The psychologist brother-in-law of disgraced former Luzerne County judge Michael T. Conahan has given up his license for “gross incompetence,” including with respect to some cases involving juveniles, state officials said today.

The Pennsylvania Board of Psychology said Frank James Vita, of Wapwallopen, “grossly deviated from ethical and professional standards.”

Vita, who formerly performed juvenile evaluations for the county court system, once was linked to the county’s “Kids for Cash” judicial scandal in a civil suit that alleged he conspired with Conahan and fellow former judge Mark Ciavarella to perform evaluations that led to juveniles being incarcerated in facilities in which the judges had a financial interest.

A federal judge later dropped Vita from the suit.

A voice mail left at Vita’s office number was not immediately returned this afternoon, and his home number was temporarily out of service.

State issues

The state board on Oct. 29 said Vita:

• Failed to obtain appropriate informed consent, failed to provide juveniles with an understandable statement of their rights, privileges and limits of confidentiality;

• Disclosed confidential information about other individuals in his reports;

• Did not demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the legal and procedural standards as a forensic evaluator;

• Failed to make available to the court all of the information concerning the basis of his opinions and the procedures he used in order to allow both the prosecution, defense and their experts to assess the adequacy of his evaluation;

• Presented portions of another’s work or data as his own by failing to cite the computer programs he used in rendering his opinions;

• Failed to maintain current knowledge of scientific and professional developments within his field, based decisions and recommendations on tests and measures that were obsolete and not useful for the purpose of evaluations; and

• Failed to provide explanations, results and interpretations in a language that the court could understand, and generally demonstrated conduct of gross incompetence, negligence or misconduct in carrying out the practice of psychology.

State officials said Vita agreed to the permanent voluntary surrender of his license and was ordered to pay a $5,000 civil penalty, according to an Oct. 29 proceeding of the board.

Suit background

Conahan and Ciavarella were charged with receiving about $3 million in kickbacks for their roles in a scheme to construct two for-profit private juvenile detention centers and place youths in the facilities in Pittston Township and Butler County.

Conahan is serving a 17-and-a-half-year prison sentence and owes nearly $900,000 in restitution for his part in the “Kids for Cash” kickback scheme. Co-defendant Ciavarella is serving a 28-year sentence.

According to the Times Leader archives, the civil suit plaintiffs alleged that the judges created a policy that required an “extraordinary” number of juveniles undergo a psychological evaluation, which was usually performed by Vita, with the primary purpose of making a finding of detention.

The plaintiffs alleged that Vita, who had the exclusive contract for the testing, conspired with Ciavarella and Conahan to create a backlog in testing, resulting in juveniles being incarcerated for a longer period of time.

U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo disagreed, saying the plaintiffs failed to provide a factual basis for the allegation.

The fact that Vita had the contract and there was a backlog was not, by itself, sufficient to support the claims against him, Caputo said.

Check back for updates, and see Thursday’s Times Leader for more on this story.