Mom blames ‘kickback judge’ for her son’s suicide

Judge who sentenced her son has been convicted of taking $1 million from lockups

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>>> back now at 7:36 with what some are calling the biggest courthouse scandal in u.s. history . two judges in pennsylvania convicted in a so-called cash for kids scheme and now one mother says her son died because of one of those judges. we'll talk to her, but first jeff rossen has details.

>> hi, ann. the judge sent hundreds of kids to jail for minor crimes while taking kickbacks from the jail itself. this morning he's been convicted along with another judge, but that wasn't enough for one of the victims' mothers who confronted him outside the court. the dramatic scene was caught on tape.

>> do you remember me? do you remember me? do you remember my son? [ bleep ] you ruined my son's life.

>> reporter: sandy fonzo couldn't hold back, face to face with the judge, the man she blames for her son's death.

>> do you know what he told everybody in court? they need to be held accountable for their actions. you need to be.

>> reporter: ed was only 17 years old, arrested for a minor drug crime , his first offense. the judge sentenced him to six months in a juvenile detention center . according to legal experts, an unusually strict punishment. he served the time but his mother said he was never the same after he got out. years later, ed committed suicide .

>> he was just a regular 17-year-old happy kid, you know? we had a regular, normal, happy life . that one incident that we had to go stand in front of that judge was a turning point. he shackled him, took him away and that was the end.

>> reporter: prosecutors say the judge was secretly cashing in as he sent kids to jail, taking kickbacks of nearly $1 million from the company that ran the jail. when sandy fonzo saw him after court, she let loose .

>> my kid's not here. he's dead because of him. he ruined my son's [ bleep ] life. i'd like him to go to hell and rot there forever.

>> the bottom line is that his greed took the life of my son. i don't think there is anything worse than what he could have done. the pain he created, the lies and the deceit and everything behind it, just makes me sick.

>> reporter: the judge was convicted on 12 of 39 counts including racketeering and money laundering . plus, he has to return all the money.

>> i absolutely never took a dime to send a kid anywhere. if that was the case that would have been in this trial. you don't think the government would have put me on trial for that if that was the case? never happened. never, ever happened.

>> reporter: he faces up to 157 years in prison, but this morning he's home with his family until sentencing -- a freedom sandy fonzo finds outrageous.

>> are you kidding me? are you kidding me? i can't even take this.

>> i know it won't bring my son back. but i just want an apology from him. i want him to say that he was wrong and that he is sorry. i just want him to admit his guilt, finally.

>> we called the judge and his lawyer about sandy 's accusations. they declined to comment. by the way, another judge is also involved in the kickback scheme. he's pled guilty to racketeering. both could be sentenced in months. ann?

>> jeff rossen , thank you so much. sandy is with us along with her attorney marshall levitt. good morning to you both.

>> good morning.

>> you were watching the tape and it didn't seem as though yelli yelling gave you any peace. it's as if you are in a knot of pain.

>> it was good to be there in that moment, speak right to him,ing right to his face to tell him the pain he created and what he's done to my son. maybe when it's done it will feel like a layer has come off. this has been years and years. there's no closure to him. i just want to see him -- i just want to see justice. i want to see some justice for these kids. i want to know my son's life and death were not in vain.

>> you, perhaps more than anyone else, can express how this sentence affected your son. how the judge's sentence affected your son. how would you describe it?

>> it changed him. he ripped him out of our home, out of our life. he never looked into the whole picture of the kids. he lined them up one by one and sent them away, shackled them, sent them to places that, you know, god knows what went on. then he throws them back and how does a kid deal with that? you know, my son never recovered from that. no matter what we did, he just would never let him go. it just kept snowballing and snowballing.

>> i have to ask. you know that suicide is a complicated thing. there are a lot of factors. were there other factors that led to your son's?

>> i mean, it was like his spirit was no longer -- he wasn't the same kid. he didn't have the energy. he was depressed, sad.

>> so you saw no other factors that may have contributed?

>> no. it just kept going. he lost his freedom. he was locked up. he was fine until he got him again and then he -- oh, geez. it just kept going downhill. that's all. he just never could recover. it was just even when he did hear that ciavarella was indicted. mom, it will never happen. he'll never go to jail. he'll never pay for what he did. i think he just lost hope. he started drinking and, you know, all of that played a role in that one devastating night. i don't know -- that was the only thing bad that ever happened in his life. the only thing that had significance in changing his whole personality and his whole outlook on life and his -- i don't know. it just seemed he lost hope, lost faith. he believed there was no justice. he was the bad one. you know, the judge -- i want these kids to know that they were not the bad ones, you know? he's the bad guy .

>> marcia, what do you hope to get for the children? you filed suit on their behalf?

>> we filed suit on their behalf and we have worked to expunge the records, reverse the convictions. i think sandy 's son's story typifies what happened to so many of the children in luzerne county , thousands of kids pulled before ciavarella for minor things like joyriding, shoplifting. they appeared without lawyers. they had hearings that lasted two, three minutes. they were handcuffed and shackled and led off to placement. the story of sandy 's son is tragic in ways none of us can imagine. but the kind of trauma that all of the kids and families experienced as a result of corruption and criminality and this widespread violation of constitutional rights is extraordinary.

