New York, NY–
In my recent blog posts NY Court Delivers Devastating Blow to Major Opponent of Fathers’ Movement and Suspended Feminist Attorney Goldstein Calls Me a ‘Male Supremacist’, Defends Discredited Case, 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 lost custody of her two children to her ex-husband, Tim Shockome after a contentious custody battle in which Genia accused Tim of abuse.
Recently 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. My findings on Shockome can be found here.
Tim Shockome, Genia’s ex, has been quiet and has tried to keep the case and his children out of the media. However, he recently came out with the following statement about Goldstein and his case on the Legal Profession Blog:
Mr. Goldstein’s approach only works when people who have firsthand knowledge of the events aren’t around to contradict him. When the Appellate Court says “dishonest, false, or misleading statements”, that is exactly what I experienced.
Let’s look at his “dishonest, false, or misleading statements” made on this blog:
1. “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.”
Wrong. She never spoke with me, ever. Mr. Goldstein also seems to like to refer to me as “The Abuser’ for some reason. As if by repeating it over and over, saying it will make it so.
2. “She spoke with national experts and male supremacist representatives.”
What do any of those people have to do with my case? Again, an attempt to import legitimacy or lack thereof into my case from people who have nothing to do with me or my family.
3. “The mother had 11 witnesses including five experts and neutral witnesses such as the school nurse, son’s therapist and couple’s counselor, The abuser was his only witness.”
So what? Is Mr. Goldstein implying that he who has the most witnesses gains the moral high ground? Also, the School Nurse later testified to having filed one of the several failed CPS Reports against me, but Mr. Goldstein wants to call her neutral?
The person Mr. Goldstein refers to as my son’s “therapist” was in fact someone who saw him a few times as part of his client’s failed attempt to establish non-existent abuse. Judge Amodeo ordered that this so called “therapy” be stopped after I and the children’s then attorney Mr. Lane complained. Mr. Goldstein knows that my children’s REAL therapist was Ms. Berg who interviewed them multiple times outside of my presence and confirmed that no abuse had ever occurred.
“Couple’s counselor”? Give me a break. My ex wife and I saw the woman ONCE together. She was later deemed not to be credible by Judge Amodeo.
“The abuser was his only witness”.
Again, so what? The whole case revolved around false accusations, so who did I need to call? My experience was that so many witnesses actually worked against Mr. Goldstein because it made him look like he was desperately trying to establish something that didn’t exist.
4. “The evaluator admitted the father probably abused the mother physically, verbally and emotionally throughout the marriage and was probably witnessed by the children.”
Absolutely false. This woman is your “proof”? In fact, when questioned as to whether or not she thought abuse ever occurred, she said that she thought that “something might have happened” but that she couldn’t be sure, which in my eyes was a way for her to play it safe since she really had no way of knowing one way or the other. Furthermore, this woman was so persuaded by Mr. Goldstein that she still recommended that I retain primary custodianship of my children.
Also she NEVER said that the children witnessed any abuse. This was seconded by the children’s own therapist Ms. Berg.
5. “She said the mother’s PTSD was probably caused by the father’s abuse “.
Absolutely false. The woman never said this.
Mr. Goldstein”s “case’ was all one big house of cards where all the cards were lies. Once you peeled away the layers of innuendo, exaggeration, hyperbole and hysteria you were left with a whole lot of nothing.
I have enough bad memories from this to last me a lifetime. The above posting is a drop in the bucket of what took place during the years I went to Family Court in Poughkeepsie. Some people would be shocked at what I saw and experienced. I have been asked to write about it and have so far declined. I have never publicly commented on this case before now and have kept my kids away from any media and will continue to do so.
I only took the time to post this because I heard about the Court’s ruling and saw the garbage posted by this poor man and felt compelled to write a few lines to set the record straight.