EXERPT FROM KEITH HARMON SNOW'S GROUNDBREAKING ARTICLE ON THE CORRUPTION OF CONNECTICUT'S FAMILY COURT SYSTEM ENTITLED "A LIFE SENTENCE"
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
There were two other very interesting appointments to CT Governor John G. Rowland's Commission on Custody, Divorce and Children. One of these was Thomas C. Foley, a member of the elite upper class in America. At the time of his appointment to co-chair the Commission, Thomas Foley was himself involved in a very contentious divorce.
Thomas C. Foley has deep political connections. According to his biography posted on the web pages of Foley's investment bank, NTC Group: From August, 2003 through March, 2004, Thomas C. Foley served in Iraq as the Director of Private Sector Development for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Thomas C. Foley's responsibilities included overseeing most of Iraq's 192 state-owned enterprises, stimulating private sector growth, developing foreign trade and investment, and overseeing three state ministries. Thomas C. Foley received the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award in June 2004 for his service in Iraq.
However, the CPA granted total immunity from law to private military and security companies (PMSCs) in Iraq between 2003 and 2009. Despite the CPA's Memorandum No. 17 -- requiring that all PMSCs must register with the Iraqi Ministry of Interior -- the number of PMSCs deployed in Iraq was unknown, and the U.S. Department of Defense and CPA estimated some 60 PMSCs employing between 20,000 and 25,000 mercenaries in 2004 and 2005. CPA Memorandum No. 17 also protected private military companies from all prosecution. Thus, the CPA is responsible for mass war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq.
The CPA also organized the destruction and plunder of Iraq -- what Vanity Fair magazine called 'a sump for American and Iraqi money as it disappeared into the hands of Iraqi ministries and American contractors'. One of three top CPA executives, Thomas C. Foley described Iraq as a modern 'California gold rush'. The CPA was dissolved in June 2004, leaving at least $10 billion in U.S. taxpayers money unaccounted for, and billions more siphoned off through fraudulent contracts to GOP and Bush family favored companies. (See: The Privatization of Warfare, Violence and Private Military & Security Companies: A factual and legal approach to human rights abuses by PMSCs in Iraq, 2011.)
From 2006 to 2009, Thomas C. Foley was the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, appointed by President George W. Bush as a reward for backing the election of President George W. Bush. In June 2010, Thomas C. Foley was the GOP-endorsed candidate for governor against now-seated democrat Governor Dannel Malloy, a campaign he spent $10 million on, and lost.
Thomas C. Foley graduated from Harvard Business School, and before long he was making his fortune as an investment banker on Wall Street. Thomas C. Foley managed the mid-1990s leveraged buyout and bankrupting of the Bibb Corporation of Macon GA. After this killing his reported worth was about $200 million. He reportedly has an $8,000,000 estate in Greenwich CT. He funded CT Governor Rowland's campaign, and was therefore a shoe-in for placement on the Rowland Commission on Custody, Divorce and Children.
Thomas C. Foley's bio indicates that he served "in two Connecticut State Commissions involving education and children's rights."
However, Thomas C. Foley's 2010 gubernatorial campaign was marred by the sudden appearance of reports revealing his unethical behavior and the impropriety of his position on former governor Rowland's Commission on Custody, Divorce and Children.
"It was late 2001, and Thomas C. Foley, a Greenwich investor and a major Republican Party fundraiser, was immersed in a contentious and protracted battle with his ex-wife for custody of their 11-year-old son," wrote Ken Dixon in the CT Post. "When he heard that Gov. John G. Rowland was setting up a task force to examine the state's divorce and child custody laws, Foley asked to be on the panel. Later, Rowland also would appoint to the panel a Greenwich psychologist [Dr. Jerry Brodlie] who had sided with Foley in his legal fight to obtain sole custody of his son."
"Thomas [Jr.] was exactly a year old when Tom walked out on us," says Lisa Foley. "I received alimony of $25,000 a year per our pre nuptial agreement, so he wanted to leave on the anniversary of our 2nd year so I would only get $50,000 a year which is what I got. He left the exact day before it would have forced a third year of alimony. He left a note saying he was leaving and then sent roses saying happy anniversary. I sent them back with the delivery guy."
