Leon R. Koziol J.D.
Citizen Commission Against Corruption, Inc.
Law Enforcement is now overwhelmed by a record crime wave influenced by seizures of parental authority: Is there any hope for ending the downward spiral?
Tag: parental alienation
With Roe v Wade overturned, will the Supreme Court target our parenting right?
Dr. Leon Koziol
Director, Parenting Rights Institute
Founder and president, Citizen Commission Against Corruption, Inc.
In his ominous concurring opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas declared that other landmark rulings should also be overturned based on the reasoning used by the Court’s majority in striking the right to an abortion. He cited gay marriage and contraceptives as some of his targets given their lack of any textual source in our Constitution. Unlike the right to bear arms enshrined by our Second Amendment which the same Court reaffirmed only one day earlier, these rights are not found in any amendment or bill of rights.
This should deeply alarm all parents because the right to raise one’s offspring is also devoid of any textual recognition in that same venerable document, making it ripe for judicial assault. Indeed, like prey evading the shark, it is a right that may be said to be hiding among those targeted for review. Moreover, it is one that is already being bitten apart in our schools, homes and communities. Simply stated, we parents have taken it for granted much like abortion advocates had for a half century.
However, the parenting right derives from a different source than privacy or that “penumbra” of rights found elsewhere in our Constitution which the high court used to rationalize its shaky decision in 1973. The parenting right exists solidly within the “traditions and history” of our republic, and it was unquestioned by the framers of that Constitution in 1787. It was first given formal recognition 75 years ago in the landmark case of Meyer v Nebraska, 262 US 390 (1923) and expanded to countenance grandparent rights in Troxel v Granville, 530 US 57 (2000).
In the latter case, writing for a plurality of the Court, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor declared this right to be the “oldest liberty interest protected by the Constitution.” Hence it may be assumed that this right will remain protected for the foreseeable future because it rests upon a different prong than abortion and privacy. But given the whirlwind of recent Supreme Court rulings, the renewed drive to pack the Court, and outright bedlam across America, we parents must stand guard.
Here at the Parenting Rights Institute we have been acting aggressively to promote fathers’ rights and parental rights generally since 2010. This is largely due to our growing status as a “fatherless America” which, in turn, has triggered widespread violence and declines in our moral fiber as a nation. To that end, as a victim and civil rights attorney, I have exposed judicial corruption that is destroying our families.
This 12-year crusade for overdue reforms led to severe retributions by my profession leading to the loss of all contact with my precious daughters, closure of my law practice and ultimate hospitalization in 2020 for a life-threatening condition. This is the price to be paid by whistleblowers in our third branch of government while the band plays on.” Hopefully my sacrifices will be a beacon of light for parents immersed in the same crusade who are being ignored and censored by our government.
Updated Epilogue to the book, Whistleblower in Paris, exposes the worst of parental alienation and silent epidemic in divorce and family courts
Dr. Leon Koziol
Published Author and Civil Rights Advocate
The ongoing ordeal of a judicial whistleblower has necessitated an update to the epilogue (concluding summary) of my recently published book, Whistleblower in Paris. If you have already purchased a copy, available at any Barnes and Noble store, Amazon or major bookseller on-line, this update should energize you to demand reform and accountability. It may also prevent you from becoming a victim of abuse, prevent undue fees and educate you to the realities of these courts. If you are learning of the book for the first time, this update might convince you to obtain a copy. It is a highly intriguing insight based on more than thirty years of litigation experience from a former trial and appellate attorney. That concluding summary is reproduced below:
Epilogue
As a civil rights attorney, I spent over two decades litigating for victims of race, gender, religion and ethnic discrimination. This included sexual harassment cases when they were unpopular. Many successful verdicts, monetary recoveries and precedent outcomes resulted. But my crusade for justice was not limited to minorities. It also extended to white landowners wrongfully threatened with eviction in the Oneida Indian land claim. Police brutality cases were similarly prosecuted for diverse victims, and I represented a public safety commissioner, police chief and rank and file officers whenever they were falsely accused.
In short, I was motivated to correct injustices to a point where I managed to have a billion-dollar casino compact invalidated on constitutional grounds in New York Supreme Court. The Las Vegas Sun reported it as a David-Goliath battle won by “the small Utica law firm that won the case.” [66] Among the defense firms was Cravath, Swaine and Moore, one of the most powerful in the nation. These achievements earned me praise from federal and state judges. The court transcripts, headline news and published opinions bear this out.
However, when I turned my energies to correcting human rights violations in divorce and family courts, I was viciously targeted. Suddenly, my arguments were incomprehensible, rambling and frivolous after twenty-three unblemished years. Even I underestimated the wrath of a corrupt regime bent on retaliation for my exposure of corruption involving a judge-lawyer gold mine. In numerous public statements, I cited federal funding abuses and lucrative custody battles that were inciting child murders, veteran suicides and needless parental conflict.
As a consequentially victimized parent, I was then forced to assume the mantra of a judicial whistleblower devoid of legal protection. The horrific ordeal here remains unprecedented in modern times. Among the practices I condemned in chapter two and an earlier book, Satan’s Docket, was the abuse of forensic custody evaluations. Then, in January, 2022, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by New York’s governor voted to eliminate these evaluations altogether. I made a presentation at a virtual public hearing sponsored by that panel asking for this very outcome, but like the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption (where I also appeared), it is doubtful that any genuine reform will be implemented. That is how powerful this gold mine has become.
So, in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, I sponsored a three-day event at our nation’s capital in May, 2019. Its goal was to elicit a Justice Department investigation and congressional hearings into the rampant human rights violations and federal funding abuses which continue to be ignored in these custody and support courts. We featured planning sessions, a lobby day among the offices of Congress, expert speakers at a hotel ballroom, a candlelight vigil in front of the U.S. Capitol, and a march down Pennsylvania Avenue under police escort from the White House to the Supreme Court.
