Nearly every legal expert, including veteran defense attorneys in lower Manhattan, have now weighed in on the Donald Trump indictment unsealed yesterday during a widely awaited arraignment. In a “historic” display of self-serving politics, New York D.A. Alvin Bragg unveiled his 34 felony counts connected to a pair of women seeking to exploit long ago sexual affairs against a presidential candidate.
This so-called indictment is destined for an early dismissal based on a treasure trove of defects, jurisdictional, procedural and otherwise, featuring a filing that is clearly insufficient on its face. But this does not end the consequences. Bragg must be held personally accountable along with his co-conspirators for an abuse of our justice system that is more precedent-setting than the case itself.
For starters, who is going to pay for all this? The arraignment alone, a mere formality in the scheme of criminal litigation, has cost taxpayers millions of dollars ranging from security to facilitation. The FDR highway along Manhattan’s east side was evacuated simply to provide a safe escort from Trump Tower to the courthouse.
Beyond the “historic” costs, a needless risk to an army of law enforcement, court security and secret service was created whose resources are better spent on the violent crimes that have been growing rampant in recent years in that city. This circus show has turned into one monumental hypocrisy.
Pre-arraignment analyses made in recent posts here at http://www.leonkoziol.com have now been validated. As predicted, a gag order was sought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg but denied by Judge Juan Merchan with cautionary comments.
For the defense part, no motion for recusal or venue change was made. However, if Judge Merchan is truly impartial, he will not turn a blind eye to Alvin Bragg’s abuses. At a minimum, he will issue a severe reprimand and refer the entire matter to the First Department ethics committee. This clown display was otherwise uneventful. The former president and front running candidate entered pleas of Not Guilty.
A motion date was set for August and a pretrial hearing for December 4, 2023. Both the D.A. and Trump lawyer, Joe Tacopina, conducted news conferences afterward while the accused returned to Mar-a-Lago. His reaction at a rally there that evening was predictable and highly convincing, focused on the weaponization of our justice system.
These counts can be boiled down to only a few. They were packaged together to bolster Bragg’s public standing. Resort to federal court may now be necessitated on grounds that a local D.A. has no jurisdiction to prosecute a federal election crime to rehabilitate state misdemeanors infected by a long expired 2-year statute of limitations.
In the end, even Trump adversaries expressed sympathy for the climaxing persecution. On a national scale it mirrors mine as a former office holder and civil rights attorney. How ironic it is to see issues in these proceedings already litigated in my 10-year ordeal as an attorney whistleblower who took a conscientious stand against his profession for its exploitation of parents and children in New York’s family courts.
“I would love to come off this bench and wipe that smirk off your face!” Judge Gerald Popeo to litigant in his courtroom
Leon R. Koziol, J.D.
Former New York Criminal Trial Attorney
President, Citizen Commission Against Corruption. Org
I have spent more than three decades litigating civil and criminal cases in both federal and state courts of New York. In my latter years as a targeted civil rights advocate, I developed a highly unique expertise in the disqualification of biased jurists who can easily alter outcomes at any stage of deliberations.
As a victim myself, I also developed a trial and appellate practice that is highly relevant to Donald Trump’s indictment. His team of defense attorneys must file a motion for recusal of his assigned judge, Juan Merchan, in a lower Manhattan court this Tuesday if he retains any hope of fair treatment there.
First, from a structural standpoint, Judge Merchan is a product of the antiquated judicial branch of government in New York. It features 11-trial courts that the state bar condemned in a 2017 report favoring a constitutional convention. That report compared it to California’s single trial court system.
Even if this structure proves to be inconsequential, it could harm or needlessly prolong a process that calls for earliest dismissal. It features interstate, federal-related issues that are “first impression” for any decision maker. We see that already in play with the negotiated dispensing of handcuffing protocols.
Second, Trump lawyers are duty-bound to scrutinize more than his assigned judge. A change of venue must be added for a court far removed from the highly biased climate of lower Manhattan. This borough is inundated with liberal ideology that could easily evade jury selection of the most skilled trial counsel.
Third, Judge Merchan was appointed to a limited jurisdiction family court by New York’s mayor in 2006 after only ten years of practice, all in prosecutor offices. He was assigned due to his “acting” role in a court of general jurisdiction (not the usual city court) for the likely reason that this case would require it.
Fourth, Judge Merchan is impaired by his prior assignment to the Trump Organization criminal case concluded with convictions and a jail sentence. Its chief executive officer here cannot reverse adverse impressions acquired from its witnesses. As the saying goes, you cannot put the horses back in the barn.
Fifth, local practitioners are already singing Merchan’s praises including Trump critic Gloria Allred. To put a reality face to this, lawyers in my personal case chastised a similar motion against Bryan Hedges as a “judge beyond reproach” until he admitted to sexual abuse of his handy-capped five-year-old niece.
Fortunately Judge Hedges granted my motion prior to being banned from the bench and before any parentless hearing with my young daughters in chambers. It was based on party politics, a court clerk’s successful harassment case, and an ethics rule prohibiting even the “appearance of impropriety.”
Surely there is enough in the Trump record already to win such a motion, forcing Judge Merchan into an unenviable position on this opening issue of due process. No one can know what he might harbor as my proceedings have shown after forty judges were compelled to step down, many for undisclosed reasons.
But perhaps most satisfying for this unprecedented defendant is that he could seize some semblance of retribution generally after his charges are read during an open court spectacle. This recusal motion must be stately presented for that reason alone if his lawyers retain any respect for their client’s dignity.
Leon R. Koziol, J.D. is a former city corporation counsel, school board attorney and elected office holder in upstate New York who still litigates in Manhattan. His horrific ordeal as a corruption whistleblower and court reformist is detailed in a recently published memoir, Whistleblower in Paris.
Mr. Koziol can be contacted directly at (315) 796-4000 and electronically at leonkoziol@gmail.com.
Judge Daniel King’s hangout near his family court in Lowville, New York where he commits “alcohol related gestures.”
