The wealthy, educated and entrenched expressing the viewpoint of the poor consumers of legal services - what a joke!

I am reviewing the backgrounds of the "lay" members in the attorney disciplinary committees in the State of New York.

While the supermajority of members of such committees are attorneys, making it impossible for non-attorneys to carry their voices if they differ from those of attorneys, even then, the "lay" individuals appear to be carefully selected - by the courts - from the wealth and the educated, from that sector of the population that is not hurting from not being able to afford legal services and who has enough funds to simply sue their attorney for malpractice if he or she does something wrong.

It is apparent that the state-sponsored system of protection for consumers exists to protect those consumers who have no funds to do that for themselves, being poor and uneducated.

Yet, the "lay" members are:

• journalists, including "Ivy-league" educated journalists
• editors of major TV companies - all obviously not poor people
• individuals who came from "old wealth" (such as - the father is a prominent OB/GYN, chief of staff of a hospital in LA, the mother owns apartment buildings in LA, the person herself is a media producer, along with her husband);
• individuals who "serve" on a board of private schools for little privileged tykeks (K-12) where they have two children at a time enrolled, at the price tag of over $44,500 per year per each;
• financial specialists of different kinds, from CPAs to investment managers to equipment lease manager

Do I need to remind anybody that over 80% of people in New York state cannot afford an attorney and that the Chief Judge of the State of New York called this situation an ongoing crisis?

So how do we solve it?

We put market participants and wealthy and entrenched lay individuals on disciplinary committees to weed out exactly those solo, private, independent, not wealthy attorneys who actually serve the poor, and to keep afloat those who make donations and have a potential to hire these people or their companies to provide their investment or financial advice.

Nothing like just a little a crooked.

Some of the "lay" members of committees are either related to attorneys or connected to prominent law firms through financial ties - and that is only what I can readily find on the Internet, without asking for records.

• Dr. Hany Ghaleb (3rd Department committee) - married to the former judge and now practicing attorney Jhilil "Jill" Ghaleb;
• Dr. Richard Maceko (4th Department) - father to the Assistant Energy Counsel Emma Maceko, graduate of the Albany Law School;
• Miles Bottrill (4th Department) - Director, the Syracuse University College of Law who has a financial interest not to vote in a way that may affect generous donations of prominent law firms to his law school, so Mr. Bottrill has a financial interest not to ever vote to discipline attorneys of donors, no matter what they do 
• Louis J. Cercone, Jr. (4th Department) - Managing Director of Brisbane Consulting Group in charge of Business Valuations, Forensic Accounting, and Litigation Support Services who will lose patronage from large litigation firms if he affects their ratings and attractiveness to clients and the judiciary if he disciplines the firm or any attorney from the firm that hired him in the past or may hire him in the future, and the usual clients of such support companies are large and rich law firms, not the solo attorneys who are usually disciplined by such committees.

I am sure that for other "lay" individuals connections with the legal industry can also be found after some digging, the system usually insures herself so that no "rogue" people come on these committees to upset the apple cart for the prominent attorneys and their law firms.

So, not only the attorney-lay person ratio is slanted several times towards the market participants and against the consumers, but the voice of the real consumer is further stifled because NO consumers, NOT one low-to-middle-consumer of legal services, not one person (I am positive) with a criminal record, not one person who lost custody of a child or who is in arrears for child support and is in desperate need of affordable legal services is among the lay members.

This way, the "prominent" attorney members of the disciplinary committees have no problem eliminating competition of the solo attorneys who actually provide legal services at an affordable price to the under-served rural population and actually are accessible to their clients to talk to them at any time of day or night.

As Judge Lippman told his buddy Sheldon Silver at the time he was put on top of this pyramid of corruption - "not too shabby".

The collective reading of the writing on the wall - can "prominent members of the bench and the bar" turn back the wheel of history?

Hallelujah!

Chief Judge of the State of New York Jonathan Lippman, 

• the very one whose buddy Sheldon Silver was just indicted for fraud/theft of honest service of a public official, in federal court, 
• the very one who climbed to power with the help of that same Sheldon Silver, and 
• the very one who authors decisions in the Court of Appeals distinguishing constitutional violations into "substantial" and "insubstantial" - made a huge step (at least this is how it is announced) to change how attorneys in New York are being disciplined.

For that purpose, Judge Lippman appointed a "statewide commission" to review attorney discipline and make it (allegedly) more effective and consistent (consistent with what - nobody knows, right now the only consistency it shows is with the whims of the judiciary and politically connected attorneys who "serve" in the disciplinary committees).

The commission consists of 40 members, 3 of them non-attorneys, but all three of the non-attorneys are the "yes"-men (and women) for the attorney grievance committees.