All of this was accomplished without incident on a shoestring budget. At least four necessary permits were obtained together with regulatory compliance. Parents came from all parts of the country to register their peaceful protest against divorce and family court corruption. Yet not a single member of Congress responded. Then-president Donald Trump never materialized in front of the crowd assembled at the White House. Not even a representative was sent. The Justice Department weighed in with the same message that parental rights were not even on their radar. His successor, Joe Biden, proved oblivious to this crisis altogether.
So what is the lesson to be realized from all this? Peaceful protests to benefit parents, children and families of all races, religions and ethnic backgrounds will be ignored. They yield no respect whatsoever while the same politicians beg for our support on election day through such things as a voting rights bill. Therefore, it is time for those struggling against parental alienation, custody abuses and support debtor prisons to take matters into their own hands. Stay away from lawyers and these courts, set aside your custody and support disputes, and keep abreast of fellow victims who need your help. In this way at least, we might succeed in closing the gold mine.
Thinking back to all the craziness I endured for more than a decade under the yoke of this antiquated child custody regime, it still amazes me that not a single inquiry was made by the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct regarding the many complaints I lodged. How could so much corruption become so buried? I am also amazed at all the physical restraint I practiced. Under our form of government, when the courts break down, victims can seek recourse outside the system. Nevertheless, my restraint led to poetic justice in so many ways.
Among the Sadistic Seven, Michael Daley is no longer a judge, having failed to garner enough support for re-election to the bench. His unpopularity was borne out later when he was defeated in an election for his old job as a local prosecutor. Last I heard he was representing traffic clients in Utica city court.
Judge Martha Walsh-Hood continues to serve as a family court judge as does her colleague Michele Pirro-Bailey in Syracuse. Judge Daniel King is still on the family court bench in Lowville, New York, but is up for re-election in 2022. At a minimum, my whistleblower testimony before the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption should be raised by any opposing candidate. The judge collusion inferred by King’s sudden removal of his gag order during my mandamus action in state Supreme Court remains a part of the public record. The manner in which this was all arranged behind closed doors demands a proper investigation.
Regardless, not one of these judges was elevated to higher office. This includes Judge James Eby who no longer presides over my case in Oswego, New York. In the aftermath of his uncorrected bias, innocent third parties were irreparably harmed. During his bombastic antics directed at me, he gave no concern for extended family similarly denied all contact with my daughters. He simply pressed on with his ego-driven agenda of retaliation to maintain favor among colleagues on and off the bench.
To be sure, as director of the Parenting Rights Institute, I continue to receive complaints about him, one from a custodial mother regarding his knack for keeping the fees coming. He makes a mockery of this self-serving rationale of acting “in the best interests” of our children whose basic needs and college funds are raided. Entire families are bankrupted in the process while inciting domestic violence. An adversarial process rationalized by truth-seeking objectives cannot withstand the ultimate injury it yields when children are placed at needless risk compelling parents to resort to uncharacteristic extremes to protect them.
Similarly, Judge Gerald Popeo in Utica is also no longer presiding. He declined re-election prospects following my crusade against him in 2018. The judge censure which he blamed partly on me no doubt played a role in his decision. Magistrate Natalie Carraway continues her routine in support courts of Herkimer County, presumably charting a course for higher judgeship. Meanwhile, I continue to receive unsolicited praise from countless parents who publicly credit me for private changes in attitude among certain well-meaning jurists.
But it may also be said that poetic justice was served beyond the Sadistic Seven. My pedophile custody judge, Bryan Hedges, was permanently banned from the bench by the high court of New York, his colleague in Syracuse, Michael Hanuszczak, was forced to step down for sexual harassment of his court clerks, and Magistrate G. Stephen Getman lost an election for family court judge. His license suspension for mishandling client money caught up to him in that race.
My ex-secretary was jailed for crimes upon later victims. Her scheme with outsiders to orchestrate ethics issues in my office together with her tampering of mail and files resulted in the removal of a $220,000 mortgage claim on my home. It is unlikely that she will ever be hired for another law-related position given her felony convictions and our creation of a pretend lawyer website that features her. She would not have contemplated such crimes unless cloaked with some concealed protection while my office supervision was derailed by the family court battles.
My ex-wife was removed from the millionaire’s home in 2016 after wasting untold resources to pursue a needless parent alienation campaign bent on greed, revenge and jealousy. She too could not have succeeded without the undisclosed backing of many of the judges assigned to our case. But this particular campaign exceeded the worst I have come across. It can only be described as something hatched out of hell itself, a new form of evil. It harmed not only her children and their father but it devastated her own world. Yet she pressed on like the proverbial energizer bunny.
You would think that this “custodial parent” learned a profound lesson when her relocation scheme to that millionaire’s home was exposed. It featured the “gmai.com” concoction which she and the child attorney tried to pass as proper notice of a new residency. At a minimum, a parent has a right to know where his or her children are residing and with whom so that they can be better safeguarded. But here, despite undeniable proof of deceit upon the father, court and schools, this scheme was accorded no accountability in contrast with money obligations (child support) which were hounded to a point of arrest warrants, jail commitments and even death.
This one-sided persecution had no effect on her commitment to forever end all father-daughter relationships developed since birth. In August, 2021, the newly married Kelly Usherwood contrived an exit from the region on the day after my youngest daughter’s eighteenth birthday. She placed her home on the market and relocated both my girls to an undisclosed residence without even an identity of colleges they were now attending. By text message, she directed that any information was to be exchanged through the maternal grandmother nearby.
