Bandy X. Lee's Blog, page 5

Can an Attempted Murderer ‘Preside’ over a Restraining Order against Her Own Accomplice?

Jane Gallina-Mecca’s Gall Never Ends, but Her End is Coming

“Judge” Jane Gallina-Mecca is no ordinary attempted murderer; she is a documented serial murderer, who has facilitated the brutal murders of multiple domestic violence victims whose children she also destroyed. Yet, she knows that no criminal charges can be brought against her, as long as she operates under a guise of “judicial immunity.” Of course, immunity is not supposed to cover criminal deeds, but she has honed her “skills” of squeezing in all manner of felony crimes and acts of brutality under her “judicial” canopy and burying them under “legalese” — after all, this is her “profession”! Luckily for her, in the so-called “Family Courts,” where there is total secrecy, no accountability, and unlimited discretion, it does not take genius to do so. Indeed, it is truly ironic that society has set up conditions for the most heinous criminals to congregate as “judges” to preside over (i.e., prey upon) the most vulnerable members of society.

In following the case of my sister, Patricia Lee, I have examined intimately how a “judge” may facilitate the kidnappings, torture, and attempted murders of innocent children and the adults who try to protect them. As a forensic psychiatrist who has studied human violence for twenty-five years, I am no stranger to the behavior of criminals who, when caught in the criminal act, do not correct their behavior but attempt to eliminate witnesses. Currently, Patricia Lee is a witness of Gallina-Mecca’s felony crimes, and thus Gallina-Mecca has reinserted herself to “preside” over a restraining order against her own accomplice. There is great incentive for Gallina-Mecca to eliminate my sister, since, even though Gallina-Mecca has extended her illegal gag order beyond the end of Patricia Lee’s divorce, the revelation of her crimes is only a matter of time.

Gallina-Mecca co-conspired with her violent ex-husband, Alan T. Chan, from the very beginning. The post-separation period is when victims of domestic violence are at the greatest risk of being murdered, and Gallina-Mecca acted in every way as Alan T. Chan’s hired hitwoman. I was present when she authorized a violent police raid, for no reason other than to attempt to murder Patricia Lee, within hours of her reporting to the Court her life-threatening medical emergency. The false excuse for the raid was that Patricia Lee was supposedly “absconding” with her children, but it was the weekend she was specifically assigned to have them by the guardian ad litem and agreed to by Alan T. Chan himself! The police detective instantly dropped the charges against Patricia Lee once the false pretext was exposed, but Gallina-Mecca continued to push her false narrative to keep the mother away from her children, against all evidence, so that Alan T. Chan could actually kidnap and isolate them!

Every outside agent Gallina-Mecca employed turned out to be either criminal or fraudulent: (a) the “children’s therapist” Gallina-Mecca mandated for the children was removed by her licensing board for abusing them; (b) the sole “expert” report Gallina-Mecca honored, by the Center for Evaluation and Counseling, turned out to be by an unlicensed and unqualified “associate counselor”; (c) the school principal Gallina-Mecca used, via secret court orders, to entrap and arrest medical doctors attempting to report child abuse, has been disgraced and demoted; (d) the pediatrician Gallina-Mecca enlisted, to fabricate medical records that the children were doing “glowingly” well under Alan T. Chan, has been criminally indicted; and (e) the “guardian ad litem” Gallina-Mecca relied on, for the illegal transfer of custody to Alan T. Chan, turned out to have lied and perjured in court six hundred (600) documented times — and is under prosecutor review for felony crimes!

Patricia Lee’s latest attempt at an emergency appeal follows, but the fact that no amount of true, life-threatening emergency would ever allow an Appellate Division to hold Chief Judge of Family Court accountable (especially when half the Appellate Court is her cronies), partly reveals how 60,000 children every year are trafficked to their rape, torture, battery, and murder through the Family Courts. Meanwhile, the parents — usually mothers — who try to protect their children are usually the only ones persecuted and prosecuted through judicial abuses, until they actually die.

Application for Permission to File Emergent Motion

What is the nature of the emergency?

[Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca], who has consistently acted in ways that assist my documented violent abuser, [Alan T. Chan], to continue his violence and attempts to murder me, is now insisting on taking over my temporary restraining order (TRO) case against him, so that my protection will be removed. She canceled a TRO against him once before, which resulted in his kidnapping my two (2) children, my suffering eight (8) medically-documented near-death episodes that included one (1) intensive care unit admission, and my currently being paralyzed from the waist down.

What is the irreparable harm, and when do you expect the harm to occur?

The irreparable harm is my imminent death, as numerous treating physicians and medical expert witnesses have attested to. There is extreme incentive, as [Judge Gallina-Mecca] allowed a documented abuser [Alan T. Chan], who nearly killed both his children by head injury, to kidnap them and hold them hostage, in order to claim all marital assets, as well as aim for the house ($1.3 million) and my life insurance ($1 million). This is consistent with [Judge Gallina-Mecca] ordering me to keep my life insurance even after my divorce, while facilitating my “medical” demise, as she has permitted Alan T. Chan to use agents to seize the house over his TRO.

What relief do you seek?

Removal of [Judge Gallina-Mecca] from all proceedings and a change of venue. The Judge is under a Motion to Recuse, a federal lawsuit, a complaint to the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct, prosecutor review, and an impeachment petition, in which I participated for the irreparable injuries she has already caused me. I am also in a documentary and in two (2) books about her that are soon to be published. She is simply too conflicted, biased, personally involved, and furious with me to be an impartial arbiter in any proceeding. Her involvement would simply be to carry out her personal vendetta against me.

Have you filed for a stay before the trial court or agency?

Yes. None are ever addressed, no matter how many I file, since the incentive to protect [the innocent] is not there. Only the extreme opposite, or the incentive to harm, because of my daring to demand justice of an unjust court [and to interfere with the Judge’s and Alan T. Chan’s plans for financial profiting through the illegal kidnap of my children].

If you did not immediately seek a stay from the trial court or agency, or if you did not immediately file this application with the Appellate Division after the trial court or agency denied your stay application, explain the reasons for the delay.

This is a new motion, based on new attempts by [Judge Gallina-Mecca] to retain control over all my cases, since her extreme violations and endangerment of lives are certain to leave any reasonable observer aghast. She has kept her misconduct from scrutiny through an illegally-issued Sealing Order, threats and intimidation against my attorneys, retaliation against my witnesses, and replacement of other judges (once, she canceled an already-scheduled judge to force in her crony, who was not even available until last minute; on another occasion, she herself returned from vacation to ensure that no one else would hear my case).

What is the essence of the order, judgment or agency decision?

The decision lays down a predictable path for [Judge Gallina-Mecca] to cancel a temporary restraining order (TRO) against her favored litigant [Alan T. Chan], which was issued by another judge. [Her] decisions are all predetermined to favor Alan T. Chan, no matter how injurious, violent, and murderous he becomes. No amount of proven criminality on his part, or his financial incentives and history of financial fraud — reaching millions of dollars in fines and federal sanctions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — has caused [Judge Gallina-Mecca] to change her mind. She throws temper outbursts when facts and evidence do not match her preferred world view [that favors Alan T. Chan], and expresses visible pleasure at the suffering of domestic violence victims — and apparently, at least six (6) are reported to have been murdered under her watch.

Has any aspect of this matter been presented to or considered by another judge or part of the Appellate Division by emergent application or prior appeal proceedings?

Yes. The Appellate Division has been unresponsive, even rebuking at times of my supposedly “frivolous” filings. Yet, my life continues to be at risk, and the dangers are only escalating. A foremost constitutional scholar has advised that this may be a sign that the New Jersey court system is irredeemably corrupt.

Please give a brief summary of your case.

A Motion to Recuse has been filed, followed by a Notice of Withdrawal requesting all proceedings to be removed from [Judge Gallina-Mecca] until her Motion to Recuse could be heard. Nevertheless, [she] reinserted herself in a new motion as well as a new temporary restraining order (TRO) case, in order to control the outcome and to ensure the protection of a [violent criminal, Alan T. Chan,] she has been shielding from prosecution for the last four-and-a-half (4.5) years. The reason my life is endangered, and I almost died eight (8) medically-documented times under her watch, is because Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca is not presiding over a divorce but using the excuse to grant a violent criminal and financial fraudster everything he desires. What she gave Alan T. Chan is what I deserved: full, sole custody of my children, child support, alimony, and penalties for his litigation fraud. Instead, in order to reverse victim and offender and to reward him with all that I was due, she struck down my pleading for supposedly “contumacious” behavior — namely, seeking justice — and blocked me from access to all court documents, including motions filed against me and secret court orders that were used to suppress evidence and to retaliate against witnesses. All the facts, evidence, and witnesses support my side. Yet, [Judge Gallina-Mecca] negated six (6) reports by highly-qualified medical experts declaring the plaintiff a dangerous psychopath who should not have my children, and ten (10) reports by highly-respected psychiatric experts unanimously stating that I have “excellent mental health” and “exceptional talent in parenting.” [Judge Gallina-Mecca] even suppressed her own appointed guardian ad litem’s report that I am fully mentally competent, in order to push ahead with her committed agenda to railroad me. She accepted six hundred (600) documented lies and perjury by her favored court appointee, Evelyn Nissirios, and over one thousand (1000) documented acts of perjury by [Alan T. Chan], as fact, to strip me of everything, including my life. She was deemed to be mentally unfit by experts, but nothing has been done.

*Please join our effort to impeach Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca . We are now moving ahead with the articles of impeachment, and are collecting affidavits! If you have an affidavit to contribute, please write to: bandy@bandylee.com .

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A Lack of Transparency Leads to a Lack of Accountability in Family Court

Murder and Mayhem are Par for the Course — and will Remain So as Long as Family Courts are Allowed Secrecy

tone deaf to human suffering, indifferent to the loss of lives

Our Challenge to the Ban on Naming Sara Sharif Judges was Always about Scrutiny, Not Blame

Light must be shed on the vital life-changing decisions that are made behind closed doors in Britain’s family courts

Louise Tickle and Hannah Summers

26 Jan 2025

In the wood-panelled courtroom, with low winter light filtering through high windows, our barrister sat down after making his final submissions, and Mr Justice Williams began to speak. It had taken us 14 months to reach this moment at the Royal Courts of Justice, to hear the high court judge’s decision on our application for disclosure of confidential documents in three sets of family court proceedings relating to the murdered schoolgirl Sara Sharif — and whether we would be allowed to publish the information they contained.

