Supreme Court of the State of New York
Appellate Division - Second Judicial Department
-------------------------------------
In the Matter of
SUSAN SAMORA
Appellate Division Docket No:
Petitioner -Respondent. 99-05230
-against-
RESPONSE TO LAW
PHOTIUS COUTSOUKIS GUARDIAN'S AFFIRMATION
Respondent -Appellant
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The undersigned Petitioner respectfully shows that:
REASONS FOR THE STAY ...................... 1
LAW GUARDIAN ....................................... 6
JUDICIAL IRREGULARITIES ................ 15
1. Following are the reasons why the unjustified and inhumane sentence
passed by Judge Braslow should be suspended.
2. UNWARRANTED: While the Petitioner filed a complaint where she
(falsely) accused me of telephone harassment, Judge Braslow sentenced
me to attend a class for batterers and to probation. At no time did the
Petitioner accuse me of battery or express fears of such a possibility and
Judge Braslow's decision made no mention of having found me guilty of
such a crime.
3. In my 51 years of life I have never committed a crime or violated any
laws. I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I don't party. I have never been in a
fight, not even in school. I have never owned a weapon of any sort. I
have received accolades, expressions of gratitude and commendations
from hundreds, if not thousands of individuals and organizations, including
NYPD, the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, a UNESCO prize nomination and a
letter of support and endorsement from His All Holiness Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew.
I am an innocent man, a model citizen, a devoted father and about as
virtuous as anyone can be in this land.
4. INHUMANE: The batterers class and probation require that I take at
least 15 (fifteen) hours of my time during business hours to go back and
forth to White Plains for these things. That would cause such a severe
hardship that the risk of loosing my modest livelihood altogether is real
and imminent. It is likely that I will end up out in the street.
5. Furthermore, having been forcibly and unjustly separated from my
daughter by Judge Braslow, with devastating consequences to me and to
my now multiply disabled young daughter, the sentence falls at a time
when I am scheduled to spend two two-week periods of vacation with her.
This case has always been about denial of access and about usurping a
father's parental rights (see below). The sentence simply further reduces
my severely battered child's time with the parent to whom she is rightfully
most attached, and it puts another nail in the coffin of fatherhood.
5a. Judge Bralow's new order takes the visitation exchange out of the
police station, where it took place on my request per the divorce decree
so as to avoid false accusations on the part of the Petitioner, and into my
car, away from witnesses, making me vulnerable to false accusasions,
and, therefore false arrest.
6. THE LAW GUARDIAN: According to FedEx, my papers were delivered
to Ms. Cotler on June 10, 1999 11:54 AM. The Court Clerk can verify this
with the tracking no. by calling 800-GO-FEDEX (see receipt). Ms. Cotler's
document is full of scurrilous lies, befitting the way rape victims are
demonized by unscrupulous lawyers in defending rapists.
6a. Judge Joan Cooney, in her order of recusal, hinted at the removal of
this derelict and malicious law guardian (see attached order of recusal by
Judge Cooney).
6b. Ms. Cotler was appointed law guardian on the occasion of Judge
Braslow convicting me of violating a temporary order of protection, without
a hearing, without representation, without evidence and without admission
of guilt. She and Mr. Domicello, the court appointed attorney for the
Petitioner have served the purpose of lending credibility to falshoods and
judicial misconduct. Judge Bralow reinstated the Oregon status at a
hearing.
7. From the moment that she was appointed to be the law guardian, Ms.
Cotler initiated and maintained close contact with Mr. Domicello, Susan's
New York court-appointed attorney, Christina Sanz, her Oregon attorney,
and a number of witnesses and unfriendly to me, such as Ms. Barbara
Kozol, who committed perjury, proof of which I subsequently submitted to
Mx. Cotler. Yet she avoided contact with me, at a time when my daughter
spent her days with me. My phone calls went unanswered and she did
not have a fax which would have been very useful for emergencies.
8. Ms. Cotler ignored Dr. David Oas' pleas and his written statements
warning about the dangers to my daughter from handing her over to
Susan. And in spite of the urgency of the matter, she refused to
accommodate my request that she speak with him. She called him a
hired gun, even though I explained to her that he performed a
court-mandated evaluation in the process getting to know me and Susan
and Teddy, my daughter, personally. And while she apparently felt it was
necessary eventually, many months later, to visit my daughter at Susan's,
she decided to ignore the fact that up to, until the catastrophic events
following our forced separation, Teddy spent every day with me, that I
raised her from birth and that clearly I was the more caring of the two
parents, always having chosen personal care for our baby, as opposed to
Susan's choice of handing her to strangers. The fact that I am the better
educated, more knowledgeable in medicine and child development, more
insightful and more honest of the two parents was also not a factor in her
thinking.
9. Had Ms. Cotler ever bothered to see me with my daughter, she would
have seen that it takes a huge effort for her to leave me. We are that
attached. Had she bothered to observe the visitation exchange, she would
have noted that, while she runs to me, she runs away from her mother
and that she hits, bites and scratches her mother, who has treated her so
horribly. Ms. Cotler has never expressed my child's wishes, which are
very emphatic, to be with me. But then Ms. Cotler abandoned her own
newborn to third parties so as not to interrupt her career, so ignoring her
own infant's wishes. I chose to raise my child personally, making serious
personal sacrifices in the process, without realizing that the militant
feminists of America would find that sufficient reason to persecute me and
to destroy my innocent child.
10. Additionally, when I complained to the Oregon judge that I was not
notified when my daughter was hospitalized and that having found out
about her hospitalization inadvertently from other sources, Susan
instructed the hospital staff to not allow me to visit, Susan testified in
court under oath, in Oregon, that she informed the law guardian, Ms.
