31 Missouri Judges Recuse Themselves from Lawsuit Alleging Family Court Guardians and Psychologists Orchestrated Money-Making Scheme

By Megan Fox

(Image by S K from Pixabay)

This report is part two of an investigative series looking into reported corruption in the Missouri Judiciary and family courts. Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

In St. Louis County, Mo., Evita Tolu has filed a lawsuit against family court guardian ad litem (GAL) Elaine Pudlowski, psychologist James Reid, and clinical social worker Jennifer Webbe VanLuven, alleging that the trio conspired to use her custody dispute as an opportunity to get rich while sentencing her children to life with an abuser. The lawsuit alleges a scheme perpetrated by a group of professionals to drain parents involved in custody battles. At the end of the court process, parents are broke and kids are traumatized while GALs, court-appointed psychologists, and therapists are enriched. Tolu says the scheme kept her in court for three years, drained her bank account, and alienated her children from her. The suit alleges that this pattern is a regular family court occurrence when Pudlowski is involved.

Plaintiff contacted parents from four cases which were pending at the same time as Plaintiff’s case in saint Louis County and Saint Louis City courts, where Pudlowski was a Court Appointed GAL. Plaintiff talked to [redacted] who filed a Motion to Disqualify, after Pudlowski recommended custody to father who was sexually abusing the child despite the DFS finding of abuse and pending criminal investigation. Pudlowski interfered with the DFS and criminal investigation. The court, however, did not disqualify Pudlowski in [redacted’s] case.

Another parent told Plaintiff that she filed a Motion to disqualitfy Pudlowski in her case after Pudlowski placed the child with the father who molested child and who had a well-documented history of substance and drug abuse. In that case, Pudlowski violated every single GAL Standard, but the mother’s motion to disqualify Pudlowski was still denied.

In the above case, Pudlowski’s bill came to a whopping $71,000, which had to be paid by the parents.

Another parent told Plaintiff that Pudlowski recommended the Court award custody to a father despite the father’s record of medical abuse and neglect of the children. Pudlowski also intrfered with the DFS investigation in that case and never reported to the Court the scientific evidence which proved children were poisoned. Pudlowski talked about this case with Plaintiff and told Plaintiff that Reid, Van Luven and WCPA diagnosed mother to be delusional. Pudlowski disclosed the mother’s protected private medical information to Plaintiff, who Plaintiff did not know at the time, in violation of the Court Orders in that case, mother’s HIPPa and WCPA’s Notice of Privacy Rights.

In that case, Pudlowski’s bill for services was $80,000. According to court dockets, Pudlowski had 86 hearings on 86 separate cases just in the month of December, and Pudlowski and Reid worked together on twelve of them. Pudlowski’s caseload is the highest in the county, if not the entire state.

Tolu’s lawsuit alleges that the defendants “knew that the actual services they would render were harmful and injurious” and that they “billed and received payments from Plaintiff for the services they were ordered by the Court to provide,” which were not provided. The suit also alleges that the trio had “personal and business relationships with each other” and that they “fraudulently billed and overbilled Plaintiff for the injurious litigation support services they provided.” Tolu paid $18,000 to Pudlowski, $5000 to VanLuven, and more than $8000 to Reid, who admitted to altering evidence in violation of the law.

Reid falsified testing data in his report; altered evidence in violation of the Missouri law on evidence spoliation, omitted evidence from his report and crucial testing data, altered and did not preserve the testing and assessment data; misconstrued and misrepresented objective test data in his report, engaged in ex parte communications with Pudlowski…

“[Reid] diagnosed me as a sociopath and a narcissist with borderline personality disorder,” Tolu told PJ Media. Tolu and one of her two attorneys, Timothy Roldan, say the number of people Reid has diagnosed with the same disorders is statistically unlikely. Tolu says she’s talked with between thirteen and fifteen of Reid’s victims who have suffered the same pattern that they describe as a form of psychological abuse. “All of us have ‘borderline personality disorder (BPD),” according to Reid, Tolu said. According to national statistics, Cluster B Disorders in the DSM-IV are not that common and, in addition, many people under immense stress can be easily misdiagnosed with BPD. 

