Another Racket in Nassau County, LI (NY)

Published on February 20, 2017

I am writing to make you aware of a racket that has been going on in Nassau County Family Court for some years (to my knowledge since 2003). Certain judges there (Conrad Singer, Thomas Rademaker and Robin Kent) are cooperating with and carrying out the corrupt political agenda of the local Republican Party (despite the fact that Conrad Singer and Robin Kent -- former law partners at a small firm in Great Neck who very coincidentally became Nassau Family Court Judges at the same time--are registered as Democrats).
 
What is this racket and agenda?  It's actually very simple.  The court takes custody of the children away from the mother in any case where a gainfully employed father comes to court to request it.  The court's motivation is two-fold:  It wants to reduce the number of moms applying and qualifying for federally and state mandated public benefits that the County would rather not contribute to (e.g., housing subsidy, daycare voucher, EBT food stamps, Medicaid, utility  assistance).  (Several years ago Nassau County was sued in federal courtv and entered into a consent decree re the amount if time they were taking to process applications for emergency food stamps -- they took far too much time!)  It is nearly impossible for mothers without children in their custody to qualify for public benefits of any kind unless they have a serious chronic illness or are elderly.  Gainfully employed custodial fathers also generally earn too much (even just slightly too much) to qualify for public benefits even when they do apply.  Also the County wants to reduce the number of noncustodial dads it must pursue for child support on a continual basis because this costs a lot of time, money and resources not only to the court but also to the Sheriff's Dept and the local police dept.
 
Removing the children from the custody of the mother eliminates all these  concerns and expenditures.  So this is what Nassau County has been doing -- and in an illegal and merciless way.

This is how Nassau Family Court operates to carry out it horrible agenda.  It makes use of all its agencies and experts (CPS, the Probation Dept, the Sheriff's Dept, the local police, the psych/addiction ward of the County hospital, and certain law guardians such  as Robert Mangi and forensic psychologists such as Peter Favaro).  Through the misuse of these agencies and experts they create an egregiously false portrait of the mother and trump up charges against her as a basis to justify issuing an order of protection against her on bogus    grounds.  These orders of protection are a very serious matter because they cut off contact between the children and the mother, they bar the mother from the family home and make her homeless and they can very easily result in her    getting arrested and developing a police record!

Me and my children were made to suffer at the hands of these corrupt people in positions of authority in Nassau County twice (first in 2003-06 and again in 2015-16).
 
The only thing I was actually guilty of was having two inlaws who suffered from  addiction and mental illness and who were involved in illicit activities (they were  longtime owners of a notorious nightclub on Hempstead Tpke and Loring    Road in Levittown, which is now thankfully defunct) and my husband's ability to reason was clouded by chronic, low-level addiction (he's a functional addict and also functionally illiterate).
 
In 2003 I was repeatedly illegally detained by Nassau County -- without a warrant or charges -- at the psych/addiction ward of the County hospital.  As a result I had to withdraw from Hofstra Law School, where I had a partial scholarship (for having missed more than the 5 days that were permissible).  I had to pay back $15,000 to a student loan and, although Hofstra invited me to reenroll the following fall, that was no longer possible for financial reasons and  time constraints (at least 50 mandatory appearances in Family Court and meetings with the Probation Dept and forensic psychologist Peter Favaro).
 
My then 12-year-old daughter was removed from her home and placed with a local relative (by Judge Carnell Foskey, who was grossly unqualified to be a Family Court Judge as he had no trial experience as a lawyer and his previous   experience consisted solely of work at the County Budget Office and as a tax lawyer). My daughter was later discharged from her school in East Meadow (where she had been an honor student) and made to enroll in a new school through the address of the relative in Hicksville.  I was eventually able (after 2    1/2 years and at a cost of $70,000) to have my daughter returned home via the Appellate Div in Brooklyn.  I should add that during the period of time that Judge Foskey said I was unfit to have my daughter at home I was in loco parentis of other children as a teacher at Franklin K Lane (HS under NYC Dept of Ed).  

Court-appointed forensic psychologist, Peter Favaro (despite his excellent redentials and intelligence) was a horror -- without compassion and very dishonest.  But law guardian Ellen Pober Rittberg tried her best to do a good job and did keep my daughter's best interest at heart.  But the Nassau Family Court experience really destroyed my reputation and credibility in the family and community and made me feel psycholigically and emotionally beaten down for a long time thereafter.
 
When I got my daughter back it was my wish to leave LI and move back to one of the 5 boroughs.  But my (second) husband refused and insisted that we stay here because he had lived in Nassau County his entire life and worked locally.  Unfortunately, his wishes prevailed -- and came back to bite me in the rear end of the anatomy in 2015.

