Daniel Greenberg is the latest guest on the podcast.
Dan has had to survive quite an ordeal in the Orange County, California family court system.
He crossed paths with a couple people previously featured in the investigation of Orange County.
Miriam Galindo
Primarily, Dan had the notorious Miriam Galindo do a custody evaluation. He described Galindo as unprofessional.
He said that in their meeting he was tame in his criticism of his ex-wife while when Galindo met with his ex-wife, she was merciless in her criticism of him.
Based on that, Dan said Galindo recommended that she get primary custody.
Galindo was also involved in Christie Black’s case and her husband was involved in Donna McCracken’s case. Julie Holburn also had Galindo; Julie described Galindo as unprofessional when I interviewed her for the podcast.
Galindo was also involved in the Cook case, where a boy killed himself leading to a wrongful death suit. Check out an undercover recording from that case here.
Judge Julie Palafox
Dan also had Judge Julie Palafox. I previously referred to Judge Palafox in this post, however, this is the first time I have implicated her in corruption.
Dan said she repeatedly violated his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the most brazenly corrupt act occurred when Judge Palafox stopped a court hearing, left the courtroom to have an ex-parte conversation with an unknown party, and returned to the courtroom to assign Dan a guadian ad litem (GAL), claiming Dan could no longer handle the case on his own.
Initially, the GAL that was named was Gale Hickman but Hickman quickly removed himself from the case.
Hickman was replaced by Robert Bullock; Bullock did not respond to a voicemail at his office while Judge Palafox did not respond to an email for comment.
Dan said Bullock was given instructions not to argue on Dan’s behalf by Judge Palafox, and as such, Dan told me that he lost his voice.
I have covered all sorts of GAL corruption- like Elaine Pudlowski in St. Louis County- but GALs are generally appointed to represent the children’s best interest.
In this case, a GAL was appointed to represent an adult which is especially corrupt.
Finally, Dan’s case has recently moved to Tennessee; his ex wife is represented- or was represented- in Tennessee by Marjorie Haines and she issued the following response.
I do not represent Ms. Gifford in any current matters; I reached out to her and she asks that you respect her privacy, the court system, and allow these matters to be adjudicated without media attention.
I asked Dan if he also believed this was a private matter and media attention would be inappropriate. He said that court hearings and records are public record. He said that just because there may be something embarrassing in this records this is no reason to keep them private.
Dan’s Story
Dan has not seen his two youngest children in about four years.
He spent the second half of the podcast explaining how he went from being an involved dad when this divorce began in 2012 to not seeing his children at all.
He said it started with a false allegation; that false allegation was used as leverage in his custody.
He was forced to go to domestic violence classes and the judge in his divorce used the restraining order as a reason to reduce his parenting time.
The misuse of false allegations as leverage in a divorce is so common it’s often referred to as the silver bullet technique. As I mentioned in the podcast, one of the most notorious uses is against Neil Shelton; find his podcast here.
He said soon enough he was forced into supervised visitation; Dan said his research showed that many former judges own these custody visitation centers, making it a conflict of interest.
Eventually, he was even banned from supervised visits and he hasn’t seen his two youngest children in about four years, as I stated previously.
He’s been forced to pay for his ex-wife’s attorney’s fees. This along with the lopsided settlement has caused him to represent himself for years.
Finally, the case has moved to Tennessee because in order to satisfy the terms of the divorce, the court has ordered the sale of two properties he has in Tennessee.
He is battling to stop that sale now.
Reforming the System
Dan recommended the abolition of Social Security Title IV D funds; as he explained, those federal funds create a perverse incentive to maximize the child support awarded because there are then more federal dollars which states and localities can get.
I previously discussed how Social Security Title IV D works with Greg Penglis at Action Radio.
Dan also recommended shared parenting; this is not something I favor, but as I noted, I have had that debate before. That video is below.
Post Script:
Find the previous articles in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, and Part 15.
To support more stories like this check out the Orange County fundraiser.
Michael Volpe Investigates Podcast The Impromptu: Episode 45 an Interview with Daniel Greenberg