And for a few minutes, from a press freedom perspective, it seemed that things were going well: Williams gave what we believe is unprecedented permission for disclosure of dozens of documents.

And then he dropped a bombshell: none of the three judges who had made decisions about the Sharif children’s safety and welfare could be named. Two of them had made single, urgent protective orders; the third had presided over most of the proceedings, and made the final order placing the children with their father, Urfan Sharif, and stepmother, Beinash Batool, who went on to murder Sara.

It is a cornerstone of open justice that the names of judges — from magistrates up to supreme court justices — are known to the public in respect of the weighty and life-changing decisions they make. Their powers are derived from us, through laws enacted by parliament, and exercised on behalf of us all. And despite hearing cases behind closed doors, family courts are no exception to this principle: it is children whose privacy the law protects, not professionals. And this includes — well, had always included up to that moment — the judges. We looked at each other, appalled. Our barrister, Chris Barnes, who had represented us pro bono for more than a year and whose advocacy had been pivotal in securing the reporting permissions, glanced round at us, his eyebrows raised. No application for anonymity had been made by the judges. No evidence of a threat had been put before the court. Throughout many hearings regarding the media’s wish to scrutinise and publish information relating to a case of high public interest, and at a point when murder convictions in the criminal trial looked almost certain, there had been no mention of anonymising the family court judges. Not that day. Not ever.

In fact, their names could have been lawfully published at any time up to that point. We raised objections. Williams maintained his order. Within hours, we asked for leave to appeal against his decision. He did not grant it, saying instead we had to wait for his judgment with full reasons for him imposing the ban, and giving us no date for when this might land. It was now evening on Friday 13 December. We had no option but to go over his head and ask the court of appeal.

By the Monday, we had lodged our application. By Thursday, we had been granted permission to appeal by the master of the rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos. And he had grasped the urgency: a hearing was listed to take place on 14 and 15 January. Williams, on holiday, was asked to expedite his judgment, and did. And then the second bombshell dropped. In his judgment, Williams publicly branded our journalism as unfair, inaccurate and irresponsible after we reported in this newspaper that he had “refused” us permission to appeal. Now, as well as the ability to scrutinise the judges at the apex of the child protection processes which had led to Sara Sharif being placed with those who would go on to murder her, our hard-won reputations as responsible reporters on the family justice system were on the line too. As freelancers in respect of our work on this case, we are hugely grateful to Tortoise Media and Law for Change for support with the costs of bringing this challenge to what we believed was an unlawful ban on freedom of expression. On 14 January, we arrived at court hopeful but apprehensive. Ten days later, on Friday, the judgment was handed down. We had won — on all three of the grounds on which we had appealed.

Three court of appeal judges ruled that Williams did not have the power to order that the judges should not be named, and agreed with us that the process he had undertaken in making that decision had been procedurally irregular. Furthermore, they said that he had been “inappropriate” and “unfair” to us personally, and to the media in general.

This is important, not just to us, but because, as our barrister stated, press organisations do not expect to have their reporters’ integrity questioned when they turn up to do their job in court; the negative comments about us and the wider media were not ones Williams was entitled to make. It is an approach that flies in the face of serious and sustained efforts by the senior judiciary to encourage more journalists to attend family courts, and could not sit more uncomfortably with the full rollout of the successful “reporting pilot” to all family courts in England and Wales on Monday. This switches the presumption against journalists being able to report on what takes place in family courts, so that subject to strict anonymity rules, they can.

If Williams’ criticism of us had not been addressed, it could have had a chilling effect on our ability to face down future challenges when seeking disclosure and publication permissions in crucial public interest cases — creating a disservice to the public understanding of the decisions taking place behind closed doors for tens of thousands of families across the land.

In stinging language not often seen in a judgment, Vos went on: “The mistake the judge made was to think that he could properly trawl through his own experiences to create a case for anonymising the judges. He should not have done so. Courts operate on the basis of the law and the evidence, not on the basis of judicial speculation and anecdote… In short, the judge’s judgment demonstrates, to put the matter moderately, that he got carried away.”

The key function of a judge is to be fair, not to speculate, and in particular not to get “carried away”. And it is such a shame he did, because we believe that the permissions Williams gave the media — to publish information in the public interest regarding a vulnerable family where safety concerns were well known to the child protection and family justice system — were an important win for transparency and public accountability, and a credit to him.

Unfortunately, he has arguably increased the intensity of any public reaction to the judges by placing them so firmly in the spotlight. By banning their names from being published, he intensified the media coverage and aroused suspicion about their conduct. Yes, he may have said in his judgment that they did nothing wrong, but that will not have been the takeaway of the general public. The average person is not going to read his lengthy judgment — all they will hear is that he wanted to protect his fellow judges.

Our appeal was never about naming and shaming individual judges; it was about the wider principle that those who exercise state power need to be known. If we anonymise these judges, where does it end? Many state organisations and professionals were involved in the child protection concerns relating to the Sharif children. It is our hope that the judges will be seen as just one element in that broader picture. What is needed now is real effort to work out what went wrong in this heartbreaking case where a young girl’s life was taken, and what might need to change. Information and scrutiny are vital tools in this endeavour.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/26/our-challenge-to-the-ban-on-naming-sara-sharif-judges-was-always-about-scrutiny-not-blame?CMP=share_btn_url&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Sara Sharif Murder: ‘Sadist’ Father and Stepmother Jailed for ife

Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, sentenced for killing 10-year-old who was found dead in Surrey home

Emine Sinmaz

17 Dec 2024

Sara Sharif’s mother called her daughter’s murderers “sadists and executioners” as they were jailed for life.

Olga Domin joined the Old Bailey hearing remotely as Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, were sentenced for killing the schoolgirl.

On Tuesday the judge, Mr Justice Cavanagh, described the campaign of abuse meted out on Sara as “torture” as he condemned the defendants for not showing “a shred of remorse”.

His voice shook as he described some of the injuries suffered by Sara, who was “trussed up” with masking tape and a skipping rope and hooded with plastic bags, saying: “This treatment of a 10-year-old child is nothing short of gruesome.” Had she lived, he said, one of her burns would have caused permanent disfigurement.

Sharif and Batool were found guilty of Sara’s murder last Wednesday after an eight-week trial at the Old Bailey. Sara’s paternal uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, who was living with the family at the time, was found not guilty of murder but was convicted of causing or allowing her death.

Cavanagh sentenced Sharif to a minimum term of 40 years and Batool to a minimum term of 33 years. Malik was jailed for 16 years.

The judge said: “Sara’s death was the culmination of years of neglect, frequent assaults and what can only be described as the torture of this small child, mainly, but not entirely, at the hands of you, her father, Urfan Sharif.

“The degree of cruelty involved is almost inconceivable. This happened in plain sight, in front of the rest of the family, including, for the last eight months of Sara’s life, in front of you, Faisal Malik.

“The courts at the Old Bailey have been witness to many accounts of awful crimes, but few can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child that the jury in this case have had to endure.”

The prosecutor, William Emlyn Jones KC, said Sara was subjected to serious violence from at least the age of six, with a variety of weapons such as a cricket bat, a domestic iron and an improvised metal truncheon made from the broken leg of a high chair.

In a victim impact statement read out at the Old Bailey, Domin said she had been under “constant psychological supervision” since her daughter’s death as she called the defendants “cowards”.

She said: “Sara was always smiling. She had her own unique character. The only thing I had left to give to my daughter was to give her a beautiful Catholic funeral that she deserves. She is now an angel who looks down on us from heaven, she is no longer experiencing violence. To this day I can’t understand how someone can be such a sadist to a child.”

Addressing the defendants in the dock, Domin, who joined the hearing from her native Poland, said: “You are sadists, although even this word is not enough for you. I would say you are executioners.”

Sara was found dead in a bunk bed at the family home in Surrey on 10 August 2023. The couple had killed her two days earlier and fled to Pakistan, from where Sharif called police to say he had beaten her up “too much” for being naughty. He had left a handwritten “confession” near her fully clothed body, saying: “I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”

Sara Sharif when she was 4 years old. Photograph: Surrey Police/Reuters

A postmortem examination found Sara had 71 external injuries, including bruises, burns and human bite marks. She also had at least 25 fractures, including 11 to her spine.

The judge said Sharif “plainly derived grim satisfaction” from the sustained violence, and that he had done everything possible to avoid punishment for murder, saying: “You are suffused with self-pity.” He added it was hard to contemplate the “stress, pain and trauma” suffered by Sara, who must have been “in a constant state of terror”.

He said Sara was treated as “a skivvy” in the family from a young age and was made to do the washing, tidy the house and care for her youngest sibling. Cavanagh added he had no doubt that Sharif singled out Sara for abuse because she was a girl, she was not a child of his current marriage and she was prepared to stand up to him.

Addressing Sharif’s motives, the judge said: “Sara was a brave, feisty and spirited child. She was not submissive, as you wanted her to be. She stood up to you.”

The judge said Sara could be seen smiling and dancing in a video taken two days before her death even though her mobility was impaired by that point. He said: “It is clear that Sara stood up for herself and remained positive and cheerful in the most terrible circumstances. She was a very courageous little girl, with an unquenchable spirit.”

He said the assaults on Sara took place in front of other children, which would have had a “brutalising effect” on them, and that “grotesque” punishments were inflicted on her in the weeks before she died.

The judge said: “Sara was tied up and was even hooded, by a grotesque combination of parcel tape, rope, and a plastic bag. She was not even allowed to go to the toilet, but was put in pull-up nappies, and was left to wallow in her own urine and faeces. The torture got worse. She was burned with an iron and boiling water was poured on her ankles.”

He said Batool encouraged and assisted Sharif in the assaults and was “prepared to sacrifice Sara” because she was frightened of losing her own children.

He added: “I can be sure that you took part in the tying up and hooding of Sara: this was not the work of one individual, and Sara was tied up even when Urfan Sharif was not in the house.

“Still further, I have no doubt that you were present at and involved in the burning of Sara with an iron, which led to the terrible burns on her buttocks. This was a two-person job: one to hold Sara and one to press the iron on to her body.”

The judge said Malik had failed to take any steps to protect Sara.

The jail terms will take into account time served on remand, with a minimum term of 38 years and 272 days for Sharif and 31 years and 272 days for Batool.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/17/sara-sharif-father-and-stepmother-jailed-for-her-murder

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The Circular Circus of Family Court (and the Courts that Surround It)

A Family Court Judge Interfered with Civil Court to Protect Her Underling; Will She Interfere with Appellate Court, Too?

