Nearly 20 years after “Kids for Cash” became a national scandal, one of the judges at its center is back in the spotlight – this time because of an act of presidential power.
In December 2024, former President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of Michael Conahan, a one-time Luzerne County judge who was serving a 17-year federal sentence for his role in the scheme. The decision revived an old question about accountability – and a newer one about what, if anything, the state of Pennsylvania learned from the scandal.
Because the story was never just about two corrupt judges.
It was about the kids who appeared before them – the prosecutors and defense attorneys who watched it unfold; the court officials who should have intervened; and many people around them who did nothing. Then there were private companies that built and operated detention facilities with big agendas. And there was a system in place that allowed young people to be locked away without lawyers while the warning signs piled up around them.
The scheme unraveled, the judges went to prison and the scandal became a national shorthand for what can happen when the people with power abdicate their responsibilities.
Today, Pennsylvania’s juvenile justice system looks different in some ways. Laws changed. Court practices were overhauled. Thousands of juvenile cases were revisited.
But reform is not the same thing as accountability.
This is a look at what happened after “Kids for Cash” – to the kids caught up in the system, to the institutions that failed them and to the people who were supposed to be watching. We examine what changed, what didn’t, and what questions remain unanswered nearly two decades later.
The consequences didn’t end when they left detention. And they didn’t all look the same.
Hillary Transue was 14 when she created a fake MySpace page making fun of her school’s assistant principal.
She and her friends thought it was hilarious. Her school administrators did not.
Transue was charged with harassment and brought before Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who was known for his heavy-handed tactics running a tough courtroom.
With no lawyer beside her, the hearing lasted about a minute, and Ciavarella sent her to a county juvenile detention center for three months.
Nearly 20 years later, Transue still thinks about what happened to her.
“One recurring thought that I kept having was, will I ever be normal? Will I ever, will I be a normal adult?” she said.
“When I found out about the [Conahan] commutation, I was activated. I was hurt. I could, you know, feel that upset in my body.”
Transue now sits on the board of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia and works as an advocate for juvenile justice reform. She was not unusual because she was swept up in the juvenile system because of a prank. She was unusual because her story became one of the most visible examples of what happened inside it and exposed many more.
Justin Bodnar was 12 when he entered the same system.
He ultimately spent four years inside and almost three years on probation for an initial infraction of cursing at another student’s mother at a bus stop.
He remembers the fights inside. The beatings. The weeks in solitary confinement. A six-hour prisoner transport in which he was chained to the van seat.
Then came the nightmares.
“At least once a week I’d dream I was locked in a tiny dark cell, surrounded by those greasy, off-white cinder blocks they build them with,” he said.
Today, Bodnar has a computer science degree, works as a systems administrator, is writing a memoir about his time inside juvenile prisons and makes music.
But not every story ended with a second chance.
Charlie Balasavage was 14 when he entered the system. He told documentarians that between the ages of 14 and 18, he never celebrated a birthday at home.
“You stayed in your cell almost every day. You didn’t have a pillow the first two weeks. You had to earn a pillow.”
Balasavage died of a drug overdose in 2019. He was 28.
Edward Kenzakowski was arrested after a fight with a classmate and later served time in state prison. He died by suicide in 2010. His mother, Sandy Fonzo, confronted Ciavarella outside the federal courthouse in Scranton in 2011. The image of her shouting at him is now infamous in the Keystone State.
In addition to the kids who went public with their stories, others were identified in a special commission report only by their initials and alleged “crimes:”
D.G. (12 years old): Admitted throwing rocks; Ciavarella sent him to Camp Adams for 35 days.
A.A. (16 years old): Honor student with no prior record gestured at a police officer; sentenced to 2 months at PA Child Care and 6 months at Adelphoi Village.
M. (13 years old): Pushed his mother’s boyfriend during a custody dispute; detained for 48 days at PA Child Care until his father went to the press.
What juvenile court looked like from the inside.
Transue and Bodnar were among thousands of kids who passed through Ciavarella’s courtroom between 2003 and 2008.
By now, many are familiar with the “Kids for Cash” scandal from nearly two decades ago. What is less familiar is what the system looked like from inside. The scheme involved sending thousands of children to private juvenile detention facilities through a network that included Ciavarella and Conahan, developer Robert Mericle, co-owner Robert Powell and others – and millions of dollars in illegal payments. Bribes.
At that time, Ciavarella had built a reputation in Luzerne County as the kind of judge the community wanted – someone who was tough on juvenile crime. He campaigned on that promise. But inside his courtroom, he had also developed a system in which young people routinely appeared without lawyers, pleaded guilty without representation and were sent to detention at rates far above the statewide average.
