DID ATTORNEY ROSA REBIMBAS IGNORE CONFLICTS OF INTEREST WHICH SHOULD HAVE KEPT HER OUT OF THE STVAN CASE? PART IV: STVAN v. STVAN!

On September 25, 2015, during an "ex parte hearing" in the Stvan v. Stvan case, the Court transferred temporary full custody to Thomas Stvan. At the same time, the Court also appointed Attorney Rosa Rebimbas as the Attorney For the Minor child or AMC.  Just to note, for your information, by ex parte I mean that Ms. Paige Stvan was not present at the hearing to defend herself from the accusations again her, and in fact, she wasn't even informed that the hearing was taking place.  By law, 14 days after the ex parte hearing, Ms. Paige Stvan should have been allowed to have an evidentiary hearing where she could defend herself.  But as I have stated, she never had one, which is illegal.

Of course, the immediate question here is, why does a 12 year old need an AMC?  An AMC   primarily participates in a legal matter involving a minor child to ensure the client is accorded her legal rights.  It is a very limited role and is usually reserved for older teenagers around 15,16 years old who are almost independent. No 12 year old is mature enough to make life changing decisions and direct the actions of an attorney at such a young age.  In contrast, a GAL's role is more geared towards conducting investigations and working with the family, which would seem more appropriate where one party had made unfounded accusations. 

What I would suspect is that the reason the Court assigned an AMC is that Thomas Stvan exaggerated the situation to make it appear as though Ms. Paige Stvan's condition was so severe that she wouldn't be in the picture for months to come, and that there would be no need for an investigation and a report in preparation for the 14 day follow up hearing to see if the change of custody was truly necessary.

Another reason a jaded person like me would speculate that the Court diverted from its ordinary manner of doing business and appointed an AMC for the child at this juncture is that all conversations, all correspondence related to representing a child become secret and confidential if you are acting as an AMC. Because documentation created or received while acting as an AMC is not discoverable, this means that acting in that role allows any legal professional considerable leeway to hide any wrongdoing.  

So who is this Attorney Rosa Rebimbas who is supposed to be acting on behalf of the child in this case as AMC? Attorney Rosa Rebimbas is a State Representative in the CT General Assembly.  This is the same Attorney Rebimbas who not long ago saw fit to verbally abuse and attack a fellow member of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Minnie Gonzales, who has been so courageous in calling attention to the abuses and corruption of family court.  

Of course, those of us who fought for the Task Force that investigated the misdeeds of family court, those of us who had the courage to step forward, despite fears of retaliation, to speak out and provide testimony about our sufferings as a consequence of the wrongdoing of the CT Judicial Branch, have viewed Rep. Minnie Gonzales as our standard bearer.  Rep. Minnie Gonzales is the warrior who spoke out courageously on our behalf, who had compassion for our hurt and pain, and for the loss of beloved children and homes and college tuition accounts, who understood how it felt for us to be thrown out onto the streets, jailed and deprived of precious family bonds with our children as a consequence of the denial of our constitutional and human rights within the CT Family Court system.  

Attorney Rosa Rebimbas is the State Representative who took it upon herself to insult our standard bearer, Rep. Minnie Gonzales, and call into question her integrity and her devotion to the people of the State of Connecticut and also to the victims of family court.  This is the woman who appears in the middle of this case--Stvan v. Stvan--to orchestrate, what I believe to be, one of the worse cases of child stealing from a protective mother--Ms. Paige Stvan--that I have seen in years, and I've seen and written about some of the worst.   

Let me just say at the outset that it appears to me that appointing Attorney Rosa Rebimbas in a custody case before a family court judge represents a conflict of interest for her.  This is why I question whether it was appropriate for her to be in this case at all.  The reason why is because, at the same time she is appearing before Judge Gerald Adelman, she is also an active member of the CT General Assembly's Judiciary Committee.  It is her job to vote to reconfirm Judge Adelman to the bench when he comes up for reappointment.  So she is supposed to be appearing before Judge Adelman in a subordinate role, while at the same time she is also in the position of monitoring him and holding him to account for complaints that citizens make against him.  

Why is this even legal?  

There is also another conflict of interest.  At the start of this case during the ex parte hearing on September 25, 2015, Attorney Rosa Rebimbas was appointed to act as the Attorney For the Minor Child (AMC) in the Stvan v. Stvan case.  Again, we can call into question how come a child of 12 would ever in a million years have an AMC represent her, but be that as it may.  Later, in November 2015, Attorney Rebimbas switched roles and became the GAL for the minor child and handed the job of AMC to another attorney, Bradford Barney.  

I just personally find this switcheroo of roles very inappropriate.  

She shouldn't be playing two separate positions for the minor child, bottom line, of course, because it is confusing for the child, but most specifically because it blurs boundaries in regard to her responsibilities.  Of course, I am aware that in Connecticut Family Court it is a standard for an attorney to act as both Attorney for the Minor Child and Guardian ad Litem at the same time, but to me that's just one more example of the complete insanity of Family Court in Connecticut.  So now this little girl has been told she had one kind of relationship with Attorney Rosa Rebimbas, and now the page is turned and the relationship must transform to something completely different.  That's tough enough to do with an adult, but doing that to a child is outrageous!

As an aside, at this point it is worth noting that over half of the people elected to the CT State Legislature are all attorneys.  So it is like this private mafia of attorneys all together in this group, dominating the legislature, who I believe, engage actively in supporting and covering up for their comrades in the legal profession, even to the point where it is colluding with activities within the Family Court system which are causing harm and damage to Connecticut's citizens.  

