During a press conference called to announce the charges, state Attorney General Mike Fisher said Mr. Eagen accepted five kickbacks totaling $1,850 from Philip Bosha, the insurance executive, from the spring of 1993 to the fall of 1994.

Mr. Bosha, who is expected to be a major witness against the judge, described the kickbacks as duking, which he described as a time-honored unwritten rule in Lackawanna County. He said duking is a reward given in exchange for a good deed or favor received.

In Mr. Boshas case, an affidavit prepared by Special Agent Francis J. Ansel of the Attorney Generals Bureau of Criminal Investigation says the reward was Mr. Eagens appointment of the former insurance executive to all guardianship cases that came before the court during Mr. Eagens tenure as orphans-court judge.

Reached at his home, Mr. Eagen said he had no comment on the charges.

Mr. Fisher said the former judge has agreed to surrender early Thursday at the office of District Justice Alyce Farrell, where he will be arraigned.

If convicted of all the charges, Mr. Fisher said, the former judge would face 30 to 60 years in prison.

Mr. Eagen lost his bid for re-election to a new 10-year term on the bench in 1987, shortly after receiving a letter from the district attorneys office informing him he was a target of a probe of the estates scam.

A month after losing his re-election bid, a grand jury recommended criminal charges against him.

Normally, the Lackawanna County District Attorneys Office would prosecute charges recommended by a county grand jury.

But after reviewing the grand jurys recommendation for five months, District Attorney Michael Barrasse decided his office would have a potential conflict of interest if it prosecuted the charges and asked Mr. Fishers office to take over the case.

The attorney general agreed to the request, and his staff spent the past six months reviewing the county grand jurys work and conducting its own investigation.

Mr. Fisher said his office is charging Mr. Eagen with five counts of bribery relative to the kickbacks.

Other charges are:

Criminal conspiracy.

Making unsworn falsification to authorities.

Making false reports to law-enforcement authorities.

Obstructing the administration of law or other government function.

Two counts of tampering with public records or information

The criminal-conspiracy charge alleges former Judge Eagen and Mr. Bosha agreed to and planned the kickbacks.

The unsworn-falsification and false-reports charges relate to a letter he allegedly sent the attorney generals office in July 1997 complaining that Kevin Colgan, a special agent in the office who worked with federal and county prosecutors on the estates cases, was leaking information about Mr. Eagens involvement in the guardianship scandal to The Times-Tribune newspapers.

He further alleged that Mr. Colgan had outside employment that interfered with his duties as a special agent, including employment by The Scranton Times.

At his press conference, Mr. Fisher said there is no evidence Mr. Colgan ever leaked any information to the press.

And, he added, Mr. Colgans only employment with The Times was as a newspaper carrier in 1969, when he was in high school.

The obstruction charge relates to a variety of actions Mr. Eagen allegedly took to impede the investigation of him, including making false statements about Mr. Colgan in an apparent attempt to have him taken off his case.

Other actions included in the obstruction charge are:

Suggesting Mr. Bosha commit suicide and not provide information to or cooperate with investigators.

Mr. Eagen, for example, allegedly told Mr. Bosha this is not good and the (dirt) had hit the fan when he telephoned the then-judge on February 6, 1996, to inform him that federal and county agents had seized files from him and Gregory Walker, another figure in the estates probe.

Mr. Walker, who is in prison for bilking the estate of 83-year-old Loretta Sullivan of Jermyn during Mr. Eagens tenure as Orphans Court judge, said Mr. Bosha informed him that the judge advised during the conversation he keep his mouth shut, dont say anything to anyone.

Not informing FBI agents during an interview in April 1996 that Mr. Bosha told him during their Feb. 6 conversation that he told the federal and county officials who seized his files about kickbacks attorney Ronald Worobey made to him.

Mr. Worobey frequently served as counsel for estates on which Mr. Bosha served as guardian.

Mr. Worobey, a former attorney for the county Area Agency on Aging, pleaded guilty to inflating fees he charged for his estates services and kicking back a portion of the overcharges to Mr. Bosha.

Attempting to secure from members of the district attorneys office, including District Attorney Michael Barrasse himself, the names of witnesses and testimony delivered by them to a Lackawanna County grand jury that was investigating the estates scam.