Funny

I would like to restate funny points about my professional history as an attorney:

1.  In September of 2009, at the beginning of my professional career as a lawyer, I made a motion to recuse a judge, Judge Carl Becker of Delaware County Family Court, in a child neglect case of a client, where the judge was a fact-finder in a case brought by the Petitioner, the Delaware County Department of Social Services was Judge Becker's former client of 27 years and a personal friend. 

The case was quickly settled to my client's satisfaction, so that the motion did not have to be decided, but my husband and I were immediately charged with child neglect by Becker's friend, the recently retired Commissioner Moon.  At his quick retirement, Commissioner Moon was implicated in:

• improper supervision of the use of County vehicles by social services;
• having contracts granted to outside vendors without public bidding, including for Social Services;
• selling an elderly person's house using her power of attorney under the circumstances that were litigated in probate court later suggesting self-service and undue influence by Bill Moon's social worker who was under his direct supervision;
• self-dealing in County-foreclosed properties by using the fact that his wife had a different last name and bought up the County-foreclosed properties without detection.  She was detected earlier and made to return the properties she was caught buying up.

At the deposition we conducted of Commissioner Moon (I have the transcript), Commissioner Moon told me that charges would not have been brought "had you opened that door", meaning that my husband and I were charged in retaliation for not allowing an unauthorized search by social services of our home law office.

The prosecutor on the case was the now-County Attorney, now-judicial candidate Porter Kirkwood.

The only purpose that Mr. Kirkwood pursued is to have my child psychologically evaluated and labeled, while there was no legal basis to do that.

The reason why Mr. Kirkwood wanted it is that my child had a cause of action for assault and battery against his child who assaulted my child on school grounds, and the school looked the other way because of Mr. Kirkwood's status.

The case was ultimately dismissed, after 2 years of litigation, but we had to remove the child from the school and from the state of New York because of continued harassment that the school refused to control and, possibly, instigated - to the point of telling my child that somebody will kill his father (my husband) for his professional activity as an attorney, giving my child pictures with coffins and expressing to my child wishes that his parents will soon die of heart attacks.

The child neglect case was finally tossed after an over a year of litigation, the dismissing judge recognized that the case was incorrectly brought as a child neglect case, but had to be brought as PINs.  Meaning that Porter Kirkwood wanted to bring proceedings AGAINST MY CHILD, but obviated the necessity of constitutional protections FOR MY CHILD by bringing proceedings instead against us.  

This way, his personal need to have a witness against his son labeled and discredited and the personal need of his former boss and friend Carl Becker for retaliation were beautifully satisfied.

It did not happen.  The case was tossed, and it was tossed after, at the last day of trial, when Porter Kirkwood's expert was testifying, we did not even come to trial.

It tells a whole lot about the lawyers incompetence when a lawyer cannot win against two empty seats with all resourses of County taxpayers at his disposal.  An incompetent and corrupt lawyer will make a great judge, I am sure.

Porter Kirkwood had the audacity to appeal, and lost on appeal.

2.  In 2010, in another child neglect case for a client, in front of the same Judge Becker, I failed to make a motion to recuse Becker based on evidence of retaliation that I was personally experiencing at that time and was afraid will be visited upon my indigent client.

On an assigned appeal (my client was indigent), the appellate court has told me that I waived my client's right to raise the issue of judicial bias by not making a motion to recuse the judge in front of that same judge.

Here is what the Appellate Court said on the issue of Carl Becker's bias in favor of his own client of 27 years and friend Bill Moon, the Petitioner.

3.  Since Carl Becker recused from our child neglect case in 2009, he was supposed to recuse from all other cases.  He didn't.  Instead, after becoming an Acting Supreme Court Justice in 2011, he latched himself like glue to all cases where my husband or I were attorneys of record or parties, and viciously pursued us and our clients, despite irreconcilable conflicts of interest and bias well pronounced on the record.

In 2011, remembering the ruling of the appellate court that I will waive my client's rights to raise issues of judicial bias on appeal if I do not make a motion to recuse in the court below, 

I made two motions to recuse on behalf of clients.

Becker sanctioned me for making motions to recuse him and the very same appellate court that told me previously that I must make motions to recuse, or else I waive my client's right to raise judicial bias on appeal, prosecuted me for making those motions to recuse.

When that court (NYS Appellate Division 3rd Judicial Department) was sued for misconduct in Neroni v Peebles, it transferred my disciplinary case to another court, the 4th Department that was soon engaged in identical misconduct, and worse.

The 4th Department has so far:

• refused to give me reasoned decisions for denial of my constitutional arguments;
• punished me with an anti-filing injunction (without a hearing or notice) when I filed a motion to vacate, renew, reargue a no-reasons-given denial of my constitutional arguments;
• refused to open my disciplinary proceedings to the public, as was my constitutional right, after my waiver of privacy;
• taught my disciplinary prosecutors how to prosecute me better;
• refused to replace the referee that refused to obey the order of that same court requiring the referee to give me an evidentiary hearing;
• allowed the disciplinary committee to criminally prosecute/harass me for several months before dismissing the case sua sponte before it came to be heard at an initial hearing - which could be done at the time fabricated charges were filed;
• accepted a fabricated referee report based on fabricated transcripts, made without the required evidentiary hearing;
• held a closed to the public and the press (despite my requests to open the proceedings) secret premature "hearing in mitigation" (I did not attend since it was premature and illegal) before the evidentiary hearing was held and before a decision on liability was made by the court;
• refused to make a decision on my motions within 60 days of the returnable date, as required by court rules

The funny part is that the following rule of recusal in New York law can be discerned from my professional career as a lawyer:

• if you do not make a motion to recuse, you waive your client's rights to raise the issue of judicial bias on appeal;
• if you do make a motion to recuse, the system will retaliate against you (in my case, it was 
• a fabricated child neglect case;
• harassment of my very young child by social services, by police, by school officials, by schoolchildren without control from the school jeopardizing my child's safety and requiring my child's removal from the school and from the state;
• fabricated multi-thousand-dollar monetary sanctions by the judge whom I challenged on the motion to recuse;
• fabricated sanctions by other judges based on fabricated sanctions of the first judge as a "snowball" argument - if he sanctioned, then we will sanction, too, also for motions to recuse;
• fabricated disciplinary proceedings based on those fabricated sanctions; and 
• fabricated criminal proceedings based on those fabricated disciplinary proceedings based on the fabricated sanctions based on my motions to recuse that I had to make not to waive my clients' right to be able to raise the issue of judicial bias on appeal, as directed by an appellate court

Funny.