Office of Leon R. Koziol, J.D.1518 Genesee Street

Utica, NY 13502(315) 796-4000

COMPLAINTHon. Thomas A. Klonick, Chairman April 23, 2013New York Commission on Judicial Conduct61 Broadway; Suite 1200 New York, New York 10006

Re: Judicial Misconduct in Violation of the Constitution

Dear Chairman Klonick:

This is a formal Complaint asking this Commission to investigate judicial misconduct related to free speech retributions which I sustained as a litigant (parent) and civil rights attorney after 23 unblemished years of practice. Put simply, I am unable to gain fair access to our court system, as a lawyer or citizen, because my criticisms of bench and bar practices in divorce and family court matters have led to severe prejudice during litigation. I have described it as an institutional bias.

There is precedent for this in the 2008 judicial pay raise litigation. Judges took part in a scheme to step down from cases involving the other branches of government in retaliation for funding failures. This Commission was forced to intervene. The fact pattern here is dissimilar only as it impacts a broader segment of the general public. It is not a John Grisham novel or “inconvenient truth” but a real life ordeal necessitating an extensive submission to show how a conscientious lawyer was victimized when he sought court reform outside of a highly protected environment.

More than 25 trial level judges were assigned to my originally uncontested divorce case over a seven year period. Some are no longer on the bench, one was publicly admonished, and another was removed as Family Court judge due to child sex abuse. Meanwhile, I was made a target of retribution on the same day I presented an appeals court with widespread misconduct by a lawyer seated on the Fifth District ethics committee. Two years afterward, the same appeals court, in its disciplinary capacity, suspended my law license while a motion for its discharge was pending. Only weeks later, my request was granted, and the entire appeals court belatedly stepped down.

As our domestic courts degenerate from their constitutional design to a money-driven enterprise, violence is increasing on an alarming scale. One of many cases that may corroborate this trend is Pearce v Longo, 766 F. Supp. 2d 367 (NDNY, 2011) where a police officer executed a murder-suicide leaving three children without parents. Abusive court processes were ignored as a cause. I urge your members to examine this submission carefully. It sheds new light on a spreading cancer and will be shared with the Justice Department and Human Rights Division. As the band plays on, our state is sinking to new lows in moral fiber, public service and family preservation.

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Commission’s Purpose

Under the state Constitution, this Commission is empowered to enforce a judicial code of ethics. There can be no greater public interest in such a code than the vindication of supreme laws found in our Bill of Rights. Section 100.2(A) of the New York code provides that “a judge shall respect and comply with the law in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary”. The First Amendment and its state counterparts emphasize that our rights of free speech, association and court access shall not be infringed. Elsewhere the supreme law goes on to require that our rights of due process and equal protection must not be violated.

These laws do not incur a disappearing act simply because our judiciary is the subject of public criticism. Quite the contrary, if a self-governing society is to become properly appraised of power abuses in our third branch of operations, it must be accorded free access to qualified attorneys and whistle blowers. Absent that, an unsuspecting public is left to speculate from the outside and accept all the edicts imposed upon it, no matter how absurd some may be. Law libraries everywhere are filled with erroneous decisions reversed, vacated and even overturned by the same or higher courts. However, appellate processes are financially prohibitive, and when judicial misconduct is their cause, this Commission is duty-bound to take meaningful action.

Two important principles combine to further emphasize the need for misconduct charges on this Complaint. An American form of government uniquely thrives under a system of checks and balances distributed not only among the three branches but also between a national and state system known as “Our Federalism”, Younger v Harris, 401 US 37 (1971). Although federal courts have the power to intervene in civil rights cases, they routinely abstain, as they did here, when processes are underway in state court. Because free speech retributions typically originate through actions under state jurisdiction, resort to an impartial federal forum can only occur by petitioning the Supreme Court after years of costly appeals to a state’s highest court. Fewer than 150 cases are taken annually from around the globe, making such recourse illusory at best.

Yet another compelling factor is the absolute privilege conferred upon members of the judiciary for acts of retaliation. Unlike other state officials acting in an enforcement capacity, judges can exact severe injury upon their targets under cloak of immunity by simply substituting personal animus with court prerogative. In the case of a conscientious attorney publicly critical of his own profession, such immunity is easily expanded to disciplinary actions where an appeals court can essentially serve as complainant, supervising prosecutor and ultimate decision maker. It is an anomaly which perverts due process, i.e., In re Murchison, 349 US 133 (1955) while ambushing free speech. A Supreme Court passage in Spevack v Klein, 385 US 511, 516 (1967) is on point:

The threat of disbarment or the loss of professional standing, reputation and livelihood are powerful forms of compulsion to make a lawyer relinquish (a constitutionally protected) privilege. That threat is indeed as powerful an instrument of compulsion as ‘the use of legal process to force from the lips of the accused individual the evidence necessary to convict him...’ (citing Miranda v Arizona). Lawyers are not excepted from the word ‘person’ as found in the Constitution. Like the school teacher in (the Slochower case) and the policeman in (the Garrity case), lawyers also enjoy first class citizenship.

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Protected Speech

The speech and filings which are being targeted here concern matters of vital public importance. This is not a case of flag burning or funeral protest which the Supreme Court found protected under the federal Constitution, see i.e. Snyder v Phelps, 562 US __ (2011). It features the rights of parents to raise children in separated contexts without undue infringement by the state in our nation’s domestic relations courts. Through unethical, lawyer-generated controversy, moms and dads are forced needlessly to fight over their own offspring. A multi-billion dollar industry has resulted, harming children and society much like the tobacco industry does with its profit motive.

This is also not an isolated instance of protected speech such as a prosecutor criticizing a judge during a criminal trial, Garrison v Louisiana, 379 US 64 (1964). It is a Complaint focused on my role as a public interest advocate who sacrificed himself time and again to promote the civil rights of victimized landowners, racial minorities, women administrators and government workers, among others, see i.e. Oneida Indian Nation v Oneida County, 132 F. Supp.2d 71 (NDNY 2000); Patterson v City of Utica, 370 F.3d 322 (2nd Cir., 2004); Currie v Kowalewski, 842 F.Supp. 57 (NDNY, 1994) and Koziol v Hanna, 107 F. Supp. 2d 170 (NDNY, 2000).

Unlike the aggrieved parties in the cited cases, the one before this Commission finds no remedy or protection under our civil rights laws. This is because of a status loophole in which I am treated as neither a government employee nor an independent business. Instead I am singled out under a pretext of professional regulation, thereby enabling the violator to punish my speech in the workplace unlike any public employer while impairing free enterprise in contrast with other licensing entities subject to mandamus. In this way, the suppressors of speech can legislate the rules, enforce them to suit their interests, and adjudicate any violations as they see fit, all under one umbrella. In short, they can control speech and reform by circumventing the Constitution. Citizen Perspective

This Complaint must be understood first in my role as a citizen and secondarily as a civil rights attorney. For every public criticism or complaint lodged appropriately against judges exhibiting unethical behavior, there arose a sharply proximate adverse event concerning my parental rights, protected liberties or livelihood regulated by the same judges. Acting individually in our state’s domestic relations courts or collectively as a licensing entity, the parties identified here were not functioning so much as judges but as enforcement officers abusing their entrusted powers. If a highly trained attorney can be so abused, the implications to the general public are disturbing.

Serious misconduct occurred when judges refused to respect my rights of self-representation, applying attorney conduct rules which unduly burdened my ability to present a case as a citizen. Certain ones featured vague terminology, worse than the disorderly conduct and harassment laws used to target citizens who criticize the other “equal” branches of government. This enabled the judges to fashion invidious procedures designed to provoke contempt and needless controversy, ultimately leading to charges of ethics and “child support” violations, in addition to anything else that could be orchestrated or “fished out” to discredit the messenger of long overdue reform.

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Through such devices, offensive activity occurring outside of a court commissioned study or self-interested bar initiative could be quickly doused. Organizing rights suffered a similar fate when “dishonesty” findings were published by an appellate panel in a disciplinary order directed to me, a key parenting group advisor. These early retributions concluded with a maliciously procured suspension of my license, released for media consumption prior to my knowledge of it. The counter-message was clear. Rules, principles and even due process will be disregarded to safeguard the money trail. It is a form of suppression like no other, faced by lawyers everywhere.

Lawyer Perspective

Anything can be trumped up to manufacture “dishonesty” violations under this state’s vague code provisions. However, my case is much more troubling insofar as three “discrepancies” in complex submissions, years apart from one another, were exploited to elevate a first time confidential admonition to published violations. In its unbridled mission to send the counter-message, an attorney policy committee refused to credit a report I prepared showing how a civil rights attorney can be easily victimized by a few disgruntled persons for being overly successful.

This “grievance” process will be more fully addressed later. However, a paradox must now be emphasized regarding these “dishonesty” claims. It is the very foundation of our profession to argue opposite interpretations of the same facts. The best lawyers win cases for their clients in this very manner. It does not change simply because a lawyer is forced to defend himself against false charges, unless of course the goal is to convict an innocent man for ulterior reasons. To call such an attorney “dishonest” is like calling a ball player out for properly “stealing” home plate.

To be sure, there may never be an “honest” truth among countless court cases. The good work of the Innocence Project illustrates this. Even properly convicted liars, drug abusers and con-artists are known to demand ridiculous outcomes or illegal acts under extortionist threat of a grievance. As will be seen, I successfully moved for discharge in a federal court case consistent with ethical duty in the face of one such scheme. The policy committee ignored it in my report, choosing to promote the schemer instead, even though no action was taken years earlier in the federal forum.