Roldan, who is also a licensed clinical social worker told PJ Media, “mental health professionals will attest that when we are under stress, we regress.”

Cluster B personality disorders include antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. These tend to be the least common disorders but are often the most challenging to treat.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, only 1.4% of the population suffers from Cluster-B disorders. Could misogyny and greed be driving the diagnosis of “histrionic” women in Reid’s office instead of science?

Reid is married to former Saint Louis Eastern District Appellate Judge Larry Mooney, who is now working as a mediator at JAMS, a mediation company. The Saint Louis County courts often order parents to use Reid’s husband’s services at the very high cost of $1200 down and $400 an hour. Reid and Mooney live in a house valued at over $900,000.

The suit also alleges that Pudlowski is very friendly with circuit court judges. “Four family court attorneys and numerous family court litigants told Plaintiff that Pudlowski has professional and personal relationships with all St. Louis Family Court judges, with whom Puldowski has ex parte communications on a regular basis.”

Bolstering Tulo’s claim, a listserve called gal@groups.outlook.com got caught disseminating an email from Saint Louis Circuit Court Judge Michael Burton, the presiding judge over the entire 21st Judicial Circuit of St. Louis County Courts, that was highly prejudicial and violated the judges’ code of conduct. In the email Burton admitted to holding a meeting with the bar organizations about the lawsuit.

“Are you aware of the meeting that I am holding with leaders from the bar orgs re this?” wrote Burton. “They’re all on board. I don’t want to get into a meeting with Elaine or anyone else involved in any lawsuits. Feel free to share this with the GALs that have responded and all that you trust.”

Judge Burton went on to call the allegations in the lawsuit “horrible,” “scurrilous” and called custody cases “the most toxic cases.” He also disparaged parents fighting in court. “Many parents cannot accept that their behaviors could be the basis for their not getting the custody arrangements that they had desired,” he wrote. He went on to call those parents “unhinged.”

Then, unbelievably, Burton admitted he knew he wasn’t supposed to be discussing any cases before the court but decided to do it anyway and implicated another judge in violations of the judges’ code of conduct. “Further, we are not advised to comment to the public about the pending cases of other judges in our circuit. That being said, Judge Hemphill and I thought that we could reach out to some leaders of the bar to discuss this problem. We want to be proactive in some way.”

Burton then reached out to a clandestine group of GALs, known as “The Swamp” by litigants, to meet with him to scheme against Tolu in an email newsletter, “Daily Docket News” that had been reporting the events. “We would like to meet with you via Zoom/WebEx in the near future to brainstorm,” Burton wrote.

#StLouisCounty #JudgeDouglasBurton writes ill-advised email calling parents in his courts "unhinged" and engages in plot with GALs to scheme against litigant claiming GALs are scheming with judges. You can't make this stuff up. The ENTIRE circuit court recused themselves pic.twitter.com/KcENcXvAei

— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) February 28, 2021

Shortly after that email and video of the secret meeting became public, every judge on the Saint Louis County Judicial Circuit recused themselves from hearing the lawsuit. The Missouri Supreme Court will now assign a judge to hear the Tolu case. Roldan told PJ Media that “It is unclear where the case might land at this point. It is rare to have every judge in a judicial circuit recuse themselves.”

The lawsuit alleges that Pudlowski and Reid have a pattern where Reid diagnosis the healthier parent with a rare personality disorder they don’t have, which keeps them fighting in court and allows Pudlowski to declare them unfit. The suit alleges that Pudlowski then accuses the falsely diagnosed parent of alienating the children from the other parent and recommends the child go to the parent the child has often accused of abuse.

