The spectaculaly fake story of Epstein's death

So, yesterday one court released a massive trail of files regarding civil sexual abuse lawsuit against Epstein, including materials from depositions - the tool not carefully not allowed in criminal proceedings, because it will prevent too many wrongful convictions.  I have written about that tool here.

Within hours, Epstein is claimed dead - by suicide, authorities say, while being on a 24/7 suicide watch during a pretrial detention.

Naturally, given the wealth of the accused and the names mentioned in the press of people who were supposedly frequenting child sex sessions at Epstein's private quarters, not many commentators on social media believe the reports of suicide - or even death - of Epstein.

There are a lot of theories that:

• he was murdered;
• he paid his way out of a criminal case and went to enjoy the rest of his life, under an assumed identity and after a thorough plastic surgery, some place nice and remote from the United States; or
• that he is whisked into Witness Protection Program.

Whichever theory you prefer, be my guest, but the interesting thing that Epstein is not the first accused child sex ring leader who has died in government custody this year.

The other one, Christian Maire, was murdered in prison amongst an active multi-state child sex ring investigation.

I wrote about that case here.  

I wonder now whether Christian Maire was also WPP'd or is "doing time" at some tropical island.

Too many high-powered people are involved.

Of course, on the one hand, it may be cheaper to kill off such powerful sources of information.

But, one thing that our government does without fail - is cultivating corruption within its ranks, so, some gut feeling tells me that, for those holding strings to Epstein's - and Maire's - freedom, bribe amounts that child sex ring leaders could generate who were supposedly pandering children for sex to top-rank people in state and federal governments were not to be passed by.

I wonder how many people in high places are sighing a sigh of relief, and how many people, also in high places, are no less happily counting their bribe money.

Some things never change.

When a judge is openly playing on the prosecution's team. The criminal case against attorney Connie Reguli, Tennessee, and her client - for winning in Family Court against CPS, twice

I have written so far 3 articles about the astounding case where an attorney and her client, a mother of minor children, were charged with crimes in the State of Tennessee after the attorney has WON the case for the mother against the CPS and had had her children returned from the CPS back to the mother - for the 2nd time!

The previous articles can be read

The first  article of the series - here, about the identity of the judge whose words, name and circumstances when they were said withheld, were leaked by the prosecution to the press and published - in order to taint the jury pool, send a message to the potential jurors as to what a high-ranking judge wants from them from this ver, very bad (the judge says) attorney, so bad that the mother should fire her in order to be able to get her children back.

the second article of the series - here, describing what the prosecution claims it is charging attorney Reguli and Wendy Hancock for - without filing the unsealed indictment with the court or giving a copy to the criminal defendants, as required by law

and,

the third article - about just some of provisions of the Tennessee State Constitution that were blatantly violated by this criminal prosecution - and I did not even start on the `1st Amendment, which is all over this case -  here.

I have been defending criminal cases (in the State of New York) and litigating constitutional violations by the government, civil rights lawsuits, as an attorney for many years and can testify in court - including by Tennessee Rule 702 - as an expert in the field.

What attorney Reguli described yesterday about what the judge and the prosecutor, Williamson County DA, are doing in her case - has nothing to do with  the law, at all.  

It is my expert opinion that both the prosecutor and the judge in this case should be impeached, removed from their respective offices, criminally prosecuted and never allowed to take public offices again for what they are doing in this criminal case.

Let me start with saying that constitutional rights of criminal defendants work the same way in all states, since they are based on federal Constitution - which every judge and every prosecutor is sworn to uphold - and on state Constitutions, which cannot take away federal constitutional rights, but can ADD more rights - not to the prosecution, but to the criminal defendants.

From the point of view of plain vanilla criminal defense what is going on in attorney Reguli's criminal case is - bizarre is not even beginning to describe it.

Violation of the 5th Amendment

Many people assume that the 5th Amendment is just for the right to remain silent - "I plead the 5th" is a famous phrase often reproduced in movies.

Yet, the 5th Amendment is about much more - including the protection OF THE DEFENDANT with the help of grand jury proceedings.

Here is the full text of the 5th Amendment:

"Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The very first phrase of the 5th Amendment is actually not about self-incrimination, but is about the grand jury.

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury...".

This phrase, "HELD to answer" is about JURISDICTION of a criminal court to have a person ARRESTED on criminal charges for felonies.

The court has no JURISDICTION - no AUTHORITY - to ARREST a person on felony charges other than on a "presentment or indictment of the grand jury".

Of course, states, through "state law", have - unconstitutionally - made federal constitutional PROTECTION of criminal defendants through grand jury proceedings into a mockery and its exact opposite, into prosecution's secret tool of attack, completely reversing the meaning of the 5th Amendment - I have recently wrote about this technique in detail in a law review article, here.

But, some shreds of the 5th Amendment PROTECTION of criminal defendants through grand jury proceedings still remain even in state law.

And the most important of such shreds is - that the criminal court RECEIVES JURISDICTION over a felony case only when an unsealed indictment, a public document, is filed with the court, or, a sealed indictment is filed with the court, and it is unsealed at the arraignment of the defendant on it - and the copy of an unsealed indictment is given to the defendant at arraignment and is read out loud in an open court in front of the defendant.

We do not have secret criminal charges or secret criminal proceedings in the U.S.

Well, guess what?