If these conflicts of interest make you uncomfortable, you can imagine how uncomfortable they made Ms. Paige Stvan.  As a consequence, at the hearing on choosing a GAL for her little girl in November 2015, Ms. Paige Stvan strongly objected to the appointment of Attorney Rosa Rebimbas as GAL.   Not only did she object personally in Court, she also submitted two lengthy and detailed motions to the Court asking to have Attorney Rebimbas totally removed from the case, one on December 6, 2015 and another on December 8, 2015.  In doing so, Ms. Stvan had a strong legal position. Under CT Public Act 14-3, the Court must provide to the parties in a case a list of fifteen approved people to serve as the GAL.  The parties then have a right to agree on a person from that list of 15.  

Unfortunately, and this is where a huge loophole appears, if the parties disagree, then the Court is allowed to choose a person from that list of his own accord.  In the Stvan case, without even allowing the parties to confer regarding who would be the GAL, and without even providing them with the list of 15 potential candidates, Judge Gerald Adelman simply appointed Attorney Rosa Rebimbas over Ms. Paige Stvan's objections. Somehow, when it put CT Public Act 14-3 into place, I don't think that the State legislature intended the Court to ride rough shod over the wishes of the parties in a case as it did with Ms. Stvan, particularly when there were solid grounds to simply remove Ms. Rebimbas from the case entirely, i.e. her lack of neutrality and fairness towards Ms. Paige Stvan. 

As Guardian Ad Litem, it was Attorney Rosa Rebimbas' responsibility to carry out a full investigation into what was going on with Thomas Stvan, Paige Stvan, and the minor child.  As a result, If you review the record of the case, Ms. Paige Stvan brought to Court and made available to Attorney Rosa Rebimbas and the Court numerous mental health professionals and private citizens who supported her as an individual and as a mother.  There was Ms. Ashley Adamson, LCSW, Dr. Eric D. Jackson, Ph.D., Ms. Danielle Sileo, LMFT, Pamela Lape, M.S.W., Dr. Lawrence Lorfice, M.D., Dr. Linda Gunsberg, Ph.D., and Ms. Linda J. Gottlieb, LMFT, LCSW-R.  as well as friends who provided letters and affidavits to the Court.

However, even though some of these professionals personally travelled all the way to Court, some from out of state, and spent the entire day waiting to provide their testimony, Attorney Rosa Rebimbas, from what I understand, prevented the Court from hearing about or listening directly to their testimony.  Not only that, she simply ignored the recommendations that these professionals made.  

In an email dated March 6, 2016, one of these professionals, Dr. Linda Gunsberg provided a written overview of a conversation she'd had directly with Attorney Rosa Rebimbas in which she recommended that an independent forensic family expert evaluate the Stvan family to determine what was going on.  Dr. Gunsberg also recommended a mental status examination of both parents, psychological testing of both parents and an assessment of the child.  In specific, Dr. Gunsberg stated that "the forensic expert must be trained in the assessment of children, parental alienation, domestic violence, and the interrelationship between domestic violence and parental alienation."  

Despite these recommendations from a trained mental health professional indicating the most effective way of resolving the case in the best interests of the child, Attorney Rosa Rebimbas simply ignored them all and didn't follow through.  

Overall, obstruction and non cooperation were Attorney Rebimbas' way of interacting with Ms. Paige Stvan across the Board in violation of her professional obligation as a GAL to remain independent and objective and to show respect for persons.  

Eventually, Ms. Paige Stvan directed several discovery requests towards Attorney Rebimbas.  However, instead of responding promptly, as was appropriate, the latter chose to ignore the requests, even though she received a court order on March 17, 2016 from Judge Gerald Adelman to comply.  I would suspect Representative Rosa Rebimbas felt that she didn't have to be too concerned about a Judge's order, seeing that she was such an important person. And she was right.  What is particularly egregious is that, in her incomplete response to discovery, Attorney Rebimbas took the opportunity to slander Ms. Paige Stvan's character further and draw negative inferences in regard to the presence or absence of her ADA advocates which had no basis in the truth.  As I have stated, ADA advocates didn't remain in the case because the Court disrespected their work.

It is true you can take advantage of self represented parties like Ms. Paige Stvan because they are vulnerable and often don't know the rules.  The only question I'm left with here is what happened to Rosa Rebimbas' oath as an attorney "that you will do nothing dishonest, and will not knowingly allow anything dishonest to be done in court"?  What about her obligation to uphold the law?  Did these conflicts of interest I have detailed here compromise Attorney Rosa Rebimbas ability to act ethically in this case?  We will never know.  What we do know is that, as a direct result of her actions, Ms. Paige Stvan has had to endure the worst kind of pain and injustice that a mother can be subjected to.  

ATTORNEY ROSA REBIMBAS, ATTORNEY BRADFORD BARNEYS AND THE INJUSTICE OF THE STVAN V. STVAN CASE!

For some time now, I have been trying to wrap my head around the involvement of Attorney Bradford Barneys as Attorney for the Minor Child (AMC) in the Stvan v. Stvan case.   As you all may recall, I had written an extensive series of articles about the Stvan case which are located at the following link:  

http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2016/11/diary-of-custody-switching-case-thomas.html

A MOTHER'S TEARS MATTER: HOW FAMILY COURT BULLIED PROTECTIVE MOTHER, PAIGE STVAN, AND CUT HER OFF FROM THE DAUGHTER SHE LOVES, PART II!

What we have here is a tragic situation where a mother has been separated from the child she raised for 12 years based upon unsubstantiated and untrue representations of mental illness.  Meanwhile, questions regarding her ex-husband's bipolar disorder remain unaddressed.  

Subsequently, Judge Adelman acknowledged that the representations regarding Ms. Paige Stvan's mental health weren't sufficient to justify keeping Paige away from her daughter.  At that juncture, he then claimed that there were other serious allegations that her child had raised which now justified separating Paige Stvan from her daughter. What were those serious allegations?  To be honest, I couldn't see anything in the many documents I reviewed that would explain it.

