Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

A(nother) RICO Case? Rapid Proliferation, International Expansion of Avirat, Inc.’s OurFamilyWizard® Exposes New Levels of Existing Private Enterprise Entrenched and Innate to the Family Law: Bar Associations, Courts, Judicial Trainings, and Various Nonprofits, starting with the AFCC [WRITTEN Jan. 14, 2018; PUBLISHED Nov. 24, 2018]. (case-sensitive shortlink ends “-8pp”  This is a SHORT post!)

Subtitle: Avirat’s Financial Success (2001ff) is built and still relies for promotion upon Family Court Judges Mandating Parents to Subscribe, and Continued Jurisdiction over Domestic Violence, so-called “High-Conflict” Divorce, Custody and Child Support cases.

Avirat, Inc. incorporated only in 2001, but now lists offices in Minnesota and London, while at least another privately controlled corporation by the same name (and at same address) dealing with “Global” registered recently 2016/2017 in Minnesota, per Minnesota’s Business Entity Search portal

I’ll repeat subtitle and that first paragraph after my update section, next.  FYI, not too much post is below the update & lead-in text.  I think it makes enough points for now.

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Nov. 24, 2018 note:  See also my Jan. 2018-restructured home page (just “FamilyCourtMatters.org”) (scroll down pretty far) for more images on this conference and paragraphs on OurFamilyWizard® | Between January and now I was busy maintaining housing, several relocations within just a few months, and (finally) fleeing California w| only what fit in my car thanks to a kind offer to couch-surf (briefly!) and obtaining housing in another state and time zone spring/summer/fall 2018. I have now signed a lease and am back onto posting and Tweeting on these matters and reporting as I can and as I see them, on so-called new developments, most of them predictable with the directions the field has been expanding for several decades. Most are simply new labels with a tweak for the same old practices — and agenda.

 

NOV. 2018 “Update” PARAGRAPHS with TWO IMAGE GALLERIES

This topic is always timely but came up again in context of seeing on Twitter (yet) another disturbing scenario involving “One Mom’s Battle” where the [OMB] legal filing existed briefly as a nonprofit but never (under that name) obtained an IRS# that IRS website shows, yet the website is still up hawking wares and, in a rather devious attempt to distract from the term “parental alienation,” substitute instead “DV by Proxy” but continue to focus on psychological not legal terms…

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(BACK TO MORE SPECIFICS AS IN THE POST TITLE):

The gallery (six images) just below is from California Secretary of State, Office of Attorney General and (one image) IRS: standard places to look for any California-domiciled entity.  The website remains up but the registration is gone — leaving it unclear (so far) who, REALLY, is doing business – legally — under this name, or if not, why the misleading website remains up.

Meanwhile seeing the “Educate Your Judge” and promotion of “OurFamilyWizard®” links at the top of OneMomsBattle.com prompted me to at least finally post this, and continue seeking to warn ALL concerned to do basic due diligence before assuming based on either gender, expressed empathy, or allegedly shared personal family court/custody experiences whose interests are being promoted.

I included the Tweet thread [http://bit.ly/2r0BzX8] which got me again wondering how is it that so many Moms actually ARE seemingly aware of at least the existence {if not the methods or stated agenda} of “Association of Family and Conciliation Courts” and its significance to their children’s lives (and their own) — while year after year so many of the professionals working with each other and sometimes (as in Tina Swithin’s example here) victorious survivors of family court nightmares manage to barely reference it — while promoting other solutions, jargon and selling stuff under mysterious or barely-registered, and changing entities.

(Dec. 5, 2018 related question)… Why should women aware of AFCC continue promoting the products, services, jargon, and purposes of the family court professionals — and/or survivors associating with them — who are so intent on NOT mentioning AFCC?  When it’s OUR lives, time, case histories, stories; our time and attention are valuable commodities to these family-court associated professionals and survivor-speaker-author-consulting-coaching survivors.  Why give it away indiscriminately?  Have more self-respect and awareness of your personal value as members of this demographic (i.e., survivors, mothers, fathers…)..