Attorney Reguli and her client have already been 

• called by the police nearly 2 WEEKS AGO (July 16, 2019), 
• told that there is a SEALED indictment against them and an arrest warrant (necessarily signed by a judge based on that indictment - so the judge must have seen the indictment), that 
• they supposedly need to turn themselves into the police on July 17, 2019 if they do not want the police to pick them up forcibly and bring them in - FOR BOOKING, not arraignment - in handcuffs,
• both attorney Reguli and her client Wendy Hancock have already turned themselves into the police on July 17, 2019,
• were subjected to the theatrical handcuffing by their wrists to the wall of the police station while being booked, and
• were released -
•  Connie Reguli with a JUDGE'S STATEMENT "ROR" and the JUDGE'S SIGNATURE on - not a copy of the indictment, no - on a copy of a piece of paper describing in vague terms that she was criminally charged for something, without describing what exactly she was charged with, and
• her client Wendy Hancock - on a $1000 bond, also ordered by a judge.

Now, wait a minute.

There was NO PUBLIC COURT HEARING called the ARRAIGNMENT where - in open court, in front of the public, defendants would be presented with the INDICTMENT of the grand jury.

If there was no arraignment, the court could not - BEFORE the arrest - make a determination he would have been required to do at such a PUBLIC hearing - to release defendant attorney Reguli ROR (on her own recognizance) and to release defendant Hancock on a $1,000 bond.

What the judge did was completely illegal.

A criminal case is an open court case - we are not having Star Chambers here in the United States.

Moreover, the Tennessee Constitution guarantees to the public that courts are open to the public, 

all indictments must include specific wording to be valid,

and that the government - any of its branches, including prosecutors and judges - is blocked from changing that,

There is a pretense made by the state - and the press is informed about it by the prosecution - that 2 people, one of them a prominent family court and civil rights attorney who testified to the State Legislature about judicial and CPS misconduct for decades - are charged with crimes, specifically, with FELONIES.

That was NEARLY TWO WEEKS AGO.

That means that criminal proceedings have already started.

Yet,

1. No indictment was FILED - as an OPEN PUBLIC DOCUMENT - with the court, so that ANYBODY, including - OF COURSE - people who are the target of these charges, the two criminal defendants, attorney Connie Reguli and Wendy Hancock - can familiarize themselves with the charges;
2. No public arraignment of the defendants was held by the court on that indictment;
3. Defendants WERE NOT GIVEN a copy of the indictment, it remains SECRET a this time, and nobody - not the defendants, not their attorneys if they have them, not the press and not the public - know WHETHER such an indictment EXISTS, and, if it does, what it contains.

In other words, 12 days after the arrest of Connie Reguli and her client the criminal court still DID NOT RECEIVE JURISDICTION over the criminal case - and the arrest, booking and the judge's ROR/Bond release on some obscure piece of paper replacing the indictment - was utterly, completely illegal.

It gets even better, ladies and gentlemen.

Ex parte communications of the judge with the prosecution

Not many non-lawyers are familiar with the expression "ex parte communications" in relation to court proceedings.

"Ex parte communications" means - communication of one of the parties with a judge when the other party does not know about it.

Such communications are prohibited in all state and federal jurisdiction, for a number of reasons.

1.  court proceedings are, constitutionally, open to the public.

2.  opposing parties in court have equal rights; and

3.  people have a due process right to an impartial judge reviewing their case

All these three constitutional rights disappear when one of the parties goes behind the back of the other and - secretly - negotiates with the judge assigned to the case how the case should be decided.

This appears to be the case in the not-yet-started (legally) criminal proceedings against defendants attorney Connie Reguli and Wendy Hancock.

According to what Connie Reguli received - BY EMAIL from the court, after the court negotiated ex parte with the prosecution, the prosecution, even before any kind of arraignment - approached the judge with a motion to impose a GAG ORDER (remember - court proceedings must be open by the Tennessee Constitution? remember the federal 1st Amendment right to speak out and criticize the government?

Once again, the Williamson County DA, a public officer sworn to uphold the U.S. and Tennessee Constitution, 

• before and INSTEAD OF filing the UNSEALED indictment with the court that would have given the court jurisdiction to arraign the defendants and to entertain motions from both parties
• before the court obtained jurisdiction over the defendants through such an arraignment (which did not happen until now) - filed an ex parte motion with the court for a GAG order against both defendants, so that they would not openly talk to the press, on social media and with anybody at all, about the case, because that would supposedly destroy THE PROSECUTION's right to a fair trial.

That the prosecution leaked to the press portions of a transcript of a motion to recuse Judge Amy Hollars, filed by attorney Reguli on behalf of her client Wendy Hancock BEFORE she WON that case after a full trial - without disclosing 

• the identity of the judge;
• the identity of the proceeding;
• that the statement of the judge leaked to the press was a part of the judge's hissy fit immediately before the judge has GRANTED the motion to recuse and RECUSED herself - which gives the judge's statement the coloring of a THREAT to the parent that, if she does not fire her attorney, Connie Reguli before trial (the attorney who has won her children back for her before, who knew her case very well and who eventually won the case for her at trial AGAIN), her children will be taken away from her by the state.

- somehow is not considered tainting the jury pool.  Right?

And it STILL gets better.

The judge, of course, had no right to entertain that "motion" before getting jurisdiction over the case.

The judge should have waited until the indictment, sealed or unsealed, be filed with the court, and until the judge unseals it at an arraignment, hands it over to the defendants, holds the arraignment and then allow parties to do discovery and motions - on the schedule set by law.

But, no.

This case is too important for the State of Tennessee to follow the law.  It has to be "done right".  I has to achieve "the right result".  The law is interfering with that goal.

And, as the interviewer of Connie Reguli Seraphim Schwab pointed out, the state has been doing it the wrong way, trampling the law, for so long that it has become accustomed to "doing things its own way" - and cannot do it right even when the press is watching.

So, if they cannot do it right when the press is watching, a "reasonable remedy" that they have arrived to is - to scarp defendants' rights and to block the press from ever watching.