Much has happened since my first article on Evelyn Nissirios almost two years ago. However, since she had a Family Court judge issue an unconstitutional prior restraint on publication — one of the worst violations of the First Amendment — I simply copy here what is on the public record. Below is Patricia Lee’s appeal of Nissirios’ sanctions against her for filing a lawsuit at all:

Your Honors,

This lawsuit is far from frivolous, and the actions of Respondent Evelyn Nissirios demand full accountability. Respondent Nissirios’ claim of absolute judicial immunity does not shield her from the egregious, unlawful actions she committed outside the scope of her court-appointed duties. Her conduct not only violated my rights but also inflicted irreparable harm on my children and others involved.

The following are actions for which Respondent Nissirios is directly and unequivocally guilty:

1. Orchestrating a violent, unlawful police raid to abduct my children without warning or due process: On the very weekend Respondent Nissirios authorized me to have my children, she lied to law enforcement to forcibly seize them, violating my constitutional rights and traumatizing the children.

2. Perpetrating six hundred (600) documented lies and acts of perjury in official proceedings: Respondent Nissirios knowingly and willfully lied in court to strip me of custody and deprive me of any contact with my children, whom I raised successfully since birth.

3. Suppressing exculpatory evidence: Respondent Nissirios concealed ten (10) psychiatric reports unanimously confirming my mental health and parenting competence. This deliberate suppression of evidence ensured an unjust outcome.

4. Violating Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and jeopardizing the safety of others: Respondent Nissirios unlawfully disclosed the identities of victim informants who reported on the father’s dangerousness, directly placing their lives in danger. This blatant disregard for federal law and basic ethics demonstrates her malicious intent.

5. Conspiring with the father to facilitate abuse and cover up his crimes: Respondent Nissirios actively colluded with my ex-spouse to secure illegitimate custody of the children he abused, injured, and nearly killed. Her criminal involvement in this conspiracy is undeniable.

6. Retaliating against witnesses: Respondent Nissirios weaponized her authority to intimidate and punish witnesses through malicious prosecution and false arrests, suppressing critical testimony that could have exposed her misconduct.

7. Attempting to cause my medical demise: Respondent Nissirios’ actions led to six (6) near-fatal episodes, as documented by my treating physicians and medical experts. Her conduct left me with post-traumatic stress disorder and required a five (5)-day hospitalization in the intensive care unit.

These actions go far beyond her duty to represent the best interests of children under Section 5:8B of the New Jersey Court Rules. Her claim of immunity fails under Hawkins v. Harris (1995), which limits immunity to communications “made in judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings; [that] that have some connection or logical relation” to them. Her criminal actions — including acting as the abuser’s personal attorney, daily phone collusion, and violation of my constitutional rights — fall outside this protection.

Proof of Guilt

Respondent Nissirios’ guilt is further cemented by the following facts:

• Intentional perjury: six hundred (600) documented lies in court proceedings were instrumental in depriving me of custody without just cause.

• Traumatizing children: Respondent Nissirios weaponized her authority to alienate me from my children, telling them I abandoned them and would never see them again. This inflicted severe emotional harm on innocent children.

• Suppression of truth: Respondent Nissirios intentionally suppressed evidence that vindicated me, further proving her intent to manipulate the judicial process for personal and unlawful gain.

• Endangerment of lives: By violating HIPAA, Respondent Nissirios endangered informants and witnesses, an action both criminal and ethically indefensible.

• Bias and interference: Respondent Nissirios’ influence over Judge Gallina-Mecca and others corrupted the legal process, turning the courts into an instrument of her personal vendetta.

Judicial Misconduct and Abuse of Process

The trial court’s dismissal of my lawsuit, based solely on litigation privilege without reviewing evidence, underscores the institutional bias protecting Respondent Nissirios’ criminal actions. The escalation of sanctions — from 5,000 to 27,000 dollars — was based on Respondent Nissirios introducing irrelevant material into a sanctions hearing. This manipulation turned the hearing into an indictment based on presumption, not facts or evidence.

The Respondent Nissirios’ claim that I leaked information for a news article is baseless. She has provided no proof, and I had no prior knowledge of the article. Holding me accountable for external publications is absurd and lacks both legal and factual merit.

Conclusion

The Respondent Nissirios’ actions have caused irreversible harm to me, my children, and others involved. Her criminal conduct, including six hundred (600) acts of perjury, unlawful child abduction, HIPAA violations, and conspiracy, demands accountability. If the Court allows judicial actors to act with impunity, it sets a dangerous precedent where justice is subverted, and lives are destroyed.

I respectfully urge the Court to overturn the sanctions against me and hold Respondent Nissirios accountable for her deliberate, malicious, and unlawful actions. Justice requires not only the acknowledgment of her guilt but also the imposition of appropriate legal consequences. Thank you.

Respectfully submitted,

Patricia J. Lee

—

Before filing her appeal, she wrote the following motion for reconsideration to Civil Court Judge Rachelle Harz:

PATRICIA J. LEE, of full age, certifies as follows:

1. I am the plaintiff in this matter. I am fully familiar with the facts set forth here. I make this Certification in my motion for reconsideration of the amount of sanctions ordered against me.

2. The question, Your Honor, is why did you do an about face by totally contradicting yourself on January 27, 2023, from what you explicitly expressed on October 28, 2022? It is like I experienced the rulings of two different judges. On October 28, 2022, you said 5000 dollars, and then on January 27, 2023, you went up more than five times, to almost 27,000 dollars, because of an article, which you attributed to me without any evidence or proof, based solely on your anger.

3. Your anger was apparent when you read the article and then diverted your total attention to exclusively addressing only Defendant Nissirios’ very biased point of view, which obscured any objectivity or fairness on your part.

4. Your Honor also concluded the hearing in a manner that denied my attorney the opportunity to give any response, when you brought the hearing to an abrupt end. Both my attorney and I were speechless at the overall derailment of the proceedings.

5. It seemed as if you had already made up your mind and did not wish to hear another word, so that my side was not able to address Defendant’s false accusations and the abominable lies she made to this Court.

6. Instead, a session that was supposed to be a simple determination of the amount of sanctions turned into a new indictment and prosecution, in which Your Honor was saying: “I don’t like this article. I am so angry, I am going to increase your penalty five times.” In doing so, Your Honor almost exclusively cited the credentials of Defendant Evelyn Nissirios’ hirees, hardly mentioning me, despite the fact that I have lost the custody of my children, my constitutional rights, my reputation, and the intrinsic, priceless joy of being a loving mother to my children because of Defendant’s relentless campaign of slander, egregious lies, and character assassination against me.

7. It is inexplicable that, without any reason or justification, you suddenly changed your demeanor and seemed to echo the words of the Family Court Judge. Forgive me, but it was quite obvious that you were going far beyond ordinary professional courtesy. Why else would you change your mind about the $5000 penalty, after the case was already dismissed and decided upon, to raise it to more than five times the amount?

8. That I broke the court seal and somehow influenced all these third-party professionals to write their articles is a false narrative of a litigant in a court that is obsessed with making a case against me, where the court actors do not even pretend to be independent of one another.

9. Presumption of guilt without justification or proof has been the approach of Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca’s Family Court — and now it appears that the Law Division Court is following suit. It is as if Your Honor were making a case for Defendant, with the implication that I was guilty of all her baseless accusations.

10. I am reluctant to say this, but in prior court hearings, I was beyond despair when you read my pro se brief, commented on how brilliantly written it was, and then read your pre-written ruling. What does that say about this Court? I went from despair to dread when my attorney argued for forty-five minutes, made a brilliant argument himself, and you again read a pre-written ruling.

11. Your Honor emphasized that Defendant is a “practicing attorney with a reputation.” What about my reputation, having once been hailed as a hero of September 11, 2001, as the youngest appointee to the Executive Chamber of Governor George Pataki and chief coordinator for the First Responders, the Mayor’s Office, and the FBI on Ground Zero, after the greatest attack on U.S. soil in the nation’s history? Before Ms. Nissirios’ machinations to steal my children, I was a loving mother, reputed in the neighborhood to be “the best mom.”

12. Yet, Your Honor indulged Defendant Nissirios as you spent approximately thirty of the forty-minute hearing speaking about articles that Defendant exhibited. Defendant may be upset about these articles, but they have nothing to do with the matter at hand. Defendant can sue the author for defamation if anything were untrue.

13. Your Honor additionally stated that the billing rates are “extremely low for litigation billing in Bergen County” and that Defense counsel was “blatantly honest when he said that these are significant discount rates.” Your Honor additionally added: “I am certainly not going to touch the hourly rates, as they are well below reasonable hourly rates.”

14. This statement is unfathomable, as Your Honor seems to have gone out of your way to recite research in support of Your Honor’s reasoning for the exponential increases in sanctions amount.

15. Your Honor proceeded to say: “Gordon and Rees is a national law firm with over a thousand attorneys and thirty attorneys based in the New Jersey law office,” as if you were an advertisement for the Defense’s law firm.

16. This is the total antithesis of the attitude you demonstrated at the previous session, when you stated that 5000 dollars was reasonable and more than fair. What caused this inexplicable contradiction on your part? [Now, there is evidence that Judge Gallina-Mecca has intervened with at least six (6) judges outside of her court; few have exhibited such blatant influence from her as Judge Harz, who dramatically increased sanctions from 5000 to 27,000 dollars upon Judge Gallina-Mecca’s interference.]

17. Your Honor continued to spend considerable time dwelling on Attys. Mark Trokan’s and Izik Gutkin’s curricula vitae, as if you were desperately trying to make a case to justify increasing the sanctions amount more than five times of what you thought was fair less than three months before.

18. I would ask why this Court did not even spend a fraction of that time to go through the sampling of the truly stellar curricula vitae of many professionals that Ms. Nissirios willfully and intentionally suppressed in support of my husband, Alan T. Chan. These renowned, highly-reputed professionals had a medical consensus that Mr. Chan is a danger to his children and meets criteria for a dangerous psychiatric diagnosis that precludes parenting.

19. That a presiding judge could describe a defendant this way is very disturbing. By inexplicably changing your mind — you have indicated that you are unduly influenced from the Family Court, justifying your actions with contrived and tangential comments.

20. How do I address two courts, the Family Court and the Law Division Court, when both courts have exceeded their legal authority, with extreme bias against me, and in so doing violated not only my constitutional rights — but the rights of two innocent, helpless children?

21. If Your Honor has granted Ms. Nissirios an opportunity to build an entirely new indictment of me at a sanctions amount determination hearing, then allow me, in turn, to make my important case here that judicial immunity applies neither to Defendant nor to Judge Gallina-Mecca.

