Mark Ciavarella, and colleague Michael Conahan appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud

Mark Ciavarella, and colleague Michael Conahan appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care. While prosecutors say Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled. "In my entire career, I've never heard of anything remotely approaching this," said Senior Judge Arthur Grim, who was appointed by the state Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention. The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines. It raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates. If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar. They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months. Attorneys for both men declined to comment. Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges also would lose their pensions. With Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, authorities said. They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, officials said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send juveniles to the newly built private detention centers. Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida. Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers. For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was unusually harsh. He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10.