CONTACT: Louise Uccio
PHONE: (917) 806-8301
FAX: (914) 965-3823
Email: HaveUmistakenMe@aol.com
MOTHER EXONERATED:
SUES ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN’S SERVICES
FOR MALICIOUS PROSECUTION, AND NEGLIGENT MISREPRESENTATION
September 28, 2007
Ms. Uccio, a loving and devoted mother, and her children’s lives have been irreversibly destroyed over the last six years. She was accused and falsely found guilty of being a drug addict who attempted suicide. Ms. Uccio is alleging that her estranged abusive husband’s relentless pursuit to destroy her for leaving the marriage was the basis of four investigations by The Administration for Children’s Services in N.Y. and Division of Youth and Family Services in N.J. In 2001; leading to this lawsuit.
Ms. Uccio has been kept from her children for years with no visitation, no phone contact, and no access to medical or school records. Her estranged husband has successfully managed to alienate the children from her and erase her from their lives. This loving mother who diligently took care of her children according to her daughters pediatric cardiologist [Dr Putman] has lost six precious years from her children’s lives, during which time two of her children have aged out of the system.
Ms. Uccio has no history of drug abuse, as proven in the original documentation that was used to over turn this case, which was available and should have cleared her from the beginning had this case ever been properly investigated.
She was falsely accused, and maliciously prosecuted while she was able to prove her innocence from the start. She feels the case was able to be substantiated as a combined result of her civility, and respect for "authority", as well as her naive innocence and not knowing her constitutional rights.
Although the false “substantiated” case was over turned on July 12, 2006, Not only have Ms. Uccio and her children not been reunited there has been no visitation to date.
# # #
If you would like more information about this lawsuit or to schedule an interview with Louise Uccio please call (917) 806-8301 or contact her @ HaveUmistakenMe@aol.com
[End]
Mom’s Custody Petitions Were Too Late, the State Courts Said
14-Year Legal Battle Ends With Moot Issues And Ripe Sorrow
By Elizabeth Stull
Brooklyn Daily Eagle NEW YORK —
A mother's 14-year battle to keep her two children ended earlier this month when the state's highest court rejected her request for review in a one-sentence ruling.
The state Court of Appeals found that the underlying custody issues in the case of Renzulli v. McElrath were moot.
Her youngest child turns 21 next month, but the issues are still raw for the Staten Island mom who lost her kids, apparently because of an omission in her divorce papers. She still becomes teary and distraught when telling the story, as she remembers the day five years ago when she almost regained custody of her teenage daughter.
"It's kind of an anniversary," Nora Renzulli told a reporter yesterday. "Rosh Hashanah is always a hard time for me."
Renzulli secured a divorce from her absentee husband in state Supreme Court in September 1996, which identified her as the custodial parent of her two children. In January 1997, the judicial hearing officer (Royal S. Radin) issued an eight-page opinion reiterating that she had custody. But six months later, in June 1997, Renzulli signed an amended supplemental divorce judgment that had no custody provision, although the father was ordered to pay child support. Instead of filing a motion to add the crucial assignment of custody, Renzulli fired her lawyer. The children were ages 10 and 12.
Making the Case in Family CourtA year and a half later, in February 1999, the children were still living with their mother in the family home when their father, Ronald Renzulli, now living in Yardley, Pennsylvania, filed an action for custody in Staten Island family court. Nora Renzulli moved to dismiss, claiming that the case should be heard by the state Supreme Court that issued the divorce judgment.
Family Court Judge Terrence McElrath rejected her motion, because the family court has concurrent jurisdiction in custody matters. Both the state Supreme Court and the Appellate Division agreed with him.
In August 1999 Renzulli, an attorney who works for the state, tried to represent herself in family court against Norman Rosen, a veteran clubhouse attorney with a bull-dog reputation. In spite of her legal training, Renzulli felt outgunned.
Rosen drafted an order granting temporary custody to the father and argued that because the state Supreme Court did not decide the issue, the family court could make an initial custody decision without considering whether there had been any material change of circumstances.