Who are the lay individuals who had the happy occasion to have been appointed to "serve" in the distinguished company of the "prominent members of the bench and the bar" who came together to consider what to do with regulation of the legal profession which can soon either die on its own or be struck down by federal authorities as unconstitutional and designed and enforced with anticompetitive motivation and not with consumer interests in mind?

Here are the "winners":

Consumer No. 1 of 3, Rita DiMartino - a "lay" member of the Attorney Grievance Committee of the Appellate Division 1st Judicial Department where the ratio of attorneys to non-attorneys is 5 to 1 (12 lay members out of 73 members total, so it is 61 attorneys, 12 non-attorneys.  Do you think there will be any times when, with such a ratio, Rita DiMartino could carry through a "no"?  That's it, that's why she is simply a bobbing head of the committee, a puppet put into the commission to declare to the public - see? we put A CONSUMER as a member of our "statewide commission".

Consumer No. 2 of 3, William T. McDonald, a "lay" member of the Attorney Grievance Committee of the Appellate DIvision 4th Judicial Department where the ratio of attorneys to non attorneys is 6 to 1 (63 attorneys, 9 non-attorneys).  As you understand, that's one more decoy for the public demonstrating that A CONSUMER of legal services was appointed to the "statewide commission" thinking how to save the sinking ship of the legal profession without deregulating it - which is the call of times.

Consumer No. 3 of 3, Akosua Yeboah, a "lay" member of the Attorney Grievance Committee of the Appellate Division 3rd Department where the ratio of attorneys to non-attorneys is 6 to 1 (18 attorneys to 3 non-attorneys), if one forgets that one of the non-attorneys, Dr. Hany Ghaleb, is married to an attorney and former judge Jhilmil "Jill" Ghaleb, then it will be 19 interested market participants to 2 consumers of legal services.  With a ratio such as this, no "no" votes from Akosua Yeboah will ever be carrier, so this person is yet another decoy of the system to show that A CONSUMER was appointed both to the grievance committee and to the "statewide commission" as to how to fix the system that was designed to be corrupt and self-serving.

Of course, the ratio of market participants over consumers in the "statewide commission" is 37:3, or 12.33: 1.

I understand that "prominent" attorneys, even though they command high fees and will fight tooth and claw to keep those high fees at the expense of the consumer, are, on average, not really strong in math.

Yet, when a bunch of market participants get together, invite a couple of entrenched decoys to serve as a distraction for the public while consumers are otherwise excluded, and try to decide how to save their high fees and their monopoly to serve the consumer base that predominantly cannot afford their services and is hurting because of it - please, don't call it service to the public!

In the Greene Village Court, Chenango County, criminal defendants do not have a right to remain silent, on the opposite, they "need" to talk to the prosecutor before every appearance, at the direction of the court

Here is a document I recently received in one of the criminal cases I handle from the Greene Village Court, Chenango County, New York (the presiding "acting" judge is Judge Alta R. Martin).

Those of you who have experience with the New York local justice court will immediately see several problems.

First, in all justice courts clerks use standard software to generate scheduling orders of the court.

That technology, obviously, somehow did not reach the Greene Village Court, so I wonder whether the court keeps records of proceedings properly.

Usually, pro se parties or counsel do not receive "Next Appearance Date" sheets of paper bearing no identifying information to the case.

Instead, what they receive is scheduling ORDERS which must bear the following specific information:

1. Name of the case.
2. Assigned number of the case.
3. That it is a scheduling order.
4. The scheduling order must be signed or name of the judge who issued the order shown.
5. The order must state what the appearance is for - scheduling conference, hearing etc.
6. The order must be addressed, by name and address, to the pro se party and the prosecutor, or to the defense attorney and the prosecutor.
7. The order must list charges for which the defendant must appear.

None of what HAS to be in such a scheduling notice/order IS in the Greene Village Court "Next Appearance Date" paper.

Yet, what absolutely CANNOT be there, is included.

At the very first appearance in the criminal case, the criminal court MUST advise the criminal defendant of his or her right to remain silent throughout the criminal proceedings.

This right is guaranteed by the New York State Constitution and by the U.S. Constitution.

Instead of advising the criminal defendant that he has a right to remain silent, the Greene Village Court advises the criminal defendant, whether represented or unrepresented, that the defendant "need[s] to contact the ADA before [his/her] next appearance", meaning that the court EXPECTS and practically DIRECTS the criminal defendant to waive his or her right to remain silent and talk to the ADA before every appearance in the case.

I have never in my entire career as a criminal defense attorney and my prior career as a paralegal for a criminal defense trial lawyer seen anything like that.

Once again, by law criminal defendants DO NOT "need" to talk to the prosecutor before any appearances unless they decide to waive their right to remain silent on advice of counsel or on their own accord.

