How Far Will They Go? (Snitch Part Two)

On Friday, October 17, 2014, the largest weapons arrest in Jefferson County, NY history was made. (Click to read the full article.)

The only reason these weapons did NOT end up in the hands of drug dealers or other criminals was because of the efforts of a long-term "snitch" for the local police agencies. (This was actually the same CRI mentioned in the blog entry Snitch.)

The two "gentlemen" attempting to broker the weapons had contacted him to find them a buyer.

The snitch promptly began contacting anyone and everyone he knew in law enforcement in an attempt to set up a sting to get these "fine upstanding citizens" and the weapons off the streets.

He texted a Sheriff's deputy, but she was on the way out of the country on vacation and unable to do anything.

He called his probation officer, who initially ignored the report/request. (Interestingly enough, one of the young men arrested on the weapons charges is the nephew of that probation officer.)

He continued to contact any and every law enforcement contact he could, until finally he received a response.

But in the meantime, the two young men were getting suspicious and anxious. They told the snitch that they wanted him to prove that he was capable of doing the buy, and that he only had a few hours or they would go elsewhere.

So he borrowed $200 from a family member, bought an unloaded gun for "Mr. Big" to inspect, and put it in the locked gun safe at his house.

Before he had a chance to blink, the local task force produced the $5K for the rest of the buy and had him set up a deal. The snitch was the third man in the car, sitting in the front seat with a loaded hand gun pointed at him from the rear by one of the two arrested.

When the arrest went down, as part of his statement he informed the officers about the gun in his locked safe and he took them to retrieve it.

However, the "snitch" had unfortunately testified on behalf of his mother three and a half months earlier in the Family Court aspect of the Jon Massey Case.

As retaliation for his efforts in exposing the fraud, false allegations, and wrongful prosecution that resulted in the death of Jon Massey, the district attorney and the judge decided to "throw the book" at the snitch. In fact, they "fast-tracked" his case.

Meanwhile, the two weapons thieves are still in jail awaiting trial. And the primary witness against them? The "snitch" who is well within his rights to plead the Fifth Amendment and refuse to testify for the people responsible for ongoing harassment of his family and friends.

That could result in two high level criminals going free.

Or maybe this was the plan all along - after all, it wouldn't look good for the nephew of a probation officer to be convicted of the "largest weapons bust" in Jefferson County history. Far better to continue to harass a family to cover up a wrongful action that resulted in the death of an innocent man, as well as irreparable harm to multiple children.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose corruption!

Suicide Survivor

I am a suicide survivor and this is one of the most deeply personal blog entries that I will write.

A suicide survivor isn't someone who has attempted suicide and lived, it is one of the people left behind after a suicide.

On February 28, 2014, my partner and best friend killed himself. Apparently, he took a dose of cyanide, and although he "lived" for three days until March 2, 2014, he died that Friday when he heard the "guilty" verdict from a jury that was prevented from hearing the full story.

One of the struggles that many suicide survivors go through is thinking that the one gone didn't love them. I'm here to tell you that isn't true.

Often, the only reason a suicide has lived one more hour, one more day, is out of love for those around them and a desire to not cause them pain.

Jon and I had many discussions about his depression and suicidality. I had no illusions that he spent much of his time wanting to die, especially after the lies that destroyed his faith in many people.

What I never doubted either was that his love for me (as well as his mother and sister) was what kept him going for almost two years.

We both knew that the verdict that came down would be used by the same corrupt individuals to try to destroy my life and that of my children. Oddly enough, the lesson that Jon indirectly taught my children was that true family stands together, even through the bad times; and that love and faith in truth and justice is more important than money and power and desire for fame.

So I know that his love for me kept him going, kept him strong, kept him wearing his "mask" to appear as though he was okay.

But there are so many other ways that he expressed his love for me.

At the end of the day, I would come home to dishes washed, dinner ready or planned, and a relatively clean house. If you think this is "no big deal", keep in mind that Jon's depression would keep him in bed curled up in a ball on many days, and the energy he expended to get up and do those things would make him sleep for hours later.

Jon would be the one to say - "let's go...(fishing, out to dinner, to the movies)" because he knew that I wasn't ashamed of him and wasn't scared of what other people would think. To accomplish this, he had to muster up all his strength because every time he went in public he was frightened that people would point their fingers or believe the worst of him.

Depression is a dark and ugly and scary world, and one that I had problems dealing with...so I had to frame it in the abstract, make it hypothetical. I did this out of my love for Jon, because it was part of him that I had to deal with in order to stay by his side.

And it got very dark and scary at times - but Jon's love for me is what kept him on the straight and narrow path.

Depression was part of Jon when he returned into my life. We had known each other from seventh grade through graduation, but had lost touch along the way. In the intervening years, life had dealt him some nasty turns, and that's when the depression really grabbed hold of him.

His love for me was what made him listen when all he wanted to do was wreak havoc on those who had worked to destroy him.

His love for me was what kept him from utilizing all his resources to take down those corrupt individuals who decided that money, power, job security, political position, were far more important than five children, two adults, and their friends and family members.

Jon was brilliant, far too smart to have ever done what he was accused of doing, and able to accomplish pretty much anything he set his mind to do. This is the same man who somehow manufactured cyanide and was able to kill himself while in court custody - something that most other people wouldn't think was even possible.

I learned far more than I needed to know about the Silk Road, the upper echelon of Anonymous, zero day apps, honey pots, LD50, and more. And none of those was utilized, because Jon listened to me out of love, and realized that it wouldn't be the right thing.

So at the end of the day, love wins.

Jon didn't commit suicide - he was issued a death sentence. The verdict didn't come from the misguided jury, it came from the judge who chose to suppress all evidence of Jon's innocence. It came from the District Attorney and Assistant District Attorney that denied him justice, persecuted and prosecuted an innocent man, and harassed his family and friends. It came from the DSS attorney who repeatedly stated to OUR attorneys that he knew all the charges were "BS", but that he had been "ordered" to proceed by the county government to avoid a lawsuit.

I'm not sure how any of you sleep at night, but kiss your integrity goodbye. You lost that when you deliberately, and with malice aforethought, sent an innocent man to die.