All of the overt and intricate means used to build this “dishonesty” pretext cannot be presented here, but suffice it to state, the prejudicial merger of roles in my case not only distorted the concept of an attorney-client relationship, upon which the rules are largely premised, but it also caused such an escalation of conflict that I was forced to excuse myself from deliberations on multiple occasions. This was done respectfully and critically to avoid risk of contempt given the absurd nature of processes imposed upon me. Even more egregious, my children were abused as a means to an unlawful end. They were invidiously harmed simply to show off the state’s power.

By meshing the distinct roles of attorney and aggrieved parent, all sorts of conditions could be manufactured for punishment which would never be perceived by the public as a violation of our supreme laws. In short, at the conclusion of “confidential” proceedings in Family Court and disciplinary tribunals, a conscientious lawyer could be publicly vilified with shocking decisions and no accountability in their manner of procurement. It is a serious dysfunction that encourages victims to take matters into their own hands. Our judiciary was created to serve the public as a substitute for violence. The misconduct here is properly analyzed under our civil rights laws.

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Prima Facie Case

Over the years, many valid complaints have been pursued by this Commission against judges of our Unified Court System. Many more were abandoned as futile, dismissed without inquiry, or closed by resignation under political pressure. This is my fourth in a series which, taken together, demonstrates how “institutional bias” can be perpetuated whenever money is a driving force. It is unclear how this Commission can reject the vast majority of complaints lodged by aggrieved citizens, nearly 39,000 of 47,000 over a 40 year period. Some news reports describe powerful influences, others a lack of proper staff and resources. However, to prevent an unjust result here, I will proceed under a framework used by courts to deny dismissal motions in civil rights cases.

This is unquestionably an extraordinary case featuring a victim without precedent legal analysis. Regardless, the goal was simple: to coerce an abandonment of First Amendment rights through invidious and protracted deliberation. This greatly simplifies our framework of analysis. As stated, my rights were relegated to non-existent status through alternating judicial treatment as an attorney or a parent/business. Depending on what the circumstances called for, certain judges simply applied a select review of the facts or they disregarded the misconduct of important players to reach a predetermined outcome favoring the fee interests of the domestic relations bar.

Accordingly, a hybrid analysis is required which draws upon two lines of reasoning applied to public employers and licensing agencies generally. Two principal cases decided the same year in each context are properly merged here: Garcetti v Ceballos, 547 US 410 (2006) and Beechwood Care Center v Leeds, 436 F.3d 147 (2nd Cir. 2006). In the first case, a supervising deputy district attorney claimed disciplinary retaliation arising from an offensive memo which was made public. Unlike the teacher in Pickering v Board of Education, 391 US 563 (1968) who was speaking at a school board meeting, the high court explained that the attorney in Garcetti was acting strictly in an internal capacity. Therefore, public interest weighed against any First Amendment protection.

The salient events here do not involve any employment relationship. However, the first case is necessarily cited because the violators have been treating me in material respects as an employee using their supervisory authority over licensed attorneys. My case also does not feature any internal memo or important employer interest. Instead, even more than the Pickering case, it is filled with vital public interests presented in multiple forums. This brings us to the second case where a federal appeals court found that circumstantial proof was sufficient to show retaliation by a regulatory agency over professionals in the health care field (the second alternate context). Key excerpts from the Beechwood case show striking analogies to the facts in this Complaint:

“Appellants principally claim that DOH, in retaliation for Brook Chambery's many complaints, protests, and lawsuits, conducted repeated nit-picking surveys of Beechwood, trumped up allegations of deficiencies, and enlisted the help of HCFA officials, all culminating in the revocation of the Chamberys' operating certificate; and that this violated Appellants' right against retaliation for speech protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments... This is evidence from which a jury could reasonably find that the DOH was campaigning against the partnership as retaliation for the exercise of First Amendment rights. We therefore vacate and remand as to the First Amendment claim.”

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Applying the merged authority, a prima facie case of First Amendment retaliation exists by:

1) showing that an individual spoke on matters of public concern (or attempted to access any court or agency for recourse), Friedl v New York, 210 F.3d 79 (2nd Cir. 2000), and

2) that he was therefore treated adversely from other members of the general public (or profession) by the entity being criticized, Koziol v Hanna, 107 F. Supp 2d 170 (2000).

By maintaining needless jurisdiction over my parent-child relationships, destroying my livelihood through undue impairment of my law license, and keeping scrutiny over my critical statements at public assemblies, the violators have conducted themselves no differently than the school board and regulatory agencies did in Pickering and Beechwood. Worse than anything implicated in those cases, the victim here was and remains subjected to threats of contempt for “child support” deficiencies orchestrated over a seven year period of unrestrained misconduct.

Selective prosecution was orchestrated because of my public descriptions of our domestic relations courts as fee generating enterprises, star chambers and “archaic” gender biased institutions. I compared father discrimination to racism and a worn out historical practice of isolating a natural condition for economic exploitation. Well ahead of the times, I condemned the phrase “dead beat dad” as a sexist slur in lobby packets distributed to members of Congress. This may have influenced our Justice Department to drop its usage from public releases. I accurately employed the phrase “unethical ethics committee” to describe the “dishonesty” shown by my adversaries in court filings. Hence, a prima facie motive for retaliation is easily demonstrated. The offensive speech was exercised over a period of years during campaigns for public office, civil rights forums, courthouse rallies and internet postings. All that remains then, quite apart from the clear violations of judicial code, is a showing of retaliation to trigger greater remedial action by the U.S. Justice Department and state Human Rights Commission. First Amendment retaliation is commonly shown through circumstantial inference, that is, an adverse event must proximately follow the exercise of speech (or filing). For decades now, our courts have reiterated that “most discrimination or retaliation is not carried out so openly as to provide direct proof of it, accordingly an aggrieved party can use circumstantial evidence to prove a prima facie case”, Sanders v NYC Human Resource Administration., 361 F.3d 749 (2nd Cir. 2004).

Such wisdom is even more compelling in sophisticated work environments such as courtrooms where I make my living, see generally Morris v Landau, 196 F.3d 102 (2nd Cir 1998). It has long been the law that “circumstantial evidence is not only sufficient and persuasive but may be more certain and satisfying than direct evidence of intentional discrimination”, Rogers v Missouri Pacific R. Co. 352 US 500, 508 (1957). Hence, the “onerous” proof burdens historically placed upon civil rights victims, i.e. McDonnell Douglas v Green, 411 US 792 (1973); Texas D.C.A. v Burdine, 450 US 248, 252 (1981) may be obviated by showing common-sense cause and effect.

Indeed this was the very position advanced in Lopez v Metropolitan Life, 930 F.2d 157, 162 (2nd Cir. 1991) when I compared the evidentiary framework created by the courts to an effective repeal of a congressional act. Ironically, well ahead of its time, this position was later embraced

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by lawmakers when the Civil Rights Act of 1991 was passed. Burdens were then relaxed by the high court in Desert Place v Costa, 539 US 90, 99 (2003). Mixed motive cases are now evaluated in a victim’s favor when the improper factor alone, i.e. public criticism, is inferred from all the facts. Peculiar treatment of a target litigant over many years is certainly a powerful inference.

This Complaint features not only the serious impacts of business closure, license suspension, child deprivation, unlawful seizure and contempt threats, but also a constant barrage of libel and slander which can best be summarized as psychological torture over so long a period. As one federal appeals court emphasized, “our precedent allows a combination of seemingly minor incidents to form the basis for a constitutional retaliation claim once they reach a critical mass”, Phillips v Bowen, 278 F.3d 103, 109 (2nd Cir. 2002). A prima facie case is therefore satisfied by the undeniable facts surrounding offensive speech and court filings followed immediately by peculiar processes and adverse events. With this backdrop, we can proceed to the distinct cases.

Members of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department

As this Commission is aware, the Fourth Department in Rochester acts as both a middle level appeals court and a licensing agency for lawyers. Its jurisdiction encompasses the Fifth Judicial District where I successfully practiced law without blemish for more than two decades. In fact, since licensure in 1986, I have never been found guilty of any kind of malpractice, winning every criminal case going to jury verdict and numerous six figure recoveries in civil litigation. I won precedent declaring the largest casino operation in this state unconstitutional. In short, I did the job I was hired to do, and this may be remarkable for the number of powerful entities involved.

Our Complaint begins with an entire panel of judges because the Fourth Department, as a rule and policy making body, authorized, influenced or ratified the retribution process and failed to timely rectify its consequences. In any other context, the members of the active panel would be required to defend themselves against civil rights violations. However, as stated, absolute judge immunity forecloses effective recourse. The federal courts refused to intervene on these and other grounds, leaving me without any capacity for securing further alarming proof. Investigation was therefore denied to the aggrieved party, but this Commission is not so limited.

Judicial immunity appears to take on heightened protection as a judge acclimates to higher public office. However, with greater power comes the greater potential for abuse. A violator of our supreme laws should not be able to gain infallibility simply by having his or her name added to a judicial panel. Indeed, the former chief judge of our state’s highest court panel in Albany was convicted of multiple federal crimes during the nineties. After prison, he was reinstated to the practice of law and is now teaching ethics. As relevant here, the ex-chief justice directed paid court staff to investigate a New Jersey lawyer for purposes of harming his licensing interests in this state simply because the lawyer obtained a close relationship with the judge’s mistress.

From the top down, judicial misconduct reads like a docket sheet in any criminal court. Examples include New York Supreme Court Judge Gerald Garson, convicted of bribery and official misconduct in 2007. He was caught on camera accepting a $9,000 bribe from a divorce lawyer in chambers to fix a custody case. Had the mother not sought assistance from authorities,

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she would have lost her children for a payment much less than most contested divorce retainers. The judge served minimum time in prison due, in part, to the many references from colleagues.

Further upstate, Supreme Court Judge Thomas Spargo was convicted for soliciting $10,000 from a lawyer in exchange for favorable treatment. The money was required for growing legal fees to defend against ethics charges brought by this very Commission. Further collusion between bench and bar is implicated in civil rights cases brought by First Department ethics counsel, Christine Anderson and Nicole Corrado. They paint a very disturbing picture of insider protection for lawyers committing serious misconduct and discipline for targeted lawyers outside the system.

