Welcome to America THIS ISN’T “LAND OF THE FREE”. You have no right to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness. We take your children away & give them to an abuser, & we imprison you for trying to save them.I am not proud to be an American anymore.
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In reviewing various articles on subjects of divorce, child custody and DV,
if I find something of interest, I will copy and paste comments here;
A MUST SEE;
Broken Trust (1995)
Tom Selleck stars in this made-for-television movie about a judicial sting operation. Selleck stars as Judge Timothy Nash, a respected judge who's approached by special agents to take part in an undercover sting to expose a fellow judge's corrupt activities. What he finds is a string of "friendly Judges" - friendly when the money is right. Another interesting twist is that it's PIERCE COUNTY WASHINGTON that the movie is made about.
~ SIDE NOTE ~
I recall several years ago a sting operation went down in Pierce County and several Judges and Lawyers went to jail. I don't have all the details, but will look into it.
If anyone knows anything about this, please contact me.
OF SIGNIFICANT INTEREST TO THIS STORY - THIS MAN HAD 8-POLICE REPORTS OF CHILD ABUSE FILED AGAINST HIM, YET TIME AND AGAIN PIERCE COUNTY REFUSED TO FILE CHARGES. WHY? Click on original link; http://www.kirotv.com/investigations/16977885/detail.html#
and find the links to police reports to the bottom right, click on them to review the actual reports.
Chris Halsne KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter
POSTED: 11:17 am PDT July 24, 2008
UPDATED: 8:19 am PDT July 25, 2008
A Tacoma dentist, repeatedly accused of mistreating young patients, is again facing charges from the state dental board.
Last year, KIRO Team 7 Investigators first revealed that Dr. George Brain earned millions of tax dollars doing dental procedures on low income children -- even after he was sanctioned by the Department of Health following a series of complaints about his professional conduct.
In a statement of charges filed June 24, 2008, the dental board accuses Dr. Brain of making some sort of mistake on seven young patients. It is not the first time his work has been called into question
Brooke Laducer complained to the dental board after three of her children -- Karisa, Courtney, and Cameron -- all had bad experiences at Dr. George Brain's office.
Now, after a long investigation, the dental board is seeking to sanction Dr. Brain for his treatment of the Laducer kids and four other low-income families with children.
It has filed charges of unprofessional conduct regarding Dr. Brain, accusing him of violating professional standards on record keeping, anesthesia use and nitrous oxide sedation.
Statute defines unprofessional conduct as "incompetence, negligence, or malpractice which results in injury to a patient or which creates an unreasonable risk that a patient may be harmed."
Brooke Laducer, who no longer takes her children to Dr. Brain for dental work, recently spoke with KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne.
“It was a traumatizing experience for them and even still to this day, to take them to the dentist, it's frightening for them. Myself or my husband, we hold their hand or the dentist and dental assistants take them through every step and explain what they're going to do. They're still very uncomfortable with going to the dentist to this day."
State health records show Dr. Brain allegedly "failed to document the concentration and amount of anesthetic administered" for two of the Laducer children, then allegedly failed to obtain informed consent to place "crowns" on some teeth of another.
Health Systems Quality Assurance Assistant Secretary Karen Ann Jensen tells KIRO Team 7 Investigators that record keeping and drug administration issues are serious matters.
“It suggests there's a pattern of failure to appropriately document the medications given during the course of treatment.”
Jenson also tells us the dental board is seeking to punish Dr. Brain for "allegations related to safe practice and standards of care" -- and not just for the Laducer children.
“In this case, five different complaints were investigated. There were a number of different allegations and it does take time. The important thing for us is that at the end of the process, we want to be very careful and make sure there is enough evidence to support the charges. We take every one of these complaints very seriously.”
Complaints like this one -- involving a child labeled only as Patient E. Dental investigators allege that Dr. Brain failed to tell the patients parents "that he left a root tip after extracting one of the teeth."
Jensen says because Dr. Brain has already been disciplined once and placed on indefinite monitoring back in 2006 he could face additional consequences this time around.
“The range would be from suspensions, remedial training, all the way up to license revocation.”
Dr. Brain has asked for a hearing to dispute the allegations and Brooke Laducer says she will be there with some other concerned parents, urging the board to send a clear message to the dentist.
I'm satisfied to a certain extent because they have taken a step forward, but I'm disappointed that there isn't more to it. That there aren't more charges - more severe charges against him. I'm not going to necessarily accept a slap on the hand or we'll send you through some monitoring classes. That’s not acceptable.”
Despite being previously disciplined, the state of Washington did not stop sending low income children to Dr. Brain for care. Since January 2007, Dr. Brain has billed the Department of Social and Health Services more than $2,000,000 for doing dental work for families on welfare.
We called Dr. Brain's attorney to see if he would like to speak with us about these charges, but KIRO-TV did not receive any response.
It should be noted that last year Dr. Brain has filed a defamation lawsuit against KIRO-TV and investigative reporter Chris Halsne in Pierce County court.
Copyright 2008 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A victim's first scream is for help; a victim's second scream is for justice." - Coral Anika Theill
(SALEM, Ore.) - Just when you thought you knew what was going on in your community, here comes a story that just may shatter the security of your American Dream. This is a story about abuse, survival, false religion and dubious court systems in a state that may be advanced on some levels, but sometimes proves to be a miserable failure in terms of equity and fairness and conventional thinking.
It is the saga of an Oregon woman whose attempt to seek justice for marital rape and physical abuse would not only result in no prosecution, but lead to threats that she would be charged with crimes if her allegations continued.
For me, it is an opportunity to bring to the surface one of the most important subjects I have ever visited in my career; that is domestic violence. I have always held the lowest opinion of men who abuse women, especially those who parade as impeccable members of their communities.
I believe this even more after covering the war in Afghanistan last winter. This is the epitome of a culture that uses religion as an excuse to mistreat females. Life overall is harder for women in Afghanistan in every respect, and their ability to rise up and defend themselves or find answers is greatly diminished by the extensive religion-based abuse.
And the same problem exists in Oregon.
The story of Coral Anika Theill is possibly one of the most flagrant, outrageous examples of small town injustice in America. In her book, she describes herself as a woman who suffered unmentionable abuse at the hands of her churchgoing husband. She is still living in fear to this day, spending the balance of her life in a secret, undisclosed location.
Her ordeal came to light in 1995 when Coral filed for a restraining order against her husband, who she says raped her repeatedly. A hearing for charges of Marital rape and a restraining order hearing was held in January 1996.
The restraining order was overturned by a visiting judge. Coral then lost her children in a 3 day temporary custody hearing in March 1996.
A final divorce hearing was held in October 1996. At that point her money was gone, and she was fighting attorneys with questionable ethics that were paid for with deep pockets. The divorce was final in March 1997. Coral officially lost all of her children to the man she says raped her and abused her.
She filed marital rape charges again in March 1999 both in Polk County and Wasco Counties in Oregon. Charges were dropped by both counties.
She said she was ridiculed about a nervous/mental breakdown she suffered as a result of the abuse. She was told in both counties that prosecutors did not believe a jury would convict a husband of rape. Coral says one D.A. didn't even want to waste the time having my case investigated.
She has written letters to various state officials but says they generally bring little response. Those individuals include District Attorney John Fisher, former Governor Kitzhaber and the office of Attorney General Hardy Meyers.
Just last month, Attorney General Hardy Meyer's office told Coral that any complaint about how things were handled would have to go through the Oregon State Bar, that no one could do anything.
