Scumbag Maryland attorney Brennan McCarthy tells Jeff Reichert to 'cease and desist' talking to his son
McCarthy sent a peculiar cease and desist letter to the Reichert's attorneys.
Earlier this month, I interviewed Jeff Reichert as he tried the latest gambit in his attempt to fight through layers of corruption in Maryland courts and finally see his son, who recently turned fifteen.
At the time, Jeff filed an emancipation petition on behalf of his son.
“It means I won’t be a father,” Jeff told me during the interview of the consequences of this petition.
In this same interview, he reiterated that he’d spoken with his son twice on the phone since late 2023 and hadn’t seen him face to face since early 2022. All of this violated a longstanding child custody order: one which favored his ex-wife, Sarah Hornbeck.
This custody order followed more than a decade of litigation, and it also involved forum shopping- a la Jeremy Hales- by Ms. Hornbeck. Check out the video by Wayne Dolcefino below for more on the forum shopping.
Hornbeck, who has a history of drunken incidents, has become emboldened by the corruption in several counties in Maryland in her case.
She has violated the custody order with impunity; Jeff accused her of falsely imprisoning their son, but her lawyer recently argued that the problem is Jeff.
Sarah’s attorney recently sent Jeff’s attorney a cease and desist letter. I have received many cease-and-desist letters, and they are usually done in cases of alleged defamation. I’ve never seen one used in custody. Brennan McCarthy, who represents Hornbeck, thought it was appropriate.
McCarthy did not respond to a voicemail left at his office; Ms. Hornbeck did not return an email for comment. There’s no evidence Jeff ever abused his son, as McCarthy claimed in the letter. His client was found drunk, while having custody of her son.
Zach Groves, Jeff’s attorney, did not respond to an email for comment.
(Check out this previous article for an interview with Mr. Groves)
McCarthy, ever the scumbag lawyer, concluded his letter by telling Jeff to cease and desist communicating with his son. McCarthy also demanded that Jeff dismiss the petition for emancipation.
McCarthy’s complaints are rich. Though Jeff likely violated the previous order- which requires his mom to supervise calls- Sarah has flagrantly violated the order by keeping their son locked away. Jeff is supposed to have weekly contact with his son, and that has been violated repeatedly since 2022.
As Jeff explained in the last interview, he has been to court over forty times since that 2022 court order, never has any judge allowed evidence of Sarah’s abuse and violations.
Furthermore, prior to this 2022 order, Jeff and Sarah negotiated a final order- not so final- which also kept the parties out of court. There was a mediation agreement for any further disputes.
Sarah then walked into an Anne Arundel County, Maryland court- where Wayne Dolcefino found out neither party lived- and had that order overturned. She ignored the mediation provision, and so did the Anne Arundel court.
As such, when McCarthy claimed in the letter, “Your client is mentally damaging {his son} again by involving a 15-year-old, confusing him and twisting him to get ill-conceived gains in litigation,” McCarthy is forgetting all the “ill conceived gains in litigation” he and his client have gotten in the last four years.
There was one more peculiarity about this cease-and-desist letter. McCarthy carbon copied the judge on the case.
Normally, communications between lawyers are not shared with the court unless they are included in a motion or other court filing. McCarthy made sure the judge was aware of a letter he sent to the other lawyer.
I asked the Maryland courts if McCarthy’s actions were proper. They were very helpful.
Judiciary staff are not authorized to provide legal advice. You may want to reach out to an attorney for additional information.
I pointed out that I wasn’t looking for legal advice.
I'm a journalist. I don't need legal advice. I want to know if it's kosher to include a judge in internal communications between lawyers.
The court communications department had no further comment.
