NY Mom Commits Suicide after 5 Years of "Judicial Alienation" from Son
And: Irish Mum Freed on Bail from British Jail
A New York mother committed suicide this week as a direct result of a Family Court judge causing her son to be alienated from her for the last five years.
Dr. Julia Goldmark’s death follows on the heels of Lizzie’s death on 4th of July weekend. Lizzie had also not been able to see her children for five years: Mom Who Exposed Cover-Up of Sexual Abuse Dies "Mysterious" Death. Julia was a victim of the same court as Lizzie: Westchester Family Court in White Plains, New York.
It is so incredibly sad and such an absolute outrage that so many mothers are suffering and dying due to Family Court judges empowering men to alienate children from them.
It is a Crisis within the Custody Crisis in which judges routinely switch custody from loving, primary-nurturing mothers to abusive and self-serving fathers.
Because this judicial enabling of fathers to alienate children from mothers is so prevalent, we are giving it a name that puts the blame where it belongs: Judicial Alienation.
More about that in the TakeAways but first, Julia’s story.
JULIA’S STORY
Julia came to the U.S. from Germany after high school in 2002 on a Fulbright scholarship. She majored in psychology at the University of California at Berkeley.
She did her Masters at Columbia University in New York. It was during that time she met her husband. They married in 2011.
Julia gave birth to her son in 2015. She named him Alexander for the “greatness of his soul”.
Julia’s husband became abusive after they married, but the abuse escalated after Alexander’s birth, as happens with so many mothers. He severely emotionally, physically, and verbally abused her. The emotional abuse included constant gaslighting. She did her best to tolerate it, because she wanted the family to stay together for Alexander.
While working on her doctorate in Neuropsychology, her husband would disconnect the internet and hide her cellphone. He would lock her out of the bedroom and force her to sleep on the hallway floor. He would drug Julia and videotape her in various states of undress. He would mock her.
The abuse and violence became unbearable. The final straw came in 2019 when he body-slammed her into a glass table.
Julia finally left her abuser. She filed a police report and he was arrested. A protective order led to him losing custody.
MAD & BAD
Unfortunately, this protection was short-lived. Within a few months, her ex began making false reports claiming Julia was “mad or bad”—crazy or abusive. He got Restraining Orders against her and was given “temporary” sole custody.
Julia was jailed multiple times because of his false allegations. On one occasion, her ex told her he would have all the charges dropped if she would just come back to him. That call was recorded, and prosecutors dismissed those charges.
Even though all criminal charges against Julia were dismissed, the Family Court judge continued to credit the father’s false accusations, without any credible evidence to support them. And it goes without saying that the judge also ignored the violence and abuse by him.
A court-ordered forensic evaluation determined that her ex was a malignant narcissist and there was no reason Julia should not have visitation with her son. This was ignored by the judge.
Julia fought long and hard just to get some sort of visitation schedule. To no avail.
A particularly noxious GAL was appointed to represent Alexander, but who, as usual, was steering the case to the father. Another victim of this GAL said she had tormented Julia so much that it contributed to her suicide:
Donna Abrams is the most dehumanizing person one can imagine. She torments, abuses and violates publicly and no one does anything to stop her. It’s as if she gets paid extra to push people past their limits. It was only a matter time.
JUDICIAL ALIENATOR
But court-appointees are not the cause of the Crisis. [See Down the Court-Appointee Rabbit Hole.] It is ultimately judges who make the orders that separate mothers and children (or do not enforce orders for visitation), and so they are the ones responsible.
Judge Keri Fiore disregarded all the evidence of the father’s abuse—and Julia’s wonderful parenting and importance as a mother—and gave him sole custody. It is she who alienated Alexander from his mother and caused Julia severe trauma symptoms that led to her suicide.
So—Judge Fiore is the first judge designated under our new concept/term: Judicial Alienation. She is a Judicial Alienator.
