The family allowed CPS to come in and search our home. Got a call while I was at the Pittsburgh burn center that my kids were being removed from the home. I stayed at the hospital with my son for 15 days until I was forced to leave him. I didn’t get to see him or any of my kids until September 11,2020.  My 4yr old daughter almost died while being with family she stopped breathing and I wasn’t told anything until 3 days later. Phone calls were made only if family would have allowed it and they didn’t like it.

So no calls. I had to fight to get supervised visits, Finally September 11 we get to hold the kids. But for only for a short time. Visits was only done if it was okay with family. The Cps went thru my home when no one was here. They said soo many lies, and when we had our first court day in Aug. It was only for us to sign our rights away. I had to fight every step. Finally got my kids home at the end of April but the fight was only going to get much worse. They are still trying to take my kids away. They are using speech against me in July and said I was medical Neglect s my kids.

They didn’t know birth to three was coming into my home. My son should of gotten his surgery last November, Not when I finally got him home and had it done in June. He was medical neglect with his burns. He is getting ready for another surgery this November. They’re trying to remove my kids again because now they’re saying my almost three years should know how to sit  for 45 min. They have used my large family against me. They have used my Halloween home haunt against me, and they use homeschooling against me. It’s been a long year and still not over with it.

The post CPS Calls Neglect: Three Year Old Will Not Sit Still for 45mins Straight. appeared first on Fighter Cries.

Carrie Poier, Debrah, and 2 deputies entered our home with what they called an Emergency Petition to remove five of our children.

One child had just come home off the school bus while Carrie Poier, Debrah, Emily Green, and Lawrence Taylor were loading up our children into 2 different vehicles. While the deputies were at our house with Carrie Poier they kept trying to get a fight out of our 16-year-old son. That is when our son drew a line and told the officer to step across the line and come to him and that he was not going to follow him.

The deputies placed their hands on their guns. The situation was very tense. The paperwork was then thrown in their father’s face and the exact words that were spoken to him were “this is your paperwork.”

While Carrie Poier was in our house that evening she did not check our food supply or any other accommodation. During that time the children’s grandfather showed up and was speaking with the supervisor Lawrence Taylor and told him that he would be willing to take our 5 children home with him. Lawrence Taylor told him that he would see what he could do for him on Monday. Lawrence was supposed to call the grandparents and that did not happen. The grandfather called Lawrence Taylor and spoke to him and was told that someone would be coming out to check the grandparents’ home. Lawrence Taylor lied. He then told the grandparents that they would have to become foster parents and that they could not let the Father or Mother come to their house at all. That did not end up happening either.

In the first court hearing, everyone appeared in person. The Father’s attorney Aaron Yohoo and GAL Richard Guttman, The Mother’s attorney Maria Borror and GAL Ashley Hunt, and the GAL for the children, DeAndra Burton. Anne Armstrong and Carrie Poier were also present..

Carrie Poier went on the stand and falsely testified on the children’s Father by stating that he the Father was going to “Call in Hell’s Angel’s” on her and she stated that she was in fear for her life. The children’s Father and other both stated that the Father did not say that.

While Carrie Poier was standing on the porch of the family Carrie Poier stood there looking down at her feet. The only thing that was said to Carrie Poier by the father was that she did not send any letters, did not leave any cards on the door when she said that she had shown up and she did not, and nor make any phone calls to the father or mother stating that she was wanting to make a home visit or even to let the father and mother know that they had an open case. Carrie Poier has made a home visit to their new home in November 2020 and did indeed do an inspiration on their new home that they are renting and paying rent to the mother’s attorney that was representing the mother in this case. During Carrie Poier’s inspection, the question was asked the Mother and Father if the house passed Carrie Poier replied”Yes, you have all the essentials that are needed and will work on reunification with motoring, for which there again was a lie.

Then one deputy that was in our house took the stand and testified against the children’s father and testified that the father had said to him ” I will have your badge by tomorrow.” After those 2 testimonies were finished and Carrie Poier and the deputy were taken off the witness stand the court started talking about the visitations, and Anne Armstrong stood up and yelled “Mother only” and of course Judge Steven Shaffer agreed with Anne Armstrong the prosecutor and called the Father aggressive.

At that point and time, The Court, Anne Armstrong, Carrie Poier and the children’s GAL DeAndra Burton wanted to provide transportation for the mother. The mother was being required to ride 350 miles with a male driver by herself and the mother fought and fought until she got it approved for the father to be able to drive with her. The mother does not trust other men because of a sexual assault that happened to her by a doctor and remarks that a psychologist had made toward her.

On February 15, 2019, the Mother had a baby girl. The Mother ended up having to have an Emergency C-SECTION during which the Mother and the baby both died and had to be revived. While the baby girl was still in the hospital Mother was allowed to see the baby but the Father was stopped due to Judge Steven Shaffer, Carrie Poier CPS worker, Anne Armstrong, and the children GAL DeAndra Burton.

At first, when the 5 children were removed the order did not include the unborn child. The children were separated. The 2 girls ages 9 and 6 were put together in Terra Alta (Preston County town in West Virginia). One of the boys who was 3 was placed by himself in Morgantown. And the other 2 boys who were 12 and 16 years old were placed in foster care in Huntington, West Virginia with a CPS worker. By the time the baby was born all of the children had been placed together. When the baby was born she was put directly in the NICU at Ruby Memorial and was there for about 2 weeks. When she was ready to be released she was also released to the same foster care home in Huntington, West Virginia with her siblings.

Carrie Poier went on the stand and falsely testified and that the MOTHER and FATHER “DID NOT HAVE ANY RUNNING WATER OR FOOD.” The deputies falsely testified that the children were dirty and that their clothes were dirty at the time of the removal.

At another hearing, the prosecutor Anna Armstrong, Carrie Poier, and Judge Shaffer had the Attendance Coordinator Carol Riley and Principal Jim Hoit from South Preston School falsely testify against the Mother and Father. The principal said that the Father was always running his mouth in the background to him while he was on the phone talking to the Mother when the Mother would call the school to check on the children. Then there was a psyche evaluation that was done on both the Father and the Mother. Dr. Baker who did the psyche evaluation testified against the Father as well and made inappropriate sexual comments towards the MOTHER during her evaluation.

After those false testimonies were made it was brought to the Judge’s attention by the Father’s new GAL that the FATHER should be getting visits with the children. Judge Shaffer granted the request and said that the MDT was to have a meeting about getting the FATHER to see his children. But that was also a lie because Carrie Poier came back to another hearing saying that she had a letter from the children’s therapist saying that it was not a good idea for the children’s FATHER to visit with the children because the court and Carrie Poier keep referring to the FATHER as being aggressive.

The 11-year-old daughter has not talked to her siblings since before June and the MOTHER and FATHER have not gotten to speak with their 11-year-old daughter due to the fact that Carrie Poier has had her in 3 different facilities. She is now in Virginia and Carrie Poier says she has a court order for her to keep her in Virginia, but nothing has been seen by the FATHER’S attorney who is now Micheal S, Andrew Frye Father’s GAL, Hillary Bright who is also helping with this case, or Jennifer Yost who is now GAL for THE MOTHER. Carrie Poier has also had our 8-year-old daughter moved to Parsons West Virginia in Tucker County. The MOTHER’S attorney has been trying to get info as to where the 8-year-old child is in Parsons, but cannot get any info from Carrie Poier.

At this time the Mother and Father have had their phone calls suspended due to Carrie Poier and Anne Armstrong, the GAL DeAndra Burton, and the Judge due to the fact that the Father and Mother have had vehicle problems. And now the Father has gotten his driver’s license taken away from lies and false information from the STATE.

