Michael T. Conahan

original story
BY MICHAEL R. SISAK
STAFF WRITER Times Leader
Published: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 4:07 AM EST
Speculation swirled the first time former Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Conahan resigned from the bench.

Conahan relinquished his position on the Court of Common Pleas in January 2008, four years into his second 10-year-term.

He disclosed the decision seven months earlier, saying he had made a personal choice to move on after 30 years of combined service, first as a district magisterial judge and, since 1994, as a member of the Court of Common Pleas.

Conahan officially retired on Jan. 14, 2008.

He returned the next day as a senior judge, appointed by the state to handle cases in Luzerne County on a part-time basis — no more than 13 days per month.

Courthouse observers questioned Conahan’s sudden surrender and reappearance and centered on a potential motive for the move. One theory suggested he had been attempting to preserve his pension, exiting one job and entering the other to circumvent the potential judicial and legal ramifications of a federal investigation into court operations.

The fallout from the investigation hit Monday.

Federal prosecutors filed a 22-page complaint against Conahan and President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., charging them with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud.

Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and Conahan of collecting $2.6 million in payoffs to facilitate the development and operation of the Pennsylvania Child Care juvenile detention center in Pittston Township and a similar facility in Butler County.

“They sold their oaths of office to the highest bidders,” Deron Roberts, an agent in the FBI office in Scranton, said.

Ciavarella and Conahan reached written plea agreements with prosecutors. Under the terms of the deal, they will plead guilty and serve 87 months in federal prison. They will resign their positions as judges within 10 days of their plea and will consent to automatic disbarment.

Conahan’s judicial career began in 1977, the same year he received his law degree from the Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia.

Gov. Milton Shapp appointed Conahan to fill a vacant magisterial district judge position in Hazleton, where he had been born and reared and where his father, Joseph B. Conahan Sr., had been mayor.

Hundreds of Hazleton residents — Hazletonians, as Conahan affectionately called them — had placed telephone calls or written letters to Shapp, urging him to pick their native son for the open seat.

Conahan received similar widespread support when he ran for election to a full term in 1979 and again when he ran for re-election in 1985 and 1991.

Conahan was born in Hazleton on April 21, 1952, and remained in the city until his graduation from Hazleton High School in 1970. Four years later, he received his bachelor’s degree from Villanova University in Radnor Township, Delaware County.

Back in Hazleton after law school, Conahan balanced magisterial duties and a fledgling career in private practice.

In 1979, he became a partner in the Hazleton firm of Kennedy, Carlyon and Conahan. In 1988, he joined the firm of Bigelow, Carlyon, Lucadamo, Siadri and McNeilis. In 1992, he established his own practice.

By the end of the year, Conahan was considering a run at the Court of Common Pleas — first as a candidate for the gubernatorial appointment to replace retiring Judge Bernard C. Brominski, then as a challenger in the 1993 election.

He hired political consultant Ed Mitchell to “test the waters” in the northern part of Luzerne County and portrayed himself as crime fighter and the first line of judicial defense between a criminal complaint and a verdict.

“The new judge should be selected on the basis of crime-fighting experience,” Conahan told The Citizens’ Voice in November 1992, before the vacancy was filled. “We need someone who has been on the frontline, cleaning up the streets of criminals and those who prey on our young and our old. If that’s the standard used — if they’re looking for a tough professional on the court — I expect to be appointed.”

Conahan’s expectation went unfulfilled.

The governor at the time, Robert P. Casey, named Pittston attorney Joseph Musto, the brother of state Sen. Raphael Musto, D-Pittston Township.

The appointment sparked a heated rivalry between Musto and Conahan and led to a brutal primary campaign, which included mutual charges of nepotism and campaign finance violations.

Conahan accused Democratic Party leaders of attempting to “strong arm” him out of the race, suggested he acquiesce to Musto and wait until 1995 to run for the seat that was being vacated by the retiring Judge Gifford S. Cappellini — a position that eventually went to Ciavarella.

Conahan charged “back-room politics” and “collusion” led to Casey’s appointment of Musto and requested attorney Joseph A. Quinn resign from the Trial Court Nominating Commission, the panel that had recommended candidates for the Luzerne County vacancy. Quinn could not be impartial, Conahan said, because he hosted a party for Musto and solicited campaign contributions on his behalf.

Conahan announced his candidacy at the Ramada Hotel in Wilkes-Barre on Feb. 27, 1993, pledging to refuse contributions from attorneys or their spouses, so he could be a judge “with no strings attached.”

“This will guarantee that there will not even be the remote possibility that when I am hearing a case my mind could in any way be clouded between the arguments of a lawyer who contributed to my campaign and perhaps one who didn’t,” Conahan said, underscoring the message of “integrity” and “independence” he and Mitchell reinforced in a blitz of television and radio advertisements.

Conahan outspent Musto on primary advertising $172,167 to $113,534.

Conahan’s campaign ran television commercials portraying the magisterial district judge as a crimefighter, juxtaposed against the image of a prison door shown slamming shut. Another painted Musto as the beneficiary of his brother’s political connections.

The ads violated state law, Musto claimed.

“For Mike Conahan, there are no rules in a judicial campaign,” Musto said, days before the primary. “Mike Conahan has never, ever appeared in court and tried a case.”

Conahan had the final word.

“Following what many political observers described as one of the most bitter and hard fought campaigns in Luzerne County history,” as The Citizens’ Voice described the race, Conahan won the Democratic and Republican nominations.

Conahan received 52,334 votes in a landslide general election victory and was sworn in as a Common Pleas judge in January 1994.

In 2002, he became the first Hazleton resident elected president judge, a position he held until Ciavarella’s ascent in 2007.

As president judge, Conahan established Central Court in Wilkes-Barre as a unified venue for preliminary hearings and began the practice of using video conferencing for criminal cases to save transportation costs.

As a senior judge, Conahan oversaw the Luzerne County treatment court, a special program for residents charged with non-violent criminal offenses related to or motivated by their addiction to drugs or alcohol.

In both roles, he continued to hear cases ranging from the opening of Gentlemen’s Club 10 in Wilkes-Barre Township in 2005, to the beating death of a man in Hazleton and the life-and-death struggle of convicted mass murder George Banks.

In a June 2001 bench trial, Conahan convicted Wilson Hernandez Jr., 24, of robbery, criminal conspiracy and second-degree murder in the 1994 beating death of Andrew Danko in Hazleton, and sentenced him to a state-mandated term of life in prison.

Last September, after three days of hearings at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, Conahan ruled Banks incompetent to be executed — the same decision he rendered in February 2006.

Banks went on a shooting rampage in September 1982 that left 13 people dead, including four girlfriends, who ranged in age from 23 to 29, five of his seven children, ages 1 to 5, and four others.

“Banks is out of touch with reality,” Conahan said. “He views his circumstances and the events around him through the prism of his delusions. His delusional beliefs are at the core of his understanding of his current legal situation, including the reasons for his continued incarceration and his possible execution.”