As fate would have it, this grandmother deceased only three months later. Meanwhile, circumstances showed that the e-mail exchanges made between father and his daughters were actually being made by the mother. This is how devious the alienator had become to achieve her objective of a family unit completely isolated from the biological father, one who had never even been found to be an unfit parent. It proved to be spite, greed and status which motivated Kelly Usherwood to pursue the unimaginable while the band played on in these corrupt family courts.
None of this should surprise the reader given the content of earlier chapters and the growing horrors of parental alienation throughout the country. The unilateral directives of this deranged mother comported with no court order, but with the long confirmed systemic bias among numerous assigned judges in New York’s Fifth Judicial District, and the deference repeatedly given them by federal court, all courthouse doors had been closed in terms of any civil recourse. If Daniel King could invent a “prohibited alcohol related gesture” (wedding toast) as a reason to suspend child contact, how could I expect any sanity from the judges who replaced him?
The recent concealment of my daughters raises concerns that could warrant an amber alert given the bizarre conduct of the alienator-abductor. It occurred in the aftermath of my extended hospital stay only months earlier. Despite a life-threatening condition, no direct contact was received from my daughters. By the time the realities of brainwashing caught up to them, it would be too late to revisit countless precious moments captured in home videos and photos.
In the end, it begs the question: what kind of evil lurks in the body of Kelly Usherwood? The answer may lie in some sequel of American Greed or a psycho movie. Even my girls were not spared the karma behind their immoral disregard of dad during his hospital stay, the man who made their existence possible. Both daughters were forced to suffer through a pandemic which is continuing. Graduations, proms and other once-in-a-lifetime events were either canceled or subjected to highly diluting regulations.
As for the ethics lawyers who helped facilitate this chaos, they were forced to resign after an investigation into falsified time sheets. Would-be clients continue to be denied qualified representation. Even after eleven years of license suspension, I continue to receive calls from victims who cannot secure basic legal advice. The system justified this by support obligations that cannot be satisfied without the licenses, resources and liberties that were seized.
This so-called disciplinary process was abused to achieve censorship, thereby making its perpetrators complicit in the resulting crimes upon humanity. Despite all this, corruption was exposed on a vast scale after unprecedented numbers of jurists were removed from my originally uncontested divorce. Those removals helped alter the divorce culture in a positive way while exposing the underbelly of a court system hell-bent on revenues and profits.
But I paid a high price. Out of law school in 1987, I was able to secure a restraining order on a $30 million high school project, [67] I won my first interstate divorce appeal two years later, [68] my name appears on two dedication plagues of the Utica city courthouse as an elected councilman and corporation counsel, I was a featured speaker regarding Native American land claims across upstate New York, and I won a $300,000 civil rights recovery against my local Sheriff which may have factored into the later antics. Other high-profile cases are cited at footnotes 7-11.
Today I am unable to get a family judge to order phone contact with my own daughters.
In raw terms, you can kill a targeted person with a gun or accomplish the same outcome with a drawn-out process that chips away at your existence. Parent alienation is such a process. It is more than a psychological syndrome or human rights violation, it is a proven killer of victimized parents. Whether it be a suicide, terminal illness or some other brutal consequence, the needless separation of a loving parent from his or her children is simply unconscionable. And when forcing the victim to pay for the child abduction through support payments under penalty of a debtor prison, it becomes utterly barbaric.
Judges are quick to overlook this reality as they routinely find breaches of various duties in personal injury cases to achieve million-dollar verdicts. But when greater breaches of ethical duties are presented regarding their own conduct, they cloak themselves with judicial immunity on the rationale that such liability would deter qualified candidates from seeking judgeships. Utter nonsense, most lawyers crave these prestigious titles, and a judge complying with job requirements has nothing to fear. If anything, this absolute immunity encourages misconduct while politically-appointed oversight commissions fail us time and again.
This ordeal warrants a Justice Department investigation and congressional inquiry. It would benefit countless moms, dads and families similarly situated. There are tremors of unrest throughout this country which are being ignored. Hardly a day goes by without some child murder, needless suicide or unpredictable homicide traced to these dysfunctional courts. What remains of a stable society is largely made possible by the free exercise of parental liberties and self-governance. It is my fervent hope, therefore, that a powerful movement emerges from my sacrifices that forces our government to pay attention to its own parents.
This literary work is by no means an indictment of our justice system or legal profession. However, it verifies in painstaking detail how a conscientious attorney, model parent and judicial whistleblower can be so ruthlessly punished for his crusade to deliver overdue reforms to our system of family court justice. The people rely on qualified insiders to alert them to corruption in our third branch of government. It accentuates the need for attorney whistleblower protection.
Finally, this book is directed against the divorce industry and the family court predators who are dragging justice down to hell, a people’s courthouse reduced to a giant profit center. All this corruption might compel another victim to resort to violence. But I was able to forbear it and achieve some justice in more constructive ways. My old friend, Sir Walter Scott, gave me sage advice in that regard:
For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good he performs, but the evil he forbears
66. Michael Gormley, Judge strikes down pact, Las Vegas Sun, June 29, 2004. Peterman v Pataki, 2004 Slip. Op. 51092. The final judgment was affirmed on appeal.
67. In Rome Concerns Citizens v Rome City School District, this restraining order made possible a state-of-the art high school now located at the Griffiss Technology Park. As fate would go, a base realignment commission led to the closure of the former Griffiss Air Force Base after my controversial litigation. It was the region’s top employer. A tech park became its replacement which benefits faculty and students in a myriad of ways today. The former proposed school location could not have facilitated such benefits due to remoteness and land constraints.