Much of the misconduct described in this Complaint and the preceding ones involve judges with offices in the Syracuse Onondaga County Courthouse. The chief administrative judge there was among the named defendants in yet another civil rights action brought by the chief clerk alleging improper political influence directed against a competing (handicapped) judge of the Family Court. It resulted in a $600,000 recovery and extensive taxpayer liability, Morin v Tormey, 626 F.3d 40 (2nd Cir 2010). As stated, my case is insulated from similar recourse by arbitrary status.

Another named defendant was Family Court Judge Bryan Hedges who was removed from the bench by this Commission in a recent published decision. He admitted to sexual interactions with a handicapped 5 year old girl (relative) while in law school. The sordid details are better left to the decision but only months prior to his removal, this same judge presided over my ongoing custody case. My motion for his recusal was opposed by the divorce lawyer and child attorney on grounds that this judge was beyond reproach. It was fortunately granted prior to the standard “Lincoln” session in chambers (without the parents) involving my then 7 and 8 year old girls.

Only last month, a Michigan judge was exposed for presiding over a child support case in which the mother was his secret lover. He admitted a practice of allowing the female litigant privileged access to his chambers for the purpose of engaging in “special” relations. It caused an unplanned pregnancy and major back peddling to explain impartiality. Serious questions emerged regarding the legitimacy of judicial processes generally. The list goes on: a Pennsylvania judge convicted for imprisoning 4,000 children in newly built facilities in exchange for contractor kickbacks, and a Texas family court judge exposed on his daughter’s video for abuses at the judge’s home.

This is only a sampling of judges actually caught for their misconduct. Many more would be exposed if judges honored related code obligations which mandate accountability for unethical conduct, i.e. the Morin civil rights case. Lower court records here featured judges and lawyers committing clear ethics violations while motions for their removal were pending. They simply passed the damage on to successor proceedings as a mode of retribution, thereby causing serious injuries, costly appeals and vacated orders. Sections 100.3 (D)(1) and (2) of the judicial code provide that any “judge who receives information indicating a substantial likelihood that a (judge or lawyer) has committed a substantial violation of the Code shall take appropriate action”.

The term “substantial” was twice inserted to ameliorate disruption in litigation, but here it was abused to harm the whistle blower. For example, Rule 1-102(A)(7) prohibits “any conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness as a lawyer” and Rule 1-102(A)(5) makes an attorney subject to discipline for “conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice”. Such rules

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were exploited to control conduct which was well beyond that needed to administer justice. It left a conscientious lawyer vulnerable to the whims of diverse judges, competitors and politicians.

Both of these rules were used against me repetitively during my time of precedent filings and public expressions. However the ethical violations of opposing divorce counsel, which produced the judicial code violations here, were not based on the same vague rules used against me. They were backed by court orders in the record. For a period of two years, this lawyer abused his position to inflame all sorts of needless conflict. He was motivated by self interests and politics, and a motion for his removal was accordingly filed at the outset of our uncontested case in 2006. That motion was denied, and the unethical conduct was therefore allowed to continue. Whether any of this was politically motivated by my run for state office at the time does not change the fact that this lawyer repeatedly violated our code of ethics in order to enrich himself.

By the time four decisions were consolidated for appeal, the competing parents had degenerated to an irreconcilable condition. On January 3, 2008, I filed for a stay on appeal before newly appointed member John Centra. It was heard in Syracuse on January 9, 2008. Opposing counsel was not present, although duly notified, because it was later learned that he had not been paid for the appeal. Evidently he felt no duty to report anything to the judge who continued to question his absence. I did not know at the time that this lawyer was also recently appointed by the same appeals court to the ethics committee. My submissions featured numerous violations of code:

(a) opposing counsel’s repeat violations of court directives resulting in protection orders issued against the lawyer, his client and entire law office;

(b) his filing of papers concededly “in the wrong court” resulting in dismissalof his client’s case and costly renewal one year later at her expense;

(c) drafting a boiler plate decree which had his own client guilty of inhumane treatment contrary to an uncontested petition filed prior to his retention;

(d) maliciously delayed disclosure of fraudulent support bills which collapsed his client’s signed settlement, causing more costly conflict;

(e) failure to raise decided issues from earlier proceedings, favorable to his client, which could have prevented a costly hearing with adverse outcome;

These ethical violations were not only egregious but they were the cause of needless proceedings burdening the public’s appeal docket in Rochester. Instead of taking “appropriate action” under the code, Judge John Centra allowed the misconduct to go un-remedied. Worse yet, he continued to sit in judgment on my appeal with a series of adverse decisions while participating in an ethics process against me, initiated nearby on the same day. Ethical rules prevent me from publicizing any complaints which may have been independently filed against this lawyer with the Committee he sat on, Hill v Committee on Professional Standards, 5 AD3d 835 (3rd Dept 1997), including those from many other victims. Suffice it to state, no action was ever publicly taken against him.

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As mentioned, retaliation is rarely shown by admissions or direct evidence. Here circumstantial inferences are everywhere in the bizarre manner in which the retaliatory disciplinary process was executed. It continues to the present day with an overtime suspension period of 18 months and counting, tacked on to an earlier one year period completed in 2011. There is no end in sight to my “attorney reinstatement” process dragged out maliciously under a presumption of guilt by the Third Department, a subject to be addressed in the next section. Reinstatement abuse was made possible by a Fourth Department process which implicates further violations of judicial code.

Rule 100.2(B) provides that a “judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationship to influence the judge’s conduct or judgment”. This rule applies most assuredly to the judge’s relationship with ethics counsel acting in the capacity of a divorce lawyer. Rule 100.3(B)(4) requires that a judge “perform judicial duties without bias or prejudice...” While my motion for transfer of proceedings to an impartial forum was being held off (denied without prejudice), the Fourth Department suspended my license to practice law. It then disqualified itself altogether with reference to the same motion only ten weeks later. The peculiar processes alone raised sufficient issues to require the Court to abstain from any suspension. They include the following:

1) A first time disciplinary action was commenced after more than two decades of unblemished practice on January 9, 2008, the same day as argument involving the unethical divorce lawyer. A January 11, 2008 letter from the district ethics committee was issued to me setting forth 10 grievances going back to events of the year 2000.

2) A “determination” of misconduct was made in that letter even though one of the grievances had been withdrawn as fabricated three years earlier, another involved a lawyer since convicted and disbarred with my assistance, and still another, only one month old, had yet to be received and answered by me consistent with standard practice.

3) At least five of these grievances were eventually dismissed because, according to the notices bearing the same letterhead, the same grievances contained nothing on their face to show a violation of ethical code. Three dismissals were issued only three months later.

4) Prior to this time, there was not even a single “Letter of Caution” to indicate an onset of such a flurry of disciplinary activity. The initial piling-on process was so unexpected that a “Counter-Report” was necessitated in response to a voluminous one haphazardly assembled by a staff attorney. Just prior to her employment, that attorney had caused a grand jury to be dismissed from a felony case due to ethical conflict in her representation.

5) One of the six remaining grievances was withdrawn from the attorney’s report to the committee only days prior to the meeting set for its consideration. Based on all the confusion and my need to unearth closed files from our office basement, I requested an adjournment to properly prepare the counter-report. This was quickly denied by letter.

6) Only days later, the same lawyer, using the same Committee letterhead reported falsely to her superiors that no adjournment had been requested. This placed me in the difficult predicament of supplementing responses going as far back as the year 2004.

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7) In contrast to my request beforehand, an adjournment was granted for opposing counsel at the meeting to scrutinize my counter-report for “discrepancies” that could be used to elevate a first time confidential admonition to formal charges. Over a two month period, only three could be fished out from voluminous submissions. They were treated not as supplemental information but as “discrepancies” to build a case of “dishonesty”.

8) During this period, I was engaged in organizing activity critical of bench and bar practices in domestic relations litigation. For each public filing or statement, there arose an adverse consequence to my professional standing. The goal was obvious: to discredit the messenger of meaningful reform. This goal was pursued more boldly as time went on with great effectiveness as donations and participation dwindled from within our groups.

On the home front, nearly every petition for parenting rights was being routinely denied by a succession of judges to the point of rendering all judicial access costly and futile. Even basic phone contact became a subject for protracted litigation. Meanwhile, lower court records were being constrained to impair my constitution based arguments. Key transcripts showing trial court prejudice were removed or undermined to impair a convincing case on appeal. Eventually, all appeals were transferred to the Third Department but not before the damage to my parent-child relationships became irreparable, see i.e. Koziol v Hawse-Koziol, 878 NYS2d 524 (4th Dept 2009). Mandamus and prohibition were also denied, even to secure ministerial orders.

Significant to this oppressive process was the appointment of a child lawyer, over my objection, who made a living from the abuses identified in public statements. He opposed any relief helpful to me while acting essentially as co-counsel for my ex-spouse at the expense of our taxpayers. Due process was tortured to facilitate a select prosecution carried out in a judicial forum devoid of any real judge. I was burdened on multiple fronts and forced to exit when one judge (Pirro-Bailey) moved to a decision after admitting that my papers had not even been read. This enabled her to issue defamatory orders, vacated months later, by treating fabricated allegations as true.

In August, 2011, this judge-appointed, “attorney for the child”, submitted papers to the Fourth Department which stated, factually and under attorney’s oath, that I had sought to have my law license reinstated in Family Court. As we all know, law licenses are issued and regulated by our four appellate departments. His supporting reference was a cross-motion filed by me only months earlier. In response, I appended the entire cross-motion showing no such request among the 13 enumerated ones. Two lower judges then stepped off my case, a third rationalized the fabrication as “argument”, and the Fourth Department did nothing. This is how far the process has been abused to make me appear “unfit” for lawyer reinstatement and parenting purposes.