Yes, a gag order - before the court ever got jurisdiction over the case.

And not only that.

After 

• the ILLEGAL ex parte negotiation with the prosecution about 
• the ILLEGAL motion for a gag order made based on 
• an ILLEGAL (not yet filed) accusatory instrument (supposedly, a sealed indictment - but nobody saw it, so we do not really know whether it exists, what charges it contains, if any, and whether it contains the language required by the Tennessee State Constitution without which it is not valid), the judge who 
• ILLEGALLY usurped the power in the case (since, again an UNSEALED indictment was not yet filed with the court), engaged in an 
• ILLEGAL ex parte communication - now with defendant Connie Reguli.

You know, on what subject?

The judge appeared in the role of a NEGOTIATOR ON BEHALF OF THE PROSECUTION.

According to Connie Reguli, the judge said, in an ex parte e-mail to Connie Reguli, the following, and, of course, I give here the paraphrased meaning, not the exact words of the judge:

"Here is the deal.

Let's make an exchange.

YOU, defendant Reguli, 

• WAIVE your right to discovery and motions, 
• AGREE to sever (separate, cut off) your case from the case of Wendy Hancock, so that they are tried separately;
• AGREE to set the trial in just 5 weeks, on September 5, 2019,

and I, the judge - do not grant 

• the ILLEGAL prosecution's motion for a gag order, 
• ILLEGALLY filed with the judge INSTEAD OF filing the UNSEALED indictment with the court and then proceeding to ARRAIGNMENT, DISCOVERY and filing motions IN OPEN COURT.

That means, that the judge - before ever obtaining jurisdiction over the case, has already become part of the prosecution's team, engaging in misconduct on prosecution's behalf and using his (usurped) power to pressure defendants to cede important constitutional rights before the criminal case even officially commenced.

A judge even went so far as to negotiating a NEVER MADE MOTION TO SEVER cases.

This motion, again, could not be made - because, I will repeat even if I sound as a looped soundtrack,

• the UNSEALED indictment was never filed with the court and never given to defendants,
• the court, thus, did not receive jurisdiction over the criminal proceedings;
• no motions COULD be filed at this time; and
• the court MAY NOT FILE MOTIONS on behalf of parties - in writing or orally - 

which did not deter the judge in question one bit, and he has MADE A MOTION TO SEVER on behalf of the prosecution, by sending such a "request" to defendant attorney Connie Reguli BY EMAIL, very obviously after an ex parte request to do that was made to the judge by the prosecution.

It is exceedingly obvious that NO JUSTICE can be obtained in such a - yes, KANGUROO COURT - for either of the defendants, if both the prosecutor and the judge act as if they have never gone to law school and instead engage in a backyard bullying in middle school where whoever has the bigger stick, sets the rules as they see fit.

From my point of view, the first order of things is to 

• file for a writ of prohibition to prohibit the court to proceed before the UNSEALED indictment is filed;
• to request in that writ of prohibition, that the judge and the prosecutor are taken off the cases in view of their egregious misconduct;
• once the unsealed indictment is filed with the court and the arraignment on it held, 
• to file motions to 
• recuse the judge;
• disqualify the prosecutor;
• sanction the prosecutor for ex parte communications with the judge
• turn the judge into the judicial conduct authorities;
• turn both the judge and the prosecutor into the FBI;
• have the prosecutor sanctioned, taken off the case and criminally prosecuted by a special out-of-state counsel presenting the case to a special grand jury;
• to have the judge sanctioned, taken off the case and criminally prosecuted, also by a special out-of-state counsel presenting the case to a special grand jury.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, criminal proceedings should not be turned by people with middleschool bully mentality holding taxpayer-funded sticks into dog and pony shows.

There is procedure for criminal proceedings and laws to be observed, and the defendants, the public and the press should not be treated by the government as idiots having no rights whatsoever.

If government officials do that, they should be stopped, prosecuted, replaced and blocked from ever holding public office.

The Tennessee Constitution allows and encourages that, actually.

To gag a criminal defendant, so that she would not talk about organized crime in the government. The case of civil rights attorney-whistleblower Connie Reguli, Tennessee

I have so far published two articles about the case from Tennessee where an attorney, Connie Reguli, and her client, a mother of minor children whom attorney Reguli has returned to the mother - twice - from the clutches of social services, are charged with felonies (a convenient vehicle of automatic disbarment against civil rights attorneys) based on fabricated charges that they have violated an ex parte order of Judge Michael Collins that was made 1 hour 13 minutes before the lawsuit was filed, and thus, constitutes, under the Tennessee law, a nothing, a useless piece of paper.

The articles can be read here and here.

I am far from being the only one who have published articles about Connie Reguli.

The interesting thing is though that usually in criminal cases defendants remain silent, and there is a rampant smearing and jury-pool-tainting campaign by prosecution that judges (usually, themselves former prosecutors) do not even try to restrict or forbid, due process of law be damned.

But, in this case, Connie Reguli had a large community of parents and activists doing what the government refuses to do - fighting corruption and fabrication of cases by social services in order to separate American families, traumatize children, rip them away from their parents and sell them, for federal grant money, into adoption by strangers.

What the state of Tennessee does is - it matched nearly year for year Connie Reguli's victories in court against social services and especially her addresses against judicial misconduct and misconduct of social services in the state Legislature with disciplinary complaints and disciplinary decisions.

It coyly pretends that it preserves Connie Reguli's privacy by not indicating what the complaints or most decisions are about, while listing each filing publicly - and thus attempting to ruin her reputation.

So, attorney Reguli does this?

Exposes judicial misconduct?

