Suspended Feminist Attorney Goldstein Calls Me a ‘Male Supremacist’, Defends Discredited Case
In my recent blog post NY Court Delivers Devastating Blow to Major Opponent of Fathers' Movement, I detailed the recent fall of feminist attorney Barry Goldstein, Esq. of New York. Goldstein is one of the leading advocates for the feminist position that Parental Alienation is a myth and a ruse used by abusive fathers to win control of their children in custody cases.
Goldstein was the primary attorney in the highly-publicized Genia Shockome case. The case became a feminist cause celebre after Genia (pictured) lost custody of her two children to her ex-husband, Tim Shockome after a contentious custody battle in which Genia accused Tim of abuse.
Last week the New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed a staggering five-year suspension of Goldstein for his conduct in the Shockome case. The Court called numerous statements Goldstein made concerning the Shockome case "dishonest, false, or misleading." The Court also criticized Goldstein for misuse of funds in another case he handled.
To learn more, see Georgetown Law Center Ethics Counsel Michael S. Frisch's write-up here. To read the Court's decision itself, click here.
The Court's ruling further vindicates my position on the Shockome case--a position for which I was publicly crucified by our feminist opponents.
Now Goldstein has fired back on the Legal Profession Blog, defending Shockome and repeating the same discredited accusations. He also makes repeated reference to "lies by male supremacist groups about the Shockome case." Since the only one in the fatherhood movement who has covered Shockome in depth is me, his intention must be to call me a "male supremacist." If anybody anywhere would like to present evidence that I'm a "male supremacist," feel free to do so on this blog post.
[Funny how that works--in Goldstein's brief post he makes three separate references to "male supremacist," yet in all my writing about Goldstein and the Shockome case I've never once pinned an insulting or misleading label on him, instead simply referring to him (correctly) as a "feminist."]
Goldstein begins by making assertions about the Shockome case and "experts and neutral witnesses." These sound good but, upon examination, are meaningless. Much of this is covered in "My Findings on the Shockome Case" below.
Goldstein asserts:
The Newsweek reporter spent weeks confirming that Ms. Shockome's case was overwhelming. She spoke with myself and Ms. Shockome and with the abuser and his attorney. She spoke with national experts and male supremacist representatives.
Several points:
1) Re: reporter Sarah Childress' search for "evidence," she did nothing of the sort. In 2006 my then-assistant Jessica and I carefully examined the Shockome case when it first became a cause celebre. I have always maintained and have publicly asserted that it is certainly possible that abusive fathers could get custody by successfully convincing judges that the mother is lying about her accusations of abuse, as Goldstein believes happened in this case. (This scenario is often the crux of Parental Alienation cases, though PAS was not specifically used in this case).
Before I had examined Shockome, in my mind the case was 50-50 and could have gone either way. Had I found Genia Shockome credible it wouldn't have meant that Parental Alienation and false accusations of abuse don't exist any more than finding a case where there was a false accusation of domestic violence would lead me to believe that domestic violence doesn't exist.
From examining the Shockome case it quickly became clear that the courts acted correctly, and I think anybody looking at the case objectively (or even semi-objectively) would come to the same conclusion.
Goldstein says Childress "spoke with male supremacist representatives," by which I take it he means fatherhood advocates. I'd be most interested to know who these individuals likely were--I'm extremely skeptical of this claim. Also note how Goldstein still insists on referring to Tim Shockome as "the abuser," even after being specifically sanctioned by the court for making this discredited claim.
Goldstein writes:
[M]ale supremacists jumped all over the [Shockome] story and in fact most people first learned about it from them.
No, Mr. Goldstein, most people didn't learn about the Shockome case from me, they learned about it from Newsweek and other media sources, since you, Shockome, and numerous feminist groups turned the Shockome case into a cause celebre. All I did was take a look at the evidence in the case and report what I found, which is below. The fact that the Shockome media circus essentially ended with the Newsweek article is evidence that other media people saw our work on Shockome and realized that this was (at best) a problematic case.
