By Susan
Skipp, Co-Chair
We The People Family Preservation,
Connecticut Chapter
January
15, 2014
Colleen
Kerwick, a New York resident was forced to remain in Connecticut, and forced out of her
job because of the vexatious litigation conducted in Family Court by her former spouse’s counsel--Steve
Dembo and Michael Budlong and Campbell Barrett. These attorneys are members of the AFCC, a profit sharing
venture that franchises judicial systems around the world.
Attorney Colleen Kerwick
is a federal civil rights and aviation attorney, with two law degrees and enough
accolades in her legal career to take several minutes of your time just filling you in about it.
I will share a vignette of what I witnessed in the Hartford Court in front of the bench of the Honorable Judge Felcito on Wednesday, January 8, 2014. I have observed Judge Felcito in other cases and until that hearing thought her to be a fair judge.
I will share a vignette of what I witnessed in the Hartford Court in front of the bench of the Honorable Judge Felcito on Wednesday, January 8, 2014. I have observed Judge Felcito in other cases and until that hearing thought her to be a fair judge.
Within days before Christmas this past year, Colleen
lost custody of her son via an ex-parte motion so that the father could take
the child on vacation. As sick and
disturbing as this sounds, this is what happens everyday when people buy and
sell kids in Connecticut’s Court.
On
December 20, 2013, the father, Mr. Kenneth Savino, who had been arrested before for risk of injury to a
minor for medically neglecting his son, requested and received from the Court an ex-parte (emergency) order
that Colleen Kerwick turn the child over at 10:00 am at the child’s doctor’s office, claiming imminent risk of injury to a child.
Colleen was at this doctor's office, however, she was not served the order and did not know about
the order. Even though Savino was at the doctor's office at that time, he did not take the child or tell Colleen about the order. Earlier in the day, Colleen had waited at their usual
switching spot at 9:00am, but he did not show up. Then, at 9:05 am, Savino’s team of lawyers filed the
ex-parte motion.
At 3:40p.m.
the State Marshall, Bruce Kaz admitted to seeing Colleen several times throughout the day as she drove around her Connecticut hometown participating in various activities with her child. Also, as an aside, Marshall Bruce Kaz has a history of providing fabricated testimony in court against litigants to whom he's been paid to deliver court papers.
Still, at 3:45p.m., Savino’s legal team, even though it was in constant conversation throughout
the day with Colleen Kerwick, along with
Kerry Tarpy, the GAL whose bills only reflect time with the father and
speaking with his attorneys, while making no attempt to meet with Colleen and the child,
decided that they had grounds to issue an Amber Alert.
A police lieutenant and supervisor of the Avon,
Connecticut police department and State Marshall Bruce Kaz showed up at Colleens’
home at 5:30pm on December 20, 2013 with no advanced notice and took the four-year-old child from his mother's arms. Father was awarded temporary sole custody and Colleen was barred from all access to her child.
In
Connecticut, the burden must be met that the child is in imminent danger to
change custody via an ex-parte order. The order for the ex parte motion read that
Colleen must return to court on January 2, 2014 to show cause as to why the
order for Mr. Kenneth Savino having temporary sole custody should continue.
At that time, Colleen, representing herself, cited the law stating that the
ex-parte order was not made in good faith since the grounds for the removal of a child from the custody of a parent should only occur when it is believed that the child is in danger of imminent harm. In fact, the child was simply eating lunch and taking a nap with his mother. What occurred was that there was simply a problem in terms of the custody transfer when Mr. Savino did not show up because he was busy scamming the Court into issuing an ex-parte order of sole custody for his benefit.
Up to this point, Colleen has not even been able to address this point, since the focus of the Court during the hearings on this issue have been shifted from what actually took place onto the issue of Colleen's mental health. By simply changing the subject matter of the hearing over to the question of Colleen's mental health, Mr. Savino's legal team, with the collusion of the GAL, has avoided the question of whether the child was in any kind of danger altogether.
This is discrimination and a violation of Prong #3 of Federal ADA law which prohibits discrimination based upon the false perception that a person has a mental health disability that he or she does not have.
Attorney Colleen Kerwick has already
shown credible evidence that she has no mental health disability. She has submitted to two psychological evaluations--one by the notorious Sidney Horowitz PhD, AFCC Board Member
whose professional acumen has garnered him open investigations at the
Department of Health for mal-practice, neglect, insurance fraud who has perjured
himself many times in court. Both evaluations cleared her of any kind of mental health disability.
At this point, Colleen has been ordered to participate in a second Custody Evaluation and in the cash only Peace Program run by Dr. Elizabeth Thayer, another AFCC member. This is
a grand slam for the AFCC. It gets even better for the AFCC when after two days
of a hearing Colleen still has no access to her child.
What exactly can another AFCC court
appointed custody evaluator say any differently than before? Colleen has
spent $110,000 in legal fees and the GAL has collected tens of thousands. It is unknown how much her
millionaire former husband, Mr. Kenneth Savino, who has a history of litigation abuse, has paid his brigade of lawyers. There is no doubt that this legal firm, which is known to have made lots of money by
incentivizing conflict in numerous other cases, intends to destroy this woman’s career, destabilize
her financially and decimate her emotionally by ordering her to jump through
additional hoops just to see her own child.
Meanwhile, the
father continues to have sole custody because he blatantly committed fraud on the Court by committing outright perjury. This is the man who has previously been medically neglectful to his child, to a point where EMT’s had
him arrested for refusing to take his child to the hospital when he had a seizure.
