Uncovering Family Court Corruption with Michael Volpe – Grey Minds Think Alike - Grey Minds Think Ali.Ke

Episode 6

Episode 6: Uncovering Family Court Corruption with Michael Volpe

This is your go-to Podcast, where we help parents navigate the complexities of family life. Hosted by Ali Kessler of Greyson’s Choice, we’ll cover everything from understanding domestic violence to navigating the legal system, finding the right therapists, life hacks, family law, mental health, custody battles, and how to protect children in dangerous situations. 

Ali Kessler speaks with Michael Volpe, a freelance journalist, and discusses his journey into investigative journalism, focusing on political, police, corporate, and nonprofit corruption. He shares insights into the systemic issues within family courts, the abuse of power by Child Protective Services (CPS), and the impact of whistleblowers. Volpe highlights significant cases, including the St. Louis family court corruption and the consequences of reunification therapy, emphasizing the need for reform in the system. In this conversation, Michael Volpe discusses the complexities and challenges of the child custody system, highlighting the rise of reunification camps, the excessive power of judges, and the role of lawyers in perpetuating conflict. He proposes several reforms aimed at simplifying the system and reducing the influence of money and third-party appointees. The discussion also touches on specific cases, including the Kassenoff case, and the broader implications of family court decisions on children and parents alike. Volpe emphasizes the growing awareness of these issues and the momentum for reform in the legal system.

Takeaways

  • Michael Volpe has been a journalist since 2010, focusing on corruption.
  • He investigates family court abuses and CPS misconduct.
  • Volpe's work includes wrongful convictions and high-profile cases.
  • He started journalism after a career in mortgage brokering.
  • Whistleblowers play a crucial role in exposing corruption.
  • CPS often operates without proper judicial oversight.
  • The family court system can perpetuate abuse for financial gain.
  • Reunification therapy can be harmful and traumatic for children.
  • Volpe's investigations have led to significant media coverage.
  • There is a growing movement for reform in family court practices. Reunification camps have gained attention, with some states banning them.
  • Child custody cases are complex and require individualized attention.
  • Judges hold excessive power in custody decisions.
  • The financial incentives in custody cases complicate outcomes.
  • Eliminating court appointees could simplify the custody process.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Grey Minds Think Alike

00:03 Meet Michael Volpe: Investigative Journalist

00:32 Michael's Journey into Journalism

01:03 Exposing Corruption in Family Courts

02:36 The Emory University Scandal

04:03 Whistleblowers and CPS Abuses

07:37 The Chris Macney Tragedy

10:20 Uncovering the AFCC Racket

11:58 St. Louis Family Court Corruption

16:56 Reunification Therapy Controversies

22:38 David Segee's Fight for Justice

25:55 The Guardian Item Racket

26:28 Legal Reforms and Exposure

26:44 Reunification Therapy and Custody Battles

28:14 Systemic Issues in Family Courts

28:50 Proposed Solutions to Fix the System

31:32 Scummy Divorce Lawyers

39:24 The Kassenoff Case

44:21 Father's Rights Movements and Gender Stereotypes

46:32 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

About Michael Volpe

After spending more than a decade in finance, Michael Volpe changed course entirely in his professional career and became a freelance journalist. Since 2009, he's been published locally in Chicago in newspapers and magazines like New City, Times of Northwest Indiana, Inside Booster, Welles Park Bulldog, Chicago Reader, and Chicago Heights Patch. He's also expanded into national stories. On the national level, his work has been published in such places as the Daily Caller, WND, CounterPunch, Crime Magazine, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Newsletter, Front Page Magazine, and Big Government.

In 2009, his expose of Dr. Anna Chacko led in part to her termination from the Pittsburgh VA. His expose of Dr. Chacko also received coverage in the Pittsburgh Tribune as well as the radiology website Aunt Minnie. In October 2012, he published his first book entitled "Prosecutors Gone Wild: The Inside Story of the Trial of Chuck Panici, John Gliottoni, and Louise Marshall." 