By law, criminal courts MAY NOT direct criminal defendants to talk to the ADA, because, first, it is giving criminal defendants (represented and unrepresented) legal advice, which the court is not allowed to do, and, second, such an advice is directly contrary to criminal defendants' constitutional right to remain silent and to the court's duty to advise criminal defendants' of such a right and to see that that right is observed in that court.

And that brings me to the next issue - are criminal defendants in justice courts provided, as a point of due process and equal protection of laws guaranteed by the State and Federal Constitution, with competent judges?

Read my next blog about it.

When the prosecutor is asserting the best interests of his employee's relative in a criminal case, what kind of justice can people expect?

I reported on this blog back in September 2014 of the vehicular assault by a police officer Derek Bowie upon Barbara O'Sullivan of Delhi.

Since then, Barbara O'Sullivan was charged with a crime upon the statement of Derek Bowie, Derek Bowie was sued by Barbara O'Sullivan for assault and battery, but the Delaware County DA did not charge Derek Bowie with assault, battery and attempted murder of Barbara O'Sullivan, and I wondered why.

I recently got an answer to my question, why that happened.

It came to my attention that the DA failed to disclose that the alleged victim of Barbara O'Sullivan Delaware County deputy sheriff Derek Bowie (who is, according to Barbara O'Sullivan a perpetrator of a vehicular assault on her and battery, for which he is sued in the Supreme Court, and the county defends him at the taxpayer expense instead of indicting him for assault, battery and attempted murder) is, as far as I understand, a nephew of the District Attorney's employee Jeff Bowie.

Now this relationship raises very bad implications for the DA.

  Can it be that Richard Northrup, who worked with Jeff Bowie for an eternity, did not know about his close blood relationship to Derek Bowie?  It is completely unbelievable.

So why did Richard Northrup then proceed with the charges against Barbara O'Sullivan, Derek Bowie's victim and not against Derek Bowie?

Why was Richard Northrup present in the grand jury and directed the grand jury against Barbara O'Sullivan in violation of Criminal Procedure Law 190.25 despite knowing that he is disqualified to be there and contaminated the indictment by his presence?

He tried to make sure that the charges against Barbara O'Sullivan would stick - to suit his employee?

Why is Richard Northrup using/abusing his power, at taxpayers' expense no less, pretending that he protects People of the State of New York and in this county while he is doing the bidding and acts in the interests of his own employee?

When you take the blood relationship into consideration, the case starts smacking very much of corruption and gross prosecutorial misconduct.

Apparently, when the DA would not prosecute an attempted murder committed by a nephew of his own employee, but instead prosecutes the victim of that nephew, something stinks, and badly.

And that brings me to the problem of nepotism in Delaware County.

There is a saying in Delaware County, imparted to me by its long-time residents - that Delaware County is "a land of kissing cousins".  Pure white kissing cousins at that, too.

And that appears to be true - and interferes with fairness in criminal and civil litigation.

Back in 2009 I filed a Freedom of Information Request with the Delaware County, asking Mr. Moon, the then Commissioner of Social Services to provide me records of any anti-nepotism policies that the county might have.

There were no such policies to provide in 2009.

I bet, there are no such policies now either, and, as far as I know, not just single pairs of relatives, but clusters and clans of relatives are employed by Delaware County - and that is a big problem because it generates multiple conflicts of interest, most often undisclosed, often not even discernible because of different last names of the parties.

I first bumped into this problem in litigation when I had a child neglect case where I found out through discovery that multiple members of the Delaware County DSS participating in the proceedings, as well as multiple other high-standing employees of Delaware County.

The names are:

Meghan Barnes - DSS social worker
LaVonne Shields - Sheriff's Deputy/DSS investigator, Ms. Barnes' mother-in-law
Beverly Shields, the Delaware County Treasurer - Ms. Lavonne Shields' sister-in-law

That struck me weird and inappropriate, even though later I've learnt that this is only the tip of the iceberg of the Barnes clan in Delaware County employment.

Apparently, that is not the only clan in employment of Delaware County (I found more names, which are not pertinent to what I am going to tell you next, and I am sure, an untold amount of names will go unnoticed because people are related without marriage ties and with different last names).

The Bowie clan is, apparently, another powerful clan in employment of Delaware County, so powerful that when a member of the clan was involved in a vehicular assault, battery and attempted murder, the county helped him orchestrate charges against his victim and escape uncharged and, as far as I know, undisciplined in any other way and on the loose with a pistol and a taser, exposing other potential victims to future harm - think the recent North Charleston events with tasering and shooting by a police officer of an unarmed man, think the recent Albany events when an unarmed man was tasered by the police and died.

Dangerous weapons such as pistols, tasers - and police cars - may not be entrusted to people with a violent past.

Crimes committed by police officers must be investigated and prosecuted, and when the officer's relatives stand in the way of such investigations and prosecutions, there is a problem to public safety of all, not just Barbara O'Sullivan.

