Recently, I was reviewing the online page for the Family Commission located on the CT Judicial Branch website. As I did so, I was quite surprised to read commentary in the September 10, 2014 minutes of the Family Commission meeting indicating that the Commission is planning on shutting down its operations. The pertinent wording is as follows:
Under Section V.
"The Commission discussed the past, present, and future missions of the Family Commission. The Commission was originally created to review and update the practice book rules for family cases. All members present agreed that the Commission has gone beyond its original charge."
They did? They said they had gone beyond the original charge? How? We would all like to know. One way, I would suggest, is to become involved in the legislative process and personally write some of the Connecticut General Statutes. This strikes me as a violation of the concept of the separation of powers.
To continue:
"The members also agreed that it was no longer necessary to meet on a regularly scheduled basis [emphasis added]. The Commission will continue to meet from time to time when there are issues brought to its attention by the bench and the bar for discussion. All members agree that the family bar has always been comfortable bringing important matters to the attention of the bench when needed [emphasis added]."
What does that mean? Does it mean that in cases the family bar speaks to judges in chambers and pretty much gets its way? If so, this is a privilege self represented parties clearly aren't allowed!
What does that mean? Does it mean that in cases the family bar speaks to judges in chambers and pretty much gets its way? If so, this is a privilege self represented parties clearly aren't allowed!
So, in essence, they are taking discussions regarding the operation of family court outside of the public eye and into back corridors and private rooms.
I wonder if the increased scrutiny on the operations of the Family Court Section of the CT Judicial Branch has led to this outcome? I am aware that the much maligned AFCC has shut down its operations here in Connecticut. Could the one event have led to the other? Who knows? One thing is for certain, the Family Commission has certainly not appreciated the increased scrutiny on its activities which has included a considerable number of interested citizens and family court victims attending its proceedings.
I reviewed the number of meetings of the Family Commission which have taken place from its inception in 2008 up to the present. There has definitely been a considerable decrease in meetings and an increase in the cancellations of meetings as the public has taken it upon itself to observe in person many of the Family Commission meetings, and has expressed greater concern about the misdeeds of family court and its exploitation of Connecticut citizens.
A chart following this trend is posted below:
YEAR #MEETINGS #CANCELLED MEETINGS
2008 5 0
2009 7 1
2010 7 0
2011 8 1
2012 4 3
2013 6 3
2014 3 2
2015 1 0
I also think it is interesting that the founding members of the Family Commission have remained on the Commission for the entire seven year period that it has been in existence. While the Family Commission has added additional members, earlier members have stayed. So the culture of this Commission has remained the same, and the people dominating the Commission from the start and establishing the agenda on a meeting to meeting basis has remained steady.
Some of these legal professionals whose names dominate the Commission are known AFCC members or legal professionals whose names are considered notorious among family court critics because they are perceived as corrupt.
The names of the founding Commission members are as follows:
Hon. Holly Abery-Whetstone
Hon. Sandra Sosnoff Baird
Hon. John Boland
Attorney Steven Dembo
Hon. Anne Dranginis
Attorney Gaetano Ferro
Hon. Steven Frazzini* (no longer a member)
Attorney Constance Frontis
Hon. Elaine Gordon
Attorney Johanna Greenfield
Hon. Lynda Munro (Chair)
Attorney Maureen Murphy* (Now a judge)
Attorney Thomas Parrino
Hon. Elliott Solomon
Members who have been added to the Commission since its original founding are as follows:
Hon. Elizabeth Bozzuto (Current Chair)
Attorney Michael Blanchard
Attorney Michael Fasano
Attorney Deborah Grover
Attorney John Colella
Attorney Alan Palmer
Hon. Barry Pinkus
These are the individuals who apparently no longer feel they ought to be held accountable to the public, despite the fact that it is their failed policies that have generated so much dissatisfaction in recent years.
