End Corruption in Family Court
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NOTE: Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, five other victims of court corruption have reached out to me for support and advice. We have formed a group dedicated to exposing and eliminating corruption in family court. Our work has captured the attention of the NBC News Investigative Unit (based in San Jose), and we are now working with reporters to tell our story. If you have found this fundraiser and are in need of support or would like to join our group, please feel free to reach out to me at [email redacted].
*****
In 2010, when my sons were only 4 and 6 years old, our family was shattered when their father, now my ex-husband, was arrested for felony spousal assault. The battery had been going on for six years, but it had escalated so slowly and was so seamlessly integrated with gaslighting and other abuse that I blamed myself or simply prayed it would stop. Isolated from family and friends, and too scared to leave, I felt alone and ashamed. The physical violence only stopped when someone else called the police, and the responding officers saw my bruises.
The Alameda County court issued a restraining order to protect me and granted me full custody of my sons. Their father fought this and drained my financial and emotional resources with repeated court hearings. After three years, he was awarded joint custody and the court appointed a referee, or "special master," to mediate disputes. The term of this appointment is usually two years with the cost of services split evenly between the parents. Unfortunately, the court failed to set any limit to the length of appointment or the amount of fees in our case. The person appointed, Alison Urdan, used her unlimited power and quasi-judicial immunity to systematically destroy our family.
Within months of Ms. Urdan's appointment in 2013, she seem to develop a bias toward my ex-husband, perhaps because he was a highly-paid government employee or because Ms. Urdan herself had lost a custody battle and had some kind of subconscious need for revenge against the protective parent. She met privately with my ex-husband, even visiting him at his house, but she refused to speak to me. At my ex-husband's request, the court ordered me to turn my children's passports over to Ms. Urdan. When I objected, she charged me an extra $1,500 and informed me that if I didn't pay she would send a "report" on custody to the judge without my input. That was Ms. Urdan's first extortion, and it was successful.
The second extortion occurred in 2014, when I asked Ms. Urdan for the passports so I could travel with the children. Ms. Urdan informed me that if I didn't pay her additional money I would not get the passports. It took an emergency court order to get the passports. The moment our plane landed in San Francisco she demanded the passports back. She then charged me hundreds of dollars for this "work" in addition to the money she had already extorted from me.
The third extortion occurred in 2016, also when I requested the passports. Once again, she refused to give me the passports unless I made another extra payment. This was the last straw for me. I reported her to the Oakland Police Department. The responding officer reviewed the evidence and stated in his report that she had attempted a felony-level extortion.
*In the below excerpt of this police report, V-1 is myself.
Empowered by this report, I refused to pay Ms. Urdan. She promptly asked the court to hold me in criminal contempt, which carries a punishment of five days in jail and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
The court set a trial date for Ms. Urdan's contempt action and characterized her as the "Petitioner," so that she could use my ex-husband's fee waiver to avoid paying trial fees. Ms. Urdan hired two different lawyers, a family lawyer who quit within months and then a criminal lawyer from San Francisco, Jeff Wozniak, who had no experience in family law. I could not afford legal representation. The trial dragged on for two and a half years, during which time Ms. Urdan continued to harass and threaten me, sending me monthly bills with increasingly outrageous demands typed in bold, all capital letters.
Despite the pending litigation, Ms. Urdan continued to meet with my ex-husband. She refused to meet with me or speak to me, and continued to refuse to provide an accounting of my retainer. My ex-husband took advantage of the situation and repeatedly threatened to report trivial conflicts to her so as to give her cause to charge me even more. I lived in constant fear of both of them: I stopped using my front door for fear that they would serve me with yet another legal action, I stopped checking my email because seeing their names in my inbox triggered my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I capitulated to my ex-husband's repeated demands so as to prevent him from engaging her services, for which she could charge me even more or extort me again.
On October 30, 2018, the judge appointed to our case ended the trial. She declared me in contempt of court and ordered me to pay the $1,690 Ms. Urdan had attempted to extort from me over the children's passports, plus two and a half years of interest, plus a $500 fine, plus Mr. Wozniak's fees, which he claimed exceeded $7,000, including $525 for each time he drove from his home in San Francisco across the Bay Bridge to the Alameda County courthouse. At no time did the court request an accounting of my retainer, Ms. Urdan's invoices, or my payments, or review the evidence of bias and repeated extortion; nor did the court acknowledge the fact that this referee's unlimited appointment had allowed for an abuse of power. When I asked Judge Garcia how much of the amount she had ordered me to pay was for retainer replenishment, she said it was not her job to make that decision. "So, will Ms. Urdan put the money in my retainer, or her pocket?" The judge replied, "I don't care where she puts it." Judge Garcia made it clear that if I do not pay these fees and fines, I will be incarcerated.
