IS THE HARTFORD COURANT MANIPULATING THE NEWS? JOE VISCONTI AND DANI MCEVOY SPEAK UP ON THE SUBJECT!

NORM PATTIS MAKES COGENT REMARKS ON CUSTODY PROCEEDINGS IN JUVENILE COURT!

NORM PATTIS ASKS:

"Whose Best Interest Served in Child Custody Cases?

There are secret courts operating in our midst, and I am not referring to those tribunals whose focus is national security. I’m talking about something more basic and closer to home. I’m talking about our juvenile courts, where the fate of children is sometimes determined.

Consider the case of Jane Doe and John Doe, two Connecticut parents stuck in Kafkaesque proceedings. They are in the midst of a divorce. They have three children. Those children are now in foster care, and it is not clear when the parents will again have the right to raise them as they see fit. In fact, it is not even clear when the father will even get to see his children again."

For the full content of this article, please click on the link below:


http://www.pattisblog.com/index.php?article=Whose_Best_Interest_Served_in_Child_Custody_Cases__6683

WHY I SUPPORT REP. MINNIE GONZALEZ AND CONDEMN THE HARTFORD COURANT!

In a recent October 24, 2014 editorial regarding candidates who are running for political office, The Hartford Courant lashed out against Rep. Minnie Gonzalez who is running for the third house district. 

In its statement opposing Rep. Gonzalez, Hartford Courant editors justified their position as follows:  "This year, as a Judiciary Committee member, she's voted against the reappointment of at least a dozen respected judges in her bitter campaign for family court reform." 

Now wait just a minute--I have some serious problems with the adjectives that The Hartford Courant is throwing around here.  For example, "a dozen respected judges"?  Respected?  Is The Hartford Courant sure about that defining word "respected"?  Where did The Hartford Courant obtain its information on whether these judges were respected or not? 

I would suspect they didn't investigate those facts at all.  I'd suspect they just linked the word "respected" with judges the same way the rest of us join the word "Merry" with Christmas at certain times of the year.  Just because words seem to go along with one another euphoniously speaking, that doesn't actually mean they do in reality.  The Hartford Courant should really think about that.  Many Family Court litigants had reported to the State Legislature that the judges Rep. Minnie Gonzalez criticized had violated their professional ethics and had acted arbitrarily and maliciously.  Before making any statements implying the contrary, The Hartford Courant should actually investigate these accusations.  I, for one, seriously doubt that it did. 

Let us also consider the use of the word "bitter" in connection to the concept of the campaign for Family Court reform.  Bitter for whom?  As a person who played a central role in the campaign for Family Court reform let me just say right now I never found it bitter.  I can think of some other adjectives such as "liberating", "Validating", "Empowering", perhaps "Inspiring"!  The only people for whom the Family Court reform movement was "bitter" were the criminal elements who were being exposed--perhaps some of the "respected" Family Court judges The Hartford Courant previously mentioned. 

Let me tell you about the Rep. Minnie Gonzalez I know.  A few years ago, I received a phone call from Keith Harmon Snow, a well known investigative journalist who wrote about the corruption of the Connecticut Family Court System in the cogent and thoroughly researched article "A Life Sentence" which appeared online in May 2012. 

He invited me to meet with Rep. Minnie Gonzalez along with several other protective mothers, the majority of whom had lost custody and, for most, all access to their children based upon fraudulent and deceitful Family Court proceedings.  During the course of this meeting which lasted for at least three hours, Rep. Minnie Gonzalez listened patiently to each one of these mothers tell their story about what had happened to her.  Not only did she listen but she expressed her concern and compassion for the pain and suffering these mothers had endured, while at the same time asking intelligent and probing questions to discover why the judicial system had failed them. 

A few months later, we had another such meeting where additional mothers met with Rep. Minnie Gonzalez and told their stories of the pain and horror which they had endured from the abusive Connecticut Family Court system. 

Since that time, I am aware that Rep. Minnie Gonzalez has literally spoken with hundreds and hundreds of victims of Connecticut Family Court abuse and corruption, both Mothers and Fathers.  At a certain point, I am aware that Rep. Minnie Gonzalez offered to actually review all of the documentation that these parents had in regard to the Family Court abuses they had experienced. 

In response, she received a deluge of documentation from litigants throughout the state who had written evidence of the corruption and fraud they experienced in Family Court.

As a result of so many Connecticut citizens coming to her for help in dealing with Family Court corruption, Rep. Gonzalez eventually came to the point where she devolved into the unofficial spokesperson for our movement.  As she  herself has stated frequently, this is not something she volunteered for, and she is unlikely to benefit from it personally.  But her innate sense of justice and her fundamental opposition to corruption placed her there, no matter how reluctant she may be personally to take on such a prominent role in connection to such a difficult and problematic issue. 

