Michael Volpe Investigates Special Report: An Interview with Amelia Martinez
Amelia, sixteen, reached out to me because no one else was listening to her.
In July of 2022, I did a story about the custody case of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Martinez. Here is part of that story.
The case is part of a pattern I have covered many times. Nathaniel was accused of physical abuse. He accused Elizabeth of parental alienation, and the court sided with him.
Nathaniel is an attorney, which probably helped.
Proponents of parental alienation always claim that there is no evidence of abuse or that the evidence is weak.
Enter sixteen-year-old Amelia Martinez. She and I have been secretly communicating without the knowledge of either parent.
That’s because Amelia wants to be heard: the courts, her school, the court appointed therapist, and her father have all ignored her.
She wants no relationship with her father, and it’s not because her mother, Elizabeth, is alienating her.
In the first part of the interview, she described how at thirteen her father confronted her while she showered, pulled her out of the bathroom, and forced her into a car wrapped only in a towel.
That incident escalated until police were called, her father lied she told me, and she was detained and thrown into juvenile hall.
In juvie, she was strip searched, thrown into a single cell, and kept isolated.
That and other incidents are the reason why she won’t have a relationship with her father, she told me.
The courts don’t care. They don’t listen to the children, the ones they are supposed to be acting in the best interest of.
Instead, it is Nathaniel who has gotten custody… of two of his three children.
Amelia’s older sister turned eighteen, and she no longer has any relationship with her abusive father, but her younger sister is living in a nightmare none of us want to imagine.
Amelia has lived with her mother, but the courts granted him sole mental health decision making over her.
They’ve split up the children and granted the non-custodial parent mental health decision making.
Brilliant.
As such, Amelia had a therapist she trusted, until her father fired the therapist.
He also went to court, and had the court order that Norma Jo Backs be her reunficatoin therapist.
Backs is a quack. Don’t believe me. Just listen to a couple of her sessions.
Amelia didn’t like therapy and wrote her a letter which stated in part.
I hope this letter finds you well. I've copied my father on this email so he understands how I feel to avoid any misinformation. I am writing to share some of my thoughts and concerns regarding the reunification therapy sessions that I have been attending with you and my father.
To be honest, I find it challenging to see how these sessions are helping us build a healthier relationship. I continue to feel unsafe during our meetings, whether it's when I am alone with you or when my father is present. It's important for me to let you know that the atmosphere created during these sessions contributes to my feelings of fear, constant intimidation, coercion, and being under duress.
Trust is essential in any relationship, and I believe that the trust between us seems to be diminishing rather than growing. Certain incidents during our sessions have further diminished the trust I had, and at this point, I find it challenging to believe that it can be repaired. By example only, I will give a few specific examples below that are revealed in the audio recordings of the sessions.
While I understand your role is to improve my relationship with my father, I believe the opposite is occurring. Instead of a positive shift, I feel that the sessions have caused significant and irreparable harm, widening the gap between us.
EXAMPLE 1: Coercion tactics have been used, implying that if I don't comply with certain demands of my father, my mother will be held in contempt. This was concerning the visitation that I did not want to attend between my father and I. ,
EXAMPLE 2: During the sessions, you and my father repeatedly put me in the middle of adult issues, discuss past and ongoing litigation, use court orders to intimidate me, misrepresenting facts and the law to exert undue pressure. For example, when you informed me that you knew I was recording the sessions, you told me that my recordings were a violation of HIPPA. After the session I researched more about HIPPA and my ability to record. First, in Texas, the law follows a "one-party consent" rule regarding the recording of conversations. Second, HIPAA primarily pertains to healthcare providers, ensuring the privacy and security of patients' protected health information (PHI).
A patient recording their own session does not constitute a violation of HIPAA, as it is their personal information.
Another example revealed in the audio recordings of the sessions expose attempts to shame, blame, and guilt me, falsely attributing the ongoing litigation is due to my lack of cooperation. I do not feel that allowing my father to blame me, a child, for my parents prolonged divorce litigation is helping us to form a healthy relationship.
Amelia told me that the quack doctor responded in a subsequent session and stated, “Coercion is a part of therapy.”
She’s a despicable quack.
In the thirty-minute recorded session, Backs and Nathaniel double team Amelia and even read from the court order. Why? Amelia told me they were trying to coerce her into continuing these sessions. They told her that her mom would be in contempt if Amelia did not continue in sessions.
In 2022, I exposed another quack from Harris County, Texas: Dr. Jean Guez. Guez did the exact same thing to Rosie Alanis’ thirteen-year-old son. Guez and the father double teamed the then thirteen-year-old, and they threatened to put Rosie in jail if he didn’t continue with sessions. They didn’t know that they were being secretly recorded.
Guez quickly withdrew from the case after I released the recording, and I expect Dr. Quack to do the same.
If that’s not enough, check out part of a declaration Amelia submitted to the court.
The advertisements for Dr. Quack write themselves.
What does Amelia think of the term, parental alienation?
“It’s bullshit,” she told me.
I agree.
Update
After the interview, I reached out to Nathaniel Martinez, Elizabeth Martinez, Nathaniel’s attorney Enrique Torres, and Norma Jo Backs.
Nathaniel, his attorney, and Norma Jo did not return my calls. Elizabeth told me that she was indeed not aware of the interview until after it aired.
I recorded all my sessions with Shawn Bukgatz. He explained his role was not to interpret whether Hazel was being sexually abused by her father. But to convince Hazel that what she was going through wasn’t abuse; and it was only problematic that her mother had a problem with it. And her mother would be punished if she continued to address this concern
Other google reviews of Shawn Bulgatz show prior and post cases he’s been used to falsify child therapy notes for the GAL’s intended purpose. And inappropriate therapeutic techniques. He was also ripped apart during my custody trial by the forensic expert we hired. Bulgatz didn’t show for trial. He wasn’t called. He was on their witness list. But not used.
The recordings I have of him are soo creepy and eeery. He just repeats “I just don’t see it” - referencing “seeing” Hazel was being sexually abused.
It'll be interesting to see how these kids feel in a decade, when they are also parents. It seems as if we have parentalized kids too much and given them the wrong impression, which is not helpful to them because it's too much power and too much responsibility for a kid.
Things should be dealt with by parents and with reasonable boundaries that listen to their kids, , but don't give them the control for important decisions...the way we used to.
Strangers have no way of knowing what is going on within a family and have even less business trying to pretend they do.
We are going to look back on this age and cry at what we did to destroy families, by removing the rights of the parents to decide what's best for their children until they literally leave the nest.
I'm not naive. I've lived this nightmare...as a kid, a provider, and a mom.