Stand up, speak out, expose corruption!

Til Death... (Oh Captain, My Captain)

I was watching an episode of Elementary the other day, and Sherlock said something to the effect of "when you frame someone, the best result is for the framed person to end up dead, that way they can never prove their innocence".

This is the same goal for a parent who sets out to deliberately alienate a child (children) from the other parent. If the alienated parent ends up dead, the alienator wins. There is no way for that parent to prove their innocence and love for the child(ren).

After all, when an alienator sets out on their path of destruction, they don't just target the parent, the entire circle of family and friends gets drawn in to the abuse. Either others become supporters, or they also become secondary targets of alienation.

For the longest time, the saying "it takes a village to raise a child" was legitimately recognized as a valid concept. It takes both parents (whether together or apart) and both sides of the family, as well as the extended network of friends on both sides to truly help a child grow into a productive member of society. This is how our society once grew and prospered, and it was revisited again as recently as this past decade in educational circles.

Yet this whole idea is totally contrary to the interests of a sociopathic, psychopathic, or narcissistic parent. A parent who alienates the other parent and/or all family members and friends is not interested in raising a healthy child. They are interested in being the center of the universe, and the focus of their child's attention.

Saddest of all is when the alienated parent dies.

I witnessed just such an episode. In this case, the parent was custodial and able to minimize the negativity and attacks by the other parent simply because it could only occur during visitation.

However, once this parent died, the alienator was given custody and immediately kicked into overdrive - making up for years of lost time.

The children were completely isolated from the network of family and friends that they had once enjoyed. Any requests for contact or visits was rebuffed or given conditionally. (The alienator was placing financial demands on others - employment or outright requests for money) as the terms for "possibly" seeing the children.)

It is time to take a stand - to promote awareness of this form of psychological and emotional abuse directed at children and parents. It is time for the "family" courts to recognize that it is a real phenomenon and to enact appropriate evaluative techniques to minimize or prevent its occurrence.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose the flaws in our system!

A Judge Speaks

Judge Alex Kozinski has detailed 12 reasons why the criminal justice system is "worrying". (Click here for the full text of the article)

We encountered quite a few of these issues first hand during the Jon Massey Case.

As there was absolutely NO evidence in our case, it being completely a "he said/she said" situation, the first four situations didn't really apply.

However issue number 5 - the topic of human memory being reliable, was a central issue in the case. (See the blog entries (Her Own Words!, Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News, and ADAs (Apparently Dumb Attorneys) for more details on what occurred in our case.)

This finding has troubling implications for criminal trials where witnesses are questioned long and hard by police and prosecutors before the defense gets to do so — if ever. There is thus plenty of opportunity to shape and augment a witness’s memory to bring it into line with the prosecutor’s theory of what happened. Yet with rare exceptions, courts do not permit expert testimony on human memory.

We had a judge and a District Attorney ignoring all the interview evidence that had taken place, and those parties actually PREVENTED the jury from hearing about this testimony in both the criminal trial, and the Family Court trial. It is fairly apparent that the falsity of the allegations was well-known, yet the judges and prosecutors were determined to get a "guilty" verdict at all costs.

Point number 7 - that juries follow instructions, was also an issue in our case. Twelve jurors reported out that the ONLY reason they believed a 16 year old girl (who was known to be sexually active and who had received fairly comprehensive health and human body instruction in school) was because she could describe the difference between a circumcised and uncircumcised penis. (See the blog entry Beyond a Reasonable Doubt for details.) There should have been no doubt that she could have gotten that information elsewhere, and there should have been no conviction.

Point 8 - "Prosecutors play fair" also came into play. I can tell you that prosecutors do NOT play fair.

We had witness tampering and intimidation occurring throughout the duration of the case. (Blog entries: Witness Tampering? and Coincidence?) This in addition to blatantly ignoring all testimony that had occurred at the suppression hearing from the county's own expert witnesses.

The prosecutor additionally used an "expert" witness to testify regarding a widely discredited theory, CSAAS. (Blog entry: Junk Science)

Finally, there was the active suppression of evidence and testimony by wrongfully applying a statute. (Blog entry: Wolf Cry!)

The police are NOT objective (point 10). (Blog entries: Pick and Choose! and This Isn't CSI Folks!) We had police officers intimidating witnesses and interfering with actual criminal matters - if the 21 year old boyfriend were charged, that would discredit the case against Jon Massey.

Judge Kozinski also spoke out about the fallibility of the Grand Jury system - which we also experienced: A Grand Jury Ain't So Grand!

Then end result is that Ruby not only got what she wanted (What a Girl Wants!) but also taught her friends how to manipulate the system to their own ends (Ruby Slippers).

It is time to stand up, speak out, and reform a system that is broken and corrupt beyond retrieval.

Ruby Slippers

There's the saying, "you can't know about someone else until you have walked a mile in their shoes".

Unfortunately, in this day and age of lives plastered all over social media, our younger generations are growing up believing that "what you see is what you get" aka WYSIWYG.

Almost three years ago, Ruby made false allegations against her de facto stepfather in order to keep her boyfriend at the time from being arrested (she was 14 and he was 21).

Ruby was also involved in drugs at multiple levels (stealing prescription drugs from family members, using drugs, and selling drugs to others) and that was on the verge of being discovered.

Read more about the outcome of that situation at www.jeffersoncountyny.com as well as in the earlier blog entries here.

Now Ruby was a highly intelligent young lady, and she had a friend with whom she maintained contact for a number of years, let's call her Sapphire.

Sapphire had also gotten caught up with the same crowd that was involved in drug and sexual behavior, and Ruby and Sapphire had renewed their contact, once Ruby was allowed access to social media.

By some mysterious coincidence - the drugs and other inappropriate behaviors (including potential theft or other threatening behaviors towards family members) have been occurring with Sapphire also.

And by another odd and "totally coincidental" event, Sapphire has now made false allegations against one of her family members who tried to stop her.

So Ruby has handed down her shoes - because she learned that she really didn't have to walk that mile at all.

Once the false allegations were out of her mouth - CPS and the District Attorney, as well as a corrupt court system, picked her up and carried her to the winner's circle.

