Janet DiFiore's ceremonial swearing-in fraternity gathering at taxpayers' expense - Part I

Being a Russian American who immigrated to the U.S. from the recently-dissolved Soviet Union and whose youth was spent in the Soviet Union, where we were forced to watch endless "ceremonial" speeches of various public officials, at work, at the college and on TV, I am very wary of official ceremonies.

Not only they are a tremendous waste of time and money.

In my opinion, they also should not be taking place in a democratic society, because all there is to such gatherings is forging and reinforcing connections, establishing for the future conflicts of interest and tainting the celebrated public official with appearance of corruption.

If a person has been appointed to a public office, that's it.  

You've been appointed, good for you, you need to be sworn it, it's two minutes to do that - now get over with it and start doing your job.

There is no need for people to sit in "panels", make speeches, congratulate each other on coming, on being appointed, on "serving" the taxpayers, the same taxpayers the whole gathering is robbing by attending an unnecessary ceremony instead of doing their taxpayer-paid jobs.

You do not need to pluck (oops, invite) a courthouse full of people from their jobs, and you especially do not need to invite them to travel across a large state that is larger than several European countries, to a lengthy "swearing-in" ceremony.

As I said, just be sworn in in two minutes and get to doing your job.

Not so with Janet DiFiore, who was recently appointed as Chief Judge of the State of New York.

I wrote about DiFiore's background, her unfitness to be a judge and a lawyer, and the likelihood that she committed multiple crimes, and that the appointment by Governor Cuomo to the position of Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals was payment to DiFiore for covering up Cuomo's corruption at the time DiFiore was the Chairwoman of New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

You can read my prior blogs about DiFiore's nomination here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I also filed a complaint against DiFiore with the Judicial Conduct Commission, requesting to investigate what the Senate refused to investigate, possible criminal activities of DiFiore and her misconduct as Westchester County District Attorney, and to take her off the bench.  

The complaint is now under review, but DiFiore, at this time, is still on the bench, and this blog is about the disgusting start of her career as the Chief Judge, through an unnecessary and costly gathering of taxpayer-paid "public servants".

After getting appointed the Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals by fraud - while opponents of her appointments were blocked from testifying before the New York State Senate and while the requested and necessary investigations into DiFiore's likely criminal activities that should have her disbarred and locked up for the rest of her life, instead of elevated to the position of Chief Judge of the huge New York State were not done by the sycophanting Judiciary Committee of the New York Senate, consisting of attorneys - Janet DiFiore wanted to celebrate her newly acquired power.

And so she did.

Look at the full courthouse of people she invited to the ceremony.

I could not shake off parallels in watching the "swearing-in ceremony".

This is what I grew up with, the Soviet Union's Leonid Brezhnev giving a speech, the sycophants' gathering around, with rounds of applause celebrating The Chief:

This is Janet DiFiore's swearing in ceremony this year, the sycophants' gathering around, with applause at the ready, celebrating The Chief-ess

Both gatherings are useless.  Both gatherings are at people's expense.  Both gatherings are at the time when majority of the respective state's residents are struggling financially - not that the sycophants or the celebrants cared.

I will publish in separate blogs, the transcript of the gathering, and then the names and salaries of the people who attended the gathering, at public expense - at least those whose attendance can be confirmed by the video.

Stay tuned.

Identity theft from litigants through New York Family Courts? You don't tell...

Whenever a litigant comes to Family Court in the State of New York, the litigant is required to fill out a sign-in sheet where s/he is required to put in his or her:

1. full name
2. employment address
3. home address AND
4. Social Security number

S/he then hands the sheet in to the court attendant - and it is an identity theft waiting to happen.  I doubt that anybody keeps those sign-in sheets under lock and key, or that there is any significant oversight over who has access to this information.

In fact, identity theft using people's Social Security numbers is on the rise - and even led to creation of a federal President's Theft Task Force in 2006.

Of course, when you go to the links that are supposed to lead to recommendation of that Theft Task Force, you get this:

But the 2008 report of the Theft Task Force is available elsewhere.