While I can go on and on, the evidence here is clear and compelling. I have been precluded from gaining fair access to New York’s court system for any purpose. As stated, precedent for this is found in the judicial pay raise litigation taken by the chief justice and Unified Court System against the governor and state legislature, see Chief Judge v Governor, 65 AD3d 898 (1st Dept. 2009); Maron v Silver, 58 AD3d 103 (3rd Dept. 2008). Unless government insiders enjoy special treatment by virtue of their appointment powers to this Commission, I should not be treated as a discriminated party with inferior rights of access to our courts. I remain a native New Yorker and common taxpayer. Public service demands far more accountability than we are seeing here.

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Members of the Appellate Division, Third Department

When I first began practicing law more than 25 years ago, all licensed attorneys in America were nearly outnumbered by the students attending law school. Obviously, jobs would be needed to accommodate the huge influx of conflict builders. At the time, law guardians were appointed predominantly to assist older children in serious litigation matters. Over time, the age threshold was reduced to birth, and “attorneys for the child”, as they are now called, were appointed even in support cases. With the influx of lawyers came the increase in costly conflict among families.

It also brought a decline in worker productivity and an exodus of jobs to other countries. These are issues which formed a regular part of the public discourse which I was promoting and the profession was suppressing for self serving reasons. We prefer not to deal with this crisis in any meaningful way, but it must be addressed in any democratic society. In my case, this “attorney for the child” was re-appointed routinely to punish my exercise of protected activities occurring outside the divorce process. It carried over to proceedings transferred to the Third Department.

After the demurrer exhibited by the Fourth Department to the child attorney’s dishonesty, an identical record was re-submitted to the members of the Third Department in Albany. Under the Judicial Code, clear ethical misconduct of this kind constituted more than a substantial violation, and it needed no progress in the underlying appeal. Notice alone was sufficient to require action on the part of the latter panel of judges. Instead, no disciplinary action was taken, no explanation given and not even an acknowledgment made of an issue. A closer review is therefore in order.

The court-appointed child attorney, William Koslosky, lied in sworn papers submitted to two appellate licensing courts. To this day there has been no retraction to his scheme for harming my livelihood as an attorney and constitutional rights as a parent. He spewed forth his lies while representing my children, two innocent girls, aged 7 and 9, whose college funds and support needs were being damaged by a lawyer they did not hire. Worse yet, they lacked maturity and knowledge to understand what he was doing and to hold him accountable for any malpractice.

That responsibility fell to the appointing courts, both lower and appellate, which instead restrained their energies without regard to the harm that was being inflicted. In doing so, they effectively ratified the behavior, sending a message to the unwilling clients that it is perfectly proper to lie under oath to our higher courts of law. This is not the way I intended to raise my girls, and I do not want a stranger, fixated by money, to harm them in this unethical manner. In November, 2012, William Koslosky was finally removed as court-appointed attorney for my children after this same briefing was made before newly assigned magistrate, James Gormon.

On September 23, 2010, the Third Department entered an order suspending my law license for one year based essentially on dishonesty grounds. Exploiting the process already completed before the Fourth Department, it confirmed a report issued by a referee who acted in conformity with the agenda described above. As relevant here, he made “discrepancy” findings contrary to the face of submissions being cited. There were five grievances left over from the witch hunt which formed the bulk of his report, and although they are addressed in some detail later, the entire outcome was severely soiled by the referee’s willingness to simply make things up.

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The Third Department ignored all this in papers and oral argument by confirming everything. In an unprecedented move, it added a “reservation” about my continuing ability to practice law.Nowhere did the Third Department explain why it had such a reservation, or for that matter what it consisted of. However, from the reinstatement proceedings which followed, one can assume that it was based upon my deviation from abusive and accepted money making practices of the domestic relations bar. Once again, the peculiar process alone shows the retaliation at its core.

On October 4, 2011, more than one year after completion of the one year suspension, I filed for reinstatement. I also completed an ethics bar examination with a score well beyond passing (It had been a quarter century since my last such examination). The application was referred to the Committee on Professional Standards for investigation and report. A series of “inquiries” followed, some of them needless and others duplicative of earlier ones before the Fourth Department. For each successive inquiry, there was a turnaround period of weeks, even months.

This process has been underway now for more than 18 months, well beyond the one year term originally issued as I enter my fourth year of combined suspension. Exactly one year ago, I received a multi-page “Chief Attorney’s Inquiry” focused on three subjects: 1) a civil rights forum at the Hotel Utica where I spoke out against domestic court practices; 2) fundraising initiatives behind a class action being considered by parenting groups I organized, and 3) my personal civil rights case which made its way ultimately to the United States Supreme Court. The inquiry as a whole was not only chilling from a First Amendment standpoint but contrived with utter incompetence to target directly my free speech, association and judicial access respectively. For purposes of this Complaint, I will cite only a few of the code violations committed by ethics lawyers to generate this one inquiry alone. It began by questioning why I did not announce myself as a “suspended attorney” to the audience assembled on “January 19, 2010”. The first simple answer was evident from the Committee’s own file, removing any reason for this demand altogether. I was not suspended on that date or at any time prior to February 5, 2010. This would be known from a recent order which lifted the earliest suspension as one of the very conditions for reinstatement. Such incompetence violated Rules 6-101(A)(2) and (3) of the attorney code.

The second answer is more compelling. Even assuming I was suspended on the cited date, there is no requirement that a citizen announce any disparaging status prior to addressing a public forum, at least not in this country. Indeed convicted child molesters are not bound by any law to announce their record before addressing a city council meeting. Such labels may have been common in Hitler’s day, but I find such an inquiry mindlessly offensive after hearing my father’s renditions of time spent in a Nazi concentration camp. This “Chief Attorney’s Inquiry” was issued on behalf of the state at taxpayer expense in further violation of Rules 7-102(a)(1) and (2).

Turning to the targeted litigation, I incorporated and founded, respectively, two public interest groups focused upon parenting interests and court reform. Together they had sponsored forums, parenting conventions, fundraising efforts and lobbying initiatives in Congress and elsewhere. Until participants and funding reached a minimum threshold, no motion for group intervention or class status could be achieved in that litigation. In the meantime, therefore, I was perfectly within my constitutional rights to proceed with the subject civil rights case as a self represented parent.

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The Committee was evidently disturbed by my continued exercise of protected reform activity even after the suspension orders were issued. Its staff counsel accordingly chose to attack me as a lawyer still practicing law in violation of those (overlapping) orders. While this approach might have been rational in connection with former clients now deprived of vital services, it could not be applied to deprive me of my right to file and pursue my own recourse in a court of law.

The Committee pressed on anyway. Using the catch-all rule prohibiting “conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice”, they demanded communications from me while being represented by the state’s Attorney General in the subject litigation, thereby violating Rule 7-104(A)(1). No frivolous action claims were raised by any judge, party or attorney in that precedent seeking case, including the Committee’s own legal counsel. The logical conclusion, then, is that these lawyers were seeking to impair the litigation against them by abusing their inquiry powers. In the process, they showed their incompetence in further violation of ethics Rules 6-101 (1) and (2).

Federal Court Litigation

These and other abuses upon my First Amendment rights compelled me to seek recourse in federal district court against the Committee attorneys, Third Department judges, and City of Utica. The latter party was added because ethics counsel in Albany was targeting a civil rights forum in Utica which also featured complaints against the city police department. At that time, criminal activity by a discharged office manager was being neglected by this department, thereby impairing reinstatement. She was later arrested in another county and sent to jail on $10,000 bail.

The counter-inquiry which naturally emerged from all this is how ethics lawyers in the Third Department managed to discover from thin air an obscure event occurring years earlier in another Department of upstate, New York. There was no complainant or source identified in the “Inquiry”, and it was therefore reasonable to conclude that the false allegations were being relayed to the Albany offices by lawyers connected with the City of Utica. This is supported by the successful civil rights actions I completed against them over the years and the benefit to be derived by keeping me in a perpetual state of suspension. It also raised more ethical issues.

Granted the city of Albany may be located only 90 miles from Utica, but that distance might as well be light years if you factor in the bizarre politics of my home town. I served as councilman and corporation counsel for the City of Utica during the nineties, and you only have to read a May, 2009 newspaper series known as “The Mob Files” to grasp my meaning. In an interesting twist, while I am being subjected to years of suspension based on fabricated “discrepancies”, extortionist grievances and unethical “inquiries”, lawyers convicted or implicated in crimes during “Mob Files” received only censure or admonition with no loss of licensing privileges.

Hence, by May, 2012, I was facing mixed government retribution which necessitated discovery processes in a forum specifically charged with the duty of safeguarding our rights under the American Constitution. However, the federal court applied a selective reading to my complaint and once again refused to intervene. Facilitating compulsory disclosure from the city was one thing, but to authorize it from state judges was quite another matter. I was therefore returned to this reinstatement process held up in an indefinite state of limbo by the violators themselves.

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Criminal Enterprise

At page 10 of this Complaint, I referenced one of 10 grievances combined on a single day to start this retaliation process. It came from a lawyer affiliated with my former law practice in 2005. A few months after his arrival, it was reported that he had been embezzling money due to a drug addiction. After an office investigation, several complaints were filed with the Utica Police Department. However, they were all referred to civil recourse. Accordingly the crimes continued over county lines until, with my assistance, he was convicted in Syracuse and later disbarred. Ironically, years afterward, he was arrested for drug possession following a police chase in Utica.

