Orange County's How to Manual for Racketeering in Child Custody

A new webinar/report prepared for the Orange County BAR is being likened to a how to manual for racketeering in the courts by litigants.

A recently released report prepared for the Orange County, CA BAR is going to raise eyebrows both for its content and its authors.

The title of this webinar/report is “Child Custody Solutions: What Options Are Available and When to Use Them.”

It was prepared for the Orange County BAR; I left them an email but have not yet received a response.

At first cursory glance, this document does not stand out. Here’s one page.

Buried deep is a statement which suggests this document will help abusers.

Webster’s Family Law Definition of “I just want to protect my children.” Translation? “I just want to screw my ex.”

This is how courts often treat abuse allegations and it’s one of the main reasons why abusers get custody all the time.

The whole thing becomes even more nefarious when you consider what the report means by “options”. By options, the report lists a bunch of court appointees.

The options in this report are: minor’s counsel, co-parent therapist, reunification therapist, special master, and custody evaluator.

One theme is the need for a court appointee for parents who can’t communicate with each other.

This is something the family court cabal loves to do. In my 2015 treatise “Making Divorce Pay” about the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), I noted.

AFCC didn’t create the term “high conflict” divorces, but the group has done a lot to turn it into a household word. “The challenges posed by high-conflict families were front-and-center issues for most courts, and AFCC members led the way in developing new processes and techniques for working with these challenging family members,” according to AFCC’s website.

“For the last 30 years, mediation and, to a lesser extent custody evaluations have dominated the family dispute resolution landscape,” an AFCC white paper from 2004 stated. “Only recently have a very few court service agencies begun to explore a triage process to select from a menu of services.”

AFCC literature recommends the use of a plethora of court professionals—custody evaluators, guardians ad litem, parenting coordinators, mediators, therapists, etc.—to defuse “high conflict” divorces.

“Parenting coordination is appropriate for high conflict cases dealing with child-related issues,” according to an AFCC manual.  What none of the AFCC literature promoting court professional services mentions is that these services are often compulsory and that litigants are charged $250 an hour and more to pay for the services.

The system loves to find problems, appoint someone to try and fix it, not have it be fixed so that someone else can be appointed. I noted this recently in an article about Sarah Hamilton’s case from Monmouth New Jersey.

“Multiple documents, multiple orders, and directing use of a parenting coordinator because of the parties’ inability to communicate.” Judge Cagan stated. “The parties need assistance here. It is transparent.”

“The parenting coordinator may agree with dad on an issue. The parenting coordinator may agree with mom on an issue. That doesn’t mean that the parenting coordinator is biased. It means she’s doing her job.” He also noted.

This is a very common trick. The court blames the parents for not communicating; it appoints some sort of court professional- in this case a parenting coordinator was one of the appointees-and creates a perpetual case.

The court uses the parents’ inability to communicate to also absolve the system of any responsibility.

This report for the Orange County BAR is a manual for maximizing appointments. For each court professional- minor’s counsel, co-parent therapist, reunification therapist, special master, and custody evaluator- the report provides situations when it should be used, should not be used and says what each court professional can and cannot do.

Another thing which will raise eyebrows is at least one of the authors of the report. The report was authored by the group below.

I reached out to everyone on the panel; I have yet to receive a response and will update if there is one.

Dr. Sue Tonkins has already been cited by a judge for going outside the scope of her authority. She was a special master in a custody case: Levine Vs. Cohen.

In that case, the judge, Julie Palafox, admonished her for going outside the scope of her authority as a special master.

That was only the beginning of the harangue by the judge in this hearing against Tonkins. The rest of the highlights are below.

“You know, I’ve got to tell you what, the Special Maser was- had a good employment gig going,” the judge stated bluntly.

Tonkins never issued orders, only directives: something even the judge was confused about.

“What’s a directive?” The judge asked.

“Now, the Special Master is not to be giving directives.” The Judge said later.

Tonkins was also on Anne Tammel’s case. That is a case I plan on presenting in full soon, but I spoke about it with Ann MaGuire and Gina Fischer of Wings for Justice. Find the podcast here.

Tammel is the third person from Orange County- along with Donna McCracken and Christie Black- who was falsely labeled with parental alienation. Tonkins did the reunification therapy. Tammel provided me with this statement about Tonkins and this webinar/report.

This guide, presented via the Orange County Bar Association, has been manufactured by Sue Tonkins (who was removed from the list of court-approved evaluators for overbilling and misrepresenting parents) is basically an ABC “How-To” guide for OC-based lawyers to remove custody from decent, healthy parents. 

Sue Tonkins exorbitantly-priced, “experimental” approach to “reunification therapy” has negatively affected an entire network of healthy mothers and children in Orange County who have been bullied, undermined, and falsely represented by Tonkins. We have compared stories, and they are all the same. 

In my case, Tonkins, who spent 30 minutes total with one of my children and 75 with the other, got on the stand and lied about statements made by myself and my children. Grossly misrepresenting my healthy relationship with my kids, Tonkins called them “knock-kneed”  and “antisocial” when they are competitive dancers who lead National Honor Society meetings. This resulted in a significant loss of custodial time with my kids, forcing them into negative, disturbing settings they both pleaded with her to save them from. 

Further, Sue Tonkins has failed to report serious cases of abuse by a number of children. In January 2021, she mocked my 17-year-old son in a session, stating: “It's like, whoa, I'm holding up the card of suicidal ideation here. I'm holding it up. I'm gonna go, Hey guys, I don't wanna be pressured.”

Sue Tonkins and her peers have created a well-oiled machine and are using this document to further their efforts of removing custody from healthy, protective parents then placing the minors back into the hands of parents (most often the party with means) those children who have expressed clear concerns about. 

Please find the rest of the stories in the Orange County series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. and Part 9.

For more stories on Orange County, support that fundraiser found here.