The state attorney monopoly, run by the State Supreme Court does to her - first, this



while - mind - Tennessee Constitution prohibits all monopolies,

 and attorney monopolies - run for attorneys by attorneys without - are also illegal under federal antitrust law, civil and criminal -

but who cares about the state Constitution if judges want a monopoly to control attorneys?

What a judge wants, a judge gets - as is shown in the case where Judge Michael Collins signed a meaningless piece of paper, outside of any court proceedings, the Sheriff took 2 children from a mother following that useless piece of paper, the hereditary judge Hollars refuses to vacate it claiming - falsely - that she had no authority to forbid enforcement of that useless piece of paper:

and instead

• takes a trip with the social services-friendly guardian ad litem Sarah Cripps to a political event (prohibited for sitting judges, but who cares where free drinks and food and free political promotion for the soon-to-come re-elections are offered by an attorney of record in a case who can drum more money from a case if it goes for a longer time, and will drum even more money if she roots for social services and gets assigned more to such cases by social services-friendly judges like Michael Collins, and
• when caught, threatens the mother that she will lose parental rights if she does not fire the pesky attorney-whistleblower, and
• later, when the mother does not fire the attorney and the attorney wins children back for the mother, directs fabrication of criminal proceedings against the attorney who dared to embarrass the judge with a motion to recuse (at least, information leaked by the DA to the press cites(omitting Judge Hollars' name or that the statement was made during a hearing on a motion to recuse - which the judge has granted).

When "just" disciplinary proceedings did not stop attorney Reguli, the state has fabricated a criminal case against her (as a utilitarian tool of automatic disbarment) and her client ( to intimidate parents into not hiring her - following direct order of the hereditary judge Amy Hollars where

1/ hereditary titles are also prohibited by the Tennessee Constitution, and
2/  the Governor is supposed to "faithfully execute the laws", including this prohibition on hereditary titles -

but who cares about the state Constitution that both the Governor, the judge-father and the judge-daughter (as an attorney) are sworn to uphold when dynastic career prospects of a family member of a government elite is concerned?

The Governor Phil Bredesen just went ahead and created such a hereditary judicial seat for attorney Amy Hollars, daughter of Judge John Turnbull, and allowed her father to resign from his judicial position with a condition that his position will be "given" to his daughter.

Pesky laws and especially pesky Constitutions should not interfere with friendships between great people, don't you think?

But, well, ruining Connie Reguli's reputation did not appear to be such an easy task for the, let's call a spade a spade, organized crime in the Tennessee government trying to destroy a powerful and knowledgeable attorney-whistleblower.

So, the organized crime in the state government attempted to destroy her livelihood and reputation in another way - with a felony conviction and automatic disbarment which would follow a felony conviction.

And even then, Connie Reguli did an unconventional thing - instead of exercising her 5th Amendment right to remain silent, when faced with a smear campaign in the media organized by the DA's office which conveniently leaked to the press

Judge Hollars' "advice" (threat) to Wendy Hancock, Connie Regulie's client that if she does not fire Connie, she will lose her kids (at that time being kidnapped by social services with the help of Judges Cook, Collins and Hollars), the threat made during a hearing on attorney Reguli's motion to recuse Judge Hollars because of her misconduct, ex parte communication and apparently receiving tangible ( inviation to an event with free food, alcohol and live music) and intangible (political promotion for purposes of re-election) benefits from the guardian ad litem in the case, attorney Sarah Cripps,

 she went all out and called out witnesses of prosecution in public live Facebook streams, mocking them and listing their egregious misconduct that she promised to sue them for - especially that the case against the mother fabricated by social services of DeKalb County, a corrupt guardian ad litem Sarah Cripps, and several corrupt judges, Michael Collins and Amy Hollars among them, against her - was dismissed, so nothing precludes that lawsuit procedurally.

Since the defendants did not behave conventionally, timidly shutting up and allowing the prosecution to taint the jury pool for her long before trial, the prosecution and those who pull the strings behind this fabricated criminal case, started to pull other levers of power.

The prosecution filed for a gag order - in a criminal case! - against Connie Reguli and her client, the mother - to have the court prohibit them to talk about the case.  The prosecution, of course, will preserve their right to talk about the case and taint the jury pool the way they want it.

Of course, the Williamson County DA is also a public servant sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Tennessee.  He knows that prior restraints on speech are presumed unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment, and especially where, like here, he has brought a criminal proceeding against a person who has been suing his county and the DeKalb county for years in federal court, and where he has already tainted the jury pool by his own leaks about the case to the press - that Connie Reguli has a due process right to counter-balance.

The DA also knows that the Tennessee Constitution

1.  declares courts as being open to the public;

2. declares the indictments to be brought only for "peace and dignity of the state" - not to help corrupt public officials retaliate against an attorney who keeps winning against them and keeps publicly exposing their misconduct in public hearings in the state Legislature;

and

prohibits the government of the state of Tennessee, including the judge the DA asked to impose a gag order, to violate rights guaranteed by the Tennessee State Constitution:

That's what the DA has sworn his loyalty to - the Tennessee Constitution in its entirety, and that's the reason he received his commission as the DA in the first place.

The Tennessee Constitution also very clearly tells the government who is the master in the state - by law, and it is not the government.  It is the people, who give the government only a LIMITED power to act on the people's behalf - and only for the people's benefit, not for their detriment.

What the DA does, acting as a member of organized crime group to frame a whistleblower-civil rights attorney and her client - he KNOWS that it is illegal.  He KNOWS that it is unconstitutional.  And, because of litigation by Connie Reguli against the Williamson County the DA is serving, on behalf of a client for putting a juvenile in solitary confinement where he was sexually assaulted (twice) by a jail employee, an extremely embarrassing occurrence, especially for "defenders of chidlren's rights" - he also knows he is absolutely disqualified from bringing criminal proceedings against attorney Reguli.