The children, now 12 and 14, were spending the summer with their father in Pennsylvania. After they testified at a fact-finding hearing, Judge McElrath granted the father temporary custody. An outside observer later suggested that the children's father was a more lenient parent than their mother. The appellate court denied a stay and the children remained in Pennsylvania where, Renzulli claims, their father was poisoning them against her through "parental alienation."
Although she claims she was owed several years' worth of child support by her ex-husband, Judge McElrath's order required Renzulli to pay him child support.
"McElrath ripped off Nora," said attorney Peter Lomtevas, who represents her on a financing matter related to the sale of the marital home. Lomtevas said he wished he had represented her 10 years ago. "I might have had some impact" on the custody matter, he said.
Procedural Mis-stepsRenzulli appealed to the state court, again claiming the family court did not have jurisdiction and that custody should be decided by the state Supreme Court. In June 2000, acting state Supreme Court Justice Joseph Maltese wrote that McElrath should have given her custody — but Maltese did not have the authority to revise another trial court judge's decision. The appellate court affirmed.
"Rather than dwell on the omission of the requisite form language awarding custody in the judgments, this court acknowledges the substance of the written decision of JHO Radin," Maltese wrote in June 2000. "For this court to find otherwise is to negate the reality of a prior judicial decision of this court and the history of how this family lived. There is absolutely no testimony in the record or any other evidence that the parties or the Supreme Court changed or abandoned the award of custody to the mother expressed in JHO Radin's decision."
A month later, Justice Maltese amended the original divorce judgment to show that the mother had had custody prior to Judge McElrath's ruling. (By this time Judge Radin, who originally handled the divorce, had died.) In his second ruling on the matter, Maltese suggested that the children's father intentionally avoided the state court because he knew he could not win there.
"Had the father petitioned the Supreme Court for custody this court would have dealt with this as a 'change of custody' matter, notwithstanding the lack of a decretal paragraph awarding custody in the divorce judgment. Perhaps that is why the father went to Family Court with the knowledge that the custody award was never inserted into the divorce judgment. Therefore, he would be able to convince a Family Court judge (as he did) that this was an initial application for custody. Accordingly, prospectively the standard in any application for custody in any court of competent jurisdiction should be a change of custody standard."
Maltese noted that in the 1999 Family Court proceeding, law guardian Richard Katz stated that, "Judge Radin clearly awarded custody to the mother on September 18, 1996 and reiterated this on January 31, 1997." Katz also stated that he would have "'no objection to a carefully worded nunc pro tunc [retroactive] order which indicates that Judge Radin's previously award of custody of the children,'" Maltese wrote.
In October 2000 Judge McElrath issued a final order of custody to the father. Renzulli's appeals were dismissed in August 2001 for failure to prosecute. (In other words, she failed to appear in court or answer papers; the court did not rule on the merits of the case.)
Desperate MeasuresA year later, in the summer of 2002, Renzulli's children were ages 15 and 18. She still hoped to bring her daughter home to New York for her last few years of high school. By July 2002 acting state Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Sunshine had been sent to Richmond County to work through the backlog of matrimonial cases. Renzulli had a new lawyer, Alison Aplin. But Justice Sunshine declined to give Renzulli any additional visitation with her 15-year-old daughter and put the matter over for a date in mid-September — two weeks after the school year began.
In August 2002 Renzulli received news that her ex-husband's cantankerous attorney had died. Rosen's death apparently gave Renzulli new hope. She tried to contact her own lawyer, who was away on vacation.
Frantic to bring her daughter back to New York before school began, Renzulli went to court without her lawyer on Friday, Sept. 6, 2002. A friend and colleague, who was also a lawyer, went with her. That afternoon they pleaded with a judge who was sitting in for Judge Sunshine during Rosh Hashanah.
