Dr. Leon Koziol submits report to Senate Judiciary Committee seeking criminal investigation of family court corruption
Tag: Senate Judiciary Committee
Parenting Rights Group Seeks Federal Investigation of Family Courts
Dr. Leon R. Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
The Parenting Rights Institute has made a formal request to Congress for a comprehensive investigation of our nation’s family courts. The text of this request is also contained in a full page newspaper advertisement for my new book, Satan’s Docket: Corruption and Carnage in America’s Divorce Industry.
I continue to seek major donors and investors for the Parenting Rights Institute due to the vital work we do, the accountability and oversight which are grossly lacking in these courts. We are a fledgling “Judicial Watch” for the divorce industry. But we can do nothing for countless victims without the resources to investigate and report on their individual cases.
Free keyboarding from the comfort of your homes to no one who cares is getting us nowhere. I am hoping to have sponsors of similar advertisements in communities across the country to move our representatives to action. Kindly share this mission statement and support it with your contributions, book purchases or our offerings at www.parentingrightsinstitute.com.
I can be contacted at our office at (315) 380-3420 or personally at (315) 796-4000.
This is the text and photos (above and below) appearing in the full page advertisement, page B8, of Sunday October 29, 2017 edition of the Utica (New York) Observer Dispatch. The on-line version will remain available to all of my followers and interested persons for another two weeks. You are welcome to duplicate this text in your own advertisements or in letters of support to the same congressional leaders
Request to Congress for Investigation of Family Courts
To: Hon. Chuck Grassley, Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee
Hon. Robert Goodlatt, Chair, House Judiciary Committee
Hon. Trey Gowdy, Chair, Oversight Committee on Government Reform
From: Leon Koziol, J.D., Director, Parenting Rights Institute
Gentlemen:
Amid recent probes by your committees into the conduct of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch regarding last year’s election, I am asking you to consider a review of Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, more particularly the vast abuse of federal funds in our family courts.
While your oversight objectives are commendable, I believe the American people are highly frustrated by the constant focus on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The election ended long ago, and it is time to move on, to focus on the issues that truly impact the rest of us.
There is a growing epidemic in this country which has been ignored and even protected by the Justice Department and bar associations generally. Our federal government is rewarding states with billions of dollars based on the number and magnitude of “child support” orders they issue.
On its surface, “child support” appears laudable, but in practice, judicial impartiality has been sacrificed to the almighty buck. State courts are inciting needless controversy, alienating moms and dads from their offspring, fueling domestic violence and veteran suicides, and wasting tax dollars to enrich other beneficiaries of a dysfunctional “custody” system.
Lawyers and lawyers on the bench should not be allowed anywhere near sensitive parental disputes because they are programmed to litigate. They bring gas to the sparks while family assets, business interests and college funds are plundered in the “best interests” of our children. Shared parenting and mediation alternatives have been thwarted because they are not lucrative.
In March, 2015, Obama’s Justice Department issued a report condemning criminal courts in Ferguson, Missouri due to excessive fines raised through false arrests and other civil rights violations. I made the same parallels to excessive fees and family court “awards” in reports to your oversight committee and Loretta Lynch one year later.
Our Supreme Court has declared parenting to be the “oldest liberty interest” protected by our Constitution. I emphasized that to national media and your Democrat colleague, James Clyburn, at the funeral of Walter Scott, an unarmed father shot dead in the back five times for fleeing a child support warrant. Government is now killing for money.
Despite all this, the harm to our health, education, productivity and law enforcement continues. We remain the most litigious and imprisoned society in the free world, and if reform is ever to occur, it must begin here because children and future generations are at risk.
Oversight in family court is best described as the foxes guarding our chicken coup with whistleblowers like me persecuted to the point of losing my children, livelihood and liberties. After 23 unblemished years as a civil rights attorney, another ten as a model parent, it became a scene right out of the former Soviet Union.
In July of this year, I was interviewed by sponsors of the Whistleblower Summit in Washington due to the horrific nature of my ordeal. It has now been captured in a book entitled, Satan’s Docket. I have also documented the ordeals of parents across the country. I am enclosing a copy so you can gain a real world perspective on this epidemic.,
Your committees have helped enact whistleblower protections for those who have uncovered waste in diverse areas of federal spending. They may have saved taxpayers billions of dollars in recent decades. However there remains no protection for judicial whistleblowers.
Indeed when I sought relief in our federal courts, I was subjected to serial rulings designed to kill the messenger of reform. In my book, I compared it to a Rodney King beating with the fists and batons replaced by orders and edicts. Either punishment can achieve the same fatal end.
