“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.
Just shut up and pay YOUR child support! It’s a familiar insult which presumes that only one parent has any such obligation and that both parents cannot be trusted to set up their own arrangements free of state supervision. Given the complex society of today, the better assumption is that the state is ill equipped to raise our children and that a nation founded upon a limited government will no longer tolerate its abuses of power.
The euphemistic term “child support” has been conveniently exploited to build a giant bureaucracy focused more on revenue generation and service fees than the “best interests” of our children. Just place the child on top of the state tank and you can crush the rights of the people, even convincing parents to “happily” surrender the ones applicable to their offspring. It’s a tactic used by Adolph Hitler to build one of the greatest war machines in history.
Widespread declines in moral, family and religious values can largely be traced to this surrender. The word combination “child support” has been effective in drowning out the truth about a corrupted process that invites self-serving jurists to tread increasingly upon our most basic rights. These include our fundamental liberty interest in childrearing, Troxel v Granville, 530 US 57 (2000) and guarantee of procedural due process, Turner v Rogers, 564 US 431 (2011).
An ominous dissent in the latter case by Justice Clarence Thomas should have all of us alarmed. He bucked the court’s majority by declaring that the due process safeguards required of a support contempt proceeding undermine the state’s interest in a more vigorous enforcement process. This represented a grave departure from reality when taking a deeper look at the draconian enforcement practices that have caused joblessness, homelessness and premature deaths among support debtors.
Such practices have not only “undermined” support capacities, but they have forever ended “child support” in countless cases. Three exemplary deaths over the past decade, Joe Longo, Thomas Ball and Walter Scott, are all that is needed to show the absurdities of the Thomas opinion. Taken together with other victims, it is clear that we have an epidemic underway, one that “shocks the conscience of a civilized society” in violation of substantive due process as well, Rochin v California, 342 US 165 (1953).
Government today is actually manufacturing bad parents through its “custody” and “support” mandates under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. This is the federal funding law that rewards courts by the number and size of support orders they issue and satisfy. Apart from the inherent bias that this has created, the imbalance has yielded a crowd of silent or walking dead, victims of murder, suicides, false charges and domestic violence, others that await justice that never comes.
Police Investigator Joseph Longo was so traumatized after exiting support court that he used a common kitchen knife to commit a murder-suicide at the former marital home. It left four children without both parents and taxpayers with a $2 million lawsuit debt, Pearce v Longo, 766 F. Supp. 2d 367 (NDNY 2011). The court predators kept pounding him with protection orders, support intercepts and career damage without considering the breaking points of their targets.
You should’ve just shut up, Joe, and paid YOUR child support.
Then there’s Thomas Ball, victim of an overzealous child protection agency who sat down one day on the steps of a New Hampshire courthouse to protest family court abuse. But this was no sit-in, no “occupy court” mission. He poured gas over his head and burned himself alive. We cringe at the extreme pain he must have suffered before and during this holocaust. In the end, there was no national coverage, no court reforms, they merely washed his ashes into the sewer.
You should’ve just shut up, Tom, and paid YOUR child support.
Finally we bring you Walter Scott, a black father shot dead five times in the back. He was killed, unarmed, by a white cop while fleeing a child support warrant at a traffic stop. Unlike other BLM victims, this one was not involved in any criminal activity. It was a civil debt, and our government was now killing for money. This obvious fact is never mentioned in the ongoing George Floyd protests because “child support” is the holy grail for feminists and man-haters.
You should’ve just shut up, Walt, and paid YOUR child support.
Even in necessary cases involving absentee parents or public charges, there is little or no accountability for tax-free, support checks used for drugs, partners or vanity excesses. Most contemptuous are the cases where child support is exploited as a tactical weapon for a custody award that inevitably leads to severe parental alienation. Here the one dutifully paying “child support” is, in reality, paying the state to take his children away. Even then, sadistic alienators are not satisfied until their children are brainwashed to hate the other parent.
This author’s ordeal is one such case that features a high school teacher, Kelly Hawse-Koziol.
The easy way to avoid this “inconvenient truth” is by detracting from it, i.e. “Just shut up and pay YOUR child support.” Support judges say this without mouthing the words by trashing procedural protections and crafting evidentiary substitutes to expedite a desired outcome. Examples are too numerous but include such fictions as “imputed income” and a substandard level of proof. This star chamber process ignores the right of a “noncustodial” parent to finance a separate home for the same children. It also ignores the horrific collateral harm.
Nowhere is an accounting made of the working parental arrangements upended by this custody and support mandate found in the funding laws.
Such collateral harm does not discriminate. It includes a white mom who drove her children into the Hudson River rather than surrender to a custody and support order. A similar derangement caused another to heinously murder her two-year old girl resulting in a conviction and jail term that will never bring back the child (see Gabriella Boyd Foundation). A black mom in Philadelphia went further. In an overnight rage, she purchased a gun and killed both her children and their dad.
