Six years after his conviction in the "Kids for Cash" case, one of Pennsylvania's worst corruption scandals, a disgraced judge is getting another chance to try to escape what could be a life prison sentence.

Former Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. will get that opportunity in September when he appears before U.S. Middle District Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner in Harrisburg.

Conner recently scheduled the Sept. 14 evidentiary hearing and appointed a Perry County attorney, Jennifer P. Wilson, to represent the 67-year-old Ciavarella in the ex-judge's latest challenge to his convictions and 28-year jail sentence.

Ciavarella has been pursuing this appeal for more than two years. He claims his original lawyers fumbled his defense during the 2011 federal trial that resulted in Ciavarella's convictions on charges including racketeering, mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and filing false tax returns.

Prosecutors said Ciavarella and fellow county judge Michael Conahan received nearly $3 million in kickback payments from developers of private juvenile detention centers and improperly channeled juvenile offenders to those centers, often without appointing lawyers to represent the youths.

Both judges were charged in 2009 for the conspiracy investigators claimed began in 2002. Ciavarella went to trial after another federal judge, Edwin M. Kosik, rejected a plea deal that would have given Ciavarella an 87-month prison term.

One of Ciavarella's convictions, for mail fraud, was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on statute of limitations grounds in 2013, but his overall sentence remained intact. Ciavarella filed the appeal Conner will weigh after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his challenge to the circuit court's ruling.

During September's hearing, Conner will hear Ciavarella's argument that his trial attorneys were not versed in federal law sufficiently to raise an effective statute of limitations defense that would have quashed six of the charges on which he was convicted, all involving crimes allegedly committed before September 2004.

His trial lawyers' supposed failure in that regard "caused the jury to return a verdict whose result was unreliable," Ciavarella contends.

He is arguing as well that prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense that they were required to turn over under federal law. Ciavarella said the defense specifically was denied some prosecution evidence regarding one of the other conspirators, developer Robert Mericle.

The U.S. Attorney's Office is opposing Ciavarella's appeal and is insisting it turned over all the evidence his attorneys were entitled to receive.

Ciavarella also has requested Conner's permission to expand his appeal to address a U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed down in 2016. The high court found in that ruling in the case of U.S. v McDonnell that a lower court's instruction to a jury in another federal bribery case was too broad regarding what constituted an "official act" by the defendant, a public official.

Ciavarella claims his involvement in Kids for Cash didn't extend beyond setting up a meeting with other conspirators, and so would not have constituted an official act under the 2016 ruling. The Supreme Court's McDonnell ruling should be applied retroactively and should merit awarding of a new trial in his case, Ciavarella contends.

Kids for Cash has had considerable repercussions.

Conahan was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty to a racketeering charge. The state Supreme Court vacated the adjudications of thousands of juveniles who appeared before Ciavarella.

Millions of dollars in damages have been awarded as a result of lawsuits filed on behalf of the scandal's victims.