ELISA GONZALEZ, Plaintiff, -vs.- JOHN R. SHEARING, Defendant. |
::::::::::: |
Superior Court of Kim Maurer: Case Manager (609)
633-0811 DOCKET NO. A-001476-05T1 Civil Action |
Motion For Free Transcripts Or Suggested Alternative And
Motion On Child Welfare Issues
Contents:
serves as a summary of the entire motion and as event
timeline
18. Plaintiff Hides Child’s Medical History From Doctor.
19. Plaintiff Attempts To
Strong Arm Visitation Supervisor.
20. Plaintiff Forces Child To
Tears By Using Him To Pass Her Demands To Me
21. Judge Cassidy Hears Motions On Following
Issues
22. Child Suspended For Threatening To Defend Himself With Gun
23. What I Am Asking The Court
To Do
Appendix
Please note: Many exhibits
are located in an appellate motion filed
List of Exhibits Included with this
motion:
A. Letter From Brian Schwartz of Ceconi and Cheifetz Re: Tax Trust Fund
B. Judge Whitken’s Court Order Creating The Trust Fund
C.
Appellate Div Court Order Granting Indigency
On
D. Motion Filed With Family Court For:
a. Free Transcripts
b. Stay Pending Appeal
c. Permission to File the Above As Indigent.
E. Judge Cassidy’s Decision On Indigency
F. Envelope Judge Cassidy’s Decision On Indigency Came In
G. Plaintiff’s Motion Certification Requesting
a.
Permission To Take Child To
b. Return Of Passport
c. To Have My $10,000 Tax Trust Fund
H. Shows Opponent Can Use Any Desired Method Of Communication With Court.
I. Judge Cassidy’s Court Order That:
a. Defers Decision Of Stay Pending Appeal
b. Denies Reconsideration To Give $10,000 Trust To Plaintiff.
c. Denies reversal of decision to restrict my communication with the courts to regular mail only.
d. Denies my request that plaintiff be ordered to refrain from using child to pass demands to defendant and visitation supervisor.
e. Denies my request that plaintiff be order to attend Trans-Parenting Course.
f. Denies my request that I be allowed to attend Trans-Parenting Course at a different time than the plaintiff.
g. Denies my request for verification that my child has medical insurance.
h. Denies my request that plaintiff appear in court to show cause for contempt of court when: absconding with child to Guatemala, Hiding his location, Interfering with court ordered visitation, and Interfering with court ordered telephone contact.
i. Denies my request that plaintiff appear in court to show cause for perjury when lying about intended destination for taking my son.
j. Denies my request that plaintiff be restricted from using denial of telephone contact as a method of punishing my son as this would require interference with court ordered telephone contact.
k. Denies my request to enforce divorce order that requires my son’s school to provide his records to me.
J. Brief Included With Motion For Reconsideration
K. Plaintiffs Cross Motion Requesting That I Not Be Allowed To File Motions Without Preapproval From Judge Cassidy
L. My Response To Cross Motion Requesting I Not Be Allowed To File Motions Without Preapproval From Judge Cassidy
M. Cover Letter Sent With Letter Discussing My Son’s Threat To Defend Himself With Gun
Motion For Free Transcripts Or Use Trust Fund To Purchase, And
Motion On
Child Welfare Issues
Your Honor,
I am John
Shearing the defendant. I am appealing a divorce from a woman to whom I was
never legally married. I have been living in a tent in the woods since June and
for two years prior to that, I have been living in my van until it was
repossessed. I am existing this way because all my
time and money is going towards my defense in these proceedings and in a civil
suit that originated from the same complaint. Thanks to the Honorable Howard H Kestin, I was granted indigency
status on Jan, 11, 2006, and am now
making the most of the opportunity he gave me to seek a just outcome in these
proceedings. Please accept the following as my motion brief.
Please
note: Many exhibits are located in an
appellate motion filed on
1.
Children’s Money Fueling This Lawsuit
Central to this case are two separate trust funds.
One trust fund contains $10,000 and was setup by Judge Whitken
to pay taxes that resulted from liquidating all my assets which were used to
pay my support obligation. In this brief I will be requesting that this fund be
used to pay my taxes and purchase transcripts of the divorce being appealed.