Pudlowski involved Reid knowing in advance that Reid would produce a biased report (like Reid did in numerous other cases with Pudlowski) and that Plaintiff would challenge the Reid Report through arduous, painful and expensive litigation that would destroy Child A and Child T’s college savings but would enrich Reid, Pudlowski, Van Luven and WCPA’s pockets while injuring Plaintiff, her children and destroying Plaintiff’s relationship with her children.

As an officer of the Court, Pudlowski vexatiously delayed the trial in the Plaintiff’s case demanding more of Van Luven and WCPa’s “alienation services” which injured Plaintiff and her children and destroyed Plaintiff’s relationship with her children.

The problem of guardians and other court professionals enriching themselves at the expense of their clients is not new, nor is it rare. A new hit movie was released on Netflix about the outrageous abuses that guardians have engaged in called I Care A Lot, which fictionalizes the extreme terror that seniors have faced when in the clutches of such people. Ex-guardian April Parks is serving forty years in prison for her scheme to enrich herself with the savings and property of seniors she trafficked through the Las Vegas court system. She had many of her clients committed to mental institutions where they were drugged unnecessarily so they could not object to her raiding their life savings. She alienated them from their families and pillaged their estates. There was a documentary made about the families that sought justice for the crimes committed by Parks called The Guardians, directed by Billie Mintz, that should be required viewing for every American.

In the Saint Louis County Circuit Court at least one judge, Nicole Zellweger, has followed an alarming pattern of abuse and sent a fourteen-year-old girl to a hospital mental ward for refusing to go live with the father she says sexually molested her. It seems that Saint Louis County GALs, psychological experts, and courts are setting themselves up to star in one of Mintz’s next hit films.

PJ Media reached out to the defendants but did not receive any comment by the time of publishing.

If you or someone you know is a victim of Saint Louis County court guardians, judges, or psych services, please reach out to MeganFox.Writer@protonmail.com.

Full Article & Source:

31 Missouri Judges Recuse Themselves from Lawsuit Alleging Family Court Guardians and Psychologists Orchestrated Money-Making Scheme

CAUGHT COLLUDING: Leaked Video Reveals Family Court Guardians Conspiring to Dox Journalist for Exposing Them

By Megan Fox

Image from leaked video.

This report is part three of an investigative series looking into reported corruption in the Missouri Judiciary and family courts. Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Guardians ad litem (GALs) have a good thing going in Saint Louis County, Mo., or at least they did before Evita Tolu filed a lawsuit against GAL Elaine Pudlowski and Dr. James D. Reid, psychologist, and others exposing what looks like one of the biggest money-making schemes to ever hit family courts. GALs are usually appointed by judges to represent a child in a custody dispute. The GAL is paid by the parents and in Tolu’s case, her GAL was paid $30,000. (See part 2 for details of that suit)

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Saint Louis County GALs held a secret meeting, starring Pudlowski and 37 other GALs, which was leaked to investigative journalist Michael Volpe, who posted it to YouTube. The video gives credence to Tolu’s allegations of “ex parte communication” between GALs and judges. In the video, the GALs can be heard discussing friendly judges and judges who want to help them fight the lawsuit against them and their friends. A judge conspiring with a defendant in a case before his court may be obstruction of justice and should be investigated as a criminal matter. When the video was made public, every judge on the Saint Louis County Circuit Court recused themselves.

31 Missouri Judges Recuse Themselves from Lawsuit Alleging Family Court Guardian and Psychologists Orchestrated Money-Making Scheme

But perhaps even more shocking is the reason for the clandestine meeting. GALs are attorneys and as officers of the court, they must be familiar with the First Amendment requirements that say citizens have a right to a free press. Despite knowing this, these lawyers plotted together to target and abolish the “Daily Docket News,” by hiring a private investigator at $425 an hour to dox the author of the newsletter. Daily Docket News (DDN) is a newsletter that is sent out by email and has been reporting on what it calls a “Kids for Cash” scheme in Saint Louis County. The scheme allegedly uses children stuck in custody battles, trafficking them and their families through the court system, which enriches psychologists, GALs, and other professionals—anger management companies, mediation companies, and any other company that would profit from a custody case. There are many such companies and persons.

