It was tough to read the May 12, 2017 "CT Law Tribune" article in connection to the Dianne Hart-D'Amato case, particularly as a person who has walked in Dianne's shoes and experienced what she has experienced. It was angering to read Dianne, and by inference all self represented parties in family court, spoken of as "a disgruntled litigant."
I wonder how attorneys and judges would feel if I spoke of them automatically as crooked attorneys or crooked judges simply by virtue of the fact that I do not agree with them. It is not often a bully pulpit such as "The CT Law Tribune" exists as a means to tongue lash the people a particular profession does not like.
I grant you, "The CT Law Tribune" is reporting on one of the major challenges to the authority of the legal profession in CT today, i.e. the high numbers of self represented parties in CT Family Court. To my understanding, as many as 89% of litigants going to Family Court are self represented. In my view, however, this is not the fault of the Family Court litigants; this is the problem of the legal profession itself. Litigants are voting with their feet. They have heard through word of mouth, they have heard from public report, they have heard through family and friends, they have heard through observation--Family Court Attorneys are simply unethical, incompetent, and untrustworthy.
You may object to this statement, but the numbers tell the tale. Not only does the 89% tell a tale, but take a look at my most consistently popular blog for the last seven years listed on the top right side of my website. It is "Going, Going, Gone" the story of the despicable way in which my own attorney treated me during the course of my own Family Court case. Tens of thousands of page views do not lie. What they do is state unequivocally that Family Court attorneys in the State of Connecticut have worse reputations than pedophiles.
That should bother them.
But clearly it doesn't because instead of taking the necessary steps to reform their profession, one that has descended into widespread disrepute, they waste their time publishing the kind of self justifying nonsense that they wrote about in "The CT Law Tribune" regarding the Hart case.
Let us talk about what happened to Dianne Hart.
Ms. Hart-D'amato filed for divorce from a man who was extremely abusive. Instead of protecting Ms. Hart from this abuse, the Court just allowed him to run rampant. As she has stated, her ex subjected her to a constant barrage of harassment: he threatened her both physically and verbally, wrote insulting remarks about her on the bathroom mirror, pounded on the bathroom door and walls leaving marks when she tried to shower, and told their children she didn't love them. When he felt like it, her ex withheld her children from her, and when he did allow a visit he insisted on staying in order to videotape the visit.
From what it looks like Ms. Hart-D'amato must have incurred charges of at least $200,000 or more only to find herself, at the end of the case, homeless, penniless, and childless. There is more in terms of false claims made against her etc., but I don't want to deviate from the main point of this article, which is to address the illegality of the decision in her appellate case.
The bottom line is that, with or without this appellate decision, Family Court litigants, and self represented litigants currently face major injustice in the CT Family Courts on a daily basis including, but not limited to, the following:
1. in chambers hearings off the record (solely attended by the judge and the attorneys in the case) where statements and agreements are made behind litigants backs but which have immense impact on the outcome of their cases;
2. psychological tests of litigants where results are tampered with and skewed to favor one side or another;
3. custody evaluations and GAL reports which are not based upon the facts or the evidence, but are the result of complete fabrication on the part of the professionals involved;
4. litigants are denied access to the evidence such as psychological tests or custody evaluations or GAL reports in advance of trial so they are unable to defend themselves;
5. bribes or influence peddling carried out by legal professionals in order to pay the way to favoring one party or the other;
6. court decisions made that are independent of the CT statutes and case law and are solely justified as the exercise of a judges discretion;
7. the Courts arbitrarily and without any legal grounds barring evidence and testimony it just doesn't want from trial.
8. attorneys filing to withdraw from a case within days of trial, on the morning of the trial, or during the trial.
8. attorneys filing to withdraw from a case within days of trial, on the morning of the trial, or during the trial.
In this last decade I have either personally witnessed, experienced myself, or heard other people report on these kinds of situations occurring under oath.
In the face of such widespread and deep corruption, in the face of this global perversion of justice within the Family Court System, the decision in the D'Amato v. Hart-D'Amato case is simply laughable.