Judge Elliott Solomon is one judge who has stated that he is responsible for training pretty much all of the judges in Hartford Family Court and that they would all do what he said. If so, he is the first one who should answer for the gross miscarriages of justice which has taken place there in recent years.
I see you plumb the depths of the CT Judicial Website with a keen eye. You are not alone. It's actually a wealth of knowledge for the lay person. And you're not alone when you see red flags and possible connect-the-dots to overlapping events - and by the way I might add possible directional high-profile cases, or series of such common law-wise that may be influencing certain Rules changes, or necessity for, along the way. Timeline overlaps are always intriguing in a shady forum that at all times needs to CYA themselves. No doubt the AFCC spotlight was a direct hit and the Bench particularly, not just the Bar, got a clear case of the hives. Which brings me to ask as a postscript...why is that the CT US Attorney's office announced a Task Force on public corruption (that would be the Bench), put up billboards across the State as a direct result of the increasing heat brought about by the independent journalism spotlight on corrupt Family Courts and the Bench (Judges) and then what, nothing out of that? Did it disband and go underground or in back rooms as well? Why are certain Judges, like Frazzini and Pinkus, still in Family Court? And btw, check out Gae Ferro's history in Family Court fiascos....he's a major 'golden boy' when it comes to his cases around Stamford Court. Same as Gary Cohen, whom he defended in the many State Grievance actions brought against Cohen, and who received only a hand-slap, primarily because Cohen picked Stamford to hear his fox-watching-henhouse presentments. For an attorney who should have been at least suspended if not disbarred by now. Ah yes, the ever money greasing wheels can't stand a single squeak, now can they?
ReplyDeleteProbably the only good casualty to-date that came out of the AFCC exposee was the forced retirement of Lynda Munro. In 2009 she was brought into Stamford Family Court to allegedly clean up the mess there. Stamford being of course the ultimate money center of CT divorce cases given its plethora of big time Wall Street banker and hedge fund families going through what ought to be plain vanilla divorce cases but vastly ended up being the center of the corruptCT divorce cases given all that big time money. Lynda Munro was positioning and itching for, which was well known amongst the legal community, to be tapped for an Appellate Court judgeship. Thank god that didn't happen. Not that the likes of recently tapped ones are necessarily any better per se. But at least the Appellate Court didn't get another DiPentima.
ReplyDeleteHow about making up their own rules without public hearings as required by law. Making substantive v. procedural rules sounds like beyond the scope of the charge and violation of separation if powers. The rules if substantive v. procedural could turn out to be unconstitutional.
ReplyDeleteLynda Munro was assigned to Stamford family court in 2006/7 to "clean up" Stamford family court. She quickly formed the Stamford family court Rules Committee and invited certain attorneys to join. Those special attorneys enjoyed ex-parte communications with Judge Munro through this committee, and based on those illicit communications, Munro made horrific orders against domestic violence victims that will forever impact those victims and their children. Munro ordered a victim parent/trustee to invade her minor children's' out-of state, third-party-established, trust funds and UGMA accounts invaded to pay for Horowitz psych evaluations of themselves and their parents without an evidentiary hearing, against the trustees wishes, despite those children not having received court-ordered financial support from the abusive parent for two years and Munro having denied the victim a financial hearing for 5 months. She determined, without evidence, that the victim was guilty of PAS and that sexual abuse never occurred, despite the state having substantiated the charge, She punished the victim-parent for following DCF directives and obtaining a protective order for herself and the abused child, She ordered unsupervised overnight visits between the abuser and his child-victim, despite the standing protective order. She financially punished the victims to force a settlement, going so far as to cancel trial seven times, forcing the victim-parent into bankruptcy. She sent that family to Middletown twice, once just before leaving Stamford to join the Middletown bench, stating she was going to be their judge in Middletown as well and had already determined what the outcome should be. Once there, Munro had the family endure special masters only to cancel their trial immediately after because she learned from Parrino of the victim-parents' intent to appeal the unconstitutional invasion of the children's trust funds and loss of pensions.