This title can be retroactively applied to all judges we’ve reported on who’ve alienated children from their mother and to any judges who are presently alienating children from mothers.
If you have a Judicial Alienator for a judge, let us know at: womenscoalitionintl@email.com. We will make a list to bring attention to this Crisis within a Crisis.
FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO REGAIN CUSTODY
Julia tried hard to regain custody but was never able to—or to even see Alexander.
She had been getting her life in order, despite the extreme trauma caused by Judicial Alienation. She managed to complete her doctorate and was working as a Neuropsychologist. She even retained a lawyer who was zealously advocating for her, but it made no difference. The fix was in.
Julia had a wonderful boyfriend who made it his mission to reunite Julia and Alexander. Sadly, he will never get to see that day.
He is mourning her loss:
Julia was my angel. Together we fought to her last dying breath to see her beloved young Alexander, who she had not seen in over 4 years.
…At the end we had a great attorney and were very close to visitation but after multiple failed court attempts, multiple trips to jail based on her ex’s false charges—all dropped—she couldn’t take the pain anymore and took her life 2 days ago.
Julia never spoke out about her case. She went along with being silent about the injustices heaped upon her and kept her head down. She thought if she continued to follow the rules, the judges would keep their word and return Alexander to her.
But no. Because that is not what her ex wanted. He wanted to punish and torture her for daring to leave him by taking away what was most precious to her—Alexander. And he was given what he wanted. As usual, it is Male Entitlement that rules the day in family courts.
So very sadly, Julia gave up last Sunday and ended her life—after five long years of not being able to see or hold her baby.
RIP JULIA
TAKEAWAYS
The issue of alienation is front and center in three deaths of mothers in two weeks. These three mothers had all been alienated from their children by their father via Family Court judges. [We will report on the other mom next week.] Alienation is also present in most of the Custody Crisis cases reported on by The Women’s Coalition.
Because this is a Crisis within a Crisis, it deserves its own term: Judicial Alienation.
Giving this scourge a name can help mothers convey to friends, family, coworkers and the public what is happening in Family Court and how serious it is.
This issue of children being alienated from mothers via Family Court judges has not gotten the attention it deserves, in large part because Domestic Abuse and Legal Advocate [DALA] professionals, who authoritatively speak on the Custody Crisis, have discouraged mothers from using the word alienation.
DALAs claim the word alienation should not be used because it is not scientific. First of all, the concept is scientific, but we won’t go into that here [see How Judges Weaponize Mind Control]. Importantly, though, there should be no debate that alienation is a valid concept and has been in use for hundreds of years. What they should be saying is that judges are lying about mothers alienating and enabling fathers to alienate.
Still, DALA’s continue to pressure mothers to use other terms, like DV by proxy or child and mother sabotage, etc.—which do not cut it. These do not accurately describe what is being done to children and mothers in family courts, nor does it convey to the public what is actually going on. People, however, immediately get alienation and how wrong and horrible it is. Language matters and there is power in the word alienation, so women should be using it.
Judicial Alienation [JA] speaks to the ultimate cause of too many mothers’ suffering and death. The onus for this horrific crime must be placed where it belongs. It is judges who empower fathers to alienate children from mothers. Fathers cannot alienate children without a judge’s order that enables it, or the judge not enforcing orders that would prevent it.
Let’s raise awareness about this Crisis by saying Judicial Alienation is causing mothers like Julia and so many others to suffer and die. The term shows purposefulness. It conveys that judges are deliberately causing children to be alienated from mothers. Judges do not need training; they know exactly what they are doing. Nor will any new child safety laws make a difference, since judges can ignore them.
The reason judges are able to alienate children from mothers is because the Family Court system is designed to give judges virtually absolute power. And judges are using that power to do the Old Boy Network’s bidding: to empower fathers after divorce.
That leads to the conclusion that the only effective solution to the Custody Crisis is to remove judges’ power to decide custody. Contested custody cases need to be heard in real civil courts with a jury.
The personal is political. We demand change.