I also want to say directly to Ms. Dianne Hart-D'Amato how much I deeply sympathize with your plight. I know you personally and I know how sincere you are, how much you love your children deeply, and how much you have fought for your rights on principle. As an American citizen, I know that when you fought for your own rights, you were also attempting to stand up for each and every one of us who could not fight for ourselves. Far from being frivolous, your cause was just, your cause was right, and your cause was honorable.
Getting back to the point of "The CT Law Tribune" article, it says that the Courts are clogged. Trust me, the Courts are not so clogged that an attorney who wants to can't unclog it when it suits him.
Meanwhile, hanging around the Courtroom for how many hours it takes is currently a lucrative way for an attorney to make money without even having to do anything. If an attorney is really enterprising, and many are, he or she can bring two or three clients to Court at the same time and charge all three for waiting around.
Trust me, if you were wondering, business is good for the insiders in the Family Court scams that are going on.
Further, this Law Tribune article states that the Appellate Court has determined that hearings on motions are no longer necessary, and that due process can be served as long as the motion is submitted in writing.
Of course, without an evidentiary hearing, much of what a motion would state would be hearsay which is supposedly not allowed in a Court of law. This is because in the CT Family Court system you are not simply allowed to attach documents as exhibits to the motions you file. So anything you said in the motion would be unsubstantiated.
How many times has any one of us tried to give testimony and been silenced because what we had to say was not backed up by original documentation? I'd say like almost all of us. Yet now the Appellate Court is saying we can get around that problem by simply putting what we want to say in writing? If you say so, your honor!
How many times has any one of us tried to give testimony and been silenced because what we had to say was not backed up by original documentation? I'd say like almost all of us. Yet now the Appellate Court is saying we can get around that problem by simply putting what we want to say in writing? If you say so, your honor!
In addition, if you are talking a Motion to Open, which is what Dianne Hart-D'Amato primarily submitted, she paid good money for that motion--is it $300 bucks? You'd think that given all that money she paid, which of course would include the additional $60.00 or so to have a marshal deliver it to the opposing side, this would at least entitle her to a hearing.
But the Appellate Court says not apparently.
Well, who am I to argue. The fact is whether you get a hearing, whether you don't get a hearing, if you are a self represented party, or if you are the predetermined loser in the case, it doesn't matter anyway.
If there are any lawyers reading this, or if my readers today have any experience with Family Court, you know what I'm saying is true, don't you. What this Appellate Court has done is simply end the pretense. It appears that from now on, we won't have any more of these silly show trials that in their disregard for the law and the evidence, and indeed simple humanity and common sense greatly rivaled Stalin's show trials (Otto Warmbier move over). As it turns out, in this decision, we didn't lose anything we hadn't already lost.
See CT Law Tribune Article at the link below:
https://familycourtcircusblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/tauck-v-damato/
ReplyDeleteFamily Court of Horrors is all about money. This family was cleaned out, there was nothing more to do with them. Once the house was sold, the game was over. On to the next victim of Judge Elizabeth Bozzuto and her crooked pals.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this. I hope that more verifiable facts can expose the corrupt persons.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to read the law journal article but don't want to sign up. Can you send me a cut and paste? I think you are saying the court ruled that judges can write custody orders based solely on statements alleged in a motion without evidence or a hearing. Also that CT has stated in a law or in a court rule that litigants can't provide evidence at the time of filing of a motion. I find both of these tactics interesting proof that custody determinations and outcomes are made long before you begin litigation and that you are never intended to be given a fair, thorough review based on fact and law.