The report, back in 2008, recommended to various federal agencies to reduce the use of Social Security numbers, which the report calls "the most valuable commodity for identity thieves".

Apparently, administrators of New York State Family Courts are too busy to be bothered with such trifles as exposure of Family Court litigants to identity theft - through requirements of disclosure of Social Security numbers in the court sign-in sheets.

I remember the timidity of litigants who fill out those sheets as if they are criminals.

I remember the insistence of security guards who take in the filled-out sheets that the sheet is filled out in full, that no "required" information would be missed.

I understand the reluctance of litigants to do anything or say anything against the way they are required to act, for fear that their insistence on non-disclosure of certain personal information may affect their case, which can be from child support to child custody to child neglect to family offense proceedings, and can have drastic consequences for the litigant if the case is decided against him or her.

But, New York Courts that, under its new Chief Judge DiFiore are now pledging to aim for "excellence" (I will run a separate blog about this "excellence" plan) should at least start with not exposing people who come to Family Court, sometimes on their own, sometimes sued by others, to identity theft coming from within the court system.

Statistics of such identity theft is, of course, not known, and, I bet, is unavailable through FOIL.

I will try a FOIL request on this subject, but I predict the answer will be - "there are no records responsive to your FOIL request".  

That does not mean that identity theft does not happen because of loose - or no - oversight of who and how handles litigants' information on sign-in sheets.

I am sure all people working in Family Courts, from clerks to judges to security officers, know what I am talking about.

They know for years.

They know how wrong, how dangerous for litigants this little rule is, also for years.

And they do nothing to change it, also for years.

Yet, I am sure they will keep their own Social Security numbers intact and will not disclose it every time they come to the courthouse.

And the same rule should exist for litigants.

What is the sign-in sheet for?

Why should the Family Court litigant (not the Supreme or County court litigant) disclose all that information, every time the litigant comes to court?

There is no such requirement in the Family Court Act.

There is no such requirement in the court rules.

This "sign-in sh*t" rule is completely illegal - and is going on for years in New York Family Court.

Maybe, eliminating this rule will start New York court system on its long and unlikely road to excellence?

The only "substantial" constitutional question for NYS Court of Appeals is judicial pay raises?

It was reported that the newly-populated New York State Court of Appeals is handling on appeal the issue of judicial pay raises.

That is an extraordinary event, because New York State Court of Appeals has a very limited jurisdiction, and it is usual for that court to reduce even appeals "as of right" to appeals "by the court discretion" and dismissing such "as of right appeals" because a SUBSTANTIAL constitutional right was not violated, even though the jurisdictional "as of right" state only mentions a constitutional right, without delimitation of "substantial-insubstantial".

In other words, NYS Court of Appeals has a policy indicating that to violate the U.S. Constitution is ok, only not "substantially", and what is "substantial" and "insubstantial" is for the court to decide, without any guiding criteria for such a distinction existing, nor does a state court have authority to establish criteria distinguishing which provisions of the U.S. Constitution may or may not be violated.

There is a scholarly article dating back to 2011, on this topic indicating that a constitutional appeal "as of right" to NYS Court of Appeals was rendered "illusory" by the court's (ultra vires) amendment of its own jurisdictional statute, arbitrarily making discretionary appeals that are mandatory for the court to take and review.


Actually, there is a very strong dissent in a case dismissed by the NYS Court of Appeals on "substantiality" of constitutional argument involved, written in 2010 by the now-retired Judge Robert S. Smith.

It is practically impossible to reach New York State Court of Appeals with a constitutional appeal, the court always rejects such cases, from "mere mortals" at least, raising constitutional issues.

Yet, the court accepted now, as it accepted before, an appeal on issues of constitutionality of denying judges retroactive pay raises.  

And, one of the presiding judges, Michael Garcia, has been a recent counsel for the Legislature, while the case claims the Legislature did something unconstitutional.