Parent Alienation is more than a syndrome or human rights violation, it is a killer
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
The following text is taken from the concluding paragraphs of my newly published book, Whistleblower in Paris. It is highly relevant for those suffering from parental alienation. This book addresses a silent epidemic and is a must-read for those engaged in divorce, custody and support conflicts. It is a rare education opportunity to educate yourself to the realities of these court processes and based on more than 30 years of litigation experience. This extraordinary read is available at any Barnes and Noble store, Amazon or major on-line bookseller (published by Author House). You can also visit the book’s website at http://www.whistleblowerinparis.com.
Epilogue (concluding segment):
This alone warrants a Justice Department investigation of my extended ordeal. It would benefit countless moms, dads and families similarly situated. There are tremors of unrest throughout this country which are being ignored. Hardly a day goes by without some child murder, needless suicide or unpredictable homicide traced to these dysfunctional courts. What remains of a stable society is largely made possible by the free exercise of parental liberties and self-governance. It is my fervent hope, therefore, that a powerful movement emerges from my sacrifices that forces our government to pay attention to its own parents.
In the end, my daughters lost a model father, someone who could have continued to develop family pride and helped educate them well beyond the capabilities of their other parent. That parent took father alienation to a whole new low as she recently changed residence with such secrecy that the location of my daughters became unknown. Making matters worse, resort to the courts was long foreclosed due to continuing systemic bias. The endless assignments of jurists to my case made any such resort a painful gesture in futility. If a judge like Daniel King could invent a “prohibited alcohol related gesture” (wedding toast) as a reason to suspend child contact, how could I expect any sanity from the judges who replaced him without correction since his childish December 2, 2013 decision?
Taken together, it required consideration of an amber alert by a father still subject to child support orders. All of this will needlessly impact the alienator’s new marriage on hate alone. It is a prime example of how dysfunctional family court has become, the newest forms of evil it has spawned, and the vast downward spiral which the lucrative litigation yielded over a fifteen year period. In short, all incentive for financial support has been tortured through corruption. I lost many years of those special moments of child development which can never be recreated, and this heinous outcome arose simply because I hurt the feelings of family court judges.
In raw terms, you can kill a targeted person with a gun or accomplish the same outcome with a drawn-out process that chips away at your existence. Parent alienation is such a process. It is more than a psychological syndrome or human rights violation, it is a proven killer of victimized parents. Whether it be a suicide, terminal illness or some other consequence, the needless separation of a loving parent from his or her children is simply unconscionable. But when forcing the victim to pay for the child abduction through support payments under penalty of lock-up in a debtor prison, it becomes utterly barbaric.
Judges are quick to overlook this reality as they routinely find breaches of various duties in personal injury cases to achieve million-dollar verdicts. But when greater breaches of ethical duties are presented regarding their own conduct, they cloak themselves with judicial immunity on the rationale that such liability would deter qualified candidates from seeking judgeships. But lawyers crave these prestigious titles, and a judge complying with job requirements has nothing to fear. If anything, this absolute immunity encourages misconduct while politically-appointed oversight commissions fail us time and again.
This literary work is by no means an indictment of our justice system or legal profession. However, it verifies in painstaking detail how a conscientious attorney, model parent and judicial whistleblower can be so ruthlessly punished for his crusade to deliver overdue reforms to our system of family court justice. It serves to illustrate the need for attorney whistleblower protection. Finally, it is directed against the divorce industry and the predators who are dragging it all down to hell, a people’s courthouse reduced to a giant profit center. All this corruption might compel another victim to resort to violence. But I was able to achieve some justice in more constructive ways. My old friend, Sir Walter Scott, gave me sage advice in that regard:
For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good he performs, but the evil he forbears.
Blue-Ribbon Commission votes to eliminate forensic custody evaluations while ignoring accountability and defective hearings
Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
Would it have been such a burden to notify hearing presenters of a report issued on January 11, 2022 by a state Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations? Instead, a final report was released to media with no indication that many who made presentations at two virtual hearings were respected. Those hearings in September were conducted in haphazard fashion, some presentations without video recognition, and no reply to complaints regarding their conduct by a domestic violence employee.
Welcome to New York, land of useless oversight bodies appointed at taxpayer expense to create an illusion of public accountability. Like the 2013 Moreland Commission on Public Corruption, this so-called blue-ribbon commission assumed the mantra of a window-dressing entity. By a vote of 11-9, it recommended that forensic custody evaluations be eliminated in the state’s divorce and family courts. It also recommended that in the event such evaluations are continued, evaluators be monitored, qualified and stripped of qualified judicial immunity from civil liability.
Of course, none of these recommendations will be adopted by New York Governor Kathy Hochul whose predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, created both the Moreland and forensic panels. His non-elected replacement is being publicly criticized as a state leader who may be worse than her predecessor, preserving that long entrenched “culture of corruption in Albany” which these oversight panels were created to address. But the corruption has only worsened as the “band plays on” in Albany.
There were presenters who identified certain judges, evaluators and wrongdoers but none were mentioned in the report. Moreover, if the evaluators are to be stripped of their immunities from civil liability, i.e. from a consequential child murder, parent suicide or court-induced mental condition, why were judges given a free pass, those who often rubber-stamp the reports of these same evaluators? We all know that lawyers in robes will never consent to waiving their “absolute” immunities as they impose million-dollar judgments for comparable negligence on their litigants.
Therefore, we victims must take matters into our own hands as the time is long overdue for a legislative enactment or constitutional amendment to eliminate that self-protection. Let’s face it, the state’s Judicial Conduct Commission is yet another useless window-dressing entity investigating less than 10% of complaints annually. Civil suits would make up for that void. Besides, if judges are complying with ethics and criminal laws, they have nothing to fear. And you know that few would leave these prestigious posts if immunities were removed to comport with the accountability applied to the rest of us.