On November 25, 2013, Lewis County Family Judge Daniel King was prepared to throw a judicial temper tantrum. He was eager to avenge public exposure of his gross incompetence by Leon Koziol two months earlier before the state’s Moreland Commission on Public Corruption. Among other things, King had used two college degrees that this attorney-father never earned to raise his support obligations in a family court case then pending.
Some background is in order. Judge King was newly elected, demonstrably inexperienced and assigned to an outside case. That assignment was exploited to concoct degrees as a means for punishing a qualified whistleblower of court corruption. This would please other judges similarly exposed, and Dan was anxious to be a part of their club. He would issue the highest of obligations to justify a jail term for support violations while income was being deprived through similarly orchestrated license suspensions.
Now, on this day, November 25, 2013, King was hearing a custody matter involving the same targeted father of two girls. Based on the slightest allegations of a scorned ex-spouse bent on replacing this father with a substitute boyfriend, he issued an order directing both parents to refrain from any alcohol use in the presence of the children. He also directed that these same children be lodged in separate rooms at any hotel near the location of a wedding reception involving the dad’s niece one week earlier.
The nefarious agenda of this judge came into focus again when the attorney-whistleblower-dad was accused of alcohol consumption at that reception. A so-called “mini-hearing” was therefore held on a first appearance that day to decide whether King’s conditions for attending this reception were violated. Because the proceeding was not duly noticed consistent with due process requirements, no witnesses or evidence could be provided.
Nevertheless, Judge King concluded that a champaign toast, even if never consumed, constituted a “prohibited alcohol related gesture” sufficient to justify a suspension of parenting time, one that would extend over an ensuing eight-year period to the present day. To further support that barbaric outcome, he found that the girls, aged ten and eleven at the time, although lodged in separate bedrooms of a hotel suite, were not technically in a separate location from the dad’s then fiancee.
An appeals court temporarily blocked that bizarre decision unsupported by any unfit parenting. Indeed, there had never even been a complaint to any protection agency, no alcohol related event, and no criminal record while prison inmates were being favored. However, for reasons never disclosed, the same appeals court allowed a second fully noticed hearing to go forward one month later. In that proceeding, Judge King simply set aside basic trial protocols to orchestrate a record that could support his earlier bizarre rulings. It forced the victim to walk out of that hearing after undue threats were made from the bench.
It was all simply a foregone conclusion that this so-called family judge would abuse public office for illicit reasons. Accordingly, the victimized father commenced his own inquiry into the hypocrisy of this judge based on his rumored alcohol use in the presence of his own children at a bar near the family courthouse in Lowville, New York. Together with other court victims, he was able to find that Judge King was a regular at Jeb’s Restaurant.
The interviewed bar staff even had King’s standard cocktail committed to memory with his own children seated at a nearby table. It was much more than a “prohibited alcohol related gesture” because his subjects in the courtroom could not possibly know what such a gesture might be for violation purposes. Beyond the obvious, Daniel King was a judge held to the highest standards of public office exhibiting a hypocrisy of monumental proportion.
There is so much more to the abuses of judicial office not only by King, but by many of the forty trial level jurists removed or disqualified from Leon Koziol’s 15-year proceedings. The human rights violations and whistleblower punishments over this needlessly protracted period are more than sufficient to justify an investigation by the Justice Department and Civil Rights Bureau of the New York Attorney General. Complaints before both have been filed. The ordeal is detailed in a newly published book, Whistleblower in Paris, available at any Barnes and Noble store, Amazon, publisher Author House or major bookseller on-line.
If you are a resident, litigant or voter at Judge King’s upcoming re-election in 2022, you should make your own inquiry into this judge and his protected misconduct. Many readers have expressed doubt that such bizarre orders and outcomes could be real. But a copy of the December 2, 2013 decision containing them is available for inspection. If you have anything more to offer, feel free to contact Leon directly at (315) 796-4000 for the sake of victims, parents and children everywhere.
Our next talk show, Leon’s Library, on You-Tube is Monday, November 15, 2021 at 7:30 pm EST when we will feature input from the general public on any contemporary subject. We will open the lines after a critique of the 15-minute video produced by Philadelphia Attorney Lawrence DeMarco regarding our 2019 event in Washington D.C. That critique by the host here, Dr. Leon Koziol, will provide inspiration for an exciting event next year. The Citizen Commission Against Corruption, CCAC, which sponsors this talk show is an action organization focused on holding our public servants accountable and securing overdue reforms.
We are anxious to hear your ordeals or suggestions!
At present we are taking recommendations and donations to facilitate this event in our nation’s capital. On Friday we experienced unexplained interferences in our live entry to the Leon’s Library YouTube channel. It mirrors the video exclusion of our host (voice only) on his September 23, 2021 testimony at a virtual hearing sponsored by New York Governor Kathy Hochul and her Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations. You will find our complaint and written version of that testimony on this channel (“Post Testimony” video).
That hearing was conducted by staff of the state’s Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. We have questioned the glaring mistreatment of that testimony (and its vital message) along with the propriety of a gender-slanted state agency involving itself with the internal public hearings of a blue-ribbon commission. At first we could obtain no answers. Then we were forced to dispense with the excuses which followed with direct submissions to the governor and appointed commission chairpersons. As this commission wraps up, we have yet to obtain a logical response or remedy.
This fateful event justifies the newly created CCAC to act as a citizens commission doing the job which official oversight agencies are not. In all material respects this so-called Blue-Ribbon Commission is falling in line with other impotent, window-dressing oversight entities like the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption which its creator, ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo disbanded prematurely when citizen testimony began implicating top state leaders in the “Culture of Corruption” as it was called in 2013.
We will address such issues on our Monday show and chart a course of action for meaningful reform using our 15-minute video of the 2019 Parent March on Washington as precedent. You won’t want to miss this show. That video will be primarily voice-only so as to encourage you to see it first-hand in its vivid form on social media, Leon Koziol.com or this host’s Facebook page with its 5,000 followers.