And now Sapphire will get the same free ride, because she has learned that if you don't get what you want, or you are on the verge of getting in serious trouble, make false allegations and it all goes away.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose a corrupt system!

Anti-Social Workers

"Social workers" hired by the "Family Services System" (CPS, DSS, Family Court) often have little or no education relevant to their job, and are often given "job training" and "workshops" by their employers which is specifically targeted at advancing the aims of these agencies. (Read the blog entries It's All About the Money!, It's All About MORE Money!, It's All About OUR Money! for more details.)

The Chen family found out just how inept and untrained these social workers can be when they contacted Family Services for assistance with their autistic son. (Click here for a link to the article.)

Rather than receiving the help that an agency named "Home Supportive Services" should be providing to parents tasked with round-the-clock care for a high needs child, the social worker took it upon herself to manufacture a CPS case against the Chens.

It took over a year and action by a Grand Jury to supposedly clear up the issue, although at this point the county isn't even acknowledging the problem.

All of the recent publicized incidents involving law enforcement (Baltimore, Ferguson, NYC) have raised doubt in the public and reluctance to turn to the police for assistance. But incidents like that encountered by the Chens (as well as many other people) have caused parents and families to actively turn away from and avoid those agencies that supposedly are tasked and funded to support and assist them.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose the fraud that is DSS/CPS/the Family Court System.

NYC #1

So apparently NYC rates as the "worst" foster care system in the United States.

But what goes beyond that is the defense of the system by a "Legal Aid" attorney who should be working to correct the problems.

Tami Steckler, head of the Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Practice, blasted the suit as “short-sighted” and warned that it could “stall the progress being made by those of us actually working with these families and children.”

“As the organization that represents almost all the children in New York City foster care, we have been working very closely with the current Commissioner to improve outcomes,” Steckler said in a prepared statement.

“This lawsuit is being brought by attorneys who have never represented clients in New York City’s foster care system, yet purport to know how to fix it, at a time when foster care numbers are at an all-time low and collaboration is at an all-time high.”

Collaboration at an "all-time high"? Sounds like the only collaboration that is doing well would be the collaboration between Steckler and the current Commissioner.

It would be interesting to trace the funding stream for the Legal Aid Society Juvenile Rights Practice - anyone care to hazard whether the money comes from the same locations that fund DSS and the foster care system?

So, let's take a look at their website: Legal Aid Society Juvenile Rights Practice - information from their own site reveals:

The Division was established concurrently with New York State's Family Court in 1962

and

The Juvenile Services Unit, the social work component, was formed as a result of the pioneering work of Juvenile Rights in teaming social workers with lawyers in order to adequately address the educational, social, and psychological issues that arise in Family Court proceedings.

Care to wonder where the "social workers" are found? I would be willing to bet that they are graciously supplied by DSS - in other words, DSS helps to keep control over the attorneys who should be only accountable to their child clients.

There has already been repeated documentation that DSS not only doesn't work to reunite families, but actively works to estrange family members from  each other, terminate parental rights as rapidly as possible, and farm children out for adoption.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose CPS for the outdated, abusive system that it is.

Legalized Abuse

From the US to Canada, Great Britain to Australia, children removed from their parents and placed in foster care, group homes, detention centers, or other locations are being subject to abuse.

But worse than that, the abuse is being covered up or ignored by the very system that was designed to prevent it from occurring.

Why? Because abuse of children while in the care of CPS/DSS/DFCS is the clearest demonstration that the system is irretrievably broken and needs to be dismantled and replaced with something that truly works to the benefit of children and families.

One of the most recent examples of how convoluted the system has become is the Border Force Protection Act in Australia. Despite the law regarding mandatory reporting of child abuse, the mandated reporters will now face prosecution if they report the same abuse occurring against children within a detention center.

Daily more reports are made of children being sexually and physically abused while in foster care - and this doesn't even begin to encompass the psychological and emotional abuse inflicted by social workers and foster parents who engage in estrangement techniques to work towards termination of parental rights and subsequent adoptions.

• http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130266
• http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-foster-care-in-crisis-experts-say-1.1250543
• http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/crime/2015/04/02/foster-care-child-abuse-case-headed-to-grand-jury/70864558/
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-28/hundreds-of-children-in-foster-care-abused-last-year-report-find/6052006
• http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Foster-child-sexually-abused-on-state-s-watch-6137702.php
• http://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/apr/20/care-system-failures
• http://www.kptv.com/story/27635026/dhs-to-pay-out-millions-after-two-young-children-say-they-were-abused-by-their-foster-parent
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/major-study-reveals-true-scale-of-abuse-of-children-living-in-care-9587244.html

The links above are just a small sample of what is easily found from mainstream media when you Google "foster care abuse".

The numbers statistically would be much higher if all the actual cases of abuse in foster care were reported. However a variety of issues prevent reports from being filed:

• the children are too young to report the abuse;
• the people attempting to report the abuse are the biological parents - and CPS/DSS ignores them or labels the reports as "lies";
• children old enough to report the abuse are frequently convinced that they are at the mercy of the case worker/foster parent (due to being ripped from their family/parents) and they don't think that anything will be done.

Even one case is "too many", yet DSS/CPS/DFCS continues to relentlessly seize children on a daily basis and place them in environments where they are just a commodity that earns cash - for the foster parents and for the system.

Educate yourself on a system that is irrevocably broken worldwide.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose CPS.

Disregard for the Truth!

Denise Robertson has written an article which sums up what is happening in so-called "child protective systems" around the globe on a daily basis. (Click here for the article.)

There is a systemic disregard for the truth inherent in the Family Court/CPS system. It has become blatantly obvious in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and other countries that the system established to "assist" families in trouble is now being used to abuse children and families.

I have detailed just a few of the experiences we and other families have had - for every post I have written, there are (conservatively) a thousand other stories that have gone untold. Read the rest of my blog entries for details of some of the techniques and strategies used to systematically destroy the relationships between children and their families, usually for a financial profit.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose a corrupt system!

Interesting...

Odd things just keep popping up in the Jon Massey case.

This, for example:

You might be wondering why I consider this "odd", so let me enlighten you.