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About Ali Kessler: Ali Kessler is a writer, marketing professional, passionate parent advocate, and founder of Greyson’s Choice, a 501(c)(3) created to raise awareness about the risk of domestic abuse on children. Greyson’s Choice was founded by Ali Kessler in memory of her sweet, vibrant, and fearless 4.5-year-old son, Greyson, who was murdered by his biological father in a murder-suicide during an unsupervised, court-approved visit in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, in 2021. This came just hours after her petition for a domestic violence injunction was denied by a Broward County judge, citing that the “petitioner has failed to allege any overt acts by the respondent which would constitute domestic violence under Florida Statute.”

Ali’s advocacy efforts culminated in successfully passing Greyson’s Law during the 2023 legislative session. This bill now requires the court to consider threats against ex-partners or spouses when making child visitation and custody determinations in the court, expanding to include the following factors: evidence of domestic violence, whether a parent in the past or currently has reasonable cause to believe that they or a minor child is, or has been in imminent danger of becoming the victim of domestic/sexual violence by the other parent, even if no other legal action has been brought or is currently pending in court.

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Transcript
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And then. For the last three years, I created my own substack, michaelvolpe.substack. com And actually, there are four books. There's another book called Sandra Guzzini, Rucky, and the World's Last Custody Trial, and the Definitive Gossip, PTSD, and Whistleblowers. And I do a lot of; I investigate many things, but definitely one of the focuses, the court in general, Family court specifically, as well as CPS abuses and also guardianship abuse.

And in some states, it's called conservatorship. And I say guardianship is very similar to CPS only for old people generally. But Britney Spears, who obviously is not old, it's, that's an example of someone who isn't old, she was in conservatorship. Because in California, for whatever reason, they decided to use their own term.

So I do a lot of that. And wrongful convictions, those don't come along as often, but it's wrongful convictions and abuses in the criminal process is a huge problem. And I'm actually working on one that involves Sean Diddy Combs as well cause one of his accusers, I believe it was then later on wrongfully convicted or grave. So that's the kind of stuff I do. So, and I'm, right now I'm working on one. Where there's, there looks like in a, a legitimate rape or a rape with a lot of evidence that the local police refuses to investigate and prosecute. So the abuses go both ways. I think sometimes people are wrongfully accused.

And then, as I said, in other cases, a perpetrator who did perpetrate the crime as being protected as frankly in the case of Diddy.

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And then a whistle blew. Yeah, very, very good school. Well, what I read was that the medical school was abusing its relationship with Grady [00:03:00] Hospital, which is the hospital there. And they have the privilege; they, the medical students, are taught not just at Grady but primarily at Grady because Grady is massive. So, It's like, a bootcamp in terms of learning medicine if you go to med school. Cause and it's all poor people. So, it's a lot of like emergencies cause they don't get regular care. But when something goes wrong, they go to Grady cause that's a public hospital. So they don't have to pay.

And so Emory was abusing its relationship with Grady. And they would often leave the medical students alone there to treat the poor patients. Because the poor patients aren't going to complain among other abuses. So I just wrote something very quickly. A former medical student named Kevin Kritsky contacted me after reading it and said, there's a lot more to the story.

And we went through it. And I started writing specifically about that, not yet making any money. And from there, I eventually started to make a little money. I was still mostly doing mortgages. And from there, I met others like medical whistleblowers. And the way that I initially got involved in family court abuse was I then gained a reputation among whistleblowers in a variety of fields, and I did a lot of different whistleblower stories, but I received an email like a press release from a group That was trying to expose I don't know what they call it, but CPS abuses in either Philadelphia or Pennsylvania. And it looked like an interesting story and I got WND to write about and I think it's something about, , no warrants break down your door. And a lot of the people who I talked to that, something like that where CPS would show up, no warrant, they'd break down your door, grab your kids, no, no anything. And somehow this was allowed. And if you know anything, the reason that's allowed, and it's really not allowed. I interviewed a guy, Victor Eisler, who was the head of CPS in Forsyth County in North Carolina. And what he said is, we're on an emergency basis allowed to take a child for 48 business days, and then you have to go to court.

