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Mother's Research and Reference Center

New Documentary to Court TV, Frontline etc.

Family Court Failures

Please READ

[Note: Please respond the author of the message below, Meena Fox at
Abusesolutions@aol.com (and cc me at AuthorTalia@aol.com) Thanks!]

From Meena Fox:
Today I met with Dominique Lasseur of Tatge/Lasseur Productions,
who just finished making the PBS movie that comes out this Thursday
about Protective Parents, Family Court failure and PAS entitled "Breaking
The Silence: Children's Stories." Dominique is passionately interested in
continuing his work in this area, as he can see how raising the public's
consciousness about this problem and indeed, creating a public outcry
about it, will be key to achieving the reforms we seek in Family Court.

Dominique would like to focus next on judicial accountability for
these tragedies, and sees media exposure of the judges' heinous
misconduct in these child abuse cases as the best way to make an
impact on their future behavior. I know you will all agree that this
is a project that would be worth its weight in gold if he can pull it
off. He envisions marketing a series on Family Court failure to Court
TV, Frontline, America Undercover, or all three, if we can get him
enough information, footage and support.

The reason he met with me about this project is because I know all of
you and he was hoping I could rally you troops to help him with his
project, and I assured him I would be glad to. He is interested in
getting together a powerful collection of video tapes of Protective
Parents' court hearings, the type he used in "Breaking The Silence:
Children's Stories" in which Richard Ducote was arguing a motion in
Shelly's case to keep her daughter Manya from being given into the
custody of her father after disclosing years of abuse by him, where
the judge said the timing is suspicious, therefore I will deny the
motion and send her to live with the father. These types of courtroom
video tapes are used in most California Courtrooms in lieu of a court
reporter, and are available for sale at the court clerk's office. I
assume that most other states use these tapes as well. Shelly's case
was in Washington State, and Dominique has good footage from a Nevada
court too. So far these are the only two court tapes that he has, but he
wants to compile a big collection of them and use them as the basis of
his new series.

Dominique needs each of you to send him videotapes from your cases
where judges were awful to Protective Parents, i.e. treated them
disrespectfully or inappropriately, blew up at them, or just made
completely illogical or punitive rulings against them, or all of the
above.

Dominique requests that we contact all the Protective Parents who
might have access to such evidence and ask them to look in their
legal files, try to determine what day these rulings occurred on, and
then each order the tape from the courtroom for that hearing. Next he
needs each Protective Parent to preview the tape and keep track of
where on the tape the good footage is, so that when we forward them
to him, all he has to do is put the tape in the VCR (or the DVD on
the computer), and watch it, and he'll see the best footage. He does
not have time to watch hours and hours of tapes looking for when the
right hearing was called and trying to find the outrageous parts, he
needs us to do that for him.

Once we have compiled a good collection, he will make these into a
proposal piece to market a series for Court TV on Family Court
failure to protect child abuse victims. He could also market the idea
to Frontline or to HBO America Undercover, or all three, if we can
get him enough footage to start with. He has excellent footage that
Richard got him from Shelly's trial, only some of which he included
in the movie.

I suggested that we ask Crystal Streiloff to see if she can get
Dominique some videos from her case. I think that anything from Wendy
Titelmans or Idelle Clarks cases would be great examples. These were
just my first thoughts because these are cases I know a lot about and
worry a lot about all the time, but I know there are thousands going on
all around the country and each of you knows at least ten others who
you could forward this email to or suggest that I get in contact with.
Please do so!

Anyone who has the videos of their children's MDIC Interview where
the child discloses about the abuse should send Dominique a copy of
that.

Also, anyone who has audiotapes of conversations with their kids on
the phone where the kids are pleading to be protected from the abuse
or telling about the abuse should send these in too. Shelly and
Manya's conversation like this in the Breaking the Silence Movie was
probably the most compelling part.

In my experience many Protective Parents have videotaped child
visitation exchanges and have footage of children screaming and
pleading not to be forced to go with the abuser. This kind of footage
is so powerful! I have seen the tape of Idelle's daughter in this
situation and it made me come completely unglued.

Also, some children left in the custody of their abusers stop eating
and become anorexic. Before and after photographs of victim children
in this type of situation would be very visually compelling. Amy
Neustein, Crystal Streiloff, do you have these? Anyone else? Send
them in!

Make sure that each tape or photograph is clearly marked with the
Protective Parent's Name and contact information, and whether or not
the face of the child or mom must be blurred out by Dominique in
order to protect their identity. Clearly, if the tape they send is
their only copy and they need it back, they should either get a copy
made first and mail that, or include a letter saying by when it must
be returned to them, in which case Dominique would need them to also
give him permission to make a copy for him to use. He said it does not
matter if the quality of the tapes is bad, that this is just a
reality of the way they are made and will not affect their impact.

