by Dr. Bandy X Lee
originally published on Medium, republished by permission
On August 30, 2023, Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca effectuated the removal of a public article that contained an interview of me, simply because it was inconvenient for the fraudulent narrative she was pushing to destroy the lives of two children. The article was back up after almost two days, but it was a clear violation of my freedom of speech and for me the last straw. Evelyn Nissirios’ human rights violations in sadistically torturing these children have been written about before. Courts of law exist to approximate the truth and to bring justice, but some abuse their judicial power precisely to subvert the truth and to impose injustice, while violating the U.S. Constitution. I therefore filed the following lawsuit with the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Newark Division:
COMPLAINT FOR VIOLATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS:
Lee v. Gallina-Mecca et al.
I am suing under Section 1983, because Defendants have collusively interfered with my medical duties and to tamper with evidence, under color of law and outside their jurisdiction, under a guise of “protecting” my nephew and my niece, X (age 9) and Y (age 11), whom they are in truth endangering.
– Jane Gallina-Mecca: Defendant, after barring my testimony to all relevant agencies, issued an arbitrary and illegal order, on November 12, 2021, to effectuate an abrupt “custody switch,” from the children’s primary caregiver to their violent father, Alan T. Chan, who was recently on a restraining order for seriously injuring them. To achieve this end, Defendant abrogated my privileges and immunities by inserting me into his divorce case to violate my civil, constitutional, professional, and human rights. Specifically, she refused all evidence but severed my contact with my niece and nephew, in blatant interference with my mandated reporting, and ordered removal of articles I wrote. She even accused me of standing in “as an imposter,” because “all Asians look alike,” despite contrary proof.
To abridge my privileges and immunities as a mandated reporter, she: prohibited the Division of Child Protection and Permanency (DCPP) from interviewing me, canceled an already-scheduled interview, prohibited my speaking with the children’s pediatrician, and blocked even the Child Abuse Hotline. When one of the several medical professionals trying to make a mandated report decided to travel and I escorted him, Defendant Gallina-Mecca engineered our false arrests with Mr. Chan.
– Evelyn Nissirios: Defendant engaged in direct and indirect abuse of my sister and her children; acted as “judge, jury, expert, and executioner” on most matters to support an illegal custody switch, in collusion with Defendant Gallina-Mecca and Mr. Chan; and perjured in court over 175 documented times to do so. Without interviewing me, she caused me to leave the house where I had been residing for fifteen months for the emotional and financial support of my niece and nephew. She conspired with the school principal, Michael Piacenza, on or about June 22, 2022, to arrest me and another physician, in an entrapment coordinated with Mr. Chan, to prevent medical witness. Previously, she endangered the children by suppressing medical evidence, suicide notes, and photographic records; by overriding emergency room directives; by preventing a psychiatric exam at all cost; and by obfuscating at least ten psychiatric reports. She violated the First Amendment by penalizing my sister for articles I wrote.
The blocking of my testimonies with the court and DCPP began on July 1, 2021, and the cancelation of my interview with CEC occurred shortly before October 7, 2021 — but foul play became evident on November 12, 2021, at 6:00 p.m., when an illegal custody switch was implemented without notification or due process, at great harm to children. Since then, aggressive tampering of evidence ensued, closing down three Child Protective Services investigations without informing the mother (in March 2022, January 2023, and July 2023). A campaign to intimidate witnesses through false arrests began on November 12, 2021, at 6:00 p.m., against the mother, but charges were instantly dropped. Attempts by Defendant Gallina-Mecca to declare me a “terrorist threat” were discovered and dismissed on May 20, 2022, at 9:30 a.m. The false arrests of myself and another medical professional for trying to report child abuse occurred on June 22, 2022, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Defendants have also forced a fraudulent narrative by violating my sister’s and my freedom of speech: on August 22, 2022, Defendant Nissirios illegally fined my sister nearly $27,000 for my public articles, under a guise of “sanctions”, and on August 9, 2023, Defendant Gallina-Mecca ordered that articles quoting me be “unpublished”, in violation of my First Amendment rights. Indeed, on August 30, 2023, a Ms. Magazine article quoting me was taken down after more than two months of publication and after receiving national acclaim.