She says she has gone that route before, with the Oregon State Bar, to no avail.
Dark crimes in a small town
It all happened in the town of Independence, Oregon and one of the main people who steered the course of Coral's story is the Polk County District Attorney, John Fisher.
She says that when she initially filed the marital rape charges, she still believed the system was real.
When I first met Coral, I was amazed to discover a published review of her book by the District Attorney of Benton County, Oregon, John Haroldson, who wrote this, "BONSHEA also illustrates the degree to which the legal system can also be used as a vehicle to further perpetuate abuse even after the victim has chosen to take a stand against the abuse." John Haroldson's office is in Corvallis, Oregon, an historic community with a major university and a completely different atmosphere. It also borders Polk County... John Fisher country.
Coral was raised in the same conservative, American traditional sense that has led countless women into unfortunate circumstances. Many of them have suffered similar tragic events throughout their married lives. Marital rape is a seldom discussed subject, but communities that over-program people, particularly women, with the importance of subservient respect can lead them down very long, dark paths. I always think of the Oregon serial killer Jerry Brudos who at least one time, simply "ordered" a young woman to get into his car. She did, and after a horrific kidnapping, torture, and rape she was murdered.
But she was a "good girl" who did what she was told.
I've got news for women, there is no such thing. Any one raised in a household that puts a higher emphasis on mindless obedience than critical thinking, is in a dangerous place, no matter how many Normal Rockwell paintings decorate the walls.
Coral says she was "groomed" to accept abuse and violence from the time she was a young girl, as many life-long victims attest to. In her book, BONSHEA, she reveals how she had no other reference in life. As a young child she saw that abusers were embraced and protected. For Coral, there was no help, nowhere to go and no one to tell.
"I learned at an early age to accept and survive abuse. This was the role I was expected to play. Sadly, as an adult, I have discovered the rules of this game have not changed much. My abusers, still, are embraced and protected. I realize now that I am getting too old and worn out to 'play' this game any longer. Recently, I looked deep inside for the 'tough girl' to help me survive another episode of violence and abuse-but sadly, I could not find her. She was all used up. She was gone. Long-term abuse had left my senses blunted. I felt numb." After experiencing forty years of violence and abuse in her personal life, Coral went to Oregon's courts and asked for protection from her abusive husband.
Speaking out worked against her though, and her inability to endure an abusive marriage any longer was portrayed in a way that damaged her credibility, challenging her mental stability and ability to care for her own children.
"Nothing had prepared me for the horrors that I would experience in what we call Oregon's justice and legal system. On March 10th, 1996, I was forced by an order of the Court, and by my ex-husband, his attorney, his family and religious supporters, to do something that raged against my good conscience, my common sense and against all my motherly instincts."
After the temporary custody hearing, a Court Order signed by Judge Albin Norblad forcibly removed Coral's access to her nursing baby and young children.
"I obeyed the Court Order and gave my baby and children over to my ex-husband. I drove to the hospital, rented a breast-pump and later collapsed in shock. I could not understand what had happened or why. I have not yet recovered from the shock, perhaps I never will."
The rights of abuse victims have evolved in recent decades in most places. The state of Oregon has severe laws against a number of sex crimes. But by this example, in Polk County, enforcing the law by prosecuting marital rape cases is apparently not seen as a worthy pursuit.
Coral says the church is an instrument that her husband used against her. As another Mother's Day passes, she has no contact with her eight children. She says her husband, described by several people involved in her case as a dishonest, overbearing religious zealot, has programmed their children to be resentful toward her, continually casting her as something that she is not.
In Coral's view, her husband's actions are anything but Christian. According to Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D. who is an internationally recognized scholar, "A culture that requires harm to one's soul in order to follow the culture's proscriptions is a very sick culture indeed."
Coral says that was in fact the case for her. "By obeying the Orders of the Court, I betrayed my soul, my children and myself. I was forced to make a choice that no mother should ever be forced to make. The price for my own safety and freedom was an imposed, unnatural and unwanted separation from my eight children."
She says the injustice committed against her is not only the physical separation from her children, but the willful desecration of the mother-child relationship and bond, "A sacred spiritual and emotional entity."
Taking children from their mother is abuse in itself, she says, giving the advantage once again to the abuser.
"Forcibly taking a mother's children, and then controlling her emotionally by withholding contact must be publicly recognized as one of the greatest forms of "mis-use" of the American justice system and one of the greatest hidden vehicles for wide-spread socially approved physical and emotional abuse and control."
In the book "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" Dr. Sam Vaknin talks about abusers who use their charm and connections to gain favorable attention in a courtroom, "Even the victim's relatives, friends, and colleagues are amenable to the considerable charm, persuasiveness, and manipulativeness of the abuser and to his impressive thespian skills." Vaknin says the abuser offers a plausible rendition of the events and interprets them to his favor. Nobody except the abuser and the victim know what actually happens behind closed doors. In contrast, the victims are often on the verge of a nervous breakdown: harassed, unkempt, irritable, impatient, abrasive, and hysterical. In short, they don't make a very good impression. "Confronted with this contrast between a polished, self-controlled, and suave abuser and his harried casualties – it is easy to reach the conclusion that the real victim is the abuser... The prey's acts of self-defense, assertiveness, or insistence on her rights are interpreted as aggression, lability, or a mental health problem."
For an abuser, manipulating that dynamic for the benefit of a judge's favor can give incredible advantages in a court situation. This was used against Coral, she says, and it is used against many other women as well.
A growing list of experts support Coral Theill
Professionals around the country are increasingly tuning in to Coral Theill's story. Advocates for eradicating domestic violence applaud her work to empower change.
Anna Goldreyer of N.O.W., who has known Coral for four years, watched the story unfold. She commented on the many obstacles Coral's husband, his lawyers and church allies created, which included one simple factor; more money.
"Another game is initiating years of ongoing litigation that can bankrupt the target or drive her to homelessness or disability. In the family court system, when you run out of money, you lose. For Coral and many others, continuing to receive court papers and have extremely frivolous repeated actions initiated by their abuser from which they cannot protect themselves, can really become a form of legal stalking." Goldreyer pulls few punches when talking about the effects of domestic abuse, "Even when judges or court personnel are required to educate themselves in domestic violence issues, which is rare enough, we find that the education is simply not correct or sufficient. Actions like giving Coral's story and similar stories a platform will help people begin to understand that this is real, it is happening to people in every state, and awareness and education is what is needed to change this."
Many people say that everything happens for a reason. It appears that Coral's reason, however unfair it may be, is to go forth and bring about change. It is difficult to speak up after a life of abuse, but her courage to do so is an inspiration to women also living in unfortunate conditions. Coral she has mastered her ability to speak out, particularly in the written sense.
"I wish to become an advocate for change in the judicial system. Gandhi says, 'We must be the change we wish to see in the world.' I believe each one of us is responsible for the entire world. The ongoing trauma I have experienced in Oregon's judicial system has encouraged me to ask difficult questions. I have asked myself, ‘What does the human spirit need in order to heal and move on?’ They need a place to share their pain and be acknowledged, they need compassion, they need to know that they (and others) will be protected from their perpetrator, they need accountability–someone to hold the perpetrator accountable, they need restitution or material compensation for the losses incurred by the victim, and they need vindication (not revenge)–to be set free. Scars remain, but healing is sufficient so as not to continue to be held in bondage to the trauma. When there is no justice, there is truly no healing."
Coral analogizes her position to a passage in the "Lord of the Rings" when the warrioress says, "I fear no pain or death."
