A lot is happening in Orange County, California’s family court system, including a failed recall, a high profile first amendment battle, and a judge who hid her ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Richard Luthmann and I had Julie Holburn on to discuss it all.
The failed recall
In December 2025, there were shockwaves sent throughout the Orange County, California legal world when a recall petition was filed against six judges: Carol L. Henson, Stephen Hicklin, Maria D. Hernandez, Julie A. Palafox, and Kimberly A. Carasso, and Mary Krieber-Varipapa.
The judges responded, and the recall effort then required approximately 150,000 signatures to get on the November 2026 ballot.
There are 1,909,406 registered voters in Orange County, according to county data.
The deadline was July 23, 2026. It came and went with no signatures submitted.
The group heading up the recall effort is California Family Law Naked Truth (CFLNT), and it looks as though they had no plan to get these signatures.
All is not lost. Julie told us that Judge Varipapa’s signatures are due August 2, 2026.
Furthermore, in January 2026, six more judges- Carmen Luege, Ami Segal, Shelia Recio, Judges Thomas Lo, Erin Rowe, Megan Wagner- had recall petitions filed.
Julie told us the recall effort for the second six judges is being handled by Lucy Vellema.
Vellema ran for the Orange County Board of Supervisors; check out the interview with her and fellow candidate Kimberly Davis.
Those signatures will also be due in August. Check out the segment on the failed recall below.
Judge Ami Segal and Jeffrey Epstein
Next, we talked about an explosive story about one of the judges being recalled: Judge Ami Segal.
Prior to her role as a judge, she was an attorney with Kirkland & Ellis in New York City.
In that role, she worked with a notorious client, Jeffrey Epstein. She was even part of the team, Julie told us, which negotiated his sweetheart deal, a non-prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice for sex trafficking.
Epstein served thirteen months, includign a lenient work release program. Much of his time was spent outside of jail. Julie explained further in her article.
Records released by the Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act identify an attorney named “Ami Sheth” — an associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York — working directly with federal officials on Jeffrey Epstein’s behalf during the 2007–2009 period covering his non-prosecution agreement and its aftermath. A search of the DOJ’s own Epstein Library returns 21 documents referencing her by name across two of the release’s data sets, spanning draft agreement negotiations, victim-notification logistics, and billing records.
In a June 20, 2008 email to John Roth in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Sheth transmitted a set of documents — a “Principal Submission,” a “Summary of Misconduct,” and responses to federal correspondence — writing “on behalf of Jay Lefkowitz and Ken Star[r],” Epstein’s two lead attorneys. The email is signed with Lefkowitz’s and Kenneth Starr’s names below Sheth’s message. (EFTA00013602, EFTA00013783)
Internal Kirkland & Ellis correspondence from the same period shows Sheth as a recipient and forwarder of substantive strategy discussions, including a November–December 2007 exchange concerning the selection of a special master and the timing of victim notification letters. (EFTA01075860, EFTA01075864) A December 2007 email from Sheth’s Kirkland & Ellis account also notes her bar admission was “Pending in New York” at the time — indicating she was a recently arrived associate rather than a senior member of the defense team. (EFTA00235424)
Julie said that Judge Segal went by her maiden name, Sheth, at the time, which made tracking down this connection more difficult.
Julie did not disclose anything unethical or untoward done by Judge Segal in her article. This led to a debate. I argued that simply having Epstein as a client is not news, while Julie and Rich argued that she should have disclosed it when she ran for judge. Check out the debate below.
The hockey player and the 1st amendment
Lastly, we talked about how hockey player Evander Kane was trying to stop his ex-wife, Sabrina Treffiletti.
In particular, Treffiletti sat down with Nik Richie to talk about Kane, their marriage, and more.
Here is part of Julie’s article.
There were no polished talking points or carefully maintained emotional boundaries. Treffiletti spoke openly about losing contact with her two eldest daughters, the anguish of watching her six-year-old asking for her big sisters she no longer gets to see and the years of alleged post-separation control she believes slowly dismantled her family.
Richie listened not as a detached moderator, but as someone visibly affected by what he was hearing—at times protective, angry, vulnerable and close to tears himself.
When Treffiletti described the separation as “a grief with no funeral,” Richie did not rush to the next question. When she recalled the last time her daughter said, “I love you, Mom,” she paused to find a tissue. He paused with her.
Later, Treffiletti described days when the loss becomes almost physical.
Kane tried to shut down the media attention. Here is part of another article.
An Orange County Superior Court commissioner dissolved a temporary restraining order Thursday that had restricted certain speech by journalist and publisher Nik Richie related to NHL player Evander Kane and Kane’s ongoing family-law dispute, concluding the evidence presented at this stage did not justify keeping the order in place pending trial.
In a written ruling issued June 18, Commissioner Glenn Mondo described the matter as a “very close call,” finding that while some of Richie’s statements raised legitimate concerns, the record did not establish sufficient evidence of threats, harassment or imminent harm to support maintaining the temporary restraining order.
“With regard to the ruling on respondent’s ex parte application, the court finds it to be a very close call as to whether the relief should be granted,” Mondo wrote.
The ruling came one day after oral argument in Orange County Superior Court, where Mondo questioned both sides about the intersection of California’s civil harassment statute, First Amendment protections and social media in highly publicized custody disputes.
The dispute stems from a temporary restraining order sought by Kane against Richie, a journalist, publisher and media personality who serves as CEO of Warrior Network Agency and previously founded TheDirty.com.
All of us agreed that Kane had no legal legs. He’s a public figure, and he was shutting down media which may have embarrassed him. That’s not enough.
That segment is below.
Post-script
To support more articles like this, check out the fundraiser for Orange County.
Here are the previous articles in the 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, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25. Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38, Part 39, Part 40, Part 41, Part 42, Part 43, Part 44, Part 45, Part 46, Part 47, Part 48, Part 49, Part 50, Part 51, Part 52, Part 53, Part 54, Part 55, Part 56, Part 57, Part 58, Part 59, Part 60, Part 61, Part 62, Part 63, Part 64, Part 65, Part 66, and Part 67.
