From The Trentonian: PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Charlie Balasavage, a baby-faced boy of 14, landed in juvenile detention after his parents bought him a stolen scooter. Hillary Transue was sent away over a MySpace parody of her vice principal. Justin Bodnar was locked up for mouthing off to a woman at his school bus stop.
They are just three among thousands of youths whose lives were derailed by a corrupt Pennsylvania judge, a post-Columbine fervor for zero-tolerance policies and a secretive juvenile court system, a story detailed in a new documentary “Kids for Cash.”
“I wanted them to be scared out of their minds. I don’t understand how that’s a bad thing,” disgraced former judge Mark Ciavarella says in the film, which chronicles the abusive practices — and kickback scandal — that festered behind closed doors at his Wilkes-Barre courtroom. The film premieres Wednesday in Philadelphia before opening in theaters nationwide.
Ciavarella is serving a 28-year sentence — and fellow ex-judge Michael Conahan 17 years — for taking $2.6 million from companies looking to build and fill a youth detention center for Luzerne County. Children as young as 10 were handcuffed and shackled without so much as a chance to say goodbye to their families. The scandal was widely labeled “Kids for Cash,” though the judges deny any such quid pro quo.
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