"The warrior asks her, 'What do you fear?' She answers, 'I fear the cage.'
"I have asked myself, 'What is the cage in my life?' The cage is living in a society that allows the violence I have experienced to continue. The cage in my life is ongoing court trauma and legal harassment from my ex-husband."
She says marital abuse evolved into legal abuse, a form of legal stalking. In America, money often buys justice. "Although I have been legally divorced for ten years, I hope and pray that someday I will truly be emancipated from my abuser."
Coral says she cares about individuals who have also fallen through the judicial cracks of America, like juveniles, homeless, the mentally ill, veterans, prisoners, and victims of domestic violence. "I have learned that if you really want to know about our justice system in America, you do not question the judges, police, attorneys and lawmakers, you go to the victims, the unprotected, the vulnerable; those who need the laws protection the most and listen to their stories. A victim's first scream is for help; a victim's second scream is for justice."
Dr. Barbara May Ph.D, Professor of Nursing, regards Coral's story as one of the most obscene and violent domestic violence cases she has seen in her 25 years of psychiatric practice. BONSHEA has been used as a college text at Linfield College in Oregon, for nursing students studying domestic violence, recovery from trauma and legal stalking. "I recommend this book for health care providers, those in the criminal justice system, and volunteers or helpers of any kind to get insights and clarity about the complex dynamics of domestic violence and its toxic effects to individuals and society - and what needs to be done to eradicate this pandemic problem."
This survivor says one solution to stepping out of the cage is to seek empowerment through education, and the subsequential use of one's education to help raise awareness of violence and injustice in our society. Coral Theill says that if violence cannot be talked about, it cannot be stopped.
"From the injustice I have experienced, I wish to make a difference in this journey we call life. A single pebble affects an entire ocean."
"Indifference encourages, 'silent violence' -the type of violence I experienced in my home, in the community, religious circles and judicial system. Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel states, 'The indifference to suffering makes the human inhumane.'"
John Haroldson, District Attorney, Benton County, Oregon District Attorney, said this in his review of Coral's book, "In BONSHEA, Coral Theill has clearly chosen to take a courageous stand. It is a stand that comes with a cost, but whose dividends are measured in the strength of the soul." The staff of Salem-News.com is proud to use Coral Theill's work as a cornerstone of our quest to help reduce and even eradicate domestic violence in Oregon.
The news media has more than put its guard down when it comes to domestic abuse and the people who dedicate their lives to fighting and exposing it are nothing less than unsung heroes. Perhaps the day will come when the nation declares a "War on Domestic Violence" in place of the millions spent on programs such as the failed drug war.
What needs to happen to change this?
Transparency is what police need to strive toward. Anyone paying attention to national trends is seeing the increased scrutiny of police, courts and prosecutors in national media. This trend will continue as the pendulum swings back from the far right.
Rape is a crime, violence is a crime, and in the near future victims are going to again become the focus of our efforts as a country that in spite of its appearance, still largely knows the difference between wrong and right.
Coral's list of advocates is growing and we hope this story allows this loose-knit but well directed group to eventually achieve its goals on behalf of Coral Theill.
First, they say, the state of Oregon should step in and see that her Child Support requirement is revoked.
Second, she asks that her ex-husband pay restitution for Child Support she paid that should not have been required. That amount at this point comes out to about $42,000, which would seriously aid in the promotion of her book, already in use all over the world as a domestic violence education tool.
The group believes that by leveling the right amount of awareness, that they could see Judge Albin W. Norblad removed from the judge's bench permanently.
They seek to raise public awareness of what they call Polk County District Attorney John Fisher's inadequacy in failing to prosecute a man who committed rape.
They also want to see public awareness of Judge Paula Brownhill's record by exposing 2003, 2004 and 2006 court hearings when she denied Coral a phone hearing, fully knowing that Coral could not be present because the attorneys and court proceedings leading up to the hearing had stripped her of all financial resources.
She also wants to see justice served in the case of an Oregon doctor who she says breeched client confidentiality in 1998-1999 by giving personal client information and phone number to a predator/con artist/batterer.
Coral says she was stalked, threatened, abused, financially robbed of $150,000 in legal costs, and then beaten and strangled, during an attempted murder incident in August 2000.
More of Coral's story will be revealed over time and victims are encouraged to use our comment section to seek answers for their own problems. All comments on Salem-News.com are approved by our staff and nobody has to leave their name. I can't guarantee that Coral Theill will be able to answer every question, but collectively we will do our best to refer people to the right resources to help them out of a bad environment if that is what they need.
You can visit the BONSHEA: Making Light of the Dark Website:bonshea.com Another Internet site Coral recommends is: thelizlibrary.org/
BONSHEA is purchased online at: iUniverse.com http://amazon.com and barnesnandnoble.com and has received 12 five star reviews, and a writer's award from iUniverse Publishing. The National Domestic Violence Resource Center in Pennyslvania previewed BONSHEA and is recommending it as a survivor story.
You can also find BONSHEA: Making Light of the Dark by Coral Anika Theill at the Salem, Corvallis, Albany, Independence, Monmouth and Linn Benton and Chemeketa Community Colleges. Copies are also available at Borders Bookstore in Corvallis, Oregon.
Before you think of me as a nut, let me tell you that I have spent my life in the law, in one capacity or another, and that I used to love it; that is, until I became a litigant.
After firing two lawyers, I undertook a pro-se stroll through La-La land myself. Both my guardian and probate cases were presided over by judges without statutory jurisdiction. There was forgery by my adversary, unaddressed not only by the judge involved, but by the NY County D.A., who let the criminal forgery statute expire, without investigation, despite having been furnished with documentary evidence. Summary judgment was granted, and a probate decree, lacking the statutorily mandated finding that the will was genuine (which you will see in every other probate case), issued, and the estate proceeds disbursed.
The intermediate NYS Appellate Division, First Department, rather than review the record as I had requested, to search for evidence of jurisdiction, "lost" five years of subpoenaed probate files.
NYS Chief Judge Judith Kaye refused to entertain an appeal involving her long-time friend, former Surrogate Eve Preminger, claiming that lack of jurisdiction was "not a constitutional question." So I headed for federal court, where the corruption continued.
There, abstention doctrines were misapplied and I was confronted with an unauthorized sua-sponte dismissal in a nonprisoner/fee-paid case, with absolute immunity granted to two judges sued in their individual capacities.. In dismissing the case, the district judge violated Supreme Court precedent requiring judgment on the merits rather than dismissal at the pleading stage.
At the Second Circuit, I was deprived of a quorum. Judge Cabranes, the lone Circuit Judge (at a time when there was no judicial emergency) ignored my issues completely, simply affirming the court below, also violating controlling authority of the Supreme Court.
The Cert Pool at SCOTUS was not interested in my questions, nor in enforcing the case "law."
CONSTITUTIONAL: "(Inherent Authority) Whether the use of "inherent authority" or "power" of a district court judge to sua-sponte dismiss an unrepresented Sec. 1983 claimant's action at the pleading stage, thus preventing and avoiding an adversarial proceeding with pretrial proceedings available to other litigants, is constitutionally repugnant and a violation of 1st (access), 5th (due process/equal rights), 7th (jury trial) Amendment guarantees, as encompassed in the 14th Amendment? (Disparate Treatment): Whether clearly disparate treatment of lawyered and nonlawyered cases by a Circuit court or judge, such as failure to apply Supreme Court and Circuit precedent uniformly, e.g., de novo and abuse-of-discretion reviews applied in lawyered cases but not in nonlawyered cases, is a deprivation of the constitutional guarantee of due process of law and equal protection of the laws? "SUPERVISORY ENFORCEMENT: Whether this Court, in its supervisory capacity, will enforce its own orders on certiorari to a Circuit which fails to obey its clarification of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and requirement for an adversarial disposition of an action on the merits, as opposed to dismissal at the pleading stage?"
BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- Neither Joshua Sutton nor Joseph Hubbard had any criminal history when they bought $15,000 worth of marijuana from an undercover detective in Whatcom County last year. Both were arrested and charged with unlawful possession with intent to deliver, a felony.
But then their cases diverged dramatically, thanks to a practice which has been routine for nearly three decades in this county on the Canadian border, where federal agents dump reams of drug cases on local officials every year.
Sutton, who put up most or all of the money for the drug buy, paid $9,040 to a fund administered by the Whatcom County prosecutor. He was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge, received a suspended sentence and went on his way. His payment was nearly double the maximum fine for the misdemeanor.
Hubbard, a construction worker, pleaded guilty as charged and was sentenced to 45 days on a work crew. The felony on his record means he loses the right to vote, and it could affect his ability to land a job for the rest of his life.
Their cases illustrate the inequality of an unusual system in which defendants with quick access to $2,000 or more can often "buy down" the charges against them, many legal experts say. In some cases reviewed by the AP, people caught with several pounds of marijuana pleaded guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges after paying thousands of dollars to the county's fund. In another, a young man caught with less than 2 ounces pleaded guilty to a felony after he failed to pay.
"Yikes, it sounds like the sale of indulgences in the old Catholic church," said Janet Ainsworth, a criminal law professor at Seattle University. "If you were to have a continuum between paying a fine and bribery, this is somewhere in between."
The money, which must be paid up front, is directed to the county's drug enforcement fund. It's disbursed by Prosecutor Dave McEachran with court approval, and is used to buy new equipment for the county's drug task force, to help pay the salaries of certain sheriff's officers, for drug investigations and for drug court. In the past three years, defendants have paid the fund $432,000, McEachran said. McEachran's 10 criminal deputy prosecutors handle about 500 drug cases a year.
The county keeps all money paid into the drug fund - unlike regular fines, which must be split with the state.
Steven Mura, the presiding judge of Whatcom County Superior Court, said his calendar is often so swamped that he gives only a cursory glance to plea agreements before signing them. He said he would be interested if a lawyer were to challenge drug fund payments as part of plea deals.
"It can appear to be the purchase of a lesser charge," Mura said.
Several lawyers began questioning the practice this spring, after news stories detailed a similar but distinct practice in the central Washington city of Kennewick, where defendants in misdemeanor cases saw their charges dismissed or reduced in exchange for contributions to charities selected by the prosecutor. There, $18,000 in charity contributions vanished.
There are no allegations of missing money in Whatcom County. In interviews with the AP, McEachran defended the practice, which he inaugurated in the late 1970s, as ethically sound. The payments, he argued, should be considered a fine, part of the penalty for the offense - just like restitution in embezzlement cases. In such cases, defendants often get less jail time if they can repay the victims.
But several lawyers, law professors and other prosecutors drew a distinction. This isn't restitution, they said, and it's not a penalty prescribed by law: It's a payment to avoid punishment.
"Plea bargaining isn't always pretty, but this just seems to make a mockery of it," said Helen Anderson, who teaches criminal law at the University of Washington law school.
"You kind of wonder, 'Gee, is this quite right?'" said Bellingham defense attorney Thomas Fryer. "But if you're looking at it as the best possible arrangement for your client, you're not going to just take a stand. If that means a drug fund contribution, so be it."
McEachran insists his prosecutors strive to be fair, and disputes the notion that the system favors those most able to pay: "We just don't see that."
McEachran said his office entered into a deal with Sutton because it had less evidence against him: Though Sutton drove by repeatedly and was in cell phone contact as Hubbard bought the 7 pounds of marijuana, Sutton never touched the drugs. Hubbard was caught red-handed, so he wouldn't have been offered a deal, McEachran said.
The AP found several cases in which people caught with more marijuana than Hubbard made drug fund payments in exchange for reduced charges. Hubbard's lawyer, Andrew Subin of Bellingham, suggested the only reason his client didn't get a deal was because he's poor. He drives a $500 truck and often works seven days a week to support his girlfriend's handicapped child, Subin said.
When Sutton's charge was reduced to a gross misdemeanor, Subin asked the deputy prosecutor, Craig Chambers, "Where's my deal?" Chambers directed an interview request to McEachran, but according to Subin, his response was: "When your guy has $10,000, then we can talk."
"Who's the big player, and who walks away from this getting screwed?" said Subin. He also wondered: If the case against Sutton was so weak, why did it cost him nearly $10,000 to have the charge reduced?
Sutton's lawyer, Jeff Steinborn of Seattle, supports Whatcom County's practice.
"Anything that mitigates the harshness of this insane drug law is a good thing," he said.
Another of Subin's clients, 22-year-old community college student Jesse Gilsoul, pleaded guilty to felony marijuana possession last month for having less than 2 ounces of marijuana. Prosecutors offered him the chance to pay $2,000 to have the charge reduced to a misdemeanor, according to both sides.
Gilsoul, who lost one of his two restaurant jobs following his arrest in December, said he did not have the money. He was sentenced to a month of community service and $1,800 in fines and court costs, to be paid as he is able. He fears the felony, his first offense, will jeopardize his financial aid.
"I wish I did have that rich uncle," Gilsoul said. "Obviously, if I was making a profit off drugs, I could come up with a couple grand real easily."
McEachran had little sympathy, noting that Gilsoul failed a lie-detector test when he said he did not intend to sell the marijuana. But the test was administered after Gilsoul failed to pay the drug fund. If he had come up with the money, the issue of his honesty would never have arisen.
Subin acknowledged that defendants don't necessarily have to pay to have charges reduced - it just helps.
Jon Ostlund, the Whatcom County public defender, said he could think of two cases where charges were reduced because the defendant agreed to perform 240 hours of community service before sentencing. Prompted partly by the AP's reporting, his office held a meeting about the practice recently; staff members said they would like to see more cases in which alternatives to the drug fund payment are accepted.
"If there's a policy that rich people can buy their way out of a case, I don't have the impression that's what's happening here," Ostlund said. But, he added, "I'm sure there are cases where we weren't able to work out something, and maybe they would have been able to if they had more money."
Irwin Schwartz, chairman of the American Bar Association's criminal standards committee, declined to comment on Whatcom County's practice, but said he hopes to form a task force to examine "best practices" for handling drug courts, deferred prosecutions and nonprosecution agreements.
A spokeswoman at the National District Attorneys Association said she had not heard of the practice being used in other states, and Pam Loginsky, a spokeswoman with the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said she had never heard of a county in Washington state negotiating drug fund payments as part of plea deals.
The prosecutor's offices in King, Snohomish, Pierce and Spokane counties all said money is not on the table when they negotiate plea deals.
"We do reduce a lot of felony drug charges to misdemeanor charges, but it's not based on whether you can pay a $1,000 fine," said Joan Cavagnaro, chief criminal deputy prosecutor in Snohomish County. "It's based on the strength of the case."
John Strait, a legal ethics expert at Seattle University Law, said four lawyers have contacted him recently with questions about Whatcom County's practice. He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down systems where defendants can choose between paying a fine or doing time, because it often means jail for those who can't afford to pay.