22. Defendant has, along with the Judge, stepped outside her legally-authorized role to perjure, criminally conspire, maliciously prosecute, and kidnap my children without due process, evidence, or justification. That Ms. Nissirios does not deserve judicial immunity, but rather deserves disbarment, prosecution, and punishment, should be plain to anyone who is willing to look at the irrefutable evidence, which I ask this Court to do in order to determine that sanctions are not even appropriate, much less the eventual exorbitant amount.

23. My husband’s crimes are recounted in Exhibit 1, whereby he lied to the police and the Family Court in his scheme to illegally abduct his children fifteen (15) months ago, causing their acute, unprecedented school absences, academic and physical deterioration, and unexplained injuries. His illegal abduction and false imprisonment of the children he is accused of abusing, and against whom he was on temporary restraining order for injuring, would not have been possible without Ms. Nissirios’ help.

24. [My sister, Dr. Bandy Lee] was barred from seeing her niece and nephew because Mr. Chan, fearing that he would be unmasked as a criminal child abuser, had intentionally made such a request to the Family Court. Dr. Lee is a psychiatrist with impeccable credentials as a world-renowned expert on violence who had assisted a United Nations (UN) Secretary-General in drafting the UN chapter, “Violence against Children.”

25. Ms. Nissirios and Judge Gallina-Mecca have nothing to say on the substance, but they all wish to silence Dr. Lee, who has been operating as an independent agent doing her own research. Now, she is writing a book, and the word is out — people are watching my case, and it does not take my breaking a seal to know that the Family Court has turned a blind eye to my children being kidnapped by their abuser, their rapid deterioration, and their not being allowed even one second to be with their mother, their beloved aunt, or a qualified medical professional. This is because Mr. Chan lives in abject terror that his abuse will be exposed.

26. It is inconceivable that judicial immunity could be applied to situations of exploitation of judicial authority and criminality under the color of law, to assist a violent offender to abduct and torture his innocent children. Such tyrannical, arbitrary actions do not warrant the enjoyment of judicial immunity but deserve removal from the bench, if not from the Bar.

27. The way this Court has acted, I am not allowed to talk to my closest support, my lawyer is not allowed to present to me key motions, and there is a seal against my knowing about critical aspects of my own case. How could a Court deny me my constitutional right to talk to my one support in the world, my own sister, about my case? In the history of jurisprudence, no judge has ever so denied the constitutional rights of a litigant.

28. The idea that this Court is using its seal to prevent me from defending myself is unconstitutional and illegal. Further, you have now changed your mind to punish me incomprehensibly because someone else wrote something that I had nothing to do with. I came to this Court seeking justice, but it is clear that this Court is not independent, that Judge Gallina-Mecca has extended her authority, and the Family Court is directing the Law Division Court.

29. The real tragedy is that this Court has illegally used its power to deny the rights of two innocent children, to irreparably damage and destroy their lives, and to unconstitutionally deprive a loving mother of the custody of my children without due process….

I certify that the foregoing statements made by me are true. I am aware that if any of the foregoing statements made by me are willfully false, I am subject to punishment.

PATRICIA J. LEE

Dated: January 30, 2023

*Help us to expose the Family Courts: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-to-expose-the-dangerous-case-of-family-courts

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Sunshine on the Saddle River Board of Education!

Because Evelyn Nissirios will Not be Returning

The Saddle River community is celebrating, at long last, the riddance from its Board of Education a perpetrator of what would have been felony crimes against countless children — except for “judicial immunity” that has morphed into impunity. Their efforts of mobilizing and voting her out over a year ago, only to have her scheme her way back deviously and to drive out her duly-elected replacement, has been written about extensively. Evelyn Nissirios is exemplary of what corruption does: it places in positions of authority exactly those who should not be there. In turn, unfit and dangerous individuals wreak havoc and destruction upon the very system they were supposed to support. And to hide that destructiveness, they go for position after position, turning “ethics committees” into systems of criminal coverup, “the legal profession” into legalized violence, and “Family Court” into organized crime.

This is why “winning” elections is so important to them, and this past season, a small community seems to have been put through nothing short of hell:

I am writing you with great concern as I have become aware of Evelyn Nissirios’ horrific behavior through word of mouth and [now through news] articles.

I’m intimately involved with the Evelyn Nissirios situation in Saddle River…. I feel this situation is disgusting.

[Nissirios] is running again for the Board of Ed. in Saddle River [and] has mounted a horrific smear campaign against the other candidates…. The situation is beyond belief.

A group of us have been working to try and [debunk Nissirios’] lies and exaggerations about her opponents through our town’s social media groups and via phone calls.

Nissirios intentionally cheated or at the very least unethically manipulated the process.

I appreciate you bringing this situation with [Nissirios to our] attention,… reflecting the Board’s dysfunctional operation.

[Last year, despite] three other qualified candidates applying, the Board chose [Nissirios], highlighting their corrupt process to arrive at this decision…. the Board [despite her criminal charges] is encouraging her campaign for reelection.

I am kind of afraid of what she may try to do to me or my family…. we live in a very small community and retaliation by someone with power who appears to be unhinged is not something that I can afford.

[Nissirios] is pitting people against each other, and it’s absolutely shameful.

We need to stop this monster before she is again appointed to our School Board.

[Nissirios] has collected a few people who are working on her behalf to help spread her slander, and it feels like it’s becoming a battle of good versus evil, all over a seat on the Board. It is the most gross behavior by a mother, member of our community and representative of our school that I have ever seen.

[Nissirios] even enlisted other town residents to do her dirty work and execute a constant barrage of attacks. It was relentless, and it was disgusting.

We worked very hard and the two challengers to her and two other Board of Education trustees up for reelection were put through absolute hell by [Nissirios] and her minions.

On a positive note, [Nissirios] lost by a landslide and came in last out of five candidates. A massive blow to her inflated ego, so I’m sure she’s plotting her revenge this very moment.

I [hope] that you will get a judge that is willing to do the right thing and silence her, adding punishment where punishment is due to allow [for] justice….

It took heroic effort to get her out, but the community rose to the occasion and achieved its aim against incredible odds, and now the healing from years of destruction can begin.

In this case, the Board of Education had harbored for years, against the community’s wishes and despite its voting her out a year ago, a perpetrator of unspeakable crimes against vulnerable children! As a result, the community suffered great losses to a school culture they had built and cherished over decades, innocent children were marred in their educational opportunities for life, and caring parents fighting for justice were assaulted and traumatized — because no one expected a Board of Education member to be a violent thug.

The public still does not have full knowledge of her abuses, in part because it is beyond imagination: sending dozens of children to their torture, battery, rape, and sex trafficking, year after year, while retaliating against witnesses and attempting to murder loving parents who resist, is simply beyond credulity for most of civilized society. No one would believe that our Family Court system, under which she operates, could be so depraved and debauched as to sacrifice innocent children for profit, and that law enforcement could be so ineffectual as to let go of such big fish while catching only small fry (if not actually serve as footmen for criminals, which in the case of Family Courts they do). Yet, this is standard operating procedure in the Family Courts, which teem with those deserving of the death penalty in some states committing the same crimes under a cloak of “judicial immunity.”

Nissirios, in a sense, is a tragic figure. What causes a person to abduct children from their loving parents, force their separation, and tell the children their loving parent abandoned them, no longer loves them, and does not wish to see them? What induces a person, in a desire to eliminate witnesses, to character-assassinate the loving parent by falsely arresting them, humiliating them before their communities, and traumatizing them to a psychological breaking point if not death? (the number of young mothers who die from grief, suicide, “broken heart syndrome,” heart attack, or cancer in the Family Courts is staggering). The better the parent for the children, and the more law-abiding, upstanding, and professionally successful the person, the more viciously, maliciously, and sadistically Nissirios goes after them. She ought to be contained and be offered therapy, but instead she is given power. Nissirios betrays public trust when she abuses the “army” of the judicial system to invade your previously peaceful and prosperous home, to take your children, and to give them over to unimaginable violence, of which the Saddle River community has had an infinitesimal glimpse.

*Many have written to me with gratitude for my articles, for alerting them in advance of the dangers they faced, for helping them to make sense of an incomprehensible situation, and — God forbid if they too became victims of violence — for supporting their ability to cope by knowing they are not alone. This is psychiatrically important, since sometimes the most dangerous individuals our society produces are the least detectable and the most likely to escape accountability. This is also civically important, since the purpose of the Fourth Estate is to educate, inform, and alert the public, especially of governmental institutions that fail them. As a foremost Constitutional scholar of the country has confirmed, protections of my reporting are embedded in the founding documents of this Nation. The U.S. Constitution, to

insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

asserts the will of the People and provides checks and balances against excesses of government. The Bill of Rights, after

adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added … as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government [to] best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

The very First Amendment it added says:

Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now, since criminals upon being exposed typically do not change behavior but simply retaliate against those who speak about their behavior, Evelyn Nissirios’ course of action is as expected. Rest assured: the Law is clear. Nissirios may believe that a corrupt judiciary is her protection from all prosecution, but one day she will overextend herself, as abusers always do, and her house of cards will come crumbling down.

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Family Court Demands Surrender of First Amendment Rights in Exchange for Fair Trial

Nothing Terrifies Family Courts More than Exposure

Exposure is what Family Courts fear the most — for they would never be able to get away with their heinous crimes against innocent children and loving parents, if the public got wind of it. This is why they would do anything to force me to take down my public articles. First, Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca tried illegally to threaten that major magazine articles containing my interviews “shall be immediately removed, deleted, and unpublished immediately” — but received a stern rebuke instead for violating the U.S. Constitution, as she did in the Washington Post almost a decade earlier. Now, she has recruited Judge Michael Antoniewicz, at her beck and call as his direct superior, for Gallina-Mecca is the chief judge of Family Court, to which he belongs. Trying to step in where Gallina-Mecca failed, he must fit a square peg into a round hole by calling an unconstitutional prior restraint on publication — one of the worst violations of First Amendment Freedom of Expression — a “protective order.”

Evelyn Nissirios, minion of Gallina-Mecca, is the applicant, of course — and she requires no protective order! No one has harassed or stalked her, and her life is not in danger. My sister and I, on the other hand, have been stalked, harassed, and falsely arrested by Nissirios, who attempted to cause my sister’s “medical” demise, in proven co-conspiracy with her violent ex-husband — and almost succeeded at least twice — as well as independently threatened her life four times that required hospitalization since Nissirios’ abuse of these “protective orders” began. Judge Antoniewicz, who has turned a blind eye to these assaults, which could rise to the level of attempted murder, may be complicit.