When bad cops harm a good agency, and when “ethics” lawyers target the wrong people, it empowers the real villains to continue their misconduct. History therefore repeated itself when my ex-office manager embarked upon a crime spree after the same police agency neglected my “Internal Report” of crimes committed by her more recently. Among my findings and charges was her unauthorized practice of law conducted throughout our region. Ironically, I identified a law office where she was later employed as a potential victim. Sadly, my predictions came true.

Although I was reluctant to furnish my report in response to ongoing ethics inquiries, I can now disclose this information because of news reports and common knowledge that this ex-manager, Veronica Donahue, was finally arrested for representing herself falsely as an attorney in a court of law. It occurred because of a tip to the court influenced by my report. These events are provided to emphasize that lawyers will elect to accept their losses rather than risk any exposure to the kind of reckless processes described here. Such processes create a sense of immunity in people such as Ms. Donahue and whatever role she may have played for my adversaries in 2009.

During that year, the witch hunt was well underway. One of my civil rights cases had been assigned to a judge, no longer on the bench, who proceeded on its merits despite earlier disqualifications involving my client cases. For example, in 2005, I moved for his recusal on a felony case involving a city administrator singled out for political reasons. The judge abandoned his neutral role by applying undue pressure to take a plea. After a volatile exchange, he removed himself. While the details are alarming, suffice it to state, a replacement judge threw out all counts of an indictment before a jury. My client’s career was saved, and she later filed civil suit.

When it came to the civil rights client and my “child support” litigation years later, this judge refused to disqualify himself as others had done on much lesser grounds. During yet another volatile exchange, the judge referenced both matters and set a date to decide threshold issues of jurisdiction and bias raised in my motion. This was all confirmed on a May 26, 2009 argument transcript along with the judge’s own confirmation that a proper transfer order had not been received. The next event was a support violation order filed on October 1, 2009 without any hearing or decision on my written motion. He noted that it could have been presented orally, and he continued to ignore repeat filing the next year. Humiliating content was obviously the issue.

Such content appeared in a record insulated from appellate review by the violator himself on the authority of Blackoff v Blackoff, 56 AD2d 752 (1st Dept. 1977)(applied by an earlier trial judge in Koziol v Hawse-Koziol, supra). Therefore the hearing commitment would form no part of a needed record on appeal, making it altogether futile. The support violation caused a first

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suspension of my law license on February 5, 2010 when the Fourth Department refused to hear my superior constitution based claims. Meanwhile, on the client case, motion dates actually cited in orders on the record by the same judge were never placed on my calendar by the ex- manager.

Two such voids occurred over a six month period contrary to standard practices observed during her four years of employment. These voids were not discovered until after discharge of the office manager along with extensive related information held back from the “Internal Report” furnished to authorities. A February 10, 2012 letter from the local district attorney’s office described this report as containing “serious allegations of criminal activity”. It was all referred to the Utica Police Department. Like the 2005 lawyer complaint, the same Department left the matter to civil recourse. However, after the arrest of this ex-manager in another county recently, I was informed by an independent investigator that the Veronica Donahue matter had been reopened.

An hour after conclusion of this first appearance on my support case, Herkimer County sheriff deputies were directed to my girlfriend’s place of business to investigate her whereabouts even though she was not a party to any pending proceeding. The circumstances here cannot be fully presented in this Complaint, but they resembled those involving neighboring county, Family Court Judge, Joan Shkane. This Commission will recall its contemporaneous public admonition issued against her for directing a non-party to appear on contempt issues. My girlfriend was not only very attractive and well liked in the Herkimer community at the time, but she was being pressured one month earlier to leave me based on alleged “child support” violations. She later moved her business outside the county after experiencing scrutiny by local law enforcement.

A motion was promptly filed to bring the client case back on track but the suspension order two months later prevented me from completing it before the same biased judge. The voids in my office calendar naturally led to a grievance, one of two which now impairs reinstatement. Both are years in progress and show how severely I am being scrutinized. The second involves a sex discrimination case successfully completed before the suspension against the state on behalf of two deputies in corrections. The order prohibiting my practice of law removed from its scope any legal process to collect fees. In this case, the fee was already set by a 2009 stipulated order.

All of the recovery between lawyer and client was to be paid by the state which was also named as a necessary party in the ongoing personal litigation. Accordingly I sought to avoid yet another costly lawsuit to both my client and state taxpayers by sending a letter to the judge to enforce payment. It was instead delayed for two years, impairing not only my support obligations but also my ability to finance separate litigation. Ethics counsel in the Fourth Department was even copied on related correspondence to prevent any violation. Despite her involvement, front page news of my suspension, proper notice to a party electing to finish pro se, and lack of any lawyer references, the judge suggested to the grievance committee that I violated the suspension order.

The “inquiries” and manufactured charges described above were otherwise laid out in a secret report directed by the Third Department decision-making body and shared with the prosecuting Committee. To this day, I have been denied all access to it in serious violation of due process. The inordinate delay in production was no doubt influenced by the federal court action naming the members as required parties. There was no injunction in that case. Protracted reinstatement therefore came across as pure retaliation for protected filings necessitated by the same inquiries.

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Star Chamber

Since April 28, 2010, all of my domestic and disciplinary matters have been sent by individual orders from the Fourth to the Third Departments. The ones copied on me routinely referenced the consent of presiding justices to each transfer which, in turn, caused jurisdictional confusion and premature filings. During that period, a large variety of dispositions required appellate processes to preserve important questions for higher court review. With legal representation, each appeal would cost the conventional litigant at least $10,000 in fees, filing costs and record reproduction.

If that litigant happened to be a father in a domestic case, the costs would nearly be doubled inasmuch as the adversary can simply draw from untaxed “child support” revenues to pay for her side of each appeal or ask the court to order payment from the father. In my case, a routine series of adverse decisions meant that my appellate costs could easily exceed one half million dollars with lifetime financial harm to my little ones. Even as a litigant endeavors to consolidate appeals, as I did, issues become moot while “continuing jurisdiction” in lower courts is abused as shown.

This was particularly a concern in light of the extensive periods required to facilitate each layer of appeal. In support cases, a fourth level has been added, and in disciplinary matters, one level is removed. I will leave it to your good members to imagine the complications and needless injury which the combined misconduct uniquely inflicted and why outside intervention is vital here. The transfer process, at first blush, appeared to constitute a proper ethical response to the retributions evident in the Fourth Department. However, over time, it proved more problematic and injurious than the outcomes which might have been expected in the original forum.

Proof lies in the excessive first time suspension in the Third Department compared to the original recommendation in the Fourth Department for a single confidential admonition to close five joint grievances. At the Third Department, my treatment was reversed. Three admonitions have been imposed on separate grievances arising from a single cause, including those easily explained by pilfered files of the office manager. This cause could not be predicted or prevented any more than the felonies committed by ex-chief Judge Sol Wachtler by his associates on the high court. In short, it would appear that I am being set up now for disbarment and another published attack.

As emphasized by the Supreme Court, the impairment of professional livelihood is a powerful form of compulsion for a lawyer to abandon constitutionally protected rights. The licensing deprivations here were orchestrated, in part, through the criminal enterprise described above. They were consummated in a single chamber of New York’s court system with no recourse to an impartial federal forum and only discretionary appeal to the state’s high court. This is in contrast with other professionals normally accorded clear lines of separation and two levels of appeal. It is a peculiar condition that can easily insulate an ulterior design for convicting an innocent man.

Corroborating this point is the exploitation of so-called “discrepancies” to arbitrarily elevate disciplinary outcomes. As stated, three were fished out from voluminous submissions involving a period of years, and they were the isolated cause behind a change of disciplinary treatment from confidential admonition to formal charges. Hence, these “discrepancies” comprised no small matter in this scheme of events. When it finally came time to present my defense to them, the decision makers simply changed the rules midstream to preclude it in violation of due process.

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During the evidentiary phase, a retired judge appointed as hearing referee refused to hear my defense by reserving these “discrepancy” charges for mitigation before the Appellate Division. When his report issued months later, it contained “findings” of discrepancy based entirely on the one sided Committee’s case. In the process, he misrepresented the facial contents of my cited letter of 2005 upon which the discrepancy was based in order to manufacture the adverse finding. After transfer, I was denied any opportunity to be heard because “mitigation” presumes guilt in the findings under review. As stated, the Third Department confirmed everything in its entirety.

Circumstantially these “discrepancies” emerged after the entire appeals court reviewed my divorce submissions, after a declaratory action was filed against the court system in Albany, and after public presentations in Washington D. C. featured on internet sites. Their monitoring by ethics lawyers is proven by the 2010 civil rights forum reproduced on our website for continued public inspection and a fictitious 2008 lawsuit against Dunkin Donuts posted as an obvious joke on another site. Like the forum, I was duly licensed at the time but still required to explain the donut case without authorship in either the post or transmittal, a “double-anonymous” grievance.

Based on the foregoing, I have asked the Third Department to vacate the September 23, 2010 suspension order after the abstentions exercised by the federal court in 2011 and 2012. Like prior motions, this one is destined for failure but necessary to bring the combined subject matter outside of the same biased forum. Events occurring since the suspension order further prove that First Amendment suppression and not ethics was the overriding mission here. One of five client grievances involved the extortion scheme in federal court mentioned on page 4 of the Complaint.

A discharged member of the Syracuse Police Department was claiming race discrimination in 2001. I filed an action on his behalf and prevailed over the city’s first motion for dismissal. After extensive review of confidential personnel files, we engaged in substantial settlement discussions which the plaintiff sought to elevate artificially through a release of file information to the media. I repeatedly admonished against any such “leak” because it would bring both of us in violation of a court order. The ex-officer, with a criminal record persisted, thereby creating serious conflict.