The other one was set up for my children and
contains stock in my family’s company. I can not and will not removed assets
from that fund unless ordered to by the courts. The facts that I am
representing myself, that I have no expert witnesses, and that I live outside,
demonstrate that this fund is only for my children’s future. In point heading 2
you will see that my children’s trust fund is the pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow for the plaintiff and her lawyer Mr. Duff.
2. Forced
To Divorce A Woman To Whom I Was Never Married.
I filed an appeal of my divorce because
I was never legally married to the plaintiff. She was married to another man
when she took her vows with me. Judge Brock refused to look at my evidence and
responded that I must not love my son. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I raised these issues to protect my sons trust fund which Judge Brock intended
to invalidate and confiscate in order to pay the plaintiff’s lawyer (transcript
will prove this). But children shouldn’t be required to pay for their parents divorce, especially if the parents were never
married to begin with. Finally, as the judge was unable to break the trust, she
used equitable distribution laws to award a portion of my children’s trust to
the plaintiff. But since their was no marriage, there
can be no equitable distribution and so the plaintiff and her lawyer have no
right to any of my children’s assets. That is why the appeal is so important.
Later in the Trial, I asked to introduced this
evidence in reference to the character of the plaintiff. The evidence was a
simple certification of facts written in
3. Case Background and Proof Of A Legitimate Appeal
Please see [Point Heading 3 of Appellate Motion filed
4.
On
5. Notice Of Appeal Filed With The Appellate
Division Along With Motion To Proceed As Indigent On
On November 3rd,for the reasons stated above, I filed a notice of appeal
with the Appellate Division (received November 7th) along with a
motion to proceed as indigent. Indigency was granted
on
On this same day of November 3rd along
with a motion for stay pending appeal I filed a motion for free transcripts
with the family court or in the alternative requesting to use the recently
discovered $10,000 trust fund to pay for them. Unfortunately as I am penniless, I
also filed a motion to proceed as indigent because I did not have the money to
pay the $30 motion fee. Exhibit D is the motion I filed with the family
court.
7. My Motions Buried In
Family Court Under Indigency
Issue
On
The plaintiff filed a motion on November
21 Exhibit G to request the $10,000 trust fund be used to pay the
judgment that I am appealing. This is the same money that I had asked in
my prior motion, to be used to pay for
transcripts in my appeal. Had the judge made a timely decision on the matter of
indigency, I would have had a chance to come up with
$30 required for consideration of my motion to use the trust fund for
transcripts. Instead, I received notice on the very day that my opponents
motion was granted, that my motion would not even be considered, yet my motion
was filed two weeks prior. For this reason, I feel I was deprived of due
process and the opportunity to use the last of my assets to defend myself. It
is bad enough that the false divorce proceedings have made me penniless (there
was no legal marriage to dissolve), but now the delayed decision on indigency perverted a process that is supposed to give
penniless people a chance to be heard. This decision seems even more errant when you consider that the Honorable Howard Kestin of the Appellate Court looked at the same
information and granted my motion for indigency.
Another reason that Judge Cassidy’s
decision seems errant is that the issue was already out of her jurisdiction.
Since Judge Cassidy awarded the money to pay a judgment that was already under
appeal, and since she was required to overturn Judge Whitken’s
court order in order to do this, Exhibit B, the whole matter was
already out of her jurisdiction. I would not have know this had Judge Cassidy not demonstrated as
follows:
On or about
Finally, this decision to obstructs my ability to appeal my divorce because if I can
not get the transcripts, then Judge Cassidy knows that I can not appeal. This
appeal is far too important to be squashed because if I can get you those
transcript’s I can prove that Judge Brock (the judge who conducted the divorce)
engaged in judicial hostage taking where I was denied parenting time in direct
response to my refusal to cooperate in the false divorce proceedings. This is a
children’s rights issue and it must be heard.
9.
Also in Judge Cassidy’s decision [Exhibit L of Appellate Motion filed
10. Back to
On Nov 21, the plaintiff filed a motion with Judge
Cassidy to regain her passport and my son's so that she could take my son out
of the country to the
11. I Advised Judge Cassidy That Plaintiff Is Flight Risk
I agreed to this on the condition that she provide proof of her destination prior to a court decision.
Please see [Exhibit Q of Appellate Motion filed
12.
