Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are accused of taking payoffs to put juvenile offenders away

Two Pennsylvania judges charged with taking kickbacks to send youth offenders to privately run detention centers pleaded guilty to fraud on Thursday.

Prosecutors say Luzerne County judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC.

The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the state Supreme Court shortly afterward.

The judges pleaded guilty in federal court in Scranton. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years in prison.

Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County’s juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, “I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame.”

Ciavarella, though, has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison.

Conahan has remained silent about the case.

The judges are accused of taking payoffs between 2003 and 2006.

Many Pennsylvania counties contract with privately run juvenile detention centers, paying them either a fixed overall fee or a certain amount per youth, per day.

In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.

One of the contracts — a 20-year agreement with PA Child Care worth an estimated $58 million — was later canceled by the county as exorbitant.