Donald Trump is attacked any time he criticizes a federal judge despite a Supreme Court member (Ginsburg) who attacked him from chambers as a private citizen. A federal judge in my case was removed from an earlier one by an appeals court due to a human gene he used to make decisions, one that would not be discovered by scientists “for another 50 years.”
I am not making this up any more than Hitler did in the day. You can “discover” Gary Sharpe’s gene in United States v Cossey, 632 F.3d 82. New York Republican Leader Joe Bruno condemned the same Judge Sharpe in his book, Keep Swinging, after a failed political prosecution which cost taxpayers over $15 million.
Bruno’s senate secretary was given immunity to testify against him despite some $100,000 she stole from government. My ex-secretary did the same after being influenced to orchestrate ethics issues against me. In a 2012 report, bolstered by her own immunity, I detailed how she was operating her own divorce practice. She was not finally arrested and jailed until 2016.
To hold the “foxes” accountable, I have opened a fledgling “Judicial Watch” known as Parenting Rights Institute. But I lack the resources to save victims such as Tom Ball who burned himself alive at a New Hampshire family court, or a police investigator who chose a different form of protest through murder-suicide and a $2 million wrongful death recovery against my city.
If this is not a silent and suppressed epidemic, what is? In his opening address at the 2015 Whistleblower Summit, Senator Chuck Grassley declared plainly, “You can’t fix something if you don’t know it’s broken.” Well now you know.
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Satan’s Docket: Welcome to Mob City Utica, New York
SHOCKING BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE, DETAILS AT www.parentingrightsinstitute.com.
By Dr. Leon R. Koziol
“For as long as can be remembered, people have been pleading for a lawyer to take a conscientious stand against his profession; to slay an evil which has lurked there for too long. And when that person finally arrived, they crucified him.” Original
There can be no better depiction of my ten year ordeal exposing corruption of children, parents and families in our nation’s domestic relations courts. Prior to taking a stand against those who made a living bankrupting entire families through orchestrated conflict, I had an unblemished 23 year record as a successful civil rights attorney. Today, the retributions have cost me my children, licenses and livelihood to the point of seeking human rights protection in Paris.
It’s all been suppressed in the news or misrepresented by a cult of judges issuing defamatory decisions in upstate, New York. And now the story will finally be told in a book set to be released this fall entitled, Satan’s Docket. I was not sure of that title but it came out by accident in one of my chapters where I warned my readers to reconcile, mediate or surrender their petty custody and support issues to avoid being placed on Satan’s Docket.
However after spending a few days in our nation’s capital networking with fellow whistleblowers and best selling authors, I came across such published titles as Lucifer’s Bank and The Dark Side. It was then that I knew I had my story right, from ethics committee witch hunts to my pedophile custody judge removed from the family court bench, it was all there like another plot for the blockbuster movie, Devil’s Advocate.
Over the course of my originally uncontested divorce, over thirty-five, that’s right 35 trial jurists were removed from my case, some from the bench altogether, a record among courts across America by my research. Due to my controversial litigation over the years, you would think that the witch hunt was executed by jurists in my home county. But ironically they all pretty much did the right thing by stepping down at the outset.
I continue to be censored for my public criticisms, most particularly for my 2013 testimony before the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption at Pace University. Since that time multiple license reinstatement applications have been denied through opposition reports citing that testimony with exhibits containing reproduced website postings at www.leonkoziol.com.
Prior to being terminated as the principal ethics lawyer working against me (for falsifying his time sheets), Steve Zayas declared to the licensing court that year that his Committee (the “unethical ethics committee” as I called it) would oppose my reinstatement as long as I continued my public criticisms. That has left me in a suspended state exceeding the seven year term for disbarred convicted felons.
I have never been disbarred, still paying my registration fees as a member of the New York bar, and I have never even been accused of a crime, child abuse or found guilty of malpractice. I completed a six month license suspension many years ago caused by a secretary in my office (sent to jail last year on felony convictions). She was influenced by outsiders to tamper with office mail and keep court appointments off my calendar.
The Third Department ethics court nevertheless held me responsible for her supervision while taking no similar action against fellow members of the court or their appointed ethics committee for supervisory duties regarding the three ethics lawyers they allowed to resign quietly for falsifying their time sheets. And that would entail misappropriation of public money, right? Not even a criminal charge?
While I could go on and on, the book tells it all in 22 chapters and over 108,000 words destined to become a documentary someday. At least that’s what I’ve been told by experts at the National Whistleblowers Summit this past week in Washington D.C. Sadly the collateral damage was inflicted upon my innocent daughters and victims of government abuse still awaiting my return to the “profession.” Since 2010, I remain amazed at the number of people still seeking my services. I could not win everything that came to me over a stellar career but I always remained dedicated to my clients.
