Porter Kirkwood launched a new YouTube ad in his election campaign for the judicial office.
In that ad, he continues to claim that he handled 3,000 Family Court case - an unprovable fact.
He continues to claim that Family law in New York is such a difficult topic that his handling 3000 cases (allegedly, again, it is not provable because social services cases are sealed) makes him uniquely qualified for the job.
Porter Kirkwood is soft spoken and tries to create an impression of an intelligent and nice fellow.
He is neither nor.
Please, remember that Porter Kirkwood is the one who approved in 2013-2014 alone $129 million worth of no-bid contracts - and Delaware County is hiding identity of people who got those contract. Such conduct is ILLEGAL. Moreover, it may be CRIMINAL. We do not need a judge on the bench who can be dragged away in shackles at any time, and $129 million in no-bid contracts is too big an amount to simply let it go without any investigation, so there WILL be an investigation, whether Porter Kirkwood wants it or not, by authorities or by citizens and the public.
Please, remember that the very first thing that Porter Kirkwood asked when he became County Attorney was a raise for himself - a $40,000 dollar raise from a $93,000 salary.
Please, remember that while being Assistant County Attorney, Porter Kirkwood, during County time, had on the side a private practice where he represented clients sued for elder abuse and wrongful death, issues which were in direct conflict with Porter Kirkwood's duties as an attorney.
Please, remember that, as County Attorney, Porter Kirkwood approved a financial arrangement where the new prosecutor in the Delaware County District Attorney's office will be financed out of conviction fines, which is a DIRECT and IRRECONCILABLE conflict of interest with the prosecutor's constitutional duty to be fair, and a financial incentive to seek convictions no matter whether they are false or not, simply to be paid and to have medical benefits of the prosecutor and his or her family covered.
Please, remember that under Porter Kirkwood as a County Attorney and as an Assistant County Attorney, Delaware County did not and still does not have an ethics code for its employees, and its employees were caught by the media in unethical behavior - both in shady employment of social services investigators through the District Attorney's office without having passed a civil service exam, see here and here, and in where its social worker and Commissioner preyed on the elderly instead of helping them - and it is an insult to anybody's intelligence to say that Porter Kirkwood was blissfully unaware of what was going on.
Please, remember that under Porter Kirkwood as a County Attorney and Assistant County Attorney, Delaware County did not and still does not have an anti-nepotism policy prohibiting employment of relatives in positions where conflicts of interest may arise.
Delaware County Department of Social Services always employed clusters of family members, and Porter Kirkwood's most ardent supporter, Delaware County Treasurer Beverly Shields, has a whole bunch of family members working in Delaware County DSS as social workers and investigators, with Kirkwood's approval. No wonder Shields is supporting Kirkwood - because Kirkwood will continue Becker's tradition in case-fixing for his own client the Department of Social Services.
Please, remember that the bulk of the illustrious alleged 3,000 cases that Porter Kirkwood is so proud of handling were FIXED cases because they were irreversibly tainted by having attorney for that same department of social services, attorney representing that same department for 27 years, preside over that department's cases as a judge (that is the retired judge Carl Becker). In Family Court there are no jury trials. All fact-finding decisions, including decisions on credibility are made by the judge.
When the judge is your own former attorney of 27 years, guess whose side will that judge take?
Judge Becker was notorious in inventing law in favor of social services and the police.
In one of the cases, Judge Becker invented a "mandatory reporter exception to hearsay" and claimed that a police officer has inherent credibility just because she is a police officer. That is BIAS, ladies and gentlemen, but that is how Becker - Kirkwood's "mentor" and supporter - operated. And, there is, of course, no such rule of law, but Becker relied on the fact that not many people appeal, usually people who are pursued by social services are poor, representation by assigned counsel in the trial court and on appeal is poor, on appeal counsel has a monetary cap that guarantees that appellate counsel for the poor does not work too much, because otherwise he or she will not be paid for his or her work, appellate courts are lazy and rubber-stamp nearly every factual finding of the lower court.
So, when Kirkwood talks about "keeping children safe" and "keeping families safe", he is LYING.
He SPLIT families in order to have his department funded, in order to obtain state and federal incentive money for adoption out of foster care, in order to grab children into foster care and have his department use the children's Social Security Disability monies. It is ALL about money. And you WILL NOT be able to verify anything that Kirkwood claims he was doing because everything about social services is secret.
Also, Porter Kirkwood knows so much about, probably, every single person in the county, through secret investigation of his department, that you will never know what are the true reasons of his factual findings - the record in front of him, or secret investigations he was privy to.
Last, but, certainly, not least, is the fact that Porter Kirkwood was seen engaging in conversations with Becker when Becker was a judge and was presiding over Porter Kirkwood's cases, behind the courthouse.
It was blatant ex parte communication.
We will never know how many of those ex parte communications were conducted over the phone.
In 2011, Porter Kirkwood's then-boss, County Attorney Richard Spinney let out a secret - that he actually came to Becker's chambers or called Becker to discuss a case.
Spinney blurted that out on record, there is a transcript about it.
Becker blanched, but did not recuse and instead retaliated against the attorney who asked for his recusal.
Remember that Becker and Spinney are Porter Kirkwood's mentors and have been for years. And now Becker is Kirkwood's supporter - for an unknown reason, because Becker retired to spend time with his pregnant daughter who lives in Seattle and plans to go to Australia, so it is a mystery what kind of interest the retiree Becker still have in election of the new Delaware County Family Court judge.
Please, also remember that for Porter Kirkwood constitutional issues are frivolous issues. He argued that more than once in Family Court and in federal courts in civil rights cases brought against his department of social services.
And constitutional issues abound in Family Court where families are split by Kirkwood and children are ripped out of families by Kirkwood to be given in adoption to waiting Delaware County officials who grab both children and federal and state incentive money that accompany adoptions.
This is the kind of ethics that the soft-spoken Porter Kirkwood is bringing with him to the bench.
We do not need more dirt on the bench than is already there.
We need, instead, to clean the bench, and Porter Kirkwood is not good material for that.
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