The child victims are particularly heart-wrenching. There’s Kyra Franchetti and Thomas Valva whose young lives were lost to mentally disturbed fathers. An Albany (NY) Times Union story on October 13, 2020 revealed that a child protection agency suppressed 725 child death reports over a decade. This is shocking but not really when considering Governor Andrew Cuomo’s suppression of nursing home deaths currently under investigation. Such tragedies omit the live victims torn apart by court proceedings needlessly protracted by greedy lawyers.
This author was subjected to a sixteen year battle over “child support” which induced the “custodial” mom to brainwash his precious daughters in relentless fashion. This went unheeded by the courts despite the lack of any abuse report or unfit finding and despite father-daughter experiences that would be the envy of most children. Over 40 trial level jurists were assigned to his family proceedings with many removed for misconduct, a national record by most accounts and the price to be paid by a judicial whistleblower.
This is not just a public policy issue or a lack of judicial accountability. It is a growing crisis that has caused more deaths than the coronavirus pandemic. It was the theme of our 3-day Parent March on Washington in 2019, a peaceful protest featuring a lobby initiative, expert speakers, a march down Pennsylvania Avenue under police escort and a concluding vigil for those lives lost to this unjust system. Its goal was to obtain congressional hearings and a Justice Department investigation. But it achieved nothing, only more evidence for BLM to justify violence. Peaceful reform is no match for the gold mine which this system has viciously protected.
If you wish to learn more about this author’s unprecedented ordeal as a judicial whistleblower, consult the many posts at http://www.leonkoziol.com or his 2017 book, Satan’s Docket, soon to be updated with more graphic retributions. You might also be interested in a DVD film entitled “Crisis” based on a true story. It features a triple storm of whistleblowers who take on the DEA, academia and the drug industry as common victims. They illuminate the kind of retaliation exposed here.
Due to the censorship of this vital message, it is critical for readers to make it viral for the benefit of parents, children and families everywhere. The author may be reached at (315) 796-4000 or leonkoziol@gmail.com.
Al Sharpton and Dr. Leon Koziol in South Carolina protesting the Walter Scott murder, an African-American father shot dead unarmed five times by a white cop while fleeing a child support warrant at a traffic stop in April, 2015
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
Only hours ago from the time of this publication, a jury in the Derek Chauvin murder trial found the defendant police officer guilty on all counts for the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. A 9-minute video of this murder left no doubt that justice had to be done for a horrific, racially charged incident witnessed the world over.
However, while protesters and family victims applaud the outcome in Minneapolis today, a highly contrasting one must be recalled in the murder trial of Michael Slager in 2016. He was a white police officer who shot another black man, Walter Scott, dead five times in the back while fleeing, unarmed from a child support warrant discovered at a traffic stop. It occurred on April 4, 2015 in North Charleston and was caught on camera by a concealed by-stander.
That horrific video, like the George Floyd one, also went viral worldwide and touched off a wave of protests across the country. Despite all that, the murder trial resulted in a hung jury after a single white juror claimed he could not “in good conscience” join the other jurors in a unanimous guilty verdict. It was a sad outcome no doubt influencing the much wider protests and anxiety surrounding the Derek Chauvin trial five years later.
Fortunately with justice denied in a South Carolina state court, justice was ultimately achieved one year later in federal court when Michael Slager pled guilty to multiple counts resulting in a 20-year sentence. The family had previously recovered a $6.5 million civil settlement in connection with the same incident, yet these events did little to avert the carnage which followed in multiple locations.
When these racially charged murders are chronicled in various reports, Walter Scott is often omitted. Child support injustice is never addressed. Yet this victim was not chased down and killed for the commission of any crime. He was gunned down because he was unable to satisfy a money debt. But because child support is the holy grail for feminists, that crucial element is downplayed. Is our government now killing for money? It is a further sad commentary on the draconian enforcement practices that have also killed countless parent-child relationships.
Indeed, in my home town of Utica, New York, a police investigator exited child support court in September, 2009 after his guns were confiscated, protection orders were issued and his career permanently tarnished by a divorce needlessly inflamed by such practices. He promptly entered the former marital home to commit a murder-suicide through the use of a simple kitchen knife, leaving four children without a mom and dad. The family obtained a $2 million settlement against the taxpayers in the case of Pearce v Longo, 766 F. Supp.2d 367 (NDNY 2011). Yet no one blamed the family court system and, to date, no reforms have occurred.
Diverse victims and the public generally rely on qualified civil rights attorneys to expose judicial corruption. They comprise a tiny group yet to be acknowledged as judicial whistleblowers. This is because retaliation is severe and common. As one such victim, I issued reports, exposed clear misconduct, filed precedent-seeking cases, and sponsored reform efforts across the country. At the Walter Scott funeral I addressed national media, Al Sharpton and Congressman James Clyburn regarding the needless conflicts caused by federal Title IV-D funding. My efforts were rewarded by severe harm to my health, law practice, and father-daughter relationships.
