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: Peter Torncello
Finally! Fugitive Veronica Donahue Indicted, Arrested in Illinois and Extradited to Oneida County Jail.
Well she always had that delusional impression of her good looks: skank aura and a dental nightmare. Now she’ll be modeling down a runway between Oneida County Jail and the criminal courthouse in an orange jumpsuit. She’s all yours convicts.
The numbers brought to justice continue to grow in the Justice for Leon Koziol campaign. Donahue was Leon’s office secretary influenced by political outsiders to orchestrate ethics and child support violations. After a history of taking on corrupt public officials, this was inevitable.
But very few believed Leon when he issued a 2012 report to state and local authorities describing a veritable sociopath who stole more than $100,000 from his office, tampered with mail and secreted court appointments. She was at the center of Leon’s nightmares.
See excerpt of a similar report made to the judicial conduct commission:
“Meanwhile, on the client case, motion dates actually cited in orders on the record by the same judge were never placed on my calendar by the ex-manager. Two such voids occurred over a six month period contrary to standard practices observed during her four years of employment. These voids were not discovered until after discharge of the office manager along with extensive related information held back from the “Internal Report” furnished to authorities. A February 10, 2012 letter from the local district attorney‟s office described this report as containing “serious allegations of criminal activity”. It was all referred to the Utica Police Department.”
In the report’s opening pages, Leon predicted that Donahue would steal from the law office where she was then employed after being fired by him in 2009. And so it happened. Ironically that victim was the chairman of the Syracuse lawyer ethics committee. She victimized many others between New Orleans and Albany, New York who contacted Leon before finally being apprehended three days ago.
Leon got a call from an employer in Illinois where Donahue was a “consultant” if you can believe that. It came after we helped get her arrested on $10,000 bail in 2013 in nearby Chenango County for pretending to be a lawyer in court. Then she fled across the country.
Administrator Notes:
As a public service, apparently victims of Ms. Donahue who were harmed by her ongoing criminal activities had developed a website to warn others of her repeated scams, share news stories and voice their frustrations over what was clearly perceived to be an ongoing lack of criminal prosecution (see website). As of today’s post, many questions still remain unanswered, including why she was never prosecuted for stealing from Leon and others as well as pretending to be an attorney, taking money from unsuspecting clients while working in various law firms (after being fired from Leon’s office) and making court room appearances on their behalf???
One such victim, a female hair stylist, provided great detail as to how she had paid Ms. Donahue $500 to resolve a minor traffic matter, only to discover months later to her surprise, the issue hadn’t ever been resolved. Apparently the attorney Ms. Donahue was working for, (chairman of the Syracuse lawyer ethics committee) had never been advised of that scheduled court room appearance to resolve the traffic matter in a similar manner much like Leon had previously experienced and had warned of only a few years earlier. Suffice to say, that attorney immediately made good on Ms. Donahue’s theft of $500 and the matter was resolved. However, that same attorney didn’t want to risk the publicity or a similar fate as Leon for failing to maintain a crystal ball in order to predict one’s future criminal behavior. Leon and the other attorney might as well also be blamed for not purchasing this particular software product (Click here). Then again, isn’t that law enforcement’s job to keep criminals off the street?
Another such victim, the wife of a well known pain management doctor (who once co-chaired an ARC fundraising committee with Veronica), also had a similar experience with her involving a traffic ticket in Fulton-Montgomery counties, whereby she believed the matter would be handled in a timely manner only to discover she too had been defrauded by her so-called lawyer friend Veronica.
The list goes on and on, and even includes a divorce where she forged an attorney’s signature. Yes, this crime was immediately reported too. The matter was eventually cleared up, and the divorce is now valid, but just imagine how many other similar horror stories exist involving public officials who really thought they were dealing with a so-called legitimate attorney (Veronica Donahue). How embarrassing would that be? Instead Leon, was not only a victim of Ms. Donahue but was undoubtedly made a target for his criticisms of bench and bar practices in matters involving family law including prior success as civil rights lawyer because he was merely in the way.
If you are a victim of Ms. Donahue’s crimes, please submit your story to leonkozioljd@gmail.com as organizing efforts are now underway to ensure that justice will be served.
Indicted this past July due to continued victims (felony forgery and family law crimes), she will now face justice in Oneida County Court. It’s something out of Investigation Discovery. And as federal prosecutor Preet Bharara recently said, “and this, allegedly, is my first tweet, stay tuned.” Another sociopathic woman is on deck.
You see justice was delayed and denied to so many here because Donahue’s crimes fit in with an agenda of retribution for Leon’s exposure of court corruption. Simply claim that Leon should have done a better job of supervising her, and the real villains could get away with just about anything for years.