There's also a potential conflict of interest, he said, because McEachran's office is making charging decisions based in part on the money it can obtain for a fund he administers.
"We should be punishing people for what they've done, rather than by who's going to give us money," Strait said.
System Offers Justice Outside the Spotlight, If You Can Pay
By Jean Guccione,Times Staff Writer
May 7, 2006
When Michael Jackson's wife wanted out of their marriage, the pop star hand-picked and paid the retired judge who signed off on a prearranged deal giving Jackson sole custody of their two children.
Jackson did not have to set foot inside a courthouse to finalize his 1999 divorce from Deborah Rowe, avoiding the kind of glaring public scrutiny he encountered last year when he was tried on and acquitted of child molestation charges.
Like Jackson, many of California's rich and famous are paying retired jurists up to $550 an hour to quietly end their marriages, divvy up their property and decide who will care for their children — an arrangement that some critics fear is creating a separate and secret justice system for those who can afford it.
The decades-old debate over privately paid justice was reignited in recent months when the media was denied access to the Jackson case in addition to divorce files and proceedings involving billionaire supermarket magnate Ronald Burkle, who paid a retired judge $73,000 to preside over a 10-day trial.
In response, Los Angeles court officials are trying to create safeguards to prevent elite litigants from buying secrecy in public court proceedings.
Under California law, if both parties agree, a sitting judge officially transfers the case out of the courthouse. The parties may then hire a jurist to resolve their civil disputes, even though the cases technically remain in the public court system, governed by the same rules as other lawsuits. Retired judges set their own pay rates.
"It's relatively easy for a temporary judge to be lax at the behest of the parties," said Los Angeles County Superior Court Presiding Judge William A. MacLaughlin, who is overseeing the reform effort.
Attorney Susan E. Seager, who represents media outlets including The Times, said the lack of public access in these two cases "may be part of a larger trend toward secret divorce-court proceedings for celebrities and the wealthy," violating state court rules and the constitutional right of access to court records and proceedings. It is also unconstitutional for a sitting judge — including, in Seager's opinion, one temporarily assigned to a case — to be privately paid by the parties.
But retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen Lachs, who was paid to decide the Jackson and Burkle matters, defended the system, saying celebrities don't hire private judges "to hide things." Private judges are popular, he said, because they can devote more time to promptly resolving their cases.
In California, litigants may transfer their disputes out of crowded courthouses into more accommodating private surroundings for full-blown trials. Unlike retired judges who act as mediators or arbitrators, private judges — also called temporary judges — issue final rulings that may be appealed. Those trials, even if held in lawyers' offices, are subject to the same public access requirements as those held in courthouses.
But, in reality, most private judge trials fly under the radar. Documents aren't always put in public court files. And proceedings, held in private offices and rented conference rooms, are difficult, if not impossible, to track.
"The rules on the books seem to be fairly clear and require that all trials and other proceedings before a temporary judge be as open and unrestricted as their counterpart proceedings in Superior Court," said 1st Amendment lawyer Douglas E. Mirell.
The problem, he said, is that the rules are not enforced.
No one but an appellate court can compel a retired judge to play by the rules, experts say, and that process is often cost-prohibitive.
Los Angeles court leaders say they will try to nudge their former colleagues into compliance.
"No judge of our court has the ability to tell other judges how to do their job," MacLaughlin said. Nor can a retired judge be disciplined by the state Commission on Judicial Performance for failing to maintain open court proceedings under the rules.
No one knows exactly how many disputes each year are referred to private judges. Los Angeles court officials can account for just five pending cases, all divorces. Three involve Hollywood A-list ex-couples: Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt; Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards; and Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney.
Divorce lawyers, however, say they know of several other cases.
At ADR Services in Century City, where Lachs specializes in family law disputes, 23 of the 6,000 cases last year involved public court business, mostly divorces, said Lucie Barron, the company's founder and president. A few of the public cases involved probate, real estate and eminent domain issues.
California Chief Justice Ronald M. George said he is "concerned about the secrecy involved in some of the private judge proceedings, the fact that matters of great importance may be settled without the public's being aware of what's at issue or how the dispute is being resolved."
George also worries about the public's view of a court system that allows wealthy litigants to resolve their disputes by going to the head of the line, not having to endure long waits for overworked judges.
"Private judging performs several useful functions," he said, "but runs the risk of creating a perception among the public that there is a two-track system of justice, one for those who are willing and able to pay the person they select to try their case and another track for those who have to wait their turn in court.
"I would hate to have some people adopt the attitude toward the public justice system that others have toward the public school system, mainly that they are not stakeholders because they do not send their children to public schools."
High-end divorce lawyers say the issue is not privacy as much as efficiency. They say their clients prefer selecting a judge who will work on their schedule and give them as much time as needed to resolve their cases. That's why lawyers don't think twice about asking clients to write five-figure checks to pay the judge — even when they lose.
"It's our culture now," said attorney Stacy D. Phillips, author of "Divorce: It's All About Control. How to Win the Emotional, Psychological and Legal Wars."
By hiring his own judge, Michael Jackson also managed for a while to keep under wraps details of his ex-wife's allegation that he had abducted their two children and taken them to Bahrain without her consent. Public court files contained little about the custody dispute. A reporter was barred from a court hearing in the case.
In February, a state appellate court in Los Angeles ruled that Lachs had not properly terminated Rowe's parental rights even though at the time she and Jackson agreed to the arrangement. Lachs has now recused himself, and the case has been returned to the public courthouse.
The new judge, Robert Schnider, has ordered lawyers for Jackson and Rowe to re-create the public divorce file with all the missing documents, including Rowe's 2001 motion to terminate her parental rights.
In 2004, Lachs also presided over a trial that found supermarket magnate Burkle's post-marital agreement with his ex-wife, Janet, to be valid. Many of those documents have been sealed; media outlets are fighting in court to review them.
Lachs defended his access decisions. He said he vacated his order sealing trial transcripts and exhibits after learning from media lawyers that he, as a private judge, lacked the authority to seal them.
L.A. County Superior Court Judge Roy Paul, the sitting judge in the case, also sealed documents, then reversed himself, declaring that a state law allowing judges to seal financial details in divorce proceedings was unconstitutional. An appellate court upheld his decision, and Burkle has asked the California Supreme Court to review it. A ruling is expected within weeks.
In the Jackson case, Lachs said he would not have done anything differently — that he would have reached the same conclusion if he had been a sitting family law judge.
When a reporter showed up at a private office in Palm Desert, Lachs closed the hearing because, he said, it involved child custody matters. Seager, the media lawyer contended, however, that the hearing was actually about the judge's recusal, not sensitive family matters.
As for the incomplete court file, Lachs said, "it is the responsibility of the attorneys to file original documents with the court." If original documents were filed with him, Lachs said, he would return them to the court.
MacLaughlin, whose Los Angeles court is at the center of this controversy, advocates a statewide solution. He has appointed judges to meet with media representatives to propose changes in state law and court rules that would address public access issues, including an enforcement mechanism. MacLaughlin has also assigned Judge Charles W. McCoy to review all requests for private judges.
Celinda Donaghy of the Bronx was tucking her baby boy into bed one night when suddenly her husband, a Yonkers firefighter, appeared with two cops and a court order.
Without any notice or hearing for her, a judge in Westchester County had awarded her husband temporary custody of the child - plus an order barring her from going near him or their 1-year-old.
Now the angry mother is going public with her case, accusing the courts and a judge of gross injustice.
"It's mind-boggling," she said yesterday. "I have no idea what's going on."