So why is Richard Northrup, instead of protecting the public from a potential dangerous predator, Derek Bowie, is protecting Derek Bowie from his victim and is pursuing his victim with a criminal charge?

The answer may be simple - Derek Bowie is a member of another powerful clan, the Bowie clan.

Jeffrey Bowie, likely Derek Bowie's father or uncle, was a DSS investigator, employed by the county since 1986.

After a scandal connected with his employment as a DSS investigator and deputy sheriff without proper records and without taking a civil service exam, Mr. Northrup employed him to rescue him.

Earlier, Jeff Bowie was involved in yet another scandal, where a Sheriff's deputy, Ken Eck, was dismissed from his job for allegedly conducting unlawful surveillance of Jeff Bowie allegedly having an affair with Ken Eck's wife, which did not preclude Jeff Bowie from doing disciplinary investigations of Ken Eck, according to the appellate court decision that I've read in that case some time ago. 

By the way, Ken Eck was dismissed, among other things, for conducting surveillance of Jeff Bowie despite an obvious conflict of interest.

Nobody dismissed Jeff Bowie for engaging in an affair on the job, with a wife of a fellow officcer no less, while investigating that same fellow officer in disciplinary matters, despite an obvious conflict of interest:

"Petitioner conceded that it was a conflict of interest for him to investigate Eck, with whom he was involved in litigation, and Bowie, who had previously investigated petitioner on another disciplinary matter."

Beautiful - an investigator investigating a police officer on a disciplinary matter gets (allegedly, but there were witnesses testifying about it in Ken Eck's hearing, so it could be true) into a romantic relationship with the officer's wife, and it is not a conflict of interest, and the investigated officer is dismissed when he starts to investigate the investigator back.

Not only Jeffrey Bowie stayed on in his employment in Delaware County, he thrived, despite no record of having ever passed a civil service exam, and so he was never even supposed to be an investigator, and had thus no authority to ever investigate Officer Eck.

Yet, it is Officer Eck who was dismissed, and it is Jeffrey Bowie who stayed and reportedly earned $77,420 in 2014 and has worked as a Delaware County employee since April 14, 1986.

Jeff Bowie's salary reportedly (see the same link as above) is "2.1 times greater than the average of all Delaware employees ($36,891) and $30,101 greater than the average of all New York employees ($47,599)", same source as the above link.

After Jeff Bowie became the focus of  media scrutiny for being improperly listed as an employee of the District Attorney's office and for never taking a civil service exam while working in a position requiring such an exam, Richard Northrup still employed Jeff Bowie.

So, Jeff Bowie has pull enough in the county for Richard Northrup taking the heat for improperly employing him previously for years, and still accepted him for employment after the scandal became public.

And now, Richard Northrup charged Jeff Bowie's blood relatives' victim instead of that blood relative.

Doesn't seem like a coincidence to me.

Clearly, this person who works as a Delaware County employee for nearly 30 years and earns 2.1 times the average salary of Delaware County employees, has a pull in the county.  

Is his pull enough to whitewash his son or nephew Derek Bowie of using the police vehicle to engage in assault, battery and attempted murder on a woman?  That same Derek Bowie who threatened the use of Taser against an unarmed middle-aged woman for no other reason?  The same Derek Bowie who was rewarded for his misconduct by being promoted after that to a TASER INSTRUCTOR in Delaware County - now await something really bad to happen!

I think, the investigation against Derek Bowie and the investigation of corruption in Delaware County, as to how its Sheriff's Department and its District Attorney's office prosecuted the victim instead of the well-connected perpetrator, should be referred to special prosecutors and special investigators outside of this county.

It simply stinks and it is clear that in this county the only thing that can happen is that Barbara O'Sullivan will be railroaded by the very people who hurt her and escaped without punishment due to their positions of power in the county.

Richard Northrup is apparently undeterred by the fact that Jeff Bowie his employee, employee of the office prosecuting Derek Bowie's victim Barbara O'Sullivan on what is likely a charge orchestrated in retaliation for her recording of Derek Bowie's misconduct, as well as her stance against judicial misconduct in this county.

Nothing like a tangle of conflicts of interest.

It is interesting to mention that during investigation and hearings pertaining to dismissal of Ken Eck involving Jeff Bowie, some illustrative statements were made by witnesses about alleged ticket-fixing for government officials in Delaware County, Nazi-like salutes by former Sheriff Thomas Mills, attempts to change accident reports, fear of county employees to testify at the hearings because they were afraid to lose their jobs...

Since Delaware County employment appears to be up for grabs for clans of people who arrange for favors for each other and for their relatives, I do not believe Delaware County is a good venue to try any cases where members of such clans are complainants, alleged victims or are testifying.