It appears that, once one becomes a judge, one loses any moral compass as to "appearance of impropriety", sense of civility and fairness, and mere decency as to their actions.

One accepts cases in which one has personal interest as a member of the class to which the decision will apply.

And, one rejects cases that, by law, one must hear - because one can abuse his power this way, and there is no power to control that abuse of the New York State Court of Appeals in rejecting proper constitutional appeals as of right on "insubstantial constitutional question" issue.

We remain the state where its highest court, sworn to protect the U.S. Constitution, blatantly violates that same U.S. Constitution by arbitrarily and unlawfully deciding, without any authority to decide that question, which constitutional violations are SUBSTANTIAL and which are INSUBSTANTIAL - and to reject appeals "as of right" on that principle.

So, we will hold our breath now to see what the Court of Appeals will decide about retroactive judicial pay raises, a very substantial constitutional question - for the presiding judges.

Will SDNY Judge Shira Scheindlin STILL be criminally prosecuted for practicing law on the bench, even if she is running off the bench?

I recently blogged about large law firms that use employment of judicial law clerks as "live shields" to protect and drum up their business, mentioning that one of the law clerks employed by BOIES, SCHILLER & FLEXNER LLP, a large law firm that employes law clerks apparently from all courts where it practices - is #SDNYJudgeShiraScheindlin's law clerk.

I also blogged about Judge Scheindlin's outrageous misconduct on the bench and raised the question, on January 6, 2016, why Judge Scheindlin was not criminally prosecuted under the applicable federal statute making it a high misdemeanor, an impeachable offense for a judge, to practice law - while Judge Scheindlin was removed from a case for giving legal advice to one party as to how to file a new lawsuit against the other.

On March 23, 2016, it was reported that Judge Shira Scheindlin announced that she is "resigning" from the federal bench of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, effective April 29, 2016, in order - allegedly - to work in private practice for an undisclosed New York City law firm.

Now, Judge Scheindlin is now paid $203,000 a year, with full benefits and tremendous power she is weilding.

If she is leaving that position, that means that either the "undisclosed law firm" which she is ready to join on April 29, 2016, offered her more - and the question is, for what - for fixing cases in her court with her fellow judges?

Or, that Judge Scheindlin was simply booted for her misconduct that the 2nd Circuit did not want to acknowledge in the order of removal of Scheindlin, but that is clear from the description in that order of removal of what she did, as compared to the text of the criminal statute, 28 U.S.C. 454, see also my blog about it here.

Whatever the reason for Judge Scheindlin's hasty departure from the bench - good riddance.

And, by resigning, I do not believe that Judge Scheindlin removed herself from the reach of criminal investigation and prosecution under 28 U.S.C. 454.

In my opinion, she must be criminally investigated and prosecuted under 28 U.S.C. 454 to show to the public that the law equally applies to judges, as it applies to us mere mortals.

UPL in its glory - a Pennsylvania woman is convicted for providing unlicensed, but good legal representation to clients for 10 years

Remember, law licensing, as any occupational licensing, is meant to protect consumers of services from bad providers.

Therefore, following that logic, if the provider provides GOOD services, he or she should not be blamed for it.

Especially that what constitutes the practice of law, is not clearly defined in the statutory law of any state within the United States.

Yet, in the glorious state of Pennsylvania, the state where:

• licensed attorneys are so afraid to do their duty to their clients and confront judicial misconduct to such a degree that they rather allowed the "Kids for Cash" scandal to happen rather than to expose it;
• the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania Kathleen Kane's law license was suspended with participation of the very judge (Eakin) who was the target of her investigation;  Judge Eakin "resigned" (keeping his pension), his disciplinary case was prosecuted by the subordinates of his friend (who ultimately recused, but still remained the prosecutor's boss), and subordinates of Judge Eakin's friend successfully asked the court for leniency for Judge Eakin, to allow Judge Eakin to keep his pension - while Judge Eakin's decision to suspend Kathleen Kane's law license was not vacated -

in THIS glorious state of Pennsylvania, where the duty of the attorney in order to keep his license is not to do a good job for his or her clients, but to keep mum about misconduct of public officials the attorney is witnessing - a woman, Kimberly Kitchen, was just convicted for providing, for 10 years, legal services as a real estate attorney, while being not licensed as an attorney.

