This case study begins at 9.A. below. (Click on August, then 9.A. in the Blog Archives at right.) My comments appear in italicized brackets.
August 1998 Based on Dr. Jenny’s revised report, DCYF overturned the indication against “Vincent,” and accused the mother of neglect. But they felt confident enough to let her continue caring for the children under supervision of the child protection agency in Illinois. The neglect charge offered her a legal means to get a public defender, Brian LeClair, in Rhode Island who could respond to Vincent’s frequent motions without requiring the mother to keep returning to Rhode Island.
November 1998 Once again, “Vincent” secured a letter from U.S. Sen. Jack Reed—this time to Chief Judge Jeremiah. Reed asserted that the mother had Muchausen’s--even though DCYF’s psychologist Dr. Ira Gross had rejected that diagnosis and said she was suffering from PTSD due to her “constant torment and abuse by her former husband” (Kathryn Hammann, Revised Summary of Facts, 8/24/98: 3.)
When Jeremiah received Senator Reed’s letter, he ordered yet another review of the case. Vincent again threatened to sue DCYF’s chief legal counsel Kevin Aucoin for failing to schedule an administrative hearing on his latest appeal.
September 1999 Vincent’s physician, Dr. Perry Mandanis, MD, reported to the court that his patient had been “thoroughly compliant with his treatment” and “that he was successful in coparenting with his first wife and raised their son without conflict”—an assertion that is contrary to the first wife’s 1991 motion for sole custody (Perry Mandanis, MD, Progress Notes, 9/9/99: 1).
[This is why reports by privately paid experts need to be evaluated by an independent multidisciplinary team, rather than taking the court’s time on potentially biased reports.]
September 1999 A Catholic Charities case worker reported that her visits to the family’s home in Illinois “go very well.” She wrote: "Both children are very well adjusted children. I have observed a very strong bond between them and [mother] on a number of occasions. . . . Academically,they are overachievers and genuinely good kids. (Catholic Charities Report, 9/19/99: 1-2). Both children said they felt “uncomfortable” talking to their father on the phone. The 10-year-old son said he was “scared that his father was taping the call, especially when he forced [son] to say he loved him. [Son] said he felt he would use that against his mother in court or something. He said that it wasn’t that he doesn’t love his father, because he does, but at that time he wasn’t feeling love for him and didn’t want to say it” (Catholic Charities Report, 9/19/99: 2-3).
The case worker found the Illinois home “safe, nurturing and appropriate” for the children, but also described a disastrous visit when the mother verbally attacked a therapist who allowed Vincent to have a four-hour unsupervised visit.
Master John O’Brien approved a motion from DCYF lawyer Martha Diamond to bring both children into foster care in Rhode Island. The mother resisted, saying she had no money for plane fare and not enough time to drive to Rhode Island for the next hearing.
October 1999 DCYF chief legal counsel Kevin Aucoin secured an order from Master O’Brien issuing an arrest warrant for the mother and fining her $100 a day until she returned the children to Rhode Island.
O’Brien signed a confusing warrant to arrest a “child,” but it gave the mother’s name with the father’s address--perhaps so Vincent could call officers if the mother brought the children there and have her taken to prison.
Knowing she would be arrested if she came to Rhode Island, the mother refused to bring the children. O'Brien issued an order for the children, ages 9 and 10, to be seized in Illinois for extradition to Rhode Island. The mother’s public defender, Brian LeClair, secured a stay from the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which found Master O’Brien’s order improper.
NEXT: 9.H. "Vincent" wins sole custody, 2000
Showing posts with label Jeremiah Jeremiah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeremiah Jeremiah. Show all posts
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
9.F. How Dr. Carole Jenny rescued Kevin Aucoin from "Vincent," 1998
This case study begins at 9.A. below. (Click on August, then 9.A. in the Blog Archives at right.) My comments appear in italicized brackets.
December 1996 After a Christmas visit, the 7-year-old boy said their father had held the 6-year-old girl on his lap and scratched her crotch through her clothing. Master Sammartino ordered sex abuse evaluations of both children.
[I had wondered if Vincent’s alleged behavior might be merely his attempt to provoke more allegations, so the court would blame the mother for accusing him. Justice Shawcross had quizzed one DCYF investigator:
[Shawcross's statement has never been substantiated by research, but it was widely promoted by Richard Gardner, and Chief Judge Jeremiah admitted he was reading Gardner on the subject. (Transcript, 4/11/94, p. 18.) By 2004, a year after Gardner’s suicide, his legal strategem held sway in Rhode Island’s new training manual for guardians ad litem. Defense attorneys routinely accused mothers of “alienating,” “brainwashing,” and coaching” children who resisted their fathers for any reason. (See post 8. The problem with Pettinato's "friendly parent," under the August Blog Archive, below.)]
January 1997 Dr. Carole Jenny at Hasbro Children’s Hospital interviewed the daughter and wrote, “There is no doubt in my mind that some event happened because of the child’s clear and consistent disclosure.”
February-March 1997 St. Mary’s Shepherd Program conducted extensive interviews by separate counselors of the children and parents. They called for the children to work with therapists “trained in familial sexual abuse.” They recommended that Vincent be “evaluated for sexually offending behavior, aggressive tendencies, and physically abusive behavior” and “that he participate in an adult offender plethysmograph evaluation….”
March 1997 DCYF filed a petition alleging that the mother was subjecting her daughter to emotional harm and the father had sexually abused both children. Both parents were arraigned. DCYF left the children in their mother’s care.
April 1997 DCYF wrote to Vincent that he had been indicated for sexual abuse. He complained that he did not receive the notice until late May.
June 1997 Vincent’s attorney appealed the DCYF finding and requested an administrative hearing.
July 1997 Master Sammartino issued a 3-year restraining order against Vincent that denied him contact with his children.
November 1997 The daughter, 7 ½ , expressed fear of a visit with her father and suffered chest pains, anxiety, depression, and panic symptoms at school. Bradley Hospital admitted her for a week. Physicians had already medicated her with Prozac, and later Tenex.
The attending psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Wheeler, described “evidence of significant character pathology in both parents.” But she listened to Vincent's allegations that the children's mother had Munchausen's factitious disorder by proxy. Wheeler identified the father as “narcissistic and equally caught up in the [custody] battle,” but she recommended a “full forensic evaluation” of the mother alone and agreed to serve as Vincent's expert witness.
December 1997 Counselors at The Doric Center of CCAP wrote to Family Court that the mother had been in counseling with them for half a year and suffered from symptoms of PTSD related to abuse by her ex-husband and by her children’s disclosures of his sexual abuse. Counselors urged that the daughter not be forced to visit her father and that the restraining order remain in place.
December 1997 Vincent again asked DCYF to hold an administrative appeal hearing on the findings against him.
March 1998 DCYF referred the mother to Dr. Ira Gross for a psychological evaluation. He diagnosed her with "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, relating to her former marital life.” He found no indication of Munchausen’s and reported: “she is a concerned mother that needs to be on constant alert to predation by her former husband.”
April 1998 U.S. Sen. Jack Reed sent a 3-page letter on behalf of his constituent, "Vincent," summarizing Vincent’s complaints to DCYF director Jay Lindgren and child advocate Laureen D’Ambra. Reed asserted that the mother was diagnosed with Munchausen’s, and he protested DCYF’s failure to schedule Vincent’s administrative appeal hearing.
May 1998 Psychologist Dr. Ira Gross warned the mother that Vincent’s behavior was increasingly unstable and she should take steps to protect herself and the children.
May 1998 Vincent threatened to sue DCYF and its senior counsel Kevin Aucoin for failing to schedule his administrative hearing.
June 1998 Vincent’s attorney, Michael Hagopian, withdrew, and Vincent entered his appearance pro se. He sought hearing dates for himself and his older son, 18, represented by a separate lawyer. Father and son each sought visitation with the younger children, 8 and 9.