Nor, in the cases of O'Sullivan v Bowie and People v. O'Sullivan (see the link showing how Barbara O'Sullivan was jailed by Derek Bowie's colleagues and discriminated while in jail, she is out now, no thanks to the courts, prosecutor or Sheriff's department) should relatives of the prosecutor or relatives of the alleged "victim" Derek Bowie be involved in prosecuting the criminal case, as it happens when Derek Bowie is, upon information and belief, the nephew of Richard Northrup's employee Jeff Bowie.

What a mess.

An update - it was confirmed that a court observer was deliberately misdirected that the Mokay trial is not going to happen while it proceeded

I wrote on this blog that a court observer who wanted to observe the Mokay trial was informed by a court officer that the jury is dismissed and the attorneys went home, thus misrepresenting to the court observer that the trial was not ongoing.

There is an update - the would-be court observer confronted the court officer about the misrepresentation and the court officer reluctantly admitted to her that the officer knew the trial was ongoing when the representation was made to the court observer implying that there is no trial.

I am sure the officer will be intimidated by his administration not to make any sworn statements about that, for fear of losing employment.

Yet, if the trial was all legitimate, why should the court instruct the court employees to make false statements to members of the public who wanted to observe the trial?

When secrecy of the grand jury contradicts the statute on disqualification of jurors in the criminal trial

The question of the secrecy of the grand jury came up as a much discussed issue where the grand jury in New York City refused to indict a police officer even though an individual has died in his chokehold.

The secrecy of the grand jury was challenged in court and sustained.

Yet, when ruling on the secrecy of the grand jury, the court did not reach an important issue (which was irrelevant in that particular proceedings), and the issue is:

how can a criminal defendant going to trial supposed to know and raise the issue of disqualification of a potential juror because the juror previously served on the grand jury in the same proceedings, if the identity of grand jurors in that same proceedings is not known and not to be known to the defendant because of the grand jury secrecy?

New York Criminal Procedure Law 270.20(1)(d) provides that a juror is disqualified for cause if he or she was a witness at the grand jury proceeding in the same case.

Now, how a defendant and his counsel is supposed to know that to raise such an objection?

The court and the prosecutor (who both know the identity of grand jurors) are going to tell him if a grand juror gets into the jury panel?  Dream on.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a question of fairness to the criminal defendant of constitutional dimensions, because it practically allows grand jurors who returned the indictment that is the basis of the criminal proceedings to "finish the job" and convict the defendant, without defendant's knowledge, but with knowledge of the court and the prosecutor.

Are you "the likes" that are allowed to challenge the (questionable) integrity of Judge Kevin M. Dowd?

I keep reading the transcript of another "proceeding" handled by Judge Dowd, and, with the permission of the pro se participant in that "proceeding", I will make the choicest portions of Judge Dowd's outrageous ravings before an indigent pro se party known to the public, because IT IS a matter of public concern.

Page 1 -"proceedings" and appearances

the stenographer (a Facebook friend of Judge Dowd's clerk Claudette Newman) indicates that what she recorded was:

(1) a proceeding;
(2) with three people appearing in the proceeding - the pro se defendant, the plaintiff and the plaintiff's attorney

The only thing discussed is the motion to recuse.

Motions are reviewed in two ways - on submitted basis (that's how the moving party asked it to be reviewed, as far as I know) and in open court, in an oral argument.

Judge Dowd made his own rule - instead of a public oral argument, at a motion term of the court, he makes his own terms in chambers - and Page 1 of the transcript does not reflect that it was in chambers.

Of course, since Judge Dowd "granted" the motion to recuse (after much harassment of the moving party), the party has no right to appeal the decision and to settle the transcript. 

Yet, please, bear in mind the appearances, and that it is an oral argument on a motion, not an evidentiary hearing.

The motion should be timely opposed, with affidavits of witnesses.  Nobody but the judge, the pro se parties and/or attorneys for parties get to speak at the oral argument of a motion.  Judge Dowd changed that rule, too, as you will see further.

The opening statement, as per transcript, of Judge Dowd sitting in his chambers in front of: the pro se defendant (who moved to recuse the judge), the plaintiff and the plaintiff's attorney, as well as the judge's various employees who are not listed in "appearances".

JUDGE DOWD: [Defendant's name], you've got your motion, so go ahead and do it.

So the judge is conducting a motion hearing in his chambers, instead of as part of an open public motion term.  And the reason is the subject of the motion.

There are, in fact, no rules allowing judges to hide oral arguments for motions to recuse and to clandestinely hold them in their chambers simply because the topic of the motion involves the judge personally.  Motions in divorce actions (and what was described happened in a divorce action) are routinely heard at motion terms open to the public, together with all other motions.  

Judge Dowd changed that rule, for the convenience and privacy of himself and his law clerk.  This way, nobody would see just how blatantly Judge Dowd was harassing a pro se party for making a motion to recuse.

DEFENDANT:  I think it's self-explanatory.

And - the defendant never asked for an oral argument, especially in the judge's chambers.