In June, Donaghy's husband, 30-year-old Douglas Donaghy, asked a Westchester judge to give him temporary custody of the boy and a protective order against his wife.
Donaghy, a former Rikers Island correction officer, alleged that his wife was mentally ill and abused drugs and alcohol - allegations she says are "completely false."
Westchester Supreme Court Justice Denis Donovan gave the firefighter the protective order and temporary custody - solely on the husband's word.
Six days later, Westchester Supreme Court Justice Mark Dillon - again with no hearing, no witnesses and no medical opinions to support the firefighter's claims - upheld Donovan's emergency orders.
Donaghy's wife has demanded a full hearing on custody, but Dillon has repeatedly postponed it; one is now slated for midJanuary.
"Every time she asks for the hearing," said her attorney, Susan Chana Lask, "the judge puts it off."
The last time Celinda Donaghy appeared in court, Dillon ordered her handcuffed and thrown in a courthouse cell - to satisfy the second arrest warrant. She was released later that day.
"I think he's unfair," she said. "I don't think he takes this matter seriously."
Alayne Katz, Douglas Donaghy's lawyer, said his wife is an abusive spouse upset over losing in court.
"It's very common for a court to order an order of protection merely based on the allegations of one side," Katz said. "Judges have to make hard decisions about which parent should care for the child."
Bridget Marks' tearful farewell to her 4-year-old twins after a Manhattan Family Court judge ordered them into the custody of a father they accused of touching their private parts is a scene reenacted in custody trials across the country, in which mothers bring good-faith allegations of sexual abuse.
All too often, young children are taken from the only home they have ever known, not because their mother has been found unfit, but because she was concerned about improper sexual contact between her children and their father.
Judges in New York and other states have adopted a bizarre rule that a mother alleging sex abuse in a custody dispute is guilty until proved innocent: If her abuse charge is not supported by overwhelming evidence, she will lose custody for making an accusation that "poisons" the relationship between father and child.
In fact, as we are seeing in the Marks case, she can end up being doubly penalized: After she loses custody, the accused abuser can actually hit her up for child support.
Marks' suspicions were not without support. A baby-sitter reported that the children told her their father had "touched their peepee." A police investigator was concerned enough about the charges to recommend that a prominent forensic psychologist interview the children (an interview that was never allowed to take place). Another psychologist recommended strict supervision for the father's visits with the girls.
Judge Arlene Goldberg held the mother to a Kafkaesque standard: While rejecting evidence that explained the mother's suspicions, the judge required Marks to prove she would foster a "loving" relationship between the man accused of abuse and the children she was desperately trying to protect.
Adding insult to injury for Marks, supervisors appointed by the court actually left the father alone with the children on several critical occasions, court papers show.
What happened to Marks has happened to mothers across the country. We have studied two decades' worth of custody litigation, and we have found that mothers who raise allegations of sexual abuse against the children's fathers are likely to be punished with the loss of custody even when there is no proof that the abuse charges were fabricated or that they did anything to harm their children's welfare.
Courts focus instead on the supposed evil of making a charge that, by its very nature, is extremely difficult to prove. Then, with the fathers presumed innocent, the mothers bear the burden of proving that their intentions were good.
If they fail, they end up like Marks, who cannot even speak to her children without professional supervision but who now may have to pay child support to their rich father.
Neustein and Lesher are authors of "From Madness to Mutiny: Why Are Mothers Running from the Family Court?" due out in spring 2005.
Judge Kills Himself After Child Sex Abuse Inquiries By Caitlin Liu Times Staff Writer February 12, 2005
A longtime Los Angeles County judge fatally shot himself at a valencia Park Thursday after detectives contacted him about an allegation that he had molested a child, authorities said.
Lloyd Jeffrey Wiatt, a 61-year-old former prosecutor who presided over several high-profile trials, was the subject of a preliminary investigation, said Lt. Dan Rosenberg of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Rosenberg declined to discuss the case other than to say that someone had accused the judge of child sexual abuse. He stressed that the detectives were just beginning to examine the accusation and had not determined whether Wiatt should be arrested.
Deputies contacted Wiatt on Wednesday at his home in Valencia, and during the conversation, the judge became distraught, Rosenberg said. Worried that he was suicidal, detectives began monitoring his movements using a commercial anti-theft tracking device that Wiatt had on his car.
As they followed him into Towsley Canyon Park on Thursday afternoon, detectives talked to Wiatt on a cellphone and urged him not to hurt himself, Rosenberg said.
"The investigators at the scene were more concerned for his safety and his welfare than to make an arrest," he said.
At some point, Wiatt pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head before detectives could get to him.
Judges and lawyers across Los Angeles on Friday expressed shock at Wiatt's death.
"He was a cherished colleague, and he will be deeply missed," said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Alice Hill, who supervises the Chatsworth Courthouse, where Wiatt worked for the last three years overseeing civil cases.
Before moving to the Chatsworth court, Wiatt presided over major criminal trials at the San Fernando courthouse.
"I've known Judge Wiatt for a number of years and have tried cases before him," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Richman, the assistant head deputy of the San Fernando courthouse. "I respected him and admired him and considered him a friend. I'm deeply saddened by his death."
Some attorneys said Wiatt was known for his blunt manner in the courtroom, where they said he was quick to take both prosecutors and defense attorneys to task.
In 1999, during the trial of Sylmar widow Jeanie Adair - who was accused of bludgeoning her husband, Robert, to death with a baseball bat for insurance money - Wiatt's outspoken manner was on display, said Marsh Goldstein, the prosecutor in the case.
At one point, he barred the victim's mother from the courtroom - and ordered her to stay 500 yards away from the courthouse - after Adair complained that the mother whispered, "You're going to burn" to her when they ran into each other in a restroom.
"Appearing before him in the courtroom was the worst experience in my professional life," said Goldstein, who has since retired.
After a jury acquitted Adair, Wiatt declared her "factually innocent," an unusual ruling that would have erased records of her arrest and criminal trial. But state appellate judges reversed the ruling in 2001, finding that Wiatt abused his discretion.
A graduate of USC, Wiatt attended Whittier Law School and joined the district attorney's office in 1975. He left in 1978 to work in private practice. He served as a part-time Juvenile Court referee before Gov. Pete Wilson appointed him to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1993. In 1995, Wilson elevated him to the Superior Court.
Wiatt oversaw several high-profile cases, including the death penalty trials of Sandi Nieves, a woman convicted of setting a fire to kill her four daughters, and Kenneth Gay, who was found guilty of fatally shooting a police officer.
Wiatt lived in a cul-de-sac in an upscale section of Valencia.
A woman at his home declined to comment and asked that the family's privacy be respected.
Wiatt is survived by a wife and two children.
Times staff writers Jean Guccione, Amanda Covarrubias and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
Bridget Marks and daughters Amber (l.) and Scarlet share laughs on Monday.
Why would a judge take two thriving, giggly 4-year-old twin girls away from their loving, doting mother and the happy Manhattan home they have known since birth? Manhattan Family Court Judge Arlene Goldberg decided to do it because she believes the mother falsely accused the father of sexually fondling their children to prevent him from gaining custody. The father, the judge believes, is innocent.
Now, mom so hates dad, Goldberg decided, that the twins are better off with their father, a busy, traveling casino executive who years ago slept with their mother while he cheated, as he frequently has, on his loyal wife.
That, in a nutshell, is the case of John Aylsworth vs. Bridget Marks. It's a bitter custody fight involving a millionaire CEO and a former Playboy model that is about to test the changing boundaries of state family law.