Kotler, immediately and that she was asked to let me know. She did not
let me know and she did not intervene to allow my sick child to see me,
the person to whom she is most attached to and the one she respects the
most. And while Mr. Domicello, Susan's court-appointed attorney in New
York, had the decency to intervene and sign a letter regarding the New
York Family Court decision after Susan lied to the Oregon Court about it,
she chose to do nothing.
11. In spite of numerous warnings to her about the potential dangers to
my daughter from our unjustified forced separation, she exhibited a
complete lack of a sense of urgency and, upon my daughter's
hospitalization, complete apathy. As she knows, my daughter, who was
previously never admitted to a hospital, was hospitalized three times
following our separation. She also suffered brain damage and severe
disabilities, which were not present at the time that I contacted her. I
cannot imagine what the role of the law guardian would entail if it involved
ignoring dangers to a child's life.
12. Ms. Cotler had every opportunity to intervene and to ask the Court to
take action, so as to prevent this calamity. Instead, she chose to
postpone the hearing, in which the Family Court reinstated the then in
effect Oregon order where my daughter spent her days with me, so as to
facilitate the sinister goals of the other side.
13. I believe Ms. Cotler's actions are shameful and they portray not just
incompetence and dereliction of duty, but a failure as a human being. As
far as I'm concerned, she is as responsible for the terrible harm that was
inflicted on my daughter and to me as Susan is, and I view her as
someone who has Teddy's blood in her hands. She was appointed
seemingly for the purpose of lending credence to falsehoods emanating
from the other side. The Court should not allow Ms. Kotler's utterly
unqualified and biased diagnosis of my daughter, Theodora Coutsoukis,
but take a look at some of the medical and educational records from the
providers to whom the petitioner, that is, the other side, took my daughter
(already submitted to this court in my brief App. Div. No: 98-11277).
14. Ms. Kotler likes to act as a psychologist, a child development expert,
and a psychiatrist. She had every opportunity to look at the records from
the hospital where my daughter was hospitalized. She has evidence of
brain damage. She has all the medical records and educational records
which show how my daughter was diminished. She ignored them. She
just doesn't like to admit it. Judge Braslow chose not to ask for a
psychological evaluation of me, because she was made aware that a
psychological evaluation of the parties in Oregon revealed that I was
perfectly sane and the better of the two parents, while blasting the
Petitioner-Respondent, Susan, for usurping my parental rights and for
malicious denial of access (see below and Exhibit 1).
15. Early on during the proceedings in this matter, Judge Braslow
conveyed a threat to me through the Mr. Domicello, with whom she
collaborated ex parte behind my back, that I would have to either consent
to the Petitioner's totally unjustified and malicious order of protection or be
sentenced to probation and this batterer's class, regardless of the merits
of the case. Capitulating to such threats, while completely innocent, would
constitute acceptance of norms absent from even mildly democratic
societies.
16. I was convicted by a scandal tainted judge who made it clear that
under no circumstances would I be allowed to prove my innocence and
who conducted a veritable kangaroo court to railroad me.
17. Judge Braslow signed the order/sentence A MONTH AFTER
RECUSAL and in the midst of a drive for her removal from the bench.
This court must not allow me to become the victim of a malicious vendetta
by a judge on the ropes.
18. While Judge Tolbert, who signed the Petitioner's temporary order of
protection eliminated all the nonsense and limited it to not harassing her
by phone and not to call after 9:00 PM (things that I don't do), Judge
Braslow urged the Petitioner's court appointed attorney to bring in
additional charges, a modified petition.
19. After Judge Braslow's recusal, her supervising judge, Joan Cooney,
found it appropriate to not allow Judge Tolbert, who is obviously not
swayed by nonsense, to hear matters in this case, but held a hearing
herself, only to recuse herself, without a coherent explanation.
20. After Judge Cooney recused herself, again she chose not to allow
Judge Tolbert to hear this case. And while retaining jurisdiction in
Westchester County, she assigned the case to Judge Sweeny in Putnam
County.
21. Once she assigned the case to Judge Sweeny, Judge Cooney
retained my file in her chambers for OVER A MONTH, preventing action
on my motions by orders to show cause and denying me access to
documents that I needed for the brief which I recently filed with the
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
22. And while passing on to Judge Sweeny, very belatedly, some of my
pleadings, others were retained and not acted upon. They include my
motion by order to show cause requesting that my case be transferred to
Putnam County.
23. DENIAL OF ACCESS: The Petitioner's prior persecution in Oregon
resulted in a Court ordered psychological evaluation. The court mandated
psychological evaluator blasted the Petitioner for usurping my parental
rights and for denying me and my daughter access to each other (see
attached Exhibit 1).
24. Upon arrival in New York, the Petitioner found an advocate in an
inhumane and corrupt judge, who proceeded to brutalize me and my
daughter.
Theodora Coutsoukis, who was born with flawless genes, in excellent
health, superior neonatal scores, athletic and brilliant, is now crippled for
life, with multiple disabilities, as a consequence of the actions of the
Petitioner, her unscrupulous cohorts and Judge Braslow's malicious
actions. A summary of facts from the time of our arrival in New York,
excerpted from my brief is appended as Exhibit 2.
Dated: _____________________________
________________________
Petitioner
Sworn before me this _______ day of June, 1999
____________________________________
NOTARY PUBLIC FOR NEW YORK
My commission expires:
Photius Coutsoukis
1111 Howard Street
Peekskill, NY 10566
(914)739-8888 or (800)483-4856
Fax: (914)739-8913
email: Photius@theodora.com - URL: www.photius.com