This blue-ribbon commission has yet to respond to my complaints, separately submitted from my testimony, which addressed the conduct and outcomes of these public hearings. This includes severe parental alienation caused by judge-appointed evaluators and a requested referral to the Justice Department and state attorney general for a comprehensive investigation. Such disregard in advance of the recent final report shows how state government remains an elitist body far removed from the people being served.
These evaluators, often appointed to yield campaign contributions, have produced horrific outcomes that warrant monetary compensation. When the Moreland Commission was prematurely dissolved by Andrew Cuomo to evade growing evidence, a federal prosecutor seized commission files resulting in federal prison terms for the state’s legislative leaders and a top Cuomo aide. The federal-state corruption investigation known as Operation Greylord ended with the convictions of nearly 100 judges, lawyers, law enforcement and state officials in Chicago.
In contrast, this impotent blue-ribbon panel proved to be yet another political exercise without accountability or reform. And where was any genuine investigative report from our mainstream media despite all the notice given to them? We victims need to join forces and protest government corruption as the population exodus from New York continues to escalate along with the abuses, taxes and overregulation of the people.
Due to the oversight dysfunction, a citizen commission was recently organized as a nonprofit known as the Citizen Commission Against Corruption. Get the details at http://www.citizencommissionagainstcorruption.org or call its office at (315) 864-8176.
Hope for Alienated Parents during the Holidays: Help victims by sharing the short video here
https://www.facebook.com/583583957/videos/299514398777491/
NOTE: The above video is reproduced in text below
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
My name is Leon Koziol, a parent advocate who practiced law in federal and state courts. I am also a parent victimized for my exposure of court corruption. As a result, my livelihood was destroyed and my precious daughters alienated from me.
I am therefore well positioned to address this phenomenon known as parental alienation, and I am here today to give hope to fellow victims. So stay with me, it’s worth your time.
This video may lead to parent-child reunions or, at the very least, prevent harm to families and future generations. It verifies that you are not alone in your struggles. Parent alienation is now a national crisis, and the courts that caused it require overhauls.
But it requires much more. We must unite to get our Justice Department to open a human rights investigation. Because federal funds deliver such outcomes, Congress must also step up with public hearings to study misappropriations. Child custody has become a pay-to-parent scandal as I will elaborate.
To that end I need your help to bring parental alienation to the forefront of national policy. All of us have a stake in this, whether or not a parent, because the injustices harm our extended families, health care systems, community interests, worker productivity, education and law enforcement.
Yes, parental alienation has reached crisis levels, but it is being ignored as part of a lucrative framework for adjudication which still infects our divorce and family courts. Judges there end parent-child relationships with little or no cause to serve the growing demands of a lawyer glut that has invaded our society.
There are now more than 300,000 lawyers in California and New York alone anxious to advance their fee interests. There is scant accountability for the greed they generate through needless conflict, and the resulting carnage is ripe for public outrage. But we have to channel that outrage to achieve overdue reforms.
To begin with, it should be no shock that any conscientious attorney who makes a stand against his profession will be targeted. My whistleblower activity elicited horrific retributions which I seriously underestimated. Their brazen nature can be explained by the gold mine I was threatening.
Despite my unblemished reputation and principled litigation for more than 23 years, I was deprived of my children, assets and income capacity while subjected to inflated support obligations to justify a jail term for violations. It left me alone to pursue recourse in creative ways including a stint in Paris, France.
With that behind me, I can now proceed with undivided loyalty to a joint mission because there is little else that can be done to scare me off. I will get to the hypocrisy of family judges shortly. But for now, let us look at those who facilitate parent alienation.
Despite being charged with a duty of dispensing justice, protecting our liberties and assuring equal treatment, there are too many judges violating that duty when they turn a blind eye to this crisis. But make no mistake, parent alienation is a legalized form of child abduction fueled by profits and revenues.
If you’re a victim, you already know that these abductions are real. When your offspring are seized by your own government, a part of you goes with it. You then become isolated, dreading these festive holidays because of the pain they bring.
Like a solar eclipse, the lack of love or contact with your children darkens your spirits and may lead to dire reactions. Parent suicides, homicides and child murders are on the rise.
This carnage stems from an antiquated child custody system derived from a day when moms stayed home and dads worked. In contrast with shared parenting models, custody laws require parents to fight over their offspring for a winner-take-all award. It can become a brutal contest that pits loved ones against each other and their government, breeding new forms of evil.
Despite a professed concern, judges welcome these battles because they are rewarded by the number and size of support orders they issue. This comes in the way of federal grants that few know about under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act.
We’re talking billions of dollars annually in revenues for the states and astronomical fees for service providers. Like the tobacco, drug and tech industries, you are merely their pawns, collateral damage to quench unmitigated greed. Sure, you can complain endlessly on social media to wanna-be lawyers with voo-doo advice, but no one with influence is paying attention.
So why aren’t these judges, lawyers and service providers being held accountable? Well for starters, you have to recall that judges are lawyers on the bench. Because they wear robes and enter tribunals with great fanfare does not eliminate that reality.
As for oversight, a single statewide commission that meets sporadically is routinely overwhelmed. Reports show that California and New York investigate only ten percent of complaints. It’s mostly window-dressing as the band plays on.
Beyond that, it would be a hypocrisy for judges to admonish their own, a blemish on high office. So let’s examine a much greater hypocrisy about that high office and its ethics.
My custody judge, Bryan Hedges, was banned from the bench after admitting to sexual abuse of his handicapped five-year old niece. What sort of thought was he harboring while interrogating children in private chambers? I was fortunate to have him removed from my case before my girls could be traumatized.
