By Dr. Leon Koziol

Parenting Rights Institute

RIP:  Ryan Kelley

How many more suicides will it take before our money lusting behemoth known as Family Court is finally overhauled from a lawyer friendly environment to a parent friendly one? Government reports continue to show twenty-two veteran suicides per day, a major percentage of which are triggered by family court abuses. And now there’s another persecuted dad, Ryan Kelley, who took his life yesterday, September 10, 2019. Ironically, it was Suicide Prevention Day.

There are those who benefit from the family court industry (and at least one self-loving troll on Facebook) who will try to deflect attention to a DWI charge which Mr. Kelley was facing. But there are countless people who face such charges, and much worse, without even considering a terminal outcome. They pay the price and move on. In Mr. Kelley’s case, he would face child support jail after completing his DWI defense.

According to his suicide note and follower comments, Ryan Kelley was “trying to stay alive” for years in the face of family court abuses. Even a moronic troll should be able to figure out that such abuses over an extended period would lead to alcohol problems. If there’s one lesson this family court regime has taught us, there is no escape from its persecution. Alcohol and suicide became that escape for Ryan, all in his children’s so-called “best interests.”

For thirty years now, family reform groups have come and gone. One-and-out websites, Facebook pages and lofty crusades that died a quick death. When are we finally going to stop pontificating and conjuring up bizarre lawsuits and reform ideas with little or no competency? When are we finally going to leave the comfort of our routines and join together in protests nationwide?

I’ve been in this reform movement for over twelve years. I’ve spent 30 years in both federal and state courts successfully litigating complex cases as an attorney and litigant, even after the retaliation I suffered as a consequence (summarized in complaint below).  I’ve traveled from Paris to Hawaii and nearly every state in between meeting with victims and exposing court corruption.

Among the most promising events I have seen in all that time and travel is a three-day conference, lobbying effort and march which I sponsored this past May in Washington D.C. known as the Parent March on Washington. Under a plan of action put together by attendees, regional protests would follow. Instead only the carnage has.

Well, I, for one, who sacrificed everything short of life itself to end this carnage, never surrendered that plan of action. On September 26, 2019 we are planning a rally and march between Oneida County Family Court to Utica city court in upstate New York (dead center between Buffalo and NYC). Our target is ideal for capturing national attention. It is focused on my precedent-seeking case filed last month in New York Supreme Court which was recently removed to federal court by the Attorney General.

It is also focused  on a rude, racist and rogue judge who is reflective of the problems we all have in these courts. Gerald Popeo is a city court judge named as a defendant in my lawsuit. He was assigned out of order as the 41st trial level jurist on my family court custody and support cases. He is avenging a public censure issued against him by the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct on February 12, 2015. That censure makes him anything but a judge with the temperament to preside in family court.

Gerald “Scary Gerry” Popeo has blamed me, in part, for that censure. It cited racist comments, violent threats to litigants and the jailing of men in violation of their due process rights. The prosecutor recommended removal, and Popeo’s defense attorney (a former state supreme court judge) asked for a private reprimand. The Commission compromised with the public censure, thereby allowing him to become improperly assigned to my family matters to exact revenge.

The administrative judge who made all these suspect judge assignments since 2007 died last month at the age of 68. No replies to my complaints were made by him during the same period prior to his passing. And now, Judge Popeo, after issuing a near fatal warrant against me last year, is at it again with raw abuses of power and ethics. Here are some of the comments and conduct which a hearing judge found to be true against Popeo in the Commission decision:

“You’re standing there with a grin that I would love to come off the bench and slap off your face”

“Mr. Scully (prosecutor) is playing cigar store Indian at the moment.”

“You know what black people from New York City call black people from upstate New York? Country Niggers.”

In a shocking irony, a downstate African-American is now the top attorney in both upstate and downstate New York who was recently assigned to represent Judge Popeo in my precedent seeking civil rights case. New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a notice last week removing my case from state court to federal court.

The circumstances could not have come together more profoundly for our tentatively planned event on September 26th. We are now working on getting the permits. Contact us for more information at (315) 380-3420 and help make this post viral.

 

(Koziol Complaint Dated August 7, 2019)

(Utica judge under fire for bullying remarks)

(Utica city court judge Popeo censured)

(Fathers’ Rights Attorney Fighting “Family Courts” Now Subject To “Kill On Sight” Order By Police)

(Bullying Utica judge censured for calling lawyer a ‘cigar store Indian,’ but cleared of racial epithet)