ReplyDeleteMunro retaliated against the victim who refused to deny a history of domestic abuse, by awarding the abusive, deadbeat parent the marital pensions pre-dissolution, without a financial hearing, after invading the childrens accounts, and while refusing to grant the victim-parent financial relief and required hearings. She went further, and ensured the victim-parent's motions for contempt of child support and alimony were never heard - over 22 were filed during a 2 year period and none were heard, yet Munro made sure attorney Thom Parrino, who sits on the Family Commission and sat on her Stamford Family Rules Committee, had his $850,000 legal billing covered by the victim and the minors who needed her protection. Just before she went to Middletown in 2008, she sent atty Thom Parrino an invitation to join her not-yet-formed Connecticut Family Rules Committee. Once the committee was formed, she changed the name to the Family Rules Commission and made sure she had Judge Marylouise Schofield, who replaced her in Stamford, assigned to another Committee which supposedly was formed to ensure consistency of court rules (and her unlawful orders…). The outrageous Thom Parrino fees that Munro made sure were addressed without a hearing, were later determined in arbitration to be excessive and were greatly reduced, but the pensions were gone by then and the victim-parent was not awarded a penny from the marital estate, which had been entirely plundered, for her own attorney's fees (which were less than a third of Parrino's). Munro and Parrino, aware of the unlawful trust and UGMA invasions, presented to the Family Commission a new "rule" that would empower a judge to invade children's accounts for psychological evaluations. That rule, drafted by Parrino and endorsed by Munro, was quickly passed by the Commission, although it clearly violated state statutes. The rule change was stuck down later, thanks to a concerned citizen who confronted the judiciary. That person has since suffered from years of retaliation.
Most famously, when Munro was assigned to oversee the community service Gary Cohen was ordered to perform as punishment for a grievance, she permitted him to have an associate do the time for him. Can't make this stuff up.
DeleteThis is the type of outrageous conduct in the family courts that the co-chairs of the new Task Force need to hear. Whoever wrote this needs to be meeting with/writing to the co-chairs: Karen Jarmoc of CT CADV and Dr. Gary Lapidus at CCMC.
ReplyDeleteWhile some of the dates of the various Anonymous posters here are not in sync vis a vis Lynda Munro's Family Court assignment in Stamford, the axe of her egregious rulings and Rules changes insofar as a for instance "Discovery Motions" at Stamfords Monday Short Calendar, are a matter of clear record. In her presiding record it still remains a pivital point in my own case, high profile at the time and very definitely since, it being pre-eminant Case Law courtesy of the CT Supreme Court - a rare exception and ruling from the State's Highest Court, particularly in Family Law. Munro's alteration of the crucial and critical "Discovery" rules at that pivotal point in my Statutory invoking (and hand-in-glove Practice Book Rules) served to be akin to a Motion to Quash on behalf of my husband adversary...but without, of course, the requisite basis or briefing in law. This was in 2008, not the years mentioned 2006-7, which are errantly mentioned, I suspect, by Nowacki case. At the time of Lynda Munro's assignment to the Stamford Court, one of her first caustic references before the Monday Short Calendar, was specifically to a (fellow) attorney, one Ken Votre out of New Haven, who had been hired by me for two reasons: to assist in my Landmark Supreme Court Reverse & Remand Case (Finan v. Finan) as well as go after one Gary Cohen, Esq, whom Votre had succesfully accomplished and is STILL doing same today, albeit for another lesser known litigant. Sadly, Ken Votre accomplished neither on my behalf, but not for the reasons one might think or surmise. It is also noteworthy that Lynda Munro, prior to being assigned to Stamford, presided over one Ken Votre Esq's own First Divorce (separate forum) and that he himself, while going after any number of Greenwich/Stamford based Family Law attorneys, is himself embroiled in yet his second contentious divorce further upstate.
ReplyDeleteAnd on and on it goes...what an incredible cesspool all the way around.