His replacement, Michael Hanuszczak, was then exposed for sexual harassment of his court clerks. Yet another, Gerald Popeo, was censured for threats and racist remarks from the bench. A record forty trial jurists were removed from my originally uncontested divorce.
Although much of this can be explained by proper self-recusals, others abused office to discredit my public message. Mine is only one case. How can you know if your judge is taking a bribe to fix a custody case as Gerald Garson and Thomas Spargo were in New York? Both were apprehended by chance and convicted.
Or how about Michigan Judge Wade McCree who impregnated a litigant in chambers. He was exposed only because he was a married man. The adversary in that case then sought recourse but was denied on grounds of judicial immunity. It begs the question: Is judge adultery in court a protected act? Seriously?
Then there’s the kids for cash scandal in Pennsylvania and the list goes on. But now let’s turn to the victims. Thomas Ball, a father and veteran, burned himself alive on the steps of a court to protest extended separations from his child. No major outcry, no national exposure. They merely swept his ashes into a sewer.
Joe Longo, a police investigator exited support court only to secure his own justice by committing a murder-suicide at the former marital home using a common kitchen knife. It left four children without parents and a permanent end to child support.
Walter Scott could no longer endure recurring terms in a debtor prison, so it was no surprise that he ran unarmed from a support warrant at a traffic stop. But it was a shock when the cop gave chase and elected to shoot his target dead five times in the back.
That cop is now doing time in a federal prison. Police officers should be doing police work. Instead, they are being exploited as debt collectors. It raises another question of whether government is now killing for money. Without a concealed by-stander and video, this cop would have gotten away with his false reports.
Only last month, Chad Read was also shot dead unarmed by the boyfriend of his son’s mother. That killer interrupted an argument between the parents during a child exchange at her home. Such arguments occur every day across the country.
But now, picking up your children can become a scene from the wild west as the killer’s lawyer claims self-defense under a no-retreat law in Texas. Is it any wonder that many parents today are walking away from their responsibilities, yet another form of alienation? A human being can handle only so much court insanity only to be blamed for it with costly psychiatric exams.
And how about the children who are supposedly being protected by those courts? Two-year old, Gabriella Boyd, was murdered by her mother in 2018 rather than surrender to a custody change order. She is now serving a life sentence.
Eight-year old, Thomas Valva, died of hypothermia due to the abuse of his NYPD father last year, and two-year old, Kyra Franchetti, was victim of a murder-suicide by her father who burned down their home. A news reporter disclosed that more than 700 deaths are not publicized by child protection agencies.
This holiday season, countless moms and dads will be denied contact with their little ones. Meanwhile parent alienators will be working overtime to brainwash them to hate the other parent. Their motivations are boundless and often psychotic.
Here at my websites, You-Tube channel, publications and reform events around the country, you can obtain highly qualified options for taking action to stop the carnage. Judges, lawyers and politicians only respond to numbers and influence.
First, visit my personal site, Leon Koziol.com for updates and valuable information. There is no legal fee for this. You can also subscribe to my talk program, Leon’s Library, on YouTube.
Second, log on to the Parenting Rights Institute website. The programs there focus on mediation, self-help and strategies to keep you out of these courts. It may save you thousands in fees.
Third, in dire matters, contact the Citizen Commission Against Corruption, a nonprofit doing the job of oversight agencies. Precedent litigation is among our weapons. Your donations are tax deductible, without which we cannot fight special interests.
Fourth, my newly published book, Whistleblower in Paris, provides education and intrigue. It can be obtained at any Barnes and Noble store, Amazon or major bookseller on-line.
Fifth, I have published a citizen petition against parent alienation on Change.org. All you have to do is sign it, short and simple.
Finally, you can join any of the reform events I sponsor around the country. They include a three-day gathering known as the Parent March on Washington which I hope to repeat.
In 2019, it featured a lobby day in Congress, expert speakers at a hotel ballroom, a march down Pennsylvania Avenue under police escort, and a candlelight vigil for the lives lost in these matters. Currently a networking program, Amber Appeal, is underway to provide information regarding absentee children.
Spread this holiday message, a genuine gift for countless victims. You can also contact me directly at (315) 796-4000.
Thank you. Merry Christmas and God Bless!
Leon R. Koziol, J.D.
December 20, 2021
Amber Appeal: A network program for alienated parents which has already produced results in less than 24 hours
Leon R. Koziol, J.D.
Parenting Rights Institute
Yesterday I introduced a new concept for helping moms and dads victimized by parental alienation. It was patterned around successful Amber and Silver Alert programs. While still in developmental stages, it could use input. For now, we are focusing on the social site releases of victim identities and their needs which could lead to discovery of child locations, schools attended, safety aspects and other vital facts.
I have offered my own case as a test run and already, in less than 24 hours, I have learned where my teen daughters reside and the unfortunate demise of their maternal grandmother. Sadly, she once had a wonderful relationship with me, secretly contacting me regarding issues of child concern even after my cooperative separation from her daughter went bad. This breakdown, a custody and support war, occurred as a result of the mother’s opening volley of court filings contrary to my forewarnings in 2006.
This grandmother revelation adds another dimension to all the harm caused by a lucrative, adversarial and antiquated child custody system. Having known her for over seven years prior to the end of that last co-parenting year, I believe that this ever-escalating divorce process caused much needless conflict and grief in her life. Whether it contributed to her early demise is not known and may never be.
However, there is no dispute that severe parental alienation of the kind I experienced can have a devastating impact on one’s health. It shows just how far these dysfunctional courts can go to harm extended family. Ironically, in her secret haste to exit our region following the 18th birthday of my youngest daughter, Kelly Hawse-Koziol (Usherwood since her remarriage in May) directed in a text that all future communications concerning my girls should go through that maternal grandmother.