One thing that also really gauls me is that the Nassau Family Court tried to make me  believe that I was crazy and had brought these problems upon    myself.  Frighteningly, a different person might actually have believed them.  But they didn't succeed in conning me into that one because I grew up in a family  that was in the furnished room business in the Hell's Kitchen area of    Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s and in the tenement house business in the poverty area of the Bronx and I also have taught in the NYC public schools for 20 years -- so I can recognize  "crazy" from a mile away, and I know that's not    what's staring back at me when I look in the mirror!

Nassau County (only 30 miles outside Manhattan) is not someone's medieval fiefdom, nor is it an Appalachian company town from the turn of the 20th   Century, nor some dictator's own personal third world country without an honest, effective central government.  In spite of the misinformation certain local officials and politicians may be laboring under, Nassau County is part of the State of New York and the United States of America, and behavior on the part of officials and government of the type they have been engaging in here is against the
law in USA!  

It's high time that the state and federal authorities come in and do a clean sweep of the corruption in Nassau County Family Court -- just as they arrived on the scene last year to indict, prosecute and jail NYS Senator Skelos and his   son and as they arrived in October, 2016, to arrest County Exec Mangano, his wife, Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Venditto, Bldg. Dept. Head Ippolito (who has already begun a federal prison term) and other lesser public officials on   extortion and RICO Act charges.  This needs to happen before another    innocent child or family suffers permanent  psychological, emotional and financial injury at the hands of Nassau County Family Court.

Also Nassau County very urgently needs the Family Justice Center that I understand is being spearheaded by newly-elected District Attorney Madeline Singas.  We need this agency here yesterday, and in order for it to be    effective, it must be under the direct supervision of New York State -- rather than Nassau County.  Otherwise, it might not even be as "effective" as NIFA has been with our local finances.  Despite all the good intentions, the local   politicians found a way to coopt NIFA and prevent it from doing an effective job in managing Nassau County finances.

In the summer of 2015, I again was forced to become involved with Nassau County Family Court by the two addict, mentally ill inlaws I mentioned earlier (and the influence they have over my husband).  As a  result of their antics and the gross mismanagement of my case by Nassau Family Court Judge Conrad Singer and law  guardian Robert Mangi, I was driven out of my home and community, separated from my two youngest children (still at home)   for 4 months, harassed and pursued repeatedly by the Nassau County Police -- without a warrant or charges -- and thrown into the psych/addiction ward of the County hospital.  Me and my children were tremendously embarrassed on our   block, in their schools, in church and in the community because after the illegal and unauthorized raid on my house in East Meadow by the Nassau County Police on July 1, 2015 (the second time they took me into custody in the same 6 day period), neighbors and classmates could only assume that I had broken the law; when I didn't return, they further assume that I was in jail.  (The first time the Nassau Police seized me was on June 25, 2015, when they showed up at 4 a.m. at a hotel in Bayside, Queens, where I had fled with my daughter -- after an incident on June 23, 2015, in Hicksville, caused by the two inlaws --and threatened me with arrest and physical violence if I refused to go by    ambulance to a psych/addiction ward at a hospital in Nassau County (North Shore Manhasset).  So I did as they asked, I ran up an expensive and completely unnecessary ambulance and ER hospital bill, and wasted 5 hours of my time there.

When I was released at 8:30 a.m. the same morning, I had to walk 2 miles to get a bus on Northern Boulevard to get back to the DV shelter I had been directed to.  Since I was unable to get any protection whatsoever from this domestic abuse and apparently these two inlaws were able to misuse the Nassau Police to help harass and embarrass me and my children, I moved back to NYC and spent 5 weeks in a Safe Horizons domestic violence safe house.  I then moved to the Bronx (where I have a job and have had ties and familiarity all my life).  Unfortunately, the two in-laws continued to harass me there, and I    repeatedly reported the harassment and vandalism to the NYPD 43rd Precinct.  (The inlaws had sent a mutual acquaintance to the Bronx to stalk me to my mom's building in the Bronx and that person was caught of security camera violently kicking in the entrance door after she wasn't  successful in getting into the building.  They had also slandered me on the Internet, repeatedly called in false complaints re my mom's house with the NYC Bldg Dept. on Arthur Ave in the Bronx and threatned me with mayham by calling my husband's cell phone when I was in earshot.)