CARRIE POIER went on the stand and falsely testified on the children’s Father by stating that he the Father was going to “Call in the Hell’s Angels.” on her and she stated that she was in fear for her life. The children’s Father and Mother both stated that the Father did not say that. While CARRIE POIER was standing on the porch of the family CARRIE POIER stood there looking down at her feet. The only thing that was said to CARRIE POIER by the Father was that she did not send any letters, She did not leave any cards on the door when she said that she had shown up and she did not, and neither did she make any phone calls to the Father or Mother stating that she was wanting to make a home visit or even to let the Father and Mother know that they had an open case.

On January 19, 2021, the Father and Mother both were forced to sign over parental rights. JUDGE SHAFFER had advised both the FATHER and the MOTHER they only had 5 minutes to make their decision or HE the JUDGE was going to REVOKE their rights himself and place both FATHER and MOTHER in JAIL.

The post CPS Abuses Power Discriminating Against a Biker Family appeared first on Fighter Cries.

On July 31, 2020, our granddaughter’s mother and her father came to our residence shortly after the court hearing for custody. At that court hearing, in the presence of our lawyer, she agreed to leave our granddaughter at our house for the weekend due to a family birthday party for our 1-year-old granddaughter. It was typical for us to keep ET every weekend from Friday till Sunday. When she arrived, I was in the house picking up toys and getting ready for dinner, while our 13-year-old granddaughter, my sister’s 13-year-old granddaughter, a 13-year-old friend of the family, and 3-year-old ET was swimming in the pool. My husband was outside with the grandchildren. I did not know ETs mom was present until I heard ET crying for me. I came out of the bedroom to find her in my dining room with ET. She started yelling at me for letting her swim before dinner. I told her to leave the house and immediately called 911. I spoke with the dispatcher which instructed me to stay in the bedroom.

I told her I had the door locked to the bedroom and the outside door. But I also told her that the rest of my family was outside with ETs mom and her father. I then saw her father back his truck up to our detached garage and get out with HS (ETs sibling). I said I was fearful due to a prior assault on my 76-year-old mother in law by ETs mom.

And since I knew her father very well, I knew that he always carried a gun, even though he was a felon. Which GAL later pointed out it was a 40-year-old felon. I’m not sure if that really matters. But nothing really does with CPS, if they are biased against you for one reason or another, as I would soon find out. Earlier at the custody hearing, the social worker had lied on the stand, saying she did not go get the children out of mom’s house with a police escort. Even though, she told my husband that before she went.

She said she knew how violent mom was, so she was taking law enforcement. At about the same time I got a call from the daycare owner saying she heard the same thing on the scanner.

The Social worker, Jessica Embrey told the judge they were at the residence on an unrelated matter. My husband told the judge about the conversation. I think that is the moment we realized the corruption. The hearing should have been in family court, however, the judge, Susan Riffle, asked ETs mom if she thought it would be biased because my husband works in the courthouse and asked if she wanted it moved to the circuit court with Judge Patrick Wilson and said it needed to be since she had adjudication. So I’m thinking if my husband works at the courthouse, wouldn’t any judge in Marion County have the possibility of bias. Didn’t make sense, but at that time we still trusted the judicial system. I forgot to mention after the sort family court appearance, where my lawyer was showing IMs and text from ETs mom showing her mental instability, she said she was not talking about what was going on in her head. She said I was referring to her dad’s “club”. And then when we were walking out of the courtroom, she immediately told her father that we mentioned that information. He showed up at our residence and threatened my husband. I keep the DVD on my person at all times, just to prove our innocence if I ever need to show it.

After the incident at our home, the state police came. And mom and ETs grandfather were gone. Even though as seen in our video evidence, I begged him to let me check ETs arm because she was bleeding from the incident. She had been in mom’s arms when she attacked the juveniles and then she was thrown to the ground. I ran in to get her out of harm’s way when mom went back after the juveniles.

Grandfather followed me and ripped her from my arms. He was also holding her sibling and dangling her from his arms.

Trooper Daugherty from Grafton filed charges on mom and made a CPS referral. We called our attorney (Stevie McDonald) and she said if we felt unsafe, to go to the magistrate and file for DVP. We did and she saw the video. ETs mom was arrested on the following Monday, three days later. She did not go to jail, but her bond said no contact with ET. So we didn’t know where ET was but found out she was left with the felon 70-year-old grandfather. We did not know where ET’s mom was.

Our lawyer told us to show CPS the video. Jessica Embrey and another female came to our house and viewed the video. When they brought ET to our residence, Jessica Embrey said grandfather was “mad as a hornet”. I said “should we leave?” She said, “that may be a good idea”.

I then asked about the thick bandage that was on her right arm in exactly the same place that I had seen blood on her arm after the incident on July 31, 2020. The bandage was stuck on her arm and I didn’t want to traumatize her. She had been through enough for one day. The following day we called and sent pics to Jessica Embrey, Heidi Sturm (GAL), Stevie McDonald, and State Trooper after I was able to soak the bandage off. State Trooper was filing grand jury indictment, however, he told me the assistant prosecutor (Jennifer Pigott) needed to check on some things. Well to this day that never happened and Heidi Sturm assured me that it would not happen. He said he would turn it over to Taylor County, but Heidi Sturm told me “they” went to Taylor County and had bond modified.

Our lawyer told us to comply with anything CPS did. I had made a formal complaint with Charleston after Jessica Embrey lied on the stand. That went nowhere except back to the Fairmont office to Embrey’s supervisor. Things really got bad after that. They did change social workers to Kristi Hixenbaugh. Only found that out when Heidi Sturm and Kristi Hixenbaugh showed up at my residence one morning. I had just made breakfast for ET. They sat down on the floor to play with ET. When Sturm started asking me questions about DVP, I asked if we could speak without ET present.

She ignored that request. In a bullying manner, she said she needed to see DVP papers and other documents of my evidence. I said my lawyer has copies of everything. She said, “Stevie has nothing to do with CPS”.

I was trying to find the final DVP and thought it was in my important papers. I called my husband at work and said I was feeling uncomfortable with the situation. I didn’t know my rights, so I complied as my lawyer told me. She was getting impatient (by her voice and demeanor). I found the papers in my folder that had grown very thick by this time. She started asking me questions about who I knew and how. I thought it was rather strange but had never had problems before. We had ET for 6 months once before. And we took over Dad’s joint custody when he was no longer able. Sturm kept saying to Kristii “see I told you”. I wasn’t sure what was happening. I had only met Sturm one other time, and when ETs mom allegedly wrecked her car intoxicated with a blow and go in it the day she was released from Highland hospital, we called her and texted her about our safety concerns and asked her to be our counsel. But since she didn’t respond and we were not able to get her in time for a custody hearing, so we secured Stevie McDonald.

A couple of days later, I received a phone call (conference) with Heidi Sturm and Kristii Hixenbaugh. They said they needed to talk to me and said they were concerned that my mental health had declined.

Now, remember, I have only met both for a very short time and twice in my whole life. Neither is qualified to evaluate or diagnose mental status. I responded with “excuse me”.

“I am a mental health provider, that is my job to evaluate, diagnose, and treat behavioral health patients”.

They also told me I should talk to someone, and I said “if I needed it I had access to behavioral health professionals that are colleagues”. ET was going to her grandfathers for unsupervised visits. On the next visit, she didn’t come home on time. My husband was mowing and I started outside to call the worker. My phone rang and I was asked by Heidi and Kristie if we were both at home. I said yes.

That is when they told us ET was being placed with her sister with a single male who is friends with her other grandfather and an ex-boyfriend. He is not a father to either child. We brought up that ETs mother had sent me pics of evidence of an assault when they were together.