I'm still glad, however, that Munro apparently shot her own self in the foot, or so it appears, courtesy of the AFCC exposee. She sooo wanted that Appellate Judgeship!
Next casualty ought to be damn near EVERY Judge with any tenure time in Stamford/Norwalk. Particularly the ancient and most corruptable courtesy of age (as they no longer give a sh**) Judge Trial Referees.
May I please contact you regarding Votre? He has destroyed my case. I noticed you had him too and I’m just looking to see if something similar happened. I am not sure what to do.
DeleteI am sorry, I reread the previous poster's account and realized (I think) it wasn't a father's narrative but a mother's!? Still not entirely certain but definitely appears so. In which case, because she too picked up on, and was clearly victimized by, the egregious and damaging behavior on the part of Lynda Munro, who gratefully WASN'T Promoted to Appellate Court Judge, my apologies....and condolences of the life-altering repercussions wrought. I too suffer them. It's enough to make one want to, well...I won't say here.
ReplyDeleteThe fourth Anonymous person commenting here should join forces with everyone else who has commented here under this and so many other blog entries. I hope Catherine Sloper will create a commenter's forum on her blog site to help advocate that collective source to assist the readers to develop a strategy to change some things.
ReplyDeleteI am investigating how I can do that. Thanks for the suggestion.
DeleteThat would be amazing
DeleteI've never understood -- and the judicial Branch has failed to explain to me -- the statutory or other legal basis for the creation of the Family Commission in the first place. What entitles a bunch of judges to pick a bunch of their lawyer friends so they can collectively enrich the divorce industry at the expense of families?
ReplyDeleteIn late 2008, early 2009, Munro was given permission to invite certain non-judicial members of the bar to serve on her "Committee". Later, she changed the name to "Commission", I believe she changed the name on her own, and by no official process. She sent invitations to attorneys before she was given permission to do so, I believe.
ReplyDeleteOne of the attorneys was invited to join at the very time he managed to extract himself from a highly contentious Stamford case over which Munro had presided, and at exactly the same time she left Stamford for Middletown, after assigning that same contentious case to Middletown where she was heading... This attorney had admitted to a certain jurist that he had been aware of his client's fraud upon the court for nearly a year and requested to be relieved of the case. Before he abandoned his client, he had Munro order the family's pensions liquidated to address, pre-judgment, insane fees that were never before the court and were later found unreasonable, just after he had her invade minor children's trust funds to pay for bogus forensic psychological evaluations with Sidney Horowitz.
Some of the first items on the Commission's agenda were emergency ex-parte motions for custody, GAL training and fees, and invasions of minor children's "custodial accounts" for payment of forensic psychological testing. These issues were urgent, because Munro had made some crazy rulings and needed some quick rule changes before she was personally sued. (Trust funds are not "custodial accounts" - they are independent legal entities that are specifically protected by state statutes) .
Munro and the attorney who proposed the rule change that would allow the court to order minor children to pay for their family's bogus psychological evaluations and did so under false pretext, for they failed to disclose to the Commission the fact that the case had been before Munro and Munro had ordered minor children's trust funds improperly invaded while she denied the mother a support hearing even after learning the mother and children had no heat or phone service and had been heating the home with an oven, that the mother and children had received zero dollars in child support in 2 years because that special attorney had made sure the mother never had her hearings by scheduling with Munro "emergency status conferences" (15 in 8 months!) during which she granted for him motion that were not even drafted, before canceling that mother's scheduled hearing and ordering the pensions liquidated without a financial hearing for inflated legal fees that later were found to be "unreasonable" but were until that point the cause for the attorney to bankrupt the family by placing a lis pendens on their home and failing to remove it upon court order…
Because all the orders were made "without prejudice and to be addressed at trial" the mother was unable to remedy the situation until trial, which was cancelled by Munro 7 times and ultimately never occurred due to the litigant's being stripped of their net worth. The mother could therefore not appeal.