[This is a common strategy used in Trophy Child cases, when older siblings are brought to court. Children often complain that older siblings they had once liked are used by an abusive parent to grill and harass them with guilt-provoking arguments and to pry information from them that is then used in court.]
"Vincent" complained that he, his 18-year-old son, and their three witnesses came on ten separate dates, but could not be heard due to the crowded court calendar. He sought confirmation of hearings for his son and himself on three certain dates.
Vincent asked the court to order his ex-wife to pay for her full forensic psychological evaluation, asserting that Dr. Wheeler suspected it was not the father, but the mother, who was abusing the children due to Munchausen's and that the mother "exhibited suicidal ideation in the past" which endangered the children.
July 1998 Dr. Carole Jenny delivered a forensic investigation of 27 documents at DCYF’s request. She acknowledged her uncertainty whether the December 1996 incident was “a purposeful molest, a thoughtless gesture, or perhaps even a suggestive touch made to inflame the family relationships even further.” She wrote: “I am struck by the extraordinary hostility between the two parents.”
Dr. Jenny enumerated extensive concerns:
• The mother’s allegations about Vincent’s abuse of her and the children included “extraordinary acts of violence and intimidation.”
• Vincent’s “relatively positive psychological evaluations” were “somewhat superficial.”
• No sex offender evaluation tools “currently available are 100% sensitive or specific.”
• St. Mary’s Shepherd evaluators felt that Vincent was “very inappropriate.” “They expressed on several occasions feeling intruded upon, threatened, and verbally attacked” and “had major concerns about his parenting abilities.”
• Victor’s psychiatrist talked about his “interpersonal difficulties, depression and anxiety” and was working with him “on his personality style.” But
Still, Jenny concluded that she was no longer “convinced the children had made unambiguous disclosures of abuse.”
She wrote: “the very process of these allegations and counter allegations . . . is extraordinarily destructive to these children.” Yet she blamed this on the two parents, not on the court system, itself, that encourages years of adversarial litigation, as exacerbating this problem. Instead, she blamed both parents and strongly suggested “that the courts consider one of two options:”
1. Putting the children in foster care . . . . or
2. Ordering the parents to meet face-to-face each week for at least two hours with a competent family therapist for at least six months to find common ground. . . .”
[Would Dr. Jenny’s assessment have changed if she had seen the 1982 affidavit detailing Vincent’s alleged violence and threats against his first wife and son? Both wives described sadistic acts of domestic violence and coercive control. Experts in domestic violence warn that “therapeutic” mediation must never be attempted when one partner persists in patterns of power and control.]
When Dr. Jenny revised her original report, and decided there was no evidence of sexual abuse and that the children were being emotionally abused by both parents, she gave DCYF the document they needed to escape Vincent’s lawsuit against their senior counsel Kevin Aucoin.
August 1998 DCYF chief investigator Edward O’Donnell wrote to "Vincent" that DCYF had overturned the indication against him, because Dr. Jenny had revised her original report from “indicated” to “unfounded.”
NEXT: 9.G. The Supreme Court weighs in, 1999
December 1996 After a Christmas visit, the 7-year-old boy said their father had held the 6-year-old girl on his lap and scratched her crotch through her clothing. Master Sammartino ordered sex abuse evaluations of both children.
[I had wondered if Vincent’s alleged behavior might be merely his attempt to provoke more allegations, so the court would blame the mother for accusing him. Justice Shawcross had quizzed one DCYF investigator:
You never heard anybody say there’s a higher incidence of false accusations when there is litigation going on between a mother and father? (Transcript, 11/18/93, p. 13.)
[Shawcross's statement has never been substantiated by research, but it was widely promoted by Richard Gardner, and Chief Judge Jeremiah admitted he was reading Gardner on the subject. (Transcript, 4/11/94, p. 18.) By 2004, a year after Gardner’s suicide, his legal strategem held sway in Rhode Island’s new training manual for guardians ad litem. Defense attorneys routinely accused mothers of “alienating,” “brainwashing,” and coaching” children who resisted their fathers for any reason. (See post 8. The problem with Pettinato's "friendly parent," under the August Blog Archive, below.)]
January 1997 Dr. Carole Jenny at Hasbro Children’s Hospital interviewed the daughter and wrote, “There is no doubt in my mind that some event happened because of the child’s clear and consistent disclosure.”
February-March 1997 St. Mary’s Shepherd Program conducted extensive interviews by separate counselors of the children and parents. They called for the children to work with therapists “trained in familial sexual abuse.” They recommended that Vincent be “evaluated for sexually offending behavior, aggressive tendencies, and physically abusive behavior” and “that he participate in an adult offender plethysmograph evaluation….”
March 1997 DCYF filed a petition alleging that the mother was subjecting her daughter to emotional harm and the father had sexually abused both children. Both parents were arraigned. DCYF left the children in their mother’s care.
April 1997 DCYF wrote to Vincent that he had been indicated for sexual abuse. He complained that he did not receive the notice until late May.
June 1997 Vincent’s attorney appealed the DCYF finding and requested an administrative hearing.
July 1997 Master Sammartino issued a 3-year restraining order against Vincent that denied him contact with his children.
November 1997 The daughter, 7 ½ , expressed fear of a visit with her father and suffered chest pains, anxiety, depression, and panic symptoms at school. Bradley Hospital admitted her for a week. Physicians had already medicated her with Prozac, and later Tenex.
The attending psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Wheeler, described “evidence of significant character pathology in both parents.” But she listened to Vincent's allegations that the children's mother had Munchausen's factitious disorder by proxy. Wheeler identified the father as “narcissistic and equally caught up in the [custody] battle,” but she recommended a “full forensic evaluation” of the mother alone and agreed to serve as Vincent's expert witness.
December 1997 Counselors at The Doric Center of CCAP wrote to Family Court that the mother had been in counseling with them for half a year and suffered from symptoms of PTSD related to abuse by her ex-husband and by her children’s disclosures of his sexual abuse. Counselors urged that the daughter not be forced to visit her father and that the restraining order remain in place.
December 1997 Vincent again asked DCYF to hold an administrative appeal hearing on the findings against him.
March 1998 DCYF referred the mother to Dr. Ira Gross for a psychological evaluation. He diagnosed her with "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, relating to her former marital life.” He found no indication of Munchausen’s and reported: “she is a concerned mother that needs to be on constant alert to predation by her former husband.”
April 1998 U.S. Sen. Jack Reed sent a 3-page letter on behalf of his constituent, "Vincent," summarizing Vincent’s complaints to DCYF director Jay Lindgren and child advocate Laureen D’Ambra. Reed asserted that the mother was diagnosed with Munchausen’s, and he protested DCYF’s failure to schedule Vincent’s administrative appeal hearing.
May 1998 Psychologist Dr. Ira Gross warned the mother that Vincent’s behavior was increasingly unstable and she should take steps to protect herself and the children.
May 1998 Vincent threatened to sue DCYF and its senior counsel Kevin Aucoin for failing to schedule his administrative hearing.
June 1998 Vincent’s attorney, Michael Hagopian, withdrew, and Vincent entered his appearance pro se. He sought hearing dates for himself and his older son, 18, represented by a separate lawyer. Father and son each sought visitation with the younger children, 8 and 9.
[This is a common strategy used in Trophy Child cases, when older siblings are brought to court. Children often complain that older siblings they had once liked are used by an abusive parent to grill and harass them with guilt-provoking arguments and to pry information from them that is then used in court.]
"Vincent" complained that he, his 18-year-old son, and their three witnesses came on ten separate dates, but could not be heard due to the crowded court calendar. He sought confirmation of hearings for his son and himself on three certain dates.
Vincent asked the court to order his ex-wife to pay for her full forensic psychological evaluation, asserting that Dr. Wheeler suspected it was not the father, but the mother, who was abusing the children due to Munchausen's and that the mother "exhibited suicidal ideation in the past" which endangered the children.