In the end, it turned out that my
son was taken to
14. Our Child Became Sick
Since my sons return from
15. I filed Motion To Take Child To Doctor And To Show Cause.
Upon finishing my research, I determined
that my son may be at risk so I filed an emergent motion with Judge Cassidy to
have my child examined by his doctor to be sure he was well [Exhibit
S of Appellate Motion filed
16. Plaintiff Refused To Take Child To Doctor
In response to my motion, the plaintiff
filed a reply [Exhibit
T of Appellate Motion filed
17. Judge Confiscates Passports Again and Orders Child To Doctor But Does Not Require Plaintiff To Show Cause.
The Judge considered the facts and
provided a court order [Exhibit V of Appellate Motion filed
a. confiscated the
plaintiff’s passport and our child’s again.
b. ordered that the
plaintiff is not to travel outside a 100 mile radius of her home.
c. ordered that the
plaintiff take our child to the doctor within 24 hours, and to tell the doctor
where the child had been.
d. Ordered the plaintiff to get medical
insurance for my child in compliance with divorce decision.
I called my son’s doctor and asked if he
was indeed examined and he was. The doctor volunteered over the phone that
usually the parents come in before a trip and tell the doctor where they are
going, the doctor will then inoculate and medicate as required to protect the
child. The doctor also told me that she asked the plaintiff if my son had fever
or chills and that the plaintiff said no. And so the doctor did not order a
blood test. As you know from above, my son had flu like symptoms which is why I
requested that he be examined.
19. Plaintiff Attempts To Strong Arm
Visitation Supervisor.
My first wife Irene who has a valid
court order to supervise visitations with my son and has done so for about a
year and a half had stopped supervising last June because it was exhausting all
of her free time and was having a negative impact on her health. I was sad
about this but I supported her decision. We remain good friends. As chance
would have it, Irene bought a Christmas present for my son Jack and wanted to
give it to him. She also wanted to give me a nice surprise because my birthday
is coming up. So she wrote to the plaintiff and offered to care for Jack one
day, which worked out to be January 14th. [Exhibit
W of Appellate Motion filed
Irene,
It
has come to my attention that you have yet to appear in front of the Court to
testify to the seriousness of your commitment to supervise any
future visitation between John R. Shearing and Jack, as was ordered in the
Final Judgment of Divorce of Oct. 14, 2005, paragraph 2:a, by Judge K. Brock.
(Attached)
This
provision was entered for good cause. I am allowing this one time
Christmas visit only with the understanding and agreement that
any future supervised visitation will be scheduled only after you
have complied with the aforementioned Court Order and can provide proof of
same.
Please
reply that you are in full agreement with this at your earliest
convenience. If I don't hear from you, I'll
assume that you are not in agreement with this and the visit for
Elisa
Gonzalez
As you can see, the plaintiff
claims to have found a provision in Judge Brock’s divorce decision [Exhibit Y of Appellate Motion filed
1.
The defendant’s parenting time shall remain
supervised by Irene Shearing.
a.
His present schedule of parenting time every Saturday
from
It seems to me that the plaintiff wants every other weekend without any children and so she twisted Judge Brocks words in an attempt to force the visitation supervisor into accepting those conditions. Please imagine for a minute if I told one of the Union County Supervision Volunteers that they had to supervise for the whole weekend or there would be no supervision at all. It’s just nuts. In any case, the plaintiff knows that all communications of a legal nature must go through her lawyer Mr. Duff. So I advised Irene not to respond to the emails because answering them would only invite trouble.
20. Plaintiff Forces Our Child To Tears By Using
Him To Pass Her Demands To Me And By Threatening To Prevent A Planned Visitation.
On Friday the 13th, the night before the visitation was to take place, the plaintiff forced my son to call me and demand that Irene call her. My son told me that his mother would not allow him to visit if Irene did not call. I told my son that his mother my not use him to pass messages. I explained that Mommy has a lawyer for that. I then told my son not to worry and that we would be there to pick him up at the correct time and that his mother would allow him to visit because I had the judges permission.
My son then called me again soon after. There was a lot of stress in his voice. Again he told me that Irene must call the plaintiff or she would not allow use to see each other. I tried to comfort and reassure my son, but it was impossible. I begged him not to worry and to get some sleep. Still, I don’t think my child slept well that night.
On Saturday morning, my son called me again. This time he was crying hard. He told me that the visit was off. I told him that we would be there at the correct time and that we would have our visit.