The allegation the child made that the judge cited in his memorandum as a basis to stop all visits was that Mom was making visits with her uncomfortable.  As Ms. Paige Stvan explained it, she was allowed visits with her daughter once a week for an hour standing in the corridor of a local mall.  To start with, that's a pretty difficult way to conduct a visit.  Next, Ms. Stvan stated that during these visits the father would remain in the sidelines monitoring the entire visit and at the least sign of trouble advise his daughter to simply leave.  As a result, under the pressure of essentially being put between two parents, the child would terminate the visit within ten minutes.  To Paige Stvan, this was simply a situation where the father was using the visits to drive a wedge between herself and her daughter.

Attorney Rosa Rebimbas, the GAL in the case, reported the situation somewhat differently.  She alleged that Paige Stvan insisted upon talking to her daughter about the case during the visit.  But what does that mean "talking about the case?"  Does that mean Paige tried to explain to her daughter what was going on and why she couldn't come home to her Mom?  Was it something else? Attorney Rebimbas didn't specify; she just used trigger words with the judge which she knew would elicit a negative reaction.  Keep in mind, we are getting this testimony from the ex-husband and a biased GAL who appear to be willing to do anything they can to justify a complete no contact order. I also think it makes no sense to have visitation with a child standing up in a crowded corridor in a mall.  What's that all about?

Repeatedly, the opposing attorney in this case, Attorney Nancy Aldrich insisted that Paige Stvan's daughter didn't want to see her Mom, so therefore she shouldn't have to. Attorney Rosa Rebimbas emphasized that the daughter didn't want to see her mother and indicated her belief that the daughter had the right to refuse to see her mother.  Judge Gerald Adelman reported in his Memorandum of January 8, 2016 that "the child was extremely resistant to any contact with her mother" and implied that this justified denying Ms.  Stvan access to her daughter.  However, this is not how state law works. According to Connecticut law, at any age, a child's preference is never the only criterion for making a custody decision in a custody proceeding.  What counts is what is in the best interests of the child.

Further, I am wondering how a 12 year old child who had never before reported being unhappy with her mother, all of a sudden, within two months of being totally cut off from all access to her mother, becomes extremely resistant to seeing her mother.  Keep in mind, these words never came out of the child's mouth directly, and were simply what biased individuals with ulterior motives chose to report. I am also wondering why a 12 year old child has the authority, not only to choose the time and place of the visits, but whether they take place at all.  I don't know of any other case where a pre-teen was given such extraordinary power.  

Perhaps the answer to this lies in observations that Dr. Linda Gunsberg reported on at the time these events were taking place.  In a letter to the court dated January 26, 2016,  Dr. Linda Gunsberg described hearing a conversation that Page Stvan had with her daughter over the phone.  She described this conversation, which took place on November 2, 2015, in the following terms: 

"The most incredible phone conversation occurred when Ms. [Stvan] called [her child] during the court ordered parent telephone access to speak with her.  I asked Ms. [Stvan] to put [the child] on speaker phone so that I could listen.  [The child] was very warm towards her mother, was eager to share with her mother information about projects she was working on for school, and actually wanted to remain on the telephone longer than Ms. [Stvan] could...It was a normal parent-child conversation."

However, Dr. Gunsberg reported that "By December 31, 2015, [the child] was telling her mother either in a telephone message or text that she never wanted to speak to her mother again."  Dr. Gunsberg attributed this dramatic change in the child's attitude towards her mother to father's campaign of parental alienation.  Keep in mind that by December 31, 2015, the child had been separated from her mother and her hometown and friends for three months.  

Again, it is remarkable that Judge Gerald Adelman supported this 12 year old child in making the decision not to see her mother again. A 12 year old child doesn't have sufficient cognitive ability to make such important life decisions.  In fact, you would hardly believe that this Judge Adelman is the very same Judge who, in the Sorentino case, put a mother in jail to force a 15 year old boy to live with the father he adamantly didn't want to live with.  Yet, in the Stvan case, when a 12 year old girl refused to see her mother, that very same Judge Adelman appointed two attorneys to defend her right to exclude her mother from her life?  

How is that OK?  

How come  Judge Gerald Adelman found a 12 year old's decision more credible than that of a 15 year old? 

Do any of you recall how, when Kathi Sorrentino cried at the thought of having to go to jail, Judge Gerald Adelman derided her and made fun of her, calling her tears "crocodile tears"? Why do judges in the State of Connecticut, such as Judge Adelman, only use PAS to deny mothers their parenting rights while excusing fathers who are equally culpable?  Protective mothers in the State of Connecticut would really like to know!  We need a new campaign in this State with the slogan:  A mother's tears matter!

THE HARTFORD COURANT DISGRACES ITSELF BY ATTACKING REP. MINNIE GONZALEZ!

In surprisingly harsh terms, an anonymous editorial posted today on The Hartford Courant website attacks Representative Minnie Gonzalez for a strongly worded email she sent to a constituent criticizing Rep. Rosa Rebimbas.  The Hartford Courant editorial further speaks of the Gonzalez email as "insulting" and "disgraceful" and proposes that Rep. Gonzalez should be sanctioned publicly by the House.  

I still have not had the opportunity to watch the CT-N video of the Friday, April 10, 2015 hearing and so I personally cannot comment upon Rep. Rosa Rebimbas' behavior on that day which resulted in this email.  However, I will say that granted how frustrated victims of family court feel about the sufferings that they have endured and the need for reform, I would hardly call the email itself anything but a fairly minor blip on the screen.  

Further, I think we have all experienced enough of life at this point to know when particularly rotten individuals, such as the Republicans in this particular matter, attempt to derail the focus which should be on a serious and important matter of family court injustice by hooting and hollering about a relatively minor matter, i.e. this email, and making out that it is second in terms of atrocities to the holocaust itself.  