On our next show, Tuesday, November 16, 2021, at 7:30 pm EST, we will feature Steven Boyd. He is head of the Gabriella Boyd Foundation dedicated to the memory of his two-year old daughter who was murdered by the mother rather than give up the child to a custody change order. She was even charged with attempted murder of the police officers arriving on the scene. That mom is now serving a life sentence, and the dad is actively involved in securing justice and reform. This horrific event was front page news in downstate New York since 2018. More on that during Monday’s show.
Spread the word, subscribe to Leon’s Library here, and join our discourse. The call-in number remains the same: (315) 796-4000.
Is there any shame these days to the widespread misconduct of public officials? Is there any accountability for those who flaunt the law with impunity? We’re not talking about isolated indiscretions, but serious misconduct undetected for years, even decades. Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Congressman Anthony Weiner, Wall Street regulator Bernie Madoff, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and ex-California Congressman Duncan Hunter constitute a small list of disgraced officials who brazenly advanced themselves at public expense, a joint hypocrisy of epic proportion.
And now, topping this list, we find Andrew Cuomo engaged in a flurry of news releases to deflect from his growing scandals. From a sudden legalization of recreational marijuana to the relaxation of coronavirus restrictions, the current governor of New York is relying on an electorate that quickly forgets. This long abused practice flies in the face of government misconduct that should be held accountable to avert the lawlessness it incites elsewhere. The public message here is that if you bend the rules, by the time anyone catches up with it, a lavish life has already been fulfilled.
Yes, crime pays, and the message continues to be that the people served are idiots for honoring laws that apply differently to separated classes. Those in power abuse their authority to achieve a higher standard while those who make it all possible are remanded to a life of poverty, incarceration, suicide and meager employment. To maintain the upper class, various programs are announced to make it appear that these lawless politicians truly care about the rest of us struggling to make sense of our reality as a two class society. Any middle existence is an illusion of escalating proportion particularly with the impacts of the current pandemic.
On Constitution Day, 2013, I testified at Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Moreland Commission on Public Corruption, to warn of our current realities. This was yet another window dressing entity designed to fool the public into believing that there will be accountability for a “culture of corruption in Albany.” But the same governor who created this commission with great fanfare acted just as quickly to dissolve it when growing testimony implicated officials close to Cuomo himself. Not to be duped, one of those testimonials came from a federal prosecutor who seized commission files resulting in the convictions of both leaders of the state legislature and a top Cuomo aid.
For my part, as a qualified whistleblower in our third branch of government, I exposed a family court epidemic that was causing vast separations between parents and their children. How ironic and hypocritical it is today that much more attention is being given to criminals and illegals at our southern border. Is this equal justice for our tax paying citizenry or the promotion of corporate profits dependent on cheap labor, drug addictions and false advertising?
In my reports to Congress and Justice Department I explained how Title IV-D funding was creating a biased judiciary rewarded by the size and number of child support orders doled out in our nation’s domestic relations courts. Put another way, federal funding was being incentivized by the number of “custodial parents” needlessly manufactured to incite lucrative conflict in the so-called “best interests” of our children.
In support of a federal investigation, I even cited proof in my own case featuring over 40 trial level jurists removed over a twelve year period in a maliciously protracted divorce that caused irreversible parental alienation. This was anything but a process for advancing the best interests of my two precious daughters. And in the end, like most whistleblowers, I suffered severe retaliation to suppress judicial accountability. Attacked as the messenger of overdue reforms, I was targeted by these same jurists and their ethics agents. By destroying my credibility, the gold mine of service fees and federal money was further preserved.
That targeting was successful largely because the public is further duped to believe that judges are “beyond reproach” as members of that arbitrarily created elite class. Such argument was used by lawyers to attack my motions for removal of biased judges from my support and custody cases in Syracuse, New York. That was before some of them were removed from the family court bench for misconduct that was made public. They include Judge Bryan Hedges permanently banned from judicial office by New York’s high court for sexual misconduct on his handicapped, five year old niece and more recently, Judge Michael Hanuszczak, exposed for sexual harassment of female court clerks.
The growing number of judicial scandals should have all of us very concerned because this is where we expect justice to be dispensed. Examples cited in my reports include Brooklyn Judge Gerald Garson sent to federal prison after being convicted of seeking a bribe in favor of a father in a custody case, and Albany Judge Thomas Spargo for seeking a bribe in favor of a mother in a divorce case against a father-attorney.
Such judicial misconduct is nationwide in scope as demonstrated by the “Kids for Cash” scandal which landed two Pennsylvania judges in prison, and Michigan Judge Wade McCree who impregnated a mother while presiding over her child support case. The victimized father was unable to secure justice or compensation in federal court due to judicial immunity, sending the message that adultery in chambers is a protected judicial act.
Unfortunately my expert reports, lobbying excursions, and peacefully led marches in Washington yielded no reforms. Instead I was rewarded with human rights violations, indefinite suspension of licensing “privileges,” and near death experiences. Such are the consequences for whistleblowers in countries led by ruthless dictators, not one that professes democracy and social Justice. Yet those remain the consequences here in America for a civil rights attorney whose greatest crime was to seek more parenting time with his children and to expose corruption by self-jurists and politicians. My ordeal is now a looming documentary published in a recent book, Satan’s Docket.
This is not a “lone wolf” project but a representative undertaking for a disjointed mass of aggrieved parents from across the country hoping to achieve resurrection from their suffering at the hands of evil beings. It is not the message I was hoping to present on Easter Sunday 2021, but we can either join to achieve a better society or we can continue to surrender to one that is becoming more godless by the day.
Please help spread this vital message to overcome censorship of this public service blog site, Leon Koziol.com. You can reach us for comment and support by calling our office at Parenting Rights Institute at (315) 380-3420 or me directly at (315) 796-4000, e-mail at leonkoziol@gmail.com. Stay tuned for an eye-opening post coming soon on the subject of parental alienation which caused two girls to avoid all contact with their hospitalized dad this past Christmas holiday.