1. The July 2013 Grand Jury is the same one that was used to issue a superseding indictment on Jon Massey when the original charges fell apart on the DA for a number of reasons. (See: ADAs, Nerd Law and Legalese, and Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News for a small sampling of the flaws in the case).
2. Scott D. McNamara is the Oneida County District Attorney. Apparently even he seems to think there is a need to unseal the record.
3. Judge Martusewicz is the same Judge who dismissed the indictment and sealed the record against Jon Massey after his suicide, in accordance with the law and Appellate Court rulings that protected Jon's Constitutional Rights post mortem. Yet Judge Martusewicz is the same judge who quickly unsealed that same record (in violation of court procedure requiring a higher level judge to do so) - in order to allow Jefferson County Family Court to continue to persecute the family (families) that supported Jon Massey.

It appears (at face value) that there is something rotten in the county of Jefferson that has come to the attention of all, even the prosecutors of nearby counties.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose corruption wherever possible!

Off to the Races!

As if New York State CPS didn't need any more excuses to wrongfully seize children, terminate parental rights and set children up for adoption...(click for a link to the article)

Governor Cuomo Announces $1.57 Million For Post-Adoption Services

In other words, there is ALL NEW money to be sucked in, which means affirmation of the reasons why CPS will continue to deny parental and Constitutional rights, make false allegations and present fraudulent paperwork to Family Court, and otherwise be an enemy of families and children.

Don't forget, It's All About the Money, It's All About MORE Money, and It's All About OUR Money!

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose CPS!

Prosecutor Misconduct

If you think that "justice" actually exists, you need to watch these two videos:

The system has become a political game for elected officials - District Attorneys and Prosecutors rely on a "good track record" to be reelected. That requires proving that they are adept at convicting "high profile" criminals.

Judges need to show that they are "tough on crime" in a similar manner, making sure that these "criminals" are put away and keeping the public safe.

The videos above demonstrate why we need to change the laws and remove immunity for wrongful prosecution. There is currently a petition regarding this matter on Change.org which has well over 1500 signatures. Please click on link below the picture to sign the petition, and then share it on all your social media accounts.

Petition to Remove Immunity

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose a corrupt system!

Coincidence Too? Connect More Dots

The local DA's office has quite a few resources under their control, both financial and logistical.

The DA suddenly decides not to run for reelection, but one of her minions decides to run in her stead.

A qualified candidate steps up and announces that he is running in opposition to the ADA.

It will be interesting to see what type of dirt starts being "dug up" by the entrenched candidate against the contender and his friends and family.

They couldn't possibly be this stupid...could they?

(I'm not sure whether this last comment is rhetorical or sarcastic...)

"Family" Court?

And this is business as usual for Family Court - judges ignoring the truth, those charged with enforcing the law instead violating it, witness tampering, but worst of all - damage done to a child and a family!

We had judges listening to what they knew were outright lies, yet instead of shutting the liars down and advocating for the truth and justice, they continued to penalize those of us telling the truth.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose a corrupt system.

Coincidence?

Interesting development - the Jefferson County District Attorney (who was in office during the whole Jon Massey Case and whose name is featured in at least one exonerating/exculpatory reference) has decided to NOT run for reelection (see article here).

Could it be that her "hands on" involvement in the case that lead to the death of Jon Massey gave the public doubt in her abilities to fairly administer justice?

Or is it because she herself sent an email to Jon Massey's attorney and made a phone call to a young man's parents that could be interpreted as witness tampering?

Could it be that assistant district attorneys under her command have been involved in ethically questionable legal behavior?

After all, one of them in the Jon Massey Case alone engaged in Grand Jury misconduct (click here for details) before he crashed and burned.

And then there is the second ADA on the case who, when the defense presented a very strong case, somehow managed to ignore all the facts and prior testimony and ended up with a witness who mysteriously changed her story in a way that contradicted the county's expert witness (click here for details).

But apparently now we will be blessed with a "replacement" - from the same regime. The candidate who announced her run last night has just as questionable a history in the DA's office.

Let's start with the fact that she was the ADA handling the CRI who was exposed during the Grand Jury in the Jon Massey Case. She was responsible for preserving the confidentiality of his identity, even from others in the DA's office. Obviously, she failed at that (click here for details).

But she was also involved in the Deputy John Hallett fiasco - apparently despite the fact that he was found passed out drunk behind the wheel of his running patrol vehicle with a bottle of booze in his lap and his K9 in the car, the candidate failed to see any reason to charge him (click for the Sheriff's report).

So, are we there yet? It appears that it will be "business as corrupt as usual" if she is elected.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose the corruption!

Urban Dictionary Act Three

Let's do a reverse order post now...

So what exactly got the Family Court Judge so upset?

(Never mind the disclaimer at the bottom of this email - it was sent by the judge (now retired) to all the parties listed in his letter. Make special note of the names in the judge's letter...because they are the only parties legally allowed access to the information due to Family Court confidentiality rules.) For the record, Laura Cerow was the Commissioner of our local Department of Social Services at the time. She has since retired.

Now lets look at the attachments to the email that Ms. Cerow was trying to bring to the judge's attention:

So, let's see - the attorney who goes by the name of Louis Short not only is actively criticizing the judge ("the guy in the black dress"), but also the Commissioner of DSS, and is now promising to disclose confidential information about the case to at least three other people who are NOT parties to the case.

You would think that the judge (as well as the NY Bar Association and Appellate Fourth Grievance Committee) would be concerned about an attorney who uses wide open social media to disclose confidential information.

You would think that the judge (as well as the NY Bar Association and Appellate Fourth Grievance Committee) would be concerned about an attorney who shows blatant disrespect for the entire judicial process.

But no, this attorney saw the judges correspondence as free license to continue her bullying and harassment of DSS and it's employees (click here for details).

And although the media was alerted to this issue, and grievances were filed against this attorney, no action was taken by any of the agencies that could have provided oversight.

This attorney also used the judge's letter as opportunity to continue her criticism of the judge and his court:

People wonder why there is no justice? Perhaps it is because the legal profession fails to police itself and instead allows this unethical behavior to run rampant.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose a corrupt system!

