Here at public interest website, www.leonkoziol.com, we feature news alerts and expert reviews on timely events, nationally and locally, to assist those victimized by abusive litigation, political targeting or free speech retaliation. We are a think tank and action group dedicated to good government at a time when corruption is being exposed daily at levels never before imagined.
Indeed, we are now living in an age in which humanity has perfected weapons that could desecrate civilization beyond recovery. More ominously, we could be eliminated in a split second by Artificial Intelligence. This irreversible trend is being fueled by billionaires and trillion-dollar industries oblivious to the consequences for the worship of unmitigated profits.
Only last month, major media reported a poll showing that more than 70% of people thought government, family and community were important as recently as 1998 whereas those figures dropped below 40% today. It should be no shock, then, that the founder of this site, Dr. Leon Koziol, J.D., was persecuted for a bold stand taken against another lucrative industry, his legal profession, in 2010.
Such persecution was unprecedented, constitutionally prohibited and elevated over time to result in a terminal diagnosis ten years later. As we have declared repeatedly here, you can commit murder with a firearm or accomplish the same outcome indirectly through a seizure of one’s livelihood, children and health. The latter has become more common today leading to record levels of suicides, crime and immoral behavior.
The targeting of Attorney Koziol was carried out knowingly, predictably and maliciously after more than two decades as a successful and unblemished trial lawyer demanding meaningful accountability and overdue reforms. A rational person might expect that retaliation would occur here, but this agenda was off the charts. As the adage also goes, if you cannot kill the message, kill the messenger.
It became the functional equivalent of human rights violations practiced by tyrannical regimes, and it forced Attorney Koziol to seek asylum in a foreign country noted for free world policies. That ordeal was captured in a 2021 memoir entitled, Whistleblower in Paris. Ironically this book was preceded in 2014 by a published novel, Voyage to Armageddon. Available at major bookstores and on-line, both are fascinating reads.
As a law-abiding citizen one day, you can become a victim the next without anyone to aid you. If the unprecedented indictment of a former president proved anything, it was not so much the principle that “no one is above the law,” but the reality that anyone can be targeted for speech critical to an honorable and self-governing nation, Snyder v Phelps, 562 US 443 (2011).
That is why this site was created, to give you a fighting chance to counter government abuse and educate yourself to its realities. You are therefore called upon as a loyal American to help publicize this highly censored site through social, mainstream and secondary media. You can also support our nonprofit citizen advocacy group below. Spread this vital message while time still allows.
Your future and that of your families are at stake.
“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.
No, this is not an apprentice. His name is Daniel King, harming parents, children and families as a judge for nearly a decade. Now comes the opportunity to replace him with a qualified candidate in 2022.
Leon R. Koziol, J.D.
Parenting Rights Institute
Administrator’s Note: This is a column worth reading due to its exposure of court corruption that could harm any potential family court litigant. You will learn of inside practices not revealed elsewhere. Share this with others so that they can avoid similar judge abuses.
Author’s Note: As a practicing civil rights attorney until 2010, I became privy to much concealed misconduct in our courts which I exposed only to incur immense retributions. The following column is a part of my ordeal.
Daniel King had a stint as a lawyer in rural Lewis County, New York before managing to have himself elected to the position of family judge in 2012. Upon taking office, he was assigned to cases in much larger counties of New York’s Fifth Judicial District (Syracuse, Utica-Rome and Watertown). These included criminal court matters beyond the limited jurisdiction of family court under the state constitution. But because of a highly abused assignment provision in that same document, he was able to become assigned to cases normally handled by other specialized judges.
This bizarre assignment process took Judge King away from duties properly committed to his Lewis County constituents but he must have enjoyed all the prestige it was giving to him. It is a court process largely off-record and beyond challenge by impacted parties. It represents only one of many reasons cited by the New York bar for a constitutional convention in 2017 to rectify the state’s complex 11-trial court system. That system was compared to our most populous state of California which has a single trial level court. For the same reason, this judge in a county barely having more than 25,000 residents was able to preside in counties having over 460,000 residents. These were places where he never would have been elected, where the voters now had no say in his assignments.
