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!