Witness Tampering?

Throughout the Jon Massey Case we encountered multiple instances of highly suspect behavior.

Ruby was allowed to have a tablet at Christmastime in 2012 which she then used to "mysteriously" connect to the Internet (under the supervision of her foster parents). She began contacting a number of witnesses for the defense asking/telling them to not make statements, not testify, etc.

Subsequently one of the individuals, who had signed TWO affidavits expressing her disbelief in Ruby's story, totally reversed her testimony at trial in February 2014.

That tablet also "mysteriously" "burned up" within a week or two of the defense's discovery of Ruby's actions.

In May of 2013 Ruby joined the track team at her school, despite being diagnosed with flat feet and running being a sport that caused her pain, and as a member she traveled to one of her former schools. While there she approached at least one defense witness and told that person to "stop signing statements against me" and "don't testify".

The DA's office sent an "investigator" to "interview" multiple defense witnesses, and the investigator demanded that each witness who agreed to the interview tell everything that they would testify regarding.

When Jon Massey's mother failed to return his phone call within three hours (she had already left a message with the DA's office that she would NOT meet with him), he called the NY State Police claiming to be concerned about her well-being, and sent them to do a "welfare check" on her apartment.

The ADA served a trial subpoena on at least one of the witnesses at 11:30 pm - which was contradictory to protocol.

Most interesting, however, is the actions of the DA herself (not just one of her underlings).

Let me paraphrase this email - it sounds like "We are offering a job to the son of two of your witnesses, but the job offer disappears if those witnesses actually will be testifying".

The email doesn't mention that the same message was conveyed to both parents of the young man in question.

Surprisingly enough, both parents maintained their status on the witness list, because they had both known Ruby for over nine years and had witnessed her behaviors over the years PRIOR to Jon Massey entering the household.

If this case was so "transparent", why all the actions of multiple parties towards defense witnesses that have the appearance of harassment and intimidation?

Time to stand up, speak out, and expose a corrupt system!

US Govt Says? Foster Care FAILS!

In August 2005, the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a report on federal foster care financing (click here for the full report).

What is most striking is that the report lists quite a few failures in the funding system that have not been addressed at all in any type of reform.

A sample is as follows (directly quoted from the report):

"The current funding structure has not resulted in high quality services."

"The current funding structure is inflexible, emphasizing foster care.  Title IV-E funds foster care on an unlimited basis without providing for services that would either prevent the child's removal from the home or speed permanency."  

Again, it is all about 'cash for kids'.

"Foster care services are intended to provide temporary, safe alternative homes for children who have been abused or neglected until such time as they are able to return to their parents' care safely or can be placed in other permanent homes. Federal foster care funds, authorized under title IV-E of the Social Security Act, are paid to States on an uncapped, “entitlement” basis, meaning any qualifying expenditure by a State will be partially reimbursed, or “matched,” without limit."

In other words, there is no incentive for states to return an child to their parent, and there is actually financial reason to keep the child in foster care for as long as possible.

"the current funding structure is inflexible and emphasizes foster care payments over preventive services" 

Preventive services would mean reunification with the family.

This table is very interesting - it shows that the states which collected the most money for "maintenance" (actual foster care) are West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Maryland, and New York  - in that order. In other words, those five states are maximizing their revenues by putting kids in foster care and keeping them there as long as possible. 

These are funds collected from the federal government in addition to child support collected from the parents.

"Funding sources for preventive and reunification services, primarily the Child Welfare Services Program and the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program funded under title IV-B of the Social Security Act, are quite small in comparison with those dedicated to foster care and adoption."

The federal funding streams encourage foster care and adoption, rather than reunification.

The report repeatedly cites failures in record keeping and accountability by the states, as well as the issue that reunification is not fiscally rewarded, and it is more lucrative for children to be placed in foster care or adopted out rather than being left with or returned to their families.

The system is broken, even the feds have been aware of it for at least ten years!

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose CPS!

Who Wins?

As a case progresses through the morass of Family Court, who really wins?

The "family" doesn't win - despite the name, the grinding action of Family Court places families under such stress that most of them crumble under the strain. Those families that manage to stick together are subjected to pressures that erode their financial stability, their sense of justice, their feelings of security.

Children don't win. The very nature of so-called Family Court actions these days are adversarial - deisgned to promote competition between parents and alienation of parents from the children. The children are ultimately deprived of the love and care of one or both parents.

Parents don't win. Family Court fosters a "winners/losers" environment, rather than recognizing that it is in everyone's best interest to promote cooperation between parents instead of competition. The adversarial relationship is often escalated to the point that it consumes the lives of one or both parents.

The damaging environment that occurs in Family Court, often over an unnecessarily protracted period of time, manufactures long-term complications that often snowball into repeated trips to court over minor issues. These are usually accompanied by false allegations and other destructive behaviors designed to promote one parent at the expense of the other.

So who wins?

The court system benefits - they receive a stipend for every case that passes through their system. The more traffic (so to speak), the more income.

The family court lawyers benefit - for some of them this practice is their sole source of income, between divorces, child custody, and working as AFC, they secure their income from prolonging cases and generating repeat business.

Even the Jefferson County criminal court judge in the Jon Massey Case engaged in repeated returns to court in an attempt to prevail in his divorce in 1995 and again in 1996 - choosing to utilize the appeals process rather than more appropriately petitioning the court to modify. He had learned as a lawyer how to game the system to further his own desires.

The only winners are those collecting money - the more the case involves and the longer it takes, the more money they make.

When you factor in the CPS actions that process through Family Court, sometimes in conjunction with divorce and custody issues, the money changing hands increases exponentially - all at the cost to children and families.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose a corrupt system!

Pick and Choose!

There is no greater demonstration of the selective persecution prosecution that is rampant in the so-called justice system than what occurs in Family Court and its related criminal court actions.

In the summer of 2010 - July to be more specific, my children were at Jon's apartment for the first extended length of time (any prior visits were very short, 15 min or less, and had only occurred twice that I can recall). We were celebrating his birthday with a cookout, and also letting the kids know that we were going to work on reestablishing our relationship.