My Findings on the Shockome Case
The premise of the Genia Shockome story hinges on the notion that Tim battered Genia prior to 2000 and, in repeatedly violating court orders to allow her children access to their father, she was acting to protect them. However, Genia's allegations of domestic violence and child sexual abuse have never been substantiated in any court proceeding, nor supported by any witnesses. Writing with admirable restraint, Judge Amodeo, whose decisions in the case have been repeatedly upheld by higher courts, noted:
"In [Genia's] August 2000 complaint in the divorce action, no mention is made of the domestic violence which Genia later asserted. She claimed that she was unaware that she was the victim of domestic violence; however, such a lack of awareness would not have made her unable to recount historical facts, especially if the severity and frequency of the abuse she alleged were true. Why didn't she mention the abuse earlier in the case?"
There were three independent custody evaluations in the case, none of which found anything negative of substance against Tim Shockome. The first one called him a good parent, and the other two went as far as to recommend he get custody because of his parenting and because of Genia's relentless attempts to drive him out of his children's lives.
The most recent of these evaluators, Dr. Meg Sussman, has a feminist background and worked for Pace University's Battered Women's Justice Center. Sussman, who specializes in domestic violence and child abuse cases, recommended that Genia have only supervised visitation until she could accept the children's father's role in their lives.
In two in camera (in chambers) interviews conducted with the Shockome children on May 27, 2003 and January 22, 2004, neither child recalled any physical altercations between their parents, despite Genia's claims that her children had witnessed Tim's alleged violence against her. Moreover, neither child expressed any fear of Tim.
Genia's only support for her contention that she had previously been battered came from the FFLM domestic violence advocates who testified in her trial. Yet none of these "experts" had ever spoken with Tim Shockome, and had no evidence of Tim's abuse except for Genia's assertions.
In trying to deny the children their father, Genia also made the obligatory child sexual abuse allegation. Tim consistently and adamantly denied this accusation, and Child Protective Services investigated these claims and concluded they were unfounded.
Two of Genia's own witnesses testified that, in hundreds of visits made to Tim's home, they never observed any inappropriate or sexually provocative conduct on the part of the children. Dr. Sussman concluded that Tim had not sexually abused the children, and noted that the children did not display any symptoms consistent with children who have been sexually abused. Ina Berg, the children's therapist, did not observe any sexualized behavior in the children. The children themselves did not speak of any inappropriate behavior exhibited by the father. Genia alone professed to see the children's behavior as indicative of sexual abuse, and none of the neutral experts in the case supported her interpretation.
Genia's "evidence" of her husband's sexual abuse of her children was that Tim ran the back of his fingers on the backs, arms, and legs of the children. However, during the trial, Linda Meeker, the nurse-teacher at the children's school, testified that Genia herself had admitted that she also had engaged in the same innocuous method of massaging the children.
The mother's side also alleges that Timothy harassed and threatened Genia through excessive phone calls and letters, and that Timothy was observed banging on Genia’s door while shouting expletives at her. An alleged witness to the door incident, Rebecca Watson, was supposed to testify on the mother’s behalf and confirm Timothy’s alleged violent outburst; however, Watson inexplicably failed to appear in court on two separate occasions to corroborate this incident. The Court noted in its findings:
“While it is acknowledged that the number of telephone calls made by father to the mother may have been outwardly excessive, these calls were not unjustified in light of the mother’s persistent refusal to abide by the terms of the Court order with respect to the father’s right of telephone contact with the children...[the calls] were not made with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm the mother, but were a direct and logical consequence of the mother's lack of compliance with specific Court directives...Even if the father engaged in some rude conduct, that does not rise to the level of a family offense, particularly when viewed in the context of his frustration with the mother’s longstanding interference with his contact and involvement with the children.”
Newsweek pictured Genia holding up a large drawing apparently drawn by her children, and explained:
"Parents like Genia keep fighting. ‘It's so hard, having my children lost,' she says, her voice breaking. ‘This was my life--my children.'"
What Newsweek ignores, though it's right there in the court records, is that it is Genia who refuses to visit her own children, despite ample opportunities to do so. When asked during the trial why she had not visited her children, Genia claimed that she could not afford to pay the supervised visitation program's fees. These programs were originally available to her free of charge, and later cost all of $25. At the same time, Genia had just purchased a new television set for her home.