July 1998 Dr. Carole Jenny delivered a forensic investigation of 27 documents at DCYF’s request. She acknowledged her uncertainty whether the December 1996 incident was “a purposeful molest, a thoughtless gesture, or perhaps even a suggestive touch made to inflame the family relationships even further.” She wrote: “I am struck by the extraordinary hostility between the two parents.”
Dr. Jenny enumerated extensive concerns:
• The mother’s allegations about Vincent’s abuse of her and the children included “extraordinary acts of violence and intimidation.”
• Vincent’s “relatively positive psychological evaluations” were “somewhat superficial.”
• No sex offender evaluation tools “currently available are 100% sensitive or specific.”
• St. Mary’s Shepherd evaluators felt that Vincent was “very inappropriate.” “They expressed on several occasions feeling intruded upon, threatened, and verbally attacked” and “had major concerns about his parenting abilities.”
• Victor’s psychiatrist talked about his “interpersonal difficulties, depression and anxiety” and was working with him “on his personality style.” But
. . . there was no description of his family of origin or of his childhood. There was no description of his level of functioning in general. Is he employed? Does he have reasonable social relationships with adults and peers? There was no discussion of drug or alcohol abuse. . . no evidence that the psychiatrist had looked at the effect of [Vincent’s] physical illness . . . or his medications on his ability to function.
Still, Jenny concluded that she was no longer “convinced the children had made unambiguous disclosures of abuse.”
She wrote: “the very process of these allegations and counter allegations . . . is extraordinarily destructive to these children.” Yet she blamed this on the two parents, not on the court system, itself, that encourages years of adversarial litigation, as exacerbating this problem. Instead, she blamed both parents and strongly suggested “that the courts consider one of two options:”
1. Putting the children in foster care . . . . or
2. Ordering the parents to meet face-to-face each week for at least two hours with a competent family therapist for at least six months to find common ground. . . .”
[Would Dr. Jenny’s assessment have changed if she had seen the 1982 affidavit detailing Vincent’s alleged violence and threats against his first wife and son? Both wives described sadistic acts of domestic violence and coercive control. Experts in domestic violence warn that “therapeutic” mediation must never be attempted when one partner persists in patterns of power and control.]
When Dr. Jenny revised her original report, and decided there was no evidence of sexual abuse and that the children were being emotionally abused by both parents, she gave DCYF the document they needed to escape Vincent’s lawsuit against their senior counsel Kevin Aucoin.
August 1998 DCYF chief investigator Edward O’Donnell wrote to "Vincent" that DCYF had overturned the indication against him, because Dr. Jenny had revised her original report from “indicated” to “unfounded.”
NEXT: 9.G. The Supreme Court weighs in, 1999
9.E. How "Vincent" got the Chief Judge to apologize, 1995
This case study begins at 9.A. below. (Click on August, then 9.A. in the Blog Archives at right.) My comments appear in italicized brackets.
[I am reporting on custody cases sometimes called “high-conflict.” But I call them “high-control” because one parent is using Family Court as a tactic to control the family. After two decades studying these cases, I believe that adversarial litigation does irreparable damage to families in this court. We need a chief judge willing to work at changing this court in ways that would make it less profitable to private contractors and less costly to families and taxpayers.]
One common tactic of control used by abusers is to provoke their families and then to videotape their enraged response. This “evidence” is taken to judges and news reporters to document the alleged “instability” of victims of abuse. Vincent had testified before Judge Shawcross about using video to raise his son:
Vincent's pattern of humiliating his wife and children with embarrassing videos and photos continued throughout this case for the next thirteen years. (In 2003, his then 14-year-old son asked Judge Howard Lipsey to let him and his sister return to their mother after 30 months in their father's sole custody. The teen testified to a laundry basket full of videotapes in his father's bedroom.)
October 1994 When his wife and children moved to Illinois, Vincent had hired a detective agency to trail them. In October he used these private investigators to supervise his visits in Illinois and had them write reports criticizing the mother when she argued with Vincent.
November 1994 Trying to meet Vincent’s demands, Chief Judge Jeremiah agreed to let the children, then 4 and 5, visit Vincent, his parents, and his older son in New Jersey for Christmas. The Chief agreed that Vincent's parents could supervise the visits.
March 1995 Judge John Mutter ordered "Vincent" to pay his first wife $11,670 in delinquent child support, but Vincent claimed a change in circumstances made him unable to pay child support to either wife.
April 1995 In one hearing, Chief Judge Jeremiah worked out details for the father’s supervised visit and an evaluation of the daughter. The next day, the father’s lawyer, Michael Hagopian, said no, they had not agreed to the evaluation. Jeremiah exploded. He left the bench, then returned to the courtroom to apologize and said: “I was wrong to lose my temper.”
[Observing this in the courtroom, I thought the Chief finally saw the mind games that abusive controllers play as they make agreements one day and deny them the next. This is one of the reasons mediation should never be attempted in custody cases where one parent has a history of coercive control. I found the Chief’s reaction understandable and appropriate. His explosion, followed by self-doubt and an apology, were the same reaction abusers expect from their victims.]
May 1995 Appellate attorney Lauren Jones completed a pre-briefing statement for Vincent to appeal the decisions of Jeremiah and Shawcross to the Supreme Court. While spending significant funds on litigation, Vincent continued to say he could not pay court-ordered support for his three children.
September 1995 Justice Kathleen Voccola held two hearings and determined that there was no change of circumstance warranting the children to be placed in Vincent’s custody in Rhode Island, and they could remain in Illinois.
November 1995 After his October visit with the children, Vincent sent an underwater photo of his 5-year-old daughter’s crotch in her bathing suit to his 6-year-old son. The strap of a life jacket had tightened between her legs revealing her labia. She was outraged when her brother received that photo among others their father had sent him from their visit.
[The drawing with the words “vary, vary, vary angree” was made with a counselor at St. Mary’s Shepherd Program to represent the girl’s feelings about her father humiliating her with this photo. She said she was angry enough to smash soda bottles.]
March 1996 The mother, who had grown up in Illinois, learned to drive in winter weather. She always carried a shovel and sand in her trunk, and they often made the trip back to Rhode Island for hearings on Vincent's motions. Once they came through a terrifying ice storm, and her son, 7, became distraught. At school, he was learning to write by phonics. So she asked him to focus on writing a story about their trip. Here it is:
They reached Rhode Island, but when their mother went to court, she discovered that Judge Voccola had gone on vacation, and the hearing was cancelled. Some courts might notify litigants traveling from a distance. But such courtesies are not common in Rhode Island's Family Court.
May 1996 Vincent felt he was gaining the upper hand. He purchased the children’s plane tickets to Rhode Island for Father’s Day and announced that he would keep them an additional week. He told their mother:
NEXT: 9.F. How Dr. Carole Jenny rescued Kevin Aucoin from "Vincent"
[I am reporting on custody cases sometimes called “high-conflict.” But I call them “high-control” because one parent is using Family Court as a tactic to control the family. After two decades studying these cases, I believe that adversarial litigation does irreparable damage to families in this court. We need a chief judge willing to work at changing this court in ways that would make it less profitable to private contractors and less costly to families and taxpayers.]
One common tactic of control used by abusers is to provoke their families and then to videotape their enraged response. This “evidence” is taken to judges and news reporters to document the alleged “instability” of victims of abuse. Vincent had testified before Judge Shawcross about using video to raise his son:
I videotaped [my 3-year-old son] throwing a temper tantrum . . . I bought a VCR camcorder and videoed the children’s every move . . . dozens of hours of the children doing everything, including going to the bathroom and eating and just being cute. . . . [Once when my wife went out] the child dropped to the floor and started to cry. . . and I tried video taping him whimpering and crying . . . it shows me being relatively quiet, I might have said, are you done, are you done yet. It’s –- Your Honor, the purpose of the taping is nothing but a parent in regards to what a child does” (Transcript, 10/28/93: 12-13)
Vincent's pattern of humiliating his wife and children with embarrassing videos and photos continued throughout this case for the next thirteen years. (In 2003, his then 14-year-old son asked Judge Howard Lipsey to let him and his sister return to their mother after 30 months in their father's sole custody. The teen testified to a laundry basket full of videotapes in his father's bedroom.)
