office candidates will do well.


I have never voted Yes in a judicial retention election and I'm not about to start now.