And so it's not allowed. The rules are always different state to state, but CPS isn't really just allowed to take your child for any reason and hold them for any amount of time. They have to get a judicial order and there usually is, there usually is a carve out, like if they believe it's an emergency, if they saw someone with an ax, they don't, you don't grab the kid.

And then go back later, but it's usually something like 48 hours, but there's all sorts of abuses involving CPS. So I did that story, and I think that story got picked up either by Alex Jones or somebody bigger. And so it did well. And then one of the people who I talked to for that story was Connie Valentine, and she thinks she's retired now, but she definitely was high level in the California Protective Parents Association.

And they shouldn't vote, even though protective parents, it's really primarily for women, which is okay. But I, Connie seemed to know a lot of stuff. So I wanted to do a follow up that was interesting. And I say, so I called Connie and I said, Connie, you're like, Involved. What is what you seen? That's a really big problem that people are talking about that someone should investigate. And she said, Well, I think corrupt custody evaluators. That's a really big problem. That's what we're seeing. And at that time, I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what a custody evaluator was. I don't know anything about it. And I said, Okay, well, I can have a few people call me who had a corrupt custody evaluator. And so over the next two days, I had an enormous amount of people call me. It was probably 20 and I'd say 19 of them were women. And so initially I started to think, well, then that means that primarily women are being screwed. And I've stopped looking at that question because being screwed, it It's very hard.

How do you measure being screwed? But eventually I talked to a lot of men as well, but primarily I do talk to women for a variety of reasons. But anyway, I saw that as an interesting story and I took it to WND and they rejected it. And at that point I realized there's both something here. Because their rejection wasn't just, no, they were like, don't ever bring us anything like this again.

So, there's both something here, but something that the media isn't covering. And on some level, I should have just let it go, because it probably wasn't going to be like a good career path. You should cover things that are easy to get published. But I also, one of the people I talked to, and ironically, a man, was Chris Macney, and the reason I talked to him was his custody evaluator had the same custody evaluator as several women.

I talked to him a few times. The story involved Woody Harrelson because, His father-in-Law had gotten involved with Woody's dad and Woody Harrelson's Dad was a contract killer and his father-in-Law had hired him to kill his business partner. It was all sorts of seedy things.

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And the reason the murder was important was Chris didn't know. And then he found out kind of by accident because he was Googling his dad, his father in law's name for whatever reason. And there was an article that popped up and then he started questioning it. And the dad had built up this massive, really, he got away with murder.

In fact, he was convicted of accessory to commit murder. Even though he hired Harrelson to kill his business partner for whatever reason, what they convicted him of. Was accessory to commit murder and he had built up this reputation and I think he felt like, Oh my God, my whole life's work is going to be destroyed if this guy, this gets out and he had a lot of money.

So he, in effect, was funding his daughter's divorce and he went as aggressively as possible to not let Chris get away with anything and that's how he lost his job, lost access to his kids, was jailed repeatedly, and was never going to stop. And so I have a, I even interviewed his former business partner's wife his widow, I guess, his kids even and it was a very seedy murder that Harrelson pretended to, he was a green dealer, Sam DeGioia was the guy's name, but ironically, I worked, so I started working on Chris's story. It took me over a year to write the book. And by that point I'd made a lot of contacts. And so I just started doing more and more of these stories. One of the breakthrough was one that you find on capital research centers called making divorce pay, but the association of family and conciliation courts, which is a global trade organization for family court judges, family court lawyers, there anybody involved in family court outwardly what they say is we do webinars, we do seminars, we do get togethers, we have a newsletter, it's all good, we just try to teach people about the trends in family court. Underneath that, they push an agenda, and the agenda is several things.

It pushes, for instance, the concept of parental alienation. But more than that, what it pushes is that you try to identify a problem. Any problem will do. And then the solution is to appoint someone. And then that creates what I believe is a racket. What it's pushing is for all of these people to look for problems and say, Oh, here's a problem.

