In this YouTube video from the Times Leader newspaper in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, Judge Mark Ciavarella is confronted by Sandy Fonzo during his federal criminal prosecution for racketeering, deprivation of the right to honest services, and other charges. Fonzo attributes the suicide of her teenage son to Ciavarella's criminal conduct in the Luzerne County Pa., Kids for Cash scandal.
Sacramento Family Court reform advocates assert that similar charges against judges, employees and the judge pro tem attorney "cartel" are warranted. The deaths of 9-year-old Matthew Hernandez and 8-month-old Ryder Salmen have been blamed on Judge Sharon Lueras. Other cases with high conflict child custody disputes, including parents Andrew Karres, Susan Ferris, and Robert Saunders involve extreme economic disparities between the parties.
In all three, the wealthy parent has paid significant sums to effectively terminate the parental rights of the economically weaker parent. In all three, the wealthy parent is represented by a judge pro tem attorney or firm. Court watchdogs assert that these, and similar cases show the court operates its own version of the Pennsylvania Kids for Cash system, and deprives the public of the federally protected right to honest government services.
New Legislation Needed in 2014 to Curtail the Incidence of Disgruntled Litigants
Special Holiday Satire by RoadDog
The screeching harpy in the video above is Sandy Fonzo. Do. Not. Read. This. until you watch the video. Sandy Fonzo is a disgruntled litigant. Fonzo is disgruntled because her teenage son took his own life after being traumatized in a privately run juvenile detention facility in Luzerne County Pennsylvania.
An all-star wrestler, her son was sentenced to the facility by Judge Mark Ciavarella, who, it turned out, received $997,600 from the developer who built the private juvenile detention facility. Sandy Fonzo and other disgruntled litigants joined forces and tricked the federal government into investigating Judge Ciavarella, his buddy Judge Michael Conahan, and their cohorts in government and the private sector.
A May, 2013 press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania summarized the scope and outcome of the investigation, prompted by disgruntled litigants:
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