*Below is an excerpt of the minutes from the October 30 hearing; Respondent is me, Third Party/Special Master is Ms. Urdan.
As my friends and family will attest, we are not the kind of people to ask for assistance, or to even tell anyone that we are suffering. But the court's decision to condone extortion by a court officer and to punish me for protesting this crime have pushed us all to the point of breakdown.
My sons are now 12 and 15. While they were too young to remember my ex-husband's physical abuse, they are keenly aware that he has used Ms. Urdan's bias and corruption to exert power and control over me. They don't trust her and they refuse to speak to her. They have written letters to her begging her to quit and leave them alone. They have written letters to the court begging that her appointment be terminated. My older son even called a non-profit children's legal service, and when they couldn't help, he wrote a letter to Family Court Services. All of their pleas went unanswered. Ms. Urdan is well aware of the distress she has caused my sons, but she refuses to recuse herself from the case. To this day, more than five years after her initial appointment, she is still appointed as the referee on our case and still has the power to control our lives. My ex-husband has the power to fire her, but he refuses to do so because he takes pleasure in the power and control she provides him.
The situation has caused us immeasurable physical and emotional distress. My older son is being treated for anxiety and depression; my younger son is failing every subject and has been suspended from school. I have been diagnosed with "chronic and acute Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome comparable to veterans returning from multiple tours of duty."
All funds raised in this campaign will go towards paying the fees and fines levied against me by the court; hiring an attorney to remove Ms. Urdan from the case and recoup all payments she extorted from me and/or failed to deposit in my retainer; and making sure my sons and I have access to any psychological and medical treatment they need as the result of Ms. Urdan's misconduct.
The lack of regulation of family court referees is a serious problem in California. Ms. Urdan and others like her (on the Internet, professional predators like Ms. Urdan are often called "court whores") have caused many families pain and suffering, but because referees are court officers with "quasi-judicial immunity," families have no legal recourse. It is my sincere hope that this GoFundMe campaign will raise awareness of the problem and inspire legislators to take action to impose regulations that protect family court litigants from referees and other court officers who profit from the despair of broken families, especially parents who are survivors of domestic violence. Donations or support of any kind are greatly appreciated.
*****
In 2010, when my sons were only 4 and 6 years old, our family was shattered when their father, now my ex-husband, was arrested for felony spousal assault. The battery had been going on for six years, but it had escalated so slowly and was so seamlessly integrated with gaslighting and other abuse that I blamed myself or simply prayed it would stop. Isolated from family and friends, and too scared to leave, I felt alone and ashamed. The physical violence only stopped when someone else called the police, and the responding officers saw my bruises.
The Alameda County court issued a restraining order to protect me and granted me full custody of my sons. Their father fought this and drained my financial and emotional resources with repeated court hearings. After three years, he was awarded joint custody and the court appointed a referee, or "special master," to mediate disputes. The term of this appointment is usually two years with the cost of services split evenly between the parents. Unfortunately, the court failed to set any limit to the length of appointment or the amount of fees in our case. The person appointed, Alison Urdan, used her unlimited power and quasi-judicial immunity to systematically destroy our family.
Within months of Ms. Urdan's appointment in 2013, she seem to develop a bias toward my ex-husband, perhaps because he was a highly-paid government employee or because Ms. Urdan herself had lost a custody battle and had some kind of subconscious need for revenge against the protective parent. She met privately with my ex-husband, even visiting him at his house, but she refused to speak to me. At my ex-husband's request, the court ordered me to turn my children's passports over to Ms. Urdan. When I objected, she charged me an extra $1,500 and informed me that if I didn't pay she would send a "report" on custody to the judge without my input. That was Ms. Urdan's first extortion, and it was successful.
The second extortion occurred in 2014, when I asked Ms. Urdan for the passports so I could travel with the children. Ms. Urdan informed me that if I didn't pay her additional money I would not get the passports. It took an emergency court order to get the passports. The moment our plane landed in San Francisco she demanded the passports back. She then charged me hundreds of dollars for this "work" in addition to the money she had already extorted from me.
The third extortion occurred in 2016, also when I requested the passports. Once again, she refused to give me the passports unless I made another extra payment. This was the last straw for me. I reported her to the Oakland Police Department. The responding officer reviewed the evidence and stated in his report that she had attempted a felony-level extortion.
