Id like to talk a little bit about CPS, PTSD and a few other things in this last and final post. First, you may have read my story and said to yourself, well thats the way the court system works, things don’t happen immediately, it’s a process. Well, not so much in my case. I was told by numerous people that judge Piazza should have never taken my son from me or handled things the way he did initially. I also showed a few other police officers that are friends of mine the surveillance video and they stated that they would have never pressed charges like the ones I received. They stated that officer Hallmark was more then likely being told what to do by his boss (Jeremiah’s father) the lieutenant of the Sheriff Dept D. Mulson. During that entire court process, I started an online petition to get my case heard outside Chautauqua County courts since my sons father and grandfather have so much pull in this county and know the judges and lawyers. I had hundreds of people sign my online petition, but the courts never moved my case. This is a very small county and a lot of the judges and lawyers get together outside of work to play golf and converse, so when they get in the courtroom, they tend to have each others backs. This should not be tolerated. There is no way we can control who hangs out with who outside of work, but the entire court system should have judges from other counties take over any case that comes to them where the petitioner or respondent works for the county. CPS played another role in my story. They really were not too bad. Well, I’m not a bad parent, my house is always clean, messy but clean, so CPS really didn’t have much to do. They initially got involved when I got the “endangering the welfare of a child” charge. One person came over to the house to briefly look around. They didn’t check to see if I had food in the fridge or hot running water, nothing. Just walked through the house and that was that. The thing I didn’t like was that some lady went to my daughters school to talk to her in a room by themselves. No one told me about this, my daughter goes to a private school so you’d think they would have notified me or at least had someone sitting in on the interview. My daughter was 6 years old, came home and told me some lady with a black purse took her in a room to talk by themselves. I have since learned and told CPS and the school that if anyone ever wants to question my kids again, they are to have our counselor present. After 3 of my charges were dropped, CPS came to the house to look again and stated that she will be closing the case at this time. A month or so went by and I never received anything in the mail stating my case was closed so I called them and they said the lady who was handling my case left for another job and never closed my case. So someone else came to the house for a third time, looked around and stated they would for sure close the case now. They did. The next time CPS became involved (the diaper rash case) the lady was very nice, didn’t even come in the house, just said she had to make an appearance and if I wanted to set up an appointment for her to talk to my daughter with her counselor. I did, we went, things obviously went well so she had to make her second appearance to my house then she immediately shut down this case against me. So I was visited 5 times total by CPS. Lets lastly talk about PTSD. First and most importantly, my kids do not remember any of this so thank God they are mentally “normal”. All my daughter remembers is the play place in Jamestown her and her brother used to play at. She is 11 now and sometimes when we pass the building, she asks me if we can stop there to play. My mother still suffers today with the emotional toll this took on her. Jeremiah was not there for our sons birth, my mom was. My mom has always stepped in when the real father didnt. Every time my son has to go to his fathers house, my mother cries and becomes depressed while he is gone as if he is never coming back to us. My mother fears me updating our court order. She panics when we receive any mail from family court. My mother is a 76 year old retired nurse and should not have to deal with these feelings. Me? Well. For the longest time after this occurred, every time a car door would shut outside, I would run to the front door to see who it was thinking it was the police or cps. I saw a counselor at this time and she told me in time, this feeling would go away. With every car door that shuts and I see its not anyone for me, in time, I will stop running to the door. This took about a year and a half to accomplish, but it has happened, she was right. To this day, I stay far far away from my sons father and only communicate via talking parents app and only on a need to know basis. Yes my stomach turns about being in court again, but that court has issues in itself that need to be brought to light such as the Judges and lawyers hanging out together as stated above. The Sheriff Dept needs to be brought to light as well because there is an issue happening now that I’m seeing (for the second time) them press false charges on someone just for sake of their own personal gain. I will be reaching out to news stations across Western New York about this because it should be looked into. Although anytime anyone in the sheriff dept or courts is asked a question, its always “no comment” “no comment” I don’t know that person” I’m not related to that person”. Long story short, I do not feel comfortable going to the police station to ask for help with anything. Other then that, I am ok now. I have a great paying job, I have healthy children, a good family and friend support system and I always think to myself that maybe If this hadn’t happened to me, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to pass nursing school. Maybe not having my son so much at that point in time allowed me to study for my tests, do my homework, attend clinicals, and study for my NCLEX which is the main test you take for your nursing degree. So was it a blessing in disguise? Maybe. Everything happens for a reason but Sally was the ONE PERSON in that courtroom who would listen to me and helped me get my son back. Thank you Sally! Police reports and other documents will be uploaded to my site as soon as possible.
