Parenting Rights Letter to Chief Judge

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PARENTING RIGHTS INSTITUTE1518 Genesee Street

Utica, NY 13502

leonkoziol@parenting rights institute.com

(315) 796-4000

April 5, 2012

Honorable Jonathan Lippman

Chief Justice

New York Court of Appeals

20 Eagle Street

Albany, New York 12207 Re: Parenting Equality and Judicial Misconduct

Dear Judge Lippman:

Until my public criticisms and formal challenges to bench and bar practices in New Yorks

domestic relations courts, I enjoyed 23 successful and unblemished years as a civil rights

attorney. Today I am filing an appeal to this court from an order of the Appellate Division, Third

Department which features First Amendment retaliation and misconduct of named judges

which I endured as a consequence of these criticisms and challenges. Over 20 judges have

either been disqualified or replaced over the past six years of litigation on this case due to my

condition as a father-litigant-lawyer abused by a discriminatory and proliferating court system.

This letter is not intended to supply the details of an appeal which might ultimately be heard by

this court, but to register my complaint to matters outside of the decision making process

which I find to be an insult to the justice system as a whole. In your February 14, 2012 report on

the state of our judiciary, you open with a prominent reference to Lady Justice depicted on

courthouse walls everywhere, blindfolded and holding the scales of justice. However, on the

same walls of this, our states highest court, a visitor or litigant will find a large poster of former

Chief Justice Sol Wachtler at the public clerks office. He is proudly displayed along with two

other former members of the bench campaigning on the Republican line for judgeship.

This poster is offensive for two principal reasons. First, it advertises politics in an institution

committed to impartiality and judicial independence. Second, and more disturbing, it lauds the

election of a judge who was charged with extortion, racketeering and blackmail using the same

high court offices as his facilitator of these crimes. To be sure, Sol Wachtler was accused of

directing staff in his chambers to investigate the background of a lawyer for purposes of

impairing his licensure. That lawyer, David Sampson, was being targeted as the close friend of

Joy Silverman, the New York debutant who had been stalked and harassed by Judge Wachtler.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Chief Justice Lippman

April 5, 2012

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A comparable incident on a smaller scale is at issue in the Third Department record, and like the

state system at the time of Wachtlers crimes, there has been no accountability obtainedthrough the New York Commission on Judicial Conduct. Indeed fellow justices refused to seek

Judge Wachtlers resignation even after his misconduct became public through an FBI sting

operation. Today s poster advertises the purported integrity of Mr. Wachtler who was given

back his law license in 2007. As you know, he pled guilty to harassment of the debutant and ex-

lover which led to a federal prison term. It was influenced by Wachtlers threats ofkidnapping

and anonymous mailing of condoms to a 14 year old girl. So brazen was this jurist that he even

submitted false claims in similar fashion to authorities which damaged other FBI investigations.

While you may not be as personally affected by this daily reminder, I am the father of two

young girls who finds Wachtler and his poster highly offensive. It is being prominently displayed

for no logical reason during an appeal which features parents in this state routinely subjected

to false tactical accusations in needless Family Court disputes. Such concoctions are encouraged

and overlooked because they produce fees and revenues for the bench and bar. Innocent

children are callously exploited in the process using antiquated and barbaric processes

developed by their beneficiaries. These are issues which conflict with Sol Wachtler and his

political feature at the courthouse entrance. Photocopies of the poster are enclosed. Its

continuing display was confirmed today. Respectfully, I ask that it be ordered removed.

On a related note, you emphatically declare in the same opening report that New York always

has been and must remain at the forefront of efforts to ensure that Lady Justices scales,

symbolizing equality and due process, are exquisitely balanced in our great state . However,nowhere in that same report will one find a candid recognition of the gender discrimination

which occurs to the male half of the parenting population. Apart from Census Bureau statistics

which confirm this inequality each year, our Institute has studied the issues and concluded, as

so many other experts have, that fatherless childrearing is a principal cause behind the juvenile

crime and overburdened dockets which you lament upon with funding requests in your report.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully submitted,

Leon R. Koziol, J.D.

cc: Hon. Thomas Mercure

Associated Press

New York Times

Times Union

USA Today


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Parenting Rights Letter to Chief Judge