He should not be able to escape prosecution for his crimes simply because he knows a gal or two in the high places.

I will continue to cover this story.

Stay tuned.

The basis of indictment against Attorney Connie Reguli of Tennessee - or, rather, lack thereof. Part II

The case against Attorney Reguli, see my first blog in this series here, is in the nature of contempt of court proceedings, since it is based in its entirety on the mother and attorney supposedly disobeying a court order.

After her own investigation, according to the mother's application for certiorari to the higher court seeking to have the ex parte order vacated, attorney Reguli has found out that the ex parte order of removal was signed not only in the wrong county by the wrong judge (three jurisdictional defects - wrong county, no order of recusal from a proper judge, no order of appointment of the signing judge), 

but also at a very wrong time. 

The alleged court order in question is the order of Smith County Judge Michael Collins in a DeKalb County Juvenile Court action - before the action was even started, so Judge Michael Collins (never sanctioned for his egregious misconduct in this case) is some kind of a magician predicting that the case will be started and, just as well, signing an order of removal of two children from their mother before the case was started - why not?

Those are all important jurisdictional considerations, but the main one was - the judge cannot even consider any applications (motions) for orders, ex parte or otherwise, in an action that was not yet officially started, not filed with the court.

What I am posting here are excerpts from the mother's application for a writ of certiorari to vacate Judge Collins' illegal ex parte order of removal of her children.

This application was filed on August 28, 2018.  The ex parte order was signed on August 13, 2018.

A hearing on an ex parte order of removal of children - because it is an extraordinary measure - must be given the next day.

By the time the mother filed the application for a writ of certiorari, 15 days after signing of the order, she still did not have a hearing.

The timeline is like this:

August 8 and 9, 2018 (Wednesday and Thursday) - the police talks to the children and the mother and does not remove the children;

August 10, 2018 (Friday) - a police officer tells the mother's attorney that he sees no emergency

August 13, 2018 (Monday) - at some point during the day social services, without filing the petition with the court clerk,  approach Judge Cook of Juvenile Court, DeCalb County (who represented the father of the children in some previous child support and domestic violence proceedings).  

It is early time for Judge Cook to even consider a recusal, procedurally - because the petition was not yet filed, and the lawsuit is, thus, not yet commenced.

So, Judge Cook does not enter an order of recusal.

But, social services do not want to follow the law, to first file a petition, create a court record, and only then seek an application for an ex parte order - which is the lawful way to do it.

Instead, they engage in a shameless judge-shopping.

They go to another county, where they find Judge Michael Collins, a Recovery (drug) court judge, and a judge who, according to his Facebook page, is a devout churchgoer, advocate for the children and who has a disabled child of his own (one of Wendy Hancock's children is disabled).  

They allege, all through hearsay, drug use and dealing by the mother and physical abuse of a child by the mother (which was all dismissed later after a full trial), pull at the judge's heartstrings - and voila - he signs an application in a nonexistent court case, so that social services can happily go back and now file the already signed court order, together with a petition, in the Juvenile Court of DeCalb County.

The order tells them to serve the mother, to give her notice of the next day's 10:00 am hearing.

They do not do that.

The next day Judge Collins holds a hearing ex parte, without any evidence on file that the mother was served with the order, "takes testimony" of one of the children under oath, and then fails to audio-record it or create any records in the file that such a hearing was held.

That's Judge Collins' second misconduct in the case.

Then, Judge Collins blocks the mother's attorney from accessing the records in the file until and unless she files a written notice of appearance - which legally constitutes a waiver of service, at the direct request, which the judge admitted, of DCS attorney Catherine Pack, practically acting as an agent of DCS in the proceeding.   The third instance of judicial misconduct.

And then, Judge Collins recuses from the case on August 20, 2018 - without ever giving the mother a hearing on his illegal ex parte order of removal.

The mother then prepares with her attorney Connie Reguli an application to undo the ex parte order through the so-called "Rule 10" application for a writ of certiorari.

The higher court denies it by saying that you cannot file such an appeal before the final judgment in the case and dumps it back to the trial court.

Eventually, there is a full trial of the case, and the case is dismissed, thus making the already void ex parte order of judge Collins a nullity once more over.

Now, AFTER the case was dismissed, after attorney Reguli has won Wendy Hancock's children back for her - for the second time - the District Attorney of Williamson County indicts both the attorney and the mother for violating that same many-times-dead ex parte order of Judge Collins - which was 

1. made in CLEAR absence of all jurisdiction when it was signed (before the lawsuit was started), 
2. without an order of recusal of the court's proper judge (another jurisdictional defect), 
3. without an order of appointment of Judge Collins by the Supreme Court of the State of Tennessee (another jurisdictional defect) and 
4. which was made moot and a nullity because the whole case was dismissed in the mother's favor.

Nothing like using the full power of the state to beat the dead horse some more - and to harass the mother and her attorney who, despite all odds, despite all illegalities in the case (and there is a much longer list than  was described above and in the previous blog article of this series) - keep winning against the almighty government.

Harassment of an attorney by the government with a criminal prosecution for successful and diligent professional services looks pretty much like what they do in 3rd-country dictatorships, so, there.

I would also want to point out what I DO NOT see - which should be reasonably expected under the circumstances of this case, based on history of such cases in other countries, including 3rd-world dictatorships.

I do not see attorney solidarity.

I do not see attorneys standing up for one of their own, who is repeatedly persecuted by the government for successfully and diligently doing her job for her client, winning cases against the government and for suing that same government.