ETS’s mom actually called me on March 26, 2020, at 2:17 am and said she was concerned for ET’s safety and I needed to come to get her. I called ETs grandfather to ask if it was OK. I didn’t need any more problems with him. He said yes he would be there too. When I arrived I could smell alcohol on ETs mom’s breath. And she was slurring her words. I had a phone log to prove that she called me, but never was let in the courtroom.

I could also testify that I picked ET up on route 50 at the boyfriend’s house where my granddaughter stays now. And ETs mom lied about the pic evidence and said her step-son did it.

He hadn’t been around for a long time. She did the same to me by going to the state police after the incident at our home with her father and they both falsely tried to put charges on me for assault, although it never happened. The state police informed me of that situation. We also said the ex-boyfriend was on disability and that I had talked to him about PTSD. At that time we did not know that he didn’t have a driver’s license. Our lawyer found out by background check and the GAL (Sturm) swore to the judge that he did have a license.

Our lawyer tried to intervene, but Judge Patrick Wilson said it was too soon in the improvement period. My problem with this is, it is not the first improvement period. Mom has a history of violence from a teenager. When her friend went to the house to visit, she was concerned because she couldn’t wake her and the baby was on the floor face down according to this female. I had ET at that time an hour away. She said she was afraid of ETs mom because she had seen her violence and she had thrown a heavy ashtray at her head when they were teenagers. Someone also brought to our attention that she had stabbed her boyfriend in Elkins and the charges were decreased. Our lawyer also found domestic charges from her father and as I said earlier, she assaulted my mother in law and was adjudicated and spent 1 year in day report. She also assaulted police officers during the stabbing incident and my mother in laws incident.

At the child abuse hearing, we were subpoenaed but never got to speak. They made us sit in the back of the courtroom. My husband had brought it to their attention, that his hearing is impaired at an earlier hearing. He moved to the front so he could hear clearly and I stayed in the back.

ETs mom pleaded guilty to child abuse and was given another improvement period.

To this day we have not been subpoenaed to Taylor County Court for assault case on the teenagers. I have reached out to Trooper Daugherty with no info on hearing. He is confused about why they told us that they were moving the abuse case to Taylor County and we almost missed the hearing.

They actually brought in a “special prosecutor” from Harrison county. Trooper Daugherty had told me she would be brought up before the grand jury in Taylor County, however, Heidi Sturm said “there will be no grand jury indictment”. Ok since when does a GAL trump a state trooper who collected the evidence and filed the charges?

She saw the video as well as CPS and judge Johnson during the DVP hearing thought it was “horrific”.

Our lawyer said Judge Wilson also saw the video. At this hearing, Jessica Embrey lied to the judge for the second time by saying my husband and I both told her our son was still using drugs. When I made the formal complaint to Charleston, the CPS social worker asks me that question. I responded” the only way of knowing that would be a drug test” and she agreed. My husband said he was asked that question when CPS came to our home and he responded “he told me he was clean”.

However, we were not allowed to respond to the allegations.

When we received the documents from the attempt to intervene, it was stated that ET was happy with the placement. She is 3 years old, how do you determine that? There was also talk that we told ET that her mom couldn’t see her because it was the condition of her bond. What 3 years old would understand that. We have never degraded her mother to her.

My son has tried to get visitation and even went to DHHR with a family member and had them sign a paper saying he was there.

CPS secretary, Kristi Veltri talked to our son and family member. To this day, he has heard nothing. He did get a new lawyer because his old lawyer, said that he gave him a date for the hearing, however, did not because I was standing right beside him at a prior hearing. The only way any of us knew the time and date was from Stevie McDonald.

I have contacted the US Department of Justice and filed forms for civil rights violations. I feel our civil rights have been violated a few times. We have the right to speak and the right to fight corruption. We should have the right to defend ourselves and have a fair hearing. We also have a right to not be degraded. The latest in this mockery of a system is that we have “touched” our granddaughter. Now, this was passed along to us by a friend of ETs mom’s father to a family member. It’s weird that right before they took her from us I reported that she was showing unusual behavior and saying unusual things for a 3-year-old. I asked the GAL for permission to get her evaluated and reported to the pediatrician. I can get a copy of the note. And she referred to a psychologist. Unfortunately, she never made it for evaluation. And of all times we received this information on Christmas Eve.I am contacting our lawyer to see where this leads. So they couldn’t push the mental health decline with my background and profession.

They did say my degree didn’t matter and the social worker said “I am a licensed social worker!”

So her degree matters and mine doesn’t. If she even has one. It has been brought to my attention that CPS workers do not have to have a degree, background checks, or drug tests. Now, what is wrong with that you say? They have our children and are selling them for profit. It seems so clear to me that this system is broken and corrupt. The department gets money for placing children in foster care but not for places with family.

WV has the highest rate of child removal and the highest rate for missing children within the foster care system. Wake up WV and hold your child or grandchild tight, you could be next.

But with Kimberly Lowe and her advocates, we are determined to stop this for good and hold corrupt people accountable. We thank the state government officials that are not laying down and the parents and grandparents that are putting it all on the line to save the children. Be loud and speak often about selling children under the cover of the law.

The post Kids Taken By CPS and Denying Grandmother and Father Rights. appeared first on Fighter Cries.

False Claims

The school attendance director claimed that our kids missed too much school, and provided many different attendance printouts. The prosecutor just took the one with the highest about, 37 missed days, and suppressed all the rest.

Doctored Evidence

No one cared to ask why there were so many nor why did they not match the report cards, which had the correct amount, 9 days.

Instead, the report cards and fact that our kids got excellent grades, from the Judge.

For 3 years, our lawyers said or did nothing about it and we allowed their scare tactics to scare us against speaking out against everything they had done.

26 Pages of Corruption

We finally decided to bring all their lies and fraudulent attendance printouts to the Judge. We presented him with a 26-page document outlining every lie, and the audio recordings.

Judge Accepts False Evidence

The Judge accepted everything and made copies for everyone else and set a Court date to hear everything. The day of the hearing, 15 minutes after it was scheduled to start, our lawyers emerged from the Courtroom and told us that the prosecutor dropped the case.

Refused Justice

We tried to fight against dropping it because it was finally our chance to proclaim the truth. But it didn’t matter, it was dropped abruptly anyway. But the school attendance director, the woman who was presenting fraudulent attendance printouts, became our kid’s home school director.8 years passed and that Judge was Judge until January 2019.

Judge Shaffer Previously Represented Our Landlord 

In January 2019 Judge Steven Shaffer became the Judge. In 2014, before he became Judge, he represented my landlord against me. In 2018, our home, a double-wide that my grandmother was buying for us and has spent $80,000 on to date, was having problems with the landlord of the lot. So, I wrote a letter to the Circuit Court about the home in May 2018.

Judge Shaffer Illegally Seized Home

 It sat idle until February 2019, when Judge Shaffer dug through my file and found it, 9 months after it was written. He then made copies of my letter and sent it to the Magistrate Judge and his old clients, and not any other party to the case. Approximately 5 months after that, the home was seized and gave to the landlord of the lot.

Evicted With No Warrant

There was no search or seizure warrant to do so. One (1 ) month after, our kids ordered to be seized. August 2 2019 a process server came to our house and told us we had to leave because they were seizing the home and giving it to the landlord of the lot to satisfy a $1,200 debt I owed.

False Claims

He brought no documentation about the home, only a subpoena to Court for educational neglect, claiming our homeschool had been “terminated.”

When I found out they were taking my grandmother’s home and just giving it to the landlord of the lot (Judge Shaffer’s old client) everything we were forced to leave there, we strung stuff everywhere, intentionally wrecked it as well as we could.