My articles have literally kept us alive, and they are fulfilling the function they are supposed to: to criticize government officials who abuse their authority to harm the public — in this case to the point of near death. I will be spelling out what is happening, step by step, so that the public is aware of what occurs in the secretive Family Courts — “where scumbags and sociopaths gather,” in the surprising but accurate words of an eminent constitutional scholar.

December 5, 2024

Judge Antoniewicz:

First and foremost, I would like to advise the Court that I have decided to resume pro se and to proceed immediately with the trial, as early as today.

It is very unfortunate that I was not permitted to communicate or interject during the court session yesterday. I could not explain that my attorney miscommunicated what I expressed to her during our brief conference. Furthermore, my attorney needed no more than a week or two to prepare, but the Court pushed the next trial date into January, which is unacceptable to me.

My stance from the very beginning is that this temporary protective order (TPO) is simply an extreme violation of my Constitutional First Amendment rights — nothing more, nothing less. My opponent had an appropriate vehicle for addressing her grievances: a defamation lawsuit. Yet, she proceeded with this unprecedented abuse of a phony TPO, in order to circumvent the U.S. Constitution.

At this point, no one wishes to proceed with this trial more than I, since the TPO itself is already an egregious violation of my First Amendment rights, ironically while denying me due process.

Atty. Conte’s stipulation that I take down all my previous articles in exchange for giving my attorney a couple weeks of preparation is quite outrageous and unprecedented in my 25 years of experience serving as an expert witness for courts of law all around the United States. It shows just how desperate my opponent is to suppress my Freedom of Speech, in order to stifle valid criticisms of her. Therefore, I have decided to forego counsel so that the trial can immediately proceed.

Atty. Conte’s suggestion that I purposely delayed the trial is offensive and more indicative of how my opponent thinks. She uses “absolute judicial immunity” and tricks of procedure — including her close affiliations with this Court — to get away with violent, felony crimes with impunity, which is the very subject of my articles: criticisms of an individual who abuses public immunity to cause public harm. She seeks illegitimate immunity for her 600 slanderous and libelous lies in my sister’s case, and 44 acts of perjury in this one, by means of a sham protective order — and this is just one example of her psychopathic ways.*

*I have previously advised this Court of my being retained to assess her level of psychopathy by a client who is planning to sue her for financial fraud. Additionally, dozens of litigants have reported to me her consistent pattern of pathological lying, which even attorneys have confirmed is beyond the pale.

The loss of even a day is unfortunate for all of us, but the truth is, I first contacted [my choice of lawyer] two months ago, but she was running for elected office and then had to go out of the country, as this Court was informed. Then, only last month did we learn that [the attorney for Patricia Lee] would not admit her pro hac vice because of conflict of interest, given her stance that our cases have no connection whatsoever — with which I happen to agree. Therefore, [my choice of lawyer] had to look for another sponsor.

This Court is already aware of my vehement objections to every adjournment. This trial, which was supposed to resume on August 13, 2024, has been continuously adjourned because of this Court’s adamant insistence on joining together the two unrelated cases of Patricia Lee and myself. Each time my co-defendant needed an adjournment or my opponent needed a vacation, I, also, ran into conflicts that required me to request unwanted postponements.

Then, the Court suddenly and inexplicably adjourned midway into the hearing hour, as we were waiting in the courtroom, on October 18, 2024 — despite the irrefutable fact that the plaintiff pulled out her unauthorized submission and both co-defendants agreed the day before that we should proceed as originally scheduled.

Indeed, I have contacted the clerk numerous times in vigorous objection of the court order that erroneously stated the hearing was adjourned by “Request of Defendant” — when in fact I experienced the Court’s arbitrary adjournment, halfway into the court session time, as extreme prejudice and further violation of my First Amendment rights.

My co-defendant, Patricia Lee, was furthermore so upset by the sudden adjournment, that she landed in the emergency room the next day with the highest, life-threatening blood pressures ever recorded for her (which, in the context of the plaintiff’s consistent pattern of behavior for the last four years, was the nefarious goal and hidden agenda of plaintiff’s constant maneuvering of “surprise attacks” — even while violating all court rules — to instigate Patricia Lee’s stress-induced high blood pressure crises*).

*I had also reported, as a physician and a family member, how the plaintiff’s TPO itself caused Patricia Lee stress-induced, life-threatening blood pressures since July 2024, which has necessitated five months of almost total bedrest and, in the past month, two hospitalizations with the second requiring five days in the intensive care unit.

I would hasten to interject and remind the Court of how it bulldozed ahead with a trial — with its unexpected and unprecedented denial of our Constitutional right to look for counsel on the very first day — which ironically became the cause of our motions to dismiss being denied. It is indeed ironic that, in this Court’s desperate attempt to conjure up a protective order for Evelyn Nissirios, it is assisting her plans to “DARVO”, or the perpetrators’ typical scheme to “deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender,” in order to hide their guilt.

To summarize, it is incorrect that I have abused process in any way, but on the contrary have been extremely prejudiced from the numerous adjournments of this case, as a TPO has turned into a presumptive First Amendment violation without due process. I have therefore decided to continue pro se, and for Your Honor to resume this trial as soon as possible.

Respectfully submitted,

Bandy Lee, M.D., M.Div.

[Of course, the trial was not resumed, and I had to let go of an attorney who was pressured into agreeing to take down my articles in exchange for the minimal preparation time for my defense. John Conte, Nissirios’ lawyer, who made the big ruckus about the trial being delayed — so much so that he demanded the said compromise of my attorney — was quiet as a mouse about the trial not being resumed.]

*Please join a public effort to impeach Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca who, as head of Bergen County Family Court, has corrupted the entire system — from the entire Family Court to civil court, appellate court, the assignment judge, a municipal judge, and Child Protective Services, not to mention the press — by extending her meddling hands into everything!

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Help Us to Expose the Dangerous Case of Family Courts

And Protect Our Children, Our Future, Our Democracy

Many of you know about Family Court violence from my now numerous articles — but the rest of society does not. As a physician, I have watched my sister dramatically decline from a state of perfect health to being in the hospital twice this month, the second time in the intensive care unit for five days — all because of the abuses of Family Court. As a psychiatrist, I have watched my prodigy niece and nephew go from being healthy and thriving, under a parent lauded as being “the best mom,” to arresting in physical growth and continuing to miss school — as they are prohibited from seeing her for the fourth year in a row. Yet, they are the lucky ones, for many under Family Court do not survive; almost a thousand have died. This is why it is vital for me to be able to free time to finish my book. Please help:

Donate to Help Us Expose the Dangerous Case of Family Courts, organized by Bandy Lee

Too many dangers and injustices in our society are carefully obscured, purposely hidden, and lurking in the shadows for far too long. This has happened in recent years with regard to the opioid epidemic, police violence, sexual assaults, systemic racism, and even medical insurance denials. Exploitation by the very systems that are supposed to solve our problems is becoming all too frequent.

Too often it takes years if not decades for such abuses to surface into public view. Oftentimes this happens only after a particularly egregious act takes place, sometimes one that is captured on video or otherwise evokes public outrage. Even then, it may take a very long time before the perpetrators are caught, charged, and prosecuted.

This difficulty is well-known to me through my decades of work with our prison and legal systems as a forensic psychiatrist. However, none has been more shocking to me than a very serious, pervasive problem I have only recently learned about, and the public knows far too little about. After all my education, clinical research and experience, and becoming a recognized authority on human violence, I did not know until recently that Family Courts knowingly send 100,000 children per year, year after year, to their soul murder. These children grow up dead inside. Roughly a third become violent offenders. Almost all are too wounded for democracy to be possible.

It was after very unexpected personal involvement that I have become aware of this deadly and predatory practice under the guise of “legality” in the Family Courts. Since entering these Courts, through the experience of a family member’s divorce, but more importantly as an expert witness in now almost fifty cases, I have discovered that the gang rapes, gladiator fights, mayhem, and murder occurring with impunity in our maximum-security prisons pale in comparison to the deadly abuses that are taking place in our Family Courts…. And the victims are vulnerable and innocent children, not to mention the adults who try to protect them!

Family Courts, originally carved away from regular courts to protect children, are instead devouring them. In cases of family violence, which is a vast majority of child custody cases, the children are abducted from the loving parent to be given over to their torture, rape, battery, and murder — and judicial authority is used to “fix” the results — all as part of a multi-billion-dollar abuse industry.

My project for over two years, writing about the scope, scale, and severity of this scandal, is almost complete — but I need your help to finish it! Please support this project to save our children, our collective future health, and our potential for democracy….

Here is a summary of what happened to my sister:

https://cafemom.com/parenting/catherine-kassenoff-domestic-abuse-mothers

Here is my interview after another mother’s death:

https://msmagazine.com/2023/06/20/catherine-kassenoff-family-court-divorce-bandy-lee/

Here is my testimony to the New York State Senate:

https://www.nysenate.gov/sites/default/files/admin/structure/media/manage/filefile/a/2023-10/testimony-to-the-new-york-state-senate-by-bandy-x.-lee-md-mdiv.pdf

Here is what the United Nations said about the Family Courts:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/06/1138057

Here is what an expert consultant to the International Criminal Court said about the Family Courts:

https://europeantimes.news/2024/11/institutional-abuse-when-protective-mothers-become-victims-of-the-system/

Having spent most of my time working to keep my sister alive (the usual course is to take your children, to demand exorbitant “child support,” and then to incarcerate you if you cannot pay), I desperately need to free time to complete this project. Your support will be indispensable! Thank you, in advance!

Sincerely,

Bandy Lee, MD, MDiv

Donate to Help Us Expose the Dangerous Case of Family Courts, organized by Bandy Lee

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Family Courts: A Breeding Ground for Disease

Psychopathy and Violence Flourish in Family Court, by Virtue of Court Actors’ Own Pathology

It is not a mystery why Family Courts are obsessed with disease. Without any health or mental health background — and often without even a command of their own field of law — Family Court judges are quick to label healthy, prosperous, and upstanding persons “mentally ill” and “mentally incompetent.” Indeed, one scarcely encounters another setting where such phrases are so freely bandied about. There is a reason: they are trying to hide their own sickness, their own incompetence and unfitness, by reversing the definition of what is healthy and fit. And the ease with which they do so indicates their degree of detachment from reality.