Apparently, bar associations in the State of Tennessee and individual colleagues of Attorney Reguli prefer to sit out the storm in the bushes, waiting to see who will win in this battle of taxpayer-backed Goliath against David.

In other countries, for your information, dear "colleagues", attorneys would have already hit the streets with demonstrations of protests, forcing authorities to drop the bogus fabricated charges against attorney Reguli and her client, but I understand, you are afraid for your own hide (scratch that) law license and will never stand up for one of your own, especially knowing that attorney Reguli is in cross-hairs of the government because she has pissed off several powerful judges in the area, regulators of law licenses of all attorneys in the state.

Nope.  No solidarity.  You will be watching how the government is trying to eliminate one of their own with the help of fabricated charges, hoping that the same cup will miss you.

That's a Russian roulette, folks, and a shameful one.

Yet another attorney is in the cross-hairs of corrupt CPS, judiciary, police and prosecution - the case of attorney Conney Reguli, of Tennessee, Part I. The mortal sin

It has been noted by many researchers that the U.S. attorney regulation and justice system is structured as a religious order.

Judges are gods or, at the very least, "ministers of justice", attorneys are their missionaries, expected to do PR for judges before the voters, in exchange for the judge's good attitude, favorable decisions - well, in exchange for business and livelihood.

Consequently, criticism by an attorney of a judge, in this religious framework, is the equivalent of heresy, and a sanction for heresy - well, in the modern liberal times it is not burning the culprit at the stake, but it is an ex-communication of sorts, stripping the attorney of his or her profession.

The scenario to do it has been polished to perfection by the judiciary - usually it starts with small sanctions, then the amount of sanctions rise, if the attorney does not "take heed" and start behaving as the judiciary is expecting him/her to behave, more serious sanctions follow - and then the judiciary simply takes the attorney's right to work as an attorney.

Of course, attorney regulation is portrayed to the public as introduced to protect the public from bad attorneys, but usually bad attorneys remain in the profession because they have good relations with the right judges, and good attorneys who have usually bad relations with dishonest judges, are removed from the public's reach as providers of legal assistance.

The public does not realize that it is being robbed of the rare gems, attorneys who engage practically in self-sacrifice, daring to criticize judges, in full knowledge that such criticism may lead them to loss of profession, reputation and to starvation.

Of course, attorneys are not usually stripped of their license bluntly for catching a judge in misconduct, the wording is usually much more elaborate and opaque, and represents a PR-action for the public.  Usually, some reasons are found to discredit the target attorney in the eyes of the public, to make sure that the public does not support that attorney, and to discredit the attorney's account to the public as to what is going on in the judiciary.

As to media coverage - the media that has no compunction in discussing the size of the President's genitals or his marital relations with his wife - comes to a standstill in so much as mentioning a judge's name, if a judge is involved in a certain "juicy" case of disciplinary or, even more juicy, criminal sanctions pending against an attorney.

A judge has to commit an act of violence on camera in order to have the media to mention the judge's name, and even then, looking at the video, the media will say - an "alleged" act of violence.

And even then - here is what a mainstream media source will say:

See, no actual footage of this pre-eminent, polished, beautiful lady trying to - literally, physically - strangle a court employee, a man, for not preparing her court docket documents on time.

And, it took the State of Florida a month to suspend a violent judge.  For a month court employees and the public were exposed to the risk of being assaulted and possibly murdered by her.  

You realize that if the court employee, on the other hand, that if the court employee, the victim, tried to strangle the judge on camera, he would have been immediately arrested, handcuffed, put in jail and immediately indicted.

So, with that in mind, let's consider what happened two days ago in yet another Southern State, the State of Tennessee, where a female attorney, Connie Reguli, and her client Wendy Hancock were criminally charged, the attorney - for "custodial interference" and "accessory after the fact", for her professional activities in representing a client, an EXTREMELY rare case.

Of course, mainstream media jumped upon the juicy news - and in its coverage provided, among other things, the following account:

this

and this

So, instead of saying, as responsible media should in reporting on a just-initiated criminal case, that both defendants are presumed innocent under the federal and state constitutional law, the media conveniently pre-smeared attorney Reguli and her client, Wendy Hancock - and paid more attention to pre-smearing the attorney rather than the mother, her client.

The media MUST know that criminal defendants must have a right to a fair trial - and, therefore, the media should be careful in its reporting not to create a bias that interferes with such a right and not to taint the jury pool in the are.

Yet, the taint has been already created.  Information about Connie Reguli's arrest warrant, surrender and indictment went like a wildfire through many media sources and the social media.

At the same time, note that the mainstream media coverage, while practically putting a bull's eye on attorney Reguli by the insinuations of "history ... over complaints of misconduct" and especially over the judge's derogation of her in front of her client - it carefully avoids to mention two things:

1. the name of the judge who said it; and

2. the circumstances under which the judge has said what she has allegedly said about the attorney in front of the client.

Let me eliminate that little mystery.

The judge in question is judge Amy V. Hollars, 

a Democrat, daughter of longtime judge John Turnbull, 

and a treasurer of the Tennessee Bar Foundation, holding the purse string to the enormous amounts of interest accruing of mandatory trust accounts of attorneys registered in the state - a VERY powerful person in the State of Tennessee even before she has ascended to her judicial throne.

Imagine the connections, the power of her father, to have the State Governor to openly engage in nepotism by "selecting" out of applicants to Judge Turnbull's judicial position - his own daughter.  Moreover, Judge Turnbull did not even retire - he RESIGNED, voluntarily surrendered his judicial position as a judge - to promote his daughter's career, which the then Governor of the State of Tennessee Phil Bredesen wholly approved, allowed and endorsed by his appointment of Amy Hollars to take her father's throne, quite like heirs of monarchy are inheriting their parents' thrones.

