Rick Luthmann and I were back for the twelfth episode of The Unknown.
We updated on current events, Paul Boyne, and more.
Approximately forty-five minutes in, we welcomed Karen Riordan to the program.
Karen has another case from Connecticut where an abuser/pedophile got custody of his children.
When Karen first contacted me, she noted that she didn’t want to be the next Susan Skipp, another notorious Connecticut case.
I covered Susan’s story approximately a decade ago in my treatise “Making Divorce Pay.”
In a Connecticut case, Susan Skipp gained custody of her children in 2011, after enduring years of domestic violence. She went back to court when her ex-husband fell behind on child support and didn’t show up to take the children for his visitation.
Rather than dealing with these issues, the court litigated her divorce again. The guardian ad litem, Mary Brigham, entered her own appearance, inviting herself back to the case and filing more than 30 motions.
Soon after Skipp went back to court, five professionals—the guardian ad litem, parenting coordinator, three therapists, and a visitation center—each of whom charged an average of $250 an hour were assigned to defuse this high-conflict but already settled divorce.
Four AFCC members—Dr. Howard Krieger, Dr. Sidney Horowitz, Judge Lynda Munro, and Dr. Linda Smith—were also on Sunny Kelley’s case. Seven AFCC members were on Skipp’s case. She and her children were each forced to undergo separate evaluations, and her children were forced into therapy conducted by Dr. Smith.
“My children also begged Dr. Krieger and others for protection from their violent father. My pleas were interpreted by Dr. Krieger as signs of serious emotional instability; my children’s pleas were regarded as symptoms of ‘Parental Alienation Syndrome,’” Skipp said in a complaint to the American Psychological Association (APA) about Krieger.
Skipp suffers from a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder known as Legal Abuse Syndrome. When Brigham demanded a $20,000 payment, Skipp was ordered to cash out her retirement or go to jail. Brigham billed Skipp a total of $133,000.
Judge Munro declined to accept a psychiatrist’s diagnosis that Skipp had PTSD and instead diagnosed Skipp herself: “The defendant testified that she looked forward to this counseling. If the court takes her at her word then she cannot help herself in her conduct and this is an unaddressed mental health concern.”
Skipp was then told that in order to see her own children she would have to go to counseling with a psychologist of Judge Munro’s choosing, and when she refused, Munro gave Skipp’s ex-husband sole custody, and she hasn’t seen her two children in nearly three years.
Both Karen and Susan lost their children after being falsely accused of parental alienation, while the court appointed a litany of court professionals to drain them financially while making lots of money for the system.
I have covered Karen’s case before, but as she was explaining it again, I found similarities to another case I’ve done a lot of work on the Rucki case from Minnesota.
Both were falsely accused of parental alienation. It’s boiler plate for a psychopathic abuser like David Rucki and Chris Ambrose to claim parental alienation when accused of abuse. Karen’s case is more recent, but the Rucki case is where the practice was perfected, back in 2013. The Rucki case stands out for the enormous amount of evidence of abuse that was covered up.
In fact, David Rucki’s history of abuse is so significant, that a ninety-nine-page dossier was developed.
None of it mattered. The court was determined to switch custody, and in both cases, the reason given was parental alienation on the mother’s part.
Both had their children run rather than be forced to live with the abusive father. Here is how Frank Parlato described Karen’s situation.
Despite the children’s clear wishes to be with their mother, Judge O’Neill leaned on prior judgments and granted Ambrose restraining orders against Riordan on behalf of the teens, barring contact between the mother and her three teenage children for a year.
Judge O’Neill chose not to hear the children’s allegations of abuse and neglect against Ambrose.
Rather than return to their father, Mia (16), Matthew (16), and Sawyer (13) sought refuge in Rhode Island with their maternal grandfather. Ambrose went to Rhode Island and threatened to get a court order for the arrest of his children.
In the Rucki case, it became a national story when Samantha and Gianna Rucki ran on April 19, 2013.
Therapist’s notes from Dr. Jim Gilbertson describing the Rucki girls running. He was very nonchalant when it happened. It was covered locally and eventually 20/20. Frank Parlato and others covered when Karen’s children ran to a relative’s rather than be forced to live with their father.
In both cases, the children spoke out about the abuse. Karen talked about her children speaking out on the broadcast.
Samantha Rucki made an audio shortly after running.
Gianna made one as well.
In both cases, the kids were ignored and forced to live with their abusers.
Both women had SWAT teams enter their lives. Karen described how the SWAT team showed up when her kids ran. This show of force was used to force them back to their dad. In Sandra Grazzini-Rucki’s case, four members of the US Marshals SWAT team showed up to a time share she was staying at after a flight- when she worked as a flight attendant- to arrest her for child trafficking, kidnapping and gunrunning. Those charges were non-existent, courtesy of a lie by authorities in Minnesota. The SWAT team put four rifles to her head during the raid.
One major difference. Karen Riordan has had positive press, a lot of it. Frank Parlato ran a long series. Wayne Dolcefino also did a significant news story.
With Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, she was the subject of an international smear campaign which culminated with the hatchet job done by 20/20 with its installment on this story called “Footprints in the Snow.” The title referred to the two girls running on April 19, 2013, leaving only “footprints in the snow,” only there wasn’t any snow on the ground on that date. Even the title was a sham.
Correspondent Elizabeth Vargas claimed they could find no evidence of abuse.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune, with Brandon Stahl leading the way, shamelessly covered up for David Rucki’s abuse. It was covered on television, newspapers and radio locally.
In none of that coverage will you see any discussion of Samantha Rucki’s audio recording, even though she describes her father ripping an organ leg off an organ and choking Sandra Grazzini-Rucki with it. They will all claim there’s no evidence of abuse.
Most recently, Dan Abrams smeared Michelle MacDonald, falsely claiming that when she was forced to conduct part of a custody trial handcuffed to a wheelchair, this was her fault. MacDonald represented Sandra Grazzini-Rucki for many years, including during the custody case in September 2013. Abrams doesn’t mention that two of the five children were missing when this judge scheduled this hearing.
The Unknown Episode 12: the many similarities between Karen Riordan's case and the Rucki case