The Hartford Courant may object to Rep. Minnie Gonzalez opposition to some judges, or to her broad ranging critique of the Family Court system.  But the editors should keep in mind that when Minnie Gonzalez spoke up, she cited direct conversations with litigants.  She held up documents parents had given her which specifically showed evidence of the abuses she spoke of.  She didn't just talk off the top of her head. She did her homework, she proceeded with a thorough investigation and then she confronted the legislature with the results. 

That is what I would call being a highly successful, well qualified, thoroughly efficient legislator. 

So what is going on with The Hartford Courant?  How could it be so wrong in regard to such an important matter?  Why is it wrong on Rep. Minnie Gonzalez, wrong on incompetent and arrogant Family Court judges, and soft on Connecticut Family Court injustice and corruption? 

There is actually a good answer to that question. 

As I understand it, the media is supposed to be "the fourth estate" which acts as a watchdog to ensure the proper conduct of the other branches of government.  In the word of one expert, "Access to information from the media is essential to the health of democracy for at least two reasons. First, it ensures that citizens make responsible, informed choices rather than acting out of ignorance or misinformation. Second, information serves a "checking function" by ensuring that elected representatives uphold their oaths of office and carry out the wishes of those who elected them.  In the United States, the media is often called the fourth branch of government (or "fourth estate"). That's because it monitors the political process in order to ensure that political players don't abuse the democratic process." 

So why isn't The Hartford Courant, let alone other Connecticut media, playing this critical watchdog role in regard to the Connecticut Judicial Branch?  Why is our Connecticut media pretty much giving the Judicial Branch a free pass to carry out whatever nonsense it cares to? 

The answer is that Judges, Attorneys, and Employees of the Connecticut Judicial Branch have systematically cultivated friendships with highly placed media executives and journalists.  These friendships have developed to the point where the media in Connecticut has come to believe that it has a greater obligation to defend the Connecticut Judicial Branch from all potential challengers rather than investigate and critique it on behalf of the citizens of the State of Connecticut which it has a fundamental obligation to serve.

I know that at this point you are probably curious to know how this media shift in perspective from outsider to insider took place. 

What happened is that in 2007, Judge Chase T. Rogers established the Judicial-Media Committee to discuss media access to Connecticut Judicial Branch legal proceedings and records.  The founding documents for this Committee state the following, "The goals of the Judicial-Media Committee are to foster and improve better understanding and relationships between the Judicial Branch and the media, both print and electronic, and to discuss and recommend resolutions of problems confronted by the media and the public in gaining access to court proceedings and documents." 

If you think this sounds like the basis for a judicial branch-media mutual admiration society, I would suspect you are correct. 

The bottom line is, if the media has the legal right to access to legal proceedings and documents, that would be something their lawyers would need to attend to.  But instead, what actually happened is that the Connecticut Judicial Branch arranged for ongoing friendly meetings over a period of seven years sometimes at the offices of one of the media moguls and sometimes at the Judicial Branch.  Clearly, these meetings were fundamentally unnecessary and intended solely for the purpose of skewing the opinions of media leadership in the direction of the Connecticut Judicial Branch. 

Some of the big media names involved in this Committee are as follows:  G. Claude Albert, Managing Editor, The Hartford Courant (retired); Tom Appleby, General Manager and News Director, News 12 Connecticut; Karen Florin, Staff Writer, The Day of New London; Eric Parker, Morning News Anchor, Reporter, WFSB, Channel 3; Chris Powell, Managing Editor, Journal Inquirer;  Thomas Scheffey, Connecticut Law Tribune, editorial board;  Nancy Schoeffler, Editor, Metro Desk, The Hartford Courant; Paul Giguere, President & CEO, Connecticut Network; Michael St. Peter, News Director, WVIT-TV Channel 30;  Kirk Varner, Vice President & News Director, WTNH-TV Channel 8;  Dave Ward, Assignment Editor, WFSB-TV, Channel 3; John Long, Photographer, retired from The Hartford Courant; Ken Margolfo, Assignment Manager, WTIC-TV Fox 61; Melissa Bailey, Managing Editor of the New Haven Independent. 

As you can see, this is an extraordinary lineup of media industry leaders and stars many of whom for a period of seven years conducted regular meetings with judges, attorneys, and judicial branch employees and essentially cemented relationships that could not help but be wide ranging and influential. 

This represents unprecedented access to opinion makers and information gatekeepers solely gathered for the benefit of the Connecticut Judicial Branch.  Those of us who are working for the reform of the Connecticut Judicial Branch had nothing like such access whatsoever and, as a result, have not been able to get the media to cover our stories and work with us for fundamental reforms that the legal system desperately needs. 

In  essence, what this amounts to is that the Connecticut Judicial Branch used its superior power and influence and its control over information sources that the media desperately wanted access to in order to win over the media and shut down any criticism the media might raise of its fraudulent and criminal activities. 

It is a strategy that is both brilliant and, at the same time, fundamentally in opposition to our nation's democratic principles. 