At least until a hearing this past June in Albany when Leon defended ethics concoctions as a crime victim. When questioned by a judge panel regarding his ethical duties of supervision, Leon compared his status to that of the panel itself concerning the ethics lawyers it fired for falsifying their time sheets. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop after that.
Sadly no public charges were ever brought against those standard bearers of lawyer ethics. These are the same lawyers who engaged in a witch hunt against Leon and refused to accept his shocking revelations regarding Donahue. The ethics petition was dismissed but Leon’s reform efforts continued as did the retributions after that argument.
In further unprecedented fashion, Leon managed to get the June, 2015 argument opened to the public. A documentary producer, Divorce Corp, has the videotape. We’re hoping that 60 Minutes takes an interest as it did when Leon was interviewed by Morley Safer in the same law office years ago. As we promised you, this will all get more intriguing in coming weeks.
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Did lawyer William Koslosky violate a high ethical duty to underage girls in a family court fraud?
William Koslosky is a child lawyer in Utica, New York who’s made a living in family court. Appointed by judges and typically paid with tax dollars, he has a hatred for his long deceased dad, and he wants everyone in court to know about it.
Then Billy takes that childhood disorder out on innocent dads even if it means harming his so-called “clients,” children too young to know his antics until it’s too late. If you have this guy anywhere near your case or are concerned about judges in need of mental evaluations, this post is for you.
William Koslosky is being used as means for suppressing Leon Koziol, a father and long time public critic of family court dysfunctions. In a closing statement during his custody hearing, Billy related a parental argument at the Koslosky homestead 50 years earlier. You gotta hear this, it’s not made up and verified by a court transcript.
Seriously Bill? What does this have to do with a custody hearing 50 years later? Why did the judge allow Billy to carry on like this minutes after Leon left because he could take no more of it? Shouldn’t this so-called child lawyer hang his head in shame and return his fees to the hard working taxpayers? Well we all know this guy has no shame but maybe he will have to return the fees anyway.
You see on September 17, 2015, Billy traveled all the way up to Judge Dan King’s family court in Lowville, New York, a 120 mile round trip for a motion argument on submission. In lay terms, that meant there would be no argument. So other than lining his pockets, why was he present alone in the courtroom?
Worse yet, the court conference was to be conducted by telephone as it was with the other participants. By now it will be known if Billy put in a bill for that unauthorized trip. Is it any different than the two ethics lawyers engaged in the witch hunt against Leon who were fired for falsifying their time sheets? We shall soon see, along with an earlier phone conference in which he was a no-show. Shouldn’t Judge King be scrutinizing this as he has Leon’s every move?
The e-mail notice was reproduced in that post to show it to be a fraud on its face. This cannot be explained, denied or excused, unless of course these two were expecting favor from a biased judge. The mother was apprehended by her own computer.
Well if things are supposedly equal between support debtor dads and child rearing moms, this mother must be violated and committed to a six month jail term. But William Koslosky’s jail term should be much longer, right? This is because he is representing Leon’s two little girls, allegedly with no conflict between them.
Yes, William Koslosky has a higher duty than a regular lawyer with adult clients because these little ones cannot know Billy’s childhood disorders, court no-shows, and frauds upon their rights to a loving father. They cannot know how their unsolicited lawyer, appointed to harm their dad, filed a motion in an appeals court falsely stating facts clearly non-existent in the record.
It was yet another scheme to defame Leon and impair his child support capacities. Exactly who is Koslosky purporting to represent or benefit here other than his angry family court friends ? To date, that fraud has not been factually disputed. And as it stands right now, he has Leon’s innocent girls engaged in this fraud with their mom. Is that the way King, Koslosky and Hawse-Koziol will have the courts raising our children?
William Koslosky has allowed his quest for vengeance and this child lawyer job go to his head. Childless, never married and hungry for hero status, he goes about the court room like he’s Johnnie Cochran. Pleeeze Bill! This is family court. Don’t abuse it to impress the ladies you can’t impress elsewhere. We see all the fan mail to your site from the mother here when she gets the e-mail address correct.
Now for some background to understand why all this is happening. The 2006 Matrimonial (Miller) Report to the high court of New York recommended changes to divorce and family courts. Experts pointed out the flaws of a high conflict custody system which is being “shoe horned” into family matters.
Among the few implemented was a replacement of “visitation” with “parenting time.” In the end it was all window dressing because the culprit was a mandatory custody classification scheme which brought billions in federal incentive grants to state courts. The dysfunctional process was also retained because it generated needless parental conflict and lawyer fees.