There is no indication in the article about the conviction that the woman did a bad job or that her clients were injured in any way.

The problem is only that she shared her GOOD expertise, and shared it, apparently, well, for 10 years, without permission of the state government and without permission of the lawyers' cartel that operates attorney licensing in the State of Pennsylvania, for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of their clients.

Yes, it is wrong to forge public documents, as she is claimed to have done with her law license.

But, forging public documents, as far as I understand, is not what she was charged for.

The main charge was unauthorized practice of law.

UPL is a "strict liability" offense, which, in my view, is presumptively unconstitutional as an offense where harm to the public does not have to be proven, and it is even more unconstitutional where what constitutes the practice of law is not clearly defined by statutory law of the State of Pennsylvania.

Instead, as in other jurisdictions, Pennsylvania courts tinker ex post facto with particular situations verifying whether this or that act constituted "the practice of law".

Think about it.

Real estate transactions - as every honest lawyer knows - are handled by secretaries, legal assistants and paralegals, often without any participation from an attorney.

It is not even a secret.

Yes, yes, there are "ethical opinions" (like this one, by Florida bar) that a paralegal may prepare documents for a real estate transaction under a lawyer's supervision, but may not do the actual closing.

But, this rule is simply not followed - and especially if closings are done by mail, which happens all the time, and everybody knows about it.

The woman was caught only because, as I understand, times are tough, lucrative real estate business is declining, together with the economy, and the woman was singled out to eliminate her as a competitor, most likely because she was doing a GOOD job.

By the way, in other countries, such as France and Russia, real estate transactions do not require a lawyer at all, they can be done by notaries.  

In our United States of America, the land of the free, the home of the brave, a woman was convicted of a felony for doing a good job for her clients for 10 years.

Which, to me, once again exposes the sham of occupational regulation.

People should not be convicted of a felony for doing a good job for their clients.

For those interested in #NewYorkJudiciaryLaw487 - an appeal of the final judgment in the #MokaySaga has been filed

A pro se appeal to the 3rd Department from a final (ex parte) money judgment was filed by my husband Frederick J. Neroni in the Mokay saga (see my blogs here, here and here).

You can read the Appellant's Brief here.

The table of contents and authorities to the Appellant's brief can be found here.

The record on appeal consists only of the trial transcript here, pages in the trial coincide with pages in the Record on Appeal (R-1 is trial transcript, page 1 etc.).

and Judge Kevin Dowd's order after the ex parte trial is here.

You can read about Judge Dowd's shenannigans about blocking Mr. Neroni's access to the trial exhibits after the trial, before and after Judge Dowd made his ex parte judgment, and releasing the trial exhibits (allegedly, hundreds of them, judging by the transcript) to Richard Harlem during the pendency of the appeal, making it impossible for Mr. Neroni to provide an effective representation for himself on appeal, and to see and analyze, for appellate purposes, any flaws in reliance by the trial court on those alleged trial exhibits.

The blogs, recordings of my conversations with the Delaware County Supreme Court Clerk's office, and transcripts of those conversations can be found here, here, here, here and here.

At this time, the Mokay trial exhibits are irreversibly spoliated and gone, thanks to Judge Dowd.