Ex-spouse’s present to Leon Koziol during co-parenting years prior to lawyer involvement in a lucrative and needlessly protracted divorce
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
In a flurry of recent posts, I document the judicial corruption and parental alienation which have remained unchecked in our nation’s divorce and family courts. The coronavirus pandemic has now combined with those dysfunctions to create a perfect storm in today’s society.
With closures, social distancing and home confinements, it has aggravated the alienation of parents from their children particularly in the divorce and separation context. There has not been, and perhaps there never can be, a study which reports on the number of suicides, drug addictions, domestic violence and health impairments caused by this perfect storm. However, a comprehensive review is clearly warranted.
As a civil rights attorney, victimized parent and judicial whistleblower, I have repeatedly called upon our federal government to commence this review through congressional hearings and a Justice Department investigation. It is based on thirty years of experience in these courts. Had this occurred, today’s dire consequences may have been less impactful. Instead I was subjected to severe retaliation with overdue reforms that remain elusive.
Outside observers are easily duped into believing that conflict in these courts are financially and emotionally driven by disgruntled parents. But a closer look leads to a more accurate conclusion that such conflict is typically orchestrated by unscrupulous lawyers, biased judges and a money-driven court system. Service fees and federal Title IV-D funding are key examples.
This website, http://www.leonkoziol.com chronicles more than ten years of persecution endured by me as a result of my stand against this corrupted system. I have witnessed it first hand in a number of relevant capacities and will expose certain trial level jurists who abused public office in my case to retaliate for this public stance. The abuse was pathetically obvious and supportive of my demands for accountability.
In 2009, Syracuse family judge, Martha Walsh-Hood, conducted a four day custody trial that she was unprepared for. The sheer volume of cases may have been one explanation but a predetermined outcome was more likely. For example, she directed me to cease the spontaneous presence of a pen between my fingers during objections because it was intimidating my ex-spouse. There was no complaint from her, nor a similar directive of my opposing female attorney. Coupled with other abuses, it led to a conclusion that this judge was prejudiced against men. The resulting exercise in futility caused me to exit early.
In 2011, after Judge Walsh-Hood stepped down from my ongoing family matters, Judge Michele Pirro-Bailey issued an order granting the ex-spouse my weekend parenting time to accommodate a family event. This was done despite the judge’s admission that she had not reviewed my opposition papers and without even hearing my opposing argument in court. It caused me to exit this hearing early inasmuch as my side of the case was being ignored in violation of due process. After issuing abusive forensic orders in my absence, this judge also stepped down weeks later. The orders were removed by her successor on the same record to show how arbitrary and needless they were.
On January 14, 2014, a judge who replaced the latter (without reason given) conducted yet another custody hearing during which he was caught orchestrating a record to support a second set of punitive forensic orders. Judge Daniel King resurrected them in retaliation for my testimony before the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption four months earlier. There I exposed his fabrication of college degrees to elevate my child support obligations. Specifically he directed me to cease making objections (two of five were already granted) regarding my ex-spouse’s irrelevant, defamatory and hearsay testimony under penalty of being removed from the courthouse. A transcript supports his misconduct. To avoid a “contempt by ambush” I was forced to again exit early.
In 2018, a child support violation hearing was held before more assigned jurists, Natalie Carraway and Gerald Popeo. There I exposed a scheme to double my obligation for contempt incarceration purposes. A social services attorney, free for my ex-spouse, committed malpractice by failing to offer a support summary into evidence at the conclusion of her lone witness testimony. It was admitted anyway over my objections and then reversed when I discovered a $45,500 support amount paid in 2015 which had been omitted from that summary. In this way, an attempted fraud was concealed from the record.
Both Carraway and Popeo later denied me a transcript of that hearing to show not only serious error but also a fraud in the Title IV-D funding program. It caused me to avoid a clear set-up at a confirmation (contempt) hearing conducted by Popeo. This led to an unlawful support warrant, secret bulletin and “shoot on sight” threat from a traffic cop to mirror the 2015 Walter Scott shooting in South Carolina. That transcript has yet to materialize despite recourse sought in both federal and state appellate courts.
In these and other proceedings over the years I was forced to take extreme measures to protect myself. This included an absence from my daughters’ school events with an ex-spouse threatening a contempt petition each time I attempted contact. I had never been found to be an unfit parent or even accused of any abuse, but a jail term without a jury, pretrial discovery or heightened standard of proof, was not an option. With each early exit, these and other assigned jurists were able to use the ex-spouse’s unchecked testimony to issue one-sided orders that made me to appear incompetent as a parent.
Such orchestrations were rampant over my fourteen year ordeal that led to the destruction of my wonderful father-daughter relationships and ultimate harm to my health and professional career. The joint misconduct was well hidden in a voluminous record and presumptively credited due to the high regard typically associated with any person bearing the title of “judge.” In truth, it was a pretext for punishing my First Amendment rights as a whistleblower outside the courtroom.
My daughters cannot be expected to understand the complexities of this misconduct which forced me out of their lives. We had such a wonderful relationship for more than ten years, but all that was erased by a “custodial” mother and court system hell bent on money interests over parental rights. I lost so many opportunities to experience various phases and crucial events in my girls’ lives that can never be recovered. And I was forced to pay for the kidnapping with over a quarter million dollars in tax free child support paid to date despite an income capacity destroyed by draconian support practices.
This is the price paid by an attorney with the qualifications to challenge a corrupt court system. It is a price which allows the system to live on even during a pandemic, thereby harming countless parents, children and families. It is an epidemic protected by powerful interests, one that wreaking havoc upon our society as a whole. Although my sacrifices were many, they were properly directed against this system. Hopefully others will join my crusade so that those sacrifices were not in vain.
For more information, I may be contacted at leonkoziol@gmail.com or (315) 796-4000. Kindly share this post to overcome the censorship we are experiencing.
“I would love to come off this bench and wipe that smirk off your face!” Judge Gerald Popeo to litigant in his courtroom
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
Why is judicial accountability so crucial to democracy? The answer is simply this: too much power vested in a single person invariably leads to corruption. We see this everywhere today. As it is said, tyranny begets anarchy, and when judges fail to honor the rule of law established by the people, the natural consequence is to take the law into one’s own hands. This is the very underpinning of American society and how our country came to be.