Reluctantly, but necessarily under ethics rules, I moved successfully to be discharged from the case. The client filed a grievance as threatened, and he was then left without legal counsel for many months until two replacement lawyers came on board subject to the same confidentiality order. Having saved the careers of an African-American police commissioner, a white police chief and assorted rank and file police officers, my commitment to ethics and civil rights was not limited to one constituency. I respected the rights of those police officers unknowingly made subject to an ex-employee’s “fishing expeditions”. Court supervision was obviously critical.

There was no action taken in connection with the June, 2003 ethics complaint in federal court. However, on January 9, 2008, its state court counterpart elected to bring charges. Various irreconcilable conflicts were ignored in favor of a claim that I had not turned over all files to my replacement when in reality this was a pretext orchestrated to avoid a second dismissal motion. I was now faced with a fraud upon a court which I was duty-bound to disclose. In May, 2009, the two attorneys were brought up on contempt charges along with my ex-client for publishing protected information to the media on the eve of trial. A hearing on the charges necessitated a

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cancellation of the trial date, Brown v Syracuse, 623 F. Supp.2d 272, 276 (NDNY 2009). Ultimately the entire lawsuit was thrown out with no recovery and major litigation costs.

Another grievance confirmed in support of my suspension was withdrawn in 2005 by the client. He admitted its falsity in a sworn affidavit (excluded from the Committee’s 2008 petition before the Fourth Department) and in 2009 testimony before the same (successor) referee. A retired justice of New York’s high court properly stepped down as the initial referee. The grievance depicted an incident regarding office furniture moved from a lakeside office to my home office in 2004. It was customary for me to invite friends and clients for boat excursions on that lake.

A group which included this client agreed to help move a few items following one such excursion. The disbarred lawyer mentioned earlier was not among the helpers but he sought to twist the event into a payment for legal fees owed by this client. He did so in order to settle a civil rights case I started using his relative, a grievance committee chairman, as opposing counsel for the City of Utica. Such a twist would trigger ethical requirements for a written agreement. Like the Brown case, this was nothing more than an obvious scheme to extort a lien release using the grievance committee as improper leverage. Like all such schemes, I resisted it to the end.

The grievant himself later admitted the entire scheme and Utica attorneys even contacted him while under my earlier representation to complete the proposed settlement. The arrangement ultimately collapsed, and I successfully concluded the case years later. After my success, the retributions began. The grievant was not called as a witness by the Committee, and the referee compared him to a “retard” at the closed hearing. In papers filed with federal court, I compared the grievance to the pay raise litigation in which our state’s chief justice and court system used a high profile firm to present their case. Reportedly no fee was charged, thereby implicating an improper gift valued in six figures. I also compared my boat event to golf excursions for the more influential types never held to a written agreement for such spontaneous exchanges.

Rule 100.3 of the Judicial Code requires a judge to dispose of judicial and administrative matters “promptly, efficiently and fairly”. An attorney reinstatement process is not a judicial matter, but Rule 100.3(D)(3) declares it to be in any event. In addition to the orchestrated charges, harassing inquiries and inordinate retaliation already described, during the past three months I have been subjected to letter exchanges over basic procedure. The short of it is that my waiver of a hearing on futility grounds in order to expedite a final outcome was exercised in vain. Furthermore, any disciplinary process directed and controlled by the prosecution and decision maker, replete with ex parte confidential reports, violates the “fairness” principal in addition to other code rules.

Oneida County Supreme Court Judge Patrick MacRae

The foregoing sections depict a number of lawyers and judges committing serious misconduct with little or no ethical consequence. Had the same circumstances involved me, the repercussions would have been severe and permanent (assuming that is not already the case). This raises equal protection issues in addition to the First Amendment and due process violations already shown. These are now combined in proceedings currently underway before Judge Patrick MacRae. Last year, he presided over support proceedings triggered by the above described fiasco in Herkimer County. Since January of this year, he has presided over related home foreclosure processes.

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Personally, in the short time he has been on the bench, I have retained a high regard for Judge MacRae. Nevertheless, whether innocently, intentionally or otherwise, he became a part of the “institutional bias” upon inheriting the mess passed down from his more culpable predecessors. In addition to earlier cited rules, Rule 100.3(B)(3) requires a judge to be “patient, dignified and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers and others with whom the judge deals in an official capacity”. On March 14, 2013, Judge MacRae stopped proceedings abruptly to condemn my attire. Despite a logical but unexpected answer, the judge became defensive and angry.

Judge MacRae took issue with the fact that I failed to appear in court with a suit coat over my otherwise formal features: pressed slacks, shirt, tie and dress shoes. I quickly explained that the omission was inadvertent because I had discovered the coat’s absence from my office closet as I was departing for court. I further explained that it resulted from my lack of regular court work during suspension and that my home was too distant to avoid a late arrival. I also emphasized that I had never previously appeared without a suit coat or been criticized by any judge in more than a quarter century, even during suspension. As a self represented litigant, I stressed further that I appear formally not from any requirement, but out of respect for what our courts stand for.

Judge MacRae then responded, in substance, that although he recognized I was “no longer a member of the bar” (an inaccurate statement), he would treat me nevertheless as an officer of the court and require a suit coat. He then concluded the exchange with an acknowledgment that he too had suffered a similar experience while in private practice. A further bias took hold thereafter when he continued to allow my ex-spouse to engage in repetitive harangues about “her” children and their support needs. After a lengthy period, I was forced to object and the judge eventually “advised” her that these were subjects for a separate petition and proceeding. The ex-spouse diatribes facilitated a means for inflicting further humiliation upon an already tortured litigant.

To protect myself at upcoming proceedings, I confirmed with ethics counsel that there is no rule which requires a self represented party to satisfy any lawyer dress code. The cited courtesy rule applies to “lawyers” and “litigants” separately. It could not mean both. Absent distinct treatment, chaos could follow and erode the very purpose for the rule in each context. More important than the self-legislated dress requirement, Judge MacRae was treating me contrary to the operative suspension (not disbarment) order. I was expressly “forbidden to appear as an attorney... before any court, judge, ... or other authority...”. By converting me into a merged entity, I could be insulted while no mention is made of the wrinkled clothes and informal attire of my ex-spouse.

The MacRae exchange is no small matter. It reverts to the beginning of this Complaint. By merging or alternating roles, the violators have been able to exact all sorts of abusive treatment under a pretext of legitimacy. This was well evidenced by the misconduct of predecessor judges. In an earlier 25 page complaint, I described widespread code violations by Syracuse Family Court Judge, Martha Walsh-Hood. To corroborate this over time, the four day custody case she presided over in July, 2009 was essentially repeated two years later before a replacement judge. Aside from its high duplicative cost to the families and children, my parenting time was restored to pre-Hood levels without incident ever since (standard father periods, two monthly weekends).

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The problem with merged or alternating treatment is that it naturally influences improper and prejudicial conduct by judges presiding over distinct litigant matters. In court, I am quickly viewed as a lawyer instead of a citizen. The impacts are fatal to my rights. This Commission will recall from a prior detailed complaint how Judge Walsh-Hood began our July, 2009 custody trial, unprepared and biased, with a “Decision After Trial” issued on January 22, 2010 replete with grammatical errors. She confined me to the trial table, condemned the use of my pen as a weapon of intimidation and even deprived me the use of a notebook on the witness stand.

This was all clear discrimination without rational justification between represented and self represented parties. Judge Walsh-Hood abused her position to shut me down as a fathers’ advocate, forcing me to excuse myself on the last day. She was thereby benefitted by an evidentiary rule which allows her to disregard my entire case and accept the fraudulent one presented by my adversaries. Her decision went much further however. She took issue with such events as campaign parades and “Field Day” enjoyment which followed, twisted them into child exploitation for political advantage. Drawing improperly upon her personal experience while ruling on objections, she excluded relevant photographs and witness testimony.

Never mind the common and commendable practice of including family members in community functions as our own president routinely does, Ms. Walsh-Hood failed to relate campaign events involving her own family, including a congressman of the opposite political party, who no doubt had a role in causing her ascension to a judgeship. I lost ten months time with my precious girls as a result of all this before fraudulent petitions by the ex-spouse were dismissed at a later hearing without the need for any defense. I am still awaiting the dispositive orders from Judge Walsh-Hood since May, 2010 which was even denied after two higher court mandamus actions.

Earlier I described my discharged office manager who conspired with adversaries to manufacture parenting deficiencies and ethics violations. One of them involved a former client who received a partial refund after services properly completed without incident. Following sensational stories of suspension influenced by the foregoing events, new grievances emerged including this one in demand of a full refund. It does not take a rocket scientist to conclude that an extortion scheme was under way. The grievance was necessarily closed only after I secured bank records showing that a “refund” had already been made. I have since filed civil suit against this former client for abuse of court process after his small claims action was also dismissed on the same record.

To appreciate the audacity of this ex-office manager, devoid of any father figure in her life, you have to revisit the incident which finally caused her arrest and imprisonment on $10,000 bail. She stood before a judge and announced herself as a licensed attorney even though she had never received a lawyer’s education or qualified for any license. Instead, she misrepresented a law office management program as a law degree and exploited fraudulent reporting tactics learned as a divorce secretary to cause havoc for multiple law firms and judges. She took fees from unsuspecting “clients”, completed entire divorce cases with forged signatures, and simply walked away from crucial legal matters whenever it was too risky to complete them.

I have been unable to hold this deranged woman accountable in Utica, New York for more than four years. Contrary to the protection of our public ostensibly used to justify attorney discipline, the processes abused here produced an opposite effect. A non-lawyer was empowered to injure

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numerous people and former clients have had their cases dismissed with substitute (real) lawyers in court. I have maintained an extensive list of victims over the past four years who were denied justice and otherwise forced to endure hardships at the hands of truly unethical lawyers.

