How the FCVFC Takes Action When Faced with Inaction

How the FCVFC Takes Action When Faced with InactionFollowing is the complaint letter we sent to oversight bodies who had failed to respond to the FCVFC in the past regarding the case of a six-year-old whose life, we believe, is in danger.

This is a combined complaint against court actors in the case of an FCVFC client: Judge Edward Arce, attorney for the plaintiff Katherine Postillion, guardian ad litem Lester Barclay, and court-appointed attorney for the child Cory Blalock.

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We are filing this immediate complaint to each of the oversight bodies as an emergency intervention.

In recent months the Foundation for Child Victims of the Family Courts has received mounting evidence of the deaths of children subject to court orders transferring them into the custody of a parent when complaints of danger have been ignored by the court.

An example of our acute concern can be found in our most recent Chicago case, which is proprietary and confidential and thus will not be disclosed by name. In this case, a two-year-old boy was forced into unsupervised visitation with a father who the mother and her counsel had stressed was a clear and present danger to the child. That child was brutally anally raped and died of his injuries. The father has to date not been charged in the death of his son.

Then, over the objections of the mother and her counsel, the same judge proceeded to force the mother to send her seven-year-old daughter into unsupervised visitation with the father who had just allegedly killed his child. The mother felt compelled to submit to the court’s direction because of threats of custody transfer. The seven-year-old child was subjected to visitation with the father. She was promptly raped and was then hospitalized as a result of her injuries.

The mission of the Foundation for Child Victims of the Family Courts is to advocate and litigate on behalf of vulnerable children and their protective parents who are seeking protection of children under their Constitutional rights and U.S. laws. The case before us, that of the protective parent of a six-year-old child, speaks for and is representative of cases for which the Foundation advocates and seeks protection for all children in acute jeopardy.

The immediate complaint stems from a July 21st court hearing before Judge Edward Arce. In our work on behalf of the minor child, subject of unequivocal cruelty, abuse and torture, facilitated by this court and multiple court actors named and documented for complicity in furthering child abuse and endangerment, our experts have been very clear that the child’s risk of critical, permanent harm if not death were stated, not only by the FCVFC, but by DCF and UCMC records. Attempts to constantly undermine protections for the child have been ongoing and are redolent and resounding in the hostile, uninformed, unrestrained arrogance and ignorance in the directives and orders issued by Judge Arce on July 21, 2022.

I can speak to the interactions of parties at this hearing as a spectator since I was present there, but also I can speak as one who is intimately familiar with all the moving parts of this case from the inception of the case. Every aspect of this case is familiar to me. The court actors and their supporters and advisors and their written productions, interactions with critical oversight agencies – DCF and UCMC – are within the work reviewed on this case, so confidence in complaints against these individuals is considerable.

Complaints have been written to each of these oversight committees before, but I am reiterating our complaint based on the immediate bias, hostility, and overreach being enacted by the GAL Lester Barclay, as well as attorney for the child, Corey Blalock, who has been allowed to stay in place despite repeated violations of his role as the attorney / representative / protector of the child’s rights to legal support and protection. Not ever, not for one moment has this child ever received support or protection from the authorities meant to represent her. Not one single judge has acted in any interest or concern for this child. In fact, each and every legal representative has acted with no faith – much less any semblance of good faith in protecting this child. In league with the reprehensible behavior of his colleagues, Judge Edward Arce has acted in concert with the pattern of disregard for evidence by allowing evidence of abuse to be undermined and disregarded in order to allow forthcoming orders to strip this child of all protections that should be provided to a child in a position of severe endangerment and abuse, at risk for permanent emotional injury or death.

The consistent attacks of a firmly entrenched phalanx of court actors in lockstep with each other against the now-6-year-old child and her mother are beyond extraordinary in terms of the level of bias and viciousness on the part of each of these court actors. This is true particularly because of the extraordinary degree of clear and convincing, reliable evidence, which has been substantiated in the context of intellectually competent professionals in the field of child physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

Not only are the attacks on the child and the mother extraordinary, but also astonishing is the intensity with which those who have substantiated child sexual abuse are then confronted and intimidated to recant their positions about a father who has been credibly accused of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of this baby/toddler/child. It is extraordinary to see the quality and extent of legal services deployed to separate the child from her mother and place her in the hands of her father, a man who over the majority of the child’s life was the subject of clear and consistent complaints of severe domestic violence against the mother and documented abuse of the child. The father’s mother has also been a participant in the abuse of the child and her role as supervisor of visitation has been given scarce attention, though her role as an abuser is considerable and continues as a source of nightmares to the child.