Evicted Without Cause

The process server, without the appropriate authority or legal authority, forced us to leave the home and gave the home to the landlord of the trailer park. He also seized the home and went inside and took pics. All without the authority to. None of which is the job of a process server.

Cries for Help Ignored

After we left our home, I called the Sheriff’s Dept every day, attempting to reach the Sheriff to get answers about our home. I called every day, leaving my name and number, but the sheriff never returned my calls.

Sexually Harassed by Police

Instead, the cop who answered my phone calls every day began sending my sexual text messages. He sent these perverted messages on August 18, 2019. The same exact day that the GAL Kristen Antolini, CPS worker Elizabeth Blake and our attorneys came to our new home and did their home safety check.

They were there for over an hour and had not 1 negative word to say, an interaction we have an audio recording of.       

Official Complaint   

The very next day, August 19, 2019, I took my phone to the Preston County WV Sheriffs Dept, and I filed a complaint against the cop for sending me the sexual text messages.

No Due Process

The very next day August 20, 2019, was scheduled to be the adjudication hearing, however, it was rescheduled and renamed a status conference, because the prosecution did not give us discovery before that day.

Judge Illegally Allows Evidence

Even though it was rescheduled bc of this, the Judge still permitted them to use the evidence that we had never gotten. Before this day, there were never any concerns about the safety of our children.

Dirty Cop

After I exposed their perverted cop. And that day, at the status conference, An entire hearing was held against us but we were forced to treat it like a conference as they presented their lies and false statements. The GAL went as far as to say that we had no food, furniture, or utilities in our home, and that we were squatters in our home.

BLATANT LIES! 

I proclaimed that she was lying that she was a liar.

GAL Admits to Lying

Kristen Antolini stood up and admitted that she never checked the home for food or for utilities. However, Judge Shaffer didn’t care that she had lied, and instead, he applied the law to her lies, as if what she had said was true, knowing that they were lies!

Judge Refuses to Look At Evidence

I have the paid utility bills and statements from my landlord stating we are tenants,  but the judge refuses to acknowledge my evidence. In the Courtroom, I even tell Shaffer that I have the proof in my hands, that showed there was never danger to my kids, and that the GAL was a liar, and he expressly refused to look at the proof. And instead said, “I know Ms. Antolini, and I find her to be a capable GAL. She knows what would happen if she lies.”  

Illegal Status Conference

They called it a status conference but in reality, it was a one-sided hearing conspired against us. The judge allowed photos to be used that we nor our attorneys seen or even knew existed, that were never even submitted as evidence. They presented pictures of the home that had been seized by the landlord (the judge’s former clients) and we had not lived in the home for well over a month, but they did not present any pics of the home in which they came to. Over a month after we left the old home that we trashed before leaving, they used pics that the process server took of the home.  The GAL, CPS worker, and our lawyers were all physically inside our actual home but they provided absolutely no pictures of if.  

Evidence Ignored

Even though I told him I could prove her lies to be lies and there were three other people that came to the home and had personal knowledge of the truth, they all conspired together. Our own attorneys and the CPS worker did not say one word even though I requested for the CPS worker to speak and the judge said she would get a turn but the prosecution kept her silent, my husband begged his attorney to speak up and tell the truth but she was afraid of the prosecutor.

CPS Report Suppressed

The CPS worker did not say one word, she refused to go along with the lies of the GAL, but she also did not speak out for the truth or the kids. And after that day, the CPS disappeared and so did her report about our home and family. Her report and any documentation from CPS about the day they came to our home and found danger is also being suppressed. My husband even requested for it in court and the Prosecutor stated that CPS does not document home safety checks.! Blatant lies, as cps documents everything, especially home safety checks. 

CPS Report Disappeared

I have the Preston County CPS supervisor on recording and he says he has Ms. Blake’s report in front of him, and even begins to read from it.  then he states that we need a court order to get this report, he even states that we can have anything in our file but this specific report we needed a court order, but now that the CPS supervisor is dead and that report is gone, and that worker no longer works for the state. Elizabeth Blake MUST be found, she looked absolutely disgusted about what they were doing at the status conference. Are you saying my kids are in danger?” He answered, Yes. I asked how.

Only GAL Testimony Accepted

He simply stated, “Because of the testimony given here today.” It was a status conference!!! The only person is given an opportunity to present “testimony” was the GAL.  The prosecution permitted us to present their witness and “evidence” that they did not provide us with beforehand. Permitted to present lies, without any proof of their claims! Waging an entire trial against us, completely one-sided… as we were expected to still treat it as a status conference.

Not Permitted to Call Witnesses

We were not permitted to call witnesses on our behalf, even though I specifically requested that the cps worker speak, who was sitting in the courtroom. Given no opportunity to cross-examine their witness or to present evidence. We were given no opportunity to defend ourselves in any way! And even though this was merely a status conference, the judge still ordered to remove our kids. And there have been no hearings since…. our kids in limbo. Our rights stripped from us without any court proceeding and the adjudication indefinitely continued.

The judge had his mind made up before we walked into the courtroom. Everyone else knew what was going on, except us. The lies that were told by the GAL could have easily been proven as such. And there were 3 other people in the courtroom who had 1st hand knowledge and knew for a fact that she had lied, and they said nothing!! Our own lawyers knew she was lying and they didn’t say 1 word in court!! We begged him to wait 1 day… 1 hour, for us to get the proof to show everything she claimed as the imminent danger was lies, but he refused.  

Judge Orders Foster Care 

After the Judge ordered to take our kids and put them in foster care, we allegedly did not give them our kids and were arrested for it. We were charged with the same exact crime and count.

Husband Arrested

On October 4th, 2019, my husband was arrested for 6 felony counts of “child concealment”(6 bc we have 6 kids). His bail set at $30,000 and he made a bail agreement, in which he waived his right to a preliminary hearing and agreed to check in once a week at day report and they agreed to reduce his bail to $10,000. I was arrested on October 8th, 2019, and the kids were taken from me that day, and hauled hours away, split up 2 by 2 in diff foster care families.

Unfair Treatment

My bail (the woman who exposed their perverted cop) for the same exact crime, and a number of charges, was set at $120,012. They refused to make any agreements with me, even though I waived my preliminary hearing, and shipped me back to jail. My grandma put her home and several parcels of land up to get me out of jail. I waived my preliminary hearing in exchange for a reduction, but they refused. They made no agreement with me at all. They came to my home, the home that the GAL claimed we were squatters in, and arrested me. They apparently didn’t want anyone to know this and wrote in the newspaper that we were staying in the woods, in a “makeshift teepee” Which was an absolute lie, but obviously, this doesn’t stop the criminals who run Preston County, WV…    

When the cops came to arrest me. When they knocked on our door, I and the kids tried to hide in the attic. After we climbed up into the attic I couldn’t get the attic door to close and it kept making too much noise when I would try. The cops asked for me. And she said I wasn’t there.

Illegal Entry

He told me he had to come in and look. Kyleigh (my 15-year-old) asked the cops if they had a warrant. They responded “Yes” then she asked to see it. And they said no. So She tried to close the door.

Police Attack Child

The cop kicked the door as she was shutting it, and clung her to the ground, busting open her knees. As he was screaming at her, “you watch too much tv you crazy little bitch” And she was screaming, “I’m just a kid! I’m just a kid! Over and over. The cop handcuffed her and slung her onto the couch and left her handcuffed there for a long time. 

10 Days in Jail

I spent 10 days in jail, before being bailed out. And the day after I was bailed out, they took my sister’s 4 kids.

 This is the last day I saw my kids or heard their voices. It has been 1 year and 2 months, and we have been denied any contact with our 6 kids. Which I’m sure has had a huge traumatizing effect on our kids. But they don’t care, they do whatever they want.

