http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100124/ap_o....


By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer Michael Rubinkam, Associated Press Writer – Sun Jan 24, 1:08 pm ET

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – After a six-year run in the NFL, Greg Skrepenak came home to Pennsylvania and parlayed his name recognition and hometown popularity into a seat on the Luzerne County Board of Commissioners.

He'd campaigned as a reformer. It turns out he was anything but: Prosecutors charged him last month with accepting $5,000 in gifts from a developer seeking public financing of a condominium project. He is scheduled to plead guilty on Tuesday.

Another day, another fallen politician in the coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania, where FBI agents and federal prosecutors have spent the past year rooting out government corruption in a hardscrabble region known for its pay-to-play politics, suspicion of outsiders and resistance to political change.

Twenty-three people in Luzerne County — including a school superintendent, three county judges, four courthouse officials, and five school board members — have been charged so far in a variety of unrelated schemes.

In the most egregious abuse of the public's trust, two judges are charged with taking $2.8 million in kickbacks to place youth offenders in for-profit detention facilities — a scandal known as "kids for cash." While thousands of juvenile convictions have been dismissed by the state Supreme Court, youth advocates say the lives of countless children and their families were ruined.

The ongoing federal corruption probe has sent tremors through an insular political culture where graft, patronage and nepotism have been accepted practice since the golden age of anthracite coal a century ago — when waves of European immigrants arrived in this mountainous region 100 miles north of Philadelphia to work in mines, breweries and railroads. Their descendants still live in the tiny patch towns and tightly packed houses built by long-defunct coal companies.

Most of the charges filed over the past year involve public officials accepting cash or gifts — a $1,500 suit, for example — in exchange for helping contractors win government work or some other benefit. A few officials are charged with the outright theft of taxpayer dollars. The FBI is also looking into allegations that candidates for public school teaching positions paid bribes to school board members to land jobs.

"Things have been like this for so long that I don't think many people see a lot of wrong in what they've done," said Skrepenak, 39, a former offensive lineman who played for the Oakland Raiders and Carolina Panthers in the 1990s.

"I believe any elected official of the last five years is at risk" of prosecution, he added. "I don't think many of them truly know what they can and cannot do."

Few in the coal region are surprised. Machine-style politics has flourished here for decades; government jobs and other taxpayer-funded goodies are often doled out to the politically connected, not just in Luzerne County but throughout the area. Federal prosecutors, in fact, have set their sights on the courthouse in neighboring Lackawanna County, and indictments are widely expected.

To the southwest, meanwhile, the feds are investigating a different kind of corruption, charging police officers in the small former mining town of Shenandoah with plotting to cover up the fatal beating of a Mexican immigrant and, in a separate case, with shaking down illegal gambling rackets. The Mob, under the Bufalino crime family, once had a corruption foothold here.

Until recently, there's has been little outside scrutiny of the backroom dealmaking.

"There's no question this is an area that traditionally has not seen a lot of public corruption investigations, and now there are several big ones going on," said FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver. "It is a major undertaking, but we seem to be getting it done, so that's a good thing."

The kids-for-cash scandal, the first to break, remains by the far the biggest and most shocking. On Jan. 26, 2009, federal prosecutors announced charges against judges Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, describing a scheme in which Conahan forced closure of the county-owned juvenile detention center in 2002 and reached an agreement with a for-profit company co-owned by his friend, a prominent local attorney, to send youth offenders to its new facility outside Wilkes-Barre.

Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, sent youths — many of them accused of minor offenses — to the PA Child Care LLC detention center and to a sister facility in western Pennsylvania while he was taking payments, running his courtroom with "complete disregard for the constitutional rights of the juveniles," in the words of the Supreme Court.

He once told a 14-year-old offender to count the number of birds sitting on a ledge outside the courtroom — then gave the teenager six months in detention, one for each bird, according to a recent civil suit.

Yet no one in Luzerne County blew the whistle on Ciavarella's courtroom behavior. Not court staff, not defense lawyers or prosecutors. As a result, juveniles typically got hearings that lasted only a few minutes, and many of them were pressured to waive their right to lawyers.

"This is not just a failure caused by two or three corrupt judges. This is a whole collapse of government," said John Cleland, a state appeals judge who chairs a panel investigating the scandal. "It's a cultural phenomenon that's inexplicable."

Youth advocates say lawyers who regularly appeared in Ciavarella's courtroom but kept quiet about the abuses should face discipline for failing to report the judge.

Testifying before Cleland's panel last week, Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, called Luzerne County a "toxic combination" of private enterprise, corrupt judges and indifferent lawyers and probation officers.

"It was the Love Canal of juvenile courts," he said, a place where children were "fast-tracked to oblivion."

I have a friend who lives in Luzerne county. Apparently it's a ****storm there; the local fall elections should be interesting.

Corruption rampant in Pennsylvania.

Period.

Reminiscent of Oklahoma in the 1980s or Chicago right now.

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Oklahoma has 77 counties. Each county has 3 elected County Commissioners for a total of 231 County Commissioners state wide. During the early 1980's over 200 of Oklahoma's County Commissioners and suppliers were indicted in federal courts in a massive kickback scandal.