The disgrace here is not in regard to a relatively minor and uninteresting piece of hyperbole on the part of Rep. Minnie Gonzalez, the disgrace is that the Republicans did not have sufficient good judgment and character to overlook this minor disruption in the scheme of things in order to proceed with business and do the jobs that they were hired to do, particularly when we had such significantly important bills on the docket such as the one in regard to videotaping the police and in connection to protecting the victims of domestic violence.  

It is laughable that The Hartford Courant would describe Rep. Minnie Gonzalez use of the Central American equivalent of "every dog has its day" or "every pig has his Saturday" as some kind of vicious "threat" against Rep. Rebimbas.  

I mean, please--get real.  You want to know what a real threat is?  A real threat is when you get a summons from a marshall asking you to respond to a debt collection complaint from your former family court attorney including a lien on your house which will result in a foreclosure, a direct consequence of judicial abuse in your recent divorce.  

That is a threat--not some silly remark about pigs.  

You know, every day I get up and act as parent to my children.  Every once in a while during the course of my role as a parent in these past few years, my ex husband has made threats to take me back to court and sue me for custody of my children, implying what a bad mother I am.  This does not excuse me from being a parent.  

Likewise, just because a few people have a hot under the collar interchange during the course of their work on the Judiciary Committee, this does not justify shutting the entire Committee down.  

What is this--Kindergarten?  

I was particularly disappointed to see The Hartford Courant's name on this piece of nonsense editorial, but I was not in the least surprised.  Contrary to their journalistic ethics, The Hartford Courant has been maintaining a cozy relationship with the CT Judicial Branch by participating in the CT Judicial Branch's Judicial-Media Committee.  This has meant that several top CEOs and journalists from The Hartford Courant, other print media around CT, and also television in the State of Connecticut have been conducting regular meetings with Judges, attorneys and other CT Judicial Branch employees ostensibly to improve the relationship between the CT Judicial Branch and the media and to increase media access to legal proceedings.  

In reality, what these meetings have done is make the media a captive audience while the CT Judicial Branch has force fed it with their official lines regarding their policies, actions, and excuses for the Branch's widespread corruption.  Imagine if any political party or special interest group in the State of Connecticut had anything like this kind of immediate access to members of the media--how remarkable would that be?  

What The Hartford Courant is not telling you here is that such a special relationship between itself and the CT Judicial Branch is a complete violation of its journalistic ethics and represents a deeper and more widespread well of corruption than anything Rep. Minnie Gonzalez could concoct.  

Many family court litigants during recent years have been talking about how important it is to get their stories out to the media and yet they have not been taken seriously when they've approached journalists with their stories.  

In essence, for the last decade or more, there has been a complete media blackout on the struggles of individual litigants in the CT Family Courts although their stories of injustice and exploitation are compelling.  

Why do we hear of the injustices in so many other arenas but not in the area of the corrupt CT Family Court System?  I'll tell you why--because media outlets such as The Hartford Courant long ago sold out to the CT Judicial Branch for the ego enhancing privilege of rubbing shoulders with the CT Judicial leadership whom they appear to worship blindly.  

They should be ashamed.  

The Hartford Courant should look to itself and its own glaring flaws before daring to criticize a leader such as Rep Minnie Gonzalez who is, though clearly very human, doing  the best she can to assist the most vulnerable.

DIVORCE IN CONNECTICUT'S TOP TEN BLOGS FOR 2017, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER!

25 STRATEGIES DIVORCE ATTORNEYS USE TO KEEP YOU IN COURT AND FIGHTING!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2017/11/25-strategies-divorce-attorneys-use-to.html

WOODY ALLEN AND THE POLITICS OF TOLERATION IN CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE CASES!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2017/11/woody-allen-and-politics-of-tolerating.html

CALIFORNIA MOM ROISIN CASSIDY:  VICTIM OF AN ATTORNEY DISCOVERY SCAM!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2017/02/california-mom-roisin-cassidy-victim-of.html

SHARED PARENTING PUTS MEN IN CONTROL AND LEAVES WOMEN AND CHILDREN POWERLESS! BY DOREEN LUDWIG
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2017/03/shared-parenting-puts-men-in-control.html

LEGAL OBSCURITIES AND LOOPHOLES USED TO OBSTRUCT A COUPLE'S FIGHT FOR JUSTICE IN "PREDICTIVE NEGLECT" CASE!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2017/03/legal-obscurities-and-loopholes-used-to.html

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU EMPOWER A BULLY:  THE TRAGEDY OF MATHEW COULOUTE!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2017/05/what-happens-when-you-empower-bully.html

FAMILY COURT ATTORNEYS IN THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT HAVE WORSE REPUTATIONS THAN PEDOPHILES
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ATTORNEY ROSA REBIMBAS, ATTORNEY BRADFORD BARNEYS AND THE INJUSTICE OF THE STVAN V. STVAN CASE!
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2017/07/attorney-rosa-rebimbas-attorney.html

HOW CONSERVATIVE ATTACKS AGAINST SINGLE MOTHERS AND FEMINISM HAS IMPACTED FAMILY COURT!
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MICHAEL NOWACKI ADDRESSES ERRORS IN JUDGE BUZZUTO'S TESTIMONY RE H.B. 5505!