My middle child took the dog for a walk, and mentioned that the kids in the yard that Jon's balcony overlooked were really splashing in the pool.

About an hour later she took the dog out again, and came inside reporting that there was yellow crime scene tape around the pool and yard.

Apparently a four-year old little girl had drowned in that short period of time.

What is most striking is that the mother claimed to have left an 8-year old child in charge of watching the little girl, who suffered from several disabilities.

The yard was not fenced, so anyone could have wandered in from the street and accessed the pool.

There was no gate to block access to the pool from the deck.

There was a sliding glass door that was left open onto the deck.

Jon had spoken from his balcony to the parents and the grandparents about the need for pool safety on at least two occasions after observing the kids unsupervised in the pool. When nothing changed, he finally called in a report to CPS - two weeks before the drowning.

And the mother was posting status updates and game updates on Facebook during the whole time frame in question, including one about how the 8-year old was downstairs playing a game - while he was supposed to be watching his little sister.

No charges were filed, and the mother never lost custody of any of her children.

Maybe the fact that her family was friends with the investigating detective had something to do with it.

It is amazing how people can pick and choose what they will investigate, and who they will pursue and persecute.

It's amazing how many neglectful and abusive parents are ignored or given a pass - while those known to be innocent are harassed.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose CPS!

Cash for Kids

Over the course of the past three years, I have had numerous talks with my friends, relatives, and co-workers (not necessarily mutually exclusive) and have heard some fairly profound stories about just how badly the system is broken.

The intent of the Federal Adoption Incentive was to spur CPS and the Family Court system into finding "forever homes" for children who had been lingering in the system for years.

Unfortunately, there is a reason these children had been held in limbo, unadopted. Many of them had physical or developmental issues that would be difficult to manage. Others had been subjected to severe levels of physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological abuse that would require intensive treatment over a period of years.

To draw an analogy - most people would prefer a brand new puppy to a dog from the local animal shelter, and the mentality about adopting a child isn't much different.

People who are looking to adopt want a baby they can "raise from scratch", or a child who hasn't been subjected to the ordeals of actual abuse. But those didn't exist in the foster care system - so CPS had to find a way to generate such a marketable commodity.

With the rise of private adoptions, in which pregnant women could broker deals for the unwanted child they were carrying, CPS needed to find another source of babies and children to supply the adoption demand, and to start generating quotas to earn their state the bonuses under the Federal Adoption Incentive.

That meant that they needed to start seizing children who were "marketable", so CPS found a new target. They began to go after people on "neglect" charges - and they came up with a new description to broaden their search - "derivative neglect".  

In the eyes of CPS, parents are neglectful if they miss a doctor's appointment (even if they immediately reschedule), if their child misses too much school (even when there is documented illness and the parent coordinates with school and keeps their child up to date on work), if their child isn't dressed according to the standards of the social worker (regardless of whether the child's clothing meets "community standards" - what is considered acceptable to most of society), or if the parents aren't feeding a diet deemed acceptable by the social worker. All of it is entirely subjective, and gives caseworkers wide latitude to charge a parent wrongfully, setting in motion a seizure of their children.

Derivative neglect is even more interesting as a concept. It basically means that a parent can be charged for anything that may have happened to a child, even if they were not present, were not informed about it, and the child never told them or demonstrated any signs that anything occurred. Under this standard - each and every one of us could be deemed guilty of derivative neglect for the Boston Marathon bombing, or the Twin Towers - that is how broad the standard is and how non-existent a burden of proof is required.

And this is how CPS has been able to make their own niche in the Cash for Kids market - they find families with minor amounts of discord and assess for how "marketable" the children are, then proceed accordingly. The Family Court judges buy into this corruption because they receive funding based on case load and disposition, not the merits of the case. There is no incentive to adjudicate fairly - after all, once a family has been logged into the CPS system they become "fair game" for future action.

People worry about the NSA and other agencies maintaining a database - however there is a much more insidious database being maintained by a specific government agency - the CPS and Family Court System. Any individual who has ever been a "party" in Family Court or in any Child Support action, has now been entered into the CPS database. This includes not only the adults, but also the "subject" children. This is in addition to the records maintained on any and every report ever called in to CPS - whether "founded", "indicated", or "unfounded".

Foster children, victims of false reports, parents who have fully completed and complied with "service plans" (and learned and changed their behaviors as a result), are all fair game for the pickings. They have become a "fertile field" for CPS to harvest adoptable children.

And meanwhile, the situation that the Federal Adoption Incentive was designed to correct continues - with repercussions. Now only the most severely obvious cases of abuse are acted upon - and often those are the only families that are reunified. The system is bogged down with cases of "neglect" and "derivative neglect" that are fast-tracked into TPR (termination of parental rights) and adoption, rather than the reunification that should occur with these mild or even non-existent charges.

Meanwhile, foster parents looking to adopt the "high needs" children are put on the back burner - their cases are dragged out with repetitive paperwork and unnecessary delays - while children from intact families are fast-tracked into removal from their parents and placement for adoption.

I have spoken to two separate adoptive parents who refuse to work with our local CPS system any more after their experiences in foster-to-adoption. Both parents are mandated reporters who have been trained in the recognition and reporting of child abuse, and who have no doubts that the children they fostered and then adopted had been actually abused. Yet they faced what they characterized as a "lack of support" for ensuring that the needs of the children in their care were met. This would be expected - the needs of a genuinely abused child would require spending money long-term and would erode the CPS profit margin on the funds they receive from multiple sources.

Additionally, one of the adoptive parents was subjected to extortion attempts from the extended family of the children they were adopting. The family had absolutely NO interest in taking the two children, but upon learning of the employment status of the foster family adopting the children, they began making direct contact with the foster family requesting payments for them to sign off on the adoption quickly.

In conversations with several teachers, I learned about multiple cases that had been "hotlined" in which children made allegations against a parent, with more than sufficient evidence to back up the allegations. Yet not only weren't the children removed from the homes, nothing was done to address the abuse. In one instance a sexually abused child (one of several in the home) finally attacked the abusive parent with a hammer and was sent to a juvenile facility.

