A federal probe into the Connecticut judiciary echoes across the country

In February of 2015, the U.S. Attorney General has launched a "task force" into the claims of corruption in the State of Connecticut Family Courts, see also here.

One of the aspects of the federal investigation is, reportedly, judicial decisions made in favor of attorneys - members of an organization where the deciding judge was also a member, the so-called "Association of Family and Conciliation Court", or AFCC, a non-profit with chapters in many states, including Connecticut.

For my New York readers (I am a New York attorney), AFCC has a chapter in New York, too.

This is how the New York AFCC chapter describes its goals:

The board of AFCC-NY is a mix-up of judges, attorneys and experts in psychology, where attorneys and experts may have a potential to appear in courts of judge-members.

Even though AFCC-NY claims to be a do-gooder non-profit:

the feds have a grimmer view of the organization.

The article about the Connecticut probe into judges' ties with AFCC calls AFCC "a controversial trade association and vendor to the judicial branch" and reports:

"On January 23, Rep. Gonzalez questioned Judge Frazzini about his membership in the state chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Court. The controversial trade association and vendor to the judicial branch was founded by Connecticut family court administrators, judges, and the professionals who appear before them in court.

Specifically, Rep. Gonzalez asked Frazzini whether he should have recused himself from hearing a controversial case during which he issued a gag order against the Connecticut Law Tribune. He did this at the request of the mother’s attorney, AFCC member Stephen Dembo, and at the recommendation of CT AFCC founding board member Susan Cousineau, the guardian ad litem assigned to the case."

Judge Frazzini even sent a letter to the Legislature - after his testimony - apologizing that he allegedly "did not fully understand the status of his membership" with AFCC at the time of testimony, and argument that Judge Frazzini, as a judge, would have laughed out of his own courtroom with sanctions, if anybody would claim that they paid membership dues to an organization, but did not really know they were a member of that organization, while testifying under oath.

I wonder whether any perjury charges will be brought against Judge Frazzini for lying under oath.

Judge Frazzini, reportedly, lied even in his "good faith" letter, because in the letter he claimed he contacted the national center of AFCC in Chicago, Illinois, while in reality that center is located in Madison, Wisconsin.

The beauty of this joint "task force" probe is:

• apparently, participation of judges in the "do-gooder" non-profits, such as AFCC - or American Inns of Court, about which I wrote on this blog extensively - may cast doubt to judge's impartiality and may require disclosure of such participation and recusal from certain cases.

The article further reports that

"last year, Nowacki [contributor to the article - TN] was one of nearly 100 parents with open family court cases who courageously testified before the legislature that they were victimized by predatory court professionals, many of whom were AFCC affiliates allegedly engaged in case rigging, healthcare scams, false billing scams, mortgage fraud, extortion, and other types of misconduct through the State’s publicly funded programs and services".

Here is a fuller account of that testimony.

And this is a published testimony, an official record of the government of the State of Connecticut, which paints a picture of how members of AFCC - attorneys and judges - self-deal in billing hours while deciding cases and dumping appeals.

For now, U.S. Attorney Daly is crediting “dogged journalists,” as well as courageous politicians and members of the public for coming forward with valuable information about the corruption in the state, and has encouraged citizens to report corrupt activity by calling into a hotline that was recently established by the agency for this purpose."

I wonder if the hotline was established only to report corruption in Connecticut Family Courts, or in other state Family Courts, too.

Beginning of federal investigations into judiciary of at least one state for its affiliation with an attorney-judge trade organization that may have affected impartiality of judicial decisions (case rigging and judicial corruption, to be more direct), opens doors for similar investigations in other states.

I will follow and report on investigations in Connecticut related to AFCC.

Stay tuned.