The 3rd Department court is stubbornly refusing to recuse from the case, even though it recused from my disciplinary case, after adding my husband to the caption of that case, in June of 2014, 

My husband's appeal has interesting (I think) arguments pertaining to:

1) #JudiciaryLaw487 and the case law interpreting it, including the just-decided Neroni v Follender that gutted Judiciary Law 487 by affirming absolute judicial immunity granted to a private attorney sued under that statute, see also my blogs about Judiciary Law 487  and other legal issues with the Mokay saga: 

• here - on the precedential value of the alleged "dicta" in Neroni v Follender;
• here - about the de facto gutting of Judiciary Law 487 by two courts, NYS Court of Appeals and Delaware County Supreme Court in Neroni v Follender;
• here - about Mr. Neroni's client (now the Estate represented by Mr. Harlem) suing Mr. Neroni for the client's own alleged participation in the fraud, according to the decision of Appellate Division 3rd Department from January of 2015;
• here - about Richard Harlem representing both the victims and the alleged perpetrator (the Estate of Andrew Mokay Sr.) in the same action, and claiming legal fees as his only damages, when such legal fees were forfeited as a matter of law because of such conflicted representation;
• here - about the improper billing practices of Richard Harlem that were accepted by Judge Kevin Dowd (because he will accept anything if it is against my husband or myself); and
• here - about the new rule of Judge Kevin Dowd invented in June of 2014 prohibiting me to impeach Richard Harlem testifying as a witness.

2) #InterferenceWithFutureRightOfInheritance;  
3) #ChoiceOfRemedies and #UnjustEnrichment;
4) #CausationOfDamages in a Judiciary Law 487 case;
5) attorney Richard Harlem's (and his law firms') and the trial counsel James Hartmann's fraud upon the court.

I look forward to seeing how Richard Harlem will react to the appeal.

This is the very first and only appeal in the Mokay case - and there were several intermediate appeals - that Richard Harlem did not try to derail by a motion to dismiss made within 2 months after the Notice of Appeal was filed, and several questions arise because of it:

1) Does Richard Harlem have pangs of conscience about his continued fraud?  Well, that is a rhetorical question, so scratch that;

2) Does Richard Harlem see the writing on the wall?

3) Did supporters of Richard Harlem distance from him finally because of his fraud, after my husband has forwarded to the Appellate Division 4th Department Committee the affidavit of David Mokay who Richard Harlem, throughout 8 years of litigation, claimed to have been his client?

Richard Harlem did not acknowledge to the 3rd Department that David Mokay provided to my husband an affidavit denying he ever was a Plaintiff in the 8-year-long litigation in two courts, after the final judgment based on ex parte trial in the Mokay case where no alleged Plaintiffs testifying, and where the only testifying (self-serving) witness was Richard Harlem himself, who testified that all his own bills were legitimate and good.

The appeal points out how Richard Harlem obtained from the Supreme Court what he already obtained previously from the Surrogate's Court, and points out that the whole legal theory of the Mokay case was a sham from the beginning, and continues to be even more of a sham, now that David Mokay came forward with his affidavit.

My husband was unable to raise on appeal the issue of fraud upon the court by attorneys Richard Harlem, Eric Jervis and James Hartmann, husband of judge Gary Rosa's law clerk Nancy Deming, because it was not part of the record on appeal.

I wonder whether Richard Harlem will actually disclose to the 3rd Department his fraud risking instant disbarment - or will continue to pretend that he represented David Mokay, even against David Mokay's own affidavit that it is not so.

We will know soon, as Respondents will have to - well - respond to that appeal.  

We will see whether Richard Harlem will have the audacity to continue to claim to the Third Department that he represents David Mokay on this appeal and represented him in the previous 8-year litigation, after David Mokay provided his affidavit saying Richard Harlem knew he never represented David Mokay, that David Mokay never hired Richard Harlem or his law firms to sue my husband on his behalf.

Stay tuned.

A Freedom of Information Request was made to New York Senate asking for e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers of the Senators and their employees, and for legislative history of certain statutes

A couple of days ago I wrote about the potential violations of Freedom of Information Law by New York State Senate in how it either seeks information from FOIL inquirers it is not entitled to seek, or how it restricts the means of making FOIL requests to such formats which do not allow to the inquirer to get proof that a FOIL request was made to the NYS Senate, or what was the request's contents.

