The Proper Role for Mental Health Professionals in Domestic Violence Cases and Attorneys Suspended for Ethical Violations

Once again Barry Goldstein is on the campaign trails to discredit Parental Alienation. A recent article tries to discredit mental health professional who diagnose Parental Alienation Syndrome in family court.  As we all know the suspension of licenses can be a political matter both with attorneys and mental health professionals.  But in the state of California, Parental Alienation by parents is a recognized fact of children’s existence.

Goldstein who was suspended by the New York State bar for ethical violations is now on the book writing trail. Rather than protecting children’s rights to constant contact with both parents as EVERY mental health professional knows to be correct and proper, Mr. Goldstein is out to destroy and discredit Parental Alienation as part of the “male supremacist agenda” and clearly demonstrates a bias against men in family court, as most feminist attorney do.

Goldstein is sort of like VP Joe Biden, who is proud?? of the fact that VAWA is his greatest accomplishment, and like Biden, he is completely oblivious to the fact that 40,000,000 million children are now cut off from their 25,000,000 fathers.  Unfortunately, there is too much money in discrimination and like the Jim Crow laws of the bygone south, VAWA has taken its place alongside our country’s love affair with creating laws that unconstitutionally discriminate, imprison, and denigrate  a class of people, in this case men.

Here is Glenn Sack’s article from last year lest we forget the Lost Children to Parental Alienation:

Court Delivers Devastating Blow to Leading Feminist Attorney Barry Goldstein

January 8th, 2009 by Glenn Sacks, MA, Executive Director

Los Angeles, CA–Few family law cases are as heartbreaking as those involving Parental Alienation, where one parent has turned his or her children against the other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children and the target parent once enjoyed. Many of my readers have experienced it in various forms and to varying degrees.

Feminist groups, including the National Organization for Women, contend that Parental Alienation is a myth and a ruse used by abusive fathers to win control of their children in custody cases. To pick one example of many, Helen Grieco, until recently the Executive Director of California NOW, calls Parental Alienation Syndrome…..

(I have never denied that there are fathers who have alienated their own children through their abuse or personality defects, and who attempt to shift the blame to their children’s mothers by falsely claiming PAS. Yet parental alienation is a common, well-documented phenomenon. For example, a longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 “high conflict” divorce cases over a 12 year period and found that elements of PAS were present in the vast majority of the cases studied.)

Feminist attorney Barry Goldstein, Esq. of New York has been one of the leading advocates for this position, and was the primary attorney in the highly-publicized Genia Shockome case in New York. Shockome, lost custody of her two children, now ages 13 and 11, to her ex-husband, Tim Shockome after a contentious custody battle in which Genia accused Tim of abuse. The Shockome case was widely reported, including this sympathetic article in Newsweek magazine, and Shockome was a popular feminist cause celebre a few years ago.

Goldstein (pictured in a suit & tie alongside Shockome) has worked with or been a member of many if not most of the organizations seeking to discredit Parental Alienation and the fatherhood movement.  He has practiced law in New York for almost three decades, has authored a book on custody cases involving allegations of domestic violence, and is scheduled to speak at the annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference next week.

Last week Barry Goldstein, Esq. had his head handed to him.

The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department imposed a staggering five-year suspension of Goldstein in large part 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.

Regarding the Shockome case, the Court criticized what it called the “pervasive nature of [Goldstein’s] deceptive conduct”–conduct which it said included “false accusations” about the case and “noncompliance with multiple court orders.” The Court wrote:

On behalf of his client [Genia Shockome], he prepared and filed with this Court a petition for writ of habeas corpus and a petition in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78. These materials contained sworn statements which were dishonest, false, or misleading.

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.

Goldstein’s fall is a tremendous embarrassment to many of our opponents in the battle to achieve shared parenting, reform family law, and protect children’s right to a relationship with both parents after divorce. These include: the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women; Justice for Children; The Battered Mothers Custody Conference; Stop Family Violence; The Leadership Council; and others.

Of far less significance but still worth noting, the Court’s ruling further vindicates my position on the Shockome case–a position for which I was publicly crucified by our feminist opponents. This vindication is nice but not necessary–while Genia’s publicly-stated version of the case seemed superficially compelling, anybody taking a good look at the court records in the case as I did would come to similar conclusions.

One of Goldstein’s statements that the New York Court cited in disciplining him is his public contention that in the Shockome case “Without an evidentiary hearing or any written explanation, Judge Amodeo took the children from the mother who has raised them and sent them to the abuser.” This is false–Judge Amodeo actually bent over backwards to be fair to Shockome, who lost her children to her ex-husband only after repeatedly violating court orders. Moreover, there was no evidence that the ex-husband was an “abuser,” and the Court specifically repudiated this accusation.