The image gallery (nine images) just below shows: my recent search of the term “DV by Proxy quickly led to OneMom’sBattle (which had been quoted in a Tweet); my subsequently (heavily) annotated images from the website, and as I recall a link-through or another phrase search result exemplifying that “ALL PR is GOOD PR” allowing Amy J.L. Baker to argue with Leadership Council’s Joy Silberg over usage — while both of them (and I’m sure those involved in OMB website and promotions surely must know too) know full well that AFCC exists — but continue to play the “don’t name it game.” Amy Baker’s 2012 article (in the gallery) responds, it says, to a 2009 Leadership Council article (hard to find, but it was at “TheLizLibrary” (LizKates) well-known to many of us over the years in this field.  Which brings up despite what an extensive library it is (!) how it, too, barely/RARELY references the organization AFCC as having ANYthing to do with parental alienation promotion, tactics, and antidotes.  Then I also take into account that Ms. Kates is also a family lawyer.

At this point, others will have to do the work they haven’t been.

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WHERE JANUARY 2018 POST STARTED (and remains unchanged below, except I added tags before publishing)

Subtitle: Avirat’s Financial Success (2001ff) is built and still relies for promotion upon Family Court Judges Mandating Parents to Subscribe, and Continued Jurisdiction over Domestic Violence, so-called “High-Conflict” Divorce, Custody and Child Support cases.

Avirat, Inc. incorporated only in 2001, but now lists offices in Minnesota and London, while at least another privately controlled corporation by the same name (and at same address) dealing with “Global” registered recently 2016/2017 in Minnesota, per its Business Entity Search details.

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Here, the subtitle is an important part of the topic. I am summarizing what I had to, literally, bite my tongue from speaking out substantially more about, when discussing the 2017 Boston 54th Annual Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Conference, which on its “sponsors” and “collaborating associations” page listed OurFamilyWizard as the only “Diamond” sponsor — whatever level of donations that represents.  (See large, colorful and/or annotated images below)

Meanwhile, and I did blog this recently in the context of “Reunification Camps,” a 55th Annual Conference is scheduled for 2018, highlighting some members’ involvement with the high-profile Jaycee Dugard Abduction that took place, actually (the recovery of Jaycee and her two daughters from NON-family abduction a full generation  — 18 years — before; she was about 11 years old only!!) and “reunification” therapy and camps, some involving horses.

I already posted on this and have been discussing “reunification” situations, but here’s a reminder image.

It turns out, that the therapist Rebecca Bailey (from N. California) of “Transitioning Families” (the term trademarked years before, and the LLC finally registered only in 2016 — to be voluntarily dissolved in 2017, AFTER (not before) which the area in which the horses were held was destroyed by wildfires in the area.  Northern California was on fire.

So, frequently and recently, is Southern California.  It seems to go with the state….

Certain behaviors, such as setting up conflicts, then expanding court operations to solve them (while continuing to claim subject matter jurisdiction over criminal matters, to the ongoing benefit of criminals and felons who might otherwise be handled under that system, but can fare much better under the “it’s just a family dispute” or ‘differentiated domestic violence’ and/or “whole family, “holistic” treatment philosophy) AND meeting regularly to hawk their wares that judges can mandate consumption of — are so basic, so entrenched and so innate to the entire system of family (and where it applies, conciliation, and other specialized problem-solving courts that continue to be spun off from the failures of the family courts, year after year) that I felt it necessary to outline on a new Home Page I’m setting up to restructure this blog.However, outlining, using commonly-available on-line searchable information, the OurFamilyWizard // Avirat // Kissoon ~ Volker ~ (Bryan Altman, COO) company Avirat, Inc. and apparently related companies featuring international sales seems a classic case, and I realized would not fit on that New Home Page without sinking it under too much text. So, here’s a post instead…As has been pointed out before by myself on this blog, and some but not enough others, such as Anne Stevenson, esp. in New England states (CT, MA; see sidebar widget for more links), the organization “AFCC” doesn’t even acknowledge chapters in a majority of the United States of America, where its home base is, and where, apparently, it started, it says in 1963, but available evidence doesn’t really show, before 1975 if legality is taken into account.  This situation was also reported in the 1990s by others (Liz Richards of Anandale VA esp. on the website “NAFCJ.net,” Marv Bryer by way of a home-made appearance (but very detailed) “johnnypumphandle.com” report, including but not limited to on the unregistered status of AFCC and as involves then anti-trust attorney Richard Fine (who did an 18-MONTH stint in solitary coercive confinement in the Los Angeles men’s jail after reporting conflicts of interests in Los Angeles County, unconstitutional payments of judges’ benefits by the county after payment was supposed to have been moved to the state level and, notably for the interests of THIS blog, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s failure to distribution millions of dollars of already collected child support to the proper recipients — the households in which the children lived, typically at this time mothers.  (“Silva v. Garcetti”  At the time the D.A. was Gil Garcetti.  Now his son Eric is Mayor of Los Angeles…)…And I see they have just opened another “Family Justice Center” (Featured on “LAMAYOR” home page) in Los Angeles, ye old “one-stop shop” model which began back in 2003 in “Enron by the Sea,” San Diego.  Supposedly, this will reduce domestic violence. So long as the family law system continues, they should have plenty of victims to justify continued funding and this fiscal model, startup notably under President George W. Bush administration with major DOJ funding… Page link (see next two images also). “unveiled” just this past week! (Jan 11, 2018)