To make my book appealing to a broader market, I spiced up the plot with excerpts of high profile cases. In it, I heap praise on most of the characters unconnected with the witch hunt, even former enemies. I can think of only a few locals that I have exposed negatively. Utica Mayor Ed Hanna and city lawyer Linda Fatata come to mind. This chapter brings out some of my local history for those of you across the country who have wondered about it. Entitled, A Wedding to Die For, I introduce Satan like she has never been seen before. Here is that excerpt:
Kelly Hawse and I met in 1998 at a place called Babe’s Macaroni Grill and Bar, an Italian restaurant in a predominantly Italian populated city. Once known as “Sin City of the East,” Utica, New York had a dubious distinction as a rust belt city mired in mafia lore.
A high number of mobsters were discovered to be from Utica at the infamous Appalachian summit of 1957. While many mafia enclaves closed after that sting operation, this one survived well into the nineties and quite likely into the present century.
Outside investigations of corruption triggered by the Appalachian arrests revealed that city police and county prosecutors were ignoring the gambling, prostitution and racketeering which were rampant here. Convicted murderer, Joseph Valachi, testified at a U.S. Senate hearing that from eighty to a hundred members of the mafia were from Utica. News reports featured shootouts, car bombings, ambushes and gruesome murders that would rival the Middle East today.
While attending law school in Illinois, even my classmates from Al Capone’s city of Chicago could not get enough of my stories, not so much because they tracked the ones in the Godfather movie but because they were real and current, three murders in a single month.
A young lawyer, Joseph Dacquino, was found tied to a chair and lifeless in the law office basement of a criminal defense attorney who had defended figures linked to organized crime. Speculation abounded that the victim was an FBI informant, mistaken for his boss or in the wrong place at the wrong time. [1]
Many years later, that boss, Louis Brindisi, would advise against my challenges to a corrupt court system during a private exchange at his former restaurant in Saratoga Springs. His practical advice was based on a preference for keeping a law license over child contact because a whistleblower like me could end up in jail without commission of any crime.
He knew the system as well as any lawyer but possessed a street character about him which elevated the value of his advice. And how correct he was. He was related to the judge whose wife commended our wedding.
One year after that wedding, I won a First Amendment trial as former Utica corporation counsel with Louie on the other side. [2] Front page newspaper photos featured Kelly in a pregnant state alongside me on the front steps of the federal courthouse after the jury verdict was announced.
My daughter was actually there to witness her daddy make precedent. Her mom could probably verify the kicks inside her each time my little girl celebrated an objection ruled in my favor. It was all but delivery time when the verdict was read aloud and she could hear it.
Our attending nurse at the hospital may have confirmed a likelihood that my unborn little girl could hear that verdict. Otherwise her prior opinions regarding the sonograms would be fraudulent. On one occasion, she concluded that our little girl was playing hide-and-seek with mommy and daddy as she visited or ducked the screen.
In the courtroom, my daughter must have guessed from her exclusive vantage point that her dad had brought together a highly intriguing cast of characters for her entertainment, stories she could one day share with her friends in high school.
They included a reputed mobster lawyer, a multi-millionaire mayor renowned across the country for his Trump-like battles, and a highly respected, veteran lawyer assisting her dad who would later become legal counsel for the Woodberry pool club with her mom as a director and her future sister an avid patron.
United States District Court Judge David N. Hurd presided over the case. A serious minded federal jurist, he was easy to spot in any crowd even without a robe. Prior to assuming the bench, he resembled one of the Kennedy brothers, John or Bobby, and Ted by the time he got this case.
Louie was at an opposing trial table with city lawyers that included John Dillon, Utica’s corporation counsel during these proceedings who would also sue the city he worked for ten years later. In Pearce v Longo, [3] he recovered $2 million in a parent murder-suicide case involving a city police investigator after he left support court. That horrific event, needlessly fomented by divorce contests, morphed into a local movement to prevent domestic violence.
In addition, there were notable persons not at my trial who were monitoring it closely. They included Tim Julian, the replacement mayor who I had named in a race discrimination case. That litigation had just begun in the same court before the same judge resulting in a verdict of $333,820.32 one year later.[4] I argued that verdict in Manhattan before Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Another six figure jury verdict arose after that one as my cases against the city grew over time.
Tim’s brother, Robert Julian, was also undoubtedly glued to news reports of this trial. Highly influential in politics, he held prominent positions during a stellar career as a personal injury attorney. He served a term as state Supreme Court justice and more recently represented my disgraced custody judge, Bryan Hedges. From the first day of jury selection to the last day of trial, front page news provided all the daily drama. Some background is therefore in order.