ReplyDeleteThat is what a determination like this essentially means. The reason why we have rules of evidence is to ensure that only verified and trustworthy documentation makes it to the sight of the judge. That is the point of a hearing, because it provides the judge with the opportunity, supposedly, to make decisions based upon the facts and the evidence. If you essentially put those rules aside and make it the law that you can submit motions to the court with statements of fact that cannot be verified because you aren't going to allow evidence into the decision, then what you have is a circumstance where the judge doesn't care what the facts are and is making his or her decision independent of the facts. Since our right to represent ourselves is a right protected by the constitution, and since the fact sheets that the court system hands out specifically states that self represented parties will be held to the same standards as lawyers, how can the court system now make a decision which discriminates against self represented parties, and which establishes a separate track for self represented parts which denies them their rights, while attorneys are still accorded the same rights as they were before. My best bet is that if anyone challenged this decision, it would be put aside and voided..
DeleteI am glad the public is refusing to give money to lawyers who do more to obfuscate than protect your due process rights. Harder to send pro se people to over-priced appointees. They have to bring in child welfare/foster care agency to submit the false evidence when parents can't afford the court appointed fee-for-service fraudsters. Parents need to learn that the minute one of these "professionals" become involved the fraud begins. Rackets are based on proliferation of harm masquerading as help.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, why do you promote an anti-semite like Paul Boyne? Your father was a Holocaust survivor. Shame doesnt begin to describe what you should feel.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good question for Elizabeth. One thing I have heard her say is that the well known fact that her father was a holocaust survivor did not stop any of her Jewish lawyers or the Jewish Judges and mental health professionals in her case from stealing the holocaust reparations money which her family had received during her divorce. For instance, Attorney Elliot Nuremberg literally stole $25,000 from Elizabeth's family and did nothing in return. There are, most unfortunately, and Paul Boyne points this out, as do others who are not being anti-semitic but are just observing, that a good solid chunk of the professionals committing these crimes in family court are Jewish. More than any other group, you would think that people of Jewish origin would be particularly sensitive and aware in the face of the horrific human rights violations that are taking place in family court, and which they are participating in. More than any other group they have an obligation to oppose and to root out these kinds of criminal actions, and instead they are eagerly participating and there are a higher than normal number of Jewish people involved. I also want to point out that not only was Elizabeth's father a victim of the holocaust, for the better part, her father's entire family was wiped out. The two grandparents Elizabeth was named after--Grandma Elizabeth and Grandma Alice--also died in concentration camps. This is why the heritage of the concentration camps looms so greatly in her imagination. Not only did the holocaust, for Elizabeth, occur in her father's generation, it occurred in her own in that many people have equated her experience at Mclean Psychiatric Hospital as being similar to that of being in a concentration camp, and then Elizabeth has drawn a comparison between the holocaust and her personal experience of family court. So in three separate ways, Elizabeth has had experience of holocaust. Yet, she continues to speak out and to protest against those who perpetrate these holocausts. Every Jewish citizen in the State of Connecticut who lives with the past heritage of the holocaust should be standing up along with her, in fact has a central and fundamental moral obligation to do so. Every one who styles him or herself a Christian should--that goes without saying. Yet none of these folks are doing anything. Instead, they are sitting are their hands going "Who me?" This blog has commented on the Christian's lack of action as well. So Paul goes after the Jews--I go after the Christians. Both groups absolutely deserve all the vituperation they are getting.
DeleteThis is also happening in other family courts in cases with DCF and probate court. We can illustrate corruption till the cows come home but until our federal government acts as a true oversight to protect rights I am afraid this will continue.
ReplyDelete“It can’t possibly be true” is the infamous response to situations such as this. It escapes me how this happens when a parent wants to parent and a child deserves a parent. Society is doomed with these children in the aftermath of this high-stakes-of-greed. Everyone pays the price. Schools, relationships, education, medically and especially emotionally. Children reinventing their lives and learning to hate the person fighting for them. Only the strong survive and that is the lowest ratio with suicide being the solution in thought definitely with many choosing addiction leading to criminal behaviors and death if they do not have a strong mental health care team. It takes a village and the village needs to know not only is this possible, believe that it is also an epidemic. We need awareness before the epidemic finds all in the wake of criminal divorce behaviors including courts, mothers, fathers, court ordered GAL. Lawyers, and the medical and emotional professionals living in the world of “that can’t possibly be true”! It’s true! Now what?!!!
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