Lisa Foley filed for divorce in 1991, when their son Thomas C. Foley Jr. was one year old. The divorce was concluded in 1994, but the custody battle dragged on to 2006. Custody evaluators included Dr. Jerry Brodlie, Dr. Donald Tolles and Dr. Albert Solnit (d. 2002), a former psychologist at the Yale Child Study Center.
"Tom's ability to be a better parent because of his money and desire to raise [our son] Thomas in a completely white moneyed private school environment in Greenwich versus my desire to raise him in a multicultural environment at a public school was used against me," says Lisa Foley. "To do so, without seeming prejudiced, they insinuated that I was emotionally unstable and a borderline personality -- which was a grave diagnosis. We were told to visit therapists, which I did and I shared who I am and Tom refused. Thus, I was sick. I noticed this is similar with the other moms [like Sunny Kelley]. Sharing ourselves was used against us."
A few years after he served as the Foley's family therapist, Dr. Jerry Brodlie was appointed to sit on Governor Rowland's special Commission on Custody, Divorce and Children, co-chaired by Thomas Foley. Dr. Brodlie is today head of the psychology department at Greenwich Hospital.
"I was being unreasonable asking for joint custody, but my husband was asking for sole custody," says Lisa Foley. "Our court-appointed psychologist was Dr. Jerry Brodlie and we saw him for a year. I paid $20,000 to Brodlie and Tom paid another $20,000 and then Brodlie was appointed by Tom to be his right hand man on the [Rowland] Commission. It was a huge conflict of interest while we were appearing in family court."
Meanwhile, Lisa Foley was volunteering as a family counselor to help women with domestic violence in court, but she was 'fired' because it was a 'conflict of interest' to be working in the courts, even as a volunteer, when her custody case was ongoing.
Another court-appointed evaluator was Dr. Albert Solnit, the co-author of the groundbreaking 1970's book, The Best Interests of the Child: The Least Detrimental Alternative. This book set the stage for many of the 'Father's Rights' movement theories like PAS and the concomitant judicial abuses that now permeate Family Courts. The 1979 film 'Kramer vs. Kramer' provided another popular vehicle to help advance the 'Father's Rights' movement. The language "In the Best Interests of the Child" was codified in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified November 1989.
Both Dr. Jerry Brodlie and Dr. Albert Solnit also favored sole custody by Thomas C. Foley against his wife Grace Elizabeth (Lisa) McCowan Foley. During their trial, Lisa Foley was further humiliated by the appearance in court of Dr. Solnit and his students -- a real life demonstration of how his (quack) psychological theories were put into in practice to appropriately (sic) dispense with a difficult mother.
The custody evaluation of Dr. Donald Tolles was based in part on the previous custody evaluation of Dr. Brodlie, with attention to the claim that Lisa Foley "exhibits the signs and symptoms of a borderline personality, becoming irrational at times."
"Ms. Foley has a warm, loving relationship with [her son] Thomas," Dr. Donald Tolles wrote in his custody study of June 5, 1992. "Ms. Foley's values are different from Mr. Foley's, especially as it concerns education. She wants [son] Thomas to be raised in a heterogeneous community... and to attend public schools. She explains that if [son] Thomas resides primarily with her, he will be exposed to people from different cultures and ethnic groups. She is concerned that if Thomas lives in Greenwich and attends private schools, he will become an elitist like his father."
Dr. Donald Tolles recommended that custody of [son] Thomas be granted to his father, and that the mother be granted liberal and flexible access.
When Lisa Foley learned that her ex-husband had been appointed to co-chair Governor Rowland's Commission on Custody, Divorce and Children she met with Ann George, Rowland's Hartford attorney, and hand-delivered a large file of documents. Included in these were documents claiming that Thomas Foley was controlling and abusive.
"She promised to return [it] to me, but she never did, even after repeated calls. It was obviously buried somewhere and then unearthed by a reporter during the campaign. Tom accused me of giving the file to the reporter, which I did not. He also told our son that and this caused problems. Tom accused me of being the reason he lost the election."