But the warning signs were there.
In 2001, the Pennsylvania Superior Court had overturned one of Ciavarella’s juvenile adjudications after he reportedly forced a 13-year-old to appear without a lawyer. He promised he would not do it again. Yet he did.
A commission formed in August 2009 to investigate the scandal found that more than half of the juvenile cases handled by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008 involved a breakdown of the right to counsel. It also found that he routinely failed to conduct the on-the-record waiver colloquies required by state law.
How did so many people and institutions fail to intervene?
Marsha Levick, chief legal officer of the Juvenile Law Center, has spent years litigating the fallout from the scandal. She co-founded the organization in 1975 and led its litigation before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court involving the Luzerne County juvenile justice system.
She credited the state legislature with passing bills that sharply restricted when children could waive counsel in juvenile court, required judges to explain their reasons for placing children in confinement and expanded the circumstances under which juvenile records could be expunged.
But Levick said accountability did not stop with Ciavarella and Conahan.
“The chief public defender … as well as the district attorney – they were in the courtroom. They watched these kids enter guilty pleas without lawyers. They were well aware of what was going on,” she said.
“They witnessed Ciavarella’s treatment of the young people who came before him. And nobody spoke up. Nobody said anything.”
She added: “No one was minding the store, so to speak – questioning what Ciavarella was doing. But that’s a lot of kids.”
Barry Dyller, a civil rights and defense attorney based in Wilkes-Barre, spent years challenging Ciavarella in court and later represented families affected by the scandal.
He said the lawyers who watched what was happening in Ciavarella’s courtroom should have done more to stop it.
“I have had calls from people who feel their lives are ruined,” he said.
“I think there’s been no accountability for all the people who were in those courtrooms, lawyers and non-lawyers, but especially the lawyers. Then they were prosecutors, whether they were public defenders, who saw what was happening, and didn’t go crazy about it.”
In 2006, anonymous ethics complaints began showing up before the Judicial Conduct Board (JCB) about conditions inside the courthouse. According to the commission report, JCB staff conducted no investigations, filed no charges and tossed out the complaints entirely. Several attempts to reach the Judicial Conduct Board for purposes of this story were unsuccessful.
A year later, concerns surfaced inside the public defender’s office.
According to the commission report, an assistant public defender raised concerns to Luzerne County Chief Public Defender Basil Russin that juveniles were routinely having their rights violated. Russin told the commission he spent only half his day in juvenile court and the rest in private practice. He also told the district attorney’s office that the public defender’s office lacked the time and resources to address the problem.
Several calls placed to Russin at his law office went unanswered.
It wasn’t operating in a vacuum. There was a private business structure around it.
According to the commission report and federal court records, attorney and developer Robert Powell, co-owner of PA Child Care, and contractor Robert Mericle paid roughly $2.8 million to Conahan and Ciavarella over several years.
Some of these payments were disguised as “broker fees” or “finder’s fees.” In exchange, the judges used their positions of power to help establish, expand and fill the juvenile detention centers with young people – no matter the severity of the alleged crime.
Gregory Zappala, co-owner of PA Child Care, bought out Powell’s interest and was not charged with any criminal wrongdoing. Zappala later sued Powell, alleging he had no knowledge of the kickbacks and other misconduct. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, his 2014 lawsuit described him as having been “kept in the dark” about the finder’s fees and cash bribes.
When reached by e-mail, a spokesperson for Mericle declined to comment. Calls placed to Powell and Zappala were not returned.
Dr. Frank Vita, Conahan’s brother-in-law, also had a role in the system.
According to the commission report, he held a non-competitive court contract to conduct psychological evaluations of young people charged with criminal offenses. Ciavarella referred kids in Luzerne County to Vita, and the children were almost always placed in juvenile detention while the evaluations were conducted. In 2014, Vita surrendered his Pennsylvania psychology license after the state found that his conduct in its review of dozens of cases had grossly deviated from professional and ethical standards.
Who was responsible for Conahan’s clemency?
Former President Joe Biden granted Conahan clemency through a categorical process that did not individually weigh the particulars of his crimes, according to an official quoted by Politico. The administration set eligibility criteria and granted relief to everyone who met them.
Biden later said he authorized the clemency decisions and the use of an autopen. In July 2025, the New York Times reported that he approved categories of recipients rather than reviewing every name, and that aides adjusted lists as Bureau of Prisons information arrived without returning each revision to him.
That leaves questions about oversight: Who set the criteria? Who determined eligibility? Did anyone flag Conahan’s record or question his inclusion?
There is also the question of access.