You can learn of my horrific ordeal throughout this site, http://www.leonkoziol.com and in my 2017 book, Satan’s Docket. In short, like the white lawyers who were brutalized down south during the sixties for their courageous stands against racial injustice, I was subjected to similar brutality. It is long past the time when such sacrifices are given similar recourse against the perpetrators of hate crimes upon people everywhere.
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.
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.
We delivered our report requesting a federal investigation of Title IV-D funding abuses in family courts to the Senate Judiciary Committee pictured here. I personally delivered and discussed that report with current Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham. Unfortunately the politics of the 2016 election have prevented our elected leaders from addressing crucial domestic issues of our day.
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
Last month, I outlined an “epic” maneuver available to President Donald Trump and the Senate to adopt a resolution dismissing Articles of Impeachment being withheld by House Leader Nancy Pelosi.
At the time, White House lawyers were focused on the delay issue when they should have been focused on her conditions for the conduct of any Senate trial. Such conditions were clearly beyond her powers under the Constitution once the impeachment process in the House was concluded.
On Monday of this week (January 6, 2020), the Washington Times reported that Senate Leader Mitch McConnell was co-sponsoring a resolution to do as I predicted. It will dismiss the Articles for Lack of Prosecution.
Although, as pointed out, timeliness was not as important as the usurpation of power, the resolution should be approved even if Pelosi relents and submits the Articles belatedly. Again this is because she has already sabotaged a legitimate impeachment process.
In a later article in the Washington Post (Opinion), it was urged that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or the court as a whole might weigh in on the proposed resolution. But the Constitution makes clear that its only role in the impeachment process is to “preside.” It has no authority to act as an appeals court as well.
That would raise more problematic issues of appellate bias given the participation of its chief justice at the trial level. Nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize the Chief Justice or the Supreme Court to interfere with the Senate’s exclusive authority to vote on any removal of the president.
The decision in Marbury v Madison, 5 US 137 (1803) regarding Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution is unavailing because the operative provision here is a direct prohibition on any decisional substitution. Yes folks, this is getting real interesting. Stayed tunes to see if it does not all go as I am predicting again today.
Supreme Court interference also raises the bias issues I presented in a motion for disqualification of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in August, 2016. It was accepted but never ruled upon, see the on-line docket record at Koziol v United States District Court, 15-1519 (2016). It was based on Ginsburg’s news conferences from chambers condemning Donald Trump as a private citizen and candidate prior to his election as president.
I discussed the motion with Trump’s attorney at the time, Michael Cohen. Prior to the election, he asked me to keep him informed. After the election he informed me that he had no time for my case. Now in prison, Mike has lots of free time.
I filed the motion to preserve my right to impartiality in a case then being considered by the Supreme Court. It involved pro-Trump website postings that were impaired by a family court gag order removed after I challenged it in New York Supreme Court.
How ironic, as predicted then, that her extra-judicial conduct, condemned even by the liberal media, might come back to haunt her in what may be the most publicized vote during her long tenure on the bench. At the very least, it can be seen how the impeachment weapon exploited by Pelosi has led to all kinds of ominous repercussions to the people being served.
Trump’s acts of war in the Middle East were likely intended to distract from this impeachment process much like Nixon and Bill Clinton tried to do. It might now lead America from peace time not seen in a long while to full scale war on a potentially global scale. Yes, it’s real scary politics my friends, and regardless of your views or sides, the divisiveness must stop lest we all regret our apathy when it’s too late.
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.
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.
In order to bring greater awareness and overdue reform to our nation’s divorce and family courts, I completed a book manuscript for a mother victimized by parental alienation and court corruption in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Entitled “Jurassic Justice,” an ongoing ordeal has prevented its publication. Meanwhile I completed and published my own shocking ordeal as a judicial whistleblowing lawyer entitled, Satan’s Docket. You can order a hard copy or download a PDF version at http://www.parentingrightsinstitute.com.
When Tamara Sweeney and I completed her book manuscript, we decided to do a homemade video to promote it. It was a spontaneous thing that came out miraculously well. It was not choreographed or directed by Ridley Scott but came out as if it was professionally created without all the costs and frills. It is being reproduced here because every mom and dad victimized by these courts should learn the background and signs of parental alienation with a goal stamping it out before it gets malignant.
In follow-up to our highly successful Parent March on Washington earlier this month, we must contact the members of Congress we visited on Lobby Day so that our hard work is not in vain. We must also prepare regional protests in their congressional districts. I am currently planning one in upstate New York in the wake of a 70,000 signature petition demanding the removal of a judge here. It will be the largest protest yet set for late September. We’re not just talking about the problems. We’re an action group doing something about it. I will be getting the band back together for this one starting with conference calls and a new access code next week.