Category: Uncategorized
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Post #4 The moment we’ve been waiting for
November 5, 2019, Sally is now my lawyer. She immediately gets me in her office and I tell her my story, show her police reports, show her the surveillance video, and everything else I’ve talked about thus far. She immediately files some sort of paperwork to the courts and guess what. Whatever that was that she filed, we were in court on November 19,2019 and supervised visits stopped and I actually got 2 1/2 days of visitation per week with my son! This was fantastic to me. No more supervised visits, I get him at my house again! No more 2 hours a week, I get him for 2 full days! Not quite where I want to be, but we are working on it! It seems like from this point until the end, there was pre trial after pre trial after pre trial scheduled where nothing would happen. Nothing. – December 18 pre trial – the attorneys were running behind schedule with other clients so Pete Johnson (who is running for judge now), with no right to do so, he told me and the other party to leave for the day that we will reschedule. This was a week before Christmas and I was so upset, I wanted to see my son on Christmas. Sally again immediately filed something to get us back into court before Christmas. Because of this, I did end up getting some time Christmas Day with my son. Each time we presented in court, either the other party’s lawyer didn’t show up or they would make up a new story to tell the judge or something. Even Sally raised her voice a few times and appeared to be frustrated. I specifically remember judge Piazza would be fumbling through papers on his desk while Sally was speaking, then when Jeremiah’s lawyer would speak, Piazza would make eye contact and stop with the fumbling of papers. Piazza was very disrespectful towards us as was Craig Jackson (the “attorney” for my child whom he never even met). – January 14,2020 – Pre Trial – Jeremiahs lawyer was sick so none of them showed to court. Rescheduled for January 21, 2020. Sally must have contacted the courts somehow and asked if I could have my son on my pinning day for nursing school (We were halfway through the year!) She must have gotten the ok because I had my son on January 18th for my day. We celebrated with some food, cake and friends and I got to have my son overnight. Next morning at 9:00am, it was back off to dads house. Both my kids have always had very sensitive skin to the point where if they have a bowel movement, you must clean it up within the first minute or their behinds will start to become red in color and irritated very quickly. My son must have had a bowel movement while on the car ride back to his fathers house which is a 45 minute drive because his diaper was clean when he left me. Jeremiah must have gotten to his parents house (where Jeremiah resides), at some point saw that our son had a bowel movement, took a picture of his butt area, and took him to the emergency room at 1:15pm to the local hospital. I dont know that any of this is happening until we get into the courtroom on January 21. -January 21, 2020 – Pre Trial – We are all in front of the judge and the other party present with a new CPS case against me. My lawyer and I look at each other in awe not knowing where this is coming from. Long story short, Jeremiah went to the hospital, claimed child abuse from me AND my mother for a diaper rash. I will write what that report stated in another post. -January 29, 2020 – Sally immediately filed an order to show cause and here we were in court again. There was someone there who represented CPS and they spoke up and told the judge that an investigation had been done and the claims against me were unfounded. C. Jackson the attorney for the child spoke up and stated he thinks I should not get any more time added to my visitation and things should stay the way they are for now. Judge Piazza agreed with C. Jackson and court was dismissed. -February 5, 2020 – Pre Trial Rescheduled -February 19, 2020 My son had a doctor appt this day which I attend. At one point while we were waiting for the doctor to come in, Jeremiah, punched me in my arm in front of our son because he thought I was reaching to get his cell phone when I was actually going to pick our son up off the table whom was watching his phone. Seems like we have a lot of issues when it comes to his cell phone dont we!? My son starts crying, I walk out of the room and talk to the nurses and doctor and I end up deciding I should call the police. Where the doctor office was, I had to deal with state police. They came, wrote up a report with me, spoke to Jeremiah for a few minutes, and that was it. I had to go through hell and back to even get a copy of the police report which I still never got to this very day. I had to apply online to get a copy of it and they said it would not be available until August 10, 2020! Like excuse me? Its February! It was told to me by the state trooper that Jeremiah was going to be arrested for harassment charges. But was he ever? Nope. -February 28, 2020 – Pre Trial – Order of protection put in place on Jeremiah towards me (from incident), nothing else happened this day in family court. But me, when I supposedly “hit” him, I got my child taken from me. – I do believe around this time was when Covid hit and everything started to shut down around us including the courts….. So…. -March 15 Pre Trial Canceled -March 23 Pre Trial Canceled -April 1 was supposed to be our