Imagine now the combined power of these two judges - if they want attorney Reguli's head on a silver platter - which they appear to want all right, judging by the coverage.

Hence, the newspaper and the DA's office appear to be doing the judge's bidding in (1) hinting that the attorney and her client are being criminally prosecuted because a judge is displeased with them, with the attorney especially, but (2) spare the judge embarrassment of mentioning her - and preventing further digging of the public as to what may be possible retaliatory motives of the judge against Attorney Reguli in this situation.

The circumstances as to when Judge Hollars supposedly told attorney Reguli's client's this:


are also very … well, peculiar.

Judge Hollars said that during a hearing on attorney Reguli's motion to recuse Judge Hollars after attorney Reguli has caught Judge Hollars in misconduct:

1) in engaging in a political activity - prohibited to sitting Tennessee judges by the state Constitution; and

2) fraternizing, and possibly engaging in an ex parte (without presence of other attorneys, a type of bad judicial misconduct) communication, with the guardian ad litem (attorney for the children) in the very case where attorney Reguli represented Wendy Hancock and was fighting for her parental rights to her children and against the children's removal from the mother's custody by social services.

I have reviewed the motion to recuse, with names of the children redacted out.

The political activity mentioned was the speech of Judge Hollars at Democrats' "Reorganization Convention" where attorney Sarah Cripps, guardian ad litem in the case - appointed into the case by Judge Hollars - personally introduced Judge Hollars at that Democratic party as a speaker.

Now, an attorney has to have a lot of nerve and a very close social connection to a judge to be able to personally approach a judge with a suggestion that she will introduce a judge at a political rally.  A regular attorney without a personal relationship with that particular judge (friendship or otherwise) simply cannot pick up a phone and call a judge presiding over a case where the attorney is appearing, with a suggestion to come with that attorney to a party of any kind, much less a political party, and to be introduced there by that attorney.

In the U.S., any person who goes to court as a party is entitled to a fair and impartial judicial review, for a judge who is neutral, is not biased against that party and is not favoring any other party in that same case.

The right to a fair and impartial judicial review is guaranteed to every party in American courts by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Moreover, litigants have a right not only to an actually fair and impartial judge, but also to an APPEARANCE that the judge is fair and impartial.

Let's look what we have here.

Judge Hollars was in some kind of a close social relationship with attorney Sarah Cripps whom she appointed as guardian ad litem in a case (with compensation by from Tennessee taxpayers), in exchange for which Sarah Cripps invited Judge Hollars to be a speaker at a "Reorganization Convention" of a Democratic party with live music and free food and drinks 


Believe me, judges, no matter how well paid, are suckers for free food and booze, I observed it personally when I was studying in Albany Law School in New York.  Judges of trial and appellate courts, state and federal, were invited regularly by the law school administration to lavish catered parties with food and alcohol in the law school's foyer, that was called "networking".  Whole judicial panels - New York State Court of Appeals, Appellate Division 3rd Deparment, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York - appeared without fail for these freebies.

So, the judge had an exchange of favors with a guardian ad litem in the case (a bribe "in kind", in plain English) - and should have recused the moment she agreed to that exchange, but she, of course, didn't.  Judges never see appearances of improprieties.

So - attorney Reguli pointed those appearances out to Judge Hollars, actually not even in so many words as I am doing above.

Attorney Reguli, in her motion to recuse, just pointed out that there is an appearance of impropriety that the judge is participating in political activities prohibited by the State Constitution, and is doing it at the bidding and with assistance with the guardian ad litem in the case.

That was actually enough for Judge Hollars to grant the motion to recuse - but not before she has dumped a bucket of her bile upon attorney Reguli, the culprit who has made that motion to recuse, and upon her client.

Now, you need to understand, my dear readers, that in the U.S. making a motion to recuse may be already enough to for the judiciary to get so pissed off that the attorney's law license will be yanked.  It happened like that, let's say, to attorney Christina Mires from Lousiana - even though she has proven the judge's conflict of interest and criminal conduct (inserting, with the help of a specially hired digital editing firm, a piece into an audio file of a court hearing) with sworn testimony of the technician who was doing the insertion.

But, note once again what Judge Hollars told attorney Reguli's client at the motion-to-recuse hearing:




Judge Hollars was so upset that somebody dared to tell her, judge and daughter of a judge, treated as blue blood who is always above the law her entire life, that she committed misconduct - that she has crossed all possible ethical boundaries and, despite granting the motion to recuse and stepping off the case (an acknowledgement that she cannot remain impartial in the case), she berated an attorney to a client, publicly, in court, in front of judicial personnel and on record - and saying that attorney Reguli is allegedly "simply launching ANOTHER attack upon the judiciary and they /sic/ system".

"Another attack upon the judiciary", huh?

Here is what she means.

In 2010, attorney Reguli testified to the Tennessee State Senate about egregious misconduct of a judge, after which three more judges complained against attorney Reguli to the Board of Professional Discipline:

After that, in 2015, she was disciplined by the Board of Professional Discipline - which is PART of the same judiciary that she was publicly criticizing and exposing in the Tennessee State Senate.

Attorney Reguli did not take the hint and continued to expose judicial misconduct in family courts in the State of Tennessee - those same courts that "separate families", take children away from their biological parents and adopt them out to strangers in exchange for federal incentive money, I've written about the federal statute that provides an incentive for doing it 5 years ago, here, nothing has changed since then, the statute is still on the books, other than that I myself was stripped of my law license, "coincidentally", right when the federal civil rights case where I established a precedent against warrantless searches by CPS for parents in 32 New York State counties was scheduled for a jury trial in federal court.