In the meantime, I will continue to post this short video which accurately depicts the epidemic that we are all fighting together. It is important that you do everything you can to make this video viral because we are being suppressed and censored by a trillion dollar industry. You can e-mail me directly at leonkoziol@gmail.com or call our PRI office at (315) 380-3420. And PLEASE donate to our cause on this site, http://www.leonkoziol.com. We took a big loss on the last event but it was well worth the investment for the sake of victimized parents, families and children everywhere.
New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenney. Soon to be 60 years of age, her doctored campaign photos are as fraudulent as her claims of fighting for the benefit of all her constituents.
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
Seriously Claudia? Did we read that correctly in the Syracuse Post Standard? You’ve come a long way since 2010 when you sat at my dining room table as a tabloid reporter claiming to be concerned about parental equality. That’s when I took my sacrificial stand against child support abuse and father discrimination.
Now you claim to be concerned about our veterans but have done nothing to even look into the “many” veteran suicides, father alienation and seizure of parental authority which has led to fatherless freaks of both major parties who commit these mass murders. That’s because you are a divorcee who once benefited from the Title IV-D entitlement program known as the Child Support Standards Act which is costing federal taxpayers billions of dollars.
Claudia has yet to respond to my reports of Title IV-D abuses and my petition to New York’s Legislature when she served as my Assemblywoman. But her politicizing of a horrific event was horrific enough, and I cannot allow such generalizations to go unanswered. I remain one of her constituents, a Democrat who served the largest city in her district at one time as an elected Democrat councilman and corporation counsel.
Her news quote came while I was preoccupied in Manhattan last week assisting victims of corrupt courts, an issue she should familiarize herself with considering how she has relied on her father’s reputation to be elected to public office after numerous failed efforts prior to her visit at my home. As a state judge, John Tenney was no honorable man as I can prove after winning my first two appeals against him right out of law school.
The Syracuse Post Standard newspaper arrived at my New Hartford home with a February 22, 2018 article (page A16) which informed Claudia Tenny’s 22nd District constituents that mass murderers are primarily Democrats. For whatever bizarre reason, she made those remarks on Talk 1300 Radio in my now neighboring city of Utica, New York.
When called to task by a Syracuse reporter about her non-existent proof to support such a brazen conclusion, she simply responded with a prepared statement which dodged the proof issue altogether saying: “I will continue to stand up for law abiding citizens who are smeared by anti-gun liberal elitists.”
Say what? I am a lifelong Democrat who despises liberal views but I don’t label my political party adversaries, be they Liberal or Republican (as Claudia is), mass murderers. She claims to be a Conservative, but I was endorsed as a Democrat by the Conservative Party in my last run for major public office. So what’s up with this Democrat generalization Claudia?
We need to take a closer look at this woman as a member of Congress because she may well be a hater of numerous ethnic groups not just entire political parties. When her former colleague in the New York Assembly, Anthony Brindisi, announced his run against Claudia last summer, she replied with generalizations about his dad, Louis Brindisi, a reputed mob lawyer (read all about it in my recent book, Satan’s Docket). Her scheme to label the son was answered by Italian-American groups outraged by her stereotypes.
It makes you wonder what Claudia thinks about German-Americans, Native-Americans, Arab-Americans and African-Americans, among others, which comprise the majority of her constituents. I was present at a Rome Polish Home event when Claudia was campaigning for Congress in a failed primary against then incumbent Richard Hanna. What sort of undisclosed stereotypes lurked in her mind among those “type” of people?
As my 6,000 plus followers have been informed time and again, I supported Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. I did so to the point of filing a motion to disqualify Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from my then pending case before the Supreme Court due to her political attacks from chambers against Donald Trump, then a private citizen not yet endorsed by the Republican Party for president.
Over the years, I was there supporting candidates, federal, state and local, regardless of party affiliation for principled reasons, not the almighty buck. Meanwhile elitists like Claudia were hiding on the belief such candidates would lose. It’s called courage, the kind demonstrated by great Democrats such as John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Edmund Muskie.
For Claudia’s benefit next time she stumps for votes at the Polish Clubs of her district, Edmund Muskie was a Polish-American, United States Senator and candidate for Vice President with Hubert Humphrey who lost to one of the most corrupt politicians in American history, Richard Nixon, a Republican. As a Republican herself, does that mean we should label Claudia a corrupt politician?
As concerned parents we must get involved in politics and the election process before our rights are forever lost to the state. We see the”evidence” of it everywhere, a veritable silent and suppressed epidemic at the root of most other societal problems. As an elitist herself, Claudia just doesn’t get it on her high horse today. It’s time to knock her off. Won’t you join me. Call anytime at (315) 796-4000.
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