I discussed the details of the Shockome case at length in my co-authored Shockome Syndrome. As I’ve noted on several occasions, the major feminist cause celebre custody cases of the past few years have been scams–Genia Shockome, Sadia Loeliger, Bridget Marks, and others.

The latest feminist cause celebre is the Holly Collins parental abduction case. The mother’s version of events in this case is also problematic.

My findings on Shockome can be found here.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Domestic Violence, False Accusations, Family Law/Divorce/Separation/Child Custody, Feminism/NOW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Federal Incentives Make Children Fatherless

by Phyllis Schlafly, May 11, 2005

Why has Congress appropriated taxpayers’ money to give perverse incentives that break up families and deprive children of their fathers? The built-in financial incentives in the current child-support system have expanded the tragedy of fatherless children from the welfare class to millions of non-welfare divorced couples.

Americans have finally realized that providing generous welfare through Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was counterproductive because the father had to disappear in order for the mother to receive taxpayer-paid benefits. Fathers left the home, illegitimacy rose in alarming numbers, and children were worse off.

AFDC provided a taxpayer-paid financial incentive to reward girls with their own monthly check, food stamps, health care and housing if they have an illegitimate baby. “She doesn’t need me, she’s got welfare” became the mantra.

Congress tried to reform the out-of-control welfare system by a series of child-support laws passed in 1975, 1984, 1988, 1996 (the famous Republican Welfare Reform), and 1999. Unfortunately, these laws morphed the welfare system into a massive middle-class child-support system that deprives millions of children of fathers who never abandoned them.

As Ronald Reagan often said, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”

People think that child-support enforcement benefits children, but it doesn’t. When welfare agencies collect child support, the money actually goes to the government to reimburse for welfare payments already given to mothers, supposedly to reduce the federal budget (which, of course, is never reduced).

In 1984, Congress passed the Child Support Enforcement Amendment which required the states to adopt voluntary guidelines for child-support payments. In 1988, Congress passed the Family Support Act, which made the guidelines mandatory, along with criminal enforcement, and gave the states less than a year to comply.

The majority of states quickly adopted the model guidelines conveniently already written by an HHS consultant who was president of what was shortly to become one of the nation’s largest private collection companies making its profits on the onerous guidelines that create arrearages.

The 1988 law extended the guidelines to ALL child-support orders, even though the big majority of those families never had to interact with government in order to pay or receive child support. This massive expansion of federal control over private lives uses a Federal Case Registry to exercise surveillance over 19 million citizens whether or not they are behind in child-support payments.

The states collect the child-support money and deposit it in a state fund, but the federal government pays most of the administrative costs and, therefore, dictates the way the system operates through mandates and financial incentives. The federal government pays 66 percent of the states’ administrative overhead costs, 80 percent of computer and technology-enhancement costs, and 90 percent of DNA testing for paternity.

In addition, the states share in a nearly-half-billion-dollar incentive reward pool based on whatever the state collects. The states can get a waiver to spend this bonus money anyway they choose.

However, most of the child support owed by welfare-class fathers is uncollectible. Most are either unemployed or earn less than $10,000 per year.

So, in order to cash in on federal bonus money, build their bureaucracies and brag about successful child-support enforcement, the states began bringing into the government system middle-class fathers with jobs who were never (and probably would never be) on welfare. These non-welfare families have grown to 83 percent of child-support cases and 92 percent of the money collected, creating a windfall of federal money flowing to the states.

The federal incentives drive the system. The more divorces, and the higher the child-support guidelines are set and enforced (no matter how unreasonable), the more money the state bureaucracy collects from the feds.

Follow the money. The less time that non-custodial parents (usually fathers) are permitted to be with their children, the more child support they must pay into the state fund, and the higher the federal bonus to the states for collecting the money.

The states have powerful incentives to separate fathers from their children, to give near-total custody to mothers, to maintain the fathers’ high-level support obligations even if their income is drastically reduced, and to hang onto the father’s payments as long as possible before paying them out to the mothers. The General Accounting Office reported that in 2002 states were holding $657 million in UDC (Undistributed Child Support).

Fatherless boys are 63 percent more likely to run away and 37 percent more likely to abuse drugs, and fatherless girls are twice as likely to get pregnant and 53 percent more likely to commit suicide. Fatherless boys and girls are twice as likely to drop out of high school twice as likely to end up in jail.

We can no longer ignore how taxpayers’ money is incentivizing divorce and creating fatherless children. Nor can we ignore the government’s complicity in the predictable social costs that result from more than 17 million children growing up without their fathers.



Child Abuse

An estimated 56 percent of abusers of all kinds are women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most common form,. psychological abuse, can be as damaging as physical abuse.