Recorded Conversations

 I have multiple recorded conversations with the cps supervisor, where he tells me that cps didn’t want to take our kids. that cps didn’t think our kids were in danger, that they were just following a court order. How are kids taken without the blessing of cps to do so. Without even allowing the only cps worker to ever be in our home or to meet our kids, an opportunity to speak, before removing kids. To allow her report to be suppressed. How is this possible. He also tells me that my kids are doing great in school and are very bright kids. We discuss the cps worker’s report of her visit. He states that he has it, and begins to read from it. I stopped him and said no that is the GAL’s report. I tell him I want to read it for myself and would like copies of my file. He responds you can get your file, but this “particular report, you have to subpoena. “I also have recordings where he calls me the evening before scheduled court dates, for the adjudication hearing, to tell us it is been continued. One time, because the GAL was going out of town for the holidays, one time he didn’t know the reason, and one time bc the judge’s wife was sick. I begged him several times, to offer us services, as I know this is the only way to get my kids back. I say give me any service, whether I need them or not give me all of the services!! I complained for a long time for services to be offered to us. Till, finally in August 2020 (more than a year after this began) they gave me parenting classes. After speaking with us several times, the parenting woman decided that we do not need parenting classes and is going to move on to adult life skills instead. I also complained about MDT meetings for months and months.

The cps supervisor tells me that he cant make the lawyers attend MDT meetings. In January 2020, I believe, we went into court for the adjudication hearing, and it was again continued. But I asked the judge to ensure an MDT be held. He set a date for one but made sure to tell me that if the lawyers are busy, the lawyers are busy. Yet, the law puts a lot of emphasis on MDT meetings and makes it the responsibility of the judge, the prosecutor, and cps to make sure they happen. The law states that MDT meetings are to be held within 30 days of the issuance of the case, and at least once every 3 months until permanency is achieved. The very 1st scheduled MDT was in February 2020; 6 months after the time which the law demands. But we showed up, but they did not. So, the 1st MDT to actually be held was on March 5, 2020; 7 months after the law demands.

We have filed many motions and the judge simply ignores them. I have been motioning for an emergency hearing since this, the judge allowed the emergency hearing to be held. Yet all he did was simply dismiss everything. I stood up and told him about the GALs’ lies (as I have done many times before) and I requested he looks at the proof I had to prove she lied to take our kids. He blatantly refused to even look at the proof…. dismissing it and my motions, and stated that I know Ms. Antolini (the GAL) and I know that she knows what will happen if she lies. Basically saying he blindly believes her, and will not accept anything to prove differently!! I have asked for him to take her off the case, he answers, I find ms Antolini a capable GAL. Every time I speak up and tell the judge about her lies, he gets pissed at me. When I was arrested, the prosecutor then amended the petition again to include that. she also says on the amended petition that the cops who arrested me, said that “there was no food in sight.” But they were only upstairs, no one went to the kitchen. I called each of these cops, and they all said that they never said that. So, I stood up once again and told him that the cops said they never said there wasn’t food. He didn’t care. But the prosecutor stood up, and stated, I didn’t lie, It didn’t say there wasn’t food. It said there was no FOOD INSIGHT.    

Why would this even be presented if no-one said this? Other than to attempt to make the GALs’ lies look less like lies. The judge ignores all of this. But when I call the prosecutor a liar, she instantly gets up and refutes it. But every time I bring up the GALs’ lies, no one stands up to refute it…. because they cant! Even though everyone is aware that the GAL lied and that there was never any imminent danger they still choose to hold our kids hostage! The judge chooses to simply not look at the proof, or acknowledge the truth and allows continuance after continuance leaving me, my husband, and 6 innocent children to suffer!!

    Since October 2019, we have not seen nor spoken with our kids. As the judge has issued a no-contact order with our kids and between us we have never, ever harmed our kids, yet he has issued a no-contact order. This is just malicious and inhumane death would be more humane. And my poor babies, they have always had a mommy and daddy who love them very much, who have always been active in their lives. They were homeschooled and we were always together, a super close-knit family. One day my kids had a loving, mother and father, the next they are completely cut from their lives!! Not even permitted phone calls! They have completely severed our familial bonds, for over a year without reason. Without a court proceeding. WV statute states that no more than 30 days after placing a child in foster care, there must be a permanency hearing for something else they just chose not to do. My innocent children are forced to suffer at the hands of their government, and no-one wants to get involved, no one cares!! The trauma my once happy, fun-loving kids are being forced to endure is severe and will have life long consequences. We have not been given anything about our kids. As if we are no longer their parents! Our 9 and 10-year-old sons were placed in a foster home where they were being abused.

   Shortly after cps supervisor told me my kids are doing great in school, the GAL alleges that my 9 and 10-year-old sons who are not. She even made a comment, that she was going to hold them back!! To justify their malicious shit, she makes my kids suffer even more!! I do not believe this one bit! I think this is yet another one of her lies. But even if it were true, these are the 2 kids completely isolated from everyone and everything they’ve ever known and were physically abused. The Judge ordered that the GAL get our kid’s medical records. I recently just found out that when she received these medical records in November 2019, she also obtained many of my records and information. Documents that show my blood type, my parent’s medical history, including my mother’s psychological issues.

Medications I was prescribed for depression after I had my daughter. This entire year our kids have been in foster care and we have not been informed of anything. We have not been given documents showing our kid’s school performance or medical treatments or medications they have been prescribed. We have not legally lost our parental rights, but in reality, they have been stripped from us. Our daughter, at one time, was thought to have appendicitis, yet we were never made aware of this! She (our 13 years old) was eventually diagnosed with constipation and was given morphine, intravenously, without our consent or even knowledge. They also gave her some kind of scan in which she was shot full of radioactive material…. without our consent or even knowledge of it. Our 16-year-old had a tooth removed and was given hydrocodone 7.5 without our consent or knowledge! Our 9-year-old son has been given depacote and medicine for ADHD, without our consent or even knowledge of!!! We have had no say so in the poisons put in our kid’s bodies, to the point we are finding out about things that have happened to them and what they were given, a year after it happened!  Every time we bring up our kids needing their parents, the GAL or Prosecutor, Anne Armstrong, chimes in and says, “kids are happy.” And just the most recent time she made this statement, app. A month later, we found out that our 14-year-old daughter tried to commit suicide, bc she wants her mommy and daddy, she wants her life back. And when the prosecutor stated that the kids were happy, she knew she had done so, had been harming herself, and had spent 2 weeks in a facility because of it!! We were completely in the dark about it! They have no rules or laws to follow, and because of their abuse of power and position, and total disregard for due process in the best interests of our kids, our family, especially our kids are suffering.

     I stood up and said, we still have our parental rights, don’t we, so they have to give us that stuff. He responded, “No, your parental rights are suspended.” There have been absolutely no attempts to reunify our family. They took our kids and ensured no contact or connection what so ever. They are simply trying to make our kids forget about us! Rather than having hearings, or acknowledging the truth. Intentionally continuing our hearing over and over and over again to ensure we do not get a final order that we can appeal. We are good parents and we have a strong and eternally bonded family unit, my kids will never forget us!! They will never forget the amazing family we have. We have repeatedly requested that the judge speak to our kids, especially our 16 and 14-year-olds. 