However when judicial power is usurped in domestic relations courts, a more serious form of corruption emerges. This is because families and parent-child relationships have long been considered sacred, private matters. Unfortunately, despite a constitution that created a form of government divorced from the mother country, a judge-made doctrine in feudal England managed to evade our Bill of Rights by finding its way into these courts.
That doctrine, known as Parens Patriae, has been relied upon to invade our privacy rights in ways never before imagined in a free society. As an accomplished civil rights attorney who became a victim of this doctrine, I set out to expose the corruption it caused to me and fellow victims. I sought to convert family court from a lawyer-friendly system to a parent-oriented one. Over time it cost me my professional career, father-daughter relationships and ultimately my very health.
When my ex-wife and mother of my children began to see the consequences of my principled stand, she took advantage of the retaliation by filing petitions that received the favor of judges seeking to suppress my First Amendment rights. Indeed in November, 2015, that ex-wife, Kelly Hawse-Koziol, filed yet another family offense petition having an ulterior goal of removing me from my daughters’ lives. Over the years, all her offense petitions were thrown out, but this one featured a gag order disguised as a protection order on this whistleblower website, http://www.leonkoziol.com.
The illicit scheme was profoundly exposed when I obtained a court order in New York Supreme Court challenging it. Despite motions denied over a six month period, the presiding family judge who issued that gag order (Daniel King), cancelled his hearing on the offense petition and vacated (removed) his own gag order. Weeks later, the same Judge King stepped off the case entirely after three years of harm to my father-daughter relationships. He never ceased his retaliation for my 2013 whistleblower testimony before the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption. There I exposed fabricated college degrees used to elevate my child support obligations for incarceration (contempt) purposes.
Throughout this crusade, my daughters and law license were used as ransom to elicit my silence. For her part, rather than honor the sacred interest in a father-daughter relationship, Kelly Hawse-Koziol exploited the clear retaliation by asserting one false accusation after another which I was forced to defend. I did so to an extreme of seeking constitutional protection in federal courts. But by then the fix was in, the record too tarnished, and any basic rights I might have once had were ignored or shamelessly violated. Hawse-Koziol was never held accountable for her perjuries and abusive petitions.
That favoritism was made possible by a judge made doctrine known as judicial immunity. Under that doctrine, judges can actually abuse public office by maliciously targeting a critic. To illustrate its absurdity, Michigan family judge, Wade McCree, was removed from the bench after his adulterous relationship with a litigant was exposed. It featured an adversary father that McCree placed on a child support monitor to appease his paramour. The father sued for civil rights violations in federal court but was denied recourse based on immunity, leading to the bizarre conclusion that sex in chambers with a litigant is now a protected judicial act.
This website, Leon Koziol.com chronicles more than ten years of efforts to reform this system and the retaliation which has yet to earn an Innocence Project outcome. Critical to my ordeal was a willingness of biased jurists, acting without a jury, to ignore perjury in the petitions and hearing testimony of Kelly Hawse-Koziol. Anything that could be used against me quickly found its way into decisions and orders that systematically destroyed proven father-daughter relationships. The judge prejudice was so extreme on one occasion that I was ordered to cease objections to such testimony under penalty of being removed from the courthouse (Family Judge Daniel King, January 14, 2014 transcript).
That willingness to ignore perjury was well demonstrated at a June, 2016 hearing where I was challenging a city marshal who claimed service of a support violation petition upon me at a local restaurant (known as a traverse hearing). After his sworn service document and testimony were introduced by Hawse-Koziol’s lawyer (one of many she retained), I cross examined him on a segment which claimed recitation of veteran status during the service of the petition. Knowing of an upcoming witness of mine in the waiting area, the marshal admitted that he never gave such a recitation. He then admitted that he had lied on the sworn document and in his testimony before the court.
Although the petition was consequently dismissed, no referral for perjury prosecution was made to the Syracuse district attorney. Such lack of accountability became potentially fatal when a scheme was hatched one year later to have an Oneida County deputy sheriff acting in the capacity of court security to serve the next violation petition upon me during a custody hearing. Unlike all other court litigants, Hawse-Koziol was not charged for this service as prescribed by law and the deputy sheriff was acting outside the scope of his security duties. So disruptive was this unlawful act that it caused yet another assigned judge to step down from my case.
More than 40 trial level jurists were assigned to my family matters over a 14 year period, a national record by most accounts. That alone warrants a federal investigation. There was no disciplinary action taken by this deputy’s superior, Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol, and no investigation by the state judicial conduct commission or attorney general, proving clearly that the state courts are unable to police themselves. The unlawfully served petition ultimately led to a “shoot on sight” threat from a traffic cop purporting to enforce a violation warrant issued by Utica City Judge Gerald Popeo. He was assigned to replace the one who stepped down and to avenge a public censure of that judge.
The corruption here was so rampant and unchecked that it forced me to take a bold stand against this irreparably infected process. Law enforcement would be well served by looking into such corruption because it puts them needlessly in harm’s way. One of Sheriff Maciol’s deputies was fatally shot during a stand-off with a parent trapped in a garage during a domestic incident. Had the officers who had him surrounded let time and talk take its course, that deputy might still be on duty today.
Throughout my ordeal in this corrupted family court system, I was proven justified time and again. To cite only a few examples, I filed a motion to remove one of my custody judges from my case and to prevent a private meeting with my young daughters in chambers. Opposing lawyers condemned it as an assault on a judge whose reputation was “beyond reproach.” Only months later, that judge, Bryan Hedges, was permanently removed by New York’s high court after Hedges’ public admission to sexual abuse of his handicapped five year old niece.
Judge Hedges’ replacement, Syracuse family judge Michael Hanuszczak, was forced to resign after a state judicial commission had found that he sexually harassed subordinate court staff. Judge Gerald Popeo, as stated, was publicly censured (when he should have been removed) by the same judicial commission for making racist remarks, jailing litigants for such conduct as a “smirk,” and threatening violence from the bench to remedy such indiscretions. The ethics lawyers who also targeted me were allowed to resign after falsifying their time sheets. These removals are all a matter of public record.