From: Michael Nowacki <mnowacki@aol.com>
To: Eric.Coleman <Eric.Coleman@cga.ct.gov>; William.Tong <William.Tong@cga.ct.gov>; Doyle <Doyle@senatedems.ct.gov>; dan.fox <dan.fox@cga.ct.gov>; John.A.Kissel <John.A.Kissel@cga.ct.gov>; rosa.rebimbas <rosa.rebimbas@housegop.ct.gov>; Al.Adinolfi <Al.Adinolfi@housegop.ct.gov>; William.Aman <William.Aman@cga.ct.gov>; Angel.Arce <Angel.Arce@cga.ct.gov>; David.Baram <David.Baram@cga.ct.gov>; Jeffrey.Berger <Jeffrey.Berger@cga.ct.gov>; Toni.Boucher <Toni.Boucher@cga.ct.gov>; cecilia.buck-taylor <cecilia.buck-taylor@housegop.ct.gov>; Beth.Bye <Beth.Bye@cga.ct.gov>; Vincent.Candelora <Vincent.Candelora@cga.ct.gov>; christie.carpino <christie.carpino@housegop.ct.gov>; Jeff.Currey <Jeff.Currey@cga.ct.gov>; Patricia.Dillon <Patricia.Dillon@cga.ct.gov>; Doug.Dubitsky <Doug.Dubitsky@cga.ct.gov>; mae.flexer <mae.flexer@cga.ct.gov>; Mary.Fritz <Mary.Fritz@cga.ct.gov>; Gerratana <Gerratana@senatedems.ct.gov>; Bob.Godfrey <Bob.Godfrey@cga.ct.gov>; Minnie.Gonzalez <Minnie.Gonzalez@cga.ct.gov>; Ernest.Hewett <Ernest.Hewett@cga.ct.gov>; David.Labriola <David.Labriola@housegop.ct.gov>; Roland.Lemar <Roland.Lemar@cga.ct.gov>; Art.Linares <Art.Linares@cga.ct.gov>; Ben.McGorty <Ben.McGorty@cga.ct.gov>; Michael.McLachlan <Michael.McLachlan@cga.ct.gov>; Bruce.Morris <Bruce.Morris@cga.ct.gov>; tom.odea <tom.odea@housegop.ct.gov>; Arthur.ONeill <Arthur.ONeill@housegop.ct.gov>; Robyn.Porter <Robyn.Porter@cga.ct.gov>; emmett.riley <emmett.riley@cga.ct.gov>; Robert.Sampson <Robert.Sampson@cga.ct.gov>; Joseph.Serra <Joseph.Serra@cga.ct.gov>; john.shaban <john.shaban@housegop.ct.gov>; Caroline.Simmons <Caroline.Simmons@cga.ct.gov>; richard.smith <richard.smith@housegop.ct.gov>; Joe.Verrengia <Joe.Verrengia@cga.ct.gov>; Toni.Walker <Toni.Walker@cga.ct.gov>; Gary.Holder-Winfield <Gary.Holder-Winfield@cga.ct>
Cc: melissa.farley <melissa.farley@jud.ct.gov>
Sent: Thu, Mar 19, 2015 6:51 am
Subject: Misremembrances of Judge Elizabeth Bozzuto in non-sworn testiomny on March 11, 2015 in opposition to HB 5505

To all Judiciary Committee members:

 

On March 11, 2015, members of the judiciary committee in attendance heard prepared testimony of Chief Administrative Judge of Family Matters who delivered prepared remarks and then answered questions posed by the judiciary committee members.

 

I want each of you to take less than ten minutes to review on CT-N archives (published transcript is not yet available), the judiciary committee meeting on the date of March 11.  Please use the cursor on the videoplayer and watch a series of questions posed by Representative Buck-Taylor concerning the subject of Part 1 of the bill, involving the use of supervised visitation.

 

I have watched the video carefully four times since March 11, and spoke to external affairs director, Melissa Farley about the statements of Judge Buzzuto which is in the process of being refuted with hard data about the "common practice" in family courts to order supervised visitation of long durations, entered as court orders regardless of whether the supervised visitation is affordable. 

 

Despite Judge Buzzuto's testimony was at times framed by the words, "To be honest with you, my experience", Judge Buzzuto's personal record as jurist and as the Chief Administrative Judge was not "sworn testimony" subject to perjury allegations.

 

However, the Code of Judicial Conduct does contain language which indicates a judge cannot use the powers of the office in a manner to use the prestige of their capacity as a public official, to make statements on public policy issues such as legislation which are designed to knowingly mislead another public official such as a member of this judiciary committee.

 

Last Monday, March 16, 2015, I approached external affairs director, Attorney Melissa Farley, indicating that at that time I had reviewed the testimony of Judge Buzzuto three times since March 11, 2015 and Judge Buzzuto had a responsibility to issue a letter of correction--similar to the letter issued by Judge Frazzini, who only issued such a letter of "correction" after I contacted him at his home email address stevefraz@Comcast.net.  This email address of Judge Frazzini can be found on documents published on the judiciary website on the date of January 16, 2015, when just Frazzini testified under oath and delivered "material false and misleading" testimony about his CT Chapter AFCC membership.

 

Yesterday, I sent an email to Attorney Farley seeking a copy of any communication to the judiciary committee members including  letters, faxes, texts, phone calls records to or from any judiciary committee member, email, text or documents defined in the FOI Act which emanated from any personal email or State of Connecticut email address of ANY members of the judiciary, including Judge Buzzuto, which corrected testimony provided to your committee.

 

Attorney Farley has not acknowledged that FOI request as of this date and she is copied on this communication.

 

Those, such as myself, who have been ordered to permanent supervised visitation as part of a Memorandum of Decision by a judge are not going to tolerate Judge Buzzuto's attempts to undermine the support of HB 5505, especially in light of the data we are now assembling to provide data to this committee to show the incidence of supervised visitation is not rare, is not short term, and subjects our children and the parents to unjustified humiliation in an environment which Judge Buzzuto described herself on March 11 as "an artificial setting".