>> you talk about wanting an apology, sandy . it's hard to imagine how that might affect you, that's enough for you.

>> i could never forgive him. my son is gone. i will never have him back. but for him to finally admit his guilt, stand up there and say, i'm sorry, i was wrong, and give these kids a little bit of healing, a little bit of faith in our system that, you know, sometimes the right can be done and that they are not -- you know, these kids, the stories i'm getting. they're just horrifying. you know, they need help.

>> in all your loss, clearly you are speaking so forthrightly about your son whose life

Show transcript

By Seamus McGraw

TODAY contributor

updated 2/23/2011 10:54:49 AM ET

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Sandy Fonzo’s voice was filled with anguish as she confronted the judge whom she believed had in effect given her son a death sentence after a juvenile arrest on a comparatively minor drug paraphernalia charge.

“Do you remember me?” she cried. “Do you remember my son? He’s gone! He shot himself in the heart.”

The dramatic showdown took place on the steps of the federal courthouse in Scranton, Pa., moments after former Juvenile Court Judge Mark Ciavarella was convicted by a federal jury on 12 of 39 counts, including racketeering, for taking nearly $1 million to funnel thousands of kids into a privately run detention facility. And it made Fonzo and her son, who committed suicide nine months ago, the public face of what federal prosecutors have called one of the worst cases of courtroom fraud in U.S. history.

But it still has not given Fonzo the peace she’s been seeking, she told TODAY’s Ann Curry Wednesday.

“I think it was good for me to be there at that moment and actually speak right to him and tell him right to his face that pain that he’s created, and what he’s done to my son,” Fonzo said. “I just want to see some justice — I want to see some justice for these kids, and I want to know my son’s ... death was not in vain.”

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Never the same
Fonzo’s son, Edward Kenzakoski, was an energetic high school wrestler who had never been in trouble with the law before he was arrested on minor charges and hauled into Ciavarella’s court in Luzerne County, Pa., at age 17. Though jail time for such offenses is rare, Ciavarella, along with his colleague Michael Conahan, had a reputation for giving draconian sentences for comparatively minor offenses, and authorities later determined that between them they collected nearly $3 million in kickbacks to send some 4,000 young offenders to a private juvenile facility run by associates of theirs.

Kenzakoski was one of those youths, and received a six-month sentence. Ciavarella, Fonzo told Curry, “ripped him out of our home, out of our life. He never looked into the whole picture of the kids; he lined them up, one by one, and he sent them away, shackled them, sent them to places that ... God knows what went on.

“My son just never recovered from that,” Fonzo added. After he completed his sentence and returned home, “no matter what we did, it just never let him go, it just kept snowballing.

“He wasn’t the same kid, he didn’t have all that energy, he was depressed, he was sad,” Fonzo said, her voice cracking slightly. “He just lost hope ... and he started drinking.”

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Even after information from a mob informant led federal investigators to open an investigation that led to the indictments against Ciavarella and Conahan, Kenzakoski’s downward spiral continued, Fonzo related. She said her son told her: “Mom, it will never happen. He’ll never go to jail, he’ll never pay.”

And then, nine months ago, Kenzakoski, took his own life at age 23.

Free on bail
Fonzo believes that his death was the direct result of Ciavarella’s actions. As her attorney, Marsha Levick, who appeared with her on TODAY, put it: “Sandy’s son’s story typifies what happened to so many of the children in Luzerne County, thousands of children who were pulled before Ciavarella for very trivial misconduct — joyriding, possession of drug paraphernalia, minor harassment ... shoplifting. They appeared without lawyers ... they had hearings that lasted two or three minutes and were handcuffed and shackled and led off.

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“The story of Sandy’s son is tragic in ways that none of us can even imagine,” added Levick, who has filed suit to expunge the records of all those juveniles who appeared before the two judges. “But the kind of trauma that all of the kids and families experienced up there as a consequence of the corruption and criminality that was ongoing, this widespread violation of children’s constitutional rights, was really extraordinary.”

For the moment, both Ciavarella and Conahan remain free on bail awaiting sentencing. Conahan pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, but Ciavarella continues to maintain his innocence. And that enrages Fonzo.

“My son is gone,” she said. “I’ll never have him back. But for [Ciavarella] to just finally admit his guilt and stand up there and just say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry to all these people, I was wrong,’ and give these kids a little bit of healing, and a little bit of faith in our system,” is all that she’s asking, she said.

Fonzo said her son died believing that “there was no justice, that he was the bad one,” when in reality, she said, it was the judge who was the real criminal. “I want these kids to all know that they were not the bad ones. He’s the bad guy.”

For information about a book about Ed Kenzakoski by Sandy Fonzo’s brother, part of the proceeds of which will go to a suicide prevention program, and to read a tribute by Sandy Fonzo, click here.