While everyone is glued to election results trying to figure out control of the House and Senate, there was a noteworthy election in Hamilton County, Ohio.
On the ballot for Common Pleas Court Jude for the Domestic Relations Division were Anne Flotman a Democrat and John Sieve a Republican.
Sieve has been a judge over a decade, and I ran into him about four years ago.
He ruled in a haphazard and anti-Semitic manner against Julie Goffstein.
As a result, she has lost most contact with four of her six sons.
Goffstein’s case is one I often cite when discussing the absurdity behind parental alienation.
In her case, she, her then husband, and all six of their children practiced Orthodox Judaism until one day her husband, Peter Goffstein, told his family he wanted to be a Christian.
The rest of the family did not follow him, and when this ended in divorce, he screamed parental alienation. Here is more from my 2019 article on the case.
“Peter Goffstein argued that his ex-wife’s religious choice was alienating him: “In so doing, Mr. Goffstein cited as reasons for the change in custody Mrs. Goffstein’s religious practices and the extent to which she imposed those religious practices on the children, which he claimed alienated the children from him,” a lawsuit filed by Julie Goffstein noted.”
The article continues.
Despite Peter Goffstein’s protestation, the presiding judge, John Henry Sieve, initially also sided with Julie Goffstein.
“On June 21, 2012, after evidentiary hearings on Mr. Goffstein’s motion, Judge Sieve ruled in favor of plaintiff Julie Goffstein and permitted all of the children to remain in Mrs. Goffstein’s custody,” a federal lawsuit Goffstein filed noted.
But on March 11, 2013, Peter Goffstein and his attorney, Joel Moskowitz, filed for a reallocation, or change, in custody.
Emails and voicemails to Goffstein’s and Moskowitz work email and phones were left unreturned.
…
Judge Sieve then changed his earlier order, granting custody of the four youngest children to Peter Goffstein.
Inexplicably, Sieve allowed Julie Goffstein to maintain custody of her two oldest children, thereby splitting the siblings.
A message left with Judge Sieve’s chambers was left unreturned; a subsequent email to Edward Miller, head of the office of public information at the Ohio Judicial System was also left unreturned.
Sieve also engaged in religious bigotry, according to a lawsuit.
In the lawsuit, Myers argued that Judge Sieve’s rulings violated Goffstein’s religious liberty.
“Judge Sieve’s decisions are based on direct violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in that they impinge on the children’s right to freely practice their religion and Mrs. Goffstein’s right to practice her religion,” he said in the lawsuit.
Sieve let Peter do just about anything he wanted, even moving the family to Florida. Julie did not even know what high school they attended, when her son told her there was a school shooter, Nikolas Cruz, on a shooting spree at his high school, Stoneman Douglas High School.
She received a text message on the day of the shooting, ““Hey mommy, I wanted to say hi, I wanted to talk now because there is a school shooter on my campus and we are locked down.”
“I’m safe in a closet,” her son continued, “I’m perfectly calm, to be honest this isn’t the scariest event in my life.”
Yesterday, Sieve faced the voters and lost.
Good riddance.