The result is that The Hartford Courant as well as other media outlets in the State of Connecticut have reneged on their professional responsibility to speak up about the many abuses of Connecticut Family Court.   Even worse, the media in Connecticut has  colluded in a conspiracy to deny the wrongdoing and act as apologists for the criminal actions of Family Court judges, attorneys, and mental health professionals. 

Thus, it is the Connecticut media we rightly condemn for their collusion with corruption and injustice. 

In contrast, Rep. Minnie Gonzalez has alone, among the many, fought for the vulnerable, the downtrodden, and the terribly wronged victims of family court.  I urge all of her supporters to do whatever they can to make sure that she is reelected for another term. 

ATTORNEY ROBIN YEAMAN CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY SPEAKS OUT ABOUT CORRUPT FAMILY COURT, WE IN CONNECTICUT ARE EXPERIENCING THE SAME SITUATION!

RIDGEFIELD PROTECTIVE MOTHER FIGHTS BACK AGAINST GAL SHARON DORNFELD!

NEWSTIMES reports as follows:
 
"RIDGEFIED -- Following an acrimonious divorce, Rosemary Alfredo and her ex-husband couldn't agree whether their then 23-year-old daughter, Collette, who has Down syndrome, should move with her to Boston.

Alfredo felt her daughter, who holds a job and graduated from a special college for students with intellectual disabilities, could live independently there, with help from more comprehensive Massachusetts social services.                                                               


Her father disagreed, arguing Collette should be placed in a group home in Ridgefield.                                                               


So the couple went to Probate Court, where Judge Joseph Egan eventually appointed a guardian ad litem, Danbury attorney Sharon Dornfeld, to represent Collette's interests and make recommendations to the judge about the move.


Alfredo at first welcomed the appointment.                                                                 


"I thought it was better than dealing with my ex-husband," she said.                                                                
In May, Alfredo found a place in Boston, hoping to move there permanently with Collette. In July, the court allowed Collette to stay there temporarily, with a final decision pending an assessment by state-appointed experts.


But on Oct. 10, the judge gave Alfredo 10 days to return Collette to Connecticut to live with her father, Daniel DiVitto, in Ridgefield.                                                                
"The court is trying to take my daughter away against her will and put her somewhere where she doesn't want to be," Alfredo said."


For more information on this case, please click on the link below: 


http://m.newstimes.com/local/article/Ridgefield-mother-claims-abuse-in-court-appointed-5845833.php

ANNE STEVENSON JOINS WITH ATTORNEY LISA HUNT ON MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING FAMILY COURT!

Anne Stevenson in coordination with Attorney Lisa Hunt report as follows on Commdiginews:

"CONNECTICUT, October 22, 2014 — When pop-star Usher Raymond won sole custody of his two youngest sons, his family court case received international attention.

The outcome of Raymond vs. Raymond was not unique.

Fit, loving, capable parents like Tameka Raymond are losing custody of their children every day in family courts for the same reason that Tameka lost custody; their cases are tainted by money, power and influence.

Next month, court industry experts from around the country will meet at a family law reform conference in Arlington, Virginia to discuss possible solutions to improve the way the courts do business."

For more information, please read more at the link below:

http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/commentary/divorce-corp-conference-seeks-solutions-to-family-court-problems-28335/#FgbvyqPT24xUyV8D.99

NEWLY FILED LAWSUIT EXPOSES CORRUPT ATMOSPHERE IN NEW HAVEN FBI OFFICE! SEE NEW HAVEN REGISTER ARTICLE!

The New Haven Register reports as follows:

"HARTFORD >> FBI bosses retaliated against an agent for complaining about personnel decisions, managed by fear and were so dysfunctional that the bureau’s director apologized to the Connecticut staff for problems with local leadership, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

The agent, Kurt Siuzdak, is a lawyer and 17-year veteran of the bureau who worked in New York City and as a legal attache in Iraq before joining the New Haven field office in 2009.

In his lawsuit, Siuzdak said he was subjected to a baseless investigation when he complained he was passed over for supervisory positions. His wife, Heather Clinton, said in an interview that her husband was reluctant to publicize internal FBI disputes but saw no other way to address what they see as abuses by managers who allow social affiliations to influence promotion decisions."

For more information on this topic, see the link below:

http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20141020/connecticut-fbi-agent-alleges-abuses-mismanagement-at-new-haven-office

Perhaps this report of corruption explains the FBI lack of action in regard to the fraud and racketeering associated with the AFCC infiltration of the judicial branch.  Apparently, the FBI thinks it is acceptable to ignore the AFCC's pattern of handing out plum GAL and Custody Evaluation assignments to its members. 


Further, it may explain the FBI's indifference to reports it has received regarding family court attorneys who have been defrauding their clients to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars.  Even when the FBI is perfectly aware of these activities and has received multiple complaints from various individuals, it still does nothing.


When the FBI becomes indifferent to its responsibility to uphold and protect American citizens, we have to wonder whether it is simply a self centered agency solely focused on perpetuating itself rather than actually meeting its obligations.