Let's get a custody evaluator. Here's a problem. Let's get a parenting coordinator and what you're and of course, all of these people that are being appointed. Most of them are a FCC affiliated. So basically creates this racket where Your job is to find a problem and the solution is to get someone else appointed.

And, there had been some things written about AFCC, not that much and then it took off. I've been contacted, it's almost 10 years old now, by people all over the world because, and they're all now looking for, to see if the people involved in their case are AFCC affiliated. So, That one really took off.

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They talk, they're gossiping about each other's cases. They're saying all sorts of unethical things. So the reason that the Zoom conference happened was one of the guardian ad litem, her name is Elaine Podlowski, she was being sued. And for some reason the other guardian ad litem were very concerned about this lawsuit even though they weren't being sued.

You know, if a cop is sued. Other cops may feel bad. Oh, that sucks. I've been sued. It sucks. But you usually don't hold a zoom conference to talk about this lawsuit and how it affects everyone. Cause it's only one cop who's being sued. So, they're on the zoom conference. And it goes for like 45 minutes and as I said, Oh, and then the other thing that happened was this emailed newsletter called Daily Docket News that was written anonymously comes out to go after a lane and other guardian ad litem.

I'm all from St. Louis County, and so The guardian ad litem felt under siege, like what's happening at the same time, this has got to be coordinated. Now, no one knows who wrote the newsletter, which appeared for a while, disappeared, appeared again. Right now it's disappeared. Maybe it'll appear again.

, maybe a law clerk, maybe a [:

And I don't know who recorded the Zoom conference, because my source didn't record it. I'm certain my source didn't record it. So it went at least from who recorded it to my, and my source won't tell me. I really won't try to get him to say it anyway, because I'd rather not know. But that set off all kinds of, it was set off a chain of event, I don't want to say recruited, but I let my friend, Megan Fox, who writes at PJ Media, who writes about these issues sometimes, know about the Zoom conference, and she watched it, and she was enthralled, and I remember she called me, she goes, hey friend, I'm like, hey, and she said, You got to tell me more about the zoom conference and like her reaction was more than I expected.

So for about nine months, the two of us kind of as a partnership, and we did a live stream during it would talk about all of the things that we'd found in family court. And it set off all kinds of chains of events. But what didn't quite happen is it did not penetrate the local St. Louis media, even though there's like, 40 corrupt guardian ad litem I'm there. And so that was unfortunate. I did a little bit. It was covered by KMOV, which is a local TV station, but one story. The biggest thing was the St. Louis record, which is the law journal, like the legal newspaper in St. Louis. They covered it a lot. And then this guy, Nick Reed did a lot. He was a, a radio host, but not even in St. Louis County near it, but, but he did more than. Like media in St. Louis County, and St. Louis County is right next to St. Louis, the city, but it like surrounds it. So it's all the same, what would be called coverage area. So it, it didn't have the effect you'd hope, but it did have quite an effect. And, the two of us, between Megan and I, We've got almost a hundred judges to recuse themselves, probably 20 Guardian ad litem from different cases.

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So an Australian journalist or a British journalist about what's happening in family courts in those two countries. This guy, Brian Ludmore, who's a lawyer in Canada. So we even started showing a global perspective on family court. And so that's probably the biggest story I broke, is that, and it's called the St. Louis Family Court Corruption if you go to YouTube, and it's pretty amazing, and you can follow it, even though you don't know any of these people, even though they're, it's not meant to be followed by someone who doesn't know who they are, but, , It was a really big deal, but no one went to jail.

Now, Elaine tried to be a judge, and that was shut down because of the publicity. Several laws were proposed, though none of them passed in St. Louis County. Now, laws have passed in other states that I think at least indirectly as a result of the investigations I and Megan and others have done, primarily, I think there's five states that have banned the practice of reunification therapy, reunification camps, not reunification therapy.

And that's Utah, New Hampshire, Arizona, California, and I think there's one more state. And so what reunification camps are, it's, If the court deems that one parent is alienating the kids, they will force these kids to be driven, usually out of state, but many hours away to a hotel for like about four days, where they're just drilled in their head that the parent that you think is bad is not bad, and you're going to have to live with that parent.

