Earlier this month, scumbag Maryland attorney Brennan McCarthy was thinking outside the box.
He decided to use a cease-and-desist letter in a way I had never seen before.
He’s been representing Sarah Hornbeck for years in her child custody case against her ex-husband Jeff Reichert.
Recently, Brennan got wind that Jeff and his son were speaking- gasp- and Brennan was none too happy. How dare a father and son speak. So, Brennan told Jeff’s attorneys to tell their client to cease and desist speaking to his son.
I wrote about this letter recently, but I hadn’t yet interviewed Jeff, an oversight I corrected.
“He can’t. There’s something called the Constitution,” Jeff told me, “He can’t cease and desist me speaking to my son.”
Jeff went on to tell me that he viewed the letter as “telling on themselves,” and the continuation of a long-term strategy which started when his ex-wife ignored a prior order and went to Anne Arundel County about four years ago to try and change an ironclad custody agreement. Wayne Dolcefino investigated that, and the video is below.
Since Sarah moved the case to Anne Arundel County- though Wayne found that neither party lived there at the time- she flipped custody despite a history of neglect and alcoholism, had Jeff arrested several times speciously, and has cut off contact between father and son almost entirely, in violation of the favorable custody order she has.
Recently, after months of no contact, Jeff’s son reached out to Jeff, and this drew the ire of Brennan. Besides that, Jeff filed to emancipate his son, arguing that his mother had falsely imprisoned him.
If the emancipation petition is granted, Jeff’s son would be considered an adult and no longer subject to any court’s custody orders.
McCarthy, along with demanding Jeff stop talking with his son, also demanded that the emancipation petition be withdrawn.
In his letter, McCarthy made a bold proclamation, “The chances of any court cutting off custodial rights to Ms. Hornbeck so the child can reside with Mr. Reichert, a noted child abuser, is zero.”
There’s no evidence that Jeff is a child abuser, but McCarthy’s bold proclamation that the emancipation petition has “zero” chance of succeeding suggested he knows the outcome before the case is presented to a judge.
Brennan was probably confident since the court inexplicably transferred to emancipation petition to Anne Arundel County, where the courts have shown an unusual bias toward his client.
It has not passed my keen notice that this has been done when your client also filed a Petition for Emancipation of Grant Reichert in Baltimore County, and this case was transferred to the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and is styled as Jeffrey Reichert v. {Jeff’s son}, et al., in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Maryland, Case No.: C-02-FM-25-000493.
This coupled with Brennan carbon copying the judge, Elizabeth Morris, on the letter, caught the eye of Jeff’s attorney, Alexis Sisolak.
Further, your method of correspondence for this letter is extremely inappropriate. Adding a judicial officer – the Judge assigned to the matter – without adding the attorney of record in the matter you are referencing is ex parte communication and begs the question of how many times there has been ex parte communication prior to this letter. I will be requesting that Judge Morris be recused from the matter accordingly as she should not be privy to attempts at settlement – especially ex parte ones.
Brennan addressed Zach Groves, a partner in the law firm Jeff hired, but Ms. Sisolak is handling the emancipation petition, which is why she argued in the letter that it was ex-parte.
Brennan and Ms. Sisolak also had a difference in opinion over how litigation would affect Jeff’s son. Each side claimed the other was traumatizing the child with needless litigation.
Your client is mentally damaging Grant by again involving a fifteen (15) year old child, confusing him and twisting him to gain an ill-conceived advantage in litigation. None of these previous cases have ended successfully for your client. Your client must at some point accept that {Jeff’s son} will be residing {emphasis mine} with his Mother until he is eighteen (18) years old. If this abuse of the legal process continues, I may well be forced to file a Motion for Filing Restrictions against Mr. Reichert.
Ms. Sisolak stated that Jeff’s son was prepared to testify, ready to tell the world of the horrors his mom put him through, and the only way to keep that from happening is to reach a settlement before a hearing on the emancipation.
{Jeff’s son} is expressing a strong desire to return to the life he knew before being uprooted and the court cannot refuse to hear from him directly as part of the emancipation case – he has asked his father to free him or give him an opportunity to be heard. Given his present competencies and means, he will do well should he be emancipated and being free from constant looming litigation where he has not been heard from or addressed by the court will be a welcome respite. Rather than making him go onto the stand and speak publicly on the reasons why he does not want to live with his mother, the strife and pain this litigation has caused him, and his belief that his mother and the court system overall care far more for Ms. Hornbeck’s feelings than about his actual well-being.
In February 2022, Jeff’s son was despondent when he was first forced to live with his mother. Since then, he’s told anyone who would listen that his desire is to live with his father.
Here’s what he told Dolcefino, “With my dad, I was genuinely happy every day, but with my mom, it’s just misery.”
The courts have not heard from him since the transfer in 2022.
It’s a feature in child custody case to do everything possible not to have the child testify to help determine their fate. Instead, courts use gatekeepers like guardian ad litem and custody evaluators. Those gatekeepers routinely mischaracterize what the child wants.
Judges claim to act in a child’s best interest, while refusing to hear from the child.
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