We even have a local county legislator who was showed up on CPS radar after his child and other kids got into a "very active" game of street hockey that left marks. Despite the evidence presented by all of the children involved, it took months before the legislator was given a "clean slate".

The common factor when children are seized? No evidence of abuse, often no evidence of neglect, and characteristics in the children that would make them "adoptable" - no disabilities or other issues that would render them undesirable. Even in our own case they tried to fast-track Ruby into adoption - within four months Ruby's father was told that she was going to be adopted out "soon", despite family members who wanted to take her. (It kind of makes you wonder who would be in the market for an intelligent, beautiful, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who at age 14 could pass for 17 or older.) 

The system is irreparably broken. It is merely a cover for the illegal seizure and sale of children and youth, as well as a source of revenue generation and career preservation.

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose CPS!

CPS Kills Kids!

Standing up for the truth is no longer praised and rewarded in society, it is punished - often to an extreme level.

One of the most obvious examples is in the Child Protective/Family Court system.

The minute a parent/family begins to assert their rights and speak up for the truth, tries to expose the lies and fraud being committed, CPS opens the floodgates and musters every resource at their command to attack and vilify them.

And trust me, their resources are far-reaching - they can recruit law enforcement and District Attorneys to add additional pressure, threats, and charges to try to force a family to back down.

One of the biggest pieces of leverage that CPS uses is wrongful seizure of children. Once CPS has gained control over the children, they are able to manipulate the parents using the false promise of returning the children.

And then CPS fails to keep children safe.

Children are killed while in the custody of CPS.

And now a new report: in January a foster father burned an 11-month old to death in a bathtub. A family court judge had removed the baby from his parents shortly after birth due claiming it would be in the child's "best interests". Apparently in the eyes of CPS and Family Court, death is a child's best interest.

This week, a 6-month old died while in CPS custody, in a foster home that CPS claimed would keep her safe.

A year ago a toddler was killed in Las Vegas by her foster father, who then killed himself. No charges were filed against the foster mother.

Two years ago, a toddler was removed from her parents and placed in foster care. They immediately began to notice issues, and then they received a phone call informing them their daughter was in the hospital. She subsequently died from injuries inflicted by her foster mother (who had been the subject of prior complaints).

And children kill themselves while in foster care.

In December, a 6 year old girl in foster care supposedly hung herself. Yet a child of that age killing themself is almost unheard of, especially when she should have been supervised due to her age, and there are still many unanswered questions.

In 2009, a 7 year old boy hung himself - attributed to the psychiatric drugs that CPS had arranged for him to take, without parental consent.

In 2011, a 14 year old committed suicide after being shuffled between 22 foster homes in 13 years.

In September of 2014, Karmah Jayne Hall committed suicide while in foster care, and her biological family was never informed. Instead they learned of the death through a Facebook post.

CPS does NOT care about the safety and well-being of children and families. It is all a numbers game. For each child removed from a parent's custody, they get money from the federal, state, and local government.

This includes wrongfully removing children from loving homes and parents, and placing children with foster parents who may not pass background checks or who may be in it just for the money. When there isn't enough foster care space, children are placed in juvenile detention facilities.

The links above are just a few of many articles - do a Google search yourself using "death while in foster care", "suicide while in foster care", or any other horrendous outcome followed by "while in foster care". Then change to "while in CPS custody" and a whole new batch will appear.

The riots in Ferguson, Baltimore, and NYC centered around the theme of "one death is too many". Why doesn't this apply to our children and help shut down a system that singlehandedly accounts for more deaths, more wrongful "incarcerations", more deprivation of Constitutional rights than any other agency in our society?

ONE DEATH IS TOO MANY! Stand up, speak out, expose CPS!

Pushing Buttons!

Suicide is a criminal offense!

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the person who commits suicide is a criminal - the criminals are those who put any person in a situation where they perceive that suicide is their only option!

Who are some of the victims of this particular offense?

Dave and Tiffany O'Shell were two police officers who were wrongfully charged with abuse when doctor's failed to diagnose their daughter with a genetic disorder. Their despondency at the persecution of their family by child protective services and the criminal courts led to a murder-suicide for the husband and wife. And the family was unable to prevail in a lawsuit against CPS for wrongful actions. The irony is that their daughter was diagnosed with a genetic disorder that explained her injuries and also caused her death soon after.

Eleanor de Freitas brought rape charges to the police, but although they believed her story, they felt there wasn't enough evidence to secure a conviction. The alleged perpetrator spent over 200,000 pounds to bring private prosecution against her and the Crown Prosecutor joined in (smell the money trail?). Eleanor, who suffered from bi-polar disorder, killed herself as a result.

Ron Mayfield Jr. was a teacher falsely accused of assault by a disruptive student. Without even informing or consulting the boy's parents, the school and CPS pursued charges against him. He was cleared by the police the morning that he killed himself, sadly enough. David Alan Papadakos suffered similar persecution after false allegations by his adopted son (who was on psychiatric meds at the time), and he also killed himself as a result.

Chris Mackney is another case, in which an ex-wife repeatedly and continuously dragged Chris through the Family Court system and criminal courts until he was bankrupt and had lost all hope of contact with his children. Despair over the inequity of the justice system caused Chris to kill himself.

I have previously written about Jon Massey, whose despondency over being unable to present the evidence and witnesses that would show the allegations against him were false made him give up all hope of justice and take his own life.

A simple Google search for "suicide", combined with any other terms of your choosing (false allegations, bullying, harassment, CPS, Family Court, etc) leads to hundreds of results of actual people who have been victimized by a system that fails to take action against those who have brought them to the brink of death.

In many suicides there are clear and distinct signs that actions and words of an individual or group were what prompted the attempt (whether successful or not), yet those people and systems responsible for the death of another person are rarely, if ever, held accountable.

What is not-so-surprisingly missing are the statistics on how many parents and children have died after being wrongfully dragged through the Family Court or Criminal Court systems by CPS. At this point, unless the friends and family members come forward, the true numbers will never be known.

What is known is that for over 25 years there have been questions about the legitimacy of the CPS system and the actions that it takes - often using coercive and underhanded techniques to continue cases without merit while ignoring the actual reasons for false allegations. (Click here for an article that details statistics from 1990 and earlier regarding false allegations and their effect on families.)