How To Prevent Parental Child Abduction to Another Country

To go immediately to the website click here:

The Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program

The Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program (CPIAP) is one of the Department’s most important tools for preventing international parental child abduction.  The program allows parents to register their U.S. citizen children under the age of 18 in the Department’s Passport Lookout System.  If a passport application is submitted for a child who is registered in CPIAP, the Department contacts and alerts the parent or parents.  The passport lookout system gives all U.S. passport agencies as well as U.S. embassies and consulates abroad an alert on a child’s name if a parent or guardian registers an objection to passport issuance for his or her child.  This procedure provides parents advance warning of possible plans for international travel with the child.
To go immediately to the website click here:

The Charleston Passport Center, which is part of Passport Services, is responsible for administering CPIAP.

U.S. Department of State
Passport Services, Charleston Passport Center
Attn: Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program
1269 Holland Street, Building D
Charleston, SC 29405

E-mail: ChildrensPassports@state.gov
Phone: 1-888-407-4747
Fax: 843-746-1827

Who can request a child be entered into CPIAP?

Entry Request Form

Usually a parent requests that his/her child or children be entered into the program.  Sometimes both parents will separately submit a request.  Requests may also be submitted by law enforcement or a court, or someone acting on behalf of a parent, such as an attorney, a member of Congress, or another family member.  All requests for entry of a child into the program must be in writing and signed.

It is not necessary for a parent to have any custodial rights to the child in order to request that the child be entered in CPIAP.  So long as a parent has not had his/her rights terminated by a court of competent jurisdiction, he/she can request that the child be entered into CPIAP.

REMEMBER:  Only U.S. Citizen children under the age of 18 can be entered into CPIAP.

Does entering a child’s name into CPIAP always prevent a passport from being issued?.

Entering a child’s name into CPIAP does not guarantee that a child will not be issued a passport. The parent who requests entry of his/her child into the program may consent to issuance of the passport after receiving notification of the passport application. It is also possible for a passport to be issued to a child under 16 without consent of both parents (or legal guardian), if the applicant for the passport can establish that consent of both parents is not required under Federal law (22 CFR 51.28). A court order providing the applicant parent or guardian with sole custody of the child, or a court order specifically authorizing the applicant parent or guardian to travel with the child, for example, would allow the Department to issue a passport without the consent of another parent or guardian.  This is true even if the child has been entered into CPIAP.

If a passport application is executed on behalf of a child entered into CPIAP, the parent who requested the alert will receive notification of the passport application and will generally receive 30 days to consent or object to issuance of the passport, absent extraordinary circumstances.  However, if the applicant can demonstrate that he/she has sole authority to apply for a passport under U.S. law, the passport may still be issued at any time.

How Do I Enter My Child into CPIAP?

To enter your child into CPIAP, you must submit three items to the Department of State’s Passport Services.

1. Completed Entry Request Form 2. Proof of Your Identy (Your driver’s license or other identity card) 3. Birth Certificate or Documentation that Shows Your Parentage/Guardianship (Hospital issued certificate or Consular Report of Birth Abroad)

E-mail, fax, or mail these three items to Passport Services, Charleston Passport Center (contact information above).

A child is automatically removed from CPIAP when he/she reaches the age of 18.  In the event a parent wants to remove a child or children from CPIAP prior to reaching age 18, the parent must submit a photo ID and a notarized statement requesting the removal from the program.  Only the parent or entity who requested the child’s entry into the program can request the child’s removal from the program.

IMPORTANT:  It is very important that parents keep Passport Services informed in writing of any changes to contact information and legal representation. Failure to notify Passport Services of a current address may result in a passport issuance for your child without your consent.

What if my child already has a passport?

You may enter your child’s name into CPIAP even if he/she already has a passport.  This will allow the Department of State to notify you if Passport Services receives an application for renewal of the passport.

The Department may not revoke a passport that has already been issued to the child. There is also no way to track the use of a passport once it has been issued, since the United States does not have exit controls for people leaving the U.S. If your child already has a passport, and you fear the other parent may abduct your child from the United States, ask a court or your attorneys to hold it.

What if my child has a passport of another country?

Many United States citizen children who fall victim to international parental abduction possess dual nationality. While the Department of State will make every effort to avoid issuing a United States passport without the consent of both parents, the Department cannot prevent other countries from issuing their passports to children who are also their nationals. You can, however, ask a foreign embassy or consulate in the United States not to issue a passport to your child. Send the embassy or consulate a written request, along with certified complete copies of any court orders you have which address custody or the overseas travel of your child. In your letter, inform them that you are sending a copy of this request to the United States Department of State. If your child is only a United States citizen, you can request that no visa for that country be issued in his or her U.S. passport. Just keep in mind that no international law requires compliance with such requests, although some countries may comply voluntarily.

IMPORTANT: The United States government does not have exit controls at the border. The U.S. government does not check the names or the documents of travelers leaving the United States. If your child has a valid passport from any country, he or she may be able to travel outside the United States without your consent.