And it's a brutal, awful process, and it should be banned in all 50 states, but it is banned in five states.

Right, turning points is one family bridges is another one. Now, what about what's interesting?

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It's a brutal, horrible, traumatic four days. These reunification therapy can go on a year, two years, and that should be banned as well. And in California, you can still do like, weekly, for one or two hours a week, reunification therapy. And I interviewed, I think she's 17 now, she was 16 when I interviewed her, Amelia Martinez, who went through this out, what you'd call outpatient reunification therapy, and it was all quackery.

One thing is that, The therapist constantly refers to the court orders. The therapist is constantly coercing her into continuing therapy. Well, your mom's going to get in trouble. The court order says this and this. And if you don't do this and this, your mom's going to get in trouble. And you know, and I always I'm listening to this and like, you know, therapy is supposed to be therapeutic.

How are you, coercing this girl into going to therapy? And look the therapist can do it because it's court ordered, which is nonsense anyway. There's, court ordered therapy is never going to work because unless the person wants to do it, it's not going to work. So if you're forcing them to be there, especially someone under 18, it's never going to work.

But the outpatient therapy is still allowed, but five states, and I believe over, let's say the next five states, five years, all 50 states will ban it. And I interviewed, she was 18 because she had just gotten out of it. But Victoria, she's called Tori Nielsen. She went through family bridges and she explained this all.

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And it was funny, she was the star witness, the Wall Street Journal has interviewed her. In a written story, the Arizona Republic, no one ever mentions my interview, even though I did it before. So not given credit. And in fact, of the witnesses, I think there were six different witnesses. Three, I had interviewed.

So I'll take credit for at least pushing forward. The reunification therapy ban in Arizona, and now it's banned. But ironically, her younger brother, Marcus, who I think is 16, is still forced to live with his dad. The only reason she wasn't forced to live with her abusive dad is because she was 18.

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She's been on the bench for maybe three years, and I've received over a dozen complaints about her. She's racked up all kinds of bad complaints in a very short time, and complaints like she ignores abuse, and that's the primary complaint.

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I'm going to be a parenting coordinator to be a therapist. It works. As long as the case is ongoing, it never stops. And if you have an abusive parent, then the child is never fixed, they need therapy. If you have, the other parent is always fighting, so they're going to keep bringing you to court, and you're always going to find a reason to have that parent go through therapy and all these other things. And that's why, sometimes,

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Either a therapist, they called him best interest attorney, which is the equivalent of guardian ad litem. They over 10 people were appointed to his case at one time or another. I don't know how much money he spent. It was significant. Now, he eventually got his kids back because again, Having for having that big contract and a lot more money than the average person continue to fight.

He was eventually interviewed. What he tells parents is if you're being screwed, speak out in court and keep doing it. And he said, the hard part is you speak out once. And, you know, the blowback is going to be huge and you're going to get scared and you've got to keep doing it. And he did it for months and months and months and they finally got scared of everything he put on the record and eventually his kids were able to come home.

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No one accused him of parental alienation with those kids. You know, did he forget how to parent? Well, what exactly are you saying here? He's a parent alienator. How come no one was saying this with any of the other kids and the other parent? Is this just unique to this one parent? But over 10 people were appointed to his case.

So, you allow all of these people to feed at the trough or whatever you want to call it. I did a story with a guy named Gabe Shapiro and he and his siblings started JPAY, which is, The email system used in most jails, so obviously made a lot of money, and same kind of thing, a dozen people were appointed to his case, and it's just constantly having to pay this person and that person, and that's what they're doing.

As I said, the system runs, and you identify a problem, this is AFCC model, And your solution is always, well, because of this problem, what we need is this person to be appointed. And then that person who gets appointed, their job is to find a reason for another person to be appointed. And then that person needs to find another person.

And the reason that works, so if you're good at getting other people appointed, Then they owe you. So they're gonna get you appointed because you're gonna stop appointing someone. If you've appointed them to 10 cases and they don't appoint you, in any case, you're gonna say, I'm not gonna keep appointing you.