October 1994 When his wife and children moved to Illinois, Vincent had hired a detective agency to trail them. In October he used these private investigators to supervise his visits in Illinois and had them write reports criticizing the mother when she argued with Vincent.
November 1994 Trying to meet Vincent’s demands, Chief Judge Jeremiah agreed to let the children, then 4 and 5, visit Vincent, his parents, and his older son in New Jersey for Christmas. The Chief agreed that Vincent's parents could supervise the visits.
March 1995 Judge John Mutter ordered "Vincent" to pay his first wife $11,670 in delinquent child support, but Vincent claimed a change in circumstances made him unable to pay child support to either wife.
April 1995 In one hearing, Chief Judge Jeremiah worked out details for the father’s supervised visit and an evaluation of the daughter. The next day, the father’s lawyer, Michael Hagopian, said no, they had not agreed to the evaluation. Jeremiah exploded. He left the bench, then returned to the courtroom to apologize and said: “I was wrong to lose my temper.”
[Observing this in the courtroom, I thought the Chief finally saw the mind games that abusive controllers play as they make agreements one day and deny them the next. This is one of the reasons mediation should never be attempted in custody cases where one parent has a history of coercive control. I found the Chief’s reaction understandable and appropriate. His explosion, followed by self-doubt and an apology, were the same reaction abusers expect from their victims.]
May 1995 Appellate attorney Lauren Jones completed a pre-briefing statement for Vincent to appeal the decisions of Jeremiah and Shawcross to the Supreme Court. While spending significant funds on litigation, Vincent continued to say he could not pay court-ordered support for his three children.
September 1995 Justice Kathleen Voccola held two hearings and determined that there was no change of circumstance warranting the children to be placed in Vincent’s custody in Rhode Island, and they could remain in Illinois.
November 1995 After his October visit with the children, Vincent sent an underwater photo of his 5-year-old daughter’s crotch in her bathing suit to his 6-year-old son. The strap of a life jacket had tightened between her legs revealing her labia. She was outraged when her brother received that photo among others their father had sent him from their visit.
[The drawing with the words “vary, vary, vary angree” was made with a counselor at St. Mary’s Shepherd Program to represent the girl’s feelings about her father humiliating her with this photo. She said she was angry enough to smash soda bottles.]
March 1996 The mother, who had grown up in Illinois, learned to drive in winter weather. She always carried a shovel and sand in her trunk, and they often made the trip back to Rhode Island for hearings on Vincent's motions. Once they came through a terrifying ice storm, and her son, 7, became distraught. At school, he was learning to write by phonics. So she asked him to focus on writing a story about their trip. Here it is:
They reached Rhode Island, but when their mother went to court, she discovered that Judge Voccola had gone on vacation, and the hearing was cancelled. Some courts might notify litigants traveling from a distance. But such courtesies are not common in Rhode Island's Family Court. May 1996 Vincent felt he was gaining the upper hand. He purchased the children’s plane tickets to Rhode Island for Father’s Day and announced that he would keep them an additional week. He told their mother:
I urge you to consider my offer of $10,000 to ease your way to Rhode Island. The actions of the Court ... should give you a realistic idea of the progress I am making toward re-uniting myself with the children with you or without you….
NEXT: 9.F. How Dr. Carole Jenny rescued Kevin Aucoin from "Vincent"
Friday, September 3, 2010
9.D. How "Vincent" finagled Chief Jeremiah's order, 1994
This case study begins at 9.A. below. (Click on August, then 9.A. in the Blog Archives at right.) My comments appear in italicized brackets.
This case study begins at 9.A. below. (Click on August, then 9.A. in the Blog Archives at right.) My comments appear in italicized brackets.
February 1994 After eight months and fourteen hearings, Justice Raymond Shawcross, found the mother’s testimony of the father’s abuse credible. He kept a restraining order on Vincent and assigned sole custody and placement of the children with their mother in the marital home. He required Vincent’s visits with the daughter to be supervised.
April 1994 Chief Judge Jeremiah found that Vincent was stalking his wife and failing to pay court-ordered bills for child care or utilites. Mother and children relied on charities for food. The bank was foreclosing on their home. Jeremiah gave the mother permission to move the children to Illinois, where she could work in her brother’s law office and have free housing with her mother. Vincent could visit their son, and the mother must have the daughter evaluated by authorities there.
June 1994 The mother drove back to Rhode Island for a hearing and brought their son to visit his father. Chief Jeremiah expressed frustration with the two attorneys, John Lynch and Nicholas Colangelo, who had failed to agree on drafting the order from the prior hearing. Without a court order, Illinois officials could not provide an evaluation or supervise the family as Jeremiah required. He told the lawyers they were “prohibited from leaving this courthouse” until they had written an order based on the April transcript for Jeremiah to sign.
In the same hearing, Colangelo asked for his client, "Vincent," to have telephone contact with both children in addition to supervised visitation with the daughter in Illinois. Chief Jeremiah responded emphatically:
Vincent prepared a one-page “synopsis” of the transcript of that hearing that misrepresented Jeremiah’s order. (Click on documents to enlarge.)
In his synopsis of Chief Jeremiah's order (above), Vincent wrote:
In fact those lines in the transcript refer specifically to the son alone, for Jeremiah instructed the mother:
In his synopsis, Vincent misrepresented another point:
But in fact, Jeremiah’s reference in those lines applied only to the son, not the daughter:
Here are excerpts of the transcript to compare to Vincent's synopsis. His synopsis referred to his former wife's complaints on page 2. In the transcript she is talking about his astonishingly low child support. (Click on documents to enlarge.)
On pages 6 through 8, the transcript refers to supervised visits with his son and phone calls with his daughter. (Vincent's synopsis of the transcript changed this to unsupervised visits with his daughter, with no mention of his son.)
When he drafted the final order, Hagopian did not go as far as Vincent’s synopsis had tried to revise Jeremiah's words. Hagopian drafted the order to give his client unsupervised visits and weekly phone calls with both children, but no overnights. And he got Judge Jeremiah's signature:
But a full decade later, Justice Michael Forte incorrectly described this order as if it had "reinstated unsupervised overnight visits."
[In fact Jeremiah clearly said "no overnights" on July 29. Forte is referring to the written Order of September 26, 1994, pictured above, which followed the Illinois evaluation, but also did not allow overnight visits. Later I will relate how mediator David Tassoni, with Justice Forte punished Vincent's children.
[Lawyers’ paperwork is a frequent cause of delay, expense, inaccuracy, and emotional distress in Family Court due to the failure to follow through on filing essential documents, the misrepresentation of judges’ orders, and the lack of clarity in many orders. Family Court does enormous harm when it uses adversarial litigation in these cases.
[A better option could be for evidence of crimes like domestic violence and sexual abuse to go to the Attorney General, Grand Jury, Superior Court, and jury trials. Helping families resolve ongoing crises would be far better served with a single multidisciplinary team from beginning to end, as described in the prior post. That team could include a writer and clerk responsible for timely filing of coherent and accurate documents. The Court needs to steadfastly remove opportunities for private contractors to profit from inflaming these cases.]
NEXT: 9.E. How "Vincent" got the Chief Judge to apologize.
This case study begins at 9.A. below. (Click on August, then 9.A. in the Blog Archives at right.) My comments appear in italicized brackets.
February 1994 After eight months and fourteen hearings, Justice Raymond Shawcross, found the mother’s testimony of the father’s abuse credible. He kept a restraining order on Vincent and assigned sole custody and placement of the children with their mother in the marital home. He required Vincent’s visits with the daughter to be supervised.
April 1994 Chief Judge Jeremiah found that Vincent was stalking his wife and failing to pay court-ordered bills for child care or utilites. Mother and children relied on charities for food. The bank was foreclosing on their home. Jeremiah gave the mother permission to move the children to Illinois, where she could work in her brother’s law office and have free housing with her mother. Vincent could visit their son, and the mother must have the daughter evaluated by authorities there.
