Julie Holburn joined me for the latest podcast.
Julie has also been through the ringer in the Orange County family court system; I previously wrote about her case here. She provided an outline which she sent to a presiding judge and that’s below.
Julie’s case has been ongoing since 2010, and she had physical custody of two children for more than a decade.
That is until Judge Sandy Leal took over her case on June 11, 2021.
“Judge Leal, new judge to our case,” Julie said in her outline, “before ever appearing before her or addressing the ex parte and social services receives fraudulent declaration by father’s very cohorts at NBPD and OCDA making false claims Mother kidnapped the children without even contacting my attorney or Mother first and Judge Leal signs a warrant which is served the first morning we are to appear in front of Judge Leal 6.15.21 and these very two cohorts show up while Mother is logged into court and forcefully take the kids to their abuser’s custody.”
Julie’s son told a therapist that his father had choked him, among other disclosures.
“He {referring to Julie’s son} will talk to any judge or person in charge about his wishes not to see his dad. The reason being that his dad choked him,” the therapist stated in a letter.
None of that mattered to Judge Leal, who changed custody haphazardly in June 2021.
Julie has been fighting to get her custodial rights back since. She was forced to do supervised visits later in the summer 2021, but she told me in the podcast she currently has joint custody, with all the abuse being covered up.
Julie had several people who have come up in previous stories.
She had four of the five authors of the infamous webinar/report, “Child Custody Solutions: What Options Are Available and When to Use Them.”
I have started to refer to this webinar as a how to guild to committing racketeering in child custody.
Julie had this to say, “It appears to be basically how family court was going to be run and how to get all their colleagues in on cases.”
Of the four who wrote the webinar and were on her case, she talked about three on the podcast: Nicole Schmidt, Linda Grossman, and Stacey White Kinney.
Afterwards, she reached out to me to say that Kristen Przeklasa was also on her case.
“Kristen Przeklasa was appointed in August 2021 w/o a hearing by Leal and replaced later with Tracy Willis in September 2021.” Julie stated in a text message after the podcast.
She told me she interacted most with Nicole Schmidt. She used a four letter word to describe her privately but expanded on that description in the podcast.
“I think that she really does a disservice to her clients. She does not operate in the children’s best interest or in their interests period.” Julie told me on the podcast. “I know that there is a connection between her and the DA- current sitting DA- and it was more about political stuff than it was rule of law. It appeared to be bullying and retaliation that was going on, and again, not in the kids best interest.”
I reached out to both Schmidt and the Orange County District Attorney’s (OCDA) Office but received no response.
I reached out to everyone else who wrote the manual and wound up on her case but also received no response.
Finally, I reached out to David Monarch, Julie’s ex-husband’s attorney, but he also did not respond.
The Orange County District Attorney is Todd Spitzer, and he has gotten himself in all sorts of hot water recently.
He’s been caught making racist comments.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer is losing political support and facing calls to resign after racist comments he made while discussing the case of a Black murder defendant came to light last week.
With a primary election against two former prosecutors set for June, it is unclear how much the comments will ultimately hurt Spitzer, especially in Orange County, where tough-on-crime candidates are typically popular.
But the fallout from the comments has put Spitzer on the defensive, with fellow district attorneys dropping their endorsements and a civil rights leader saying Spitzer’s views smacked of the Jim Crow South.
“This could be a turning point in a much bigger story, or a flashpoint that gets a lot of attention and then is forgotten long before the ballots are counted. It remains to be seen which this is,” said Jodi Balma, a political science professor at Fullerton College. “History is littered with premature political obituaries, and I don’t think anyone should be writing one for Spitzer.”
That’s not it. He also appears to favor white over African-American victims.Julie mentioned that the Voice of OC had done good work regarding Spitzer, and here’s from a recent opinion piece in that publication.
When OC District Attorney, Todd Spitzer, takes over two years to investigate the murder of a Black man by Sheriff’s deputies, while at the same time moves swiftly to charge and prosecute a Black woman who defended herself against white supremacists attacking her, puts her in jail on a million dollar bail, violates her due process rights during trial, and insists on re-filing charges against her, you better believe he has a serious case of anti-Blackness.
To put the prosecution of Tia in context, it should be noted that when an angry mob of white supremacists surrounded and attacked her car, she called 911. Although 120 Sheriff’s deputies were present at the scene, Tia didn’t get any assistance and had no other option but to drive away to save her life. As she did, she accidentally injured two of the attackers who had jumped in front of her car trying to stop her from leaving. By contrast, on June 3, 2020, Don Wallace, a white man from Newport Beach, drove his car through a peaceful #BLM protest in the city. There are no public records indicating Mr. Wallace was ever charged or even held by the police beyond his initial arrest at the scene.
Todd Spitzer’s anti-Black rhetoric mirrors his anti-Black actions. The launch of his re-election campaign on January 26, 2022, is one example. Spitzer launched his campaign on the exact county line between LA and Orange counties to underscore his racist campaign slogan #NoLAinOC. This loaded slogan/dog whistle is part and parcel of OC’s recent racist past, when white supremacy was celebrated and men in white hoods paraded the streets and ran the county. This is the Orange County Todd Spitzer invokes with his campaign slogan.
Julie told me he interjected into her case and a local cop told her in December 2020 that per the order of the OCDA, “they were not to take any more restraining order violations by me.” (approximately 7:30 into the podcast)
Another individual involved in Julie’s case who I’ve mentioned before is Miriam Galindo. Galindo did two custody evaluations in her case: one in 2015 and another in 2016.
Here’s another case involving Galindo.
Here’s part of what Julie told me about Galindo in the podcast, “At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. I never had a 730…”She put out some good recommendations and then she got back involved a year later.”
Julie told me that Galindo’s demeanor changed entirely the second time she was on the case.
“Then, they brought Miriam back in to do another evaluation, and this time she was very different, very spiteful toward me: very unprofessional, ignored the judge’s orders. She didn’t do what she was ordered to do; she was ordered to speak with the kid’s therapist, which she didn’t do.” Julie told me on the podcast. “She was given documents, affidavits, signed by police officers servicing the warrants taking physical custody- of the condition they found the kids in. She never contacted him {referring to the police officer serving the warrant}.”
Finally, Julie was accused of parental alienation.
That’s the fourth women in Orange County to be falsely accused of parental alienation.
I previously did a story on Christie Black; she was also accused of parental alienation and she had Galindo.
Donna McCracken was also accused in OC of parental alienation, and she had Galindo’s husband in her case.
In Julie’s case, she said on the podcast that simply starting a Go Fund Me was what the court claimed was a form of parental alienation.
As I’ve previously said, “Parental alienation is whatever you want it to be.”
This is another example of that axiom being true.
Post Script:
Find the previous articles on the Orange County series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9, and Part 10.
Find the fundraiser for Orange County here.
Michael Volpe Investigates Podcast The Impromptu: Episode 30 an Interview with Julie Holburn