Actually this costly report did more harm than good when “law guardian” was replaced with “attorney for the child.” Strangers were turned into substitute parents overnight with an added fight and profit motive that only aggravated protracted cases. A courtroom with one or two lawyers was now burdened by five or six to complicate decisions beyond rational capacity.
It was a gold mine for lawyers but a disaster for families, children and cooperative parenting. As the adage goes, a village that can’t support one lawyer can always support two. More lawyers were put to work with record fees while families were fleeced of their assets, earnings and college funds. Most victims never even knew what hit them.
Enter William Koslosky, a veteran conflict maker who has made a living representing children in these courts. In the case of parental advocate Leon Koziol, he was re-appointed by family judge Daniel King this past year despite being removed by a prior judge for counter-productive involvement.
Koslosky was returned after Leon disclosed fictitious college degrees by both judges in testimony before the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption. A victimized father, Leon was seeking reforms which the lawyer dominated commission failed to achieve. The degrees were used to elevate Leon’s support obligations in retaliation for his public criticisms.
We parent and their victimized children have had enough of William Koslosky. If you would like to register a formal grievance against him, here’s the address:
Attorney Grievance Committee for the Fifth Judicial District
Syracuse Square
224 Harrison Street, Suite 408
Syracuse, NY 13202-3066
Phone: (315) 401-3344
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Is the American public surrendering self-governance to rampant corruption ?
By Dr. Leon Koziol
I have lived to experience something I never thought I would: a voter ballot without any choices. It was Election Day at ward 2-3 in New Hartford, New York and all candidates were unopposed. There was not even a proposition for me to ponder.
When I ran for state Senate ten years ago, a statistical tie resulted with a retired state Supreme Court justice as my opponent. The polls were active, the debate lively throughout and it was only a primary. City voter turnouts doubled the number this past week.
After recounts, the winner in my Senate race convinced me to run for county executive the next year where I garnered nearly 25,000 votes. Again the debate was lively and lines nearly out the door at the same ward 2-3, this time in the general election.
On Election Day 2015 I was the only voter at peak time. Eight workers behind two district tables could not hide their disappointment. After questioning my purpose, I announced I was there to honor their commitment to democracy. Profound gratitude followed with one volunteer remarking that I had just made their day.
What’s happening here people? The incumbents may have you believe that they are performing so well that opponents are not needed. Adolph Hitler thought the same, but humans by definition are imperfect. Contested races bring out issues needed for democracy to function properly.
Could it be that corruption in government is so rampant these days that the people are simply surrendering to it? I testified at the 2013 hearings of the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption. The complaints were so numerous that the vast majority were locked outside Pace University.
As we know when top state leaders were implicated in those proceedings, the Commission was prematurely disbanded. Fortunately an angry federal prosecutor who also testified at that hearing seized the files resulting in the indictment of top leaders of New York’s legislature.
As our followers also know I was targeted for my testimony resulting in the loss of my livelihood, children and law practice. The ethics lawyers in the witch hunt against me resigned after falsifying their time sheets. My custody judge was removed from family court after admitting sexual misconduct on his handicapped five year old niece. No public charges came of these crimes. The list goes on.
As Americans we have to act on this. For my part I continue to vote and influence politics where I can, like a convicted felon as local council president who was upset by a newcomer at the polls. I also seek accountability in our civil courts, but like Moreland, I am now being locked out.
As a final resort I am writing books for corruption victims with one nearing publication. There are many ordeals that are never told and the scandals are thereby covered up. Feel free to contact me at (315) 796-4000 directly if you would like to retain my professional services.
Should Judges be Subject to Mental Health Evaluations?
In the Wake of Recent Events, Litigants are Entitled to Better Accountability and Due Process.
By Dr. Leon R. Koziol
When New York’s Chief Justice, Sol Wachtler, was arrested and imprisoned for stalking a debutant and falsifying reports to authorities, it was clear to the world that he suffered from a severe mental disease. Several years ago, this convict was re-licensed as an attorney and assigned to teach ethics if you can believe that.
But there is much more to this story which the public has generally not known. For example, while serving in our third branch of government, Sol Wachtler directed paid staff in chambers to investigate a New Jersey lawyer for the purpose of impairing his law license. That lawyer had become too friendly with the debutant Wachtler had been secretly dating as a married man.
Such precedent has relevance to my ordeal as a civil rights attorney, unblemished for more than 23 years, when I began a reform campaign directed to our divorce and family courts. With each public criticism or formal complaint there arose a matching act of retribution which harmed my parent-child relations and professional livelihood, this coming from the branch of government charged with the highest duty of protecting First Amendment rights.
