DDN: Can you stop the court racketeers?

Daily Docket News has some gloomy news about stopping litigation abuse.

Karen Huffer coined the term legal abuse syndrome

Can someone entering court prevent litigation abuse?

The Daily Docket News (DDN) takes on that question in its latest edition.

In early 2021, I wrote an article which argued that St. Louis family courts were a criminal enterprise.

Not only do the GALs appear to be scheming in several potential criminal acts including tax evasion, but they seem to acknowledge they are part of a larger criminal conspiracy. 

"This threatens to take down the entire system," Sarah Pleban says. 

Pleban has previously been implicated in a child trafficking scheme by Daily Docket News (DDN), the emailed newsletter which has also been tracking this. 

Daily Docket News’ investigative team just discovered another sickening story that has a terrible ending like so many others. Vandenbroucke v. Pilipenko, Case No. 16SL-DR05904, filed in the Saint Louis County Circuit Court on 10/27/2016. Sarah Pleban, Esq., with the law firm of Grant, Miller & Smith, LLC, was the court appointed guardian ad litem. James D. Reid, Ph.D., was the court appointed forensic psychology evaluator. Respondent’s child, who was sexually abused at the hands of Petitioner according to Respondent and her child, was handed over to the alleged abuser, by Judge John N. Borbonus, on the recommendation of Pleban and Reid, with full custody rights. Why did the County Prosecutor refuse to file charges? The Respondent was left with only the shirt on her back, after spending her last dime in family court to save her daughter failed. Currently, Respondent is court ordered to visit with her daughter for only forty-five minutes, once a month under strict supervision, at a cost to the Respondent of nearly two hundred dollars per visit. The court appointed supervisor sits on a bench between Respondent and her child, as they are forbidden to touch. Respondent is court ordered to not speak to her child in Respondent’s native language of Russian. Respondent’s child, who is currently nine years old, tells Respondent that Petitioner continues to sleep in the same bed with her every nigh  How can Judge John N. Borbonus, Pleban and Reid sleep at night?

While DDN  considers this a child trafficking scheme, the question remains, "would it be considered one under RICO."

It's much easier to prove RICO in these schemes if there's bribery involved, which RICO considers a predicate act, and while I believe in many of these cases people are being bribed, there is no proof of that here. 

There is instead a "pattern" as RICO calls for of violating laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)- which is not a predicate act- perjury, which is a predicate act: along with violations of rules of professional conduct.

This could on its own constitute enough predicate acts if enough examples of perjury were proven as one example, but an even better argument would be that the perjury, violations of HIPAA, and violations of rules of professional conduct amount to a child trafficking racket. 

The pattern was indeed described by a litigant who continues to remain anonymous. As she noted to me, after her daughter disclosed sexual abuse by her ex, the GAL in her case, Brian Dunlop, along with the court appointed psychologist, Dr. James Reid, stepped in. 

The point of a criminal enterprise is to make maximum amounts of money for its participants- the court actors like lawyers, judges, therapists, social workers, and more- while children are trafficked into abusive homes.

This creates litigation abuse; Karen Huffer coined legal abuse syndrome to describe the trauma created by this kind of abuse.

To stop this, one needs law enforcement- namely the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)- and the media to provide maximum pressure until the scheme is broken.

Unfortunately, the FBI generally ignores crimes when they occur in court while the media general ignores anything which happens in family court.

That leaves parents little place for solace.

So, what is DDN’s solution?