Trial day – Canceled! Everything in life was at a standstill for about a month or so. After that, we would meet with our lawyers in their offices, the judge would be on a zoom call with all of us and that was our court from here fourth. Every single time we would have a zoom meeting, I was hoping the judge would just dismiss everything since it was taking so long or just schedule the trial already! Sally kept filing paperwork and fighting so hard to come to an agreement or dismissed. At one point, Jeremiahs lawyer said to us that if I give up the monthly child support I would normally get from Jeremiah, they will dismiss their case. Sally told me not to do that. At this point, I just wanted my kid back but I listened to her. All of a sudden it is August 13, 2020 and we are in yet another zoom meeting in our lawyers offices. I just sat back in my chair almost zoning out because I knew good and well nothing was going to come of this pre trial just like the last 20 of them over the past year. All I remember was Sally starting to raise her voice a little to everyone on the zoom meeting (it was the same story over and over and over again from everyone) and all of a sudden I hear, “Ordered that the respondent’s motion to dismiss is denied, and respondents request to vacate the temporary order dated August 6, 2019 is hereby granted and it is further ordered that the temporary order dated August 6, 2019 is hereby vacated and the order dated May 16, 2019 is in full force and effect.” THIS WAS THE MOMENT WE WERE WAITING FOR! We jumped up, hugged, cried, laughed, it was one of the moments in my life I will never forget. I am pretty sure I heard the attorney for the child state that he still wanted to have a trial date set for this. They may have set up a trial date, im not sure, but all I knew was I had my son back! This trial never happened by the way, Jeremiah and his lawyer withdrew. I remember Jeremiah messaging me just after all this was done this day and asking me if he could keep our son for the rest of the day because it was his day off of work. Here I am now scared to death to violate the court order or do anything wrong so I said ok. May I say that during all of this mess, I graduated nursing school! I am now an LPN!
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Post #3
I’m in the hospital, they give me a pill of some sort, and send me on my way home. My mom drives me to my brothers house where I just hold my son in my arms for the next hour or so. My mother and sister in law then take my son to wherever they decided to do the exchange to give my son to his father. This pill they gave me in the hospital works amazing because I just curl up in a ball and go to sleep for the rest of the day. The next day, I HAVE to act like everything is ok because I have my 6 year old daughter who notices something is different, but I must stay strong for her and take care of her. The first thing I start to take care of is setting up my visitation hours with someplace in Jamestown that does supervised visits. It comes to my attention very much later on that I could have somehow had my mother supervise my visits, but I was told by the judge that my visits are to be at this place in Jamestown for now. They had no availability for me to see my son that first week, so we set up a visit for 2 weeks from now. 2 weeks without seeing your 1 year old whom you’ve hardly spent time away from… what an awful feeling this is. In the meantime, my nursing classes start up. At least this keeps me busy, occupies my time, and gives me something to look forward to. I was in nursing school full time with a 6 year old at home so I did not work during this time, I had my mother to help support us for the time being, but on September 9, 2019, Jeremiah filed for me to pay child support. Yes it was only $25 per month since I did not work, but being a nursing school student whom just spent hundreds of dollars on textbooks and scrubs, getting $0 a month in income, $25 was hard to come up with. I asked the courts what was I supposed to do? Go around town and collect bottles and cans? They just apologized because they did understand. – August 26, 2019: Our first Pre Trial. No agreement – September 2019, in the town of Portland Court (where country fair is located), I must say that the judge was very nice to me, kind and understanding. My lawyer D. Civilette spoke to the district attorney for a little while in another room and immediately 3 of the 4 charges against me were dismissed. They told me they had to keep at least one because they can’t just dismiss everything without a trial. I didn’t have the money for a trial and just wanted to get this over with so basically, I agreed to do probation for 6 months then it would be dropped. I had to see my probation officer, she was a female and very nice to me, once per week just to check in and be on my way. Easy! She actually somewhat became a friend of mine and I’m happy I got to meet her! Lets talk for a minute about this supervised visitation and what its like. It would occur on a weekday during school hours so I would sign my daughter out of school early once a week to come with us to see my son. We would get in our own separate room from others having visitation time and my kids would play together the entire time and they actually had fun! I asked the people supervising if we could go to the playground behind the building and they claimed they were short staffed and we were not allowed to go to the playground or for walks