It is time to stand up, speak out, and expose the corruption that has existed for more than a quarter of a century!

Stats Too!

We've already looked at the statistics for children being taken from their parents, never to be returned.

Now let's take a hard look at this last column:  DEATH OF A CHILD

Read the column title again:  DEATH OF A CHILD

Now read the title of the table:  FOSTER CARE EXIT OUTCOMES

Since when is the death of even a single child considered nothing more than an "exit outcome"? Better yet, why are children in foster care dying? They have been placed there to "protect" them by a government agency.

And yet, it isn't just a single child - in the 12 years of this record, it is 6,317 children. Children who have been taken from their parents - the families who try to protect them and keep them safe.

If even a fraction of these had occurred in Ferguson or Baltimore or NYC, the riots would still be going. Yet these children are a blip on the radar, swept under the rug by a corrupt government agency that doesn't want to acknowledge that it is failing families and children.

How many more children have died in the over five years since this data was recorded? How many more children killed in foster care will it take before we acknowledge that the system is broken and corrupt?

Stop the insanity and killing! Stand up, speak out! Expose CPS!

A Small Death!

Many of us have suffered through the death of a loved one or family member, and have learned about the stages of grief through that experience. (For more information, click here for one source.)

Here is a quick summary of the stages:

1. Denial — The survivor imagines a false, preferable reality.
2. Anger — The individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, it becomes frustrated, especially at nearby individuals or those perceived as being involved. 
3. Bargaining — The third stage involves the individual making negotiations, whether internally or externally, to try to get a desired outcome.
4. Depression —During the fourth stage, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time mournful and sullen, or have physical symptoms such as sleeplessness, stomach aches and headaches.
5. Acceptance — The individual embraces the inevitable future, as they perceive it, believing that nothing can or will change.

For a child, being removed from a parent is a form of loss. It may not be permanent (although an alienator and CPS will do their best to make it permanent), but the stages are no different.

CPS and parental alienators, either consciously or subconsciously, through planning or ignorance, take advantage of these stages in order to "prove" their case against the targeted parent.

Let's walk through each one.

1. Denial - Initially, a child will act as though everything is "business as usual" when they are dealing with being removed from a parent, or denied access to that parent. Children are usually very resilient and will perceive the situation as just a small problem. CPS uses this apparent "lack of caring" as "proof" that the child has been abused and is now "relieved" that they are no longer in the "abusive" environment. An alienator uses this stage as an opportunity to point out that the child really doesn't have feelings for the other parent and the denial of contact or change in custody should continue.
2. Anger - As time passes, and the child realizes that what has been forced on them isn't just a temporary problem, the child begins lashing out, especially at the targeted parent. Children are very instinctively intelligent, and realize that reacting against the people who have custody and care would result in punishment and repercussions. Instead, they respond with anger towards the targeted parent for several reasons - they are encouraged to do so by CPS or alienators, and because the child perceives that the targeted parent has failed to protect them and rescue them from the situation. Meanwhile, both CPS and alienators are able to strongly advance their case in court at this stage, by pointing out that the child "lashing out" at the target parent is further "proof" that the child was abused and should be kept from contact with that parent.
3. Bargaining - The next phase the child moves through is often known as "magical thinking". The child believes that if they do everything that is expected of them they will be able to get back to their parent. They usually do not express this outwardly, but instead become fully compliant with all expressed and unspoken wishes from CPS or the alienating parent. And once again, this is used as "documentation" and "proof", but now CPS and the alienating parent are able to present "documentation" for their case. The marked improvement (in behavior, attitude, grades, etc.) is now highlighted by CPS as being "proof" that the child was abused - confirming any false allegations that have been made. (This falls under the misuse of Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, read more by clicking here.) The alienating parent uses the changed behavior as further "proof" that the child does not need or want contact with the target parent.
4. Depression - During the grieving process, the child will often exhibit symptoms of depression - sleeplessness, crying, headaches, stomach aches. These may occur concurrently with other phases. These symptoms are "welcomed" by both CPS and alienators - they are able to point to concrete "proof" that any relationship with the target parent is causing the child physical distress. Regardless of when the child exhibits the symptoms, they are used to indict the target parent. If the target parent is still being allowed contact with the child, the physical symptoms are used to "prove" that the child is distressed before a visit or after a visit (so they can cover all the bases, because it is always before or after a visit). If the target parent has no contact, CPS and the alienating parent use the symptoms as "proof" in a different way - they claim that the child is fearful that visits will resume.
5. Acceptance - Children actually know much more than they are given credit for. When, in their minds, the child believes that they will no longer be able to resume their relationship with the target parent, they become resigned to the situation. This is the point when CPS uses the situation to justify adopting the child out, and when the alienator justifies sole custody with no visitation.

The saddest part of all is that an abusive system (CPS and Family Court) and abusive parents (alienators) utilize a time when a child is grieving to further victimize and abuse the child and the family. Most sane and rational people are able to recognize the common sense of what is spelled out above, and realize that neither CPS nor alienating parents are doing what is in the best interests of children.

Stop the insanity! Stand up, speak out! Expose CPS!

Stats!

CPS stats:

• In less than 20 years the percent of children unified with parents has dropped by almost 10% (actual number - 15,000 fewer children returned);
• The percent of children living with other relatives went up temporarily, but has dropped overall by 1% (actual number - about 3,000 fewer children with relatives);
• The percent of children being adopted out has increased by 5% (actual number - more than 17,000);
• The percent of children being emancipated has increased by 5% (actual number - over 12,000 more);
• The percent of children in guardianship has increased by 5% (over 13,000 more).

In other words, children are no longer being returned to parents or families - they are being permanently placed elsewhere or "cut loose".

So what happened on or before 1998 to cause this change?

The Federal Adoption Incentive - also known as "cash for kids" was enacted in 1997. Amazing how in such a short time, the statistics have become so obvious.

Stand up, speak out, educate yourselves. CPS is a self-perpetuating group of bureaucrats who are only out for money and not the well-being of children and families.