In 2016, attorney Reguli sued Judge Sharon Guffee and her court clerk for denying her access to records that she was entitled to by state law.

In 2017, a complaint was filed against attorney Reguli by Judge Sharon Guffe because HER CLIENT went to the General Assembly to speak about judicial misconduct and to try to promote legislation that would put regular people on the boards dealing with judicial misconduct and judicial discipline:

You can look up on YouTube how many public appearances Connie Reguli has made from 2010 to 2019, always speaking about the ongoing crisis in the CPS system fabricating cases against parents, ripping children out of families, and about complicity and outright misconduct of the state judiciary helping CPS in those "efforts".

 And, note the most relevant date to Judge Hollars' outburst regarding "another attack on the judiciary" and to the criminal charges filed against Connie Regule - her testimony to the Tennessee legislature on February 26, 2019, two months before the hearing on the motion to recuse against Judge Amy Hollars in Wendy Hancock's case.   

Consider, WHAT EXACTLY Judge Hollars tells the mother - that, since her attorney "attacks the judiciary AND 'the system'" - meaning, social services - the mother should better get rid of her, OR ELSE, or her children will be taken - this threat is very thinly veiled, that continued representation of Wendy Hancock by Connie Reguli may affect "the interests of your children about reunification":


The judge is practically admitting that social services is a member, and a favored member, of the judge's own advocacy team - and, remember, the judge is saying this WHILE LEAVING the case, as a farewell kick.

Well, Connie Reguli disclosed that that was not all - apparently, the judge was so fumed up that she could not contain herself from 

1. going back to her chambers,
2. taking off her robe after that hearing,
3. coming back into the courtroom in her regular clothes (which she usually does not do, exiting from her chambers by another exit), 
4. sneaking behind Connie Reguli, and
5. hissing nasty words about Connie Reguli behind her back.

The judge acted like a fishwife - but, remember, she did not kill anybody, YET, and so, her name or misconduct is not even mentioned by mainstream media in connection with her case.

Consider, on top of everything, that the object of proceeding pending in front of Judge Hollars before she recused was misconduct of yet another couple of judges - 

1. the judge whose SECRETARY directed social services to file for an illegal ex parte order of removal of Wendy Hancock's children in another county, knowing full well that it was illegal; and
2. the judge in that other county who signed an illegal ex parte order after it landed on his desk at the end of the working day not only without territorial jurisdiction, but also not passing through the court clerk's office, the regular procedure.

No, of course, the local media cannot possibly do what honest journalists do - and actually report facts, with all the gory details, no matter how high are the people who are involved in misconduct.

And, consider, that Connie Reguli is a rare gem of an attorney.

She started practicing law late in life, entering the legal profession as a mature adult, not a star-crossed girl who would take any disrespect, any garbage from a man or woman sitting up high on the judicial bench.

She enters an emotional realm of CPS cases that where not many attorneys dare to venture - and not only because they are targeted, as I was, as Connie Reguli is now, by disciplinary and criminal authorities (in my case, CPS and judges "friendly" to CPS tried to fabricate a child neglect case and take my child, then to concoct criminal charges several times against me, and finally succeeded suspending my law license for making a motion to recuse a corrupt judge Carl F. Becker - who has since run from the bench in 2015, before my suspension, amid a triple investigation of the New York State Comproller, the New York State Judicial Commission and the FBI).

Many attorneys simply do not want the emotional turmoil of dealing with parents whose children are ripped out of their arms, sometimes literally, by social services and the police, often on fabricated charges.

It is very challenging emotionally to live on top of a power keg every minute, being not only an attorney, but also a grief counselor all the time - and being constantly up against people who have much more power than you do.

Connie Reguli has the guts and determination to do that for people - FOR YEARS.

Consider also that, in the United States, as an unwritten government policy, defense of parents against CPS is not taught in law schools.

There are no such courses, no such textbooks, this subject is not tested on bar exams - and, as a result, the public is deceived into believing that any attorney with a law license who they hire or who is assigned to them by court has been properly trained and tested in this subject and knows what he or she is doing, while the law license has no guarantee whatsoever that the attorney knows anything at all on the subject of defense of parents against CPS.

Laws in this area, on the opposite, are multi-layer, complex, technical, convoluted and require not just a knowledgeable attorney, but a super-knowledgeable, and super-assertive (aggressive) attorney, to break through the usual barricades of misconduct and corruption and money interests present in such cases and win for their clients their own constitutional right to have their children with them, not sold out to strangers by CPS as an adoption mill.

It is, thus, government policy to - not teach, and intimidate, and eliminate those attorneys who teach themselves and excel in representing parents in such cases.

This is not "crisis at the border" where everybody who is anybody flocks in mock outrage to "represent children, separated from their families".

Here, parents separated from their children get no good representation.  Assigned attorneys are usually those who feed off such cases and will not be assigned again if they do anything good for the parents and against CPS.

And, when the state is trying to convict and then disbar Connie Reguli, and discredit her in the eyes of the public - make not mistake, it is not Connie Reguli who is the main target here.

It is you, the public, you, parents and your children, from whom the government is trying to shamelessly and unlawfully steal a knowledgeable and courageous attorney who has been, for years, EFFECTIVELY fighting CPS and corrupt system of judges, prosecutors and police that have teamed up with CPS to get millions of dollars in federal grant money.

Fighting for you and on your behalf.

Not to mention that she has at least two lawsuits pending against the County that is prosecuting her now, an irreconcilable conflict of interest.

For further account of conflicts of interest and details of Attorney Reguli's lawsuits against the local (and now aggravated) judges, police and CPS, and about misconduct of public officials in this case - stay tuned for the next article in this series.