Defendant then states that he found out that his children were in Judge Dowd's law clerk's house, and that he saw the judge's law clerk speaking to the plaintiff and plaintiff's mother at a school function.

While the communications could have had nothing to do with the court proceedings, the reason why ex parte communications between parties and the judge (and the judge's personnel) are prohibited is exactly because nobody knows and can establish or should be asked to establish what was the substance of communication between the children, or the plaintiff/wife with the judge or his law clerk.

Once the fact of an ex parte communication is established - and it was established through the motion and oral argument of the party - the judge must recuse, that's the end of it.

Yet, the judge was interrogating the defendant why he attached pictures from the law clerk's Facebook page identifying her grandchildren as being together with the party's children.

 Then, the judge is badgering the ex parte indigent party, for whom English is not his native language, as to what exactly does he believe was an ex parte communication, while it was plainly stated in the motion.

Then the judge testifies as an unsworn witness on behalf of his law clerk - and the plaintiffs, who are the official opponents on the motion:

THE PARTY:  Miss Newman knows my wife and mother-in-law.

JUDGE DOWD:  I don't think she knows your wife.  I don't think she knows your mother-in-law.

That's yet another rule that Judge Dowd changes - he testifies as an unsworn witness as to actions of third parties when the third parties he seeks to protect are his own personnel.

Now, how can judge know that his law clerk DOES NOT know the party's wife and mother-in-law?  Is the judge in such an intimate relationship with his law clerk that he knows all about his law clerk's private life and social connections?  

The judge does not stop and proceeds.

JUDGE DOWD:  How do you know that?  (that Ms. Newman knows the wife and mother-in-law of the party - TN).

THE PARTY: Because I've been in school and I've seen them.

JUDGE DOWD: You've seen her talking to your wife and mother?

THE PARTY:  Yes, and my mother-in-law.

JUDGE DOWD:  In what way?

How is the party supposed to know that if he observed the conversation from a distance?  The point of prohibition for ex parte contacts is specifically so that there would not be even an appearance that parties would be influencing cases by secret back-door communications with judges or his personnel.

And then a completely irregular thing happens.

Judge Dowd's law clerk CLAUDETTE NEWMAN who is the subject of the conversation pops in and testifies as an unsworn witness on behalf of herself - and plaintiffs - and the judge allows it!

Once again, the rules at the motion hearings are strict.

A motion hearing is not an evidentiary hearing, unless so-ordered by the court.

The court did advise the pro se moving party that he is summoned to an evidentiary hearing, because otherwise the pro se party could have brought or have the court subpoenaed his own witnesses.

So, testimony of witnesses was not allowed by the rules at a motion hearing, and especially testimony of unsworn witnesses.

Moreover, if Ms. Newman was to testify at such a hearing, Judge Dowd was disqualified from assessing her credibility as a witness.

Furthermore, if it was an evidentiary hearing, the court should have sequestered Ms. Newman and Ms. Newman was not supposed to hear what the pro se party had to say about her.  When she heard all that was said and is freely rebutting - and butting into proceedings - the judge had to stop her immediately and indicate that she is acting improperly - and recuse because of improper behavior of his law clerk who attempted to testify in an oral argument.

Yet, Judge Dowd did not control Ms. Newman, and Ms. Newman was allowed to make statements recorded by the stenographer from page 5 lines 21-25 of the transcript to page 6 line 9 of the transcript.

After allowing Ms. Newman's outburst, Judge Dowd engages in the following diatribe against the pro se party who dared to move to recuse the judge because of ex parte communication of his law clerk that was established on record.

Page 6  line 16

JUDGE DOWD:  I am going to grant it.  I'm out of this case.  


Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a moment of truth.  

The judge said "I'm out of this case".

From this point on the judge is no longer presiding over this proceedings.  That's it.  The proceeding is over, the judge recused.  But - did Judge Dowd stop at that? 

No way.  That's not why he summoned the pro se party into his back chamber, because he could have recused based on submitted written motion.

But the judge did not have his say yet, and he keeps the pro se party as a captive audience, with an armed court attendant standing behind his back, does not say that the court is adjourned, and engages in the following harassment of the pro se party:

Page 6 line 17

JUDGE DOWD:  You are a liar, sir.  You're an absolute liar.  You lied about everything in this document is a lie.  

Since the judge is out of the case and is no longer protected by judicial immunity, this statement, if false, qualifies as a defamation.

Page 6 lines 20-24

JUDGE DOWD: I don't want to deal with people like you.  I don't want to deal.  I'm a judge and anybody who questions my integrity, you don't know who the hell you're talking to, buddy, you dont' know who the hell you 're talking to or talking about. 
 
This is a direct threat, to the pro se party, and to anybody else who dares to make a motion to recuse the judge.