Underlying claims:
Defendants Gallina-Mecca and Nissirios conspired, under color of law and in violation of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, to act without, or in excess of, their jurisdiction to engage in abuses of authority, human rights violations, and felony-level crimes: that is, to facilitate the kidnapping and abuse of two minor children through (but not limited to): illegal “orders”; false arrests of two medical doctors attempting to make legally-mandated reports of abuse (see Exhibit A); and refusal to release potentially exonerating information after our arrests through “Sealing Orders” that have been illegally applied to conceal their own crimes (see Exhibit B).
Previously, Defendant Gallina-Mecca interfered with my ability to report to DCPP (see Exhibit C) and prohibited them or their outsourced evaluators from interviewing me. I learned because DCPP caseworkers told me, “The Court has tied our hands,” and “We must do as the Judge says.” Defendant Gallina-Mecca intervened with the Child Abuse Hotline, so that neither I nor several other medical professionals could make a mandated report on this case. I learned this after reviewing the transcript of another physician’s hour-long conversation with a Hotline supervisor and the detailed medical notes of an emergency room social worker.
Defendant Gallina-Mecca interfered with caregivers speaking with me or any other medical professional (see Exhibit D). I learned this when the pediatrician’s office refused to speak to me and to another forensic psychiatrist, giving “the Court” as the reason. When the pediatrician, Karen Wu, denied my sister her children’s medical records, and I appeared at her Fair Lawn, NJ, address on August 5, 2023, the office immediately called the police upon my simple request to speak with her.
Defendant Gallina-Mecca additionally interfered with Ridgewood Police, to prevent them from intervening against Alan T. Chan’s abuse, as they had before: they had previously recommended that my sister obtain a restraining order, when she was taken to the emergency room with life-threatening blood pressures after Mr. Chan caused their 7-year-old son a head injury by slamming him against a window (he had also previously nearly killed their infant child through a head injury). On May 12, 2022, the lieutenant who had recommended the restraining order, Heath James, told me he could no longer act on our dozens of reports because, “The Superior Court is above the municipal police.”
Defendants Gallina-Mecca and Evelyn Nissirios interfered with my freedom of speech by issuing unconstitutional orders to “unpublish” my articles (see Exhibit E) and by fining my sister $26,713.06 for my speech. On August 30, 2023, I learned that, as a direct result of Defendant Gallina-Mecca’s unconstitutional order, a fact-checked news article by Ms. Magazine that had quoted me (see Exhibit F), which was published on June 20, 2023, and received national acclaim for over two months, was taken down (the site now reads, “The page you have requested can’t be found”): https://msmagazine.com/2023/06/20/catherine-kassenoff-family-court-divorce-bandy-lee/
Defendant Gallina-Mecca has a history of illegally ordering the takedown of articles she dislikes, as has been written about in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/31/new-jersey-judge-orders-newspaper-to-take-down-article/ (see Exhibit G). Her continued abuses led to a lawsuit by a reporter (https://casetext.com/case/nichols-v-sivilli-2), which repeated in my case.
In this manner, Defendant Gallina-Mecca had a direct role in abridging my freedom of speech, through abridging freedom of the press, and freedom of my right peaceably to assemble with my sister, by prohibiting her from speaking to me about her case, even in private, when even murderers are permitted to speak to whomever they wish. Both Defendants Gallina-Mecca and Nissirios abridged my right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances by turning state agencies against me, such as the police and the school, which have exceptionally acted against my privileges and immunities both as a citizen and as a physician with a mandated duty to report child abuse.
For example, Defendant Nissirios, with Alan T. Chan, spoke to the school principal, Michael Piacenza, for hours the day before and the morning of my arrival with another medical doctor, Barry Roth — whom the principal invited multiple times in multiple ways — so that they could entrap us and orchestrate our false arrests. This was a culmination of withholding these children from all previous caregivers and any qualified psychiatrist, so that their abuse could not be investigated.