Marks carried her twins through pregnancy despite pressure from Aylsworth and his wife to get an abortion, according to court testimony. "He didn't take me to court," Marks said, "until I refused to have sex with him anymore."
The Daily News first reported the story in late March.
On Tuesday, lawyers for Marks plan to go to federal court for a restraining order and to challenge the constitutionality of New York's custody process. Marks will bare her outrage on Court TV's Catherine Crier talk show that night.
Reports are being prepared by "Dateline NBC" and ABC's "2-0/20." Dozens of people phoned The News Friday enraged by Goldberg's ruling, wanting to protest, write letters and raise hell.
"This is one tough decision," said Hal Mayerson, co-chairman of the state bar association's custody law committee. "This is such a rare decision, but this judge had to make a decision."
For more than a decade, New York's higher courts have been embracing as gospel a concept psychologists still debate - that when one parent wrongly bad-mouths the other by alleging sexual abuse, children are better served if custody goes to the accused.
The accused, the reasoning goes, can then counteract an accuser's damaging behavior.
First termed "parental alienation" in 1985 by the late Columbia University psychiatrist Richard Gardner, who tried to define the behavior as a mental illness, the theory quickly became standard offense or defense in custody cases.
Many New York judges bought it. Meanwhile, some researchers dismissed Gardner's theories as junk science while others moderated his ideas and refined them.
Today, parental alienation has new names and more subtle definitions. Some states treat it as "generally accepted" science while some judges reject it as quackery.
But in New York, many parents are stunned to learn parental alienation, as Gardner conceived it, is the law. The official remedy in one New York appeals ruling after another: Hand over the kids to the parent wrongly accused of perversion.
Goldberg cited this line of cases in ruling against Marks.
Abuse accusations are, as Mayerson puts it, "the atom bomb in custody cases."
But Marks sees her punishment as a hydrogen bomb for her children and says the judge has overreacted. Goldberg found that Marks had coached her children "to say their father had 'touched their peepee,'" but Marks vehemently denies this. Her concerns, she said, are rooted in a pattern of her former lover's crude language and overbearing physical touching.
Aylsworth refuses to speak to the press.
A review of records and videotapes from the case backs up Marks. The judge had no hard evidence to support her finding - only opinions from a court-appointed psychiatrist, two social workers and a children's lawyer.
The judge ignored three contradictory opinions from experts hired by Marks and testimony about how Aylsworth "made inappropriate comments about the beauty of the children's genitalia."
Carol Bruch, professor of family law at the University of California at Davis, is a frequent critic of alienation becoming a ruling principal in custody. "Parental alienation is a crock," she said. "It's snake oil."
"There is no system ever devised by mankind that is guaranteed to rip husband and wife or father, mother and child apart so bitterly than our present Family Court System."
Judge Brian Lindsay Retired Supreme Court Judge, New York, New York
"There is something bad happening to our children in family courts today that is causing them more harm than drugs, more harm than crime and even more harm than child molestation."
Judge Watson L. White Superior Court Judge, Cobb County, Georgia
The real search for weapons of mass destruction should check the divorce attorney's handbook. David and Crystal Brame were pawns in the modern game of divorce.
The attorney's handbook is full of offensive and defensive plays to choose from. When parties have invested so much and the stakes are high, it's destroy-or-be-destroyed tactics by the mercenaries, with the full blessing and a nod from the judges.
Too often with the fear of losing, the game gets out of control, actions and reactions go too far, the damage becomes irreversible and the attorneys are the only ones left standing, ready to play again. Maybe it's time to change the rules of the game.
Yes, resurrection is true story, one seen often in our time
JOHN MILLS; Tacoma
In December, a few days before Christmas, I lost a very close friend in a single-car crash. Mario Young was a remarkable person whose life story seems particularly relevant at Easter.
About eight years ago, the courts in Washington decreed that Mario would be restricted from even seeing his children. He was totally cut off from any parenting role in their lives; he was not even allowed to telephone them. He was ordered to restrict his involvement to handing over money each month.
Then Mario "crucified" himself outside the courthouse, hanging himself on a makeshift cross in protest. It was, without doubt, the low point of his life.
Christians far and wide tell the story of a man who died by crucifixion and was later resurrected, rising from the dead to walk again among the living. This biblical story is offered as proof that death is incapable of defeating life.
The resurrection of Christ is described as an actual historical event. Still, it is difficult to relate personally to events so far away in time and distance from our own lives. Many, many people ask: Where is the proof of human resurrection in my time?
H. A. Williams, a former dean of Trinity College in Cambridge, England, describes the Resurrection, celebrated by Christians at Easter, as being powerfully significant far beyond any single historical event. Williams talks about "true resurrection" as something we each can each personally observe and participate in; he reports on what he calls "true resurrections" happening all around us every day.
Resurrection of the human spirit means:
•Joy can overcome anger
•Love can defeat hatred
•Good can triumph over evil
•Hope can transcend despair
When we witness a drug addict recovering, throwing away his needles and returning to support his family, that is true resurrection - and proof right now that life is guided by something inexplicable, unpredictable and fundamentally good.
When a habitual criminal repents and decides to make something of his life, that is true resurrection of the human spirit, and something happening now, in our lifetime.
Many years ago Mario stepped down off his cross. He formulated a plan for a better, more productive life.
He put himself through school. He worked hard on his passionate desire to make the world better for others in trouble. He began aggressively supporting and giving to his family. He decided to make friends of his former adversaries. And he set about helping others make possible what they feared was impossible.
Where there was darkness, Mario set about spreading light. Where he found anger, Mario gave back laughter. Where there was resignation, Mario found ways to spread hope.
Mario's funeral culminated in a memorial gathering at church attended by hundreds of people, including the prosecutor who used to chase Mario for child support, court commissioners and other well-connected members of the legal community.
Imagine, if you will, the vanishingly small odds of someone like Mario, hanging on his cross, only a few short years later attracting a group such as that to honor his memory. It is nothing short of a miracle, which those who knew him have all witnessed in our lifetime.
When he died, Mario was driving his new truck. He paid way too much for it, but he wanted it - irrespective of cost - to transport the two children who are his gift to the world.
About a year before his death, his daughter located him through the Internet. That precipitated a series of events culminating in his being reintegrated into the lives of his two children. He eagerly looked forward to spending Christmas with them for the first time in many years.
The night of the crash, Mario was on his way to meet with a woman he loved and laughed with, and doubtless he was sucking on a stinky cigarette (something he enjoyed, despite our constant harassment and insistence that he quit). He was at the time secure in his job, confident of his friends, professionally respected and supremely happy.
In the days and months and years since Mario put away his cross, he had truly resurrected his life.
And this is the message of hope we can discern from Mario's life: If it happened to him, it can happen to you - unimaginable, improbable, and unexpected good things lie ahead in our lives - even if at some time we find ourselves hanging on a cross of our own making in some equivalent dark place.
Mario's life is proof that ordinary men are truly resurrected every day.
A Birch Bay woman is suing Whatcom County on behalf of her son and two daughters, alleging that they suffered prolonged sexual abuse from her former husband because the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office failed to fully investigate child molestation allegations made against him in late 1991.
Seattle attorney Mark Leemon, who filed the suit in Superior Court for plaintiff Deborah Goldsbury, said such suits are rare because investigative agencies have wide immunity from liability under state law.
But Leemon argued that the county is liable in this case because the Sheriff's Office never reported the abuse allegations to Child Protective Services, as state law required. If that had been done, the state agency might have done a more thorough investigation that would have stopped the abuse of the children sooner, he said.