It appears that operations “may” (I add the word “may” for my own disclaimer) have been ongoing for DECADES unregistered right out of county courthouses or judicial departments; that is private business being run from public buildings without notifying the citizens of the state, or the Secretary of State. Individuals who did this, routinely, and got caught, could be prosecuted — but when a single association or its chapters involving networks of judges, strengthened by cooperation with several (not just one or two) professional judicial or court administrator membership associations — not to mention heavyweights like the “National Center on State Courts” or the “National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges” — not to mention State and even the American Bar Associations and, at points, the American Psychological Association (and its various state and other chapters) who is going to prosecute?

Who, to date, has not already been compromised or involved?  And with this level of organization — even with AFCC’s membership, either by its own claim, or common sense (basic math on the numbers of family courts throughout the US, when typically it’s about one per county: how many counties in all 50 states?), NOT involving the majority of judges within the country, how would other nonmember judges (not to mention, family law attorneys), that is, the majority, organize with the District Attorneys (who decide whom to prosecute based on many different factors) preside fairly over any such case even if they wanted to?  The focus has been on herding more and more “subject matter jurisdiction” (such as represented by the AFCC-member-led “Unified Family Courts” agenda, spearheaded out of the UBaltimore School of Law therapeutic jurisprudence-promoting “CFCC”) loyal adherent, Barbara A. Babb.  Effectively, unifying subject matter jurisdiction intends to and apparently does steer cases (traffic) to venues where a member judge is likely to be the presiding judge, with rules-setting authority.

Since 2015, it seems (per their job description seeking to fill the position), Ms. Babb is current editor-in-chief of the Family Court Review.  The Family Court Review, I established by quoting it, is by definition the voice and a mouthpiece of AFCC and must promote member interests) into venues and named courts whose dockets they can control?

Meanwhile, as to compliance with state laws (and the IRC — Internal Revenue Code), AFCC is not itself even legally registered as a corporation in Wisconsin, where its HQ is, And it hasn’t been for years….  A chapter of itself is — but not the “parent” corporation. (Google “Wisconsin Business Entities Search” and look for yourself…).

Looked at in the history of “paradigm shifts” in family law, if AFCC is taken at its word as having started in the early 1960s, this we know was a time of major national turmoil and civic demands for equal rights for African Americans, not that this was the term in use at the time(!), and to STOP discrimination based on race, reflected in a historic 1964 Civil Rights Act and a time of assassinations of leadership of this movement.

Around this time a man raised fatherless, poor, and with an unstable housing situation and (its relevant in this context) Catholic — by his single mother — who by the 1990s rose to powerful prominence in the US Senate (I refer to Sen. Daniel Moynihan) while working for the USDOL comes out with a 1965 report on “The Negro Family” which at the time — as I learned, belatedly — was (properly) protested as racist AND sexist; in fact recent publications show that the “National Organization of Woman” (NOW) was organized in 1966 in part to protest this.  Nevertheless, the same mentality, philosophy, and I say this having looked extensively at the language/rhetoric behind that report and centers, publications, authors, often with PhDs, who cite to it, REMAINS woven into the very fabric of the US Department of Health and Human Services (that Department’s name historically goes back to 1980, and the “Administration for Children and Families” under it, only to 1991). It has been woven also into federal policy through the 1996 PRWORA and subsequent revisions.