Today I practically checked out the run-around system of how to file FOIL request with New York State Senate, found a way to preserve evidence of the filing and the contents of the FOIL request - and am sharing this information with my readers.

I've just filed a Freedom of Information Request with New York State Senate for the following public records:

===

1) State-assigned E-mail addresses and cell phone numbers of all Senators and all of the Senate's employees and officers;  copies of the latest telephone cell phone bills of all Senators and Senate's employees and officers;
2) All records pertaining to any legislation, enacted or discussed, for authority of the New York State Courts or its judges to participate in or appoint officers to the New York State-Federal Judicial Council;
3) The entire legislative history and history of enactment and amendments, including correspondence, transcripts of floor speeches, video and audio recordings of debates, for the following New York Statutes:

a) County Law 400
b) Public Officers Law 15 and 17
c) Judiciary Law 14
d) Judiciary Law 90
e) Judiciary Law 478
f) Judiciary Law 479
g) Judiciary Law 484
h) Judiciary Law 486
i) Judiciary Law 487
j) Judiciary Law 499
k) Civil Practice Law and Rules 2103
l) Civil Practice Law and Rules 5601

4) financial disclosures and disclosures of conflicts of interest by all Senators for the past 10 years.

I demand that the above records are e-mailed to me to my e-mail address at tatiana.neroni@gmail.com in scanned or print-to-PDF format, or, in case such medium is denied to me, the NYS Senate provides to me, as a response to an additional FOIL request, inventory of its printing, scanning equipment and software indicating that the requested records (i) cannot be scanned as easily as printed, and that (iii) the requested records do not exist on computers, and that (iii) NYS Senate does not possess software for printing into PDF format.

In case of denial of information in electronic format, I also request copies of all equipment sold by NYS Senate as obsolete or redundant, specifically, all scanning, printing and computer equipment, with a list of software contained on the sold computer, including, but not limited to:

1) inventory information on the equipment sold;
2) purchase value of the equipment sold;
3) documents proving title of NYS Senate to equipment sold and its value/cost at purchase;
4) selling price;
5) identity of buyer;
6) date of sale;
7) any records proving that sales of scanning/printing/computer equipment and/or software were put up on public auction.

==


NYS Senate does not allow to preserve evidence that you've sent a FOIL request in any format:

1) there is no e-mail confirmation sent to you after you click the "Submit" button, this is the only evidence I submitted the above FOIL request:

2) if you try to print-to-PDF your FOIL request, you cannot do it, the window assigned for entering your actual FOIL request is not big enough to show your entire FOIL request to be printed.

Therefore, 

before I clicked the "submit" button, 

I copied-and-pasted my FOIL request into this blog, and 

after I clicked the "submit" button, 

I've posted this blog and attempted to post it on the NYS Senate's Facebook page.

The attempt did not go through well.

Here is what I attempted to post on the "wall" of the Facebook (public) page of the New York State Senate:

Here is the response I received when I was tried to post - and my post was rejected:

But, oh the wonder of Mark Zuckerberg - I still was able to get proof that New York State Senate got my FOIL request, no matter how hard New York State Senate tried to duck it.

I (1) "liked" the New York State Senate Facebook page, and then

(2) I posted my FOIL request put into a blog onto my own Facebook page - and "tagged" New York State Senate in the post, and, of course

(3) I preserved the snapshot of evidence that NYS Senate was "tagged" with the post.

Here:

So, now I do have proof that the New York State Senate did receive my FOIL request - and it MUST answer it within 5 business days, as required by law, and 

the New York State Senate cannot get out of its obligation to fully comply with my FOIL request by claiming that it did not receive the request at all, nor can it contest what was in it, because the electronic evidence (that New York State Senate was trying so hard not to create) is right there.

So, now the run-around-of filing the FOIL request is complete, the ball is in NYS Senate's proverbial hands, and we will sit back and wait as to the Senate's responses.

I will keep my readers informed as to how New York State, the enactor of the Freedom of Information Law, complied with my FOIL request. 

Stay tuned.