Michone Riewer goes by the motto, “if at first you don’t succeed try, try again.” On Monday, she issued a subpoena for me to testify on Tuesday.
I didn’t show up but did file a motion to quash. I was not forced to testify, so naturally she issued another subpoena for me to testify tomorrow. The only difference is that she served this by personal service. She served the first subpoena by email.
While service has been done right, the other defective elements of the subpoena remain. First, at least seven days are required from the time of service to the date when information and/or testimony is to be given for it to be a proper subpoena.
Ms. Riewer continues to serve me with subpoenas for the next day.
Second, and more importantly, as a journalist, I am protected from these frivolous subpoenas. The law is called reporter’s privilege. The Reporter’s Committe for Freedom of the Press, which has been helping me, has a good rundown of this law.
In Illinois, reporters have a statutory qualified privilege protecting their sources, whether confidential or nonconfidential, from compelled disclosure. The Illinois Reporter’s Privilege Statute, 735 ILCS 5/8-901 to 8-909, (the “Statute”) provides that a court cannot order disclosure of the source of any information obtained by a reporter, except upon finding that “all other available sources of information have been exhausted” and either that “disclosure of the information sought is essential to the protection of the public interest involved” or in libel or slander cases, that the plaintiff’s need for disclosure “outweighs the public interest in protecting the confidentiality of sources of information used by a reporter.”
The statute is designed to preserve the autonomy of the press by allowing reporters to assure their sources of confidentiality, permitting the public to receive complete, unfettered information.
In this case, Ms. Riewer represents Sebastin George, an alleged child molester, in his divorce and custody from Sossamma Sebastin.
Along with commanding my appearance, she is demanding that provide all sorts of documents related to my research on this case. Primarily, she would like to know how I got the email below.
on November 17, 2023 when the GAL showed up at my school, I was really scared. I had a really bad panic attack after they told me I can’t see my mom and I have to live with my dad. I was really upset that I couldn’t see my mom and I kept asking them why. they kept saying that they don’t think it’s good for me to know right now considering my state of mind. I kept telling them keeping me in the dark would make me feel worse. They told me that it would not be good for me to be with my mom right now and basically implied that she was being mentally abusive to me. I kept telling them and crying and begging them and saying that she was not mentally abusive and that, I love her and she does not do any of that stuff to me. they also presented me with the evidence that as soon as I moved into my mom‘s house by myself, that I started going to hospitals and having mental health issues. I told them that that had nothing to do with her and had everything to do with my personal mental health and school, and even flashbacks I had of my dad and trauma. I kept asking them if my mom was OK and they said yes physically she is. Then I asked if she was emotionally. OK they said I don’t know. We’re not your mom. I got really. I got really angry and kept asking that why. They wouldn’t give me a straightforward answer, and I was really panicking. I was really really scared and didn’t wanna go. I kept asking if I could just go home and trying to prove to them that she is a good mother but they said I had no other choice. They said I had to go home with my dad right now. I can go to the ER and get evaluated.
since I didn’t wanna go with my dad, I chose to go to the ER. I wasn’t feeling suicidal or the need to harm myself in anyway, but I just didn’t want to go with my dad was, I was scared. After going to the ER, I frantically explained what happened at school to one of the ER doctors and begged her to not let my dad see me. She agreed and advised that the best thing for me to do would be to go to the psych ward because I would be safe and have a place to process all the big things that happened. I wasn’t too excited because I didn’t wanna go home with my dad and was really scared. When I was in the psych ward, I kept pushing to try and go to foster care because I didn’t want to go home with my dad. what caused me to finally agree to go home with my dad was the fact that I knew if I went I wouldn’t be able to bring my brother or be with him. I didn’t like the idea of my brother being alone with my dad because I didn’t trust my dad. And I knew that the foster care system wasn’t great and people kept warning me about the system. All my mental health workers there were told the GAL side of the story, about how I was brainwashed into thinking the abuse that happened happened and that it didn’t really happen. They were told that it didn’t happen since there was apparently no evidence and I had been brainwashed by my mom, which was not true at all. I told my mom that’s the only way she found out I told a mental health worker at a hospital when I was 13 before I told anyone else. I agreed to go back home with my dad along that he gave me space, never touched me, and that there would be cameras in the house. They decided that I needed more time to process these big changes in my life and sent me to residential. I wanted to go to a residential in Florida since it would be further from my dad, but my dad canceled my opening in Florida and wanted to send me to Connecticut since it’s close to New York and he would be able to visit. I didn’t like that and was upset that he canceled the opening, but it was too late to get the opening back so I ended up going to Connecticut. My aunt ended up coming with us on the flight since I wasn’t comfortable being alone with my dad. I was told I couldn’t have my phone. at Connecticut I worked on stuff mostly communication with my dad and ended up “getting comfortable with him”. I didn’t really feel comfortable with him. I just created an alternative version of my dad and my mind to protect me from having flashbacks and being scared all the time. I don’t think I did this consciously, but more subconsciously as a defense mechanism. The court and everyone who talked bad about my mom including my dad corrupted my happy memories with her and i will never forgive them for that. I don’t want her to be sad and really miss her.