On December 4, 1996, a horrific fire erupted in a multi-floor building on Bleecker Street in east Utica. Firefighters sent into the building were soon trapped on an upper floor when the one below it was by-passed in the rush to get to the assumed source. The temperature on the one below reached a level that produced a flashover, in lay terms a mass fire eruption caused by temperatures reaching a kindling point.
It left firefighters above scrambling to escape. Crawling, blinded by smoke and suffocating to their deaths, only miracles allowed them to get out alive. But the injuries, scars and traumas were indescribable. At the time, my boss, the city’s mayor, was in a heated battle with the fire department over budget cuts which were quickly cited as a factor.
It attracted national attention. Utica’s arson rate was growing to twice the national average and three times the state average. At its worst, when I was city corporation counsel, the Utica Fire Department was battling as many as three fires a night with nearly half ruled as arson.
I can still remember working on a risk management report in City Hall late one night when fire sirens were going off in multiple parts of the city. Due to threats I had received because of that report, I would be extra careful when accessing my car alone in the basement garage. A close friend and city marshal would demand a call each time I did so that he could escort me safely.
I was also extra careful with the report’s final conclusions and recommendations. I wanted to assure all concerned that they were based on fact and not the political agenda of the mayor. His name was Edward A. Hanna, and he had appointed me the city’s top lawyer…
Stay tuned for more in this series of posts I call: Satan’s Series
Footnotes:
[1] Rocco LaDucca, Mob Files Day 7: How it all ended, (Utica) Observer Dispatch, May 9, 2009
[2] Koziol v Hanna, 107 F. Supp. 2d 170 (NDNY 2000)
[3] 766 F. Supp. 367 (NDNY 2011)
[4] Patterson v City of Utica, 370 F. 3d 322 (2nd Cir. 2004)
Alarming Report calls on Federal Government to Investigate Serious Abuses in Divorce and Family Courts
By Dr. Leon Koziol
Parenting Rights Institute
It’s reached epidemic proportions: a federal funding program rewarding state judges by the number and size of support orders manufactured in our nation’s divorce and family courts. It has escalated to a point where moms and dads have been forced to name a superior “custodial parent” even when they are self-sufficient, cooperative and opposed to “custody wars” in these courts.
Known as Title IV-D of the Social Security Act (Child Support Standards Act), billions of dollars in performance based funding is awarded to the states each year, effectively federalizing domestic relations, incentivizing lucrative conflict, injecting financial bias among judges in favor of the state against its own citizens and creating a gold mine for lawyers, politicians and bureaucrats.
It is a well concealed epidemic protected by bar associations and special interests which has led to costly social problems, from an over medicated society to a nation with the most imprisoned population in the free world. This report explains how it has all occurred through extensive research and how our new administration can “drain the judicial swamp” in these courts.
After 23 years as a successful civil rights attorney, and another ten years advocating for reform, I completed this report not as an indictment of my profession, although my adversaries like to defame it that way, but only as it fails a moral obligation to reign in vast injuries inflicted upon innocent children and parents duped into believing this is a legitimate system of justice.
In this area of practice, Title IV-D has ushered in what I call “fictional justice.” It has turned these family tribunals, once labeled “kangaroo courts” by a Supreme Court Justice, into profit centers with an ever-diminishing concern for the true “best interests” of our children. Entire college funds have been drained by unscrupulous lawyers concocting needless issues for fee purposes.
Over the past two weeks I have been in Manhattan promoting this report for funding and government action. Copies have been submitted through various reliable contacts to top officials of the Trump Administration. It is also being submitted to a congressional oversight panel to supplement one reviewed in 2016 during the prior administration. It is highly valuable as an expert resource for court proceedings, public hearings and amicus briefs to support any Supreme Court writ on the subject of family rights against the states.
This is a trillion dollar industry which parents must join to fight for the sake of our children and future generations. Unfortunately, the victims continue to be fractured, surfing the net for incompetent free things, crying about ordeals for therapy to no one who cares, and engaging in delusional reforms from the comfort of their home keyboards. It’s no wonder the carnage is escalating.
If you would like a copy of this report, kindly make a financial contribution to our cause on this site. I am also looking for serious minded parent advocates to deliver copies to their local representatives in Congress so that a federal investigation can finally be launched.
I have been inundated with individual war stories over the years without compensation on the assumption that I am directing some kind of free legal aid society. We are about long overdue reform and welcome those who have something meaningful to offer, i.e. an investor, valuable service or D.C. rally.
Feel free to contact me direct at (315) 796-4000.
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