The file delivered by Lisa Foley to contest Foley's appointment on the Rowland Commission for Custody, Divorce and Children surfaced in 2010, and this generated negative publicity that hurt Foley's gubernatorial bid. Thomas Foley then produced a letter signed by Lisa Foley in 2006, claiming that there had never been any domestic violence in their relationship.
"My former husband is a control freak. As soon as we got married he started posting rules about how I was supposed to behave. It was awful. It was hell. We lived together for five years but our marriage only lasted two years. I had my son at 38, and then after my son was born the rules were impossible.... He felt that if he was paying the bills, I should behave the way he wanted me to behave. And he was righteous."
Lisa Foley describes Thomas Foley as a violent, narcissistic egomaniac. In the file delivered to Rowland's attorney was a newspaper clipping about Tom Foley, long before he was married. In 1981, twenty-nine year old Thomas C. Foley was arrested and charged with first-degree attempted assault after he allegedly rammed a vehicle and terrorized its occupants.
"This clipping was sent to me anonymously when Tom ran me and my one year-old son off the road in Greenwich. Tom was in a fury because we were going to NYC to visit my best friend without his permission. This was his controlling personality. A passing car saw me yelling for help from my window and called the police at which point Tom returned home. I had to go to the police station and file a report and then we continued to the city. Early the next morning the police called to demand my return saying Mr. Foley had filed a report [charging that] I had tried to run him over in his driveway and that is why he chased me. This is a total lie. I was taken to criminal court to be put in jail for attempted grave bodily harm to him. Fortunately the Judge believed me and released me. Tom was never charged with anything. But the report of domestic violence was put in the paper and the former victim obviously saw it and sent me the clipping."
According to CT Post writer Ken Dixon, Samuel V. Schoonmaker III, Lisa Foley's attorney during a child-support hearing from December of 1991, described the protracted divorce litigation as a power game. "She's got $60,000 to her name and he's got $39 million by his own admission and this fellow gets up there and he adopts the self-righteous, arrogant, dictatorial attitude, which is the only way I can characterize it," Ken Dixon reported attorney Schoonmaker to say. "This whole hearing has nothing to do with money. This hearing has to do with control."
The Judge in the case of Grace (Lisa) Foley v. Thomas Foley in June 1992, was Anne Dranginis, the future co-chairperson of the Rowland Commission on Custody, Divorce and Children, a position she shared with Thomas Foley.
"The court ordered us to see Jerry Brodlie to decide custody," says Lisa Foley. "I told him everything -- I'm a very forthright person. Basically, I should have gone in there and said I was great, no problems, but I was sad about the dissolution of our marriage. My reality and emotional distress was used to say that I had a borderline personality disorder."
Thomas Foley's second marriage was to Leslie Fahrenkopf, the daughter of Frank Fahrenkopf, former Republican National Committee chairman. From 2003 to 2008 Leslie Fahrenkopf was an associate counsel to President George W. Bush in the Office of White House Counsel. Prior to the Fahrenkopf marriage, Thomas Foley lived together for five years with CT Judiciary Committee member Themis Klarides.
In February 2012, the CT Judiciary Committee held public hearings on the confirmation of nominees for new or returning judges. One of the newly confirmed judges is Maureen Murphy, former GAL in Liberti v. Liberti. While the Judiciary Committee heard ample public testimony about the judicial abuse involving Murphy, her appointment was confirmed with very little resistance.
Thomas Foley financially supports the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, and he runs it. He reportedly plans to run for governor of CT again in 2014.
"He was always verbally abusive," says Lisa Foley. "I was red neck white trash. I didn't want any servants. I didn't want the mansion. The one thing that money did for me was to make me hate it. It doesn't make you happy."
The other very interesting appointment to Governor Rowland's special Commission on Divorce, Custody and Children, a friend of Thomas C. Foley, was Pat (Patsy) D'Angelo, one of the original members of an organization called Divorced Men of Connecticut. Attorney Louis Kiefer was one of the founders. Mr. D'Angelo also at one time was coordinator of the state chapter of the national Children's Rights Council (CRC), an umbrella organization for 'Father's Rights' groups that protect abusive men and punish good mothers.
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