A meeting with one of the nation’s premier legal minds revealed that what is occurring in Family Courts is not entirely unknown to the top echelons of the profession. “Family Courts are where scumbags and sociopaths gather — the dregs of the judicial system!” I was astonished to hear him say, but he is correct. I had heard Family Courts be called “the sewer” among courts and “the bottom of the totem pole” — which is why judges with little respect from the world and even less self-respect obtain their “kick” from tyrannizing and terrorizing innocence and goodness. It was initially astonishing — and telling — to me that Family Court judges are so exceptionally demeaning, dehumanizing, and debauched in their treatment of litigants, when even criminal courts are respectful of the human rights and dignity of those who come before them.

As Family Court judges side with likeminded criminals, and regularly persecute model parents and successful citizens by taking their children, their courtrooms become killing fields. Violent perpetrators commit crimes with impunity and turn tables on their victims, punishing them with the force of “the law.” In Family Court, they can gain custody of the children they are raping, torturing, battering, and murdering, while demanding exorbitant “child support” for it and incarcerating the good parents if they cannot pay. Family Courts are complicit, not just for the under-the-table envelopes and suitcases of cash (a regular fare in Family Court), or the judges’ selection and retention by “Fathers’ Rights groups” (which I call “Abusers’ Rights groups,” since they do not help good fathers), but for the intrinsic, sadistic glee of seeing those under their power suffer.

Such a dark world of brutality and cruelty is made possible through a structure of total secrecy and total power, unknown to the public and unbound by the Law, while populated by unfit judges who in turn appoint unfit “officers of the court” (such as guardians ad litem who prey upon the children they are supposed to protect); hire unfit “experts” (such as masters-level counselors who are willing to generate fraudulent reports for lucrative returns), and make a mockery of the “justice” they swore to serve.

The holiday season is a prime “opportunity” for sadistic minds. My own sister is facing having to vacate her home in the next month, pay all her ex-husband’s legal fees, pay six-figure “child support” for his imprisoning her children for the fourth year in a row without allowing her one minute of contact — and, of course, go to jail if she cannot pay. This shocking scenario is standard operating procedure in Family Court, as is the loss of health in previously thriving mothers. My sister just came out of five days in the intensive care unit, as a result of dangerously high blood pressures from discovering that her children have not grown at all — in addition to suffering injuries and missing half of school (their father was on a restraining order for almost killing each of them by head injury before Family Court gave him full custody).

This is the context in which I received the remarkable story, below, of a fellow mental health professional scheduled to be incarcerated the day before Christmas Eve. With the Family Courts, it does not matter how highly-educated, professionally-trained, and well-respected one is in the community — in fact, successful persons are the very targets of Family Court actors, who envy and punish those who do better than they by stripping them of their wealth, their possessions, their reputation, and ultimately their dignity.

Essay on Family Court, by Dr. E.C.

This road has been one of humiliation, degradation, violation and silencing. I haven’t spoken publicly about the last six years out of fear. I have a doctorate in clinical psychology and spent my career working with trauma survivors. The stories of the many survivors I have worked with since 2010 and the profound personal and institutional abuse they have endured shaped me personally and professionally. I have witnessed these dynamics on a societal level with the R. Kelly trials, Heard v. Depp, Farrow v. Allen and other famous abuse cases. I have seen civilian cases in the news and on social media with the same dynamics and very few instances of justice.

I have always stood on the side of the oppressed even when it cost me personally. However, fighting for myself has been one of the most challenging and lonely experiences of my life. I have heard far too many times, “there are two sides to every story,” and “I don’t want to get involved.” I have known far too many people who virtue signal alignment with the marginalized yet when it is their neighbor look the other way.

I write this because my story, though horrific, is not unique. If you thought that women were no longer “burned at the stake,” institutionalized or lobotomized, donned with a scarlet letter, beheaded or put in the scolds bridle in 2024 think again.

My own custody trial was nothing short of a witch hunt with actual unsubstantiated accusations of practicing witchcraft. In the months since losing my children I chose to break my silence in order to garner help for us. I posted audio clips and screen shots of the abuse. I posted true statements about what I have experienced, what my children have outcried. I have only interacted with my children in public, monitored by our abuser or by the paid supervisors he has mandated necessary for the children’s “best interests”…. I am now facing state-sanctioned silencing, threatened with further financial ruin and jail time. They are also threatening further limitation on my ability to see my children.

The expert I obtained for the trial, whom opposing counsel had struck on a technicality, rated my ex-husband as High Risk. With a substantiated pattern of abuse, multiple adult victims, threat of violence, use of a gun in his domestic violence against his wife and due to systemic failure and enablers a lack of any consequence, he is a very real threat both to her and the six children in their home. My prayer is for someone, a champion for human rights, women’s rights, civil rights to hear me.

Dear friend and supporter:

I will be going to jail on December 23rd. My ex had an unconstitutional permanent injunction slipped into my divorce decree that I was not made aware of until 2023 when I filed the modification. The language states that I cannot make public statements that would disparage his professional reputation.

When I took to social media, I was careful to not speak to his employment, work ethic or abilities in his field of finance. I spoke true things, I shared matters discussed in an open jury trial court case, I critiqued the justice system, law enforcement and child protective services (CPS), I spoke out about widely known corruption within the — th district court.

My story is not mine alone. I spoke out about the increasingly known family court crisis in America and globally that weaponizes the justice system against abuse victims and their children.

In a hearing in mid-December, in which I proved indigence, requested court-appointed counsel, was denied due process and made to represent myself pro se on the spot, the judge signed a temporary restraining order. The citation served to me requests punishment of 180 days in jail for the offense of executing my First Amendment rights, manipulated to claim it could negatively reflect his professional reputation.

The totality of the violations my ex-husband cites amount to 1,620 days in jail — 4.43 years. The normal worries of life, how to rebuild my career and even the pressing issue of protecting my children have fallen away to the singular focus of my own incarceration, despite my own heart’s desire to focus on them.

I know that fighting for myself is how I love my children best at this time. I have been told that the way I have challenged the system itself has triggered a need to make an example out of me. I would like to meet that intent. I am willing and desire to be an example of the injustice survivors of gender-based violence face when they speak out.

If I must go to jail, I want it to mean something. I want this experience to impact the lives of the women I have worked with in my 15-year career in my state and virtually with women across the country. I want my story to change the society my daughter’s burgeon into womanhood within.

Being a woman who has experienced rape and gender-based violence comes with an intentional social shaming. The social myths around these topics are meant to keep the truth silent and place the guilt inside the victim who then becomes complicit in her own abuse by feeling she is to blame for it. I refuse shame; it is not mine but theirs to bear.

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What if the Criminals are the Judges and the Court Actors?

When Family Courts Harbor Serial Murderers and Serial Predators

Family Courts are the scourge of current society. They offer a loophole where the most heinous criminals congregate to commit the greatest atrocities. Yet, the public is in the dark because these “anti-courts” concoct their own “facts”, decide what is evidence, eliminate witnesses, and conceal their crimes through “court seals.” No law enforcement can hold them accountable, because they believe they are above the law and have the means to enforce that belief. No press can cover them properly, because they threaten newsrooms and sometimes reporters mysteriously die. The result? Around 100,000 children in the U.S. per year are trafficked to their rape, torture, battery, murder, and suicide. Adults who try to protect them suffer unspeakable persecution, if they are not destroyed financially, emotionally, and physically before being killed or killing themselves. And the scale is such that our whole society now has a trail of traumatized persons who can barely function, affecting our collective state of mental health, and even the ability to maintain a democracy.

As is usually the case, without personal involvement, I myself would not have known anything about this secret world of medieval barbarity and brutality (to which I can only compare the secret world of prison abuse, where gang rapes, gladiator fights, beatings, and murders happen with impunity — and yet Family Courts are worse, since their victims are innocent children!). Even as a family member, I may not have known, without being an expert witness for the courts and getting involved in over forty other Family Court cases, that the pattern of cruelty and violence is horrifically consistent if not identical. Not even other judges or those in the legal profession are aware of the full extent of the abuses that are occurring within Family Court fiefdoms, where judges serve as “judge, jury, expert, and executioner” (I insert “expert” here, because the judge decides the finding and picks the right “expert” to give it, not the other way around).

However, even my sister’s “judge” could not hold onto her case forever. The original trial date was set for November 2022, which she then postponed to July 2023, and then to August, September, October, and November 2023, and then to January 2024, before it finally happened in May 2024. Even then, she did not release her ruling until December 2024. Neither litigant wanted the divorce so prolonged, but stalling time was the only way she could “habituate” an unacceptable arrangement. Indeed, during the four years of litigation, almost nothing else was achieved, other than dragging out time to cement the children’s “traumatic bond” with their abusive father, who had kidnapped them very early in the case without allowing them even one minute — whether in person, by phone, or through the exchange of a single message — with the mother who raised them since birth. In other words, a “temporary” transfer of custody was by default made “permanent” by imposing an inordinate passage of time — and for children, four years is an eternity!

Here is what happened:

‘Child Therapist’ Barbara Maurer

When Family Court mandated the children to “therapy”, Maurer seemed to know “the protocol.” She would take days or weeks to answer the mother’s queries, if at all, but if the father called, she responded within minutes. She had only one task: to make the abusive father “good” and the caring mother “bad”, and to cover up any signs of abuse. The children, who became more suicidal after each session with her, finally refused her “therapy”. In response, she locked them in her office and traumatized them, which caused her licensing board to investigate her, to adjudge her guilty, and to force her to recuse herself. The Family Court’s response was simply to find a replacement, this time without notifying the mother and while concealing the identity of the new “therapist”.

‘Guardian ad litem’ Evelyn Nissirios

As the “children’s” guardian ad litem in Family Court, Nissirios’ one task was to work for “the best interests” of the child predator. In order to do so, she perjured herself a staggering 600 documented times in just this one case! On the father’s first weekend with the children, soon after being on a restraining order for almost crushing the skull of his seven-year-old son and almost having killed his daughter as an infant, he tried to abscond with the children, having stolen their passports and secretly crossing state borders to take them hours away from home. This directly violated court directives, and he was caught only because the terrified children called their maternal grandfather, but none of the above bothered Nissirios

However, when the mother picked up her children slightly early from school, on a day she was specifically authorized to have her children — partly because they were distressed and suicidal from the prior, terrifying weekend with their unstable father — she descended on the mother like a hawk! She immediately coordinated with the father to make a false police report, scheduled an emergency, secret hearing without notice to either the mother or her attorney, and sent in a SWAT team of five police officers, who forcibly tore the crying and clinging children from their mother, accusing her of trying to “abscond” with them. This ambush attack could also be deemed an attempted murder, since just hours earlier the mother had notified the Court, including Nissirios and the father, of a medical emergency: life-threatening, stress-induced high blood pressures that Nissirios and the father themselves caused through hourly harassment and demands for updates. The charges against the mother were instantly dropped when their lies to the police were exposed, but having seized the children, they had no intention of letting them go. Police raids are apparently Nissirios’ specialty, as she has done across dozens of cases, before blocking the children’s contact with the loving parent altogether — and then telling the children the good parent abadoned them, no longer loves them, and wishes to have nothing to do with them.