June 1994 The mother drove back to Rhode Island for a hearing and brought their son to visit his father. Chief Jeremiah expressed frustration with the two attorneys, John Lynch and Nicholas Colangelo, who had failed to agree on drafting the order from the prior hearing. Without a court order, Illinois officials could not provide an evaluation or supervise the family as Jeremiah required. He told the lawyers they were “prohibited from leaving this courthouse” until they had written an order based on the April transcript for Jeremiah to sign.
In the same hearing, Colangelo asked for his client, "Vincent," to have telephone contact with both children in addition to supervised visitation with the daughter in Illinois. Chief Jeremiah responded emphatically:
No, Mr. Colangelo, no visitation and no telephone contact until I get this [evaluation report]. That is an important issue. I need to see the report, and I will continue the matter until I get the report . . . . But there will be no visitation and no telephone conversations until I get the report. (Transcript 6/9/94:9).September 1994 Attorney Colangelo withdrew, and Michael Hagopian entered as Vincent’s lawyer. Chief Judge Jeremiah approved arrangements for Vincent’s supervised visits with his son in Illinois, plus telephone contact with his daughter on Thursdays from 7 to 7:30 p.m.
Vincent prepared a one-page “synopsis” of the transcript of that hearing that misrepresented Jeremiah’s order. (Click on documents to enlarge.)
In his synopsis of Chief Jeremiah's order (above), Vincent wrote:
After consideration, the Court concluded that it would be appropriate for [the mother’s] brother to deliver the child to [the father] for an unsupervised visit with his daughter (p. 6 lines 12-18). [I have italicized key words here and below.]
In fact those lines in the transcript refer specifically to the son alone, for Jeremiah instructed the mother:
… your brother will be there to have the child go with his father.
In his synopsis, Vincent misrepresented another point:
The Court went on to review the report of Childhood Trauma Treatment Program and concluded that there was not a credible story of molestation (p. 7 lines 1-11).
But in fact, Jeremiah’s reference in those lines applied only to the son, not the daughter:
. . . in reviewing the report of the Childhood Trauma Treatment Program, it stated my professional opinion these do not constitute spontaneous disclosures that list the father sexually abused him.
Here are excerpts of the transcript to compare to Vincent's synopsis. His synopsis referred to his former wife's complaints on page 2. In the transcript she is talking about his astonishingly low child support. (Click on documents to enlarge.)
On pages 6 through 8, the transcript refers to supervised visits with his son and phone calls with his daughter. (Vincent's synopsis of the transcript changed this to unsupervised visits with his daughter, with no mention of his son.)
When he drafted the final order, Hagopian did not go as far as Vincent’s synopsis had tried to revise Jeremiah's words. Hagopian drafted the order to give his client unsupervised visits and weekly phone calls with both children, but no overnights. And he got Judge Jeremiah's signature:
But a full decade later, Justice Michael Forte incorrectly described this order as if it had "reinstated unsupervised overnight visits."
After the results (unfounded) of the Illinois evaluation, the Chief Judge reinstated overnight visitation with both children by Order of July 29, 1994. (Forte, Decision, 7/6/2004:2)
[In fact Jeremiah clearly said "no overnights" on July 29. Forte is referring to the written Order of September 26, 1994, pictured above, which followed the Illinois evaluation, but also did not allow overnight visits. Later I will relate how mediator David Tassoni, with Justice Forte punished Vincent's children.
[Lawyers’ paperwork is a frequent cause of delay, expense, inaccuracy, and emotional distress in Family Court due to the failure to follow through on filing essential documents, the misrepresentation of judges’ orders, and the lack of clarity in many orders. Family Court does enormous harm when it uses adversarial litigation in these cases.
[A better option could be for evidence of crimes like domestic violence and sexual abuse to go to the Attorney General, Grand Jury, Superior Court, and jury trials. Helping families resolve ongoing crises would be far better served with a single multidisciplinary team from beginning to end, as described in the prior post. That team could include a writer and clerk responsible for timely filing of coherent and accurate documents. The Court needs to steadfastly remove opportunities for private contractors to profit from inflaming these cases.]
NEXT: 9.E. How "Vincent" got the Chief Judge to apologize.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
9.B. Vincent's first two Family Court cases begin (1982 - 1993)
This case study begins at 9.A., below.
1982 - 1991 (Two wives, two families)
In 1982, Vincent’s first wife, a college counselor, called campus security guards for protection. She reported her husband’s threats to kill her, to harm her colleagues, and to take their 2-year-old son. Evidence of his documented assaults never entered their “no-fault” divorce hearing. A Family Court judge ordered joint custody and shared placement of their child.
[Joint custody and shared placement of trophy children spares the abusive parent from having to pay child support while throwing children’s lives into constant emotional chaos as they struggle to move back and forth between two parenting styles that may be radically opposed. In many domestic violence cases, for example, one parent may be generally nurturing, while the other is highly punitive.]
Vincent’s second wife gave birth to their son in 1989 and their daughter in 1990.
In 1991 Vincent’s first wife sought sole custody citing problems with joint custody.
That same year, his second wife called Cranston police saying Vincent had kicked her in the groin.
1992 – 1993 (When his younger children are ages 2 to 4)
At the beginning, Chief Judge Jeremiah recognized Vincent’s pattern of abuse and tried to intervene. Like many judges, he did not see that domestic abuse of a mother is a strong indication that children are also in danger. He was guided by Pettinato’s “friendly parent” standard that forces children to maintain relationships with both parents, even if one has been cruel and abusive.
December 1992 Vincent’s second wife filed for divorce, and Vincent moved out of their home.
January 1993 His two younger children began court-ordered visits, spending three days and two nights each week with their father, his male roommate, and his older son, 13, whose visits were arranged to coincide with the younger children’s.
February 1993 The two-year-old daughter began having trouble sleeping. She suffered from bed-wetting, night terrors, and stomach aches. A doctor performed a sexual abuse exam and reported concerns to DCYF.
February 1993 General Magistrate John O’Brien ordered DCYF to conduct a domestic relations home study of Vincent's second family.
NEXT: 9.C. DCYF enters
1982 - 1991 (Two wives, two families)
In 1982, Vincent’s first wife, a college counselor, called campus security guards for protection. She reported her husband’s threats to kill her, to harm her colleagues, and to take their 2-year-old son. Evidence of his documented assaults never entered their “no-fault” divorce hearing. A Family Court judge ordered joint custody and shared placement of their child.
[Joint custody and shared placement of trophy children spares the abusive parent from having to pay child support while throwing children’s lives into constant emotional chaos as they struggle to move back and forth between two parenting styles that may be radically opposed. In many domestic violence cases, for example, one parent may be generally nurturing, while the other is highly punitive.]
Vincent’s second wife gave birth to their son in 1989 and their daughter in 1990.
In 1991 Vincent’s first wife sought sole custody citing problems with joint custody.
That same year, his second wife called Cranston police saying Vincent had kicked her in the groin.
1992 – 1993 (When his younger children are ages 2 to 4)
At the beginning, Chief Judge Jeremiah recognized Vincent’s pattern of abuse and tried to intervene. Like many judges, he did not see that domestic abuse of a mother is a strong indication that children are also in danger. He was guided by Pettinato’s “friendly parent” standard that forces children to maintain relationships with both parents, even if one has been cruel and abusive.
December 1992 Vincent’s second wife filed for divorce, and Vincent moved out of their home.
January 1993 His two younger children began court-ordered visits, spending three days and two nights each week with their father, his male roommate, and his older son, 13, whose visits were arranged to coincide with the younger children’s.
February 1993 The two-year-old daughter began having trouble sleeping. She suffered from bed-wetting, night terrors, and stomach aches. A doctor performed a sexual abuse exam and reported concerns to DCYF.
February 1993 General Magistrate John O’Brien ordered DCYF to conduct a domestic relations home study of Vincent's second family.