As related to Judge MacRae, the crime spree of ex-office manager, Veronica Donahue, came before him in the way of an affidavit from a lawyer who had previously exploited this woman to introduce false evidence in a separate civil case. This invites yet another round of misconduct to support “institutional bias”, but for the limited purposes of this Complaint, the lawyer presented papers to Judge MacRae seeking to have the rural criminal case against Ms. Donahue moved to Oneida County on grounds that the presiding judge there was also a witness to Donahue’s crime. These papers along with an affidavit submitted in a separate divorce case set forth perjured statements in connection with her discharge from my office on November 6, 2009.

These statements were previously made on the witness stand at my second custody trial. Most of them were stricken from the record and none of it was used in a decision issued in January, 2012 which restored my parenting time to pre-Hood levels. The statements were originally calculated to elicit support from Utica police and local prosecutors while distracting their attention from an ongoing criminal enterprise (her separate “law practice”).

They were never disclosed in my personal foreclosure case at our first appearance (in response to an institutional bias claim) or on March 14, 2013 when the assault on my attire was lodged in front of my ex-spouse in open court.

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crisis generally by a or defense to lucrative, recurring and abusive petitions. who was exercising rightsattorney supprebe read together with earlier complaints, particularly those focused upon the Onondaga County Family Court and Michael Daley who is no longer on the Herkimer County Supreme Court bench. One of the judges on my domestic relations case was Bryan Hedges removed from F.3d 40 (2nd Cir. 2010)($600,000 recovery for court clerk harassed by supervising judges for political reasons). his Family Court position in Syracuse due to child misconduct. The politics of that court is otherwise demonstrated by the recent case of Morin v Tormey, The first judge abused her power by interfering with my rights of self representation which this Commikssion needless proceedings, differently such access, as evidenced by this Complaint, is easily suppressed whenever constitutional protections of the kind commonly associated with other regulatory environments are removed. Examples include the health care profession, Beechwood Care Center v Leeds, 436 F.3d 147 (2nd Cir. 2006) and our corrections facilities, Friedl v New York, 210 F.3d 79 (2nd Cir. 2000) where retributions upon whistle blowers and protected activities are accorded judicial recourse and evidence gathering rights.In contrast, lawyers exercising the same activities, often times far more valuable to the general public, are given no recourse to an impartial tribunal and no rights to gather evidence necessary for a proper defense to orchestrated charges. To bring the point home, in New York’s self regulated legal profession, a child molester will receive more constitutional protection in prison than the prosecutor obtains in the event the convict files ethics charges against him. For defense counsel like me, the scenario is even worse. Fabrications are more easily exploited by ethics employees to target speech, organizing and court filings which the employer finds offensive.

To illustrate, a witch hunt put in motion against me on January 9, 2008 features grievances unearthed from events dating back to the year 2000. They included a convict, drug dealer, con-artist, substance abuser and another (returning) client who withdrew his complaint due to its clear and conceded falsity. Such complaints are typically filed to extort refunds or to coerce

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unethical behavior from a lawyer. One case among this group resulted in federal contempt charges against the ex-client and two replacement attorneys after I properly, ethically and successfully moved to have myself discharged as the lawyer. This case was finally thrown out after a costly seven year process, see Brown v Syracuse, 677 F. Supp. 2d 576 (NDNY 2010).

Ethics lawyers nevertheless proceeded with a fall-back position alleging “dishonesty” on my part based on three concocted discrepancies between grievance responses years earlier and a combined response made at the time of the witch hunt. Recalling complex events of long concluded cases was problematic enough, but when I tried to avert any so-called “discrepancies” by filing for adjournment beforehand, my request was denied and falsely reported as never having been made (a clear case of dishonesty). Instead the unethical ethics lawyer was granted an adjournment to fish out additional charges from a highly offensive report which demonstrated how this lawyer had violated numerous ethical codes in order to generate this witch hunt.

Despite verification of the unethical behavior, from the face of the ethic committee’s own correspondence, nothing was ever done by any entity or court to hold the implicated lawyers accountable. Instead, the entire Fourth Department licensing court disqualified itself from continuing deliberations, and by agreement with the presiding justice of the Third Department, all domestic, disciplinary and personal litigation was transferred to Albany. While this appeared at first blush to be a proper response to my necessary motion, it failed to rectify a suspension order issued in the meantime by the same court. It was otherwise exploited to cause a one year suspension tacked on to the earlier six month period based on the several grievances referenced above. This has led to an 18 month overtime “limbo” period continuing now into its fourth year. As will be explained, the “limbo” period is being protracted indefinitely to impair my ongoing exercise of free speech and reform filings. While the list of anomalies continues, the bottom line remains the same: our courts have seized far too much power over lawyers in confidential settings to cause a severe dysfunction in the justice system. A properly functioning judiciary is one which allows a lawyer the basic freedom of filing judicial misconduct and criminal complaints without fear of licensing retributions. A whistle blower can easily be singled out and subjected to a witch hunt without anyone to hold its perpetrators accountable.

Aggrieved attorneys employed by the court system are allowed some recourse to the state’s Human Rights Division and federal court, see i.e. Nicole Corrado featured in a New York Law Journal article on May 16, 2012. However, according to a follow-up story on December 6, 2012, crucial files mysteriously disappeared, see also Morin v Tormey, 626 F.3d 40 (2nd Cir. 2010)($600,000 recovery for court clerk harassed by supervising judges for political reasons). Private practitioners are not allowed any such recourse because although they are supervised by the same court system, there is no direct employer relationship for recourse purposes. I personally demonstrated this anomaly in two federal cases dismissed on abstention grounds. And so, recourse is limited to a confidential process before the very body inflicting the retributions. Suspension of my law license is being continued indefinitely on a presumption of guilt which in turn influences adverse outcomes and excessive punishments in order to rationalize the protracted deliberations. During this overtime period, the decisional entity is directing an investigation and refusing me access to a report which it generated. This is the same

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report being cited to maintain an open ended suspension order. In short, I am left to guess at its contents to promote my petition for reinstatement filed after a one year term imposed way back on September 23, 2010. Even adversary counsel was forced to recognize my due process issues.

Like prior relevant complaints accumulating on this subject, I expect this Commission to abdicate its important responsibilities on political grounds alone. However, a record must be developed so that the public can verify how our government kills the messengers of reform and will disregard our fundamental rights for the sake of money and self interest. It is important to note that there is precedent for this Complaint. In the 2009 judicial pay raise cases, various judges of the plaintiff, Unified Court System, publicly committed themselves to disqualification from any litigation involving members of the defendant Legislature. Agents of this Commission stepped in to indicate that such retaliatory actions might constitute a violation of judicial code. More than a decade earlier, New York’s Chief Justice, Sol Wachtler, directed paid court staff to impair the licensing interests of a New Jersey lawyer due to a relationship he developed with the jurist’s ex-mistress. The judge’s convictions thereafter were not imputed to associate justices.

Background Since the start of my originally uncontested divorce case in 2006, more than 25 trial level judges have been assigned to recurring and overlapping litigation maintained by unethical judges and lawyers. This conclusion is easily demonstrated by the record, including a Family Court judge in Syracuse removed from the bench for child misconduct and my ex-spouse’s first divorce lawyer who was made subject to a protection order for his violations of court directives. Unlike me, the divorce lawyer, a member of the ethics committee which was targeting me, incurred no adverse treatment whatsoever. Here is the list of misconduct which caused irreparable dispute between me and my spouse and costly litigation which certain judges have enjoyed or instigated:

As a result, I began a process of criticizing abusive bench and bar practices in domestic relations litigation. More specifically, I filed test cases and sponsored public forums attacking the needless controversy orchestrated by unscrupulous lawyers. It was producing severe harm to unsuspecting parents, innocent children, health care and our productivity all across the nation. This was supported by countless victims from every state who joined my efforts. Over the next six years, I was subjected to diverse retributions from various judges and court supervised ethics groups. In civil rights law, it has long been recognized that such retributions will not normally be admitted, openly executed or easily demonstrated. Proof of constitutional violations required discovery processes (unavailable in attorney disciplinary matters) and probative circumstantial inferences.

This can be achieved here, first by showing a public interest issue. The problem of litigation abuses in divorce and Family Court by lawyers and former lawyers on the bench has long been recognized. However, New York’s judiciary has managed to suppress the public outcry for reform by commissioning studies and finding alternate sources of blame. The 2006 Matrimonial Report described our byzantine litigation process as a “shoe horn effect” when it came to family matters but it refused to go so far as to identify the lucrative nature of this process as the “elephant in the court room”. The state’s bar association also committed itself to study the

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problem several years later, but nothing meaningful came of it. The result: escalating crime, overcrowded dockets, dysfunctional families, school violence and damaged workplaces.

Obviously much more was needed to right a terrible wrong. A self regulating profession was not going to get the job done particularly when the fox was guarding the chicken coup. It would take a reform effort outside of the controlled setting of our court system to elicit a proper check and balance upon this branch of government. As a committed civil rights attorney willing to practice what he preached, I took a proper stand and sponsored community based reform efforts. This was quickly suppressed by a process of confidential deliberations, orchestrated ethics charges and public decisions issued by the targeted courts having a goal for discrediting the messenger.

The indefinite suspension of my law license will explain how our judicial branch manages to keep its most effective critics in line. The Fourth Department disciplinary court in Rochester commenced this suppression process on January 9, 2008, the same day when I raised the controversial subject matter during a divorce appeal before the same court. That panel later disqualified itself upon receiving a motion from me challenging its involvement as an off-record, non-judicial complainant. By order of that Court entered on April 28, 2010 and a series of orders continuing to this day, all of my professional and personal cases were transferred to the Third Department in Albany. However, the transfer was merely exploited to suspend my license to practice law for one year followed by an 18 month limbo period continuing to this day.

