Zappala dropped from corruption suit

Timothy McNulty | July 24, 2009

One of the local threads dangling from the Luzerne County judges scandal -- where judges took payoffs to place kids in juvenile dentention centers -- was the fate Pittsburgh-based Greg Zappala (brother of county DA Stephen and son of former Chief Justice Stephen Sr.), the owner of the centers.

His name has been dropped in federal lawsuits on the case because lawyers couldn't make a direct connection between him and the scandal, the Standard-Speaker in Hazelton reports:

Gregory Zappala, the owner of the detention centers where hundreds of Luzerne County juveniles were incarcerated in a kids-for-cash corruption scheme, is off the hook as a defendant in federal lawsuits filed against key figures in the scandal.

Attorneys for the juveniles voluntarily dismissed Zappala from the lawsuits Thursday, but reserved the right to return him to a list of defendants that includes disgraced former judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan and Zappala's former business partner, Drums attorney Robert J. Powell.

Attorney Michael Cefalo, who filed one of the lawsuits, said he and his colleagues are not yet able to prove a direct connection between Zappala and the corruption scandal.

Unlike Ciavarella, Conahan and Powell, Zappala, 48, has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing and has not been charged in the ongoing federal investigation into corruption in the Luzerne County court system.

"Right now, we're going to let him out of the lawsuit," Cefalo said. "If the information is developed that he is a viable defendant, then he's back in the lawsuit."

Ciavarella and Conahan pleaded guilty in February to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks from Powell and the developer who built the centers, Robert K. Mericle, and face 87 months in prison. Powell pleaded guilty earlier this month to related charges and faces up to five and a half years in prison.

Zappala's attorney, Howard Wishnoff, said Zappala was "obviously pleased" with the decision to remove him from the lawsuits.

Wishnoff declined further comment in deference to a statement he expected Zappala to release through his Pittsburgh-based attorneys sometime Thursday evening. The statement never arrived and those attorneys, Bernard M. Schneider and William G. Brucker, did not return a telephone message Thursday.

Three companies owned by Zappala, Mid-Atlantic Youth Services, Pennsylvania Child Care and Western Pa. Child Care, will remain as defendants in the lawsuits.

Zappala teamed with Powell to build their first juvenile detention center, Pennsylvania Child Care, in Pittston Township in 2002.

They later built a second center in Butler County and proposed constructing a $1.6 billion cargo airport in southern Luzerne and northern Schuylkill counties - a project that has since stalled.

Zappala, the son of a former state Supreme Court chief justice and the brother of the Allegheny County district attorney, abruptly ended the partnership in June 2008, after The Standard-Speaker reported the FBI was investigating financial ties between Ciavarella, Conahan and Powell.

Zappala bought out Powell's interest in both juvenile detention centers and the airport-development firm, Gladstone Partners LLC.

Cefalo said the removal of Zappala as a defendant in the lawsuits could be reversed if evidence is uncovered during a lengthy discovery process directly linking him to Ciavarella, Conahan and the kids-for-cash scheme.

That evidence could develop during pre-trial questioning of key figures in the case, Cefalo said.

"Until the end result comes down, with the deposition of Powell, we're not going to know the direct connection to Zappala and what role he played," Cefalo said.