Soon after, my son called again crying even harder. He told me that he and his mother would not be there when we arrived and that this was the last time we would speak together because his mother was taking his phone away from him. I told him I was still coming and that I would call the police to help us work it all out if required. My son told me that he didn’t want his mother to go to jail, so I assured him that no one was going to jail and that the police were only going to explain the law to his mother.
Finally I got a call from my son telling me that he would
be allowed to visit after all. Of course he would be allowed to visit, I had a court order mandating the visitation. But why
did my son have to suffer so? On this issue I will ask you to look at the back
of the Trans-Parenting guide book distributed by Don Shapiro at the Union
County Courthouse [Exhibit AA of Appellate Motion filed
On issue of Stay Pending Appeal, Judge Cassidy deferred
to Judge Brock who heard the divorce for which there was no legal marriage to
dissolve. Exhibit I is Judge Cassidy’s court order. This is now
the second time this issue has been postponed. If you remember from above, I
filed for stay pending appeal on
On the issue of Free Transcripts or
in the alternative Use The $10,000 Tax Trust Fund To
Pay For Transcripts: The motion was first buried from Nov 3 until
1.
There is the divorce appeal for which you have seen
proof that the plaintiff was married to another man at the time she married me.
Again, a brief and conclusive evidence is included
with [Appellate Motion filed
2. I filed a motion for indigency which Judge Cassidy denied but the Appellate Court Approved. So there is no question on the merit of this motion.
3. I filed a motion for free transcripts or in the alternative to use my $10,000 trust fund which is reasonable in light of my indigency.
4. I filed a motion which included a request that my passport be returned. Since the motion was granted, it was understood to have merit.
5. I filed a motion for reconsideration of Judge Cassidy’s decision to give my $10,000 trust fund to the plaintiff which was reasonable because Judge Cassidy herself determined that the case was already out of her jurisdiction when the decision was made.
6. I filed an emergent motion to take my child to the doctor which was granted. So it is assumed to be reasonable.
7.
I filed a motion that the plaintiff
show cause because she defied Judge Cassidy’s order and absconded with
my child to
8. I filed a motion for stay pending appeal which is reasonable because I can not approach the appellate division with this request until I have a written decision from the trial court on this matter.
9.
I filed a motion for reconsideration of the previous motion to show cause
because the plaintiff continued to violate court orders after Judge Cassidy cut
her a break during the previous hearing. Had the plaintiff not interfered with court
ordered visitation, not strong armed the visitation supervisor, not and used my
son to communicate her demands, and not interfered with court ordered telephone
contact, then I would not have filed for reconsideration. Exhibit J is
the motion I filed. It follows reason that if Judge Cassidy would like me to
file less motions, then she should advise the
plaintiff not to violate court orders. That is the purpose of asking her to
show cause. But after all these violations, Judge Cassidy has never even
compelled the plaintiff to appear in court for any reason. When I argued my
case on Feb 10, that the plaintiff should come before the judge to show cause;
the judge refused to look at the evidence or consider my child’s suffering.
First, the judge told me that she wouldn’t look at the plaintiff’s threatening
emails [Exhibits X and Z of Appellate Motion filed
10. Most importantly, were requests in the motions mentioned to address the well being of my son who is suffering terribly. If you have read up to this point, you can tell the plaintiff is angry, is using my son as a weapon, and is involving him in this legal battle. For this reason, I have asked the Judge Cassidy to mandate the Trans-Parenting course given by the Union County Family Court for both the plaintiff and myself (attending at different times of course). The course is devoted to teaching parents how to protect children from the trauma of family breakup. Who on earth needs this more than the plaintiff and I? The answer of course is my son. Judge Cassidy denied my request. For this reason, I am begging the Appellate Court to mandate this course for both the plaintiff and I so that we can learn what is necessary to keep my son from being further traumatized and so that we can learn to be better parents. Of course, the plaintiff will argue that she does not need to know how to be a better parent, but this belief unchallenged can only harm my son. All the evidence and five years of war make it clear that intervention is required.
11. Finally,
when it was discovered that the plaintiff did not have medical insurance for my
son in violation of a court order, I requested that Judge Cassidy mandate that
the plaintiff either get medical insurance for my son, or allow me to do it.
