NY Divorce Consultants Fighting the corrupt New York Divorce Industry!

Dishonest Financial Evaluators in NY Divorce

One of the pitfalls of contested divorce in New York is financial evaluators. Financial Evaluators, sometimes called forensic accountants, are an unregulated piece of the Divorce Industry of New York that exists primarily by handouts of court ordered fees by elected judges. Very few people would call in an accountant that makes their living hanging out in the courthouse and influencing judicial appointments so these low lifes sit and wait for hand outs from their Judge friends.

One of the dishonest ones that I came across, and I'm sure many other have been smitten with, was Gerald DeFeo of White Plains. I remember when Gerald was appointed in court. A financial evaluator was going to be needed so the lawyers suggested their good friend Gerald DeFeo and the Judge who also had a longstanding friendship with DeFeo agreed instantly. Within thirty seconds I was ordered to pay Mr. DeFeo $7,000 to do a cursory evaluation.

Hours after the appointment Mr. DeFeo raced to his fax machine to send over his demands and notify us that for $7,000 he'd take a cursory look at our records and issue a one page letter report, delivered verbally to the lawyers in the case only. Mr. DeFeo was effectively charging about $250 and hour and the Divorce Attorney slugs were charging about $350 an hour. So after forcibly paying $7,000 to Mr. DeFeo I was going to have pay about $1,500 in legal fees for the private screening of Mr. DeFeo's one page summary report but it was clear the court-ordered fee wasn't getting any type of forensic financial evaluation whatsoever.

Mr. DeFeo's work was innane and unsophisticated. He did some very cursory analysis of my business and rather than doing any real analysis he looked a proposed acquisition that never materialized, and had a 30 day fixed expiraiton date, and assigned the value of the business based on the fishing expedition of a competitor. Though it was easy to argue that Mr. DeFeo had exploited the court order for his appearance by charging unduly large fees for doing virtually no work at all, and certainly never presenting an accounting of how he consumed $7,000 in a one page, three paragraph letter, but it was difficult to argue that there was a seemingly valid purchase offer for the business and the business was healthy at the time. Mr. DeFeo informed us that if we wanted the full report, it would cost $25,000 paid in full up front and then he would trouble himself to do a complete analysis. However, lacking the $25,000 and feeling the full onslaught of the Divorce Industry ripoff on many fronts I demurred from further ripoff from DeFeo.

Gerry DeFeo hinted that he was a dishonest money grabber sitting around lazily for court ordered handouts, but when a trial commenced 2 years later Mr. DeFeo showed his true colors as a complete money hungry charlatan. While Mr. DeFeo had been hired as a 'Court Ordered Neutral' and a supposed expert in forensic accounting, Mr. DeFeo is able to instantly sell his services to the highest bidder once the court ordered report is done. Therefore, my ex, who was funded with off the books money, paid Mr. DeFeo a retainer to show up at trial and DeFeo and his old friend, my Ex's lawyer, and the Judge had a ball with me in trial as I struggled Pro Se.

Mr. DeFeo stood in the witness chair smirking and openly laughing at my attempts to ask him questions. He wouldn't admit that a small business that sees its revenue decline by over 70% to a point where it was no longer viable had lost value, there simply wasn't evidence of that. He wouldn't admit that the conditions of a business could change in 2 years and that cursory one page valuation of 2007 wouldn't be valid in 2009. Mr. DeFeo shed any inkling of neutrality and instead showed his true colors as a money-grabbing, dishonest cog in the grossly corrupt New York Divorce Industry.

All told Mr. DeFeo fleeced my family of over $20,000 to deliver the weakest forensic report imaginable and lie on the witness stand under oath. If there is any integrity to court-appointed-neutrality it is in a joke in the urinal in the Westchester County Supreme Court House, but certainly doesnt' exist in Mr. DeFeo or in the divorce industry. While Mr. DeFeo was happy to exploit his neutrality and turn his court appointment into a biased fee grab, he is only playing by the broken rules that New York State has established for the NY State Divorce Industry. Mr. DeFeo has no professional integrity but he's only exploiting a broken system

So If you come across Mr. DeFeo in courtappointed assignement be prepared to be fleeced, but if you can avoid creeps like DeFeo, you should do so at all costs. Save yourself the fleecing and go out an hire any accountant that will do the same job, only better, usually at a fraction of the costs.

Avoid the ripoff!

The Joy of Child Support Arrears in New York

Like many I saw my financial world deteriorate in late 2008 and continue its decline in 2009. Thankfully things took a turn for the better in 2010 and I'm digging out but the sting of child support arrears will linger for many years and seriously impact my life. Child support arrears reported to New York State result in a 65% wage garnishment, sight unseen, no facts accepted. All it takes is a short form filing and the garnishment comes until arrears are paid off. As New York takes your drivers license (I was able to avert this), passport renewals (couldn't stop) and sends frequent correspondence to you and your employer they also take a big crap on your credit report. Since having this on my credit I have been denied in every credit request. It's a black mark with serious implications that I must explain private matters to my employer, strangers at car dealers and others.