*In the below excerpt of this police report, V-1 is myself.
Empowered by this report, I refused to pay Ms. Urdan. She promptly asked the court to hold me in criminal contempt, which carries a punishment of five days in jail and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
The court set a trial date for Ms. Urdan's contempt action and characterized her as the "Petitioner," so that she could use my ex-husband's fee waiver to avoid paying trial fees. Ms. Urdan hired two different lawyers, a family lawyer who quit within months and then a criminal lawyer from San Francisco, Jeff Wozniak, who had no experience in family law. I could not afford legal representation. The trial dragged on for two and a half years, during which time Ms. Urdan continued to harass and threaten me, sending me monthly bills with increasingly outrageous demands typed in bold, all capital letters.
Despite the pending litigation, Ms. Urdan continued to meet with my ex-husband. She refused to meet with me or speak to me, and continued to refuse to provide an accounting of my retainer. My ex-husband took advantage of the situation and repeatedly threatened to report trivial conflicts to her so as to give her cause to charge me even more. I lived in constant fear of both of them: I stopped using my front door for fear that they would serve me with yet another legal action, I stopped checking my email because seeing their names in my inbox triggered my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I capitulated to my ex-husband's repeated demands so as to prevent him from engaging her services, for which she could charge me even more or extort me again.
On October 30, 2018, the judge appointed to our case ended the trial. She declared me in contempt of court and ordered me to pay the $1,690 Ms. Urdan had attempted to extort from me over the children's passports, plus two and a half years of interest, plus a $500 fine, plus Mr. Wozniak's fees, which he claimed exceeded $7,000, including $525 for each time he drove from his home in San Francisco across the Bay Bridge to the Alameda County courthouse. At no time did the court request an accounting of my retainer, Ms. Urdan's invoices, or my payments, or review the evidence of bias and repeated extortion; nor did the court acknowledge the fact that this referee's unlimited appointment had allowed for an abuse of power. When I asked Judge Garcia how much of the amount she had ordered me to pay was for retainer replenishment, she said it was not her job to make that decision. "So, will Ms. Urdan put the money in my retainer, or her pocket?" The judge replied, "I don't care where she puts it." Judge Garcia made it clear that if I do not pay these fees and fines, I will be incarcerated.
*Below is an excerpt of the minutes from the October 30 hearing; Respondent is me, Third Party/Special Master is Ms. Urdan.
As my friends and family will attest, we are not the kind of people to ask for assistance, or to even tell anyone that we are suffering. But the court's decision to condone extortion by a court officer and to punish me for protesting this crime have pushed us all to the point of breakdown.
My sons are now 12 and 15. While they were too young to remember my ex-husband's physical abuse, they are keenly aware that he has used Ms. Urdan's bias and corruption to exert power and control over me. They don't trust her and they refuse to speak to her. They have written letters to her begging her to quit and leave them alone. They have written letters to the court begging that her appointment be terminated. My older son even called a non-profit children's legal service, and when they couldn't help, he wrote a letter to Family Court Services. All of their pleas went unanswered. Ms. Urdan is well aware of the distress she has caused my sons, but she refuses to recuse herself from the case. To this day, more than five years after her initial appointment, she is still appointed as the referee on our case and still has the power to control our lives. My ex-husband has the power to fire her, but he refuses to do so because he takes pleasure in the power and control she provides him.
The situation has caused us immeasurable physical and emotional distress. My older son is being treated for anxiety and depression; my younger son is failing every subject and has been suspended from school. I have been diagnosed with "chronic and acute Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome comparable to veterans returning from multiple tours of duty."
All funds raised in this campaign will go towards paying the fees and fines levied against me by the court; hiring an attorney to remove Ms. Urdan from the case and recoup all payments she extorted from me and/or failed to deposit in my retainer; and making sure my sons and I have access to any psychological and medical treatment they need as the result of Ms. Urdan's misconduct.
The lack of regulation of family court referees is a serious problem in California. Ms. Urdan and others like her (on the Internet, professional predators like Ms. Urdan are often called "court whores") have caused many families pain and suffering, but because referees are court officers with "quasi-judicial immunity," families have no legal recourse. It is my sincere hope that this GoFundMe campaign will raise awareness of the problem and inspire legislators to take action to impose regulations that protect family court litigants from referees and other court officers who profit from the despair of broken families, especially parents who are survivors of domestic violence. Donations or support of any kind are greatly appreciated.
Organizer
Margaret Dubin
Organizer
Oakland, CA