NEXT: 9.C. DCYF enters
9.A. How "Vincent" drove judges crazy
[This case study will extend through several posts. My comments appear in italicized brackets.]
In the early 1990s, I watched Chief Judge Jeremiah make a strong effort to respond to some domestic violence cases, especially when people contacted him directly about the dangers they faced. He sometimes took over judging those cases himself.
Sometimes he favored abusers, like the police officer who held custody of his daughter for a dozen years while he kept getting his ex-wife arrested on false charges.
Often Chief Jeremiah brought in his close circle of lawyers and staff to work on cases. [I thought some of them abused their power, as in the Case Study, at 3, below.]
People who received the Chief’s personal help were grateful, while the Family Court system as a whole continued putting vulnerable children at risk-- along with the parents trying to protect them, who were traumatized by the Court as much as by their abusers.
Pettinato’s “friendly parent” standard (see post 8, below) required judges to force children into damaging relationships with aggressively manipulative personalities—like one I will call “Vincent,” who drove judges crazy.
Vincent’s relatives said he had suffered extreme child abuse, but he would not talk about it. As an adult, he refused to take orders from anyone. He married three times and insisted on controlling his wives and children.
Vincent’s bullying behavior distressed professionals outside and within Family Court, including a series of judges. He tried to control his second family through the court for 14 years (1992-2006). He manipulated the court process at enormous cost to his children, to his former wife, and to taxpayers who funded those fourteen years in operating costs, overhead and salaries of judges, sheriffs, clerks, stenographers, DCYF staff, and many others on public payrolls.
Vincent drove a series of judges to distraction—especially Jeremiah, O’Brien, Lipsey, and Forte.
Lipsey finally figured out what was going on and even named it. But instead of making a finding, he did something extraordinary and recused himself. He explained that Rhode Island's Code of Judicial Conduct precluded him from ruling on the case because, after studying all the evidence, he had become biased against Vincent!
The case went next to Forte, its twelfth judge, who revealed intense bias against Vincent’s wife, but never showed any qualms of conscience about Canon 3E of the Judicial Code.
Most judges preferred to blame both sides without recognizing (as Lipsey did) that one side was very clearly at fault.
NEXT: 9.B. A chronology of Vincent’s case
In the early 1990s, I watched Chief Judge Jeremiah make a strong effort to respond to some domestic violence cases, especially when people contacted him directly about the dangers they faced. He sometimes took over judging those cases himself.
Sometimes he favored abusers, like the police officer who held custody of his daughter for a dozen years while he kept getting his ex-wife arrested on false charges.
Often Chief Jeremiah brought in his close circle of lawyers and staff to work on cases. [I thought some of them abused their power, as in the Case Study, at 3, below.]
People who received the Chief’s personal help were grateful, while the Family Court system as a whole continued putting vulnerable children at risk-- along with the parents trying to protect them, who were traumatized by the Court as much as by their abusers.
Pettinato’s “friendly parent” standard (see post 8, below) required judges to force children into damaging relationships with aggressively manipulative personalities—like one I will call “Vincent,” who drove judges crazy.
Vincent’s relatives said he had suffered extreme child abuse, but he would not talk about it. As an adult, he refused to take orders from anyone. He married three times and insisted on controlling his wives and children.
Vincent’s bullying behavior distressed professionals outside and within Family Court, including a series of judges. He tried to control his second family through the court for 14 years (1992-2006). He manipulated the court process at enormous cost to his children, to his former wife, and to taxpayers who funded those fourteen years in operating costs, overhead and salaries of judges, sheriffs, clerks, stenographers, DCYF staff, and many others on public payrolls.
Vincent drove a series of judges to distraction—especially Jeremiah, O’Brien, Lipsey, and Forte.
Lipsey finally figured out what was going on and even named it. But instead of making a finding, he did something extraordinary and recused himself. He explained that Rhode Island's Code of Judicial Conduct precluded him from ruling on the case because, after studying all the evidence, he had become biased against Vincent!
The case went next to Forte, its twelfth judge, who revealed intense bias against Vincent’s wife, but never showed any qualms of conscience about Canon 3E of the Judicial Code.
Most judges preferred to blame both sides without recognizing (as Lipsey did) that one side was very clearly at fault.
NEXT: 9.B. A chronology of Vincent’s case
Sunday, August 8, 2010
3.A. Case Study: Findings of fact
A recorded phone message came last month from a 10-year-old to the grandmother who had cared for her until Justice Stephen Capineri placed her with her father at the end of this school year:
“Hello?” She speaks in a tiny, hesitant voice. Her father interjects: “Nobody there.”
“Oh, eh,” the girl stumbles, but continues to leave her message: “Hello. . . .” She uses her grandmother’s ethnic title and continues: “I miss you. Please call me back. Love you. Bye.” At the last instant, her tone changes to a frantic scream: “I love you!” The message ends.
I recently sat three rows behind the girl and her father at a piano concert. I was surprised to see them. Her father once claimed to be blind, though he seemed to be reading the covers of the CDs for sale.
Knowing their custody case, I had concerns about his character. Seeing them at the concert prompted me to go scan the court files and learn what was happening in her case and that of her older sister.
Some of the allegations this girl’s father and mother have flung at each other may have merit, but others make me suspicious. Litigation clearly is being used as a tool of coercion and control, fueled by the wealth of a Fortune 500 company that has drawn a swarm of lawyers eager to occupy the Family Court calendar.
The case demonstrates several troubling facts about Family Court:
On May 18, 2001, at Kent County Courthouse, Family Court Associate Justice Kathleen Voccola appointed attorney Patricia Murray-Rapoza as guardian ad litem for two sisters, aged one and two.
On that same day, attorney William Holt launched a custody suit against their mother on behalf of a vice president of Textron, for whom she worked, who claimed to be the younger girl’s father.
Voccola, Murray-Rapoza, and Holt were all close to Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah, Jr.
In 1979, Jeremiah was Cranston’s city solicitor under Mayor Edward DiPrete when Voccola became assistant solicitor. Holt worked with them as an administrative assistant in the mayor’s office while going to law school.
Voccola oversaw liquor licenses for the city until DiPrete became Governor in 1985 and made Voccola the State’s liquor control administrator.
Jeremiah served as executive counsel to Governor DiPrete, who appointed him to the Family Court bench in 1986 and made him Chief Judge a year later.
In 1988 – despite revelations of corruption in DiPrete’s administration – Voccola agreed to fill out the Republican ticket in a doomed race for Attorney General. She lost, but DiPrete won re-election as Governor, and in 1989, he appointed her to a coveted lifetime seat on the Family Court bench.
In 1998, DiPrete pled guilty to 18 felonies. This saved the state the cost of a trial, but it denied citizens the opportunity to learn details about his crimes and co-conspirators. The former governor spent a year in prison and lost his pension.
Jeremiah, Voccola, Holt, and Murray-Rapoza have not been linked to DiPrete’s wrongdoing.
Skip ahead to May 2, 2001. Murray-Rapoza purchased Chief Jeremiah’s Cranston office building, where both she and Holt had been tenants. The building had become an embarrassment to Jeremiah when he awarded public funds to a police group that paid him part of the grant as rent.
Murray-Rapoza bought the building. Jeremiah took back the mortgage and joked in court that she made regular payments to him.
On May 18th, Judge Voccola signed the order making Murray-Rapoza guardian ad litem for the two young sisters in a custody case that promised to pay well.
Three weeks after that, in June 2001, Textron fired its VP, Holt’s client, for cause amidst allegations against him of sexual harassment. The daughter born to him and his subordinate in 2000 grew to look like a twin of her older sister.
Today, the woman’s former husband says it was the worst day of his life when DNA proved the younger child was not his. He says he still loves the children as if both were his. He and his daughter see the younger girl and her father each week. He wants them to grow up close to each other and respecting all three parents.