‘Judge’ Jane Gallina-Mecca

That this Family Court “judge” is the orchestrator of these child theft operations is seen in her relentless control of the narrative. How Gallina-Mecca has aggressively taken down articles, despite the Washington Post shaming her for doing so years earlier — and falsely arrested medical professionals, based on secret orders she could not show anyone — has been written about elsewhere. Her track record is extremely disturbing, with multiple murders under her “belt”, and a petition for impeachment in process, whereby several family members of litigants who were murdered under her hope to testify.

Herself an abusive personality, she “mentors” already-sadistic Nissirios on heaping one human rights violation after another to hide their own, shocking criminality. By going against ten psychiatric reports unanimously confirming the mother’s “excellent mental health” and “exceptional talent in parenting” — one of them 96 pages long with extensive testing and collateral interviews — Gallina-Mecca was practicing medicine without a license.

Because she had no evidence, witnesses, or experts taking her side, Gallina-Mecca simply appointed an endless stream of needless court actors to parrot her preset narrative. This included a guardian ad litem for the mother, Linda Schofel — for the duly-diagnosed psychopathic father’s fantasy fulfillment of labeling the mother “mentally ill” and in need of a “guardian”, instead of himself. It also included an unlicensed student “counselor”, Tara Devine — who was willing to give Gallina-Mecca the “evaluation” that no other, highly-credentialed psychiatrist or psychologist would (and Gallina-Mecca, of course, counted only her opinion!). There was also a designated pediatrician, Karen Wu — who has finally recently been criminally indicted for falsification of medical records, tampering with evidence, retaliating against witnesses, and failing to report child abuse. And, in addition to Child Protective Services and the Child Abuse Hotline, the long tentacles of Gallina-Mecca have also interfered with one assignment judge, one civil court judge, one municipal judge, two appellate judges, and at least one covering judge on this one case — and this is only what I know about!

The Father

That this kind of “court” is where my brother-in-law drags his family into should make clear his serious psychiatric problems, without even knowing his diagnosis (since the most dangerous psychiatric disorders are also the most deceptive). After all, he decided to file for divorce because my sister “stopped praising” him enough. A corporate lawyer and student of Alan Dershowitz, he is the perfect kind Family Courts cater to. They enticed him with full custody, financial rewards, and punishment for a family that dared to have a mind of its own (for example, when he suddenly imposed himself on the children so that he could have an edge in his divorce — after being an absentee father all their lives — they dared to scream and cry every day!). And now, with the Family Court to prop him up, he will show them he is somebody!

Instead of containing his sickness and managing his behavior — indeed, during the five days he was on a restraining order after smashing his son against a window, both children were calm, cheerful, and back to their normal selves — Family Court saw his symptoms as an “opportunity” to entice and enable. His compulsions would find it impossible to resist their offer, and his detachment from reality would keep him from noticing how the Court is draining all his and his wife’s assets. He was busy rejoicing, for the first time, being labeled “the good parent” and being given the license to unleash vengeance against his family for “not loving” him enough, with all the force of the law behind him!

This is the ugly “service” that Family Courts sell, breeding psychopathy and violence, under the guise of being a “court”. Violent men, who like in my brother-in-law’s case almost killed his wife six times, almost killed each of his children on different occasions, kidnapped the children, and continues to neglect, injure, and harm them, can experience being all-powerful and all-righteous, while putting on a perfect public façade — since no one would believe the truth, even if one heard it.

Picking up the ruling:

December 4, 2024, was the date of ruling, available for pickup only two days later. It was obviously timed for maximal inconvenience, so that my sister would have to prepare an appeal, to move residences, and to meet all the demands of the judgment during the holiday season — so that all would be ready for the father by the New Year. I and a friend had accompanied her to the courthouse, in case she needed to go to the emergency room, as she did the last time she was there (she almost died five times from stress-induced hypertensive crises, because of the Court). The experience was interesting: like a mob boss, the judge had her clerk’s office hidden away and inaccessible. Instead, when we inquired a passerby, she had us wait for her to get the judge’s clerk, who directed us to sit on a bench, far out in the rotunda. While we were told the judgment was being printed, not one but two clerks constantly stepped out to surveille us in the sitting area. Finally, when one of them emerged to deliver what seemed like an envelope with half a ream of paper, she was accompanied by a police officer with a gun!

The friend was stunned, but I was not: this judge is fully cognizant that my sister was entering the building for the first time in three years, because her Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation identified the courthouse as a site of trauma. She literally developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the police raid took her children, and has been unable to feel safe near a policeman since. What more maximal way to torment and “break” someone, as is the chief mechanism by which Family Courts carry out their heist? We did not have to take my sister to the emergency room then, but the next day the ambulance transported her there, where she was recommended to be hospitalized.

The Family Courts of California’s Santa Clara County are said to be among the worst. This diagram was shared with me via Twitter.[image error]

The Untold Barbarity and Brutality of the Family Courts

A Health Professional’s Introduction

When forensic mental health experts first enter the court system, we are warned that it is a “different universe” with its “own way of doing things.” Indeed, when I was medical faculty teaching at a law school for seventeen years, I spoke to law students of how law school is an “acculturation” process, just as medical school was for me. This, in part, helps professional training and the adoption of habits and ways of processing that facilitate our becoming specialists in our respective fields. However, who could prepare any civilized, unsuspecting person — professional or not — for the organized crime that is hidden in the Family “Courts”? I actually call Family Courts “anti-courts” because they are the very antithesis of a court system, but that is only the beginning. Through total secrecy, unlimited judicial “discretion”, poor-quality judges, and grotesque racketeering, these entities have become the epicenter of unspeakable human depravity, barbaric injustices, and brutality against the most vulnerable members of our society. Children, instead of being protected, are the first to be preyed upon, battered, tortured, raped, and murdered (see the statistics of one thousand children who have been murdered). And loving parents, instead of being supported, are stripped of their children, their possessions, their profession, and their dignity, if not their lives (many die through suicide, heart attack, cancer, and other Family Court-caused illnesses, if not murder). Buttressed by tightly-guarded cronyism, judges and court officers can create their own alternative reality by redefining abuse as “good”, empathy as “bad”, and the courtroom their playground for sadistic cruelties. Health professionals do not have this choice; being data-driven, they cannot help but witness the untold human suffering from in and out of court. Yet, there is nothing one can do, since court officials are the ultimate arbiters of “truth”, no matter how untethered to reality or the law (as are Family Courts). Below is an essay I invited upon a therapist contacting me, stating: “I’ve been shocked and horrified as a trauma therapist, by the behavior of Family Court toward my clients. I just thought it was misogyny and lack of training, [but supervising a social worker Family Court victim,] I think it may be a bigger problem than we thought….” Here is her expanded essay:

Family Court Perpetuates Coercive Control Abuse

By Pamela Rogers

I first noticed there was a problem in Family Court when I worked in community mental health, running a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) group. I got referrals from Family Court, and at first, I saw it as positive, thinking in good faith that they were sending traumatized Domestic Violence survivors to DBT because it helped those symptoms, as well as borderline personality disorder. Many of these clients had no choice but to comply, whether it worked for their jobs or for their psychological state or not. The process just imposed undue stress on them and almost none of them met criteria for Borderline Personality, so it wasn’t necessary they attend. That’s when I realized the problem. These women weren’t being referred to our service for their own good, but for their perpetrators, so that they could be labeled with a problematic personality disorder and be made responsible for the trauma they endured. Their stories told in individual sessions revealed their pain at being separated from their children by the court and that they had considered suicide over the loss. I assumed, at first, there was more to their stories, something to justify it, such as substance abuse, anything, but I never really identified much in nearly all cases.

Around that time, I had an individual therapy case who had shared custody with a man who had been observed to be abusive toward her child. This woman was not only unable to report suspected abuse or risk her custody but was prevented from having her daughter examined by a doctor around suspected sexual abuse by a guardian ad litem appointed by the court who had a relationship with the father. This same guardian ad litem failed to hold the father accountable for using a breathalyzer when her daughter was with him, as ordered by the court, as well as using a sealed document of her taking her daughter to a doctor out of concern over her frequent UTI’s against her after taking away her right to take medical and educational decisions. They effectively shut down her will to fight for her daughter’s safety.

Later, in private practice, I heard even more heinous stories, first the pattern of coercive control, of isolation and terrifying abuse, sometimes while pregnant, followed by use of the court system to continue the pattern of intimidation and emotional abuse around co-parenting. My clients would be discouraged by attorneys from bringing up their domestic violence issues at all, to avoid being penalized by the court. Family court would only allow them shared custody if they could prove they could effectively co-parent with their abuser, often being forced into co-parenting counseling together. They would then be penalized for their dissociative or reactive symptoms in that highly inappropriate setting. Co-parenting and family therapists were often chosen by their abuser and were therefore sympathetic to only their side and inappropriate and grossly unqualified for counseling in a domestic violence situation. They were generally not open to my input in the situation, my clients being presented as unstable borderline personalities, and they were not. It is my experience that clients that do meet criteria for BPD, when in treatment, are appropriate parents, but vulnerable to the stresses of domestic violence and community violence perpetuated against them by Family Court.

Additionally, I began to see patterns of what I now understand to be predatory alienation perpetrated by my clients’ abusers, who at the same time accused their victims of “alienating” parental affection by telling their abuse stories. That is classic “accuse the other of that which you are guilty” — the gaslighting common in coercive control abuse. “Parental alienation” is misunderstood by the court system since it was hijacked by abusers to prevent their victims from telling their stories, right from the beginning. This is why attorneys discourage clients from bringing up domestic violence and even from suing for child support when they have a dangerous ex. It seems these dangerous personalities will easily manipulate the Family Court system to get custody, even primary custody, to avoid child support, or even get support from their victims.