Judge Dowd states that simply because he is a judge, nobody has a right to question his integrity.

This alone should take him off the bench immediately, and especially his diatribe to an immigrant, non-native speaker, indigent pro se party: "you don't know who the hell you're talking to, buddy".

Nobody allowed Judge Dowd to call pro se litigants "buddies".

Nobody allowed Judge Dowd to use foul language to such pro se litigants, and this is what the judge says to the litigant AFTER he recused, so the judge is no longer a presiding judge in those proceedings and he has no power whatsoever over the pro se party, but keeps him in his chambers to harass and insult him.

Page 7 lines 2-3

JUDGE DOWD:  You are somebody absolutely irritating to deal with.

Page 7 lines 6-7

JUDGE DOWD:  And you're just a disgusting human being, you just really are.  

And then:

Page 7 lines 7-9

JUDGE DOWD:  I'd tell you what I really feel, but I'm a judge and I can't tell you what I really feel about you at this point in time.

So, keeping an indigent non-native speaker pro se litigant in chambers AFTER RECUSAL and calling that litigant:

(1) a liar;
(2) somebody "absolutely irritating to deal with";
(3) "just a disgusting human being"

- all of that Judge Dowd considers appropriate behavior for a judge and does not consider as telling the litigant how the judge "really feels about him", because he is a judge.

Apparently, when Judge Dowd talks about his own integrity, it appears from these statements that there is not much of integrity to talk about.

Yet, Judge Dowd went on:

Page 7 lines 9-10:

JUDGE DOWD:  When my integrity are /sic/ questioned by the likes of you, unbelievable, unbelievable.

"The likes" are:

(1) Jewish;
(2) The national of the state of Israel;
(3) indigent;
(4) pro se;
(5) not a native speaker of English;
(6) a person without a college degree;
(7) male;
(8) nearly sixty years of age

Litigants, take note that litigants of these category are not allowed to question Judge Dowd's integrity, whether the facts of the case allows it or not.

Litigants, take note that Judge Dowd classifies litigants in front of him as "the likes" that he likes and allows certain things and "the likes" that he does not like.

This judge presides as a fact-finder in multiple trial, and if he assigns credibility to status, nationality, national origin, ethnicity, indigence, pro se status, immigrant status, non-native speaker of English status - you cannot expect justice from Judge Dowd as a fact-finder.

Page 7 line 11

JUDGE DOWD:  Get out of my court.

This is, according to the pro se party, a whitewashed version of events, because in reality the judge ordered the court attendant to get the pro se party out of the courthouse (the stenographer who is the Facebook friend of the judge's law clerk, provided this transcript to the pro se party, after 4 months of requests for it, only after the pro se party filed a federal lawsuit against the judge, so the judge apparently had an opportunity to correct the transcript to help himself in the lawsuit).

The judge is not saying "get out of my chambers", so he knows that it is wrong to hold motion hearings in his chambers, and he knows that the chambers are not the same as the court.

Yet, if this is "a proceeding" that is handled in the public courthouse and in the public courtroom, oral arguments on motins in the Supreme Court, even in divorce actions, are open to the public, and a judge has no authority to order removal of a litigant from the courthouse or courtroom, where he can stay merely as a member of the public during business hours of the courthouse.

There is no indication in the record that the pro se party was violent, disturbed the peace in the courtroom, so there are no grounds to tell him to "get out" other than the judge's extreme irritation with the motion to recuse, which is not a lawful reason to say what the judge said.  

Even after telling the pro se party (and the transcript does not reflect the pitch or tember of the judge's voice when he did that, nor did it reflect the color or expression of his face), Judge Dowd did not stop harassing the pro se party.

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JUDGE DOWD:  Okay.  You won.  You should go to law school now.

Now THIS is completely inappropriate.

Not only the judge, AFTER RECUSAL, continues to keep the litigant in his chambers as a captive audience, with an armed guard behind his back (and an armed guard who had, shortly prior, made an intimidating anti-Semitic remark to the Jewish pro se litigant, and the pro se litigant reported it to Judge Dowd's supervising judge, of which Judge Dowd, no doubt, knew), but he does that to insult and harass him.

There is no right to assigned counsel or free interpreters in a divorce action in New York.

So, even though the moving party is indigent, not a native speaker of English,  and does not have a college education, he had to do that motion on his own.

He did that motion on his own, and he won the motion.

And after the judge acknowledged that he is recusing - he is mocking that indigent pro se non-native speaker litigant without college education and callously says that the litigant "should go to law school now".

By the way, this comes from a judge who, "coincidentally", did evertying in his power to prevent litigant from going to school after being laid off, so that he would become employable.