This mentality and policy is interwoven into US domestic policy not just through the revising of the Social Security Act of 1934 to radically restructure how “welfare” is administered by the states — but also (where there is policy, there are policy experts and there WILL continue to be university centers — and funded nonprofits also; not everyone can be absorbed for setting government policy, I suppose, into funded university centers) into the public/private partnerships to fix the age-old problems of poverty, abuse, and “inequity” while ensuring that the institutions dominating the fields, historically which refused to even admit women (many of them), maintain control through their own networks to which the common people are NOT — generally speaking — even allowed access, let alone cognizant of just how wide, deep, and inter-laced these networks are.

THAT was around the time a group of judges and social welfare workers, such as Meyer Elkin, in whose name awards continue to be given by AFCC as a sort of founding guru, year after year, sought to and did help establish “conciliation courts,” with counseling, intended to avert divorce, and when this wasn’t ultimately successful, to keep it as an ongoing component of custody and divorce litigation. It was pursued with missionary zeal. (Meyer Elkin 1994 interview is on the sidebar.  Central to the concept, roughly based on an adaptation of “AA” for prisoners — group accountability and bonding — would work for others, too).

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On any given annual conference, including the latest one in 2017, many of the presenters and related affiliations just do not bear extended scrutiny IF one looks at their close inter-relationships, and also remembers to look up those corporate filings and see who maintains them (including but not limited to AFCC itself and several of its chapters)…

AFCC 54th (2017, Boston) Conference – Turning Kaledioscope of Family Conflict into a Prism of Harmony (brochure, printed to pdf Jan 10 2018, 32 pp) Note Sponsors, Collaborators

AVIRAT, INC., whose project “OurFamilyWizard” is, registered 2001 in Minnesota (and website says, also has an office in London as mentioned above).

Minnesota has among several family court litigants, including several mothers I have learned about and (for some years) communicated with personally on the difficult situations they are facing, a horrible reputation for its handling of divorce and custody.  Some of the cases have made headlines spanning more than a decade — for example, many years ago Holly Collins fled with her children to the Netherlands, unable to protect herself or the children.  This situation has been for years a “poster child” in proliferation of the “Fix the Family Court” advocacy groups I often report on.

Besides the Holly Collins (and young adult Jennifer Collins, Courageous Kids, etc.) situation, which does NOT take into account either the federal HMRF** grants or the AFCC, there is more recently, stretching out over years, the Grazzini-Rucki case, which I broke a 1-½ year posting silence in January 2016 to report on (see that year’s TOC for more) and which came up again when it’s possible that runaway teens, later recovered, were sent (from Minnesota) to Northern California for “reunification camp.”  It’s my understanding this might have been “Transitioning Families” (see 54th Annual AFCC brochure “Gold Sponsors” list; and it has connections to a Platinum Sponsor, Stable Paths (see annotated image).

(**Healthy Marriage Responsible Fatherhood, $150M grants/year).

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While I don’t approve of any advocacy groups routinely employing censorship of relevant information from followers, from having an audience at conferences, or for the elimination of rational logic and thought from the “analysis and recommendations” for fixing these problems — in favor of promoting the interests of the aligned professionals (whether lawyers, disbarred lawyers now appointing themselves spokespersons for abused women (such as Barry Goldstein) or seriously empathic to them (Lundy Bancroft), or psychologists protesting the use of “parental alienation” as “unsound” in theory and a tool of such abusers (The Leadership Council, Joy Silberg et al.) — these still do not hold a candle to what can be seen, IF one pays attention, within the network spanning public institutions — the courts, and private parties — the aligned identifiably within professional associations — professionals.

Subtitle: Avirat’s Financial Success (2001ff) built and still relies for promotion upon Family Court Judges Mandating Parents to Subscribe, and Continued Jurisdiction over Domestic Violence, so-called “High-Conflict” Divorce, Custody and Child Support cases. It started only in 2001, but now lists offices in Minnesota and London, while at least another privately controlled corporation by the same name (and at same address) dealing with “Global” registered recently 2016/2017 in Minnesota, per its Business Entity Search details.