DDN has reported on many cases working their way through family courts that have all the same players, including Pudlowski and Reid. They report:

There is an alleged large network of law firms working in conjunction with each other on the same family court case, each representing one of the parties and allegedly promising to have you and your child’s best interest at heart, but the only interest they have is to pit the parties against each other and to drain the party with the smaller financial portfolio prior to reaching a settlement. Unknown to the party with the smaller financial portfolio, their case will never go to trial, but will drag out as long as they have disposable cash to throw away, which is in the best interest of each attorney involved in the case. In most cases that were reviewed, the party that has the finances to drag the case long enough to drain the opposing party, is awarded the minor children by the family court, regardless of their mental, criminal and/or child abuse history.

Daily Docket News is dedicated to shining light on the grave injustices taking place in the family court swamp, in the state of Missouri. It has been a national scandal for decades in which daily courts in this country systematically failed to protect our children from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by predatory parents. What is equally scandalous is the silence on the coverage of this unimaginable issue. It is a dreadful reality of child trafficking through family courts in the United States of America…These cases present a clear pattern of child trafficking through the family courts which involve colluding attorneys, guardians ad litem, therapists, and forensic evaluators, who engage in divorce, child custody, adoption, and paternity cases, which coincidentally all involve well to do predatory parents.

If the DDN was far off base, it would seem unlikely that the Saint Louis GALs would go to such lengths to uncover who is responsible for the reports. In fact, they admit in the secret meeting that DDN publishes information they know to be true, but their main concern is not the families who were harmed by this system but how Daily Docket News accessed the information. The GALs say in the secretly recorded meeting that they are willing to spend up to $10,000 to uncover and dox the author of DDN. Why would a large group of lawyers spend thousands of dollars identifying the author of DDN except to engage in lawfare against him or her and/or to silence, harass, and punish the author for exercising the First Amendment right to report news that is critical of them?

DDN claims to have received hundreds of letters from St. Louis attorneys who did not want to be named because of an atmosphere of extreme intimidation and fear that they too would be retaliated against by this powerful cabal of colluding attorneys and judges. A short excerpt from two of the letters alleges a disturbing pattern.

I find that the family court judges are abdicating their responsibility to make these life altering decisions for children, but instead leave it all up to the ill-trained and biased guardians ad litem like Pudlowski. Pudlowski always determines, at the get go, which parent has more financial resources, then labels that parent as good, and subsequently the other parent as bad throughout the case ,shutting down any evidence to the contrary. Vilifying one parent as Pudlowski always does, equipped with Reid’s fraudulent reports based on fabrication, hearsay and not on actual evidence together with Van Luven’s fake therapy, is complete neglect of children’s best interests aimed at siphoning enormous sums of money in profits while destroying the lives of children they are hired to protect. It is nothing else but a legalized scheme of child trafficking through family courts in Saint Louis County. Pudlowski knows exactly what she is doing as the swamp ring master.

Attorney t, Saint Louis domestic relations attorney, 17 years in family law practice.

I have seen case after case where literally no evidence was allowed from one parent to refute false statements by the other parent, that were mere hearsay unsupported by any evidence. The family court judges are pulling their custody decisions out of thin air on the advice of corrupt guardians ad litem like Pudlowski and pseudo psychologists like Reid masquerading as trained evaluators of family interactions. Reid told my client that he is married to the almighty and powerful Judge Laurence Mooney, who sits on the Court of Appeals, and that my client would be foolish to challenge Reid’s opinions. Pudlowski bragged to my client that she is Larry’s friend and that they spend holidays together. Pudlowski told my client that if she did not do exactly what she was told, Pudlowski would make sure my client only sees her children for one hour once a month with strict supervision. If this is not child trafficking then what is it? I strike her from my cases immediately.

