Kids for Cash by William Ecenbarger

Author:William Ecenbarger
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781595587978
Publisher: The New Press

8

DISGRACE AND INFAMY

As soon as Rob Mericle heard that Mary Ciavarella, the mother of his good friend Mark Ciavarella, was ill and hospitalized, he went to the judge’s chambers and was ushered into his office. “Hi, Mark,” he began in a voice heavy with concern and sadness. But Ciavarella pressed a cautionary finger to his lips, sat down at his desk, took a sheet of paper from a drawer, and pushed it across the desktop. The note said, “Wired? Yes. No. Circle One.” Mericle, astonished and bewildered, circled “No.” Still silent, Ciavarella gestured him into the adjoining courtroom, which was empty. They sat at a table. Still taken aback by the note, Mericle was staggered by what came next.

Ciavarella informed him that a federal grand jury was investigating the financing of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care facilities and that there might be “a problem” with the $2.1 million Mericle had paid in three finder’s fees. When Mericle interjected that the payments were legitimate business transactions, like hundreds of other similar commissions he had paid out over the years, the judge said there was a problem if the money had been first paid to Robert Powell because that would show an attempt to conceal the true recipients of the money, the two judges. Ciavarella said he knew he was vulnerable, but he was not sure how vulnerable he was. “If the money went from you to me, I could get a slap on the wrist. But if it went from you, to Bob Powell, to me, I could go to jail,” Ciavarella said. The judge then asked his friend to go back to his office and “review” the finder’s fee documents to be sure that the payments did not go through Powell. Ciavarella, of course, knew very well that the money had gone through Powell because it was he who had requested that the payments be made that way. Nevertheless, as Mericle was leaving, Ciavarella said, “Don’t lie to the FBI and don’t obstruct justice.”

Mericle returned to his office, checked the three transactions, and confirmed the payments had gone to Powell. As he was about to leave and return to Ciavarella’s chambers, he was intercepted by his secretary, who told him there were people waiting outside to meet him. They were agents of the Internal Revenue Service, who questioned him about the $2.1 million in payments. He said they were intended for Powell. He lied to the agents because he didn’t see a choice. “I didn’t want to be the person to lay Mark out,” he said later. Three weeks later, Powell’s wife answered a knock at the door. She found IRS agents with a subpoena. “May we come in?” they asked.

Meanwhile, Ciavarella’s long-standing concerns about Conahan’s relationship with Billy D’Elia, the mobster, were well founded. D’Elia had come under the scrutiny of state and federal investigators as soon as he took over as organized crime boss in northeastern Pennsylvania upon the death of Russell Bufalino in 1994.

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