OFW been promoted through AFCC members (Annette Burns, J.D., of Arizona), judicial conferences, bar association meetings as here, and I even saw it featured in an American Bar Association Family Law Section “Spring 2014 CLE” presentation called “Old and New Solutions in High Conflict Custody Cases presented by one lawyer from Ohio and Bryan Altman (leadership at Avirat, Inc. which runs the OFW Program).  In other words, lawyers could get “continuing legal education credit” (though just one) for sitting through the promo.  I saw it at the ACFLS blog (where “ACFLS” = Association of Certified Family Law Specialists, Inc., an organization with contact address Sacramento, California (state capital) and which I looked closely at MANY years ago, particularly for its minimization of domestic violence issues and close connection of members to the AFCC, which (incidentally) are related symptoms of those involved).That article was “Our Family Wizard Tonemeter Information” (Bonnie Riley, 3/25/2012), just a few paragraphs on what she’d seen at a recent exhibition.  ACFLS started (see their site) ca. 1973, as soon as certification as a family law specialist became possible.  Membership (they claim only 650 now) is open, with paying dues, to anyone who has qualified.  They also started a foundation, pay by check, Visa, or Paypal, it says…Meanwhile, quoting again from the start of the King County Bar Association (Washington State, includes Seattle I believe) 2015 newsletter:

Lower courts’ orders for communication with OFW are regularly up- held. In a sealed 2011 opinion, Hon. Carolyn Tornetta Carluccio of Montgomery County, Pa., wrote:

(Our)FamilyWizard is utilized by courts in cases involving litigious parents whose credibility is lacking and who are unable to communicate with each other.

I looked up the judge’s name.  While this “PoliticPA” article is about a different situation, Attorney General Kane, there are 11 comments.  You should read the top comment, Nov. 29, 2014, by Terance Healy, which features, specifically, this judge, and talks about a routine some of us are familiar with — changing scheduled hearing dates without proper notice.  Here, Carluccio was doing so by email. It references a void divorce decree, and a Rule 1.6.  He talks about commission of fraud to cover up prior fraud. I cannot speak to the exact situation, but it’s clear that barring adults from communicating by phone or email and ORDERING that they communicate exclusively by a trademarked, software platform designed only in 2001 and being spread throughout the various associations’ (bar, groups like ACFLS, AFCC, judicial training etc.) is more than “odd” and entering territory of attempting to completely control others lives by taking control of the means of LEGAL communication.  And all under “co-parenting or parallel parenting is best for the kids…”  Why he’s sounding off on this judge on an article involving something different — it appears that Special Prosecutor Thomas Carluccio in the Kane case is married to the judge.

Terance Healy says: November 19, 2014 at 11:48 am (the quote is not the entire comment, some paras. combined).

When Judge Carolyn Tornetta Carluccio wanted to secretly cancel hearings she did so via email.

The Courthouse was stunned to learn that I had the praecipe numbers which indicated that multiple hearings had been cancelled by email. No one would take responsibility or explain. Court Administration had cancelled the hearings without notice or entry… and without Court Order.

When Judge Carluccio was asked about the cancellations SHE LIED indicating it was an error. At the end of that session, she forgot so I reminded her to reschedule. She did. THEN, she cancelled those rescheduled hearings by email – without notice AGAIN. So, much for the ‘error’ excuse.

Well, all but one was cancelled. A 15 minute window. If I did not appear for that hearing she could use THAT as the excuse to ignore and dismiss ALL the petitions. BUT, I showed up prepared to address all 15 matters. There was no hearings. Cancelled Without Notice… AGAIN.

Where was the opposing party? Their setup was exposed. They had written indicating they were aware of the hearing, BUT THEY DID NOT SHOW UP. I got their letter 2 days later. BOY, THEIR SETUP WAS EXPOSED. EPIC FAIL:

The judge had indicated to Court Administration on the day before that she would neither confirm or deny the hearing was scheduled. WTF? Cheryl Leslie in Court Admin knew that the corruption was overwhelming in this matter. She could not explain the irrational lack of explanation. She knew, but could not explain. I knew too. They went to great lengths to fool a litigant and failed.