I want to start compiling a master list of who are all the current
Protective Parents so that we can be sure that we ask everyone to
participate, both in this project and in the California Protective
Parents Association's Protective Parent Survey, which so far has only
had 157 respondents! You seem to be the ones with the most contact
with moms, so would you be willing to help us get the moms going on
this filming project?

Please forward this email to all the Protective Parents you can think
of, and urge them to email me their name, email address, phone
number, mailing address, and if they would be willing to participate
in sending information in to Dominique or at least in filling out the
two page questionnaire for the Protective Parent Survey Research, or
if they would simply like to be included on the list of Protective
Parents so that they can network with each other or get support from
each other or get group emails about Family Court reform initiatives
that Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. is working on.

Time is of the essence on this one, since there will be a swell of
interest starting on Thursday evening when the movie first airs on
PBS, and Dominique would like to capitalize on that media interest to
start marketing the idea to the stations he thinks a series on this
topic would be best suited for. Will you please help me help him get
this information together? I am willing to be the one to receive all
the tapes and photos and keep them organized for Dominique. Please
send everything to me at:

Meera Fox
Executive Director
Child Abuse Solutions, Inc.
2625 Alcatraz Ave. #607
Berkeley, CA 94705

Call me with any questions at: 510-521-0438

and have all the Protective Parents you can think of anywhere in the
country email me at abusesolutions@aol.com to get on the master list
of Protective Parents!

Make sure everyone knows about the incredible new book available from
Barnes and Noble entitled "From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers are
Running from the Family Courts--and What Can Be Done About It" by
Amy Neustein and Michael Lesher. If every one of us sent one copy of
this book to our local Family Law Judge we would see a huge change
in how these cases are handled. I sent one copy to one judge who cares,
and he sent 25 copies to 25 other judges, on his own steam and at
his own expense! Please try this.

Note that Dominique is working on getting permission to distribute
copies of the movie. Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. is planning to
purchase the first 250 copies to include in a mailing going out to
all family court judges in California about the devastating effects
the PAS fad has had on abused children and their Protective Parents.
I have volunteered my web site, www.childabusesolutions.com, as a
place where Dominique can make the Breaking The Silence: Children's
Stories documentary available for sale in the future.

Please note that Garland Waller's excellent documentary "Small
Justice" is available from Intermedia, and would be an excellent gift
for your local family law judge as well.

Finally, encourage everyone you know to watch Dominique Lasseur and
Catherine Tatge's PBS documentary this Thursday night: Breaking The
Silence: Children's Stories. Please let Dominique know if you have
any connections to individuals or corporations who would be willing
to provide funding to get this new series on Family Court Failure
project going. Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation has generously
underwritten both Breaking the Silence Documentaries, but this new
project will need similar support from other organizations or
companies or people who care. If we all put our creative thinking
heads together, I know we can help him. Please let him know any ideas
or leads in this regard. I can forward his email to anyone who wants to
contact him directly about any of these issues.

Thank you!

For any Protective Parents or concerned professionals receiving this
email as forwarded from one of the original people I sent it out to
who do not know me or of me, I have included my bio, and I encourage
you to visit my website at www.childabusesolutions.com.

Meera Fox, J.D.:

[Before becoming a successful sole practitioner representing
Protective Parents of sexually abused children in Family Court
custody proceedings, Meera Fox worked for attorneys Richard Ducote
and for Alan Rosenfeld, helping Protective Parents in Family Courts
all over the country. She also represented juvenile wards of the
Dependency court as an attorney for Children's Law Offices. After a
three-year stint as director of new programs at the Child Abuse
Forensic Institute, working with Seth Goldstein, Ms. Fox now serves
as the Executive Director of Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. Ms. Fox
regularly speaks at conferences, testifies before the California
legislature on child protection bills, and trains court professionals
on various aspects of child abuse and the law. Meera Fox is a proud
member of the Family Court Reform Coalition.

Child Abuse Solutions, Inc. is a non-profit educational organization
committed to training Family Court and other related professionals to
be responsive to the needs of abused children. It offers workshops,
training, consultation, advice, referrals and resources to judges,
evaluators, mediators, and attorneys. Its education focuses on best
practices in child custody evaluation, litigation and adjudication
involving allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse, and domestic
violence.]

http://tinyurl.com/ckphb

>>Make sure everyone knows about the incredible new book available from Barnes and Noble entitled "From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers are Running from the Family Courts--and What Can Be Done About It" by Amy Neustein and Michael Lesher

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Silent No Longer
The Other Side Of Abuse Allegations

by Sherry Orbach

Editor's Note: In recent months The Jewish Press published two articles by Amy Neustein the first a ,feature piece in the Family Matters section, the second an op ed column in which she recounted her longstanding allegations that her ex husband abused their daughter. Ms. Neustein's daughter, Sherry Orbach, requested this opportunity to respond.