In the type of exchange typical of Genia's behavior throughout the case, Genia then claimed that she hadn't paid for the television set--it was her boyfriend who bought it. However, the boyfriend, Aja Butler, later testified that he had no knowledge of how the TV set was purchased.
Genia refused to visit her children for two long periods prior to the May, 2004 decision, including the period which included her daughter's birthday in November of 2003 and also Christmas of 2003. At one point, Genia refused to visit her own children for a stretch of nine weeks. The law guardian--another neutral party--said that Genia had explained that she didn't visit her kids as part of her "strategy" in the case. Genia Shockome claims her children are "her life," but apparently they weren't even as important as a new TV set or a custody "strategy."
Nor did Genia's professed concern for her children lead to a desire to provide for them financially--she failed to make court-ordered child support payments until it was involuntarily deducted from her pay.
Genia and her FFLM allies attempt to portray her as a weak, naïve Russian immigrant. However, Genia earned a college degree in Mathematics at an American university, had a very high grade point average, and works a well-paid technical job at IBM.
Genia's supporters have touted her as "Mother of the Year," but this deceptive "award" has nothing to do with Genia's parenting skills. As the New York Post explained, Genia was "named mother of the year by two victim-advocacy groups in 2003 after battling in court with her husband."
The FFLM portrayed Judge Amodeo as a bully for jailing Genia for contempt in May of 2005; however, the transcript of the hearing shows that Genia interrupted Amodeo on over 50 separate occasions. Amodeo bent over backwards to accommodate Genia, and only held her in contempt after countless warnings. Genia appealed Amodeo's holding of contempt but a four judge panel of the New York Supreme Court unanimously upheld Amodeo's decision.
Genia and her supporters, including Goldstein, contend that Genia has been the victim of "gender bias" and a judge with a grudge. This explanation fails to account for the fact that Amodeo's decision was based on the opinions of many neutral experts, both male and female, some of them with feminist backgrounds. The ample legal help Genia has been provided by domestic violence organizations allowed her to appeal the case, and apparently all of the justices on the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division are also biased against Genia, because they unanimously rejected her appeal in June. The court wrote:
"We discern no basis, on this record, to interfere with the Family Court's findings, inter alia, that the mother lacked credibility…or that the opinions of her [domestic violence] experts were of little value, since none of them had ever spoken with the father…The Family Court concluded, among other things, that the mother's animosity toward the father and her attempts to undermine the children's relationships with him were harmful to the children and rendered her the less fit parent…Exercising our independent review, we find that the Family Court's determination is supported by a sound and substantial basis in the record."
In fact, though Genia's bankruptcy case had nothing whatsoever to do with her family law matter, she even managed to annoy the bankruptcy judge, Cecelia G. Morris. Morris--no surprise--noted numerous contradictions in Shockome's statements, and decried Genia's "refusal to accept any order or ruling that is in conflict with her demands."
Genia Shockome's supporters expected Judge Amodeo--who was presented with no evidence of any violence against Genia beyond her own statements--to simply take her word for it, and allow her to destroy the bonds between the Shockome children and their father.
Genia claims that a video filmed at the visitation center which shows her kids jumping up and down on a couch actually shows them masturbating--an interpretation which no other participant in the court proceedings shared.
In court and/or in letters to me Genia accused Tim of all of the following: being a pedophile who got sexually aroused by changing his daughter's dirty diapers; sexually abusing his children; masturbating in front of his children; taking his children to a sexual store; having a ferocious sexual appetite for women; having a ferocious homosexual appetite for men; being an abusive father who "beat the kids very often, 2-3 times a day" when Genia and Tim lived together; being a wife-beater; secretly beating his former wife who had a secret miscarriage; beating Genia so she almost had a miscarriage; intimidating five of Genia's witnesses; insurance fraud, identity theft; immigration fraud; defrauding the federal government of $60,000; stealing; embezzlement; extortion; bankruptcy fraud; almost driving over Genia's neighbor's little son; and of violating a protection order over one million times. What judge in his right mind would take this woman's word for anything?
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