I was told that me and my brother couldn’t see my mom because she was unwell and needed therapy. After getting out of residential, I found out that my mother had been diagnosed with a mental health illness that I had never heard of before. After researching, I thought that she did not have it and that was absolutely absurd and crazy. I was very upset and tried telling people that she didn’t have that and she was an amazing mother. I tried explaining that she never exaggerated my symptoms, but sometimes I was too scared to tell people on my own, so I had her speak for me. Asher was told that Mom is sick and that’s why he can’t see him. He’s too young to know. I was told Mom would go to jail if I tried contacting her two times. Th GAL told me that first then my dad reinforced it.
I wasn’t told much about the court process and was mostly kept in the dark. When I asked my dad for certain privileges, he said he was asking the court, but after a while, I found out that he was lying about some of that. I found out that some of the rules he had for me wasn’t because of the court and was because of him. I knew that the court process was still going on and at first they told me that if my mom did everything she was supposed to that i would see her in five months. then that changed to “i don’t know”. I was occasionally told that mom isn’t doing any of the stuff she’s supposed to do in therapy. I was also told that my mom isn’t allowed to send me letters about charlie because she’s using that to emotionally blackmail me or make me miss them more. That is totally insane and bullshit. Why or how much i miss my dog isn’t going to be easily effected by a letter. I am a strong person. If anything, it made me smile hearing about the cute things charlie would do. I was never told by anyone from the court or my dad that my mom went to the hospital. I was very upset and worried when i found out. it’s so unfair that she had her kids taken for her because of some whack jobs that said “yup i 100% know this mother better than her own daughter who’s been with her for 15 YEARS”. I may not be a professional, but i know a good amount from the mental health facilities i’ve gone to and my own research i used to do for fun. I also have something called a GUT FEELING and fucking INTUITION. I never had any of these bad feelings about my mom EVER. I started dissociating a lot after coming home with my dad. I was constantly numb and couldn’t feel or cry even when i wanted to. I instead got upset over small things bc i couldn’t let my sadness or anger out. People think i’m doing much better when really i would love nothing more than to just sleep for the rest of eternity. i literally feel dead inside, like nothing is real i’m i’m already dead somehow. Asher doesn’t know how to process his feelings and ends up throwing a lot of tantrums. He cries a lot more when he’s hurt because he misses mom. He gets very upset when people get mad at him or push him away. He’s more shy and quiet now. He’s also pretty uptight and hates any type of change. He clings to me a lot more now. I really just wanna go home. Home to mom’s house with my brother. I wanna go home and go back to how things were and be a family with mom again. I love my mom so much and really miss everything and my dog and my real home. I was told i can’t contact mom and she can’t contact me. The only contact i was told i could have were sending her gifts for her birthday and mother’s day and letters necks and forth. I was told she can send a letter once a week. I begged them to let me at least have a phone call with my mom for Christmas but they said no. I didn’t even get a letter from her for Christmas. I had no contact with her during Christmas. It was very depressing. I’ve basically been coping with living with my dad by separating his abusive past from him now to almost create a fabtasy like world. To protect my brain from trauma and flashbacks. I didn’t do it on purpose but more so it just happened as a defense for myself. I see him as a completely different person as him abused him to help myself. I still know what happened and how he abused me no matter what anyone said. I remembered things all on my own and nobody told me anything about memories i had or “made” me remember things. It was all me.
I still feel uneasy when he touches me and sleep most of the time with my door locked. I am tired and drained a lot now and it’s really hard. I just wanna live with my mom again please.
Ms. Riewer is desperate to know how I got this. I’m sure she is, but it doesn’t take a legal scholar to know that reporter’s privilege is supposed to protect reporters in exactly this case.
To top things off, even as Ms. Riewer is filing frivolous subpoenas against me, there is a legitimate subpoena which remains unresolved.
The couple’s teenage daughter has accused Sebastin of molesting him. In November 2023, Judge Randie Bruno switched custody to Sebastin, largely on the strength of testimony by Dr. David Finn, who claimed all these allegations are the manifestation of Sossamma’s Munchhausen by proxy.
Sossamma’s attorney filed a subpoena for records that Dr. Finn is to provide for the trial which started on May 13, 2024. That subpoena has not yet been satisfied. Here is part of a motion Sossamma’s attorney filed on May 10.
The court is entertaining this frivolous subpoena against me, while not enforcing that entirely legitimate subpoena against Dr. Finn.
It's still not Court ordered. She's a fucking lightweight. Was it served on You by a process server? Or did she just email it and think that was good service? What law school did this bimbo sleep through?
Misuse of Practice and abuse of process. Let her hold a hearing in absentia since, star chambers are prohibited and implicate you in some way then, suit that Hodown!
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