Of course the remedy is to pay down the arrears but in many cases this is simply impossible to do in a timely fashion. Especially under the punishment of a garnishment that doesn't meet the current obligation.

New York needs to understand that a lot of us with arrears have economic problems due to no fault of our own. We dont quit and hide, we find work. We couldn't maintain payments without income or with diminished income but when we return to work our success is punished. New York punishes parents who are honest and employed, trying to pay their responsibilities as best they can. If a wage garnishment of 65% isn't meeting the obligation why continue punishing hard working honest citizens? Many avoid child support and do all they can to hide income and evade responsibility but this isn't the case with me or many like me. Why are we judged in the same light as evaders when we are merely victims of a broken and corrupt system. This is government abuse of power and harassment of innocent citizens and it must be curbed.

Appeal Window Shuts – The Divorce Industry Check Mate

Tomorrow shuts the appeal window for me. After being financially ruined by the unscrupulous Divorce Industry appeal has been taken off the table as an option because I, the victim, have the sole responsibility for enforcing fair courts and due process. I can't afford a transcript, I can't afford the case record, I can't afford a lawyer and CAMP excludes pro se. Appeal is done, check mate.

Pro Se cases in the kangaroo courts of New York Supreme Court system NEED SUPERVISION! The system has an obligation to be fair to litigants, to follow due process and to follow the published rules of the court. When it all goes wrong and the Judge ignores due process and simply makes things us as he goes along, when the attorney lies and behaves unethically with proof, the system needs to step in and fix these situations without placing the burden on the victim of the system.

Now the victim must pay for all the aforementioned while the unscrupulous attorney on the other side will be rewarded with more court fees when they should be forced to cover the costs of the problems the create for New York taxpayers by clogging the system with garbage cases not to mention to the damage that they cause.

This is what we get with no proactive enforcement of fair courts in New York and it's a travesty of democracy and an insult to the US Constitution. Where are our civil rights to due process in New York? Why are we cut off from the courts after we've lost everything by corrupt courts?

A Victim Fights Back In a Game With No Winners

The Divorce Industry of New York destroys more lives than can be counted, though hopefully civil rights challenges will one day count the victims. The victims of the New York Divorce Industry have no recourse, no voice and no civil rights protections because they are generally people who have no voice in the civil rights debates and ZERO attention for civil rights reformers - they are middle class parents and children. Children generally can't advocate for themselves and the middle class is completely ignored in civil rights discussions and Legal Aide. In any case, here is an example of a victim fighting back. While it's a 'victory' it's a bittersweet victory in a game with no winners.

This victim was violently ripped from a parent with police force during divorce. The 'court-appointed neutral expert' was none-of-the-above, a hack psychologist that had long abandoned neutrality in favor of supporting the monied party. Unsurprisingly the court-appointed-neutral supported the highly paid party and declared the poor parent a danger, though the parent was a stay at home primary caregiver by day. This victim was banned by the court from speaking, texting or seeing the parent in a kangaroo court that typifies the fraudulent Divorce Industry. One side spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of undeclared money while the other struggled pro se in a 2 week 'trial' that ended in complete removal of the parent from the child's life.

Well finally, after the victim has had to suffer the loss of childhood in the hands of the corrupt Divorce Industry, the victim took matters into their own hands, though sadly, months before emancipation. It took the victim persisting for many years and taking dramatic actions to see their loving parent. Undoing a ruling of the ever-powerful elected officials of the New York Supreme Court is near impossible and though the victim is unable to undo the ruling, tenacity of the this child is astounding. This child literally was ripped by police away from a parent in support of unconstitutional Supreme Court orders, threatened with punishments that would scare the hell out of any child or adult and endured years of mental torture that New York imposed simply because the Divorce Industry's hunger for money supersedes all in New York Divorce.

Nothing can change the past or the harm that New York allows the Divorce Industry to inflict in its boundless greed but seeing a victim fight the system is further example that New York State needs to end the protections of the Divorce Industry. Pro Se must NEVER lose children simply because they couldn't afford a lawyer while the other party spends freely from undeclared assets. There must be harsh penalties for blatant liars. New York must stop protecting divorce lawyers who hide behind a thin veil of professionalism and choose to lie and help their clients lie with the sole goal of enrichment of the Divorce Industry.

We must stop mixing up the politics and religion of divorce with the good old fashioned greed and corruption that is pervasive in the Divorce Industry. Corruption is corruption and it's context is irrelevant. Nobody defends that dishonest contractors shouldn't be punished because they are advocating some type of religious debasement, we punish dishonest contractors for dishonesty. Same should go for the Divorce Industry of New York. It's all about the money, it aint about divorce and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee and attack this corrupt industry that destroys people and defiles the US Constitution and the very essence of being American.

Admission – No hope for divorce reform in New York

So after years of this blog and numerous other activities designed around seeing real changes in contested NY Divorce Law I am basically calling it quits. I think that NY divorce could be changed easily with ethics enforcement of attorneys, accountability for lies in statement of net worth and basic civil rights protections to guarantee due process for pro se litigants, however, there's just way too much money for anyone to really give a shit. So long as NY Divorces are heard in courts staffed by elected officials with no effective supervisory bodies the situation will stand forever.