Join The Women’s Coalition where we are demanding a new system.
May Julia Rest in Peace.
NOTE: You can share Julia’s story by copying and pasting the url of this column on your social media or in comments. Thanks for sharing!
IN OTHER NEWS
UPDATES
Nicola was released on bail! But she has to wear an ankle monitor and has a curfew.
We wrote about her story last month Irish Mother Jailed in England: Collusion between Countries. Nicola is an Irish mother who was jailed in England when attending a supervised visit with her son. She has been indicted on bogus criminal charges.
Her case demonstrates how even countries collude in the patriarchal agenda to empower fathers and disempower mothers after divorce.
NEXT SECTION OF THE SAGA IS OUT!
It pisses Legion off that the true majority opinion of the two Appellate justices, who’d laid bare all the injustices committed by the Family Court judge, cannot be cited in other mothers’ cases, as it was corruptly made into the “dissenting” opinion by the sexist Chief Justice. This galvanizes her resolve to make women aware—in any way she can—of the rampant sexism in family courts causing women to lose custody.
Legion laments how her own “male-identified” mother has deserted her and supported her ex, but that is not surprising since she had been abusive throughout her childhood. Two of her siblings also actively demean and undermine her, while one sister, who’d also been abused, has simply disappeared. She decides to find this sister to see how she’s faring and ask her view of why their family is so dysfunctional.
In the last section, two of the three Appellate justices rule for Legion, so it should be a win, but the fix is in. The Chief justice thwarts her win by belatedly appointing two of his patriarchal buddies to the case. So that makes it 3 to 2, and the order switching custody to Herry is affirmed. What turned into the “dissenting” opinion from the “majority” opinion, states much of what the trial court judge had done wrong, and Legion is grateful for this.
CHAPTER 28 of Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother begins with Act III, Part 4 of “The Opera” from Book 3. The Opera has three Acts with five Parts—one for each of the three Family Court and two Appellate Court trials. Chapter 28 covers all of Act III: Part 4: the third Family Court trial and Part 5: the second Appellate trial. This is a long chapter and will be published in newsletter-sized bites.
Dr. Blue’s novel is based on her own experience of the Custody Crisis. It uniquely conveys how Family Court judges are “mother-fucking” women—a form of systemic oppression—as protagonist Legion is systematically and methodically deprived of her children and money and reduced to “one fucked mother”.
Chapters are stand-alone interesting so you can begin reading anywhere. A Cast of Characters follows to help readers at any point. All published chapters are included in the Section: “Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of the home page of Women’s Coalition News & Views. Sequential chapters are emailed every Wednesday so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!
TEASERS
IT IS –– NOW –– MY JOB, MY ACCOUNTABILITY and MY DUTY to MAKE FUCKING DAMNED CERTAIN that THEY, THE MAMAS … DO NOW KNOW IT. Elie Wiesel once stated that … “Whoever SURVIVES the test … MUST … tell the story. It is her DUTY.”
So when they, these little girls, grow up and eventually end up in ‘the court’ as sooo, so many mamas who have even just a wee, itty bitty bit pissed off The Blessèd Patriarchy … will, … then, then … THIS MOTHER-FUCKING is exactly and only what we all should KNOW––aforehand––WILL BE the LEGAL DEFAULT ruling and, therefore, also known as … … The LAW.
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I know a woman who went through this. She had no power, so she waited it out. When her son was 16 he came to see her. They reunited happily. He's in his 30s now, and is very close to his affectionate mother, (and he's not a fan of his controlling dad).
Please, grieving mums, don't commit suicide. If all else fails, be patient. Your children will want to know you, and when they get independent, no one can stop them.
I was in a similar predicament 30 years ago. My ex was a police officer in the Midwest and had convinced the judge I was unfit by claiming I was a drug addict and alcoholic (neither was true). If I had not had recorded phone conversations of his threats, I would have lost my son. The judge changed his mind when he listened to the recordings.