During this overtime period, I have been subjected to “inquiries” and “charges” related to my exercise of protected activity under the New York and federal constitutions. To cite only a few outrageous examples, I was questioned regarding a “Civil Rights Forum” which I sponsored prior to my suspension at the Hotel Utica on January 19, 2010. Featured topics and speakers included abusive police, bench and bar practices in domestic relations litigation and an African-American veteran, respectively, who was tackled, cuffed and injured as the victim of a domestic dispute. So presumptive were city police officers that they actually assaulted the bleeding victim while the female assailant held the weapon, thereby placing fellow officers in harm’s way.

The Committee on Professional Standards, appointed and supervised by the Third Department court, questioned why I never advised the audience (falsely) that I was a “suspended attorney” at the time of this forum. Apart from the absurdity of such interrogation (because I was not suspended at the time by their own records) this “shot over the bow” raised serious constitutional implications which should have been understood by a “competent” and “well prepared” ethics counsel. Convicted child molesters are not required to announce their criminal record before presenting themselves at city council meetings or other public forums. In addition, the inquiries made it clear that the court system, represented by this Committee in Albany, was targeting the message being delivered at this forum. Video excerpts were featured on my public website, Leon Koziol.com, and the forums were observed and later scrutinized by local “ethics” lawyers.

Earlier complaints featured a concerted effort by assigned judges in my ongoing divorce litigation to impair my livelihood by manufacturing ethics and “child support” violations. At the same time, they have continued to deny or frustrate my valid petitions for contempt of parenting orders against my ex-spouse through unethical behavior over a six year period. The ex-spouse’s

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lawyer was a recently appointed member of the Fifth District Attorney Grievance Committee when I first criticized his rampant violations of ethical code in front of the Fourth Department. This lawyer’s violations were supported by un-refuted misconduct, including a protection order issued against him, his client and entire law office. They caused needless publicity of my private family affairs and lucrative escalation of court controversies. On the same day as my criticisms of him during appellate arguments, a first time ethics prosecution was commenced against me without even a prior cautionary letter from the same grievance committee. The temporal nexus behind my exercise of protected activity and such adverse events was further supported by a chain of retributions continuing to the present day. Two of the individuals named in the current Complaint constitute the 27th and 28th trial level judges assigned to my ever protracted divorce process. It is now in its seventh consecutive year of non-final and overlapping proceedings in a four county region of upstate New York. On April 28, 2010, and a series of dates thereafter, the Fourth Department disqualified itself from all domestic and disciplinary matters involving your grievant here. The Third Department responded with a one year suspension of my law license on September 23, 2010 and a consistent rejection of every petition for relief, including those necessarily brought under CPLR Article 78.

Resort to federal court was then blocked by continued deference to state processes under the Younger v Harris abstention doctrine. This left me with no rational and impartial recourse under our civil and human rights laws. An institutional prejudice has consequently arisen due to my ongoing public criticisms of abusive court practices in the media, the internet, lobbying initiatives and parenting rallies which I sponsored in Washington, New York and elsewhere over the past several years. Among them is a public demonstration at Foley Square on June 16, 2012.

We pride ourselves as a nation of liberty, freedom and equal treatment for all. However my case represents a serious departure from these principles because the violators of such cherished rights are found in places least expected, our halls of justice. This is no idle statement. I have compared my ordeal to the New Jersey lawyer targeted by convicted ex-chief Justice Sol Wachtler. This judge directed taxpayer financed staff to impair a whistleblower’s law license as a result of his relationship with the judge’s mistress. A more recent parallel is the misconduct of various judges of New York’s Unified Court System who publicly refused to hear petitions of persons connected to our Legislature as retribution for judicial pay raise failures in 2008 and 2009.

Simply stated, I am being denied free and fair access to our state courts because I have correctly targeted domestic relations lawyers and former lawyers on the bench who have facilitated frivolous and unethical conduct for money generating purposes. Such ongoing abuses in our state courts have inflicted untold damage to family relationships and the productivity of our business community. Your office has simply chosen to cast aside my grievances, thereby causing the misconduct to escalate. More disturbing, it has led to a criminal enterprise by a discharged office manager of my former law practice who essentially assisted in the retribution process.

Due to a consequential impression of immunity, this woman continued her crimes over a period of years upon unsuspecting judges, law firms, employers and “client” victims across county, state and even international borders. Lawyers familiar with front page news of the witch hunt executed upon me by Fifth District “ethics” lawyers evidently chose to accept their losses instead of seeking criminal prosecution. With the help of a comprehensive report which I produced last

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year and a large group of victims which I organized to appear before a court outside my region, this woman was finally arrested and sent to jail on $10,000 bail for representing herself falsely as a licensed attorney. It is a situation which makes New York’s justice system look extremely political and even corrupt. Your commission is charged with a duty to protect the public from such misconduct, but time and again it has required media and outside agencies to get recourse.

Leon Koziol ComplaintPage 3

Early news reports of this woman’s arrest has caused other victims to come forward, and I believe that when the full story is finally unveiled, serious flaws in New York’s justice system will be exposed on a far reaching scale. This is the reason why I decided to file this Complaint for the public record despite my full expectation that, like the earlier ones, it will be suppressed and squashed. It is important that this avenue of recourse be pursued so that the public can document how its tax dollars are being squandered on a bureaucratic entity that acts as “window dressing” for the state’s judiciary. We are entitled to have this Commission to do its job.

To illustrate a single disparity in treatment, Oneida County Family Court Judge Joan Shkane was publicly censored for her improper directives of law enforcement to produce a litigant seized on unrelated charges outside of her courtroom. Contemporaneously, on May 26, 2009, ex-judge Michael Daley directed sheriff deputies in Herkimer County to investigate the whereabouts of my girlfriend, now fiancée, for no logical reason other than intimidation and harassment. It occurred without warning one hour after successful conclusion of a support violation appearance.

Mr. Daley did this, and much more, despite acknowledgment of a serious flaw in jurisdictional assignment and my motion for his recusal based on prior disqualifications in the record. Rather than schedule the hearing promised on threshold issues, he issued a support violation order which caused a mandatory suspension of my law license after 23 unblemished years. During a salient history with Judge Daley, I clashed with him for all the correct and ethics-based reasons. One relevant correspondence is attached under exhibit B. Unlike Democrat Judge Joan Shkane, this Commission allowed Republican Mike Daley to slide on similar facts never refuted.

Such discriminatory treatment and ongoing retribution, un-remedied to this day, are exemplary of the abuse experienced elsewhere in New York’s court system to corroborate my extraordinary condition of institutional bias. On my case, they include Fifth District Administrative Judge James Tormey and Family Court Judge Bryan Hedges. Both were successfully prosecuted for civil rights violations involving a chief court clerk in Morin v Tormey, 626 F.3d 40 (2nd Cir. 2010), and the latter judge was removed from the bench for child misconduct. This leads us to the subject of this formal Complaint. I will address each judge and panel of judges in order.

Support Magistrate James Gormon

Onondaga County Family Court Magistrate, James Gormon, was assigned to a show cause petition for downward modification of support obligations which I filed in Oneida County on August 29, 2012. It was necessitated by my inability to secure alternate employment after the Third Department (transferee) court subjected me to a one year suspension of my law license on

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September 23, 2010. As will be explained in the relevant section below, that court, acting in its disciplinary capacity, subjected me further to indefinite suspension after the one year period was completed. Through a “reinstatement” process, it has been able to exploit endless “inquiries” regarding my public activity to suppress rights of free speech and judicial access, among others.

Leon Koziol ComplaintPage 4

Due to front page publicity and the severe disparagement of my professional reputation, employment in economically depressed upstate New York was unattainable on a par with the income levels imputed to me by a prior support magistrate, Kathleen Davies, on January 25, 2011. Simply stated, upon becoming named in an Article 78 petition, and learning of my public criticisms of her colleagues on the bench, Ms. Davies disregarded her bias and issued a decision replete with bizarre findings and conclusions. Among her one-sided statements at the hearing was my alleged capacity to find paralegal work (prohibited by the suspension) and fill state job openings in Syracuse (which were not a part of the record and more accurately characterized as budget cutbacks). Attached under exhibit C is an unsolicited e-mail which verifies her bias.

In any event, during our first appearance before her successor colleague, I emphasized to Magistrate Gormon that I managed to obtain employment as an attorney placement consultant with a Syracuse firm. Because a 120 mile commute was required, temporary relief was sought on the expectation that I could pull out of the financial disaster caused by the retributions without need for a law license. The magistrate orally requested the firm’s identity and adjusted support marginally with no change in ultimate responsibility. Two weeks later, the firm contacted me with notice of a support intercept. A predicament was thereby created because the position was not a salaried one but an independent consulting role. As a result, I could no longer maintain this opportunity and I was replaced by a local applicant. This is only one example of the joint impact which was leading inescapably to support incarceration as a pretext for free speech retributions.

A hearing was held two months later with an outcome promised for the end of December, 2012. As relevant to this Complaint, Magistrate Gormon lamented that he would not have allowed the hearing but was compelled to do so by a procedural defect discovered in the record of prior proceedings. He then concluded with the self imposed rule that the case would be placed “at the bottom of the pile” in the event that a status check was made by either party. No decision has been issued to this day despite the lack of any direct contact with the magistrate’s office on my part. My ex-spouse has been converted by her attorney into a malicious person who may have made status inquiries simply to frustrate a timely outcome and influence a prison outcome.

Regardless of any such activity, the peculiar rule impairs my rights of appeal given the mailing issues experienced at my unstaffed (closed) office. I made two monthly inquiries of the clerk’s filing register (only) in February and March, 2013, well after the committed production date for a decision. I learned both times that it remains in “reserved” status. Failing that, a decision could be issued without discovery on my part until after the appeals deadline has expired. I have already explored the mandamus remedy on two occasions with identical adverse outcomes

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(deference to the appeals process). Apart from the time and expense of such litigation, any value is undermined by the common request for production of a promised order from Walsh-Hood.

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