Let it be noted that the child’s mother has not demanded child support or any form of assistance from the father. Her only request has been for the father to not abuse the child, and failing that request to allow her and the child to be safe from his abuse and control. The mother’s nature and personality as an extremely fearful, submissive, non combative individual is never given any attention at all.

Even without physical contact, forced Zoom meetings between the child and the father have allowed for interpersonal opportunities for him to be sexually provocative and exploitative with the child, threatening and intimidating to her mother. The consistency, tenor and temper of interaction by the father with both mother and child over the Zoom meeting vehicle where he seeks not only engagement but possession and control of the child clearly speaks of the obsession of a deranged mind. These Zoom meeting problems are never properly addressed but are overlooked and interaction with the father is continuously absurdly compelled.

Autocratic expediency to massage the egos of authorities is counter to the interests of child protection. The Family Courts have become visual representations of the abuse of power, the display of ignorance, arrogance in the exercise of undermining Due Process and respect for law.

When the father would suffer no risk by removing himself from a position in which he is being accused of harming the child, it is counterintuitive to suggest that he then increase the temperature and the demand for control and access to the child. It would seem so much simpler to simply walk away. There are no financial demands on him, no demands for property or services of any kind. Aside from the abuse, it is unclear what this individual feels he is getting out of insisting on contact with this child who clearly is averse to any contact or dealings with him, the consequences of his demands for contact have consistently been met by the FCVFC with intense legal advocacy to keep him away from access to the child and advocacy for her protection.

I personally have not been able to overcome amazement at the fact that the attorney appointed for the child, Cory Blalock, has never yet in the course of his representation taken any steps whatsoever to advocate for the child. It is clear from the inception of the case in every action he has taken (which are documented in the supporting exhibits) that this individual has done nothing except to advocate for the father, to essentially call the child a liar, and to refer to her mother as a liar and coaching agent, advancing a false narrative. In all of the literature to follow, nothing suggests that the attorney for the child is supposed to turn state’s evidence to the prosecution so that the child may be tortured in the service of supporting the rights of the father to have contact with his victim. Multiple complaints against Cory Blalock and others noted in this complaint have been filed with the appropriate authorities.

The absurdity, the counterintuitive nature of the aggressive advocacy of Cory Blalock, the court-appointed attorney representative for the child, makes no sense in the context of genuine advocacy. However it does make sense in the context of the argument and complaint that we are lodging against Cory Blalock, Katherine Postillion, Lester Barclay, and Judge Arce as being not fiduciary officers of the court but rather racketeering partners engaged in child trafficking. Their work together has been consistently coordinated, never missing a beat in terms of the collaboration of their message.

Katherine Postillion, attorney for the father, has been an aggressive and consistent advocate for him and has been closely in concert with and in league with in communication with Cory Blalock, the so-called attorney for the child, who has done nothing but seek to dismantle any and all protections of her. Lester Barclay more recently appointed as guardian ad litem has had little contact in terms of reviewing case records or having a full and balanced picture of the complaints lodged by the child and her mother that have been in fact substantiated by DCF, UCMC medical and social services staff, and a variety of other professional contacts, such as the child’s school and the child’s pediatricians.

Cory Blalock has in a consistent and assertive manner gained access to each of the service providers associated with medical, psychiatric, and therapeutic care of the child over the course of three to four years of ongoing assaults and documented trauma experienced by the child. Cory Blalock has created a false narrative by persuading other court actors to view the child as a liar and a subject of coaching. He has thus engaged Barclay in a course, both ignorant and unprofessional, of seeking to examine a five-year-old child about her recollections of physical and emotional assault. Attached you will find a copy of the transcript of GAL Lester Barclay cross examining the therapist for the child, a professional from a therapy agency that deals with the treatment of children traumatized by severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of an adult that the child should have been able to trust.

The behavioral sequelae of consistent ongoing episodes of assault and trauma occasioned by interaction with the father have been documented in considerable detail over the years. As the child entered the preschool educational system, behavior was documented that was clearly connected to her articulation of her thoughts, feelings, and memories. Even within the school system was noted behavior consistent with ongoing trauma that the child felt she could not escape.