As fate would have it, the “ethics lawyers” employed by an appeals court in Albany, engaged in the witch hunt against me, were fired for falsifying time sheets in 2013, only weeks after admitting in a closed hearing that they had been targeting my website and formal complaints. As a defense attorney, I once had a client who was charged with a felony for alleged misuse of a city gas card amounting to $16. Yet here, the standard- bearers of attorney ethics, Peter Torncello and Steven Zayas, have never faced any public charges while I remain damaged by their misconduct.
Today we read about a deranged airline pilot who crashed a passenger jet into the French Alps. The public is rightfully demanding better mental health accountability. In our family courts, parents and children are being subjected to mental health evaluations every day on self serving accusations of a scorned litigant or state agency. As explained in prior posts here at Leon Koziol.com, such orders yield billions of dollars in fees and revenues for lawyers and bureaucrats.
But what about the judges, top jurists like Sol Wachtler, who issue such orders like burgers at a restaurant? Didn’t his court clerks have a duty under the ethics code to report his misconduct and seek a mental health evaluation before the public was harmed? Did anyone even raise the issue? Or do we conveniently assume that this was all an isolated series of crimes no longer relevant to our system of justice? Well think again, it’s only gotten worse.
In 2013, a Syracuse family judge, Bryan Hedges, was removed from the bench for admitting to sexual misconduct upon his five year old handicapped niece. At the same time, a Michigan judge admitted to an extramarital affair in chambers with a mother during a child support case which resulted in her pregnancy. Shortly before that, a family judge in Texas was exposed on video beating his teen daughter. In 2009, a state Supreme Court judge in New York City was imprisoned for taking a $9,000 bribe to fix a custody case against a fit mother, and two Pennsylvania judges were also sent to prison in the now infamous “kids for cash” bribery scandal requiring the reversal of 4,000 juvenile convictions.
These are only some of the shocking cases of judicial misconduct that we have featured here. When viewed individually, it’s alarming enough, but taken together, it raises a potential epidemic in our justice system. For example, how would you know that your opposing lawyer is not so connected as to fix a custody case? In the Michigan case, an unsuspecting father was prejudiced with monitoring devices and jail threats to the glee of his pregnant adversary. How many cases are out there today which will never be discovered given the brazen nature of these very recent incidents?
Make no mistake, it’s not just ethical misconduct being overlooked by our judicial commissions, but felonies and deranged actions of office holders held to the highest public trust. Children are being alienated and even removed from fit and loving parents simply because an unscrupulous lawyer with a paid psychologist is able to concoct some voodoo syndrome to explain human emotions inflamed by these very same needless and lucrative court proceedings.
Suddenly the children are at risk and court ordered evaluations are required as a condition for seeing one’s offspring. This is the gold mine that is causing people like investigator Joseph Longo to commit a murder-suicide that left three children without parents. How are such losses any different than those caused by an airline pilot or his German superiors. Shouldn’t deranged judges and lawyers who profit from their misdeeds be held similarly accountable with mental health evaluations?
In coming days, we will be exposing the deranged behavior of a family judge in Lowville, New York who goes by the name of Dan King. He is a quintessential example of incompetence, arrogance and evil which mars our system of justice and harms innocent children exploited as a means of retribution for public criticisms properly asserted against him. Hopefully, with enough public support, we can remove him like we did Bryan Hedges before more harm is inflicted upon families in family court.
Dr. Leon R. Koziol
Civil Rights Advocate
(315) 796-4000
Supreme Court to Consider Website and Speech Monitoring of Parental Advocate
On January 14, 2014, the United States Supreme Court docketed a Supplemental Brief filed by a civil rights advocate in Leon Koziol v Committee on Professional Standards, Case No. 13-702. It was distributed to the Justices of the Court the same day for consideration on January 24, 2014. The original petition was filed by Mr. Koziol on December 9, 2013, and it can be viewed on his website Leon Koziol.com. The case features profound and timely questions in light of website monitoring by government and escalating abuses in our nation’s domestic relations courts.
The central question in this precedent seeking case is whether our third branch of government is properly subject to the First Amendment and, if so, whether the protections of our Fourteenth Amendment can be set aside to suppress the website disclosures, whistle blowing activities and public forums of a a civil rights attorney. Until his criticisms of our courts, Mr. Koziol enjoyed an unblemished record that spanned 23 years of successful verdicts, six figure recoveries and a perfect record of dismissals in criminal jury cases. His work has been covered by major media including New York Times, CNN, NPR and an appearance on the CBS program 60 Minutes.