In the meantime, the NYPD 45th Precinct was seeking to arrest my husband for assault 3 in connection with an incident where he had come to the Bronx and threatened me (resulting in an accidental injury to my hand).  The NYPD 43rd Precinct directed me to the Family Justice Center on E 161st Street in the Bronx.  The FJC helped me file for an order of protection against the two inlaws in Bronx Family Court.  But before this matter could be concluded, the Nassau County Sheriff's Dept. started haunting my mom's building in the Bronx (which made people uncomfortable and gave rise to a false rumor that I was wanted by the authorities for trafficking in drugs).  The afternoon I learned via a phone call from a neighbor that the Nassau Sheriff's Dept. had 4 deputies staking out 1537 White Plains Road, Bronx, looking for me, I did not return home after work because I was too frightened.  Instead, I went to stay in NJ for a few months (while my attorney and my husband tried to figure out exactly which documents the Sheriff's Dept. wanted me to re-acknowledge service of and by exactly what method in order for them to call off the dogs.  (The reality there was no legitimate requirement for me or my lawyer to meet here, they were just misusing their position to harass, intimidate and embarrass me -- I surmise that perhaps this was because I had filed a complaint against Judge Conrad Singer with the NYS Commission on Judicial Conduct in Manhattan.

The end result of this ordeal was that me and my husband nearly got divorced (after being together 18 years), I was needlessly separated from my   two youngest children for 4 months, we were all publicly embarrassed as a family, we lost our entire life savings (over $50,000).  We were very fortunate not to have lost our jobs or the family home!

Ours in only one of many such ordeals of horror inflicted upon people who are unfortunate enough to have any dealings with the authorities in Nassau County.  Were it not  for my  youngest daughter (10), I would never have come back here (after having been driven out of my home in East Meadow of 16 years for 10 months).  I have lived in Nassau County on and off for the better part of 40 years, and I graduated from all the public schools here right up through college. But I do not want to stay there anymore because the events I suffered have broken my peace and sense of safety and security.

I wrote to the Nassau County Police Commissioner, but I never heard back from him or his office.  Anyway, this has been my experience, and again, I know for   a fact that my situation in Nassau Family Court is far from unique.  I am aware of 4 other women suffering there in very similar situations right now.  Perhaps the NYS Office of Court Administration might do an informal audit of the    outcomes of child custody cases in Nassau Family Court to compare how these outcomes compare to the outcomes of child custody cases within the five boroughs, as well as within other counties within NYS that are outside NYC.
This would give a very clear picture of what is going on here and will very likely reveal that mothers are losing custody in Nassau Family Court far out of proportion to mothers in, for example, Bronx Family Court.

I am aware that there  was a serious scandal in Brooklyn Family Court about 10 years ago  which involved certain lawyers discreetly delivering large sums of cash to certain judges in order to buy their decision in child custody cases; and I understand that several of these judges were caught red handed and    disciplined, but I don't recall all the details at the moment.  I believe the story can be found in The New York Times archive from circa 2006.

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Cliff notes, please.

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Wall of text, but it sound like author believes custody is an inate right of vagina endowed people and fathers have no say in it.

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I'm not reading all that.

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I'm not reading all that.

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I read until she said "me and my children".

Any competent teacher should know that one.

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Wow, I can't believe I read that whole thing. That's a whole lot of crazy. 

The most amazing part of the entire thing is that even after all that she's still got a job teaching public school. 

Someone forward that shit to the relevant administration. 

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I read enough to know that is a crazy person who's earned every bit of it.

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I fixed the punctuation in your recap so that we didn't lose too much of the original style.

Also the County wants to reduce the number of noncustodial dads it must pursue for child support on a continual basis because this costs a lot of time, money and resources not only to the court but also to the Sheriff's Dept and the local police dept.

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I see nothing wrong with giving a father custody of his own kids.

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That's one big wall of bat shit crazy.

Someone send her the tinfoil hat, before it's too late!!

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Explain to me how someone with 20 years experience in teaching, presumably with some sort of grad degree, can make between $60k-80k according to this site....and still expect welfare benefits. Disgusting human being.

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And yes, it's all a great big Republican conspiracy. In New York. We know New York is an absolute hotbed of Republican authority and power.

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Not to defend her but that part of NY does have a good number of corrupt Republicans. The republican county executive and his wife were recently arrested and indicted by the feds in a bribery investigation.

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Neither am I.

Cliffs, OP?

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I read until she said "me and my children".

Any competent teacher should know that one.

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I read enough to know that is a crazy person who's earned every bit of it.

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"Gauled"

lol

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I didn't bother correcting the spelling because - you know - she's a public school teacher so it must all be correct...

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