     We have protested in DC and in front of the courthouse, the GAL took pics and then amended the petition to add to our protest and presented pics of our signs. Which really pissed the judge off. He tells us we are not allowed to protest or talk about our case with anyone with the threat of jail! They are taking the secrecy of these types of cases, as they are meant to protect children who are really abused, and using it to hide their crimes against American families. They are manipulating the law and system to hide their criminal enterprise. Abusing their power and positions to strip people of their constitutionally protected rights. On our protest signs, we wrote: “My kids are not currency for your federal funding “Anne Armstrong (prosecutor) “state-sanctioned kidnapper” and “Kristen Antolini (GAL) Molestor of children’s rights” This really pissed off the GAL, she began saying things in front of and/or to my kids. She told them that their mom is crazy. That their mom is a whore. And that their parents are really bad, they just don’t realize it. She also told them that she hates their parents and she will make sure we never see them again which has proven to be so. She is intentionally, emotionally and psychologically abusing my kids. These people, especially the GAL are monsters. And is capable of anything, and she remains over the interests of my children. I question her character, her ability to be a GAL to any child, I question her sanity and sobriety. She has never expressed the wishes of my kids, which is her job. If her recommendations differ from the wishes of the kids, she is supposed to request a 2nd GAL be appointed, Something that has never been done!

  In October, it was ordered that the Judge was going to have an on-camera interview with our kids. A year after being taken, the Judge was finally going to speak to our kids. But we found out that they didn’t do this in-camera interview, instead, they drove our kids hours to the courtroom, and had a secret meeting with the Judge. In which the Judge, cps worker, prosecutor, and GAL were all present. I have requested numerous times to be able to obtain transcripts of this meeting with my kids, and the judge denies us access to them. Then in emails with GAL, she states that there is no record of the meeting. This is absolutely shocking. That the people who hold position and title in Preston County, WV are permitted to be criminals, and no one cares, because they are who they are. These criminals must be held accountable, as our 6 kids and I’m sure many others are suffering at their hands. They are trafficking kids for money and leaving the parents and their children, and their once happy family left in the rubble. They are not conscious and they have no respect for the laws they are entrusted with upholding. Just a cowboy with a gavel, as the rogue judges, and other officials, wreak havoc and destroy families, deprive the citizens of their constitutional rights and to due process!! And if there is no one to care for, these families, these children will continue to suffer devastating fates.

Over 100 Families

Over 100 families have come forward from Preston County, West Virginia alone who has or had children that were taken and nobody has any court orders on it. Some of the children have not been seen or heard from in years and they do not know if their children are alive or dead.

The post Judge Takes Family’s Home and Children Removed at Gunpoint After GAL Admits to Lying appeared first on Fighter Cries.

REUTERS ILLUSTRATION/Jason Schneider

Secretive and cozy judicial oversight systems enable judges to subvert accountability in many states. Exhibit A: Oklahoma, where not a single judge was publicly disciplined in 14 years. When the state finally did charge a judge with wrongdoing, he was allowed to resign, his record pristine and his pension intact.

By MICHAEL BERENS and JOHN SHIFFMAN in BARTLESVILLE, OKLAHOMA

Filed July 9, 2020, 10 a.m. GMT

District Court Judge Curtis DeLapp was renowned for his hair-trigger temper. Mispronounce his name, come to court a few seconds late, fail to rise as quickly as he’d like – no slight was too small to set him off.

For almost a dozen years, DeLapp used his power to terrify people who appeared before him, pressing contempt charges against defense attorneys, prosecutors and even a prospective juror who brought children to court when she couldn’t find daycare, court records show.

Another juror was fined $340.70 after she objected to how DeLapp was treating people who appeared before him. “I never want to be a juror or ever go back to court again,” said Carolyn Duffey Love, now 68. “He treated me like a dog.”

In 2015, DeLapp grew incensed when he learned someone had dropped sunflower seeds in his courtroom, according to witnesses. After scouring footage from a courtroom security camera, the judge summoned a spectator to his chambers, charged her with contempt and ordered her jailed for four days.

Local attorneys had grown convinced that DeLapp was violating the state’s judicial conduct code by abusing his authority. But they felt it would be futile to file a complaint with the Oklahoma agency that investigates judicial misconduct, because the state hadn’t filed charges against a judge for misconduct since 2004. The lawyers also say they worried that crossing DeLapp risked retaliation against both them and their clients.

Not until 2018 – after DeLapp sentenced courtroom spectator Randa Ludlow to nearly six months in jail for talking to her boyfriend during court – did local lawyers find the courage to act.

They enlisted a lawyer from 50 miles away who seldom practiced in DeLapp’s courtroom. And they worked collectively to build a voluminous complaint alleging that DeLapp had unlawfully jailed not just Ludlow but also many dozens of people in the prior two years alone. The complaint also contained an explosive charge: that the judge may have fabricated a court document to justify jailing Ludlow. 

Had DeLapp fought the charges, he risked more than disgrace. If it could be proved that he submitted a forged document to the supreme court, he might land in prison.

Instead, DeLapp, 53, struck a deal. He resigned and agreed never again to seek office as a judge. The case against him was dismissed. His state pension and law license remained intact. And DeLapp received a written assurance that neither his departure nor the settlement constituted an admission to the “validity of any of the allegations.”

In leaving the bench, DeLapp became one of at least 341 judges across the United States to escape punishment or further investigation in the past dozen years by resigning or retiring amid misconduct allegations, Reuters found.

DeLapp, who is still practicing law in Bartlesville, declined to comment. In court documents, his attorney said the former judge denies any wrongdoing.

The DeLapp case shines a light on one of the most opaque and dormant judicial disciplinary systems in America. In Oklahoma, repercussions for wrongdoing have been so unlikely that judges could behave with impunity.

Although each U.S. state has a judicial oversight agency to screen and investigate misconduct complaints, their powers are often limited. In most states, the ultimate disciplinary authority over a judge rests with other judges.

In Oklahoma, the chief justice wields enormous discretion over judicial misconduct cases. After the state’s Council on Judicial Complaints completes a confidential investigation of a complaint about a judge, the chief justice has the power to handle discipline privately – except in rare cases serious enough to justify removing the accused judge from the bench.

During their tenures, two former state supreme court chief justices told Reuters, about one or two wayward judges a year were quietly summoned to the supreme court. There, they received a tongue-lashing behind the closed doors of the chief justice’s chambers. No official record was kept of those meetings, the justices said.

As former Chief Justice Joseph Watt put it: “I’d much rather woodshed my brethren in private and not in public.” He added: “How does that judge feel, knowing he’s being taken to the woodshed in front of God and everybody?”

Confidential justice for judges is common in America. At least 38 states – Oklahoma among them – issue private sanctions when judges misbehave. The name of the judge remains secret, and most of these states keep from the public details of the transgression and the discipline. At a minimum, most states release summary statistics of how many judges are privately disciplined each year. Oklahoma doesn’t make that information public.

This practice – law professor Stephen Gillers calls it “judges judging judges” – undermines the system’s ability to prevent misconduct on the bench.

Gillers said the killing of George Floyd, the Black man who died in May under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, has fueled concerns about how judicial misconduct is handled, too. “The public has been alerted as it never has been before to the way police misconduct is concealed,” said Gillers. “The same is true for judges.”

When judges are the ones evaluating misconduct by other judges, they “tend to be more sympathetic, more understanding, more forgiving” to their own, said Gillers, a scholar on judicial ethics who teaches at New York University.

Privacy also robs the system of a deterrent effect: Concealing the punishment fails to discourage bad conduct by other judges, who may never learn of the consequences, Gillers and other ethicists say.

That’s precisely the dynamic that played out in Oklahoma, local lawyers say. Until Chief Justice Douglas Combs petitioned for DeLapp’s removal, Oklahoma hadn’t publicly filed misconduct charges against a judge in 14 years – the longest stretch of inaction of any state in recent decades.

In its investigation into judicial misconduct across America, Reuters sought to quantify the personal toll inflicted by judges who break the law or violate their sworn oaths. Over a dozen years, Reuters found at least 5,206 people who were directly affected by a judge’s misconduct. The victims ranged from individuals who were subjected to racist, sexist and other abusive comments from judges to those illegally jailed.