Attorney E, Saint Louis domestic relations attorney, 24 years in family law practice

DDN has published reams of similar letters purporting to be from whistleblowers. PJ Media has spoken to at least six alleged victims of the scheme who have experiences that match up to the anonymous whistleblowers’ accounts. Tolu’s lawsuit also alleges similar claims. In Tolu v. Reid, Tolu says Pudlowski threatened her to get her to discontinue the legitimate therapy she and her children were receiving in favor of Pudlowkis’s favored therapists, Reid, Jennifer Webbe Van Luven, and others of Pudlowski’s choice.

Pudlowski threatened that if Plaintiff did not terminate Plaintiff’s and Child T’s therapy at Safe Connections, Pulowski would consider Plaintiff a ‘non-cooperating parent’ and recommend that she suffer the total loss of custody of both her children, Child A and Child T.

In the secret leaked meeting, the GALs were notified live that the first judge had recused himself. At minute-mark 2:45, Pudlowski says, “Okay, I just got a note that maybe we are not having a hearing tomorrow. The judge just recused himself. It was Judge [Evan] Wallach.” GAL Sarah Pleban of Grant, Miller & Smith, LLC, who appeared to have called the meeting, replied, “I had heard that was probably a good place to be, I mean he studies the law and he does all that.”

A long stunned silence filled the Zoom meeting after that.

Pudlowski continued, “So I guess I don’t know where that leaves us…my motion to dismiss is about judicial immunity, or quasi-judicial immunity [and] standing.”

People who work for the state in any capacity, including police officers, social workers, GALs, court professionals, etc., always claim “immunity” when they are caught doing bad things. They rely on this protection racket where they claim that if they work for the government, then you little people out there have no recourse against them because they were “just doing their jobs.” Jay Schweikert of the CATO Institute describes it this way.

Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine that protects public officials from liability, even when they break the law. The doctrine has no valid legal basis, it regularly denies justice to victims whose rights have been violated, and it severely undermines official accountability, especially for members of law enforcement.

Then the conversation turned to the purpose of the call: silencing DDN.

Pudlowski claimed she’s being “cyber-stalked” by the news organization because her neighbors have read it. Unfortunately for Pudlowski, news services reporting about publicly available court documents, or whistleblowers leaking court documents that might implicate her in crimes, do not meet the threshold of “cyber-stalking” even if the news outlet sends its reports to people she knows. It’s called “journalism” and it used to be practiced everywhere. Since our news organizations became obsessed with pushing political agendas, no one recognizes actual journalism anymore. “Cyber-stalking” is an absurd claim, but one that is used quite often by any target of investigative work.

PJ Media reached out to Pudlowski over email, despite the threat of being called a “cyber-stalker,” with questions about the clandestine Zoom call. She did not respond. However, Mike Volpe did get one of the participants, GAL Venus Jackson, on the phone for a short time. Jackson made herself famous in Part 1 of my investigation. She was recorded on the Zoom call saying she doesn’t worry about being sued because her clients “don’t have money.” Volpe’s YouTube page is full of videos of St. Louis County citizens speaking out about the terrible experiences they’ve had in the court system with GALs and therapists.

At minute-mark 7:19 Sharon Remis gets to the crux of their problem with DDN. “They [Daily Docket News] had access to a lot of confidential information, so the question is, what’s the resource?”

“There is a concern that licensed attorneys might be getting this information and feeding it to them,” said Pleban. But if that were the case and the information revealed pointed to criminal activity, wouldn’t those attorneys be whistleblowers and entitled to protection under the law?

“Is it a lawyer? Is it someone in the circuit clerk’s office?” continued Pleban. An unidentified woman piped in, “Or a paralegal! Somebody’s paralegal might be getting it.”