I'm gonna appoint someone who's gonna get me appointed.

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And that's how the system works. I was speaking with someone at the beginning of this year and they had a case out of Florida and they said, well, my lawyer says I should get a guardian ad litem. And I said, look, Sometimes it works every once in a while getting a [00:26:00] guardian item works, but you should be skeptical of anyone who thinks the solutions don't point anyone.

That's the game and this person's told me they have money. So, the, and I'm like, you know, it seems like what they know is that you have enough to spend. So they're going to get as many people appointed. They're going to keep telling you that the answer is to get someone appointed. And that's the game.

That's the system. I call it a racket. Maybe it's legally a racket. I, in layman's terms, it's a racket. I think it's getting better now. First of all, the amount of exposure just in the last Five years has increased dramatically. There are laws being proposed all over the place. The fact that they banned reunification therapy in five states is a huge win.

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And if you know where they are and you aren't telling the parents who's supposed to have custody, then that's a crime but they went to a reunification camp. This happens quite a lot. The first time I heard about it was probably like 2016, 2017, that there's such a thing as reunification camps.

And now say seven years later, five states have banned it. And I think all 50 will ban it. I see a lot of different laws. You had Greyson's law. I see a lot of different laws proposed. They have varying, in my opinion, varying degrees of effectiveness. You know, this isn't a movie. This is real life.

You're not going to fix something like, I don't know if you'll ever fix it because it's such a complex system. It's never going to work perfectly properly every time. To me, there are.

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So the first one is judges have too much power. If you fix it, you reduce their power. So one thing that I like, but I don't like that much, is making the custody trials and jury trials, and that would reduce the power of judges. I just don't think it's a panacea, but that's okay. So the second problem is there's too much money in the system.

So if you reduce the flow of money, that fixes it. The third problem is that it's too complex. So you simplify it. One idea I had was, you eliminate all court appointees. So, you make it illegal. So you would write a law that, and I proposed this in Missouri. I have a friend who runs a website where you can, as a citizen, propose a law.

It would just wind up on a site. It wouldn't actually be in any kind of a, but it could be, you know, then you try to get it to someone who would get it passed. But I would say in the state of Missouri, and of course, you can copy the state, in the state of Missouri in child custody, the case will be decided by the two parents, their lawyers, and any evidence they may present.

The court shall not appoint a guardian ad litem, parenting coordinator, or any other third-party court appointee, and that's the law. You would, then, number one, these judges, what they do is, they use like a guardian ad litem, or a parenting coordinator, as a judge, they have them do a report and then they say, well, the guardian ad litem wants this.

So I'm just going with that. And you know what, the guardian ad litem and should be the judge. Let's just make the garden at light. I'm the judge giving them this role. The second thing, it increases money, obviously, and it makes it more complicated because they're all advisory. So, most of the time they just take what the guardian ad litem them says, and they go with it.

Sometimes they say, well, it doesn't matter their advisory. I'm just ignoring it. And so. When do they ignore it? When do they not? And then what is their role? Can they write an order? Sometimes they claim they can. Other times, well, I have to go to the judge. So, it makes it more complicated. You get rid of the court appointees.

It stars the system of money. It makes it simpler. The other idea I had was you say, That the trial, at least, has to start no more than, say, either 12 months or 18 months from when the petition, the original thing, is filed. One of the biggest problems, I followed this case, Christy Black and Max Black, out of Orange County, California.

They're on their like 11th year. They're still technically not divorced. Like, Christy has a live-in boyfriend for like five years. They can't get married because she's technically not divorced. You give it a year or 18 months, no more than 18 months, and then you have to start the trial, let's say. It doesn't even have to end, but you have to start the trial.

And so that way, there's an end. Because what the lawyers and everybody will do is they'll drag it out. That's it. So they can charge you. And then that starves the lawyers a little bit so you don't have these scummy divorce lawyers who are counting on creating conflict to continue cases without end. So that's another idea I had, but I think those three things, if you resolve those three things, then you fix the system.