In an ironic twist, the ethics lawyers targeting Mr. Koziol’s criticisms over a period of years were recently discharged for ethical misconduct discovered by an outside agency. They were falsifying time sheets as public employees of the Third Department appeals court. This is the same court in Albany which suspended Mr. Koziol for six months only weeks before this discovery. On May 22, 2013, these same lawyers conceded in court that they were targeting Mr. Koziol’s website and public forums. However the court refused to consider the First Amendment issues, hence the filings and proceedings now underway before our nation’s high court.
The Supplemental Brief poses an additional implicit question of whether the public filing of the case itself may have exacted further retribution by the Committee on Professional Standards when it issued a flurry of inquiries on December 30, 2013 directed to Koziol’s website. There was no specificity to the website postings which this Committee found objectionable, leading to a logical conclusion that the publicized petition only days earlier might have been a culprit. The particulars can be read on-line at the same targeted website featuring more than 2000 followers across the country and an unknown viral impact produced by bloggers and individuals.
As most citizens know, the Supreme Court takes very few cases each year filed from persons and entities from around the globe. For this reason, in order to keep internet freedoms and parenting rights intact, it is important for our followers to seek public support behind the Koziol case. Our freedoms are all at risk when a super branch of government is able to silence the people most qualified to report on abuses in our state courts. When you view the site, Leon Koziol.com, you are receiving vital information available nowhere else which government is vigorously seeking to shut down. For this reason, we need you to contact journalists, civil rights organizations and your representatives in congress so that our constitutional rights are not further eroded.
Ethics Lawyers in Witch Hunt Against Parental Advocate Leon Koziol Removed From Office Due to Ethical Misconduct
Once again folks, you just can’t make this stuff up. For decades we’ve all wondered why lawyers lose their conscience, look the other way or undermine long overdue reforms to our justice system. Well, when a conscientious attorney, unblemished over 23 years, tried to do just that, his reform efforts were made subject to a succession of false claims by ethics lawyers masquerading as public watch dogs. It caused this lawyer, Leon Koziol, to describe them as an “unethical ethics committee” in federal and state lawsuits.
Shocking as it may seem, Leon’s depictions proved correct. This past week, these same dogs, Peter Torncello and Steven Zayas, were terminated from their positions with the Committee on Professional Standards in Albany, New York after coming under investigation for falsifying time sheets along with other ethics violations, see New York Law Journal online, July 10, 2013. These are the same lawyers who targeted Leon’s public speech at a civil rights forum he sponsored (see news item attached). They did so with false statements and protracted inquiries, all designed to prevent the kind of legal representation which has not only remedied suicide attempts but also resulted in six figure recoveries while restoring family relationships (see second news item).
On May 22, 2013, in an Albany appeals court, “ethics” lawyer Steven Zayas, in the presence of his boss, Peter Torncello, falsely stated to his now former employers on the bench, that Leon Koziol had actually admitted to the false charges presented for deliberation, prompting the presiding judge to correct him. The lawyer also opposed Mr. Koziol’s license reinstatement by citing his public forums, offensive website and precedent seeking litigation. This constituted clear targeting and a violation of our most basic constitutional rights. No matter. Two of the three false claims prevailed as did the time sheets until they were properly investigated by the state’s Inspector General. The Koziol case is now pending before the state’s high court.
Fellow parents, this is all compelling proof that we must avoid these courts at all costs. Our children depend on us for something more than power and money titles exploited by unscrupulous lawyers for profit (custody and support awards). The harm is reaching epic proportions in every segment of society today. That’s why our site was established, why Leon sacrificed a lucrative career for the sake of his own children, and why we must rally in our state capitals while time still allows. In the meantime, check out our Court Avoidance and Self Representation programs available at www.parentingrightsinstitute.com.
After this most recent fiasco, we can only ask ourselves, what’s next, a Family Court judge abusing children sexually? But then again, that too has already happened. If you’ve been following our stories here, Syracuse Family Court Judge Bryan Hedges was removed as a presiding judge over Leon’s custody case in 2011 and from the bench altogether this past year after admitting that he sexually abused his 5-year old handicapped niece. The lawyers for the mother and children in Leon’s custody case defended Bryan Hedges as a judge beyond reproach during a motion for disqualification. Fortunately, for the children’s sake, Leon prevailed.
The judge was thereafter removed from the bench by the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct. But this occurred only after it received a letter from District Attorney Fitzpatrick, a member of Governor Cuomo’s newest “ethics” commission. Now ask yourselves, what would happen if you, the average citizen, made such a complaint? Would the same commission take similar action? More troubling, what if your children were allowed into a special session with Judge Hedges outside your presence? It is actually required practice in New York, known as a “Lincoln Hearing.” Please, for the sake of your loved ones, get involved! This is our government, not theirs to abuse.
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