“Parental alienation” involves the exaggeration of parental mistakes that under normal circumstances would not impact parental attachment but would be used by abusers to continue the pattern of abuse. If it doesn’t involve serious violence or terrifying behavior, I know as a trauma therapist, it wouldn’t impair that attachment without the pattern of alienating behavior, which can literally flip the attachment from the safe parent to the abusive one, in a pattern like Stockholm syndrome. Children remain attached to even grossly abusive parents as they are hard wired for attachment as a survival strategy. If children have impaired attachment toward parents with whom they have previously had healthy attachment, this pattern of alienation should be investigated by the courts.

Clients don’t recover from trauma if they can’t tell their stories, so they must be able to tell the trauma story, and the children who observed the trauma must hear it to avoid the dissociative symptoms common in these dysfunctional family systems. There is a way to tell the stories without alienating parental affection, if there is evidence the offending parent is mending their ways. If not, they have no business having custody of the children regardless. I have advocated for the rights of fathers, but not at the expense of victims of domestic violence. Both parents are important in the lives of the children, but only if they are not actively abusing their children, and actual predatory alienation is child abuse. Family Court needs to be educated on what that pattern really involves to avoid participating in the pattern of coercive control abuse after divorce.

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The Organized Crime of Family Court has No Checks or Balances

Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca Enjoys Impunity So Far, while Hundreds of Innocent Victims have Suffered

Family Courts have two things going for them: the words, “Family” and “Court”. The public is deceived about the damage Family Courts are doing to the fabric of family structures, specifically by decimating — often literally killing — the women and children who walk into their courtroom doors. The voiceless not only entirely lose their voice, but often their psychological and physical survival as well, in this predatory system that exploits the most vulnerable like perhaps no other destructive machine (mostly because of secrecy). The public is also in the dark about how Family Courts have nothing to do with the law, having been endowed with “unlimited judicial discretion” — initially so that they could perform benevolence, but which in practice they use for the most gruesome imaginable malevolence. Unlimited “discretion” has allowed them to steal children from healthy parents and families, to traffic them to pedophilic sex rings and the child pornography industry, and to siphon off billions of dollars from private bank accounts and federal coffers. How does a court structure deal with such massive organized crime within its ranks? It doesn’t. Appeals are important checks and balances of the judicial process, but they do not work in overturning “discretion”; federal courts avoid getting involved, citing “the Rooker-Feldman doctrine” (a principle that prevents federal courts from rehearing state court judgments); and all other law enforcement agencies are under Family Court, not over it. This is why public exposure of Family Courts is so critical.

Below is an application for an emergency appeal my sister, Patricia Lee, filed, which I had to obtain through other means, since she is not allowed to talk to me about her case. I ran it by a talented lawyer who, impressed with her writing, said: “This should have been the perfect appeal!” However, Patricia’s judge is the notorious Jane Gallina-Mecca, who extends long tentacles to control and meddle into everything in and out of court — and she had a classmate (same school and same year) and former fellow Family Court judge in the Appellate Division to deny the appeal. This is only one of numerous times she has done this, and one of the reasons why Gallina-Mecca is being referred to the State Senate for impeachment, with close to 2000 signatures and at least a dozen recorded witness testimonies.

Application for Permission to File Emergency Appeal

What is the nature of the emergency?

The trial court transferred custody of my two (2) children to their violently abusive father, who almost killed each of them and was previously on a restraining order (which the Court negated by mandating visits). He has now detained them for over three (3) years, despite forensic expert reports of their steep medical and academic decline. Now, in collusion with a compromised guardian ad litem, he is targeting me for homicide.

What is the irreparable harm, and when do you expect this harm to occur?

The irreparable harm is my imminent death, not to mention my children’s ongoing “soul murder” (a psychological condition of those in my children’s situation, where they are imprisoned with their abuser without access to their primary caregiver). The emergency room documented two (2) near-death episodes in me in four (4) months, as a direct result of the guardian ad litem’s and my ex-husband’s instigation of my known medical condition. The trial court’s turning a blind eye to facts and evidence over four (4) years has emboldened them, escalating dangers for me. Numerous expert witnesses have warned that my life is at risk because of my ex-husband’s dangerous personality disorder and his “tangential spouse abuse” (abuse of my children to torment me).

What relief do you seek?

An overturning of denial of the habeas corpus motion, so that a de-facto custody arrangement, achieved through intentional lying, suppression of evidence, and fraud upon the court can be reexamined. An issuance of the order confirming my mental competence, so that my rights do not continue to be violated. And restoration of custody time, so that a fourth (4th) holiday season does not go by with my being unable to see, hear from, or exchange gifts with the children I raised since their birth.

a) Have you filed for a stay before the trial court or agency?

I have made numerous filings in the trial court, but no evidentiary hearing has resulted. The trial judge’s arbitrary and capricious, predetermined rulings, in contradiction to facts, are upheld by default through the simple passage of time.

If so, do you have a court order or agency decision denying or granting same?

The recent denial of habeas corpus amounts to an application to reconsider the November 12, 2021, ruling that transferred custody of my children, based on a secret meeting without notifying me or my lawyer, without a plenary hearing, and without a statement of reason. I am still barred from accessing the transcript of that meeting.

If you did not immediately seek a stay from the trial court or agency, or if you did not immediately file this application with the Appellate Division after the trial court or agency denied your stay application, explain the reasons for the delay.

In December 2021, the trial judge threatened my lawyer against filing an interlocutory appeal. When I went pro se, the trial judge appointed a guardian ad litem to prevent me from filing. In January 2023, I completed a psychiatric evaluation that confirmed my mental competence. The trial judge only heard it in February 2024 but refused to issue an order. When I applied for an emergency appeal anyway, in April 2023 and June 2023, they were denied because my divorce trial was supposedly “imminent” — now, seventeen (17) months have passed while I have still not seen or heard from my children.

If the order, judgment or agency decision is final, have you filed a notice of appeal?

There is not yet a final decision, even though a trial was held over six (6) months ago — in my absence and while denying me all due process.

Also, a final decision should not be considered “imminent”, as the Appellate Division deemed it when I filed my last application seventeen (17) months ago. The trial court uses stalling as a means of avoiding accountability, or of simply “habituating” an unacceptable arrangement. For example, for the past four (4) years of litigation, little has been achieved other than dragging out time to cement my children’s “traumatic bond” with their abusive father — while prohibiting, without cause or stated reason, my having any contact or communication with them, even though I was their primary caregiver. In other words, a “temporary” transfer of custody that was illegitimate and illegal in the first place was by default made “permanent” by imposing an inordinate passage of time.

What is the essence of the order, judgment or agency decision?

The order keeps me from seeing or communicating with my children for whom I was the primary caregiver all their lives. It has also served, in its fourth (4th) year, as a de-facto permanent transfer of custody of my children to their violently abusive father without due process. The basis of this order was the false arrest and malicious prosecution orchestrated by the guardian ad litem, [name redacted because of threats], in collusion with the father, Alan T. Chan, to give justification for an immediate and illegal transfer of my children without due process, without my or my lawyer being present, on the specious grounds that I was “absconding” with my children — on my assigned weekend with them. The trial court gave “legal” cover by aiding and abetting these unconstitutional actions.

a) Has any aspect of this matter been presented to or considered by another judge or part of the Appellate Division by emergent application or prior appeal proceedings?

Yes. Judge Kevin McNulty of the Third Circuit District Court, and Judges Thomas Hardiman, Thomas Ambro, and Julio Fuentes of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. They cited the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and all — including the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct — referred me to the Appellate Division.

a) Have any transcripts been ordered (particularly of the trial judge’s challenged ruling)?

Yes. I have been denied all transcripts from the last four (4) years of this litigation, including the trial judge’s challenged rulings, without recourse, justification, or explanation.

If so, when will the transcript(s) be available?

I may need the Appellate Division to compel it, as all transcripts for the last four (4) years have so far been “sealed” against me without justification or explanation.

Please give a brief summary of the facts of your case.

My full-time custody of my children, ages seven (7) and nine (9) at the time, was abruptly interrupted when a SWAT team of five (5) police officers raided and seized my children, without warning, on my authorized weekend of being specifically assigned to have them, on November 12, 2021. I was falsely accused of “absconding” with them when I had simply taken them to a nearby hotel twenty (20) minutes from my house to use its swimming pool. It was later revealed that the compromised guardian ad litem, [name redacted because of threats], and my ex-husband, Alan T. Chan, had orchestrated the raid by lying to the police and committing fraud upon the court — fraud that was so blatant, the police immediately dropped the charges against me, but the trial court never returned my children. The previous weekend, it was discovered, my ex-husband actually tried to abscond with the children, having stolen their passports and crossed state lines into Pennsylvania, violating court directives — and was caught because the children called my father in terror. My ex-husband had reasons to abscond, having recently had zero (0) custody, while on a restraining order for slamming our 7-year-old son against a window, almost crushing his skull. He also almost killed our daughter as an infant, by throwing her in the air to land head first on a concrete floor. This raid was also a near-homicide, as the court had been notified of my life-threatening medical condition just hours earlier. Once [my children] were abducted, the trial judge simply closed down all investigations and refused any plenary hearings, despite reports of numerous other injuries and failure to thrive, unprecedented absences from school, and their “care” being passed onto their feeble, 87-year-old grandfather. I would further add that, since November 12, 2021, I have been denied all motions to see or even talk to my children even for one (1) minute, denied access to all court transcripts, denied access to my children’s school and medical records, and denied discussing this case with anyone, including my own sister.

What legal citation (i.e., statute, regulation, court case) is most important for the proposition that you are likely to prevail on appeal?

Mackowski v. Mackowski, 317 N.J. Super 8, 11 (App. Div. 1998) stated: “[o]ur courts have repeatedly held that so drastic a decision as a change in child custody cannot be made on the basis of conflicting certifications” without witnesses or evidence. The Supreme Court held in Beck v. Beck, 86 N.J. 480 (1981) that the courts cannot enter a custody judgment without an evidentiary hearing. For custody decisions “to serve the best interests of the children,” Sacharow v. Sacharow, 177 N.J. 62, 80 (2003), a judge must come to a decision that “fosters, not hampers, a healthy parent child relationship.” Nufrio v. Nufrio, 341 N.J. Super. 548, 550 (App. Div. 2001). Interlocutory appeals may be heard “in the interest of justice.” R. 2:2–4; R. 2:5–6. Leave is granted “where … justice suggests the need for a review in advance of final judgment.” Appeal of Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 20 N.J. 398, 409 (1956). Refusing to follow N.J.S.A. 9:2–4, the trial court stripped my constitutional parental rights for years without recourse.

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