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And it's completely ludicrous that you, Somehow managed to gain a 3 million-dollar house if you have nothing else. And so I know the court's allowing him. And so I went to one hearing and he has a scummy attorney named Matt Elster. And I, there's a dirty little secret. Lawyers almost always write the orders for the judges.

Even though the judge signs it, and it's supposed to be the judge's order. Judges are lazy, so they let lawyers write their orders. So that's what Matt does. And it's not even, The bad part is that what Matt does is, the judge will say A, B, and C, and he'll twist B a little bit to change it, and the judge will either not notice or not even care, but what the judge says the order should be is not what Matt writes, but I'm watching this in court, and they're talking about something, they take a break, Matt comes back and goes, here's that order you asked me to write, so see this, and then, I won't explain everything, but we had to go from one courtroom to another.

So we're walking from one courtroom to another courtroom, and I'm behind Matt, and I go, Matt, do you always write orders for judges? Matt, is that appropriate? Can we talk about this? And so and I just said it obviously to get a rise out of money and actually expect him to answer the question. So he gets into the other courtroom and he immediately complains like a penalty, like he's a kid, in grade school to the bailiff.

And he's like, you know, that guy is bothering me, he's harassing you, you need to get him to leave. And that's, that's the kind of stuff that these scumbag lawyers do. The other thing they love to do is to threaten lawsuits. I get letters. I won't say all the time, but more than twice, more than 10 times I've gotten cease and desist letters.

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That, that story I told about Gary Shapiro, his ex-wife’s lawyer, Dory Foster Morales, who was at the time, the outgoing president of the Florida bar. This was all in Florida. She. It definitely creates a conflict. She definitely was telling her client, your ex is bad.

So she was trying, I think there was one month, one month where she charged 60, 000 for that case. Think about how much money she was charging just for one month. So she was definitely trying to get her client to think that her ex is bad, that you need to fight for sole custody. They originally agreed to 50 50.

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And as I said, the goal is to get people appointed and to get that appointed person to get somebody else appointed and on and on and on. And see, if you got rid of the court appointments, then you can't do that. I think that part would be easier. It's not always bad. But and it's probably not even bad and more than 50 percent of the cases, but at least 15 percent of the cases, I believe, get corrupted and significantly corrupted. Look, I think the Center for Judicial Excellence has counted 800 children. Your son is one of them.

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So, the problem is not merely the worst-case scenario, yours, there's, you know, you're making a lot of kids who aren't whole, whose childhood is destroyed through terrible rulings. And if it's just that the judge got it wrong, That you can live with that 'cause you are going, that's going to happen.

These are complex things, but it often happens because of a lack of due process because there's money involved and I know one of your judges was involved in a case that I looked at and you had several. So, there's not one judge who was responsible, the one more than others, but, well, I believe there was.

No, there's more than one, but one more than most. I can't remember the guy's name, but he took a mother's, custody time away temporarily because she wasn't wearing a mask in a doctor's office during COVID. It was like, if you're not going to respect COVID and you're only going to have supervised visits, it was completely ridiculous.

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And the photo was months old by the time Cohen figured it out. And he's like, you can't see your child because you don't wear a mask. Those kinds of things happen way too often. So the problem I think is widespread. But is it getting, I think the momentum is on the people who want reform.

And it is happening. First of all, as I said, the amount of coverage of this is exponentially larger. The amount of people aware that the system is corrupt is exponentially larger. The amount of people who are then, as a result, more prepared for what's about to happen is exponentially larger. And laws are being proposed and passed everywhere with varying degrees of success.

But When I first started covering this, there was almost no coverage, no laws being proposed anywhere. No one thought there was a problem. And

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And I figured this podcast was my way to give back by interviewing people that may have more answers. Because there's a lot of corruption, there's a lot of flaws, there's a lot of, there's just a lot of people that need help. I was looking at your page, and I was looking at the Kassenoff case, which I was familiar with, and I saw some of the things that you posted about it. I mean, that case is just so sad.