Did donors, party officials, or well-connected advocates seek clemency for particular people? Were such requests documented? Could outside advocates influence the eligibility categories themselves, how officials interpreted them or whether particular recipients received additional consideration? What safeguards governed those contacts? Nothing in our reporting proves political intervention secured Conahan’s release. But a broad policy and a well-placed advocate aren’t mutually exclusive, and records could help establish whether anyone sought to influence the decision.
Biden’s ties to Pennsylvania’s Casey family are part of the political context. The former president publicly supported Sen. Bob Casey during his 2024 campaign, and Casey remained in office when Conahan’s sentence was commuted. Whether those relationships provided an avenue for an actual request is a question requiring further reporting. Did Conahan or anyone acting on his behalf seek assistance from Casey’s office, his family or intermediaries with White House access?
The autopen controversy raises a related question about presidential authorization. Biden said he authorized the decisions; in March 2026, CBS News reported that prosecutors closed a criminal investigation into autopen use after finding no viable legal basis to proceed.
The use of an autopen alone does not establish that a decision lacked authorization. The question is what Biden approved and how his staff carried out those decisions.
Gov. Josh Shapiro condemned Conahan’s commutation, saying he personally studies every clemency case that reaches his desk. After Biden’s June 2024 debate, Shapiro defended Biden’s candidacy. Those positions are not inherently contradictory, but they leave open how Shapiro understood Biden’s responsibility for the decision and what scrutiny preceded it. Broad + Liberty sought answers from Shapiro’s office last month about what happened, specifically:
The governor did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
For a community still living with the consequences of “Kids for Cash,” condemnation is not an answer. Accountability means knowing who designed the route to clemency, who could influence it, what safeguards existed and who is responsible for the result.
Did Pennsylvania actually fix what went wrong?
The scandal forced the state to confront much more than two corrupt judges.
Pennsylvania changed the rules governing juvenile court and strengthened some protections for children. But the reforms did not end the deeper problem the scandal exposed: how easily young people could be pulled deeper into the system.
The changes started with some basic questions that should have been answered long before “Kids for Cash.”
Young people were given stronger protections around their right to legal counsel and judges were required to explain why they were sending them into confinement. The state eased some restrictions on expunging juvenile records.
The Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice also called for stronger disciplinary systems for judges and lawyers, better training for those working in juvenile court and statewide ethical standards for juvenile probation officers.
Today, several of those reforms have been put in place to address the collapse of checks and balances at both the state and county levels that led to the “Kids for Cash” scandal. Among them:
On paper, the system looked different.
But the harder question was never whether Pennsylvania could write new rules. It was whether the people and institutions operating the system had changed with them.
“Some of them were bad actors, but many of them were completely innocent kids, and so I think that that public attitude still exists,” said William Ecenbarger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran investigative reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer who spent years reporting on the Luzerne County juvenile justice system and interviewed dozens of former juvenile defendants and their families for his book, “Kids for Cash.”
“And so Kids for Cash has not really changed that much – except – I’m sure, in the unlikely event that it ever occurred that some judges took money to send kids away to a private prison, there would be outrage.”
Nearly 20 years later, what does accountability look like?
Ciavarella and Conahan eventually faced federal charges for their roles in the scandal.
Ciavarella was convicted in 2011 on 12 of 39 counts, including racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering and tax fraud. He was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison and is still behind bars today.
Conahan – who had business dealings ranging from a beer distributorship to an ambulance company – pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 17 years.
In December 2024, Biden commuted the remainder of Conahan’s sentence as part of a mass clemency action covering roughly 1,500 people. (Conahan had been released to home confinement in 2020, with about six years remaining on his sentence.) It was the largest single-day act of clemency in modern U.S. history.
The administration said the commutations applied to people who had been released to home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic and met a broader set of criteria for relief. And according to a report from Politico, the White House commuted Conahan’s sentence without considering the specifics of his case.
Multiple calls to the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice seeking details about how Conahan’s case was handled went unanswered.
The decision drew renewed attention to a case that had already faded from the national spotlight.
“I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.
The Juvenile Law Center, which represented plaintiffs in a $200 million civil judgment against Conahan and Ciavarella, said it “supported President Biden’s actions” but wants to see the “same kind of compassion and mercy” extended to juvenile defendants around the country.
But the people who were harmed did not get to leave the system behind when the judges went to prison. The question that remains is not simply what happened to Ciavarella and Conahan.
It is whether the system that allowed “Kids for Cash” to happen ever fully accounted for what it did.
(Full transcripts of Broad + Liberty’s interviews with Marsha Levick, Justin Bodnar, Barry Dyller, William Ecenbarger and Hillary Transue are available at the links provided.)