Where do I go now for vital information? As yesterday’s post explains, Kelly Usherwood has shot herself in the foot time and again with her schemes, but now her “energizer-bunny” conduct has gone beyond evil, it’s diabolical. Hence, the value of this new information networking program is obvious. I will keep you updated in upcoming posts here at http://www.leonkoziol.com. Kindly spread the word and help us bring this new program into fruition for the benefit of parents, children, families and future generations.
YOU CAN ALSO HELP BY SIGNING OUR PETITION AGAINST PARENTAL ALIENATION ON CHANGE.ORG. The short video below provides a great book background on parental alienation from a mom and dad standpoint.
Amber Appeal: Help me find my alienated daughters, Kristen and Cassandra Koziol
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
Amber Appeal: It’s a new concept I have devised to help parents locate their alienated children. As a victim of severe parental alienation (PAS), it was easy for me to identify with fellow victims across the country. After New York’s family court system unloaded on me as an attorney whistleblower, I was forced to navigate through the jungle of non-custodial parenting. This subjected me to one of the worst cases of legalized child abduction.
Like most, my ordeal is a torturous one summarized on my website, www.leonkoziol.com and my newly published book, Whistleblower in Paris. I am offering this parent assistance program with the hope that readers will help me find my daughters, Kristen and Cassandra Koziol. Last I knew, they were attending college, one rumored to be at Virginia Tech in her freshman year and the other, a sophomore in Albany, New York or Stony Brook, Long Island.
The peculiar circumstances of their missing nature led me to conclude that I would never learn of their condition if something bad were to happen to them. It’s a horrible thought but true. The recently re-married “custodial parent” (I refuse to call her a mother anymore) made a hurried exit from our region only days after my youngest turned 18. That parent is Kelly (Hawse-Koziol) Usherwood, formerly residing at 16 Terrace Hill Drive; New Hartford, New York.
After delivering a birthday present to that location in late, August, 2021, I discovered a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn. An electronic message thereafter stated simply that the custodial parent was moving to points unknown with a contact address at the ex-mother-in-law’s home. Such an option was designed to “push my buttons” as those familiar with this woman would say because I had a hideous rapport with that ex in-law and she could not be trusted anyway.
My suspicion of deviate behavior grew when circumstances demonstrated that Kelly Usherwood was using nefarious e-mails to communicate with me. She was playing daughter until her escape could be completed. By all indications, the newlywed husband was unaware of this when he greeted me at the former home to receive the birthday present. A decent man with adult children, he would be oblivious to the antics of the real woman he had just married.
As I re-examined our e-mail exchanges, I noted all capital letters in the first name of my eldest daughter and an extra middle initial and abbreviated last name of the youngest. This deception would pattern the absence of an “l” character from my own e-mail address which was used five years earlier to fake a re-location notice to the home of her last partner Joseph Flihan. That scam came to a head when I was forced to seek (in vain) a custody change before Judge Daniel King.
Unfortunately, this was the same judge who had just placed a gag order on my website. That order was removed when I challenged it in New York Supreme Court. Judge King stepped down days later after putting the parental alienation in motion. He did this in retaliation for my damning testimony regarding his incompetence before the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption. He recklessly used two college degrees I had never earned to elevate my support obligations. It’s in the record, I’m not making this up.
Joe Flihan quickly ended his partnership with Kelly, no doubt as a result of these revelations and needless proceedings. The scam artist then became a victim of her own folly as she was forced to return to her humble home. And like most alienators, she placed the entire blame on me. I could do nothing to offset the poisoned minds of my daughters who were already alienated and had refused to converse or visit with me since the move to that home in 2014.
You would think that this scam artist would have learned a lesson from it all, but in the course of pretending to be my daughters in the last (September, 2021) e-mail, she emphasized that she (my daughters) still “loved Joe.” One could assume that she would again suffer from her latest folly if her new husband, Lou Usherwood, learned of this. But with bizarre relationships, swing partners, and other moral depravity these days, who knows what anyone thinks anymore.
Critical to this appeal, if it succeeds, the process could be repeated to benefit other victims. It could become a highly beneficial program, an offset to severe parental alienation, and a reform weapon against a lucrative, antiquated and dysfunctional custody system. We cannot all become sleuths, but could certainly assist one another to achieve the justice we were denied. In one anonymous letter, I was informed that Lou Usherwood resided in Oswego County, New York.
As an FYI, there has never been a complaint to any child protection agency, no criminal record or finding of unfit parenting to justify the retaliation and alienation inflicted on me. Indeed prison inmates get better treatment from our courts. In coming posts, I will reveal more details with the hope that good folks out there will help. At the very least, every parent has a right to know where his or her children reside.
If you or someone you know has helpful information, call me at (315) 796-4000 or mail it to 1336 Graffenburg Road; New Hartford, New York 13413.
Lawyers to Litigants: Thanks for the fees in divorce and family courts, $10 million from three clients alone!
Dr. Leon Koziol, Director
Parenting Rights Institute
Former trial attorney and judicial whistleblower
$5 million was spent in divorce fees by Dr. Eric Braverman, now in bankruptcy, $2 million by Professor Anthony Pappas without child custody issue, both in NYC, and another $2 million from small business owner, Mike Seale, to become a record for upstate Warren County. That’s nearly $10 million for three clients alone. Unlike other professions, there’s no insurance for this.