The judge, who claimed being "fair", and while his law clerk engaged in ex parte communications with the plaintiff, according to the pro se party, did the following thing:

after the pro se party lost employment, and knowing that he had no income (which entitled his opponent to exactly $25.00 per month in child support, by statute),

this judge:

(1) "imputed" income upon a just laid-off person of advanced age, no native language and without a college degree, who was not employable in the area;
(2)  ordered him to pay times more in child support than the statute allows, AND
(3) ordered him to babysit children all day long for his wife, preventing him from going to school and getting a job to earn a livelihood, and
(4) ordered him to pay for a babysitter/daycare if he does not babysit himself, on top of child support.

That is knowing that the wife earned $45,000 a year, and the husband was just laid off and earned exactly nothing.

And after screwing this pro se party royally this way and preventing him from going to school after being laid off, preventing him from getting a degree that could make him employable in the area, draining him (unlawfully) of resources and trying to trip him into contempt of a child support order for inability to pay and put him in jail, this judge has the audacity to say, first that:

Page 7 lines 3-4

JUDGE DOWD: I try to be fair to you, I try to give you every benefit of the doubt

and tells the party that he "should go to law school now", knowing full well that the party cannot do it because he does not have a pre-requisite college degree or money to pay for college and law school.

This is also the judge claiming he was "fair" to the pro se non-native speaker indigent party without a college degree, while this same judge failed to even advise the party of his right to an assigned counsel in previous Family Court proceedings and made him proceed to trial on his own - while ruling all the way against him.

This is the TRUE face, the true UGLY face of Judge Dowd that everybody should know about.

This was supposed to be a submitted motion. 

The party is a pro se indigent immigrant, for whom English is not a native language.

 This is a judge who:

1.  Summons him to a courthouse;
2. Takes him into a back room;
3. Starts to question him, where the man simply says - everything is in the motion, I submitted it, what are we doing here
4. Then, the judge starts to badger him over the issue which is that his law clerk had communications with the opponent, her family and hosted the party's children at her own home, which provided ample means for ex parte communications, and the law clerk was actually observed by the party in an ex parte communication with the opponent and her mother;
5. In a divorce action where custody is to be determined, which is what it was before the judge, the only communications with the children were supposed to be through a Lincoln hearing noticed to the parties, on stenographic record, with the child's attorney present, and the law clerk obviated all of that;  if the children come into the Lincoln hearing, they already know that the law clerk as a "friend", grandmother of their friends, and, since the law clerk also talks to their mother and grandmother, the conflict of interest and misconduct is obvious and does not require a seasoned judge to make any further inquiries, moreover, to badger the reporter;
6. The judge recognized the pictures that the party provided that came off of the law clerk's Facebook page and mentioned "we figured that much", indicating that he already had a discussion with his law clerk previously, and no hearing on this was even required;
7. The fact that the judge identified the picture indicates that he was aware what was on his law clerk's Facebook page prior to the hearing, because he so much as admitted to it;
8. Then the judge badgers the man further, insults and harasses him; questions how can it be "ex parte", do you know what it means;
9. Then the judge allows his law clerk to speak and give unsworn testimony, an unheard of thing;
10. At the end the judge grants the motion, and then engages in a tirade, says that a person who questions his integrity is a "very dangerous person",   "adisgusting human being", that he doesn't know "the hell who he is dealing with", demeans him by calling him "buddy", then throws him out of the courthouse, and
11. Then the court reporter who is the Facebook friend of the same law clerk withholds the transcript of the hearing for 4 months and provides it only after the judge is sued in federal court, and the transcript omits cogent details, such as that the judge ordered a search of the party's belongings in chambers (which was done), and ordered the court officer to throw the party out of the courthouse (which was also done and is the grounds of the federal lawsuit).

 Judge Dowd could not pretend to the pro se party that he did not know that a judge was admonished by the New York State Commission of Judicial Conduct for having an ex parte visit to a minor in a hospital.

When a judge's law clerk accepts a party's children in her own home, without notification of the father of those children who is a party in proceedings involving custody of those children in front of the judge for whom she is law-clerking, that is the same as if the judge was having an ex parte visit with a minor.

So, instead of badgering the reporter of the law clerk's misconduct, the judge should have disciplined her, apologized to the reporter and, before recusing, as a small measure of restoring justice to the pro se party, he should have vacated all orders he previously entered against the pro se party, because of the ex parte communication of his law clerk who drafted his decisions.

Instead, he chose to badger, humiliate, insult the reporter of misconduct of his law clerk, a Jewish pro se indigent party, and then use his power to have the party searched in a back room, physically threatened, overpowered and removed from a public building "as a very dangerous person" and "disgusting human being" who does not know "who the hell the judge is", to remove him by use of armed coercion of a court security officer, a Nazi sympathizer no less. 

I am sure by this time the party in question knows very well "who the hell the judge is", yet, a definition as to who exactly the judge is cannot be found in polite language.

Now, in all of that, where was Judge Dowd's alleged integrity that nobody can question without a penalty?