As corruption or bad luck would have it, Daniel King was assigned to my custody and support matters in Oneida County (Utica-Rome) only six months into his term. It was ordered by District Administrative Judge James (Bond) Tormey. Jim acquired the spy designation because he was named in a successful civil rights lawsuit brought by a chief court clerk who refused to engage in “political espionage” (according to a federal judge). This chief clerk was ordered to spy against judge candidates of an opposite political party and was subjected to retaliation by assignments to remote locations.
This retaliation patterned my family court assignments to many of the same remote locations in retaliation for my whistleblowing activity. The clerk recovered $600,000 because, unlike litigants harmed by comparable wrongs, court employees are not subject to judicial immunity. I know the corruption exposed here at Leon Koziol.com is often hard to believe, but this one can be verified at Morin v Tormey, 626 F.3d 40 (2nd Cir, 2010)(a federal appeals court ruling in Manhattan). Somehow the learned judges who reviewed the retaliation against me could not see a problem with any of this. It was not even mentioned in their subsequent decisions on my state appeals and federal civil rights cases.
Emboldened by those unjust decisions, Judge King began a process of systematically alienating me from my precious daughters. The tactics used are beyond conscience, but you will have to simply brace yourself for the revelations made now, years later, so that one can see how truly corrupt, hypocritical and political these family court processes can be. Daniel King was eventually forced to step down from my support and custody cases but not before irreparable harm was inflicted, the kind that warrants not only millions of dollars in state compensation, but a profound investigation by both the U.S. Justice Department and Civil Rights Bureau of the New York Attorney General.
The voters of Lewis County must be made aware of King’s reign in their family court because any one of them could become victim to his juvenile behavior. This rural county is dominated by Republicans and Conservatives, hence a voting democracy here is best served by a primary candidate. If party leaders are mindlessly committed to an incumbent endorsement, a Republican challenger can easily overcome this by going directly to the people. That much is easy to do here. No media or special interests will prevent a door-to-door campaign. Even a third-party candidate will send the message that we are sick of do-nothing, politically-appointed, window-dressing, misconduct commissions.
To be sure, why not send a profound message that the rest of our nation can applaud and emulate in a state where our country was born, where Revolutionary War sites abound? Judge King exhibited exactly what his name suggests, a petty tyrant too immature to restrain his ego, impressing his judicial superiors so that an endorsement would be a given and his abuses forgotten years later. If anything, the value of our voting power lies in our ability to remember, to exert recourse when our oversight entities fail us. This is such a case, and we must find a judge candidate while time allows, and that time is now.
This judge tyrant acted on his first day of assignment issuing an order based on the one-sided assertions of an ex-spouse hell bent on replacing me with a childless millionaire having questionable motives. The accuser was not present at an event she was describing which warranted no intervention. She cited or produced no witness to back up her self-serving narratives. In short, anything that could be thrown at the lawyer-dad (judicial whistleblower) by a scorned party would be accepted as gospel with no moral compass or remorse of any kind. This King could care less about the grave consequences to wonderful, long-established, father-daughter relations at the time.
When asked in open court what basis was being used to issue his child access limitations, King managed to rationalize that he was somehow “protecting” my children, two girls he had never met, never raised, or made possible in the first place. This “best interests of the child” standard was abused beyond reason with power that had simply gone to King’s head. Only weeks later, he increased a child support obligation using college degrees (PhD and Masters) that I had never received. When called to task in later court filings, he refused to acknowledge his blunder, clear from the record, and dismissed it as “harmless error.”
Because there is no meaningful judicial oversight commission, I was forced to expose that blunder, among others, in testimony before ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Moreland Commission on Public Corruption at Pace University on September 17, 2013 (Constitution Day). Ironically that governor dissolved this commission prematurely when testimony began implicating top state officials in criminality. But fortunately one of the speakers was a federal prosecutor incensed by this maneuver. He seized commission files and ended up convicting the leaders of both houses of the legislature and a top Cuomo aide. Within three months of my highly public and damning exposure, Judge King ended the parenting time granted to me one year earlier by a veteran family judge in Syracuse.
