After Raucous Legislative Hearing Naming Family Court Judges, Hobbs Vetoes Family Court Reform Bill

Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed HB 2256 on Monday, a bill that would have reformed family court. Sponsored by State Representative Rachel Keshel (R-Tucson) and amended by State Senator Mark Finchem (R-Prescott), the bill prohibits a court from ordering a party against their will to pay for and work with a therapist, known as “therapeutic intervention” (TI).

Prior to her veto, Finchem, chair of the Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee on Family Court Orders, conducted an almost six-hour hearing with Keshel addressing the problems with family court.

Hobbs issued a brief letter explaining her veto.

“Today, I vetoed House Bill 2256,” she said. “In an attempt to address one specific situation, this proposal would result in unintended consequences that may result in more harm than good.”

Keshel expressed her frustration with judges rubber stamping whatever the TIs recommend, including appeals court judges.

“I will tell you right now, a lot of what I’ve heard is the law is being broken from the bench, and everybody tells these families, oh, we’ll just appeal it, but the success rate of that is very low too. So these families’ kids are left in the hands of judges that you’re hoping will follow the law,” she said.

Finchem denounced the immunity given to TIs. “If an individual is protected by quasi-judicial autonomy, who on earth is holding them accountable?” he questioned.

Numerous parents or other custodians testified all day during the hearing. Parent Jackson Zowell said he was about to file bankruptcy due to the expense of a 6-year-long child custody battle. “I came prepared to share the mental physical abuse my family and I have endured,” he said.

He explained that he was ordered to pay $165/hour counseling fees even though he wasn’t married to his ex. He said his ex minimized her income “on every affidavit of financial information.”

Robert Delgarbino, who also testified in the previous hearing, said, “In high conflict custody court cases, family court typically appoints the therapeutic interventionist, the TI. This instantly creates a revenue stream for the appointee, a TI, therapist, psychologist, or court appointed-advisor. The length of time that revenue stream continues is highly dependent on the ability of the appointee to solve the problem. Do they solve the family problems quickly, or do they stretch out the problem?”

Delgarbino reviewed expenses caused by a TI. He said the required weekly therapy sessions range from $250 to $400 per hour, so at an average cost of $325 an hour for three children, that totals $975/week for a family, or $50,000 annually. “It’s purported that one TI has 97 cases in his case file,” he said. “Multiply 50,000 times 97, near $5 million worth of income. It’s a very lucrative profession, isn’t it?”

Delgarbino said supervised visitation is also highly costly. “The costs vary,” he said. “An example, $2,000 per month for two 4-hour visits, or $24,000 per year. … I’ve heard up to $40,000 for these camps for intensive family therapy sessions.”

In addition, in his case, he was ordered to pay “pre-intensive family therapy” and “post-intensive family therapy” costs, “and the names for more charges developed as the case went on.” He was also charged the cost of two psychological exams, which were not covered by insurance.

He said one of the problems leading to this is “a false narrative is created by the TI favoring the abusive parent.”

Jeff Taylor, who said he was there on behalf of the Salvation Army which has clients involved in family court, said family law is an industry that “generates billable hours.” He said when one party files for divorce, there is an incentive for the parents to “run to the court to see who can get an order of protection first on the other” to use as “leverage” and “use the children as a weapon.”

Monty Schultz, a licensed clinical social worker, said, “I do believe children are being abused in this system, right? Kids have rights too, right? And we are, in many, many cases, taking fit parents out of the lives of our children. And it’s done as a grift for the court system.”

Parent Viviana Miller said due to an ex parte order from the judge, meaning one party was allowed no input, her daughter was forced to move to Arizona with her ex, “someone who was never part of her life.” She was advised to file a grievance due to an email being “misrepresented as a court order,” but after she did, her attorney dropped her case. Her mother Claudia Ready testified next, and said the child’s attorney is the judge’s campaign treasurer.

Martin Lynch, who said he was part of multiple court reform organizations, said the judicial branch has “usurp[ed] the authority that rightfully belongs to” the legislature. He said psychologists are given immunity, which wasn’t fair since the court-appointed psychologist advised him to provide his teenage son with “acceptable pornography” which was a “criminal act.” He observed, “The problem that we have is that the best interest of the child is an artificial construct, and it’s subject to the unlimited interpretation by a judge, one person.”

A minor testified next, Atalia Durfield, age 16. She said she was abused by her father, so her mother filed for divorce when he was working out of state. However, he demanded 50/50 custody. She told the counselors about the “physical, mental and emotional abuse,” but they allowed him to have unsupervised visitation. She said she was lied to and “gaslit” when the therapist and her father ganged up on her.