When the girls were little, he thought they should stay together with their mother. But then she began travelling to other states, pursuing careers elsewhere, leaving the children in the care of their grandmother, who could not drive or speak English. He said the older woman seemed overwhelmed.
When his former wife had both girls living with her, he tells me, she “missed most of the major holidays with them and never notified the fathers that she would not be there.”
Each father went to court after Christmas 2009, when they said their daughters spent the holiday with their grandmother, but without any of their parents. Early this year, each father won temporary sole custody, though the girls were allowed to finish the school year where they were.
Now their mother lives in Texas, where she says she is married again and pregnant. She tells me she commuted to her home in Rhode Island when the children were there. She sends daily emails to the fathers, demanding to speak with each girl on the phone, but the court has forbidden her to communicate with them. Both fathers allege that she encouraged the girls to lie and be disruptive. When the court scheduled a trial for June 30th, she sent a note from her Texas obstetrician saying complications in her pregnancy made her unable to travel.
Meanwhile she says that her right to due process has been violated in both cases. She is seeking writs of certiorari from the Supreme Court.
Should we be spending public funds to sort out such interminable chaos?
The wealthy father has no lack of lawyers. The other father represents himself, though his motions appear to be prepared by the wealthy father's lawyer. The mother researches law and submits countless motions, sometimes without help of a lawyer. The cost to the state is enormous in salaries for judges, clerks, stenographers, sheriffs, and overhead. But the children have most to lose.
As far as I can tell, this is not a domestic violence case like those I usually write about--though all sides have felt abused. The mother alleges that her former supervisor, father of her younger daughter, committed domestic violence by "pushing, shoving, hitting, yelling obscenities, threats and intimidation" and (according to her daughter) made the little girl sleep in the same bed with him when he took her to hotels for his visits. Sadly, from my own study of this case over six years, I believe that only the original father seems focused on the children and their needs. The other two parents seem obsessed with litigation in a system that appears to be destroying them all.
The cost is enormous to the state and far more to the children. But some have reaped rewards.
NEXT: B. Going for the Gold
“Hello?” She speaks in a tiny, hesitant voice. Her father interjects: “Nobody there.”
“Oh, eh,” the girl stumbles, but continues to leave her message: “Hello. . . .” She uses her grandmother’s ethnic title and continues: “I miss you. Please call me back. Love you. Bye.” At the last instant, her tone changes to a frantic scream: “I love you!” The message ends.
I recently sat three rows behind the girl and her father at a piano concert. I was surprised to see them. Her father once claimed to be blind, though he seemed to be reading the covers of the CDs for sale.
Knowing their custody case, I had concerns about his character. Seeing them at the concert prompted me to go scan the court files and learn what was happening in her case and that of her older sister.
Some of the allegations this girl’s father and mother have flung at each other may have merit, but others make me suspicious. Litigation clearly is being used as a tool of coercion and control, fueled by the wealth of a Fortune 500 company that has drawn a swarm of lawyers eager to occupy the Family Court calendar.
The case demonstrates several troubling facts about Family Court:
1. The Court is fraught with legal abuse by litigants and officials alike.
2. Conflicts-of-interest involving judges and lawyers produce a defective brand of justice.
3. Adversarial litigation often re-traumatizes troubled families.
4. Frivolous litigation makes Family Court a goldmine for a small group of lawyers (who ironically accuse this mother of being a “gold-digger”).
On May 18, 2001, at Kent County Courthouse, Family Court Associate Justice Kathleen Voccola appointed attorney Patricia Murray-Rapoza as guardian ad litem for two sisters, aged one and two.
On that same day, attorney William Holt launched a custody suit against their mother on behalf of a vice president of Textron, for whom she worked, who claimed to be the younger girl’s father.
Voccola, Murray-Rapoza, and Holt were all close to Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah, Jr.
In 1979, Jeremiah was Cranston’s city solicitor under Mayor Edward DiPrete when Voccola became assistant solicitor. Holt worked with them as an administrative assistant in the mayor’s office while going to law school.
Voccola oversaw liquor licenses for the city until DiPrete became Governor in 1985 and made Voccola the State’s liquor control administrator.
Jeremiah served as executive counsel to Governor DiPrete, who appointed him to the Family Court bench in 1986 and made him Chief Judge a year later.
In 1988 – despite revelations of corruption in DiPrete’s administration – Voccola agreed to fill out the Republican ticket in a doomed race for Attorney General. She lost, but DiPrete won re-election as Governor, and in 1989, he appointed her to a coveted lifetime seat on the Family Court bench.
In 1998, DiPrete pled guilty to 18 felonies. This saved the state the cost of a trial, but it denied citizens the opportunity to learn details about his crimes and co-conspirators. The former governor spent a year in prison and lost his pension.
Jeremiah, Voccola, Holt, and Murray-Rapoza have not been linked to DiPrete’s wrongdoing.
Skip ahead to May 2, 2001. Murray-Rapoza purchased Chief Jeremiah’s Cranston office building, where both she and Holt had been tenants. The building had become an embarrassment to Jeremiah when he awarded public funds to a police group that paid him part of the grant as rent.
Murray-Rapoza bought the building. Jeremiah took back the mortgage and joked in court that she made regular payments to him.
On May 18th, Judge Voccola signed the order making Murray-Rapoza guardian ad litem for the two young sisters in a custody case that promised to pay well.
Three weeks after that, in June 2001, Textron fired its VP, Holt’s client, for cause amidst allegations against him of sexual harassment. The daughter born to him and his subordinate in 2000 grew to look like a twin of her older sister.
Today, the woman’s former husband says it was the worst day of his life when DNA proved the younger child was not his. He says he still loves the children as if both were his. He and his daughter see the younger girl and her father each week. He wants them to grow up close to each other and respecting all three parents.
When the girls were little, he thought they should stay together with their mother. But then she began travelling to other states, pursuing careers elsewhere, leaving the children in the care of their grandmother, who could not drive or speak English. He said the older woman seemed overwhelmed.
When his former wife had both girls living with her, he tells me, she “missed most of the major holidays with them and never notified the fathers that she would not be there.”
Each father went to court after Christmas 2009, when they said their daughters spent the holiday with their grandmother, but without any of their parents. Early this year, each father won temporary sole custody, though the girls were allowed to finish the school year where they were.
Now their mother lives in Texas, where she says she is married again and pregnant. She tells me she commuted to her home in Rhode Island when the children were there. She sends daily emails to the fathers, demanding to speak with each girl on the phone, but the court has forbidden her to communicate with them. Both fathers allege that she encouraged the girls to lie and be disruptive. When the court scheduled a trial for June 30th, she sent a note from her Texas obstetrician saying complications in her pregnancy made her unable to travel.
Meanwhile she says that her right to due process has been violated in both cases. She is seeking writs of certiorari from the Supreme Court.
Should we be spending public funds to sort out such interminable chaos?
The wealthy father has no lack of lawyers. The other father represents himself, though his motions appear to be prepared by the wealthy father's lawyer. The mother researches law and submits countless motions, sometimes without help of a lawyer. The cost to the state is enormous in salaries for judges, clerks, stenographers, sheriffs, and overhead. But the children have most to lose.
As far as I can tell, this is not a domestic violence case like those I usually write about--though all sides have felt abused. The mother alleges that her former supervisor, father of her younger daughter, committed domestic violence by "pushing, shoving, hitting, yelling obscenities, threats and intimidation" and (according to her daughter) made the little girl sleep in the same bed with him when he took her to hotels for his visits. Sadly, from my own study of this case over six years, I believe that only the original father seems focused on the children and their needs. The other two parents seem obsessed with litigation in a system that appears to be destroying them all.
The cost is enormous to the state and far more to the children. But some have reaped rewards.
NEXT: B. Going for the Gold
Friday, July 30, 2010
1. Will the new Chief Judge of Family Court raise the bar?
This oped ran in the Providence Journal on Monday, August 16, 2010:
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_grant16_08-16-10_VTJDP0E_v22.2983051.html
Rhode Islanders have a fleeting chance this summer to help decide who will lead our beleaguered Family Court. On August 10th, at 5:15 p.m., the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) will interview six candidates to be next Chief Judge of Family Court: Haiganush R. Bedrosian, Stephen J. Capineri, Laureen D’Ambra, Michael B. Forte, John E. McCann, and Kathleen A. Voccola.