Unlike that judge there was no trial here, and the one King concocted on another first appearance was labeled a “mini-hearing.” Because no advance notice was provided, no proof could be offered. No complaint had ever been filed with any child protection agency and I possessed no criminal record. Nevertheless, an infuriated Judge King suspended all child contact based on an admitted champaign toast at a niece’s wedding with my girls present. He called it a “prohibited alcohol related gesture” which was never prohibited anyway assuming one could figure out what such a gesture could be.
This is not something that can be made up. Despite prison inmates who were being treated with greater respect, this “prohibited gesture” can be found on page five of a December 2, 2013 decision. It was quickly stayed (stopped) on appeal, but when a panel of judges in Rochester got hold of it, my parenting time was again suspended without explanation one day before a properly noticed plenary (full) trial before Judge King. Shortly into that trial, conducted without jury, the sworn narratives of an unrepresented ex-spouse was allowed to proceed without any logical or legal constraint. This presiding judge directed me to cease making objections under penalty of removal so that he could orchestrate a desired record to back up his earlier bizarre rulings.
That plain scheme forced me to exit proceedings early not only due to its gesture in futility but to prevent a clearly biased judge from using me as part of any legitimate process. However, my exit also enabled King to treat the one-sided concoctions as true. Apart from a few holiday hours, I was then denied all parenting time to the present day, eight years later. Judge King was finally removed from my case after I successfully challenged his 2016 gag order on this website, Leon Koziol.com, thereby adding a First Amendment dimension to his combined assault on my parenting right. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declared that right to be “the oldest liberty interest protected by our Constitution,” Troxel v Granville, 530 US 57 (2000).
This is only a portion of my horrific ordeal which prompted me to seek international protection in Paris. It also prompted my September 23, 2021 testimony before Governor Kathy Hochul’s blue-ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations. Such evaluations were abused here to carry out the retaliation agenda. This is no John Grisham story but a true human rights odyssey captured in my newly published book, Whistleblower in Paris. Available at any Barnes and Noble store, Amazon (which gave it a five-star rating) or major on-line book seller, this book should be obtained by anyone seeking a candidacy or poetic justice in Lewis County.
Spread the word, kindly contribute to our cause, and many thanks for your support.
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.
ABOVE: These two dedication plaques on the lobby wall of a city courthouse commemorate the efforts of officials who came together to build a public forum for dispensing justice. Long time civil rights attorney Leon Koziol was instrumental in two capacities. As an elected city councilman, he secure a majority vote for construction funding after years of indecision by earlier council members. He then participated in dedication ceremonies when the courthouse was opened years later as the city’s corporation counsel. New York’s chief judge presided. Ironically a later judge of this city court, Gerald Popeo, was assigned to Attorney Koziol’s family court matters in 2017 to avenge a public censure against that judge which included racist commentary and physical threats from the bench.
Attorney Koziol’s career successes, exemplified by these courthouse plaques, would make any daughter proud. But they were destroyed when a deranged mother, Kelly Hawse-Koziol, made a single call to an unethical divorce lawyer in 2006. He influenced her to start a court battle against this dedicated dad using his daughters and law license as ransom. It escalated to the present day. The increased child support she demanded was never awarded to her. Instead the monthly amounts agreed upon prior to lawyer involvement were retained in a 2008 support order that remains the same today. It was deemed fair and compliant with federal and state support laws. But by then, the damage was done.
Leon Koziol’s ordeal is a John Grisham true story published, in part, in a 2017 book entitled, Satan’s Docket, available at http://www.parentingrightsinstitute.com.
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
Twelve (12) years of targeting by lawyers and government agents in retaliation for my public stand against family court corruption finally took its toll when I was admitted to the emergency room on December 22, 2020. During my four week stay at the hospital, I learned that another support violation petition had been filed against me by “custodial parent” and mother of my daughters, Kelly Hawse-Koziol despite having my earnings capacity destroyed by draconian family court practices. I also learned that she had stalked another millionaire father replacement after several earlier failures. She was finally getting married a second time.