Fact:

The FBI dubbed the investigation of corruption in county government in Oklahoma 'OKSCAM' and called it the largest government scandal to occur in the United States. Several Oklahoma counties saw all three commissioners indicted.

I'd like to hear from somebody who lives where there is no corruption.

It's been worse here in years past but there is still much corruption. Some counties are worse than others.

Delete (posted twice)

$5000.00? Peanuts.

My father has had to deal first hand with Township corruption/ignorance in PA. I'm a staunch libertarian, but when you get VERY small government (like at the township level) it's a damn corrupt mess.

Virginia is almost all counties, with a few towns and cities, in regards to local government. Yes corruption occurs, but we don't hear about it in the news very much. It seems having at least a county level government size prevents some of the problems.

Yep, $5000 is peanuts and one wonders how much more these people took as kick backs in the past. I would not doubt it is a whole lot more.

I live in the coal region- and grew up for a short time near the town of Shenandoah before my parents moved us to the Pocono region. It has always been known for its rough ways even back in the early 60's when I was a little one there were problems.

I never really understood what was so different until after I married and my husband and I traveled throughout the US and Europe and then I understood.

Pennsylvania is a highly Democrated state. The people in these small northeast towns are low educated and look for what they can get for free from the government. Low paying jobs is a issue in many counties around this area.

The Dems love this and throw some crumbs and the people think its the world.

Before the Casinos came into the Scranton area-Governor Rendel promised the people high paying jobs. After the voters took the bait and the Casino was built reality set in. I have heard Security personnel are being paid just above minimum wage-hardly high paying.

The populous is very brainwashed and old school. Of course if you questioned anything in the past with local Government they would vilify you and you could not get a job anywhere- small towns- small counties -I assure you if you had a family you did not tread on these people.

It is a suppressed population that I personally feel has been manipulated by local government because that was how it always ran.

Outsiders are indeed given a rough time here. Hopefully this Old School mentality will die off in time.

I am glad these SOB's have been exposed- now they should go County by County and clean up the rest of these weasels .

I lived in Philadelphia 20 years ago and thought Philly and Penn were a couple of the most corrupt places I have ever seen (oh, I forgot about NYC and NJ where I also lived and they made Philly look like a piker). That was one of the reasons I originally left the Northeast. California is now in the lead, but almost all of this is tied to unions. Also, in the Northeast do not kid yourself there is still a large presence of organized crime. One time my boss wanted me to go talk to the head of the Gambino family. I told him to FO. The guy who did go, quit about a week later and moved back to Minn. Oh, and let's don't forget Crook county and Chicago.

Almost all govt is corrupt because they are dealing with OPM.

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The people in these small northeast towns are low educated

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The populous is very brainwashed and old school.

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Outsiders are indeed given a rough time here.

No wonder you think so - your attitude alone is enough to make "the populous" avoid you. Geesh.

I have in-laws and friends in the Scranton area, living in places like Sweet Valley, Bloomsberg, Dallas, and the like, and they and their neighbors are nothing like what you describe. Friendly, as educated as any folks anywhere in the US, and tolerant...unless you disdain small town values and do not hesitate to show it.

Ever been to Paris, France ? Everything you say applies at least as much there.

Telsa:
LOL.. I have been to Paris , Italy, Manchester and London many times. But this is not in reference to them.

This is small town Coal Region which is very very different from the above Cities . And while you speak of the education level please research the towns in each county and see what it is. College level is very very low.


Actually I do have family in Delaware that is from Hazelton.Pa-.

My dear cousin Pete of Lewes lives there. He had grown up in the region and pretty much has said the same thing.

Bloomsburg is a College town and would indeed be very different from Shenandoah and all those small coal pocket towns .

Scranton and Dallas is also very different. Take a ride sometime to the southern section of the coal areas. Tamaqua built a Walmart in 2007 the unemployment was so bad even back then that 2700 people applied for their low paying jobs.

Scranton, Bloomsburg and Dallas have jobs but certainly nothing to brag about.

Nothing wrong with loving the area your family is from.

I know my area and it is not picnic but it is the truth sorry to say.

Try visiting Shamokin PA.....

Thanks for proving my point, sleepless. Hazelton IS a small town, as the OP I was quoting derided. Yet it's a college town, has college-educated folks, etc. What's YOUR point ? Obviously, you are echoing mine.

My point is this - there are low-lifes, retards, low achievement in any town in any country in this world. Picking on any area as diverse as NE PA is, well, just ignorant. Since you seem to think otherwise, please post the education level of say NYC vs. the education level of Dallas, Hazelton, Scranton, whichever you choose.

Secondly, do you really think that ignorant people are exclusive of the college-educated ? I give you Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy as prime exhibits of so-called college educated idiots. And I could make an even longer list given the inclination. Education level has zippo to do with whether you are a worthwhile, productive human being. Bill Gates is a prime example of that.

So all you folks with your noses stuck up in the air over supposedly simple country/small town folk, your **** stinks, too, just like theirs.

I hate yuppies too. They***** me off and laugh at my flannel. Joke's on them when the power goes out and it gets cold!