Suburban Chicago teenagers hope social media will save them from court nightmare
Suburban Chicago teenagers hope social media will save them from court nightmare
They have taken to Instagram to speak where the court refuses to hear them
Two suburban Chicago teenage girls have taken to social media to tell their story, and the court is none too happy about it.
On the surface, Gwen and Grace Girard seem to be living an idyllic life.
They are both fraternal twins- freshman who get straight A’s at New Trier High School, whose alumni include Rahm Emanuel, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson, and many more.
The north shore, as it is referred to, of Chicago includes immense wealth, and the students who go to New Trier are the wealthiest.
Even their immense wealth can’t save them from the clutches of family court- in fact, Gwen and Grace believe that wealth is being used to destroy their youth.
They have taken to Instagram to tell their story; so far, they have posted eight videos, but I don’t expect to see any more.
That’s because as soon as their mother, Jane Girard, found out, she sent her team of lawyers- Karen Paige and Molly Carmody of the Beerman Law Firm- to shut them down.
I called and emailed Karen and Molly, but they’re both shy.
They weren’t shy when it was time to file a motion.
Two teenagers in 2023 using and posting on Instagram, oh the horror.
That would not do.
The abuser loving lawyers- Molly and Karen- treated this like an emergency, and so did the judge, William “Benito Mussolini” Boyd.
On Wednesday, Judge Mussolini heard arguments from Karen and Molly along with the attorney for the girl’s father, Kenton Girard, to end this madness.
Kent’s attorney, Joseph O’Brien, responded by saying this wasn’t an emergency.
Judge Mussolini was having none of it. He wants to stand out from the crowd. Lots of judge ignore abuse and send kids to their abusers. After all, any judge can act like the lovely and talented Nicole Zellweger.
Judge Mussolini needs to take the judicial tyranny to a whole new level if he wants to stand out, so he’s going to violate their first amendment rights as well.
He has ordered those girls to stop posting the videos. Technically, he can’t do that, so he’s ordered their dad to order them to remove those posts and stop posting.
The order is still being processed, because, let’s face it, judges don’t write their orders. So, first the lawyers will do Judge Mussolini’s job for him, and then we’ll have a Mexican standoff between Gwen, Grace, and the court.
I don’t expect them to post any more, and they will likely remove the videos they have posted so far.
Fortunately, I have an alternative. I just recorded their videos and have them on my YouTube channel.
I can see why Jane doesn’t want anyone to see these, because they accuse her of sexual molestation.
Jane responds with something we see over and over: she accuses Kent of parental alienation.
Karen and Molly aren’t merely screaming parental alienation. Every time they do, they demand someone else get appointed at hundreds of dollars per hour. They wanted a guardian ad litem (GAL), Vanessa Hammer, and she was appointed.
That worked out swimmingly.
“We haven’t been allowed to talk to the court, only professionals,” Grace said to Robert Hansen for a story he just published. “Our GAL didn’t fight for it.”
I reached out to Ms. Hammer but she’s also very shy.
A GAL was only one of the court professionals appointed: they’ve had an evaluator, a reunification therapist, a parenting coordinator, and an attorney for the children.
The girls are in on the scam.
“Mom, do you know why this is happening? It’s because you have money…More and more professionals keeping being brought into our case, but no one attempts to listen to us.”
I’m not sure if I should be impressed or insulted. I’ve been preaching this very thing for years.
One of two things is happening. Either Gwen and Grace have secretly been my fans for years and are stealing my ideas without giving me credit, or even worse, two teenagers figured out in months what it took me years to figure out. Since the first option bruises my ego less, I’m going with that one.
This is all a racket. The parental alienation label, like everything else in court, is merely an excuse to bring in a host of professionals each charging hundreds per hour. The goal is not to solve any problems, but to rack up billable hours.
One of those professionals was a reunification therapist, Breakthroughs Family Solutions.
Gwen and Grace spoke to the folks at Breakthrough Family Solutions. It was nothing but praise.
“At our first session, we told {the therapist} about the abuse we suffered at our moms. She seemed bored and invalidated the seriousness of the things we were telling her.” They say in the video. I think Breakthroughs should put this up as a testimonial.
Why would the therapist not care about teenagers being molested by their mom? It’s simple: The money runs out quickly if there is abuse. If there’s abuse, there’s no reunification therapy, and Breakthrough’s services won’t be needed.
If you think that is cynical, it’s the reason everyone- Karen, Molly, Vanessa, Breakthroughs…- don’t care about the abuse.
That’s where the money is.
I left a voicemail with Breakthroughs, but they are also very shy.
California is close to passing Piqui’s Law which would outlaw reunification therapy- deeming it scientifically unproven- while Judge Mussolini has insisted Gwen and Grace attend reunification therapy.
This is all very familiar; I described this in 2015 in my treatise “Making Divorce Pay” about the Assocation of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC).
By the time the AFCC had begun promoting PAS, the group had dropped the descriptor “syndrome” and merely referred to the problem as parental alienation—a group of behaviors by one parent designed to alienate the child from the other parent—which is far less controversial. Gardner had originally based his research on prior research done by longtime AFCC member Joan Kelly and psychologist Judith Wallerstein, and in 2001, Kelly published, along with AFCC member Janet Johnston, “The alienated child: A reformulation of parental alienation syndrome” in the Family Court Review, the AFCC’s newsletter.
A 2012 conference for New York AFCC on parental alienation described a number of behaviors that the alienating parent exhibits, including, “unfounded abuse allegation.” Actor Alec Baldwin claims to be a victim. In his book, A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey through Fatherhood and Divorce, Baldwin describes the exact same behaviors in discussing PAS. Baldwin argues in the book that he was alienated from his daughter by his ex-wife Kim Basinger.
…
“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.
AFCC has promoted not only the idea of parental alienation, but they have promoted appointing anyone you can- preferably a member of their organization- to solve that and other problems.
It’s no surprise then that several people involved in this case are also members of the AFCC.
Karen Paige is a board member of the Illinois chapter of AFCC.
The 604 evaluator- another way of saying a custody evaluator- Dr. Phyliss Amabile, is also a member of AFCC.
I called Dr. Amabile, but she’s also very shy.
This case does have one unique feature.
It appears that Gwen and Grace are speaking to other kids caught up in this family court nightmare. For years, parents have connected with each other.
It’s how I could quickly find several parents in Maricopa County all part of the same scam.
Maya Laing, along with her brother Sebastian, have also received quite a bit of attention. First, they put out some viral videos.
Then, the news media picked up their story.
Two Santa Cruz children were physically removed from their aunt’s home by “transporters” and taken to a reunification camp by court order last Thursday, according to a video found on social media.
In the video, which can be seen here, the children are seen crying and pleading with the three transporters not to take them to the reunification camp while friends and family can only stand and watch.
Reunification camps are a controversial method in which children are removed from their preferred parent or safe parent, despite their allegations of abuse or mistreatment directed toward the other parent.
The reunification camp Maya and Sebastian have been taken to is run by Dr. Lynn Steinberg and is located in Los Angeles.
Now, Maya and Sebastian are advising other kids on doing the same.
And the AFCC scam continues unchecked!