Rather than direct our girls to a simple phone call to their only dad in the hospital, the soon-to-be Kelly Hawse-Usherwood was apparently busy competing with brides half her age in a “Say Yes to the Dress” competition in New York City. In another world free of court conflict I would have wished her luck and congratulated the new union. But unfortunately the better title for this one would be “Say Yes to the Mess” caused by greed, envy and downright stupidity. This website chronicles over ten years of parent controversy that destroyed everything good about a formerly cooperative childrearing environment.
Had Kelly Hawse-Koziol simply left me alone, our daughters would be enjoying an environment of hope, stability and happiness far greater than the mess that is rampant in their lives today. The psychotic brainwashing and parent alienation she inflicted were off the charts and sadistically facilitated by a so-called “family” court bent on punishing a judicial whistleblower. What rational daughter would ignore their own father, one that not only made her existence possible, but sacrificed everything to remain a part of her life against all odds? How could a model father-daughter relationship be erased from existence after years of wonderful interactions?
Beyond that, how could any new partner of such an evil mom not see how he could become a future victim? A single argument with this woman could easily erupt into a domestic violence call that would require the arrest of Lou Usherwood regardless of his innocence under the current VAWA laws. A successful businessman could have his hard earned reputation irreparably destroyed overnight. There is precedent here in my ordeal. And how is it that a father himself cannot see a serious problem in the situation he is inheriting?
I never asked for the anonymous letters from within my daughters’ school district that warned of a Lou Usherwood playing substitute dad for my daughters. But they cannot be ignored in light of the severe alienation that has the only father here without a phone call from his girls on Christmas and New Year’s Day while hospitalized. Those girls would want for nothing today had Kelly Hawse-Koziol not committed perjury time and again to destroy a lucrative law practice. All her family offense petitions and protection orders were thrown out for lack of evidence over the years, yet nothing was done to hold her accountable for the damage she caused.
My ordeal is the quintessential example of court corruption which begs for a judicial ethics investigation and more. And I am far from isolated. Indeed divorce and family court corruption is common among countless cases being covered up today. There remains a serious lack of accountability for lawyers and judges who orchestrate lucrative and needless controversy among parents and families in these courts.
To be sure, during my reform efforts across the country I was hired to investigate many horrific cases. They include a doctor in Manhattan who spent over $5 million in lawyer fees in a divorce that nevertheless cost him access to his three children, a university professor with a PhD from Yale who spent over $2 million in a divorce with no custody or support issue because his three children were adults at the time, and a stay-at-home mother who successfully raised four children to maturity only to be accosted by them after divorce with the most vulgar of language.
I have seen the evidence first hand and the cases are so widespread that an investigation by the Justice Department is long overdue. Federal Title IV-D funding is being abused on an escalating scale to separate good parents from their children while government priorities remain misplaced on protecting illegal aliens and criminals at our borders. It is a cause championed during the three day Parent March on Washington which I sponsored in 2019.
Help me secure justice and accountability for all victims of this growing epidemic. Let not my sacrifices be in vain. Contribute to our cause on this site and spread the word so that a unified front could be made for change in Congress and our courts. Contact me personally at leonkoziol@gmail.com or call me directly at (315) 796-4000.
We continue to be suppressed and censored, so your part in making this message viral is crucial.
Click the link above to hear a full recording of the Dr. Pappas presentation and exchange. Note a quiet gap before the first caller comes on which is referenced below. We could not edit it out but you might forward to discussion on your end.
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
On June 1, 2020, our Institute sponsored another in a series of conference calls regarding family court reform and misconduct during the pandemic. Dr. Anthony Pappas, Professor at St. John’s University and 2018 Republican opponent to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was our featured speaker. It was noted that some callers could not access the conference. Others kept at it until successful. One participant suggested that waiting until 7pm was the ticket to get him on the call after similar frustrations.