 

Within three weeks time, an excel chart will be sent to this group of legislators to consider as hard evidence to refute Judge Buzzuto's statements, while not sworn were designed to mislead the members of this committee.

 

We hope to assemble in this document those who have spent as much as $125,000 in supervised visitation which ended only when there were no more financial resources available to a parent.

 

To suggest, that this committee would provide weighting to certain portions of Judge Buzzuto's testimony because she is a judge and assumed to be "credible and trustworthy" in statements made on March 11, 2015 should be a judgment to be deferred until which point in time we can assemble the data to refute the answers to Representative Buck Taylors questions on supervised visitation.

 

There are also "speculative " comments issued by Judge Bozzuto which were made on the other three sections of the bill, which parents will refute with hard data which contradicts the published comments made by Judge Bozzuto concerning section 3, 4 and 5 of HB 5505.

 

Those comments will be reserved for a later point in time in a separate email to the judiciary committee members.

 

HB 5505 is a bill which will provide much needed restraints on "judicial authority" acquired through decisional law cases and through self empowerment which occurred by the unmonitored adoption of PB Rules without the legislative "hearings" required by C.G.S. 51-14 (a) and (c).

 

We would ask for your indulgence to allow the citizens of this State to prepare documents to refute certain portions of Judge Buzzuto's testimony.

 

However, if a letter of correction is issued of any kind concerning the March 11, 2015 judiciary committee hearing on HB 5505, and sent to the Chairs of the Judiciary Committee signed by any member of the judiciary "misremembrances" of Judge Bozzuto, we would ask any such letter be routed immediately to all judiciary committee members AND published on the judiciary committee's published testimony of March 11, concerning HB 5505.

 

Judge Frazzi's letter to the judiciary committee dated Jan. 28, 2015 was never published on the judiciary committee website which corrected sworn testimony.  I only acquired a copy of the letter of Judge Frazzini by filing an FOI request of Attorney Farley, who did promptly provided a scanned copy of the letter of correction on the Monday after Judge Frazzini's nomination was approved by the members of the General Assembly on the date of January 30, 2015.

 

Please accept my apologies for the length of this communication, but the judiciary committee will be considering the merits of HB 5505 and deserves to be fully informed before considering the language and amendments of this proposed legislation.

 

Feel free to contact me at any time concerning any data which has already been collected, but is currently only a "work in progress".

 

It is the hopes of the parents aggrieved by the financial impact of these process will be able to overcome the "anecdotal" testimony of Judge Buzzuto who provided no "hard data" to support her "experiences" as a member of the bench for fifteen years.  We look forward to Judge Bozzuto's next re-appointment hearing to challenge the authenticity of the statements made on March 11, 2015 that were posited into the public record as non-sworn testimony.  We look forward to Judge Buzzuto's explanations of her "misremembrances" on March 11, 2015---but the next occasion Judge Buzzuto's testimony will under oath in the next legislative session.

 

I also enclose an attachment of a letter received from Deputy Chief State Attorney Leonard Boyle sent to me concerning sworn affidavits have been filed alleging perjury by Judge Thomas Parker, Judge Taggart Adams and Judge Stephen Frazzini.  The sworn affidavits involving Judges Adams and Frazzini were posted as public testimony on the date of January 23 of the judiciary's website.

 

Many in the aggrieved parents group are fearful of retaliation or retribution if they have currently active cases in the family court.  We are seeking permissions from those litigants who harbor legitimate concerns for
"future adverse rulings" to publish docket numbers and litigants.  We are respecting those who wish to publish information anonymously rather than for attribution in the excel document which will be sent to you in three years time.

 

Hopefully, you can accept these requests for anonymous posting of data on supervised visitation as "properly adjudged concerns."

Cordially,

 

Michael Nowacki

(203) 273-4296

CTNOW REPORTS H.B. 5505 AND 44 OTHER BILLS ARE IN LIMBO AS REP. GONZALEZ EMAIL ALLEGED TO BE SOURCE OF FILIBUSTER!

Christopher Keating of CTNOW reports as follows:

HARTFORD —

A clash over a legislator's email caused the failure of 45 bills Monday at the judiciary committee as Republicans and Democrats squared off as the committee faced an important deadline at 5 p.m.

The clash led to the failure of all bills on the agenda as Republicans staged a filibuster that lasted until the deadline.

The two sides disagreed on some substantive issues, but the dispute was a spillover from Friday between state Rep. Minnie Gonzalez, a Hartford Democrat, and Rep. Rosa Rebimbas, a Naugatuck Republican who serves as the ranking House member, officials said. Gonzalez and Rebimbas clashed publicly during a long hearing Friday regarding the confirmation of Connecticut State Supreme Court Chief Justice Chase Rogers.

But both Republicans and Democrats said the dispute continued following an email that Gonzalez sent Saturday that was copied to numerous legislators, including Rebimbas herself. At least 25 people - both Republicans and Democrats - had seen the email by Monday, based on the email trail.

The original email was written to a non-legislator who has concerns about the longrunning controversy over guardians ad litem, which are mentioned by Gonzalez as GAL. The guardians are often appointed in contentious divorce cases involving the care and custody of minor children.

The email by Gonzalez, obtained by Capitol Watch, is as follows:

"Do not waist your valuable time with people like Rep Ribimbas.She is an atty and also a GAL,she is fighting for her pocket not for the people like you and others the are suffering .She is cold with no heart.All she did on Friday was kissing the judges back and attacking another Rep and calling you a liar.not professional .people that were watching knows what a brown nose she is.she didn't look good but she think  she was awesome,Dianne always remember that every pig has 

his Saturday .ps Ribimbas I hope y enjoy 

VIDEO TESTIMONY ABOUT  5505 king another Rep and insulting you. She think that she did good

Sent from my iPhone Minnie González''

The mention of 5505 by Gonzalez refers to House Bill 5505, which advocates are pushing in an attempt to make changes to the family court system on issues such as supervised visitation in contentious child custody cases.