around the block or anything. We had to stay in this room for 2 hours. One of our visitation days, my son came in and was all of a sudden walking around and saying “mama”. He also came in once with a new haircut. The person supervising handed me an envelope which stated “Anthony’s First Haircut” with a chunk of hair in it. All of this mess made me miss out on my sons first steps, first words and first haircut. And I feel like Jeremiah giving me this envelope was just a slap in the face. But thanks I appreciate it…. I suppose. I remember going into the kitchen of this place to warm up a bottle or food, and seeing another mother feeding her child who couldnt have been any more then 9 months old. No words were exchanged, but the look on this mothers face was just about as sad and depressed as mine was. I have no idea why she got her child taken away, but it was just a sad sad sight and a sad memory to this day. One visitation day we ended up being about 5 minutes late. They would always have the visiting party (me) come 15 minutes early before the visitation time started. So say our visitation time was 11:00. We arrived at 10:50 instead of 10:45 and we were told we could not have our visitation this day because we did not call ahead of time to say we were running late. After they told me this, they then called Jeremiah whom was already parked right out front with my son in his truck and he then left. We were all right there and available for this visit! I was mad, my mother was upset and my daughter started crying because we had to go. It took everything in me to not flip out because this made no sense to me and I was never notified verbally or in writing that we had to call if we were running late. The staff there were far from friendly, they watched every little thing we did, I think one time I had a cup of coffee and my son reached for it and I gave him a tiny sip and let him smell it and the person watching me ran into my room yelling “you can’t do that!” Again, it took everything in me to keep my mouth shut. We were able to bring in pumpkins to carve together, overall the kids had fun. Again, my daughter was young and not exactly understanding what was going on, but she drew a picture at one point during these few months of a tall person (her) holding up a little person (her baby brother) and at the top of the picture it reads “Missing” at the bottom it reads “Help”. Looking at this picture today breaks my heart for her. – October 23,2019: Second Pre Trial. No agreement Remember how my lawyer D. Civilette told me to go around and get a mental health evaluation? Well, I went to a few different places and people that I knew and had them all write to him and the courts. My counselor, my nursing instructor whom also did background checks on me, the priest at my local church, my doctor, my kids school principal and my daughters school teacher ALL wrote up a statement about me as a person and mother. Not one negative remark from any of those people. The girl at the mental health clinic was significantly younger then I was (seemed like a new graduate) and stated that I have depression. Well yeah I do now, didnt before I got my kid taken from me. Court just seemed to be going nowhere during these pretrials and D. Civilette kept telling me the next step is a trial and there is nothing else he can do for me in the meantime. Every time I would ask him, “But can’t we do this or can’t we do that”, he would stop what he was doing, look me in the eyes and say to me, “You are not understanding what I am telling you. Nothing more can be done for right now. The next step is a trial”. All of a sudden, D. Civilette tells me that he does not do family court trials. When all of this started, I knew of Civilette as a great criminal lawyer. When I originally hired him for my criminal case, he stated to me that the same person (him) who is handling my criminal case should probably also handle my family court case. Of course why would I not believe him? After all, he is the professional right?! Now suddenly he’s telling me he doesn’t do family court trials. I said OK. In my head I was thinking “You suck anyways”. It was at this time that my mother and a friend of mine helped me out financially and I retained the best lawyer one could get their hands on in this county! Someone who will fight for you and all that is right. Sally Jaroszynski. Best decision I ever could make for myself and my children.
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My year in family court August 2019 – August 2020 continued… Post #2
As I continue with my blogging career, I will become more familiar with how to attach copies of things such as the police reports and the surveillance video itself. Until then, if anyone would like to see any of these things, please reach out to me and I will send you copies via email. I would like to bring up the police report that officer Hallmark gave when speaking to Jeremiah. It does state that officer Hallmark did not see any redness or bruising of any kind on Jeremiahs face. Also how Jeremiah states I “close fist punched him on the right side of his face, I am right handed, I had my son over my left shoulder and me and Jeremiah were facing each other; If I did strike him, it would have been on his left side of his face. He is left handed so maybe that is where he got the idea of a punch on his right side of his face? Also, all of this is occurring just days before I start nursing school. Regardless, here we go with family court.