Although I have not seen my mother, Amy Neustein, in sixteen years, I remember her clearly. She claims the reason she repeatedly accused my father in the media of sexually abusing me was to gain custody rather than fame. Yet when she did have custody of me long before the legal battles began I remember her voluntarily sending me off to live with my grandmother in upstate New York, after which I rarely saw her.

I remember, on one of my rare visits to my mother's house in Brooklyn, watching her softly stroking her hair with an antique silver brush as she gazed at herself in her bedroom mirror and wondered out loud whether she was pretty enough to be famous.

I remember my mother sitting with me on the plastic covered couch in my grandmother's country home at age five as if it were yesterday. We had been rehearsing for hours. She would begin by telling me a sordid and false story about my father, such as a detailed account about how he had molested me or about how he had thrown me violently against a wall. She then instructed me to repeat the story word for word until she was satisfied with my rendition. At the time, my father had indicated he would be filing for custody. My mother warned that if I did not tell these lies to the judge, I would be taken from my grandmother.

After my mother lost legal custody, I visited her once a week. During these visits, my mother used to tape record me and pose me for pictures in order to gain material for her next media performance. I fought back in the only way I could. Once, I chased her around a table in an attempt to snatch her tape recorder.

For eighteen years (I am now 24); I was silent as my mother spun lie upon lie about my father and me. According to her story, she is the victim of a conspiracy involving my father, Brooklyn Family Court, federal and state appellate courts, the Legal Aid Society, the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Ohel family services, and several leaders of the Jewish community. These co conspirators, my mother insists, punished her for revealing that my father had sexually abused me by taking me away from her.

The truth, however, is that my father never sexually abused me, and that reporters and alleged victims' advocates who supported my mother chose to retell her lies without adequately checking the facts.

The reason my family and I did not seek media attention to counter my mother's allegations is that we wished to maintain our privacy. My family believed that my mother's publicity would fizzle out, and that it was best to avoid the media spotlight as much as possible so that I could live a normal life. But my mother has been relentless in her exploitation of me. Recently she embarked on another media tirade, and has published her false allegations in this paper and others.

The worst article I have yet to see this year contains my full name as well as photos of me as a child and as an adult, along with sickening and absurd lies about my father and me. Even if the allegations were true (which they are not), it is a widely accepted principle of journalistic responsibility and of everyday morality that it is wrong to invade the privacy of victims (alleged or actual) by publishing their full names and photographs. Kal v'chomer (how much more so) when the allegations are false. Such deceptive reporting is so damaging and hurtful that I feel I no longer have any choice but to break my silence.

I do not hate my mother; I see her as troubled. Nor do I seek revenge. I am only speaking out to stop her, and her supporters who profess to care about me, from continuing to exploit and torment me. With no other recourse, my mother has tried to counter my denial of her allegations by claiming that I am being brainwashed and used by my father and other alleged members of the so called conspiracy who "desperately fear public scrutiny and government inquiry"

Anyone who knows me well will vouch that I am independent minded and not the weak character my mother makes me out to be. The only parent who tried to brainwash me is my mother. The only people who are using me to advance their own careers are my mother and her allies. I vividly remember my mother sitting me on the couch at age five and coaching me to lie about my father. These are my memories and not anyone else's.

I do not profess to know how typical my story is. I hope it is the exception and not the rule. However, the research involving allegations of child sexual abuse in court custody cases indicates that false allegations can occur in anywhere from 2 percent to 60 percent of such cases, and so it is far from an exact science. In these instances the accuser can often be the most vocal, the most sympathetic, and thus the most believable: But sometimes the real victim is the accused. And the one who pays the biggest price of all is the child. What I have learned from my case is that you can find "experts" to say anything, and that journalists are sometimes more interested in a good story and don't want to be confused by the facts.

The damage caused by the irresponsible reporting and advocacy of my mother and her supporters extends beyond my family. Not only have they stained the credibility of the victims' rights movement they claim to speak for, but they have diverted attention from the true needs of children in the family court and child welfare systems by misrepresenting what I, and similar children, required. What I did not require, contrary to my mother's claim, was for the family court to be opened to the media.

I, for one, owe my existence as a normal young adult to the family judges, Ohel foster care, and the Legal Aid Society attorney who helped me reunite with my father in the face of considerable opposition in the media.

Most of all, I am grateful to my father for the sacrifices he has made for me over the years.