In this manner, Defendants Gallina-Mecca and Nissirios directly caused unreasonable seizures by the Government not just of me, but an elderly medical doctor and my sister, without provocation. They have allowed Alan T. Chan to engage in malicious prosecutions for two years, in an obvious attempt to intimidate and to discredit witnesses against him, and to “reverse victim and offender.”
One of the apparent goals of all this is to falsely imprison these children for ransom — or “child support,” of which the previously absentee father, Alan T. Chan, is demanding $100,000 per year from the mother whose children he abducted with Defendants’ help.
Defendants Gallina-Mecca’s and Nissirios’ collusion with the abusive father has been two-pronged. First, they encouraged and enabled Alan T. Chan’s lies to the police, the school, and the pediatrician and abused the color of law to shield him from the consequences of his lies. Second, they abused a “Sealing Order” not to protect children but to harm them: namely, to conceal Defendants’ criminal co-conspiracy with Mr. Chan to cover up his child abuse, his kidnapping, and his extortion of “child support,” made possible after an abrupt “custody switch” without cause, due process, finding of unfitness, or any pretense of procedural fairness, through an arbitrary order that gave no explanation.
Defendants Gallina-Mecca and Nissirios have extended and expanded an alleged “Sealing Order” far beyond their jurisdiction, to cover any information about the children, including by a non-litigant such as myself who was reporting my own observations, having nothing to do with court records. At the same time, Defendants have refused to state the reason why there is any “Sealing Order” in the first place (especially since they have consistently denied that there is any child abuse); why they did not even inform the mother that there was a “Sealing Order” until four months afterward (she learned of the October 15, 2021, order only in February 2022, when the Clerk of Court informed her it was “manually entered” for the first time); and why they cannot allow my or Dr. Roth’s lawyers to review potentially exonerating information for ourselves (at the same time, Defendant Gallina-Mecca interfered with my motion to dismiss by selectively sharing information that bolstered her fabricated narrative — information that is supposedly so tightly “sealed” that even a litigant, Patricia Lee, cannot access transcripts, orders, and motions against her so that she cannot file cross-motions or appeals).
Defendant Nissirios has buttressed Mr. Chan’s lies by lying to the police and the school herself in co-conspiracy with his intent to kidnap and keep the children, and by suppressing at least ten medical reports, which include (but are not limited to): Dr. Michael Stone, treating psychiatrist at Columbia University, stating that the mother has “excellent mental health” and “exceptional talent” for parenting; Dr. Ida Jeltova, treating psychologist, stating that the mother did not have any mental health problems; Dr. Clarice Kestenbaum, consulting child psychiatrist at Columbia University, stating that the mother has excellent parenting skills; Dr. George Drinka, forensic child psychiatrist at the University of Oregon, stating that the mother’s lack of access to her children for two years is “alarming” and the children should see a psychiatrist; Dr. Cynthia Lischick, forensic psychologist and president of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts New Jersey Chapter, stating that the children are at risk for Mr. Chan’s abuse; Dr. Stone, specialist of dangerous personality disorders, diagnosing Mr. Chan with “psychopathy” and as a danger to the children; Dr. Barry Roth, forensic psychiatrist and coauthor of the Istanbul Protocol, stating that the mother and her children are victims of torture; Dr. Michele Heisler, medical director of Physicians for Human Rights, confirming Dr. Roth’s report that the children are undergoing torture, and the report of Dr. Karen Wu, pediatrician, who initially stated that the children were being abused and should see a psychiatrist — but then recanted her statements following intimidation from Mr. Chan and Defendant Nissirios.
In contrast to her suppression of highly-qualified reports, Defendant Nissirios relied solely on the “assessment” of an unlicensed “associate counselor,” Tara Devine, for the custody switch. When Dr. Roth sent in his report to the court, Defendant Gallina-Mecca ordered it destroyed and stricken from the record. Because of this evidence tampering, I have been hindered in my privileges and immunities, both as a citizen and as a medical doctor trying to make a legally-mandated report of child abuse, and was wrongly seized and arrested, while maliciously accused of making a false report.