It may not be easy for these judges to criticize a system that already gives them life tenure, generous salaries, health benefits, pensions, and enormous power. But some will have valuable insights to stop an escalating spiral of abuse that re-traumatizes many families trapped there.
The list of nominees prepared this month by the JNC and the final choice by Gov. Carcieri in the fall may shape our Family Court for decades to come.
Twenty-three years ago, Gov. Edward DiPrete famously made his “best friend” Chief of Family Court. DiPrete later pled guilty to 18 felonies and spent a year in prison for crimes he committed in office. Though Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah, Jr., was never linked to DiPrete’s wrongdoing, conflicts-of-interest have seeped into Family Court proceedings at many levels.
The process of nominating judges has always been subject to enormous political pressure, even after the 1994 constitutional amendment that established merit selection for all Rhode Island judges. One quarter of our legislators are lawyers and one-half of the JNC is required to be lawyers. Lawyers rely on judges to preserve and protect their livelihood, while judges rely on legislators to fund their salaries.
For several years, professional journals have recognized that adversarial litigation does more harm than good in many civil cases, especially those involving crimes like domestic violence or sexual abuse, which become inadmissible in custody deliberations after a no-fault divorce. Mediation ignores past patterns of abusive control that judges need to recognize. New research shows damage being done by guardians ad litem, “experts” and court-ordered “therapy.”
The Rhode Island Family Court needs to move to a better model in attempting to resolve these critical custody cases. Perhaps a new model will require specialized training in collaborative law with centralized salaries instead of the private contractors who profiteer on adversarial law and pride themselves on cutting the other side to shreds.
A new blog, “Trophy Child,” at http://trophychild.blogspot.com, will discuss some of these issues—especially when the court gives children to the very people identified as harming them. A variety of subjects emerge from these cases: the role of gag orders; ex parte emergency orders; supervised visitation; frivolous litigation; trust funds; the problem with the Supreme Court’s friendly-parent factor in Pettinato; and more.
I have presented one confidential account of a “trophy child” to the Governor, JNC commissioners, candidates, and a small number of news professionals who agreed not to reveal specifics of that case for the safety of the child. This case does not reflect directly on any of the candidates presently under consideration, but it illustrates a culture of control, intrigue and deceit that has led many fine lawyers and mental health professionals to avoid this court altogether.
Candidates for Chief Judge of Family Court must show whether they possess the insight to recognize these problems, the candor to name them, and the resourcefulness to raise the bar and assure the highest standards of justice for families in crisis.
Candidates must also suggest a safe way for whistleblowers to expose abuses of favoritism throughout the system whether by judges, magistrates, officers, guardians, employees, contractors, or others.
Which of these six candidates can envision and inspire change? Which one has stamina to lift the bar to a new standard of civility and diligence so that this court appeals to the highest caliber of lawyers?
Even in summer, when many would prefer to relax, concerned citizens must listen to these candidates’ presentations to the Judicial Nominating Commission on August 10th. A week later, on August 17th, members of the public may comment on the candidates.
Unless the public steps up to listen, learn, and demand the government we deserve, Rhode Island will continue to create new generations of trophy children.
Under the Open Meetings Law, the public is welcome to attend most meetings of the Judicial Nominating Commission. These take place at 5:15 p.m. at the Department of Administration in Providence, One Capitol Hill, Second Floor Conference Room B, Providence, Rhode Island (the modern building across from the State House on Smith Street).
On August 10th, at 5:15 p.m., the six candidates for Chief Judge of Family Court will present their visions for the Court. On August 17th, the public may sign in to make brief comments about the candidates. For more about the JNC, visit their website:
http://www.jnc.ri.gov/
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_grant16_08-16-10_VTJDP0E_v22.2983051.html
Rhode Islanders have a fleeting chance this summer to help decide who will lead our beleaguered Family Court. On August 10th, at 5:15 p.m., the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) will interview six candidates to be next Chief Judge of Family Court: Haiganush R. Bedrosian, Stephen J. Capineri, Laureen D’Ambra, Michael B. Forte, John E. McCann, and Kathleen A. Voccola.
It may not be easy for these judges to criticize a system that already gives them life tenure, generous salaries, health benefits, pensions, and enormous power. But some will have valuable insights to stop an escalating spiral of abuse that re-traumatizes many families trapped there.
The list of nominees prepared this month by the JNC and the final choice by Gov. Carcieri in the fall may shape our Family Court for decades to come.
Twenty-three years ago, Gov. Edward DiPrete famously made his “best friend” Chief of Family Court. DiPrete later pled guilty to 18 felonies and spent a year in prison for crimes he committed in office. Though Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah, Jr., was never linked to DiPrete’s wrongdoing, conflicts-of-interest have seeped into Family Court proceedings at many levels.
The process of nominating judges has always been subject to enormous political pressure, even after the 1994 constitutional amendment that established merit selection for all Rhode Island judges. One quarter of our legislators are lawyers and one-half of the JNC is required to be lawyers. Lawyers rely on judges to preserve and protect their livelihood, while judges rely on legislators to fund their salaries.
For several years, professional journals have recognized that adversarial litigation does more harm than good in many civil cases, especially those involving crimes like domestic violence or sexual abuse, which become inadmissible in custody deliberations after a no-fault divorce. Mediation ignores past patterns of abusive control that judges need to recognize. New research shows damage being done by guardians ad litem, “experts” and court-ordered “therapy.”
The Rhode Island Family Court needs to move to a better model in attempting to resolve these critical custody cases. Perhaps a new model will require specialized training in collaborative law with centralized salaries instead of the private contractors who profiteer on adversarial law and pride themselves on cutting the other side to shreds.
A new blog, “Trophy Child,” at http://trophychild.blogspot.com, will discuss some of these issues—especially when the court gives children to the very people identified as harming them. A variety of subjects emerge from these cases: the role of gag orders; ex parte emergency orders; supervised visitation; frivolous litigation; trust funds; the problem with the Supreme Court’s friendly-parent factor in Pettinato; and more.
I have presented one confidential account of a “trophy child” to the Governor, JNC commissioners, candidates, and a small number of news professionals who agreed not to reveal specifics of that case for the safety of the child. This case does not reflect directly on any of the candidates presently under consideration, but it illustrates a culture of control, intrigue and deceit that has led many fine lawyers and mental health professionals to avoid this court altogether.
Candidates for Chief Judge of Family Court must show whether they possess the insight to recognize these problems, the candor to name them, and the resourcefulness to raise the bar and assure the highest standards of justice for families in crisis.
Candidates must also suggest a safe way for whistleblowers to expose abuses of favoritism throughout the system whether by judges, magistrates, officers, guardians, employees, contractors, or others.
Which of these six candidates can envision and inspire change? Which one has stamina to lift the bar to a new standard of civility and diligence so that this court appeals to the highest caliber of lawyers?
Even in summer, when many would prefer to relax, concerned citizens must listen to these candidates’ presentations to the Judicial Nominating Commission on August 10th. A week later, on August 17th, members of the public may comment on the candidates.
Unless the public steps up to listen, learn, and demand the government we deserve, Rhode Island will continue to create new generations of trophy children.
Under the Open Meetings Law, the public is welcome to attend most meetings of the Judicial Nominating Commission. These take place at 5:15 p.m. at the Department of Administration in Providence, One Capitol Hill, Second Floor Conference Room B, Providence, Rhode Island (the modern building across from the State House on Smith Street).
On August 10th, at 5:15 p.m., the six candidates for Chief Judge of Family Court will present their visions for the Court. On August 17th, the public may sign in to make brief comments about the candidates. For more about the JNC, visit their website:
http://www.jnc.ri.gov/
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