At the 9:14 minute-mark, Remis revealed that she had called Judge Michael Burton to help her identify the leaker. This is the exact kind of ex-parte communication that Tolu’s lawsuit alleges. GALs, who are supposed to be representing the children, are communicating with judges behind the scenes to collude against the parents who went to the media seeking help in the family court system. Remis admits that this is what they are doing. Stopping the leak, or hunting it down with the help of judges, only serves to help the GALs in their defense against the parents. Judge Burton is on the record allegedly colluding with the GALs in an email to “help” in any way he can with their defense, and now we hear from a GAL’s own mouth. Remis enlisted his help in tracking down the whistleblower too. Burton is the presiding Judge over the 21st district Judicial Circuit Court of Saint Louis County. Someone should be investigating him immediately. PJ Media attempted to reach every member of the state Senate Judiciary Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee to question them about the legality of Burton’s behavior and received no response. Republican Tony Luetkemeyer is the chairman.

“I put a call into Judge Burton so he could look into that [Sarah Moehler case]. He hasn’t called me back yet. When I talked to his clerk she said he’s so overwhelmed with everything that, you know—so I have information about that and I can get that to you after the call.”

The GALs also talked about forming an LLC with which to raise funds to pay for the forensic investigator to track down DDN. Within that conversation, they callously mocked the parents alleging that their children’s lives have been sacrificed for cash payments. GAL Greg Brough is heard suggesting they call their LLC “Kids for Cash” to raucous laughter (32:29). They also spent time denying that any of them make any money. This is absurd. Pudlowski lives in a $700,000 house and drives a Lexus, according to public records and Zillow. Reid and Mooney live in a house valued at over $900,000, according to the same public records. Each office seen in the Zoom videos is well-appointed, some with expensive-looking art on the walls. They are all surely far better off than any of their clients who are now broke, unemployed, and struggling to survive after being drained of every resource in their years-long battle in family court. The GALs’ economic privilege is evident and easily discovered.

Another striking moment was when GAL Amy Diemer wanted to discuss fighting legislation to require GALs to have higher standards. “Has anybody figured out if there’s a connection between this and Senate bill 623 that was introduced? [Senator] Doug Libla [former R-Mo.] is the one who constantly introduced bills that were taking away powers of guardians ad litem or adversely impacting our ability to do our work…I think he is a part of that Mad Dad group.” The bill she referred to, among other things, aimed to improve standards for children reporting abuse and give priority to family reunification.

1. The division shall develop protocols which give priority to: 2 (1) Ensuring the well-being and safety of the child in instances where child abuse or 3 neglect has been alleged; 4 (2) Promoting the preservation and reunification of children and families consistent with 5 state and federal law; 6 (3) Providing due process for those accused of child abuse or neglect; and 7 (4) Maintaining an information system operating at all times, capable of receiving and 8 maintaining reports.

Every parent who has spoken to PJ Media has alleged that when their children reported sexual abuse to professionals, GALs, therapists, and judges in the Saint Louis County Court system, they were ignored and returned to their accused molesters. According to LegiScan, the bill passed. Whether anyone is enforcing it is uncertain.

Missouri Judge Sends 14-Year-Old Girl to Live With Allegedly Abusive Dad While Jailing Her Mom

None of this would have come to light if the GALs had not called this hasty and ill-advised Zoom meeting, knowing they might have a mole, but doing it anyway. Perhaps the most telling moment of the whole meeting was when Diemert said, “Once they take you down [Pudlowski] we’re all next.” The whole video is worth watching because there’s a lot more that can be analyzed and none of it seems to be about protecting children.

If you or someone you know is a victim of court corruption in St. Louis County please contact MeganFox.Writer@protonmail.com. If you are a whistleblower attorney or court employee, your identity will be protected.