While this is only a partial list, it underscores the problem I set out to correct. A mother truly committed to her daughters and a co-parenting environment that was once so promising would counsel them on the righteousness of my cause. Instead she exploited the clear misconduct for selfish gain. My parenting liberties were so monitored that nothing I did was acceptable. Conditions were imposed that were not only contradictory, something I described as a “contempt by ambush,” but they forced me to avoid all contact with my precious girls.
This ordeal is detailed, in part, in my published book, Satan’s Docket, available on this site and http://www.parentingrightsinstitute.com. I am asking all court victims to carry on this cause so that my sacrifices are not in vain. For more information, you can contact me directly at leonkoziol@gmail.com or (315) 796-4000. Kindly share this post to overcome continued censorship and suppression.
“I would love to come off this bench and wipe that smirk off your face!” Judge Gerald Popeo to a litigant in his courtroom
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
As they say, every dirty dog has his day. You can abuse judicial office and get away with it for a long time. But the day will come when you will be held accountable, and what a sweet day that will be for the victims.
That day for Judge Gerald Popeo has arrived. And like so many who ganged up on me (we’ll just call them junk yard dogs), justice will finally be served when he is removed from the bench by a stellar candidate who announced his campaign to seek Gerry’s judgeship in 2020.
Oneida County Assistant District Attorney Joe Saba announced that he will seek the judgeship for City Court of Utica, New York this week. Scary Gerry has not yet announced and was no doubt hoping to be unopposed. But like another member of the “Get Leon” clan, Judge Mike Daley, I am predicting a sound defeat of incumbent Popeo should he decide to run.
After “Cowboy” Daley abused his judge assignment to my family court case in 2010, he could not get the support of his political party when he sought re-election shortly afterward. He could not even get support for his old job as Herkimer County DA. He was soundly defeated by another assistant district attorney.
Judge #42 has now replaced Popeo after all his revenge work was completed against me. Assigned out of Syracuse, her name is “Martha Mulroy” who simply joined the junk yard team by denying everything I requested, even simple phone contact which life term prisoners get. That is how deep the venom runs after all the corruption I exposed.
I have never been charged with a crime, reported for abuse or found to be an unfit parent. I am the victim of a so-called “custodial parent” (Kelly Hawse-Koziol) who abused her own title through brainwashing and severe parental alienation to get a millionaire father replacement. She failed in at least two of her scams and is now working on her third victim according to an anonymous letter received last month.
It may be too late to save my father-daughter relationships, but hopefully I might get major compensation and precedent to benefit others in my state supreme court case which was recently moved to federal court by the New York Attorney General. Scary Gerry is now the lead defendant named in that action after the State of New York was necessarily dropped due to 11th Amendment sovereign immunity.
I will now recruit voters in the city which I once served as an elected councilman and corporation counsel. Mr. Saba saved me a full page dedicated to seeking candidates to run against Popeo. It should not be difficult to remove Gerry after that Public Censure he got from the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct (issued on February 12, 2015).
In that decision, you will find how Gerry was found guilty of making racial jokes to an African-American attorney in city court. He was censured for a threat to do violence to a litigant by threatening to come off the bench to “wipe a smirk off (his) face.” He could not lie about that one, like he denied the racial misconduct, because his threats were recorded by a court stenographer. Now let’s face it, that is one DUMB judge.
Scary Gerry was also punished for throwing guys in jail in violation of their due process rights whenever someone rubbed him the wrong way. Now that’s EGO MANIA on steroids! Come on Gerry, this isn’t a street fight. You have the protection of court security, and you gotta wonder who they would restrain if Gerry did come off the bench to wipe out smirks. They would certainly not be necessary if he attempted that on me.
There were so many cases of wrongdoing that you gotta wonder how Gerry was allowed to remain on the bench at all. This is the same guy who bellied up to me at a local bar in 2017 to accuse me of involvement in the “witch hunt” against him. I now wish I was involved but informed him truthfully that I was not. Evidently paranoid for some irrational reason, he did not buy it.
Somehow he got himself assigned to my family court case six months later. Now, all else aside, you gotta ask yourself a common sense question: what is a racist, violent and egotistical judge doing in family court which features domestic violence cases and sensitive family matters? He was obviously appointed to even the score for his paranoid suspicions. That alone is a serious violation of the Judicial Code of Ethics.
Judge Gerry then orchestrated a support violation warrant which got out of control when a traffic cop claimed that he could “shoot on site” because somehow that warrant was secretly modified into high alert status. All of this is now the subject of my federal case. Yeah, as I stated, every dirty dog has his day. You can’t change the spots on a leopard, but you can change a scary situation by voting a dog out of office.
If you would like to help the movement to throw “Scary Gerry” off the bench, call our office at (315) 380-3420
It is high time for our Supreme Court to address a human rights epidemic in our nation’s divorce and family courts. Pictured here: Dr. Koziol and associates at a news conference on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court after a petition for writ was filed in 2016.
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
A federal judge has granted a request by the New York Attorney General to adjourn proceedings regarding my parental rights case from November 15, 2019 to next month. Also, lawyers for defendant Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol and a support investigator have filed motions set for December 20, 2019.
However, unless otherwise informed, there will be no public argument on that day. I received notice of this in the mail over the weekend and ask all interested followers to share this information to benefit those originally planning to attend this Friday.
Principally a constitutional rights case, I am seeking to invalidate a scheme of custody and child support provisions that are increasingly harming moms, dads and their children. These provisions enable draconian enforcement practices that routinely cause needless conflict and destroy parent-child relationships.
Parental alienation is asserted as a symptom of a dysfunctional family court system which brings lucrative benefits to third parties and billions of dollars in Title IV-D incentive funds to state collection agencies. Debtor prisons, bankruptcies and premature deaths are rising as a result of the mass suppression of a human rights epidemic fed by our own federal government.