However timing has nothing to do with this problem since the call could be set at any time. For the same reason, overwhelmed usage may not explain it as the difference between 6:50pm and 7pm is nominal. But if the site sponsor, Free Conference Call, can foreclose access to persons other than the host for this ten minute period, it can kill our series and discourage reviews of the recording due to a long quiet period at the outset.
Censorship should not be easily dismissed as a cause given the technical ability to sabotage these highly informative but controversial sessions. Facebook has already admitted to doing such things, censoring users simply because of views they dispute. Consequently you will find a long gap between the beginning of the recording and the first participant entry complaining of his frustrations with access.
After Dr. Leon Koziol, the father of two young girls, filed a motion for removal of Family Judge Bryan Hedges from his child custody case, lawyers appointed for the children and retained by the mother chastised Koziol in open court for daring to challenge a judge whose reputation was “beyond reproach.” Only months later, that same judge resigned from the bench after admitting to sexual abuse of his handicapped 5-year old niece. To prevent future judge appointments, Hedges was permanently removed by the state’s high court in 2013, see In re “the Honorable” Bryan R. Hedges, 20 NY3d 677. On September 25, 2018, the administrator and counsel for the judicial commission which prosecuted this case published an editorial in the Washington Post featuring Hedges as an example of decades-old misconduct which can be used against sitting judges. It was directed to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. But Hedges was never prosecuted criminally unlike Roman Catholic priests. Imagine your nine and ten year old girls going into pedophile chambers without their parents for interrogation purposes? The adult victim in the Hedges case called Dr. Koziol after finding this site, http://www.leonkoziol.com, to thank him for his judicial whistle blower sacrifices.
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
After twenty years of litigation experience in federal and state courts, and twelve years exposing corruption, I continue to receive shocking stories of moms, dads and entire families victimized by lawyer abuses, ethical misconduct and legal malpractice. I won a number of attorney malpractice cases including one involving a divorce lawyer who later became a family court judge.
Unfortunately there are too many lawyers abusing family court candidates and litigants these days who receive the protection of attorney grievance committees and bar associations. Vintage culprits include those who grab your retainer monies at the outset and then neglect your crucial matters due to an overflow of clients they are unable to service adequately and competently.
The greed for money over ethical duty has created a “turn ’em and burn ’em” epidemic, law offices filled with predators masquerading as concerned professionals. You would never know that until it is too late. The majority of victims who contact me for justice and accountability have been through multiple lawyers until bankruptcy leaves them unrepresented against a hostile court (lawyers on the bench).
The number of victims and magnitude of harm overwhelm me time and again. This is why the Parenting Rights Institute which I founded in 2010 is now offering attorney search services to lessen the risk of you becoming another victim. Nothing is guaranteed of course as we can never detect a sociopath, but we can certainly monitor an attorney that we have evaluated and referred. Then you are not alone should that attorney fail you (sort of an insurance policy).
The standard way of searching for lawyers on the net or phone books is over. You need an advocate unafraid of the system and one who has proven to be resistant to retaliation or pressure, one who knows how to expose those who harm parents. We have confidential lawyers, marketing experts and even a forensic psychologist for the sophisticated search process you need and deserve.
Our rates depend on the complexity of assignment but they are surprisingly affordable according to those who have already hired us. The right attorney can save you tens of thousands of dollars in needless lawyer and forensic (evaluation) fees. Any lawyer who fails our referral clients may face postings, videos, reports and publicity which depict his or her misconduct. A review of our website verifies how serious we are about protecting unsuspecting parents from lawyer abuses.
If you would like to explore this valuable service, call our office at (315) 380-3420, or Leon Koziol directly at (315) 796-4000. Let the experts find the right attorney for you in your area. All calls are confidential and our retainers are tailored to your budget and conditions. You can also e-mail directly at leonkoziol@gmail.com.
IMPORTANT: For the sake of all parents, children and families, share this post and prevent those you love from becoming future victims.
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