As I continue to warn such victims, if you have the resources, they’ll take every last dollar for every needless service they can concoct. They will remind you that “it’s the law” (which they created) that requires filings, petitions, motions and appeals. They dupe you into believing they are acting in the “best interests” of your children even though they know nothing about them, never conceived or birthed them, and had nothing to do with the demands of upbringing.
Indeed, many of these court predators never had children after exiting law school during a lawyer glut hungry to find anything for a fee. And yet, time and again you fall prey to their slick sound bites, only $5,000 up front before they bill you to death. You have fallen into the web of a black-widow spider, and you can’t do anything to escape, scrambling from one law office to another after regular disappointments or malpractice in search of elusive justice.
If you are successful in any of this, you might boast of your exploits against your “adversary” (the mom or dad of your own children). But the truth is, in the end, it’s the lawyers on both sides of this barbaric process who are celebrating in chambers or local country club. Come on man, as Joe Biden would say, why do you think they scrutinize your financials? It’s not so much to get you that so-called “award.” It’s to gauge how much they can bill you.
When you are tapped out, it’s suddenly time to settle. Phone calls are not returned so regularly. And your children have been deprived of their college funds, the other parent with an extended family and/or their faith in your example. So why should anyone wonder why a whistleblower like me was so viciously targeted? I’ve been exposing this corruption for more than ten years only to confirm that this is a gold mine beyond reach of accountability.
To be sure, what can a “lone wolf,” victimized dad, and conscientious attorney accomplish without financial or organizational support against bar associations and special interests?
So the best thing we can do in our foxholes is to educate one another on the realities of this epidemic. We must choose private resolution over greed, ego and vendettas. The latter is what these predators crave. Putting them out of business turns out to be your best weapon based on their refusal to restrain and reform their gluttonous practices.
To that end, subscribe to our YouTube channel, Leon’s Library, our highly censored website at http://www.leonkoziol.com, and get vital assistance at www.parentingrightsinstitute.com. If your ordeal is sufficiently outrageous, contact the Citizen Commission Against Corruption, Inc., a nonprofit devoted to keeping our public institutions accountable at (315) 864-8176.
Help us where you can. At the very least we all deserve a thankful greeting card from these unscrupulous lawyers and service providers during the holidays.
A great holiday gift for your lawyer, judge, the unwary litigant and those who properly seek to educate themselves: newly published book, Whistleblower in Paris, available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, publisher Author House, or any major bookseller on-line,
Family Judge Daniel King, up for re-election, sent an unemployed father to jail for a noncriminal support violation leading to death at age 46
The child support practices in New York and many other states have become so draconian that they are increasingly causing early deaths among their target victims. Such practices are often mindless, revenue- driven and devoid of accountability. In too many cases, they produce jail terms and effectively kill debtor parents without commission of any crimes, thereby ending child support altogether.
Worse yet, debtor parents, desperate to avoid incarceration, surrender their parenting rights to appease underlying goals of their adversaries to secure a substitute particularly in married settings. Such was the case involving Michael Brancaccio, a father of four who was coerced into giving up his daughter in 2018 to avoid a recurring jail term imposed by Lewis County Family Judge Daniel King who is now up for re-election.
Mike had already served a six-month term for child support arrears in 2015, the maximum allowed by law, and he was now facing another identical term involving several thousand dollars. He had been through a number of jobs and could not keep up with the support orders being issued against him. During the first stint, he was committed to toughing it out by doing his time but that turned out to be a nightmare. He was also unaware that his monthly obligations continued to accrue while incarcerated in Lewis County jail.
Unable to reconcile the early release of fellow inmates on serious crimes, he was finally set free after serving a full “sentence.” He fell into a bad state of mind and was soon hospitalized for kidney failure and other complications. He survived that brush with death only to fall victim again to another support violation petition. This time he was coerced into waiving all parenting rights and access to his little girl, then aged nine, in order to have this debt erased and incarceration avoided.
The adversary mom quickly had his daughter’s last name changed to that of her new husband. This outcome devastated Mike who then returned to a depressed lifestyle while entertaining thoughts of serious revenge. On October 11, 2020, he was found dead at age 46 in his Utica, New York apartment. Those close to him who had witnessed his lively parenting periods and regular phone chats with his little girl knew that this debt-induced, permanent separation was the core reason for his downfall and early death.
That little girl cried at the funeral and asked those around her whether it was all “the court stuff” that caused her daddy’s death. She would now suffer his absence from her graduations, birthdays, weddings and other cherished events. In the end, no one in the family court system gave a rat’s ass about this barbaric outcome as they simply moved on to their next victims. Judge Daniel King who presided over it was likely unaware of the early death of the young dad he had sent to a debtor prison.
Instead, Judge King was too busy satisfying performance grants awarded to him (the state) by the federal government based on the number, size and collection of support obligations under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. Mike was simply another statistic, a means for satisfying pay hikes under the state’s new compensation law. That law was influenced by a highly controversial lawsuit brought by the state’s chief judge and court system against the governor and state legislature, the ones constitutionally authorized to decide state salaries.
It was called the judicial pay raise trilogy, Maron v Silver, 14 NY3d 230 (2010). As a result of that lawsuit, judicial pay raises are now set by an appointed group and virtually automatic. The people would likely be shocked at the judge salaries we see today, and the money had to come from someplace. Federal funding incentives and legal fictions to maximize support orders were a big part of the answer. And it did not matter that impartiality and due process had to be sacrificed to make it happen.
While there is much more to understand about this pay-to-parent scandal, the bottom line here was that a mom got her substitute dad, a little girl lost her real dad for life, that dad got a funeral, and Judge King did his part to make it happen, all in the so-called “best interests of the child.” Greater detail exists in the newly published book, Whistleblower in Paris, available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and major bookseller sites. Mike’s ordeal can be found in Chapter Five.
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