USA Today featured an editorial in yesterday’s edition (Veterans Day) which called for programs to reduce the shocking number of suicides in our military (22 per day). True to form, it focused on PTSD and active military suicides with no mention of the divorce and family court crisis occuring when they come home.
For the past twelve years, I have assisted victims of this crisis. In one case, I prevented an Iraq war veteran from committing suicide as his preferred course of action over a jail cell for support debts. Those debts were caused by PTSD, unemployment and a family court lawyer who was failing his duties to this client.
Sadly, while remaining focused on parent-child separations at our borders and the 2016 elections, those members have made no effort to respond to the vital requests made in that report. They include a federal investigation of human rights violations, family court corruption and fraud through the use of federal funds.
Consequently when a $35,500 child support payment was not recognized in my support violation case in 2018, a clear fraud was exposed, one designed to cause a contempt sentence for non-payment and an increase in federal aid. With the added feature of a “shoot on sight threat,” it became necessary to seek protection in a higher court. That action led the New York Attorney General to move my case to federal court.
Whistle blowers like me have been persecuted beyond rhyme or reason for exposing this epidemic. Indeed lawyers have committed crimes during their witch hunt against me in retaliation for my exercise of First Amendment and due process rights which are at the core of this litigation.
For example, three ethics lawyers were allowed to resign without any charges despite being caught falsifying their time sheets. My custody judge was permanently removed from the bench after admitting to sexual abuse of his handicapped, five-year old niece (ex-New York “Family” Judge Bryan Hedges).
Like prior federal litigation, after a 23-year stellar record as a civil rights lawyer, the motions now filed by the attorney general and county lawyers omit key precedent from their written arguments for dismissal. They include the Second Circuit ruling in NAACP v Merrill(September 10, 2019) and Third Circuit decision in Malhan v Sec. of State, N. J. Attorney General, et. al. (marked “precedential” on September 18, 2019).
Read together, both cases have curtailed Eleventh Amendment immunity, Rooker-Feldman doctrine and Younger Abstention practices. Such practices have been used by federal courts to keep aggrieved family court victims from having their federal rights heard in a federal court. The very reason for existence of these courts is to safeguard our constitutional rights.
In my recent 24-page brief opposing dismissal, I raised these and other crucial cases to benefit victims everywhere. That brief caused the attorney general to seek the adjournment for a more thorough reply. The various submissions by the lawyers in this case are available at my office or in the public court records.
As always, we rely on donations and purchases on this site and the Parenting Rights Institute to make this all possible. Kindly make your donation today or call our office at (315) 380-3420.
Dr. Leon Koziol at a whistle blower conference in Washington D.C. pictured here with the executive director and legal counsel of the Government Accountability Project (GAP).
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
If you are a regular follower of this site, you know that our Institute and fellow advocates of government accountability have remained unable to obtain the necessary investigations of judicial/lawyer misconduct and family law reform. It is a trillion dollar industry controlling our courts much like the tobacco, energy and drug companies control our elected officials.
But the time for surrender and depression is over, we get it now, the ones we entrusted to deliver “justice for all” have made it clear they could care less about our grievances. Just don’t acknowledge us, and the misconduct simply did not occur. But this neglect of our complaints will no longer be tolerated. A citizen occupied commission is being organized to act in place of the official ones dominated by lawyers and violators.
Dubbed the Independent Misconduct Commission, we are looking for conscientious citizens willing to serve on our board of directors. We are also looking for contributors, writers and researchers on a voluntary basis until sufficient donations and investments can be obtained. That means we need fundraisers as well. Meetings will be conducted by teleconference or Skype with assignments by electronic means and phone.
The idea here is to act as a substitute for the corrupted commissions and committees. We will monitor judicial commissions across the states and deliver counter-reports where required for a more appropriate penalty which we will share with that commission and media. For those complaints that are wrongfully neglected, we will issue our own “reprimands,” “public censures” and “removal recommendations.” Our ever expanding website (to be developed soon) will catalogue all our reports and shared over the internet.
The myth that widespread corruption in our courts is nonexistent may easily be debunked by citing major joint investigations such as Operation Greylord in Chicago. 17 judges, 48 lawyers, 10 deputy sheriffs, 8 policemen, 8 court officials and one elected official were indicted. Nearly all were convicted. The young lawyer secured by the FBI to gather evidence in that Operation was advised that he might never practice law as a result. I incurred that very punishment for my whistle blowing and reform activity, hence my resolve to make this independent commission a reality.
An independent citizen commission is further justified by recent reports such as those in New York and California showing that as little as 10 % of all complaints are even investigated by the official judicial commissions. Our third branch of government cannot immunize itself from accountability in this manner. The number of judges convicted in federal court of bribes, extortion, racketeering and fixing custody cases is unprecedented. That fact alone justifies checks and balancing of their self-regulated operation. To that end, a sampling of documented cases is now in order.
New York Chief Judge Sol Wachtler was sent to federal prison for secretly harassing his mistress and her daughter for a bribe. He directed paid court staff to harm the lawyer who was helping her expose him. In his book, After the Madness, Wachtler rationalized that judges are taught to think as gods. Contrary to that status, my custody judge was banned from the bench after admitting to sexual abuse of his handicapped, five-year old niece, In re Bryan Hedges, 20 NY3d 677 (2013). Unlike priests and other sexual predators, that judge was never prosecuted criminally.
Brooklyn divorce judge, Gerald Garson, was also sent to federal prison after FBI agents proved that he had accepted a bribe to fix a custody case in favor of a father. He was released early after numerous Garson colleagues submitted good references. Now what does that say about setting an example and any genuine concern for fairness and justice? In upstate, New York, another judge tried the same thing in favor of a mother. New York Supreme Court Judge Thomas Spargo was convicted for seeking a $10,000 bribe. He needed it for lawyer fees to defend earlier misconduct charges.
In the “Kids for Cash” scandal, two Pennsylvania judges were sent to federal prison for accepting bribes from detention center contractors. 4,000 juvenile convictions had to be overturned by the state’s Supreme Court which had its own justices mired in scandals. One juvenile victim committed suicide, and his mom chastised these judges at their sentencing. one co-defendant judge ordered evaluations to be conducted by a relative who raked in over $1 million as a result.