WHERE NO ONE EVER ASKED FOR THE DIVORCE DECREE, WHY WOULD JUDGE CARLUCCIO ISSUE ONE?

Carluccio issued a defective and void Divorce Decree in violation of PA Law and without any jurisdiction. The court was notified of the error. The deliberately defective and void order is being used to continue to ruin my life where everyone is ignoring the volume of information indicating it is void. Pretending the divorce decree is valid prevents any filing to address all those cancelled petitions on financial issues. It keeps the litigation going… an additional 4 years now in the Superior Court.

Fraud to conceal fraud and prevent any resolution of the fraud is what Rule 1.6 does to litigants in all kinds of injustice cases. Foreclosures, false imprisonment, false prosecution,…

Judges issue void orders deliberately because they know how other judges won’t act where the error is exposed… or corrected. The subsequent judges commit fraud and act to further the error.

BUT, RULE 1.6 is UNCONSTITUTIONAL…. and those acts of fraud cannot be excused by an unconstitutional law.

Considering the effort of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania towards silencing the availability of emails – they updated Rule 1.6 about 7-8 times in the last 2 years… the Supreme Court knows there is something in emails that will demonstrate the abuse of power within the courts. Why are they updating an UNCONSTITUTIONAL law?

Rule 1.6 is unconstitutional, it causes a denial of constitutionally protected rights, it permits fraud to conceal fraud, it permits EVERY effort to conceal the fraud, it made fraud ‘legal’ for legal professionals… and MANDATORY, AND THEY CALLED IT ETHICAL.

When the American Bar Association had the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania enact Rule 1.6 into law where they DID NOT HAVE AUTHORITY to enact ANY law which affects substantive rights of a litigant which are guaranteed by the US Constitution [… and so forth…]

Article from her home town at the time of being elected to the bench notes her many first, particularly as a woman and (see towards the end) that her uncle Joseph Smyth was also on the bench and would swear her in; she would be moving into the offices he had on first joining the bench.  It notes that she’d never practiced family law before being sworn in to start (Court of Common Pleas) in January 2010, having just been elected in a “highly contested” election. Citizen of the Week (Montgomery County (PA) News). By May 2011 (found here, see page 5 incl. footnote 5, a plug in a “nonprecedential decision” for OFW), the Judge is already ordering communication via OFW. Note, this couple were only married two years (2008ff), and she was pregnant with their second child (still unborn) when the father filed for custody order, in 2010. The mother had relocated to Virginia.  The father’s parents, who were put on the stand apparently, both spoke Russian and needed an interpreter to answer questions.

Here’s from a March, 2015 Pennsylvania Family Lawyer (Newsletter published by the PA Bar Association with help from that section, and “sometimes accepts articles submitted by others”) — pp.6-7 show this time it accepted an article by Katrina Volker (who happens to be the daughter of OFW founder)… Meanwhile the Telek 2010 case cited above (from Kentucky) involved unmarried parents and the wife who remarried.  I was reading the appeals in the case, and saw a father protesting the family court repeatedly re-issuing a DVRO order, fourteen days at a time, without cause, and appealing the decision.  It also noted consolidation of the DV with the custody order. I read two of the appeals; one of them deals with how family courts obtained subject matter jurisdiction over “domestic violence” cases.

re: the 2011 Sealed Decision mandating use of OFW by Hon. Carluccio, and Mr. Healy’s comment upset about HER use of emails in place of court orders to schedule or cancel hearings affecting his life (!!) … I immediately remembered the varieties of judicial corruption (incl. Kids’ for Cash, Luzerne County, involving juveniles sent without due process to rehabilitation camps in which the ruling judge/s had a financial interest.  I.e., this was a high-profile RICO case) already exposed in Pennsylvania around that time, and counties where AFCC programs were routinely, by administrative rule, forcing parents to pay for and consume, for example, parenting classes (including one called Kids First modeled obviously on “Kids Turn” in California — which I learned about in Pennsylvania when it was being marketed through KENTUCKY family courts, along with, at the time, about a dozen other “divorce education products.”  Note that the “Telek” case above, came out of a Kentucky Family Court decision. (Browse earlier post titles in this blog or search, you’ll see at least one featuring Kentucky Family Courts, and many involving situations in Pennsylvania).