"Any reasonable investigation would have uncovered all of this," Leemon said.
New allegations against Goldsbury's then husband in Alaska in 1998 led eventually to his 1999 no-contest plea on three counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, and a 12-year sentence, with four years suspended.
The suit seeks financial compensation for all three children for "permanent psychological impairment" and "loss of the ability to enjoy life," "past, present and future pain and suffering" as well as the cost of psychological treatment. No dollar amount for damages has been set.
"It is a multimillion-dollar suit, I can tell you that," said Goldsbury.
No trial date has been set. Months of legal maneuvering and evidence-gathering are the normal prelude to a trial in a complex civil suit.
County officials said they would not comment on a pending lawsuit, but Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor Randall Watts filed a formal legal reply denying the lawsuit's allegations.
And Charles Goldsbury, Deborah Goldsbury's former husband, now denies that he ever molested his or anyone else's children.
Is county liable?
Leemon has successfully pursued a number of cases against government and law enforcement agencies on behalf of crime victims. In 1999, he won a $1.5 million out-of-court settlement on behalf of the father of Michelle Smith, a Whatcom County woman who was murdered by a man who was mistakenly released from jail after violating a no-contact order that Smith had obtained against him. The settlement cost was split between the county and the state of Washington.
In a summary of Washington state public liability judgments and settlements from 2002, provided by the Washington Counties Risk Pool, only one case was even roughly comparable to the Goldsbury episode.
In that case, the city of Camas was sued by the estate of a man killed in a collision with a pickup truck driven by a drug-intoxicated delusional man. The suit alleged negligence because a Camas police officer had talked to the man about an hour before the collision but failed to take him into custody even though he was clearly impaired. The case was settled for $1 million.
Texas attorney Randy Burton, president and founder of the Houston-based anti-child abuse advocacy group Justice for Children, said he tracks child-abuse litigation nationwide and had not heard of any case comparable to the Goldsbury lawsuit.
Eileen King, regional director of Justice for Children in Washington, D.C., said she thought the Goldsbury case could have nationwide implications if it succeeds.
"This would potentially apply to many cases that are inadequately investigated," King said.
Allison Turkel, senior attorney at the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, said the mothers of abuse victims frequently experience powerful feelings of both guilt and anger when they learn what has happened to their children at the hands of a husband or boyfriend. Even if they had no way of knowing what was going on, Turkel said, they want to do their best to make up for the past by being aggressive advocates for their children.
Turkel also observed that techniques for investigating and prosecuting allegations of child sexual abuse have improved substantially around the country since 1991, when allegations were first made against Charles Goldsbury.
Case was dropped
Case reports from the county Sheriff's Office, provided by Deborah Goldsbury, show the allegations against Charles Goldsbury first surfaced in December 1991 when the Goldsburys' 4-year-old daughter was visiting at the home of a 5-year-old playmate. The playmate told her mother that her friend's dad, whom she called "Uncle Skip," had touched her inappropriately when she was having a sleepover at the Goldsbury house on Noon Road. Goldsbury's daughter told her friend's mom that the same thing had happened to her.
The friend's mom eventually notified both Deborah Goldsbury and the Sheriff's Office, according to sheriff's investigation reports provided by Goldsbury.
Goldsbury said she then questioned her daughter about the matter, saying she would see to it that her father went to jail if he had done anything wrong. She now acknowledges that she took the wrong approach.
"I was probably the one who stopped her from talking, knowing what I know now," she said.
The little girl told her mother that nothing had happened.
Sheriff's investigation reports show that Charles Goldsbury eventually gave a statement to detectives, saying that his daughter's playmate had wet her bed during the sleepover and he had helped her change her underwear, but had not done anything wrong.
Deborah Goldsbury said she believed her husband's story because she knew her daughter's playmate had previously been abused by another man, and she thought perhaps the bed-wetting episode had triggered fears that she was being molested again. She told sheriff's investigators that she did not believe her husband was guilty.
The investigators considered interviews with the 5-year-old girl to be inconclusive, and the case was dropped, according to sheriff's reports provided by Goldsbury. Nobody from the Sheriff's Office ever interviewed Goldsbury's daughter, she said.
When the Sheriff's Office did not pursue the case, Goldsbury said she assumed her husband had been exonerated.
Starting over
Partly because of the allegations against her husband, Deborah Goldsbury said the family moved to Wrangell, Alaska, where she worked as a bartender. Her husband did odd jobs, she said, but mostly stayed home with the kids. Goldsbury said she suspected nothing.
"We moved up there to get away from this and start over," she said. "He suckered me in, just like everyone else."
Deborah Goldsbury told The Bellingham Herald that her suspicions about her then-husband were renewed in 1998, when a young female relative told her that she was having trouble in her marriage because she did not enjoy sex. Then she told Goldsbury the reason why: She said she had been molested by "Uncle Skip" as a child.
When Goldsbury got home, she said she confronted her oldest daughter to ask her again if her father had molested her. Her daughter still denied it, but this time she believed her daughter was lying, she said.
"I knew when she looked at me and said, 'Not to my knowledge,' " she said.
She reported the matter to Wrangell police, and Charles Goldsbury entered his no-contest plea in 1999 and got a 12-year prison sentence, with four years suspended. The couple has since divorced.
Charles Goldsbury, speaking by telephone from Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau, said he entered his no-contest plea, despite his innocence, to spare his children the agony of being pressured to testify against him.
In his response filed with the court on behalf of the county, attorney Watts argues that damages to the Goldsbury children, if any, were due to the behavior of Charles Goldsbury or to "negligence on the part of Deborah Goldsbury for her failure to monitor her children."
Watts also contends that the evidence uncovered in the 1991 investigation was insufficient to bring a criminal case against Charles Goldsbury, and was not sufficient to justify removal of the Goldsbury children from their home.
Watts also denies "that these charges did not come to the attention of Child Protective Services."
'They made a mistake'
Deborah Goldsbury said she decided to file her lawsuit after Whatcom County authorities said they would not prosecute her former husband for his alleged offenses here because too much time had elapsed. She said she thought that prosecution would have been a healing thing for her children.
"Nobody is validating their pain," she said. "The bottom line is they (law officers and prosecutors) made a mistake, and they would rather bury it than admit guilt."
While local prosecutors would not comment on the Goldsbury case because of the lawsuit, prosecutors frequently are reluctant to bring cases to trial after many years have elapsed, partly because memories of witnesses are likely to be hazy.
But there is no legal impediment to prosecution of Goldsbury on the alleged 1991 offenses. The Washington Criminal Code allows prosecution of child rape and child molestation cases up to three years after the victim's 18th birthday. Goldsbury's oldest child is not yet 18.
Deborah Goldsbury said her children have had serious adjustment problems in school and elsewhere, which she attributes to the emotional damage from molestation.
"These kids need help," she said.
She also fears that things will worsen if Charles Goldsbury returns to Whatcom County after he's released from prison in Alaska.
Thad Allen, risk management specialist with the Washington Department of Corrections, said he had no information on the Goldsbury case. But a sexual offender like Charles Goldsbury could be admitted to this area after release, Allen said, if he can demonstrate that he has some kind of family network or job here that would help him avoid committing new offenses.
Any sex offender released from prison would be under state supervision for several years and would be required to register his address with law enforcement agencies. Local agencies review the case files of all such offenders to decide whether they should be classified as Level III offenders with a high risk to reoffend. The agencies issue public notices to warn communities of the whereabouts of Level III offenders.
