WILKES-BARRE - More than 1,000 former defendants in Luzerne County Juvenile Court who claim their rights were violated in the kids-for-cash case and 548 of their parents would split about $12.2 million from a proposed $17.75 million settlement with wealthy developer Robert K. Mericle, their attorneys told a federal judge Monday.
Philadelphia attorneys David S. Senoff and Sol H. Weiss, speaking on behalf of the legal team pursuing class-action claims against Mericle and other defendants, presented details of the settlement during a two-hour, 20-minute conference with U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo, who must approve the agreement.
Mericle has admitted paying $2.1 million to two former Luzerne County judges who conspired to place juveniles in two for-profit detention centers built by his construction firm.
"Robert Mericle and Mericle Construction believe this settlement is a positive step forward for this community," Mericle attorney Eric Kraeutler told Caputo.
After setting aside $4.35 million for attorney's fees and $1.2 million to settle any appeals of settlement amounts by individual plaintiffs, the agreement would pay $5,000 to each of 763 plaintiffs who were incarcerated in the Mericle-built centers. Those plaintiffs would also be eligible for additional payments based on several factors, including their age at the time of incarceration, the length of their stay at one of the centers and the severity of the charges against them.
Payments of $1,000 to $5,000 would go to 197 plaintiffs who were incarcerated in other facilities, while $500 would be paid to plaintiffs sentenced to probation. More than $600,000 would be paid to 548 parents to reimburse them for fines, costs and fees levied by disgraced former juvenile court judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., who is serving 28 years in prison for racketeering and conspiracy.
The settlement includes payments to former juvenile offenders who were not sent to the Mericle-built centers on the theory that the kids-for-cash conspiracy made all of Ciavarella's juvenile court rulings suspect.
The state Supreme Court vacated each of the thousands of juvenile court rulings Ciavarella made from 2005 to 2008, finding that he denied defendants their right to counsel, incarcerated them on minor charges and pressured juvenile probation officials to recommend incarceration over other forms of discipline.
The only witness at Monday's settlement conference was University of Texas at Austin law professor Lynn Baker, an expert on class-action settlements who testified the Mericle settlement was fair based on several factors, including the percentage of potential clients participating - more than 40 percent, which is high in such cases, she said.
Baker also noted that the settlement was structured so that all of the money after attorneys' fees and appeals costs will go to plaintiffs. After the base settlements were calculated, additional payments or "enhancements" based on the details of each plaintiff's case were adjusted to exhaust the remaining settlement money.
"Every single dollar in this settlement has left the defendant permanently," Baker said.
The settlement involves only Mericle and Luzerne County, which was a defendant in the class-action suits but will pay no money. Caputo ruled earlier that the county had no liability.
Claims against other defendants, including the companies that own and operate the two detention centers - Pa. Child Care LLC, Western Pa. Child Care LLC and Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp. - remain active.
Bernard M. Schneider, an attorney for the companies, urged Caputo to reject the settlement Monday, arguing that plaintiffs placed in his clients' facilities should not be paid more than other plaintiffs because they failed to present evidence that they suffered increased damages.
Schneider said the plaintiffs should not be approved as a class for purposes of the litigation and doing so would restrict his ability to present evidence that individual actions by individual plaintiffs led them to Ciavarella's courtroom and the penalties he imposed.
But Caputo countered that he had already ruled that the court "can't replicate criminal trials in a civil case."
Schneider also argued that some of the documents used to verify claims for the settlement would not be available for his clients to protect themselves in court.
A former co-owner of the companies, Robert J. Powell, admitted to paying $770,000 to former Luzerne County judge Michael T. Conahan, Ciavarella's onetime co-defendant, who is serving 17 1/2 years in prison. Powell, who testified for the prosecution in Ciavarella's trial, is serving an 18-month prison sentence.
Mericle, who also testified for the prosecution, pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony. His sentencing is on hold pending testimony in another case involving free renovations his construction company allegedly performed on a building owned by a former state senator.