Parent Tia Corick said her children reported sexual abuse by her ex-husband, but after she reported it, her children were taken from her and she was told to get an order of protection. She got one in place for her daughter, but was not granted one for her sons, and the court gave her ex full custody. She said she was only allowed supervised visitation at $1,000 per month for a year even though there were no findings against her. She said this took place despite the fact her ex was evicted and homeless, living with family members. He was allegedly arrested for sexual crimes against children but the charges were dropped.

A minor age 15, going by the pseudonym Maggie, testified next. She said she and her brother have been trapped in family court most of their lives. She said the judges don’t listen to the children. She doesn’t feel safe with one parent due to the abuse, and said when she speaks up it makes things worse.

Christine Morrison said she wrote a book and started a website called Judicial Criminal exposing corruption with family court judges. She said non-parents are “criminalized, falsely arrested, silenced, looted of their assets, homes, possessions, and life savings. “She lost her savings and had a lien placed on her home, and a court order was requested to sell her home.

She ended up homeless for over 8 weeks, and finally got her property back, but it cost more than the property was worth and the contents were missing. She said the judge issued a bench warrant for her arrest due to back child support of $33,000, and bounty hunters came looking for her. She said the judge threatened her that if she missed a hearing they would suspend her occupational license.

Haley Warrell said she went to law school due to her bad experience in family court. She said her son was medically kidnapped, and her husband wrongly convicted and imprisoned for child sexual abuse. She said it was due to bruises on her son’s body which were from a medical condition that could have been spotted with “one simple blood test.” She said her husband was falsely coerced into confessing, but later recanted.

Warrell said that Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Anna Young told her she had “no civil rights” in her courtroom. In response to this, Finchem said he would send Young “a copy of the Constitution,” and would be looking into it.

Unlike criminal law, Warrell said there is no equivalent high burden of proof in family court. She said one of the case workers “posed proudly in T-shirts that they made for a photograph that said ‘professional kidnappers’ on the front and on the back.” Warrell said her family spent almost all their grandparents’ retirement, their parents’ 401k, and had to sell their home.

A woman named Lucy Vellema said she was a teacher and principal, but has had to sell her home to pay for attorneys in order to battle her ex-husband in court. She said the court claimed her son was “in danger” and that she was an “unfair parent,” allowing her only supervised visitation. Her ex, who was not their son’s biological father, made over $300,000, over three times the amount she makes.

In order to see their son, Vellema said she forced herself to have sex with her ex, since that was allegedly the only way he would let her see the boy. She said she filed bar complaints against attorneys and was retaliated against in response. She claimed her ex-husband had medical procedures done on her son repeatedly which resulted in lifelong complications.

Leah McCarty introduced herself as representing a couple who are homesteaders. She said they took a trip with their children to visit an ailing grandparent in Clark County, Nevada, and when they asked for temporary housing there, their children were taken away from them. She said it was due to them merely not wearing shoes and having “dirty feet.” She said they believe the children were given vaccines after being taken away, giving the baby a vaccine injury. The father was accused of raping the 14-year old, but no criminal charges were filed. The caregivers in the foster homes appeared to be illegal immigrants, so the younger children aren’t learning English, she said.

Ryan Murray said a TI has kept him from communicating with his kids, and it’s been six years without them. He said Judge Alison Bachus, when she was serving on the Maricopa County Superior Court, threw out his joint custody agreement since the mother changed her mind, and put a gag order on him. He said therapist Anette Ruskin said it didn’t matter that he had a court order for immediate reunification.

Monica Ballard said she became a therapist due to her bad experience in family court. She said it took her child almost dying to free her child from the court system. She said her children had four “adverse childhood experiences,” or bad experiences with a parent, but the court process allowed up to seven more incidents to take place. She said these types of experiences lead to problems later on as an adult like addictions. Ballard expressed concern that caseworkers at the Department of Child Safety (DCS) can have a degree in anything. She said DCS ignores the abuse, stating it’s just a custody battle that the court will handle.

Finchem noted that family court is “the most hated assignment in the entire court system” by judges.

Ballard said even though a $29,000 evaluation by a psychologist found that her ex was “unsafe” with a “history of physical abuse,” the judge awarded him 50 percent custody. She said she stopped counting how much she’d spent after $200,000. She said nothing was done about rope burns on her daughter’s neck, and when she complained about her ex sleeping naked with her daughter who was also naked, the judge awarded full custody to her ex.

Finchem that there is “a problem obviously” with “Title 4(d),” referring to Arizona’s child support laws.

Shirley Reckard said her 8-year-old grandson was removed from her custody for 14 days due to false allegations of abuse, and even though the detective dismissed the charges within 9 days, she didn’t get him back. She said DCS claimed she hit him with a stiletto heel, but the grandson admitted later he’d lied about the allegation. They gave him multiple vaccinations despite their religious exemption, some which were duplicates. Although the child has a drug allergy, they prescribed him amoxicillin, she said. She was placed on the child abuse registry so she can no longer teach Sunday School or Daily Vacation Bible School.

