The Rise and Fall of Dr. Luigi DiRubba: A Connecticut Family Court Story

Since his divorce, Dr. DiRubba has been all but erased from his six children's lives, but does he deserve it?

The Connecticut Supreme Court Building

Dr. Luigi DiRubba hasn’t seen any of his six children in several years.

Depending on which document you read, you might even believe he deserves his fate.

A 2016 custody evaluation stated in part, “The evidence I reviewed clearly demonstrates two instances of Luigi terrorizing the family as a whole.”

The evaluation continues, “I am concerned about the incidents in which there was proven physical abuse of the children by their father.”

One of those incidents occurred in February 2016, and it marked the end of the family.

While Dr. DiRubba- he had no problem when I called him Luigi however- initially called the police during this incident, he told me he quickly hung up.

They called back but before he could get them off the phone, the commotion in the home forced a visit.

After the police spoke with everyone, Luigi was the one arrested.

“Luigi stomping around the house and denouncing his wife and children and AnnaMaria and {two of his daughters} responding in highly provocative ways that increase the terror and emotional volatility.” The evaluation stated further.

The charges were dropped, but Luigi was put on supervised visitation.

All efforts to heal this fractured relationship with his children failed.

“Children and mother are united in their simplistic and highly unrealistic belief that if only Luigi would fully and finally exit their lives, they would all lead a problem free existence.” The evaluation stated further.

This was a long fall for Dr. Luigi DiRubba. He was the son of Italian immigrants who built a multi-million-dollar chiropractic business, had a huge home, and was the head of a six children household.

If all you knew about this family was what I just wrote, you might agree that Luigi is getting what he deserved, except the reality is far more complicated. Here is more from the evaluation.

While what I wrote is largely what the court has focused on, the evaluation- and the family dynamic- is far more complicated.

In fact, the evaluation recommended that Luigi get standard non-visitation time with his youngest three children while going to reunification therapy with the oldest three.

I am no fan of custody evaluations or reunification therapy; it’s no surprise that both did little in this case.

It is, however, important to note that all the recommendations in this evaluation were ignored. There is one more thing in this evaluation which is extremely important. It is an incident from 2017.

The evaluation goes on to describe how there was a birthday party for one of the DiRubba children and an invited underage girl got so drunk that she passed out and went to the hospital.

Nothing more happened. If Luigi was the one problem in this family, how is this incident explained? Furthermore, if two documented incidents caused Luigi to be put into supervised visits, why did nothing happen regarding custody after this incident?

In fact, this is the biggest problem with this case and family court in general.

For Luigi, every misstep, bad incident, or even allegation, costs him dearly. He told me he had been arrested nearly ten times, with all charges eventually being dismissed.

AnnaMaria’s attempts to use false allegations to have Luigi arrested were so voluminous and blatant that it caught the attention of the guardian ad litem. Luigi wound up filing a complaint against the GAL and here is part of the response.

Were these numerous complaints viewed as a pattern of false allegations? No: and AnnaMaria faced no negative consequences for constantly filing them.

Then, there is the issue of parental alienation. My view on this term is well-known. I have said that parental alienation is as real as gold unicorns.

Luigi and I had more than one debate on the subject, both about his case and in general.

He is convinced he was alienated; I believe his case is further proof the term is bogus.

His is yet another story with a specific set of facts wrapped under the same umbrella.

I also have said I believe the behaviors are real: bad mouthing, keeping the kids away, etc.

It seems the evaluation found plenty of this as well.

“The evidence I reviewed also clearly demonstrates that AnnaMaria has interfered with Luigi’s court ordered visitation with the children on many occasions.” The evaluation stated. “The interference has been especially intense with respect to the three oldest DiRubba children but has also been persistent with respect to the three youngest children.”

In another portion, the evaluation states.

Indeed, this behavior has continued. All therapy has failed; there has been scant attention to trying to reestablish any sort of relationship between Luigi and any of his six children. With that failed, Luigi soon found himself seeing his children little and then never.

She has faced no consequences for any of this.

Instead, Luigi told me he recently found out that his ex-wife and the rest of the children recently moved to Florida, with no notice.

Luigi’s case tracks similarly to another case I followed: that of Bill Sardi.

Both started their divorces well off; both were forced to pay for most of the costs, and both were simultaneously kept away from their children for significant periods. Bill was kept away from his son for approximately nine months in 2021. My interview with Bill is below.

Bill died in February 2022; his friend believes the stress from the divorce definitely played a role.

Both were effectively paying for their own destruction, as they shelled out for a stream of experts, court appointments, and useless lawyers who did nothing but take their money while their relationships with their children were being totally severed.

In Luigi’s case, the evaluation warned about this alienation.

Six years later, she moved the children to another state, with no apparent warning.

A Guardian ad litem (GAL) was brough on the case: Janis Laliberte.

She was made aware of these alienating behaviors. Luigi filed a complaint and here’s how she claimed she handled all this.

“Mechanisms were put in place to address the ongoing parental conflict in an effor to protect the children,” Laliberte stated.

That’s quite a word salad to say she did little to nothing to hold Luigi’s ex-wife accountable when she interfered with custody time, talked bad about him, and other bad behaviors.

I reached out to Laliberte, but she did not respond to my email.

I reached out to Luigi’s ex-wife’s long-time divorce attorney, Marianne Charles, but received no response.

Postscript

Check out the previous articles in the series on Connecticut courts: article one, article two, article three, article four, and article five.

Check out the fundraiser for exposing Connecticut courts to see more stories like this.

Update:

Luigi contacted me after the article came out. He pointed out that after this evaluation came out, most of the findings were reversed by Department of Children and Family. He said this is important because the evaluation was based on original findings from DCF.