The ex parte judge signed Renzulli's custody order and said that if the father was served by that Sunday, Sept. 8, the daughter could begin the school year at a private academy in New York on the following Monday. During her scheduled weekend visit, Renzulli brought her daughter back to Staten Island and told her that she could stay for the school year.
Six days later, on Sept. 11, 2002, the parties appeared before Justice Sunshine. He roundly rebuked Renzulli for appearing in court without her lawyer, misleading the ex parte judge and reporting the history of her court proceedings "in a manner which at the very least lacks clarity and at worst is deceptive." The judge proceeded to review the procedural history of the custody proceedings in the case, noting that he himself had denied the mother's application for custody in July 2002.
"It also appears that plaintiff with this second Order to Show Cause is trying to re-litigate the Family Court Order of nearly two years ago on constitutional grounds," Sunshine continued. "That order is the last order of custody and as such, that order is a valid order.
"Any subsequent application for this relief must be in proper form by the attorney of record and address the basis that this court would have to grant such relief based upon constitutional grounds in a post-judgment matrimonial proceeding nearly two years after the Family Court decision where the appeal to the Appellate Division had been dismissed for failure to prosecute," the judge concluded. He admonished Renzulli that she could not appeal a family court decision in the state Supreme Court.
Sunshine's scathing decision was published in the New York Law Journal later that month. Renzulli believes he intentionally blackballed her career by mentioning that she is an attorney and worked in the office for Mental Hygiene and Legal Services. She claims she was nearly fired and has been passed over for promotions. In February 2006 Renzulli went to the Richmond District Attorney, who has not responded to her complaints.
Back Where She StartedOn Sept. 11, 2007, five years to the day after the hearing before Justice Sunshine, the state Court of Appeals, the highest court in New York, declined to review Renzulli's case because the underlying issues are moot. Her daughter turns 21 in October.
Renzulli's most recent attorney on the custody matter, Alison Aplin, did not return calls requesting a comment for this article. Mr. Renzulli could not be reached, either.
Although the Renzulli case was extremely unusual, family courts in New York State are known to be overcrowded and overburdened. Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye has sought to consolidate the state's byzantine system of trial courts to reduce the areas of overlapping, concurrent jurisdiction.
"There should be only one court that deals with family matters, so that unscrupulous litigants can't play games and pretend that something didn't happen in one court and get a do-over in the other court," Nora Renzulli said.
Mom's Custody Petitions Were Too Late, the State Courts Said
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - Brooklyn,NY,USA... a stay and the children remained in Pennsylvania where, Renzulli claims, their father was poisoning them against her through "parental alienation. ...See all stories on this topic
Be don't worry they'll keep feeding you shit like this-
Spears Temporarily Loses Custody Of Children
LOS ANGELES -- Britney Spears has temporarily lost custody of her two sons.
Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gordon ruled that her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, will take custody of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James.
Wednesday "until further order of the court."
Last month, Gordon ordered Spears to undergo random drug and alcohol testing twice a week, after saying that she engaged in "habitual, frequent and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol."
The judge also has ordered both Spears and Federline to refrain from drinking and using drugs around their two young sons.
They're also forbidden from drinking or doing drugs 12 hours before either one cares for the children.
Spears, 25, filed for divorce from Federline, 29, last November after two years of marriage. The divorce became finalized in July with a joint custody agreement. Federline has since been seeking greater custody of the children.
Spears Temporarily Loses Custody Of ChildrenA judge has ruled that Britney Spears' ex-husband, Kevin Federline, will take custody of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James.
MORE DETAILS:
http://www.wnbc.com/tu/5si22roVk.html
Although in this [Britney] case I think they did the right thing [She needs to calm the hell down] most of us are being denied our civil rights without reason-
Wake up america- the family is being destroyed worse than ever and the why's and how's of it all are being carefully protected -when you find yourself in the position of feeling like your in the Twilight Zone- and you've come to understand why I have this blog-
Join us in the fight- Sign up for our class action lawsuit - get involved- and be part of the solution -
Indiana Civil Rights Council (Class-Actions!)
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