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The Free Press, which is on Substack as well, did a very long piece on that case, and they interviewed a lot of different people, and it sheds light. Catherine may have manipulated a lot of this. But that said, here's what I know. One of the problems with the case as far as if you're looking at the family court angle of it in New York, all of it is sealed.

The family court is the New York state. So, what that means is All of the information that you've gotten from both sides, both parents are selectively leaking the court documents that make them look good. You can't get the whole picture because it's blocked. So that's one problem. However, here's how the case went.

Initially, Catherine went to get sole custody temporarily based on abuse allegations. Those went away. Then Alan went for sole custody based on abuse allegations. He got it. Then it went on an ex-parte temporary hearing. Then it went to 50 50. Then again, Alan had sole custody. Now there's no way. The court worked properly if it went from one parent's sole custody to another parent's sole custody, 50-50, back to one parent's sole custody.

There was a [:

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That sounds like a good idea. So, be careful with that. Like, my ex loved to record everything. Be careful of people who record everything. But, that case, it is an interesting case. And I think [00:42:00] there were definitely abuses in the family court process. And what I found was in that particular courthouse in Westchester it was primarily men who used the Ex parte emergency orders a lot.

And if you know anything about the system ex-parte, that means only one side is present. So the other side can't come back and say anything. That should be used very, for emergency, for real emergency situations. Because it's obviously

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And here they were handing them out like candy and so it did seem like there was a pattern in that courthouse, not just in the Kassenoff case. I found several other cases where the men were using this ex-parte emergency. process. They were misusing it. That's one problem. This guy Abrams was another problem. there were a lot of problems that I found in Westchester County. However, if you're interested in the Kassenoff case, definitely watch or not watch, read the article on the free press. I think it's d t h e f p dot com. And then you'll have to search for it in Kassenoff because they did an in-depth interview.

They not only interviewed Alan, but they also interviewed maids and other people. And, there, there was a lot of things that, that Catherine didn't say that happened, that other people saw happen. So ,I'll say that, but the

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So that seemed to be where the process was being abused. The courts put their hand on the scale and take complicated situations and simplify it. And then in other cases, I think in your case, what should have been a simple case that there's abuse, it's clear evidence of abuse and they make it more like, Oh, it's complicated. We're not sure. We need this. We need that. And always the end result is a lot of these core professionals are making money.

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[00:44:55] Ali Kessler: Which is obviously not true because my son was murdered by his father

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Right, but they absolutely, they caricature women, and then present men as always the hero, as I said. Child custody isn't cookie cutters, so to do it that way is definitely wrong. They perpetuate all sorts of stereotypes that help abusers, create these cookie cutter cases. They are firm for 50/50 as the standard, which I think is just completely asinine because I don't think that in any given case that 50 50 is better than 60/40, or 75/25. And then you do have to look at the facts of the case. One of the reasons they want 50/50 is because in most states, not every state, but in most states at 50 percent, no more child support 50/50.

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About the Podcast

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Grey Minds Think Ali.Ke
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Ali Kessler

Ali Kessler is a writer, marketing professional, passionate parent advocate, and founder of Greyson’s Choice, a 501(c)(3) created to raise awareness about the risk of domestic abuse on children. Greyson’s Choice was founded by Ali Kessler in memory of her sweet, vibrant, and fearless 4.5-year-old son, Greyson, who was murdered by his biological father in a murder-suicide during an unsupervised, court-approved visit in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, in 2021. This came just hours after her petition for a domestic violence injunction was denied by a Broward County judge, citing that the “petitioner has failed to allege any overt acts by the respondent which would constitute domestic violence under Florida Statute.”

Ali’s advocacy efforts culminated in successfully passing Greyson’s Law during the 2023 legislative session. This bill now requires the court to consider threats against ex-partners or spouses when making child visitation and custody determinations in the court, expanding to include the following factors: evidence of domestic violence, whether a parent in the past or currently has reasonable cause to believe that they or a minor child is, or has been in imminent danger of becoming the victim of domestic/sexual violence by the other parent, even if no other legal action has been brought or is currently pending in court.