The NY Legislature is hopeless in their efforts to change NY Divorce as shown in the NY Divorce Reform Law that created more problems than it solved by adding spousal maintenance for life and stronger protection for lawyers to get paid. With billions in the NY Divorce industry and Supreme Court Judge positions gifted to loyalists there is no hope that a Judge in Supreme Court in NY will ever make an unbiased decision that is in the interest of children or logic. Children and logic didn't get a Judge elected and it won't get him or her a good job when they're done with the job.

The Attorney Grievance Committee, 2nd part, 9th District is asleep at the wheel and is a complete waste of tax payer money. In 2009 after spending nearly 50million they prosecuted about 64 lawyers out of 14,000 they supervise and over 2000 complaints. The majority of complaints go directly into the garbage bin and of the few they keep around they have no investigative standards and they operate in secrecy. Unless your lawyer steals your retainer and never works, steals your escrow money or commits a regular felony he or she is statistically guaranteed to never face a disciplinary hearing for anything they do. With less than .05% of attorneys disciplined in a year the efforts of the grievance committee are simply a rounding error. Attorney discipline is non-existent in NY.

Judicial ethics enforcement is even worse since we have no idea how lame they are - they don't publish statistics on what they do. And again, unless a Judge commits a blatant felony there is no chance that they will ever be called to task for ethical behavior. Even if they are called in the proceedings are secret and the punishments opaque.

So in a system awash with money and bereft of any standards and enforcement of professional ethical behavior you can imagine what ensues. You could replace the word Divorce in Divorce Industry with any professional trade and with the same recipe - unlimited billings with cut-throat court punishments to enforce the fees and zero professional supervision will lead to fraud. Unfortunately, fraud is human nature when there's large sums of money at play.

My closing advice is to those who are getting divorced from an unreasonable person in NY is don't do it. If you are married to an unreasonable person who will force you to court and you have children divorce will change nothing. The old axiom 'it's cheaper to keep her' is 100% true. The worst day in a miserable non-violent marriage is better than the best day in Supreme Court in divorce and that day in court will cost your family a minimum of $10,000 a day and a life time of agony for your family. If you are stuck in the process I feel for you but you are truly fucked. No one cares about what is happening to you in the system, the system will steal everything it can from you and could even remove your kids. You have my sympathy but that's all you're getting. New York State is down with divorce lawyers and has given them a license to steal, don't expect anything less, the attorney's know you are alone and they are untouchable in New York.

Best of luck to you all.

Is there freedom in divorce?

The Jewish holiday Passover begins in a few days and a central theme of the holiday is freedom. The irony of my divorce is that while I divorced for freedom I have never been more oppressed in my life than in divorce. Facing the mess that the crooked New York State Supreme Court system has left behind in my life has virtually enslaved me to NY State Child Support Collection. The penalties, endless harassment, strong-arm tactics and embarrassment of being publicly labeled as a deadbeat for money that I could never possibly afford to pay begs the question; Where are the protections of US Constitution in New York civil courts?

I took some time this weekend to calculate how long it will take to pay my current child support and maintenance and arrears on a 65% wage garnishment. I accrued arrears because I was unemployed and could not afford a lawyer to assist with a modification of my child support and the court was not at all interested in my story. When I finally found a job I had fallen $60k behind in payments.

Before I show the figures I want anyone who is contemplating divorce to think about this. After taxes and garnishment I am now left to live on 14% of my wages. This could happen to you in New York, easily. So it will take me 10 years paying $84,000 a year in wage garnishment to pay current support and maintenance and arrears. My opening arrears balance was $60,000 but since my 65% garnishment doesn't cover the current child support award, let alone arrears, my balance will accrue to over $127,000 with New York Child Support Collections before it begins to reduce. I'm sure that the good people over there will be overjoyed to hear my story that I don't have the money as they continue their endless barrage of letters to credit agencies, banks, employers, past employers, 1099 payers, etc.

The answer to the question that began this article is clearly NO. At least in my case there is no freedom in divorce. While I have no regular contact with the ex we still share children. I am living on $3,000 a month and need assistance from friends and family for most everything financially and will for at least 10 years. In the New York City suburbs $3,000 a month is not an appreciable sum.

I don't know why New York has the power to force pro se into trials where the penalties are so harsh. I don't know why no one cares that people who can't afford attorneys will lose everything in corrupt New York Supreme Courts filled with Judges who will sit idly by while a pro se loses his children or all his possessions and future earnings with no protections of due process or legal representation.

New York has an obligation to respect the US Constitution and Andrew Cuomo and the rest of the legislature could care less about the abuses that ordinary people suffer in the corrupt New York Supreme courts. Anyone who speaks up is some kind of nut upset about his child support, anyone who questions the ethics of attorneys and judges is ignored by ineffectual discipline committees. We are shoved back into the same convoluted, corrupt court systems that we couldn't afford in the first place that are only more expensive and convoluted as we fail in the impossible appeals process. The Civil Appeals Management Program of New York won't even meet with a pro se as they would if an attorney was involved making appeal even more impossible for pro se.

This year at my Seder for the first time I will truly be asking the question 'am I free?'.