A married Michigan judge, Wade McCree, presided over a child support case while getting the mom pregnant and putting an unknowing dad on a support monitor. He was removed from the bench, but the dad’s lawsuit was turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court due to judge immunity. Can it be that judge adultery in chambers with an active litigant is now a protected judicial act? What other “acts” are judge-immune?
In Watertown, New York, a state court judge, James McClusky, sentenced a school employee convicted of sexually abusing a 14 year old student to probation, no jail time, while good fathers are being sentenced to six month jail terms in the same court for failing to pay child support bills. Victim supporters collected over 70,000 signatures in a petition to remove McClusky, but months later, that judge remains on the bench and the state judicial conduct commission has taken no action.
Finally, we bring you a shocker from Utica, New York. City Judge Gerald Popeo was merely censured in 2015 by the same judicial commission despite a hearing judge who found that he had made racist jokes to an African-American attorney. Asked whether the attorney knew what downstate blacks called upstate blacks, Judge Popeo got no answer. He then stated, “country niggers.” He targeted a former African-American commissioner causing a suicide attempt in the city lock-up.
Gerald Popeo was found guilty of numerous ethics violations. He threatened to come off the bench to wipe a smirk off a litigant’s face. He jailed men for contempt in violation of their rights. And because he was never removed, Popeo was assigned to my family court matters in 2018 (as a city judge), resulting in a near fatal outcome. How is such violent, racist and unethical conduct appropriate for family court where domestic violence and debtor prisons are common? Popeo was brought up on complaints of racism and bias against this judicial whistle blower but, to date, nothing has come of it. With an independent commission, we would have countered the public censure with a report publicly demanding Popeo’s removal and disbarment.
Such egregious misconduct is not limited to state judges. In United States v Cossey, 632 F.3d 82 (2nd Cir. 2011), a federal judge issued a six-year sentence for a non-violent offense with the kind of omnipotence that would make anyone cringe. Judge Gary Sharpe announced a gene to explain criminal behavior, one that would be not be discovered for another fifty years: “It is a gene you were born with. And it’s not a gene you can get rid of,” he emphasized to the defendant while condemning the psychiatric profession for its own opinions that were “all over the board.”
Reversing this decision, a federal appeals court unanimously found that Sharpe’s brand of justice “seriously affected the fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial proceedings.” In a rare move, it referred the case to another judge on remand. Such gross misconduct conflicted with the rationale for granting life tenure to federal jurists. Recourse is limited to the illusory process of impeachment where only one judge in our history was removed for non-criminal behavior.
This sort of “Hitleresque” mindset must be rooted out for the evil that it is with congressional hearings. In countless family court cases, records are falsified and misconduct is concealed or disregarded to protect judicial reputation. Judges are widely deemed to be beyond reproach. Tragedies have therefore resulted from oversight failures and a lack of criminal prosecutions involving human rights violations under federal law such as the ones cited above. Five cases highlight the horrific consequences to parents, families and law enforcement over the past decade:
On September 28, 2009, police Investigator Joseph Longo was ordered to pay $1,800 in monthly child support. He answered the same day with a murder- suicide leaving four children without parents. Even the district attorney could not predict this. A $2 million recovery was based on a zone of danger created by city officials as opposed to family court, Pearce v Longo, 766 F. Supp. 2d 367 (2011) LaDuca, Rage built Longo to murder-suicide, Observer Dispatch, 12/30/09.
On June 15, 2011, a father and war veteran, Thomas Ball, burned himself alive on the steps of a family court to protest years of abuse and separation from his children. It stemmed from a single incident of slapping his daughter, and he left behind a manifesto on how to firebomb courts. Even after such a horrific death, the ex-wife stubbornly defended herself by complaining that her children’s dad failed to comply with court counselling. This is how demented the process has become, see Mark Arsenault, Dad leaves clues to his desperation, Boston Globe, July 10, 2011.
On April 4, 2015, Walter Scott, an unarmed father was shot dead five times in the back by a traffic cop while fleeing a support warrant. The shocking murder was videoed by a concealed bystander. Contrary to national hype focused on racism, the victim’s funeral pastor blamed it on draconian child support confinements. Many concluded that the state was now killing for money given the revolving door outcomes. In vain, two reporters warned of this trend, see Robles and Dewan, Skip child support. Go to jail. Lose job. Repeat. New York Times, 4/15/15 at pg. 1.
On July 30, 2018, a physical therapist with a practice in Manhattan fatally shot his ex-wife, their 6-year old son and current wife in his Astoria (Queens) home. It became the final edict in a protracted custody battle fueled by judicial war games. After a failed Go-Fund-Me effort to pay his lawyer fees, in a page titled “Child Kidnapping,” the abused dad, James Shield, explained, “I had the perfect life a few years ago but it has spiraled out of control,” Moore, Musemeci and Sheehy, Custody battle led dad to family murder suicide, New York Post, July 31, 2018.
And so the carnage continues, this time in Philadelphia where a mother showed her dissatisfaction during a domestic dispute over child support by purchasing a gun and killing the father and their two infant children the next day. It occurred on October 15, 2019 and the mother, Damyrra Jones, survived her suicide attempt only to be arrested on multiple counts of murder.
Less transparent are the countless cases swarming beneath these five which can easily explode. Their cause is wrongfully blamed on the parents. The public is duped into believing that an adversarial process yields truth and justice in our courts. That may be true in other forms of litigation, but when children are taken hostage by untethered lawyers, the opposite is true here. Parents commit perjury on an artificial premise that they are protecting their offspring. Sparks convert to forest fires, children emulate the dysfunction, and the perpetrators profit.
If you would like to do something meaningful about this growing, silent epidemic, support our Independent Misconduct Commission. Make government accountability real from the people who entrusted our government officials with the greatest of duties. E-mail me personally at leonkozioljd@gmail.com or call our PRI office at (315) 380-3420.
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