Check Me Out on The Imagination Podcast Talking About the Global Phenomenon in Family Court
I spoke about the similarities between the Rucki case and Samantha Baldwin, from England.
I recently was featured on The Imagination Podcast with Emma Pietrzak, find it below.
Right off the bat, Emma and I discussed the cases of Samantha Baldwin and Sandra “Sam” Grazzini-Rucki.
I have found many remarkable similarities between the two cases. Baldwin is from England while Sam is from Minnesota; this is some of the evidence I have developed which suggests that whatever is happening is global.
Globally, I believe it is primarily women targeted so that when abuse allegations are brought forward, courts work to bury them, using the false label of parent alienator against the protective parent.
I believe there is a global mindset which treats disclosures of abuse with extreme skepticism in family courts, while police and social services generally do not conduct proper investigations into any criminal activity.
As such, abusers often get custody when abuse is introduced.
I have previously spoken about the similarities in the Rucki and Baldwin case with Samantha Baldwin. That interview is below. (The similarities are discussed starting at approximately 6:30)
The similarities are these: both women were accused of parental alienation after disclosing abuse allegations; both women were smeared by their versions of the mainstream media (Sam was smeared by 20/20, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and others while Samantha Baldwin was smeared by the BBC, The Sun, and others). Both women were chased by elite police forces. Sam hid her two oldest daughters while Samantha Baldwin took off with her two sons.
As I further mentioned in the podcast with Emma, Samantha Baldwin’s case also has remarkable similarities to another American case: Joanne McDowell from North Carolina.
In both cases, they believed their ex-husbands were drugging and molesting their children; in both cases, they begged and pleaded with authorities to have their sons drug tested, and in both cases, when those tests came back positive, they were accused of drugging their children to frame their ex-husbands.
More on Joanne McDowell’s case here.
As I also discussed in the podcast with Emma, one driving factor of this global phenomenon is the group: the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC).
My definitive work on AFCC is “Making Divorce Pay” and of parental alienation I said.
In 2007, Angelo Gizzi of Connecticut, was charged with 13 domestic abuse-related crimes, including assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, and child endangerment after years of beating up his wife, Angela Gizzi, who now goes by her maiden name Hickman. He avoided jail time when Angela wouldn’t testify because she has abuse-related PTSD; instead, he pled guilty to a series of lesser charges. Initially, Angelo Gizzi was given only supervised visitation with his children, while Angela received main custody.
As the divorce proceeding went on, however, the focus became less on his physical abuse and more on Angela Hickman’s purported parental alienation. Dr. Stephanie Stein Leite, an AFCC member, said during a hearing, “This case sticks out in my mind, in the last 10 years, as the clearest case of alienation that I have seen.” Dr. Leite didn’t respond to a phone call seeking comment for this article.
Parental Alienation is also big business for the AFCC. “Overcoming Barriers” is a five-day boot camp for families deemed to have parental alienation. The entire family, including the two divorcing parents, is sent into a camp ground with no cell phones or other electronics to reconnect. Often this boot camp is compulsory, so if a judge orders it and you want to ever see your kids again, participation is mandatory. The cost of this boot camp is $10,000. The boot camp was founded by AFCC member Matthew Sullivan, and its board members include AFCC members Robin Deutsch, Peggie Ward, Marjorie Slabach, Jeffrey Solison, and Barbara Jo Fidler.
The camp was featured in the January 2010 issue of the AFCC newsletter written by Sullivan, Ward and Deutsch.
“As for alienation, again, AFCC does not take a position,” executive director Salem told me, “but if you examine the July 2001 or January 2010 issues of Family Court Review you will learn that many of our members have generally rejected Gardner’s conceptualization of PAS, which is where the controversy began.”
What I did not address in Making Divorce Pay is the global reach of AFCC.
That has been addressed in the recently released book by Doreen Ludwig entitled, “AFCC net: People, Policy, Practices that Intrude in Child Custody Determinations.”
Ludwig further noted that Canadian Judge John Von Duzer became president of AFCC in 1983.
Ludwig continued in her book, “In 1997, AFCC and Australia’s World Congress hosted the ‘Second World Congress on Family Law and the Rights of Children and Youth.”
According to that professional site put together by Lyn Greenberg, Greenberg has previously presented at AFCC conferences in Australia, Israel, and Canada.
Having spoken to other global journalists who follow these things, they have also found the same disturbing pattern where primarily women are targeted when abuse is disclosed in their custody case.
When I interviewed Liz Perkins from England, she said not only did she notice parental alienation being used to excuse abuse, but that in general family court cases targeted the protective parent. (starting at approximately 31:15)
“The situation is this. That basically, you have people from all different walks of life who are in the family courts. It doesn’t matter if you’re wealthy or if you know, you don’t earn that much; you’re all dragged through this system, and yet it seems to be the abuser who continually wins.” Liz stated on the show. “I know people who have been fighting for ten years to be reunited with their children, They are desperate. Some of them have ended up in prison for breaching an order to try and see their children, and they’ve been in prison with notorious murderers.”
When I and Megan Fox interviewed Australian journalist Grant Wyeth, he repeatedly referred to a “pro contact” philosophy which he found in Australia and other countries, which is used to minimize and ignore abuse and force to children to live with their abuser.
This global phenomenon is not going away and it must be confronted.