Michael Volpe Investigates Podcast The Impromptu: Episode 61 an Interview with Jeana Kuczmanski

Screenshot from a team meeting, as DCFS calls them, that Jeana had.

The latest person to join me on the podcast is Jeana Kuczmanski.

This time we do it by video.

Jeana has a nightmare involving the Utah Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and the state’s court system.

Jeana explained the for years her ex-husband tried to get her in trouble with DCFS, but he finally succeeded in 2020.

Jeana said the incident started when her son had an accident on a trampoline, but by the time her son reached his father’s house, she was facing physical abuse charges.

This triggered both a police investigation and a DCFS investigation.

The police eventually dropped the charges for a lack of evidence.

Jeana said she was given bad advice by an attorney, Jessica Peterson, who told her to accept a plea where she neither admitted nor denied the charges against her.

She would do some supervised visitation visits with her son, some parenting classes, and other DCFS mandated curriculum but upon completion, she would get her son back, Jeana told me the lawyer told her.

I reached out to Ms. Peterson, but she did not respond.

Instead, per Utah law, when a parent does not affirmatively deny an allegation in juvenile court, that is treated as substantiating that charge.

Now the court had all it needed to take her son.

A court order from 2021, referring to the findings against Jeana

Jeana’s ex-husband died during the process, but he made it clear he wanted their son to be raised by his parents: both in their eighties.

The same court order alluding to Jeana’s ex-husband’s wishes

Jeanna’s son was given permanent placement with his grandparents- her ex-husband’s parents- in a court order on June 14, 2022. The court order was signed by Judge Elizabeth Knight, who insisted that both grandparents were fit to take care of her son.

Part of the court order attesting to both grandparents’ fitness to take care of Jeana’s son.

Instead, the grandfather died six weeks after getting custody; Jeana told me he was terminal, a fact that court participants kept away from her and the judge.

I reached out Joyce Thornton, who is currently taking care of Jeana’s son, but she did not respond.

Judge Elizabeth Knight once agreed to a plea deal for probation to a youth drug dealer who sold drugs which led to two teens dying; that dealer would sell drugs again a few years later, leading to more death.

Meanwhile, DCFS were also holding regular “team meetings” which would often be farcical. There was one where a DCFS employee attempted to convince Jeana to write her son a letter, admitting to being a bad mom.

I reached out to Rachel Jones, the DCFS employee who made this suggestion, but she did not respond to my query.

During another team meeting, DCFS employees obfuscate on when Jeana would see her son again; Jeana believes the plan has always been for her to never see her son.

DCFS employees also showed extreme bias; one called Jeana “batshit crazy” and was forced to apologize.

part of the apology letter a DCFS employee was forced to write after calling Jeana “batshit crazy.”

DCFS relied heavily on a diagnosis it received that Jeana suffered from “delusional disorder” but the psychologist, Emily Harris, is affiliated with DCFS. Jeana told me that Dr. Harris met with her once for forty minutes before issuing this diagnosis.

The court order issued by Judge Elizabeth Knight, referring to the diagnosis of Dr. Harris about Jeana having delusional disorder

Jeanna said she had two other evaluations done, one by a forensic psychologist at Vanderbilt, and neither of those found her to have delusional disorder.

It was too late; DCFS had already labeled her.

The court assured Jeana that her son was doing fine in his grandmother’s care, but in fact, he has gained an enormous amount of weight and is failing.

A memorandum filed by Jeana’s attorney describing how desperate the situation with her son’s weight has become.

From the same memorandum, Jeana’s attorney pointing out that her son is now failing seventh grade.

Jeana told me he was an A and B student while in her care.

Part of the last report card her son got while in Jeana’s custody

None of it has mattered, Jeana told me she has been reduced to one fifteen-minute phone call per month with her son.

Below is one more team meeting.