Melinda Sherwin said a “horrible woman” on the bench in Pima County, who was arrested for drunk driving, coerced her into signing paperwork to pay for a TI, since otherwise the court will assume they’re uncooperative and remove their children. She said “someone is being abused” when court cases go on for years.

Rachel Cardona Barnett, who testified at the previous hearing last month, said Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Zabor dismissed the negatives about her ex, including allegedly assaulting a paralegal. She said there is a recording of their children stating that they are afraid of their dad, and that he chased her into the parking lot at school with a loaded gun and said he was going to kill her. Barnett said her attorney said that in her 40 years of practicing law “she has never seen anything as egregious. So much so that she took my appeal pro bono.” Barnett was sanctioned and made to pay over $100,000 to her ex. She said the TI assigned to the case was Kristin Alcott, who testified at the last hearing.

Keshel said when someone said to Alcott, “these judges aren’t God,” Alcott responded, “Oh, I’d have to disagree with you.”

Jacqueline Vashar Kern testified that DCS came to her house since her daughter had bruises. She did know how she got them. However, her daughter was taken from her and given to another woman to care for her. Kern filed for contempt when the woman wouldn’t let her see her daughter, but Maricopa County Superior Court Judge McCoy ruled that the woman acted in good faith, not in contempt. Kern said the woman filed for severance claiming abandonment, but she’d prevented Kernr from seeing her. Kern said it is parental alienation, since her 5-year old now says things a child shouldn’t say.

Amber Snodgrass said she’s spent 10 years in family court, and expects 8 more with her minor daughter. She said she is one of the lucky ones, since her ex’s “ongoing domestic violence” resulted in him receiving only supervised visitation. She said she was testifying because she is “terrified it will change.” She said the “vexatious litigation law needs to be updated for family court,” since there were almost 200 documents filed in her case within two years. She said she left her previous county and moved to Maricopa County to escape a bad commissioner.

Julie Anderson Holburn introduced herself as a “national reporting journalist on family court.” She said family court has become a “national crisis,” with the “majority of CPS social workers as corrupt or as lacking in education as you heard from any other peers today.” She said district attorneys “do not prosecute child abuse and domestic violence because they cost more, they take more time, they’re not little drug charge deals where they have a plea deal and they make their little paypoints on both sides.”

She continued, “Then we have CPS, who piggybacks to support law enforcement, and then we have judges, and they all have relationships, and they all hang out together, which is a problem, it’s a huge problem.”

Holburn said the way to fix the problem is to deny judicial immunity to the players including attorneys, and put cameras with audio and video in the courtrooms, and allow the public to watch them streaming — “with exception to those narrowly tailored moments where they’re discussing something about a minor.” She continued, “We do away with transcripts that cost thousands of dollars, and we make those audio video recordings available to the parties for a nominal fee.”

Keshel asked her about revolving roles in family court. Hoburn responded and said after one connected player gets assigned to a position, they bring their cronies on in different roles. She said attorneys threaten parents not to go to the media or they’ll drop them.

Keshel said she’d recently been interviewed by a local media outlet, and the interview never ran since the outlet pulled it. Holburn said mainstream reporters won’t report on it, which is why she started covering the issue. She explained that only 4 percent of families that split up with children end up in family court because it’s contested and involves abuse. “They are keeping a lid on the child abuse,” she said.

Troy James O’Dell said Mohave County Superior Court Judge Aaron Demke served him with a restraining order while he had full custody, even though Demke allegedly admitted he couldn’t do that. O’Dell said his ex told the judge he did meth which he said was a lie. He hired an attorney with a $5,000 loan and took a hair follicle test which came out negative but the court did nothing. DCS threw out the case due to no evidence of neglect or abuse in their investigation.

Carrie Killaboo testified against Alcott. She said Alcott was her stepmother and tried to turn her against her father, who had sole custody of her and siblings. She said Alcott engaged in “mental abuse” and tried to take her younger siblings away from their father. She reminded the legislators that Alcott testified at the last hearing that judges can order whatever they want.

Killaboo noted that Alcott’s father testified in favor of her father. However, her father was ultimately ordered to pay over $35,000 in attorneys fees to Alcott. She said Maricopa County Superior Court Judge William Wingard based his decisions on the recommendations of the court therapist who had never met her father or siblings, who was paid for by Alcott.

Her father was ordered to pay $1,500 per month in child support even though he makes less than $50,000 annually. She said Alcott reported him to CPS three times. Killaboo said a judge said that “mother keeps making the same allegations with no evidence.” She said the judge would only let one sibling decide where they want to live, and it has damaged her relationship with her sister who no longer speaks to her.

A previous hearing was held last month, with similar testimony from parents. There will be three more hearings.

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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].