“This is a broken system that absolutely empowered judges like DeLapp to operate with impunity,” said Josh Lee, the out-of-town attorney who led the effort to rein in DeLapp. “For more than a decade, not a single judge was publicly disciplined. What kind of message does that send?” Lee said that DeLapp “had no reason to fear that anyone would stop him.”

Masking misconduct

The state of Washington is among a dozen states that handle judicial discipline more openly.

In 1989, Washington voters abolished the practice of private sanctions. Since then, every case brought against a judge by the Washington judicial conduct commission is made public. Reiko Callner, the commission’s executive director, said judges should be treated the same as anyone who appears before them.

“The norm is that anything that happens in a court has the name of the participants on it – the names of a criminal defendant, the crime victim, people involved in a lawsuit,” Callner said. “Why should a judge who has been found to have violated the code that governs their conduct be allowed to keep that fact from the public?”

Many state commissions say there are sound reasons to discipline judges privately. “It’s quick, it’s inexpensive and you don’t have to hold a public hearing,” said Cynthia Gray, director of the Center for Judicial Ethics at the National Center for State Courts, an independent nonprofit research and training organization.

Often, Gray said, states see benefits to keeping matters confidential. “If it’s one-time, minor misconduct by a judge, and the judge shows remorse, you can issue a private sanction or letter and then move on,” she said. That means commissions can focus “on the judges who are out there committing patterns of misconduct and are fighting every step of the way.”

Still, a Reuters investigation found that private discipline has been used to mask significant violations of the law. For example, in 2018, state records show, a Texas judge failed to “maintain professional competence” and illegally jailed indigent defendants. And in 2017, a California judge engaged in sexual harassment and showed a “lack of candor” when accused of misconduct, records show. Neither their names nor their punishments have been made public.

In Colorado, the judicial commission has publicly disciplined four judges since 2008 but has privately sanctioned 52. Among those whose names and other identifying information remain hidden from the public: judges disciplined for sexual harassment, for drunken driving, for delayed rulings, and for demonstrating a “pattern of errors in handling trials or issuing rulings that indicate a lack of competence.”

Granting anonymity to rogue judges is routine.

A Reuters examination of judicial misconduct nationally identified 3,613 cases from 2008 through 2018 in which states disciplined judges in private, withholding from the public details of their offenses – including the identities of the judges themselves.

Over the same period, 26 state oversight councils resolved more judicial misconduct cases privately than publicly, the news agency found. In Massachusetts, for instance, reviews of judicial conduct commission annual reports show that about 9 in 10 judges disciplined were privately sanctioned.

Some judicial oversight agencies take their independence and secrecy to extremes.

California’s oversight agency went to court to try to prevent an audit of its records, a review that ultimately discovered sloppy investigations of judges. In Illinois, the agency misplaced or lost hundreds of complaints, which have not been recovered or investigated.

Kathy Twine, who directs the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, declined to comment on the lost files. Twine also would not provide routine complaint and investigation statistics to Reuters – statistics disclosed to the news agency by almost every other state. “We’re like an island,” the official said. “We don’t have to disclose anything.”

A comparison between Oklahoma and a state of similar size highlights the discrepancies in how judges are treated.

From mid-2004 to mid-2018, Oklahoma did not file misconduct charges against any of its 600 judges, Reuters found. By contrast, the state of Mississippi – with virtually the same code of judicial conduct and almost the same number of judges – publicly sanctioned 75 judges in the same period.

“I’m sure every state would like to think it has a judiciary that is above reproach, but every profession’s going to have a few bad apples,” said Darlene Ballard, who retired last week as director of the Mississippi commission. “It sounds like other states like to keep their problems in-house so that it appears to the public that they don’t have any bad judges.”

Steve Scheckman, who investigated misconduct cases in Louisiana and New York, said states that report so few cases are failing in their primary mission: to defend, before the public, the integrity of the justice system.

“To think that there’s no misconduct in your state, you’re either really naive, in denial or protecting people,” he said.

Former Oklahoma Justice Steven Taylor disputes such characterizations. Taylor, who served on the state’s top court from 2004 through 2016, said he was proud that the state had so few cases of public discipline. To him, the small number of cases doesn’t demonstrate weak oversight. It shows “a judiciary in Oklahoma that is ethical, doing their work and highly disciplined.”

“If we had 60 or 70 cases, I would be ashamed or embarrassed,” Taylor said.

As chief justice in 2011 and 2012, Taylor recalled, he visited the Washington County courthouse in Bartlesville, where he met Judge DeLapp and others. Taylor said no one mentioned any concerns about how DeLapp ran his courtroom.

But Reuters identified scores of contempt charges issued by DeLapp in traffic and other cases before, during and after Taylor’s time leading the bench. Some dated back a decade. In 2008, for instance, DeLapp charged a defendant with contempt for “being vocal” after the man protested because he had “no money to pay towards his fines & court costs,” according to a court record.

“To think that there’s no misconduct in your state, you’re either really naive, in denial or protecting people.”Steve Scheckman, who formerly investigated misconduct cases and now represents accused judges

Taylor said he was “extremely disappointed” when he heard in 2018 that DeLapp had acted so inappropriately for so many years. He also was surprised that lawyers had remained silent for so long.

“Why didn’t someone report this?” the former justice asked.

The local lawyers who kept quiet for years offer a simple answer, rooted in the state’s desire to keep judicial misconduct secret: An unchecked judge has the ability to cow his community.David Sachar, director of the Arkansas Judicial Discipline & Disability Commission: Without transparency, the public sees “a whitewash.”

In Bartlesville, the Washington County seat, four judges hear criminal and civil cases, with traffic infractions representing the bulk. The city of 36,000 is an hour north of Tulsa. The courthouse is convenient for visitors, who park for free just steps from the entrance. It also is an easy place for a judge to escape scrutiny.

That’s because in Washington County and thousands of other courtrooms nationally, there is no requirement to record or transcribe most proceedings. Employing a stenographer or recording the proceedings is considered too expensive and largely unnecessary for the assembly-line pace of misdemeanor cases that make up most of the court’s business.

This lack of an official and detailed record posed an obstacle to the local attorneys alarmed by DeLapp’s behavior. Absent transcripts or recordings to corroborate their concerns, six lawyers told Reuters, they worried that a complaint alleging misconduct would come down to their word against the judge’s.

The local lawyers say they felt vulnerable to reprisal. DeLapp wielded authority to appoint attorneys to cases involving indigent defendants. They say the per diem pay for this work made the difference for some lawyers between insolvency and eking out a living.

That explanation bothers Taylor, the former state high court justice. “It’s sad that the lawyers were intimidated,” Taylor said. “Part of the hallmark of being a lawyer is speaking truth to power. They should have spoken up.”

But many of those lawyers say they weren’t simply concerned about themselves. They worried that, if DeLapp got wind of a complaint, he might take it out on defendants as well. “It’s not just your livelihood at stake. It’s also clients,” said defense attorney Marty Meason, who practiced before DeLapp and once ran unsuccessfully against him for district judge. “Nobody wanted to take on the system.”

That changed in early 2018, when DeLapp ordered Randa Ludlow jailed for five months and 27 days in jail. Her alleged offense: talking during court with her boyfriend, a traffic defendant. Ludlow declined to comment.

The sentence seemed outlandish to Meason and other lawyers who had questioned DeLapp’s behavior for years. They suspected DeLapp broke the law by failing to afford Ludlow a hearing to challenge the contempt order, violating a basic constitutional right. They also believed he’d failed to properly document his reasons for jailing her. Whether DeLapp followed proper procedure in punishing Ludlow would become a key component in the misconduct complaint against him.