 

Full Article & Source:

CAUGHT COLLUDING: Leaked Video Reveals Family Court Guardians Conspiring to Dox Journalist for Exposing Them

Dysfunction Disorder

Jama Adams

The young mother was in danger of losing her child when she met with a psychologist in May of 2014. She had been living in a Manhattan shelter for victims of domestic violence, and New York City’s child welfare agency was considering taking the child from the woman, according to the woman’s lawyer. The psychologist was supposed to conduct an assessment and file a report, a finding that could end up before a Brooklyn Family Court judge who would decide the family’s fate.

The interview lasted barely an hour. The psychologist’s subsequent one-page report stated that the mother was “cognitively limited,” and that her “mental status exam” reflected “primitive and irrational decision-making.” The report, signed by a psychiatrist, also noted that the parenting abilities of the mother, an immigrant from Central America, were suspect because of the kinds of foods she chose to feed the baby.

The child was taken from the mother’s custody immediately after the evaluation, and the removal was approved by a judge days later.

In late 2015, a father in the Bronx lost all chance at custody of his child as the result of another similar evaluation. He had met with a psychologist for an hour shortly after the birth of his child, according to the man’s attorney. The psychologist did not ask a single question about the man’s potential to be a parent, and never saw him in the presence of his newborn. He was instead given what the psychologist called an “abbreviated IQ test,” the attorney said. The subsequent report to Family Court concluded the father’s “cognitive limitations” left him unfit to care for his child.

The mental health professionals in both cases had been recruited by Montego Medical Consulting, a for-profit company under contract with New York City’s child welfare agency. For more than a decade, Montego was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by the city to produce thousands of evaluations in Family Court cases — of mothers and fathers, spouses and children. Those evaluations were then shared with judges making decisions of enormous sensitivity and consequence: whether a child could stay at home or if they’d be safer in foster care; whether a parent should be enrolled in a counseling program or put on medication; whether parents should lose custody of their children altogether.

In 2012, a confidential review done at the behest of frustrated lawyers and delivered to the administrative judge of Family Court in New York City concluded that the work of the psychologists lined up by Montego was inadequate in nearly every way. The analysis matched roughly 25 Montego evaluations against 20 criteria from the American Psychological Association and other professional guidelines. None of the Montego reports met all 20 criteria. Some met as few as five. The psychologists used by Montego often didn’t actually observe parents interacting with children. They used outdated or inappropriate tools for psychological assessments, including one known as a “projective drawing” exercise.

The reviewers warned Family Court judges that they should regard the reports from Montego with extreme caution. They encouraged the city’s child welfare agency — known as the Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS — to consider ending its relationship with the company.

But the review was kept secret, and Montego continued for another two years under contract with ACS. In fact, the agency sent more families to Montego in the ensuing years than it ever had before, setting aside millions for the company to use to provide more mental health evaluations.

Lauren Shapiro, the director of Brooklyn Defender Service’s family defense practice, said her organization had worked with dozens of families broken apart in large part because of Montego’s evaluations.

“We were shocked they were even being used by the court given that they didn’t follow the basic minimum standards for evaluating parents,” said Shapiro, who helped initiate the confidential 2012 survey.

Jama Adams, Montego’s clinical director, didn’t contest the findings of the 2012 review at the time, nor does he now. He said he and the clinicians he had hired had done the best they could, and had capably served untold numbers of families not captured in the limited review, before the city terminated its dealings with Montego in December of 2015.

Today, Adams looks back on the entire arrangement with the city as a kind of empty promise. The city, he said, had never been willing to spend the money it would have taken to produce high-quality mental health assessments. Meaningful examinations of parents or children would require taking weeks, not days, spending thousands of dollars, not hundreds. The city, he said, had set Montego up to fail. Adams said that failure had been shared by the judges in Family Court who relied on Montego‘s reports despite their clear limitations.

