My Big-Mouthed Friend

It was just a few days ago, with a definite wisp of sarcasm, that Nancy asked in a note that since my friend the former judge Mark Ciavarella was talking to everyone else, why wasn’t he talking to us?  I said what I always said.  I didn’t want him talking to anyone.  Let me say it again:  I told him repeatedly not to talk to anyone.  Now we all know why.

The question among people who know him was never if Mark Ciavarella would talk publicly about his crimes, only when.  He’s a charming guy who always has something to say and believes he can make sense saying it.  But talking is risky and it came with the accompanying question, namely, how much would it cost him?  We still don’t know the answer, but a safe bet is that it’ll run to a couple of extra years in prison.  It’s hard to imagine it was worth it.

What got him in trouble is that Mark and another judge Michael Conahan pleaded guilty to kickbacks and tax fraud.  Specifically, they pleaded guilty to taking a couple of million from a local developer to steer a new juvenile prison construction project to that developer.  In that murky world of white-collar crime, the two judges were on their way to prison while the guy who paid the bribes hasn’t even been charged with a crime.  I guess the way it works is that when you take money for making a deal happen, it’s a finder’s fee.  Unless you’re a public official and you hide your activity.  At that point the finder’s fee becomes a bribe and you become a crook. 

Back when it all hit the fan, I spoke to Mark and he was stunned.  He told me that he had no idea that what he’d done was so serious.  And he insisted to me that he had NEVER sold a child into prison for money.  Let me say again that if I ever believed he had engaged in a “quid pro quo” with kids, we simply wouldn’t be friends anymore.

However, no matter what crimes Mark may have pleaded to committing, he was widely vilified in the media as selling children into prison.  The federal prosecutors mentioned it regularly and it killed Mark to hear it.  I could understand it.  Even though his record is clearly one as a “hanging” juvie judge, he’d always acted that way.  We argued about often about the severity of his sentences.  But I also saw him with kids he’d sent away.  He knew them, knew about them, knew how they were doing, knew their grades, knew their college board scores.  I believe he cares about the kids, but that wasn’t the reporting.

I told Mark when the news broke that this was the “gift that would keep on giving.”  Now that his job and title were gone, critics would go after his motives next.  I told him to forget it; that his friends wouldn’t listen and his enemies wouldn’t care.  He couldn’t forget it.

The problems with attempting to set the record straight are all about touch and timing.  The timing is to know when to say something and the touch is to know how to say it.  Mark missed badly in both regards.  First, was the timing.  When ABC came to town to report for one of their network shows, everyone knew they were here.  They made news just by showing up.  Of course they were going to go after Mark, but he let them catch up with him.  He shot from the hip without thinking.  Cornered in a parking garage he tried to give nuanced answers and they fell flat.  He suggested he was nothing more than a rubber stamp and no one bought it.  He should have kept quiet. 

Then there was the matter of touch.  He wrote the newspapers and spent multiple paragraphs telling us what the media got wrong.  He spent just a single paragraph telling us what he did wrong.  He did the same thing with WNEP-TV.  His mea culpa would have stood, had he stopped there.  But he didn’t.  He went on to contest the whole notion of “quid pro quo.”  He should have kept quiet.

That was more than enough for the federal judge on the case.  Even though the government had signed off on 7 years, the judge was furious.  Conahan wouldn’t cooperate and admit his guilt and Ciavarella wouldn’t shut up, so the judge threw out the deal and now they’re both probably facing additional years behind bars.

The irony of all this is that Mark went from being my lawyer to being my friend.  I found his advice invaluable in my life.  I respected his wisdom, which goes far beyond his years.  It’s ironic, because while I prided myself on the fact that I listened to Mark’s advice, it’s clear he didn’t listen to mine.  I’ve spent 30 years in the media.  I know how these things go.  No one gets an easy ride when they fall from public prominence, and the elevator descends even faster and slams even harder when you were elected and respected.