House Republican leader Themis Klarides, who was clearly frustrated by the developments, declined to comment on the email.

"I don't want to talk about it,'' Klarides told Capitol Watch outside the meeting room.

Gonzalez sent a second email on Monday that said, "Dear Representative Rebimbas,

"On Saturday, my emotions got the better of me on an issue that I, and my constituents, care deeply about. It was inappropriate for me to include other people in an email that should have remained between us, and for that I apologize.''

But Sen. John Kissel, the longtime ranking senator on the committee, said the second email "really wasn't an apology.''

Kissel said that Republicans had sought "a simple apology'' that never materialized over the course of the day and led to the filibuster. 

The link to this article is below:

http://www.ctnow.com/news/hc-judiciary-votes-delayed-due-to-clashes-20150413,0,7127423.story

THE ABUSIVE USE OF MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS IN CUSTODY SWITCHING SCHEMES, STVAN v. STVAN: PART VI!

I don't think I can fully express the depth of the terror I felt when it dawned on me in my custody case that my ex husband and the GAL in my case could actually coach my 13 year old son to lie about me.  I am still not quite sure what it is that he was told to say but it went something along the lines that every night I would leave him at home to put his younger sisters to bed while I went off to the Barnes and Noble bookstore to read.  I guess the saving grace of that accusation is that my son didn't say that I went  to a nightclub and danced the night away with various men.  I almost lost custody because of that false accusation.  

Luckily, since my son was living with me, he didn't keep up that nonsense for very long.  But what do you get when you take a child this age, cut her off from her primary caregiver, and brow beat her for week after week with suggestions that she's been abused.  You've guessed it: the kinds of questionable allegations of abuse that Paige Stvan's daughter may have come up with and which became the basis for the custody switching scheme perpetrated in the case Stvan v. Stvan.  

I say "may have" because, as it stands now, even though I have read the documents in this case closely, I still do not know what these allegations were. Ordinarily, if the issue is raised, the Court would order a forensic custody evaluation in order to verify whether abuse occurred or not.  In the Stvan case such an evaluation was never done, which leads me to believe the allegations were never very credible.  Bottom line, Mr. Thomas Stvan only started claiming there was abuse once he realized that he couldn't seize custody with fabricated tales about Paige Stvan's mental health difficulties.  In that approach, he was successful.

Thus, in his January 8, 2016 memorandum, Judge Gerald Adelman stated the following, "The court finds that the best interests of the minor child require that she remain in the custody of the plaintiff and that the defendant's parental access to said child shall be restricted to therapeutic visits with the child's therapist, at the recommendation of said therapist, and hopefully a continuation of the brief meetings at the local mall."  It is now November 2016, and no such meetings have ever taken place, and it looks like they never will.  

At the end of his memorandum, Judge Gerald Adelman acknowledges that he essentially has not obeyed the law and conducted the evidentiary hearing held 14 days after a temporary ex parte change of custody to determine whether that change should be made permanent stating, "That the temporary custodial orders shall remain in effect pending a full future hearing once the GAL, the AMC and the therapist are able to offer the court a more thorough presentation."  The sub text of this order is that the Court has no expectation that any such hearing will take place, since it still has not taken place and there are no plans in sight to schedule it.  

Basically, I'm not sure how such a presentation could happen since now both sides have been ordered not to file any motions without permission from the court, and often no matter how worthy such a request, they are often denied.  This is an unconscionable outcome for a case.  What has happened is that a temporary order has become a de facto permanent order simply by virtue of the fact that Judge Gerald Adelman has disobeyed the law.  

In addition, with this memorandum of January 8, 2016, Judge Adelman has essentially put into place a structure that guarantees that Paige Stvan will never be able to see her daughter again.  

For instance, Judge Adelman conveniently fails to mention that earlier on December 1, 2016, he had issued an order that Ms. Paige Stvan was not allowed to speak to the therapist, Ms. Donna Fletcher, unless the therapist gave permission for her to do so.  As Judge Adelman put it, the  therapist has full authority to decide "who she sees, when and under what circumstances."  It is my understanding that Mr. Thomas Stvan and the GAL Rosa Rebimbas immediately seized control of this therapist by telling her that the judge had established as a fact that abuse occurred even though that would be a lie.    

If the Court truly believed that there was possible abuse, the Court would have requested a follow up report from the therapist to verify any abuse, as well as an explanation regarding the extent of the damage that any parental abuse may have had.  If these allegations were credible, Paige Stvan would have been held legally liable, but so would the father. The bottom line is that the child was largely in the mother's sole care for twelve years.  If there was any abuse that was going on, and the father allowed that abuse to occur unchecked, then the father would be legally liable as well.  

Not only would there be follow up to verify any abuse, if the Court took these allegations seriously, the standard procedure would have been followup hearings to put into place a program of rehabilitation for the parents, and, at the very least, there would have been an investigation by family relations. The question is, why wasn't this standard followed?

Even with situations of abuse, parents are still allowed to remain in the lives of their children.  If they are willing, such parents are given the therapy they need to become better people and parents.  I know of a recent case of domestic violence where the father slammed his infant's head against a car door and gave her a concussion.  Still, he has been allowed unsupervised visits with that child after a period of rehabilitation.  Since this is standard procedure for the family court system, why has it been uniquely disregarded in the case of Paige Stvan?  Is it because this is simply a custody switching scheme?  And why would a State Representative such as Rosa Rebimbas be involved in it?