“These were snapshots,” Adams said of the reports. “But people started taking them as gospel.” (Click to Continue)

Full Article & Source:
Dysfunction Disorder

Santa Clara County Bar Association Family Law Section Holiday Luncheon

Santa Clara County Bar Association Family Law Section holiday luncheon held in San Jose on December 2, 2016. Attended by Santa Clara County Superior Court judges, court clerks and court employees. For entertainment, divorce lawyer carolers sang songs mocking clients and pro per litigants, and boasting about the significant income of family law attorneys.

Santa Clara County judges include James Towery, Mary Ann Grilli, Rise Jones Pichon, Aaron Persky, Mark Pierce, Vincent Chiarello, Michael Clark and Erica Yew.





Sources:
YouTube:  Judges and Lawyers Caught at Holiday Sing; Public Outraged

Santa Clara County Superior Court Holiday Party with Divorce Attorneys, Judges, and Court Employees

See Also:
JaneAndJohnQPublic: Santa Clara County Bar Association Luncheon Song Lyrics Released- Public Demands Removal of All Judges Attending the Holiday Event

Family Court Judge Charles Hoskin - Favored by Attorneys, but Maybe Not by Judges or Voters

Last year the Clark County District Court sought a new hearing master to serve in the Family Division. Duties included overseeing hearings and rendering opinions on cases that dealt with issues such as abuse and neglect, child support, domestic violence and guardianship. Over 75 applicants submitted formal requests to become a hearing master. A committee made up of Judges voted and the top three finalists included Soonhee A. Bailey, Yolanda M. Carroll and Amy M. Mastin.

Former Chief Judge Jennifer P. Togliatti issued a press release seeking the public’s vote and in turn promised transparency and fairness in the selection process in addition to hearing public comment.

“Inviting the public to give input into the process is intended to improve transparency and build public trust and confidence,” Clark County District Court Chief Judge Togliatti said in a news release. “The policy also ensures a consistent selection procedure.”

Judge Togliatti, Human Resources Manager – Ed May and 19 of the Family Court Judges listened to presentations and voted on their favorite hearing master candidate. One applicant in particular garnered 12 of the 19 votes, well over 50 percent. Immediately the results were leaked inside the legal community and they were happy with the selection. It was even divulged that one of the Family Court Judges would mentor the applicant.

Apparently Judge Hoskin was not in agreement with Soonhee A. Bailey being selected by the Judges. So he privately approached a Family Court Judge and asked her if she would support his decision to circumvent the popular vote of 19 other judges and break the promise of transparency and fairness that was promised to the public. She did not approve. About a week later Judge Hoskin called and informed Amy M. Mastin, the candidate with only four (4) votes that the Judges had selected her to for the position of Hearing Master.

Former Chief Judge Jennifer P. Togliatti was silent and did not issue a formal apology or an explanation of the sole action of Judge Hoskin. The general public was outraged and 12 Family Court Judges felt slighted and disrespected because like the public, their vote did not matter and was not recognized.

Source:
Family Court Judge Charles Hoskin - Favored by Attoneys, but Maybe Not by Judges or Votors

Tonight on T.S. Radio: Journalist Mike Volpe: Corruption in Family Courts

Mike Volpe returns to discuss the abuses occurring in several states via Family Courts.

Volpe's article "Chris Christie named in two lawsuits alleging violations by Family Courts" appears on Rebel Pundit. In Connecticut, children were handed over to pedophile rings after their mothers were arbitrarily determined to be mentally ill.

In New Jersey, "in Bergen County, a lawsuit led by Karin Wolf, including more than forty women, will allege that courts ignore abuse on a widespread basis–be it sexual, physical, verbal, or emotional–and instead label women making these allegations as parental alienators or as having a variety of mental illnesses or defects." REBEL PUNDIT

Later in the show, Mike will discuss Bullied to Death: The Chris Mackney Story his new book about the stalking and harassment of Chris Mackney, a man driven to suicide by the abuses in family and divorce courts resulting in the loss of access to his children, financial ruin and repeated arrests spanning several years.

Family courts are the last place you want to end up.

7:00 pm EST

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