With every occurrence, every report, the response of the nontherapeutic legal representatives of the father were to advocate for the father and to suggest that the child’s reactions were somehow induced by the mother, though there was never any basis for those reports. The coordination of efforts produced by Katherine Postillion, Cory Blalock, and Lester Barclay in fact pointed to their collaboration and the production of objectively false statements.

For example, various statements by these parties indicated that the mother had sought medical care and intervention for the child as a means of setting up the father for false reporting. However, the truth is that the only times the mother took the child for medical workups were when she was specifically directed to do so by police, DCF, or other authorities, and then she did only what she had been ordered to do. The mother feared that if she took the child on her own, she would be accused of seeking to create an environment of false reporting—that the reporting would be interpreted negatively and used against the child and herself, in spite of the fact that she was only doing what she was told by authorities. The absolutely normal protections of intervening on the part of a child who is clearly in intense physical, sexual, and emotional pain is to seek medical and psychiatric intervention. But the very processes and services that should have protected her and provided relief became areas of threat and accusation in fact attempting to corece the mother not to take steps that had she not taken, would have been used against her if the child died.

With the engagement of the FCVFC, and specifically with the assessment skills of experts this child experienced relief and protection from her father and from the incursions of Cory Blalock, Katherine Postillion, and Lester Barclay, as well as each of the judges who were ordering the child into the custody of an abuser and refusing to view the police videos that in fact detailed very disturbing material that caused the first judge, who was playing fast and loose with evidence, to withdraw from the case. Her withdrawal then created a vacuum of case coverage, as the case has been brought under scrutiny and considerable criticism regarding its management. A number of judges either refused to take on this case or rapidly removed themselves from it because of the problems associated with it.

This brings us currently to the appointment of Judge Arce, who with arrogance, ignorance, and hostility, presided over a hearing on July 21st. His mission was to straighten out this case, a mission he took on with an arrogance of admitted ignorance and a level of bias in the direction of rage that this child and her family had consistently rebelled against the dictates of an autocratic court that was seeking to act against her best interests. The clear and present attitude of Judge Arce was to seek to punish the legal representatives of the child and her family and to be deferential to the detractors.

The attorney for the child had been scrupulous and meticulous in engaging in all proper procedural steps to adhere to make sure that due process for the child would be insured. It is clear from the transcript, which is attached, that Judge Arce allowed Katherine Postillion privileges of verbal requests as opposed to motion practice, which he then enacted to orders of the court. These orders then had to be objected to by the attorney for the mother.

Of compelling concern for Judge Arce was the urgency to get the case on track for trial and to decide the issues of visitation and ultimately custody of the child. However, in the course of moving the case in that direction, Judge Arce’s actions could have had serious results for the child.

Judge Arce approved of the appointment of an expert to meet with and to evaluate the accused abuser. The process of an evaluation of this nature is to have one evaluator who is an established expert in the field of child abuse and diagnostic assessment. The process of such an evaluation is properly done by one professional who has access to all elements of the case.

However, Judge Arce insisted on setting up the case in a way that was unmanageable and improper in its process. When the expert in this situation attempted to explain the impropriety of what Judge Arce was directing, Judge Arce demanded that the microphone of the expert be muted. I refer to passages of the transcript from this point. The impropriety, the blatant rudeness, of the exchange between Judge Arce and the visiting expert was egregious. The full transcript of the July 21st hearing is attached for review.

However, more to the heart of the matter is the inappropriate management of the case in terms of the assignment of a Psy. D. psychologist whose training is in drug addiction, with no experience whatsoever in the area of child sexual abuse. This assignment was so inappropriate and so inexplicable that it was a glaring piece of evidence supporting accusations of acute bias and impropriety on the part of the legal team representing the father and his cohorts.

The arrest and movement toward prosecution of the subject of this custody litigation was blocked by the unlawful practices of those court actors associated with this family court in all phases of the court process. The entire management of this case from its inception has a consistency that is drenched in the stench of racketeering and child trafficking. It is consistent with a pattern of jurisprudence that we are viewing in far too many cases within the Chicago court system. Children are being moved through a family court gauntlet that is removing them from the protection of good parents to be sacrificed to cruel and sadistic treatment at the hands of child predators and child traffickers well known to police authorities whose ability to protect is being blocked by Family Courts across the country.

 

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