Finally, if the Court took these allegations of abuse seriously, it would have hired a qualified individual with an advanced degree in forensic psychiatry or psychology to do a proper investigation which would ordinarily include both parents, extended family, school personnel, therapists, and the child's pediatrician, just to start. Instead, the Court merely ordered that the parties hire a therapist for the child, a Ms. Donna Fletcher, who is a licensed practical counselor with a master's degree in psychology who graduated from Fairfield College. 

This is a person who spent 20 years in the computer industry and for whom this stint in counseling is a second career.  She has a specialty in alcoholism and drug addiction, not divorce and custody.  

In the brief period Ms. Paige Stvan had a chance to speak to Ms. Donna Fletcher on the phone, Ms. Fletcher made it very clear she had no intention of doing any kind of investigation.  Her intention was simply to provide counseling to the child for abuse.  Of course, that would be ridiculous if the facts bear out that the child was not abused, and my guess is they would.

Still, the bottom line is that, if you are providing therapy for a child who has allegedly been abused, as a therapist, you would have to meet a few times with both parents in order to do a responsible job of finding out what has been going on.  Instead, to my knowledge, Ms. Fletcher only spoke to Paige Stvan once over the phone.  That is unacceptable.  

In addition, what is even worse is that the therapist, Ms. Fletcher, has apparently accepted a deeply flawed characterization of Ms. Paige Stvan as an abuser, even though two highly qualified professionals--Dr. Linda Ginsberg and Ashley Adamson--took considerable time and trouble to write and to call the therapist in order to put her on the right track.  Unfortunately, Donna Fletcher has simply refused to have anything to do with them.  It is really unethical to disregard medical information from another provider which could be relevant to your work in connection to an abuse case.  You can't just dismiss testimony from other mental health professionals because it doesn't go along with your predisposed opinions.  Ms. Donna Fletcher also ignored testimony from a friend of Ms. Stvan's, the child's Godmother, a child dependency attorney, who had witnessed some of the domestic violence and wrote a supportive letter about Paige to the therapist.  All of this was ignored.  

Ultimately, it appears to me that this therapist, Ms. Donna Fletcher, was simply being used in order to justify the abduction of this little girl from her mother.   This is an abuse of the mental health profession itself to use the profession as a means to unethically deny a mother her constitutional rights as a parent.  Keep in mind that up to the present time there has been no report from this therapist, no confirmation of any abuse, and no attempt to integrate mother into a program to restore Ms. Paige Stvan's relationship with her child which is the proper thing to do.

In the end, there are several things that have gone wrong in this situation, particularly in connection to the mental health component in this case.  

First, If there are allegations of abuse in a high conflict custody case, you would not appoint an LPC with a background in computers--you would find a psychiatrist or a psychologist with extensive training in forensic custody evaluations, who can investigate the allegations, particularly in a situation where there has been considerable domestic violence and legal abuse.  

Second, there needed to be a specific plan for reuniting this mother and child.  If there were allegations, what were those allegations and what can be done about them?  If there were allegations that were verified, then there ordinarily should have been some specific plan put into place where the mother could have worked through counseling, parenting classes, and supervised visitation to improve her parenting skills and earn her way back into having a relationship with her child.  The fact that there was no such plan at any point, no followup hearings indicates that this was simply a custody snatching scheme.  

Third, this therapist has a responsibility to both parents when she is conducting counseling with a child.  She was required to discuss the therapy with both parents and obtain informed consent from both parents for the therapy before proceeding with treatment.  While she did not need to get a signature from Ms. Paige Stvan to proceed since she no longer had custody, it still remained her responsibility to sit down with the mother and explain what the treatment plan is.  

Finally, as a mental health counselor, it was Ms. Donna Fletcher's responsibility to take into account other perspectives on what kind of person Ms. Paige Stvan is, to review the mother's prior medical records to verify if information she'd received was accurate, and to include the mother in her daughter's treatment to the extent possible.  If Donna Fletcher solely listened to the father, and the GAL Rosa Rebimbas whose bias is clear cut and excluded the mother's perspective from consideration, this would simply be unethical and an abuse of her professional role.  

From month to month then, this case is full of schemes to deceive the court, of malicious legal manipulations conducted to deny Ms. Paige Stvan her constitutional rights as a mother, and other unprofessional conduct across the board.  

Thus, it will not come as a surprise that is not the first time that a case with Judge Gerald Adelman has ended up with a troubled and possibly illegal outcome.  This is not the first time that a victim of domestic violence in a case before Judge Gerald Adelman ended up with the victim losing custody or being mistreated in some other manner.  

We have the Jennifer Jones case, Kathi Sorrentino, Susan Skipp, Paul Boyne, Sunny Liberti, Martha Dean, and many others.  It appears that this is a Judge who sees victims of domestic violence and/or legal abuse and his sole thought is to abuse them further.  I am not sure how the CT Judicial Branch can incubate these kinds of judges and continue to allow them to hurt litigant after litigant, but it does.  

Most troubling is that the harm and damage the Court has perpetrated on the child in this case, who has been suddenly deprived of her primary caregiver, is incalculable. In fact, you could make a case that this maternal deprivation, in and of itself, adds up to child abuse. If something is not done soon to correct this situation, the adverse consequences may end up lasting for a lifetime. Ultimately, there is absolutely no justification for denying Ms. Paige Stvan access to her child, and the only factor that stands between Ms. Stvan and justice is the foolishness, blindness, and vengefulness of our family court system here in CT, an abusive ex husband, and a crooked GAL.  

FAMILY COURT VICTIMS NOT SORRY ABOUT THE DOWNFALL OF JUDGE JANE B. EMONS!

As Michael Skakel exits the CT Judicial System after years of persecution, it is interesting to see family court victims succeed in their efforts after similarly fighting years of persecution.  When it comes to Michael Skakel, the press is beginning to understand that there might have been a miscarriage of justice.  Unfortunately, when it comes to family court victims the media still lacks any insight.