A lone child faces the horrors of the NY Divorce Industry
I can't stop thinking about the incredible strength that it took a child to fight the corrupt NY Divorce Industry. This child was banned as pro se from all contact with his children except one-way phone calls with the Mother on speaker phone. Yes, a court can rule these cruel punishments against someone with no lawyer. In any case after years of this humiliating nonsense the child wanted to see her father.
The police were called multiple times to physically restrain her from seeing her father. Yes the police blindly enforce this nonsense in Westchester. Finally after being threatened to be sent to an in-patient mental institution, which btw the school was ok with, this brave child who was scared to death fought back.
With a brave lawyer detached from the insiders filth of ny divorce the child won an order of protection from her dangerous and wealthy mother and won the right to see her father. Thank god for family court and a judge who saw through the filth of supreme court but the the damage is done and there's no justice - but $500,000 on legal fees from the wealthy mother.
My visit to CAMP to appeal divorce
So finally has a CAMP conference for my divorce appeal. My assertion that the divorce industry is a sleazy government backed insiders con game is only reinforced. The lawyer who lied to the Judge repeatedly and violated numerous ethical standards and constitutional law was greeted warm hearted by the friendly mediator, a retired judge. Of course the two were old buddies so I could see where this was heading from the outset.
So it didn't take long for the distinguished retired judge to remind me who he's working for as he calmly instructed me that the minimum cost of my appeal was going to be $50,000 in legal fees. This was the number he'd decided I guess. So then I ask thr distinguished judge why a lawyer who lied,broke rules of ethics and violated laws should be rewarded by me, the clear victim. Why shouldn't the court take responsibility of fair courts. He laughed.
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.
Who will fight the Divorce Industry of New York?
As I send out my analysis of the Divorce Industry and pray for someone with the funding and power to take an action I'm left wondering who that person could be. The problem is that the notion of Divorce has so many connotations religiously, legally, practically, etc. It takes a person with a lot of intelligence to see through the fact that we aren't discussing the merits of divorce or divorce laws of New York when we look at the problems of the Divorce Industry. We are looking at plain old government-backed corruption. We are looking at a system that destroys lives of people who have no civil rights protections - the middle class and children. We are looking at a network of unsupervised elected officials awash in limitless powers over citizens in their courtrooms. Besides death there aren't many other punishments that a Supreme Court Judge in Divorce can't order in a divorce court in NY without any questions at all from their supervisors or the judicial system.
The Divorce Industry is a network that has unlimited access to the assets of their customers. They have incredible court powers to order fees and punish critics and those who don't comply with the system. The rulings of the Divorce Industry can't be undone in any court in New York or Federal Court so they have incredible power. We have systems of ethical enforcement that are secretive and not under the jurisdiction of any law enforcement body in New York besides secretive Grievance Committees that answer to no one but their own insular bodies. So with huge billings, unsupervised elected officials and Grievance Committees that prosecute less than a half percent of attorneys in New York in a year we have a free for all and the losers are families of New York and innocent children whose lives are destroyed for many years or permanently after entering the system.
So who will give a crap about this? Frankly, it seems that no one really cares at all. The insular Divorce Industry is stuck debating esoteric legal issues and ignoring the big picture. The Divorce Industry reform actions are like a doctor putting a band aid on the little toe of a person who was shot in the chest. They miss the point. It's the victims, stupid. It aint about protecting an old corrupt system that tramples civil rights and destroys unwitting citizens, it's about protecting the integrity of the court system, the US Constitution and public integrity. It's about ending the license to steal that the Divorce Industry has, not about the merits of a fault system or other esoteric legal issues.
So the simple answer to me is that the person who will make a difference is the person that will control the flow of money into the Industry. This person will make litigants declare the source of legal funds prior to action and will heavily penalize those who use illegal or undeclared assets in divorce. The person will have to look at the record of pro se litigants and the Judges who ruled in pro se cases to find patterns of discrimination. The person will have to look at some specific cases and ask big questions - why was one person allowed to spend $500,000 of undeclared money on lawyers while the other had no representation and lost their kids in a trial without representation? How can we allow a State to take children from loving parents without representation? How can we have a court system devoid of due process that clogs its dockets with meritless cases by litigants who can't really afford the costs? Why is a State government ordering litigants to make terrible financial decisions that liquidate assets and ruin the future of children? Shouldn't we be protecting children and not taking an active roll in their demise?
So in short we need a big thinker who can see past the niggling details of divorce law, turn a blind eye to the insular industry and listen to victims. The person must be in the federal government or a private attorney who wants to sue New York State to demand some answers on pro se, court ordered fees relative to client assets, judicial ruling records and Supreme Court processes that are violating the civil rights of those who can't afford court access.
Who is that person? It ain't little old me, but I hope my typing helps the situation one day.
Divorce – The Shame of New York
After much thought and frustration with the laws of New York Divorce I sincerely hope that my extensive paper attached to this post will be read. I have many valid suggestions for reforming the corrupt New York State Divorce Industry. We must end the culture of dishonesty and corruption that has taken root in the New York State Supreme Court and New York must start defending families, not the greedy divorce industry.
Divorce, The Shame of New York
Comments are appreciated!!
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.
US Constitution – Greatest Marketing Doc Ever Created
In the USA we are taught from early on about our Constitution. Men and women fought hard to establish the Country and some of the greatest scholars ever created it. We are taught in the USA that we are 'free' because of the protections guaranteed to Americans in the Constitution. We are taught that the Constitution along with the Bill of Rights protect Americans from abuse by our government. I'm sad to say however, that the Constitution is nothing more than a marketing document when it comes to divorce.
Most of us will never feel the protections of the Constitution unless we are arrested. Certainly in criminal law and federal law there is some discernible trace of the protections guaranteed in the Constitution, however, when you get to divorce there is no longer any trace of the Constitution. Courts will order religious observance, due process is entirely ignored, one can go to jail or lose all their possessions without an attorney and one can lie and fabricate documents with no penalty whatsoever. You see, State governments have no obligation to follow the Constitution in civil matters. Sure there are guarantees in the 14th amendment to ensure due process in civil matters such as divorce but good luck getting anyone to actually respect these rights.
There is no other non-criminal area of law besides divorce where state governments can take 85% of your wage, seize your assets without hearing, force one to trial without representation and lose ones children based on heresy and false testimony. There is no other industry that can pilfer all of their clients assets with strong arm tactics and frightening threats on of personal freedom.
In divorce the Constitution is nothing but a myth and marketing document. It sells a lot of books and PBS dvd's but it is meaningless in a process that nearly half the nation experiences. How can it be that a free country runs parallel legal systems, one protected by the constitution and one not? How can a government remove all of ones property, income and children without representation or due process?
The answer is clear - America is becoming a fading myth.
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?'.
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NY Divorce Consultants
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