Judge Cassidy mandated that the plaintiff get the insurance [Exhibit V of
Appellate Motion filed
22. Child Suspended For Threatening To Defend Himself With Gun.
Full details of this incident are
included in [Exhibit CC of Appellate Motion filed
23. What I Am Asking The Court To Do.
1. I am asking that the court order the plaintiff to return the my son’s cell phone so that I may call him as is my right according to the divorce judgment and so that he may call me as is his right under court orders previous to the divorce judgment. Please note that using this phone is the only way I can initiate communications with my son because calling on the plaintiff’s phone would violate a five year old restraining order. The plaintiff may argue that the divorce judgment implicitly makes an exception in the restraining order that allows me to make one call a day to the plaintiff in order to reach my son, but I talked to Rahway police officer Lt Greyhill about this and he told me that the police would arrest me for making a call to the plaintiff if the restraining order was not changed. Further more, any judge who understands the enormous level of animosity that exists between the plaintiff and myself would provide a mechanism whereby I can parent my son without the need for contact with the plaintiff. The cell phone is that mechanism. By preventing my son from talking to me the plaintiff is only adding to my son’s isolation and is hiding my son’s needs from the courts.
2. I am asking that the plaintiff be restrained from using my son to communicate with defendant or visitation supervisor.
3.
I am asking the court to address the issue that my son
is unsupervised and unprotected after school as demonstrated by the
bullying/gun threat incident. Again, please see [Exhibit CC of Appellate
Motion filed
4.
I am requesting an order that I be notified by the
5.
I am asking the
6.
I am asking that the
7.
I am asking that the
8.
I am asking that the plaintiff be required to enroll in
a short anger management program directed toward protecting children from the
trauma of divorce. The Trans-Parenting course given by Don Shapiro of the Union
County Court would serve this purpose. In the alternative, I am asking that the
plaintiff appear before the court to show cause for perjury and contempt when
absconding with my child to
9. I am asking that I also be allowed to attend the Trans-Parenting course given by Don Shapiro of the Union County Court but at a different time than the plaintiff to avoid conflict.
10. I am asking that the court secure proof that my child (Jack Shearing) has medical insurance.
11. I am asking that Brian Schwartz of Ceconi and Cheifetz receive $500 for his work administrating the $10,000 tax trust fund over the past 5 years. Money for payment would come out of the $10,000 trust fund itself.
12. I am asking that the Appellate Court reverse Judge Cassidy’s previous decision to grant my $10,000 Tax Trust Fund to the plaintiff but rather leave the $10,000 fund in the possession of Brian Schwartz (my previous lawyer) until the Appeals Court decides whether or not I can use it to purchase transcripts and pay my back taxes and until the Appeals Court decides whether or not the plaintiff and I ever had a legal marriage or if she is even entitled to the money based on the possible reversal of the divorce.
13. In the alternative to permitting me to purchase transcripts with the $10,000 tax trust fund, I am asking for free transcripts as I am indigent and have no means to pay for transcripts of the divorce trial.
14. I am asking that the diamond ring which was handed over to the plaintiff under the divorce decision be returned to Brian Schwartz until the Appellate Court has had a chance determine if the plaintiff was ever in a position to make good on her promise to marry the me.
15. I am asking for a reversal of Judge Cassidy’s decision that all communications with the Family Court be required to go through regular mail. I am asking rather that this be left to the to the discretion of the defendant as I have in no way abused my rights in accessing the Family court system and because the plaintiff is not required to adhere to this order and has violated it already. The most important reason to reverse this decision is because this order prevents me from addressing the family court in an emergency as in the recent emergent motion to take my child to the doctor.
16. I am asking for a reversal of Judge Cassidy’s decision that all motions must be preapproved by her before I can file them because I have never abused my right to access the family court, have never filed a meritless motion, and because I have never filed a motion for any other reason than to solve a real problem that only the family court could address.
17. I am asking that in the future, all issues of court order enforcement and child welfare that would normally be routed through the Union County Family Court be routed instead to the Appellate Court because Judge Cassidy simply will not deal with these issues.
In conclusion, I realize that I am asking for a lot, but that is because a lot needs to be done. The list may be long, but the list is complete and is directed toward ending my child’s suffering and protecting his well being. I am begging you to give this matter consideration.
Respectfully,
John Shearing
CC Judge Cassidy, Howard Duff