John Cortesi is the latest guest on the podcast.
He was one of the stories featured on last week in which I explored how military members had their service used against them. Here is part of the story.
John Cortesi has been retired from the Army since 2004.
He hasn’t seen his son in over two years; the court has deemed him too mentally unstable, and his military service is linked to this mental instability.
One report produced by Deborah Barnes cited a mental health issue from 2003 as a reason to keep him away from his child.
“The CCRC {Child Custody Recommending Counselor} has concerns regarding the father’s mental health stability. These concerns are based on the information that the mother has provided in addition to the instability that the father has exhibited in his interactions with this CCRC. The father’s intake form indicates that he was hospitalized for mental health issues in 2003 for depression but didn’t provide the diagnosis as it is private information.”
This report, done by Barnes, was done in 2019. Normally, a sixteen-year-old mental health issue would not be a concern, but in this case, what happened while he was in the military took a prominent role in this evaluation.
Another evaluation made an even more direct link.
“This CCRC has held a part-time position working at the Mather VA Hospital for the past seven years assessing and diagnosing veterans with a variety of psychiatric conditions and this CCRC therefore might be able to help father with feeling that his disability is correctly understood. This CCRC has reviewed father's Declaration, which states that he has been harmed and/or treated poorly by mother, mother's attorney, a private mediator and two judges.” A report written by Joyce Medari noted. “While it is possible that this CCRC may eventually be viewed by father as also treating/regarding him unfairly, she is nonetheless willing to see if there is anything that can be done to ensure that father and child have some form of reasonable and safe visitation.”
I reached out to both Medari and Barnes but received no response.
I also reached out to Cortesi’s ex-wife’s attorney, Carla Harms, but she also did not respond to a message at her office.
Cortesi said his so-called mental instability was used first to get a protective order and then took on a prominent role in his subsequent child custody case. This instability was often linked to his military service, he said.
Cortesi said his work in the Army remains classified and only described it as “communications.”
There’s a lot more to John’s story and we explored that in the podcast.
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