A few days after Ludlow was jailed, the lawyers decided to reach out to Lee, an attorney whose office was about an hour’s drive from Bartlesville – and thus had less to fear because he didn’t regularly appear before DeLapp.

Lee remembers the call his firm received from a Washington County lawyer. The message was clear: You have to help us stop this judge.

“Everyone feared retaliation,” Lee said. “I worked far enough away that I might be safe. Plus, I was the only one crazy enough to do it.”

A disputed document

About seven weeks after DeLapp had jailed Ludlow for contempt, Lee sought her release by filing a writ of habeas corpus with the state supreme court challenging her detention. The high court quickly heard the case in Oklahoma City.

At the hearing, DeLapp told the court that he had been unable to locate the specific document legally necessary to jail Ludlow. In the document, called a Contempt Court Minute, judges must lay out the rationale for the order. The document must also be time stamped and signed.

Shortly after the supreme court hearing, DeLapp notified the high court that he had located the missing record. Nonetheless, the high court voided DeLapp’s contempt order, and Ludlow was immediately released.

The case as it related to Ludlow was over. But now, Lee had grown suspicious of DeLapp, in particular the judge’s claim that he had so quickly located the missing Contempt Court Minute he used to justify jailing Ludlow. When DeLapp produced the missing Contempt Court Minute, the document seemed odd, Lee recalled.

It included a stamp that made no sense. It was dated two days before DeLapp claimed to have created the document. In other words, it appeared to be backdated, and poorly at that.

Lee wondered: Had DeLapp fabricated the document because one had never been filed in the first place? In late March, Lee received a call from Meason, the Bartlesville attorney who was quietly helping him build a misconduct case against DeLapp and harbored similar suspicions.

“I found the evidence,” Meason recalled telling Lee. “We’ve got him.”

DeLapp, Meason explained, had often used security cameras to monitor the conduct of people in the courthouse. He had used footage from one camera to identify the sloppy sunflower-seed eater.

There was also a security camera in the clerk’s office. Playing a hunch, Meason went to the sheriff’s office and requested a copy of weeks of video beginning in February 2018. To his surprise, he said, a staffer quickly handed over the footage on a flash drive.

Reuters reviewed the video, which has never been made public. It shows DeLapp leaving the clerk’s office with files. A clerk then leaves her desk. She returns later with what appears to be a single-page document. The clerk examines the page, then stamps it in two places.

Meason and Lee say they were convinced that the document shown on the security tape was the same Contempt Court Minute that DeLapp submitted later that day to the high court. The footage, they believe, showed the clerk backdating the document, apparently to make it look as though it had been filed at the time DeLapp issued his contempt order.

Lee submitted a 44-page complaint against DeLapp with the state judicial council, characterizing the contempt document as “suspect at best.” Meason mailed a copy of the unabridged footage to the oversight council. Lee captured key frames and created a video presentation, which he also submitted. “I wanted to make it simple for them,” Lee said.SECURITY FOOTAGE: Lawyer Josh Lee used frame grabs from security camera footage from inside the Washington County clerk’s office to build this presentation alleging that Judge Curtis DeLapp committed misconduct.

The state’s judicial council investigated Lee’s complaint about DeLapp. According to council director Taylor Henderson, the matter was then forwarded to Chief Justice Combs with a recommendation that DeLapp be removed from office. The council director declined further comment but records show that a short while later, Combs moved to oust DeLapp, publicly filing a 20-page petition with the Court of Judiciary, the nine-member tribunal that has the authority to remove judges.

In the petition, the chief justice accused DeLapp of “gross neglect of duty,” “oppression in office” and “complete disregard” for the law. The justice also criticized DeLapp for abusing his judicial power and declared him unfit for office.

“I’m sure every state would like to think it has a judiciary that is above reproach, but every profession’s going to have a few bad apples.”Darlene Ballard, former director of Mississippi’s judicial oversight commission

In a section titled “Falsified Court Documents and Misrepresentation,” Combs chastised DeLapp for “gross misrepresentation” of the contempt of court document. If DeLapp created the document and pretended it was “newly discovered,” it may have constituted “a grossly intentional misrepresentation to the Oklahoma Supreme Court” – one that could be construed as a felony.

This was not the first time that DeLapp had failed to properly file a contempt of court document, then produced it after the fact, Combs concluded. In the 2015 case of a woman jailed for eating sunflower seeds in court, DeLapp waited more than two years before he “drafted” a required sentencing order. DeLapp filed the missing document “only after” his misuse of contempt powers came to light in 2018 in the Ludlow case, Combs wrote.

Combs detailed more allegations against DeLapp. One involved a father and son who became lost in the hallway of DeLapp’s courthouse. The boy asked DeLapp for directions to another courtroom, and the judge yelled at him, according to witnesses. DeLapp threatened that if the boy couldn’t find his way, “he could sit his ass in jail,” Combs wrote.

And the chief justice cited evidence that DeLapp had inappropriately contacted the county attorney’s office about a deferred prosecution agreement for DeLapp’s son, who was charged with traffic violations.

Rather than fight the misconduct allegations, DeLapp resigned without admitting to any wrongdoing.

Not every state is forgiving of judges facing misconduct charges who opt to resign. California, Texas and a dozen other states have pursued disciplinary cases and impose sanctions even after judges leave the bench.

West Virginia is among them. On average, West Virginia disciplines about four or five judges each year. Often, one or two of these cases involves a judge who resigned during a misconduct investigation, said Teresa Tarr, counsel for the state’s judicial oversight commission.

“It would be very easy for us to dismiss cases if they resign,” Tarr said. “I think the right thing to do is to hold them accountable, because it gives the public the understanding that the judiciary as a whole is not going to tolerate misbehavior. It also lets the other judges know what’s acceptable conduct and what’s not.”

Not so in Oklahoma, where the focus is on protecting the judge, not informing the public. “We want to try to self-police,” said Watt, the former chief justice. Handling matters informally is “the best way to take care of” wayward judges, “and not drag them through the mud.”

Settlement agreements like the one Oklahoma approved for DeLapp do more than permit accused judges to walk away without admitting guilt. When an accused judge leaves the bench, the commission’s investigation into misdeeds ends – even if other wrongdoing is suspected. 

Because state judicial investigations are sealed, the public is left to wonder about a judge’s culpability. Potential victims of misconduct may go undiscovered. And commission officials are prohibited from discussing cases under penalty of law. That silence can empower an accused judge to declare his or her innocence without citizens ever knowing the facts of the case.

DeLapp resigned to preserve his livelihood, his wife posted on Facebook. “He could’ve fought it, which he wanted too [sic] but did not want to risk losing his retirement, pension, Bar license, etc.,” she wrote.

In one of his last acts as a judge, DeLapp issued a statement in which he praised his judicial accomplishments and said he was leaving the bench with “a heavy heart but clear conscience.”

Judges who were publicly disciplined – and what they did

In the first comprehensive accounting of judicial misconduct nationally, Reuters reviewed 1,509 cases from the last dozen years – 2008 through 2019 – in which state or local judges resigned, retired or were publicly disciplined following accusations of misconduct. Explore judges in your STATE by using the drop down menu on the left. Or, to find a specific judge, type in the judge’s LAST NAME. To read official records about the judge’s conduct, click on a judge’s name.

FIND JUDGES BY STATE

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The Teflon Robe

By Michael Berens and John Shiffman

Contributing reporting: Andrea Januta and Caroline Monahan                

Data: Michael Berens, John Shiffman and Isabella Jibilian

Graphic: Matthew Weber

Photo editing: Corinne Perkins

Video: Craig Hettich

Design: Troy Dunkley and Pete Hausler

Edited by Blake Morrison 

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