The day is August 6, 2019, just 5 days after my sons first birthday. There I am in the courtroom with my mom, my lawyer D. Civilette, my sons law guardian who never even met my son, Jeremiah and his male lawyer. Jeremiah presented his case for about 5 minutes, my lawyer spoke for about 5 minutes, judge Piazza excused himself from the bench for about 3 minutes, came back into the courtroom and stated that temporary full custody goes to Jeremiah and I get 2 hours of supervised visitation per week, he placed an order of protection which told me that I had to stay away from both Jeremiah and my son, then he left the bench. My vision went black, I fell to the floor and started to have a hard time breathing. Trying to comprehend what I just heard but I knew exactly what I just heard. Jeremiah won and I lost my son. Thats what I heard. My baby boy whom I carried alone, birthed alone, raised alone, baptized alone, just got taken from me. My best friend Russ was a court officer there and rushed in to see me. He tried talking to me, held me in his arms and told me I should go to the hospital to be checked out due to my breathing. I agreed, so then in come the emt’s who took me out on a gurney. Embarassing? Clearly it was for my current lawyer because of the letter he sent me in the mail just a week after that…. the writing in the parentheses are my words, not my lawyers…… “Dear Ms Martell, The court occurrences were very unfortunate. Your mother should not have intervened. (I think my mom stood up and said something to the judge after his ruling) Your meltdown confirmed to the court that there is a significant problem. I am advised that it is not the first time that the court has observed abhorrent behavior from you and your mother. (Im sorry for crying in the courtroom because my son was just taken from me and I literally have no idea where Civilette is getting any of this information from about me or my mother acting out previously? Never happened before.) I cannot continue to represent individuals who are unable to control themselves. You must immediately contact the Chautauqua County Dept of Mental Health for an immediate examination. Unless the court sees that there is some curative action being taken, it is unlikely that the court will rule in your favor. Unless you undertake this curative action immediately, I will not be able to continue in my representation of you. Thank you for your courtesies. Sincerely, D. Civilette” Im sorry, but reading this letter 5 years later is making me mad. I do feel like everyone in this court system, including some lawyers, are all in this together.
I just finished writing this and my computer broke. Coincidence? I will finish writing my story on my phone then. I am determined to get my story out and nothing, I repeat, nothing will stop me. Thank you for your patience as I deal with this issue
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I would like to share with you my experiences with the Chautauqua County Family Court and its current judge
Hello and thank you for reading my blog about what happened to me in the courts in 2019 – 2020. It has been about 4 years since I got my son back in my custody and I have not gone into detail or even tried to think about the things that I went through for that entire year, but with this being an election year and voting in a new judge, I find it very important to share my story and hope you will share it with others and take this into consideration when voting this November.
My story initially begins when I was pregnant with my son. His father and I were together, on again off again for about 3 years prior. He left me for good when I was 6 months pregnant, did not show to the birth regardless of how many calls / text messages I had sent him, yet our son was a planned pregnancy so of course, I started the family court process shortly after I gave birth. Naturally I was angry with him for not acknowledging my calls and texts, one minute I would be sad then next i’d be mad. One week after I gave birth, Jeremiah went to the Ripley town court and had me arrested for harassment because of these texts. He stated they were “annoying”. I feel I must add that never at any point did i ever threaten Jeremiah with anything. After a few months, we finally had our child support and court order agreement made up and finalized. There was a period of time, about 2 months, where Jeremiah and I got along, communicated, and went out and did things with our son and my daughter. As usual, an “argument” or “disagreement” of some sort occurred via text and this one particular exchange day would change my life forever.
Jeremiah would usually have visitation with our son for 2 overnights per week. We would then exchange our son in a public place which was agreed upon to be Country Fair. As stated above, Jeremiah and I had a disagreement via text and I was quite disappointed and upset over whatever it was about. So on July 20, 2019, I drove out to the Country Fair to receive my child back from Jeremiah. Our son was not yet a year old, so he could not walk and had to be carried from vehicle to vehicle. I parked next to Jeremiahs truck, got out of my car and waited for him to bring our son over to me. Our son was asleep so we gently exchanged him as to not wake him up. I placed my sleeping son over my left shoulder and unfortunately gave the middle finger to Jeremiahs face. A decision I would regret the rest of my life. Not at any point did I touch Jeremiah with my hand. I turned around and started to put my son in his carseat and I could then hear Jeremiah talking on his cell phone to whom appeared to be the sheriffs department. I shall note at this time that Jeremiah works for the Chautauqua County Sheriff Dept in the jail division so these are his coworkers. I just continued to put my son in the car, shut the door, and started walking over to my drivers side door. Jeremiah proceeded to walk behind my vehicle and stand there as to not allow me to leave. I walked to the back of my car and reached for his phone so I could speak with the police. Jeremiah turned to his left, away from me and he dropped his phone on the ground, at no point did I get to touch his phone. He picked it up and continued talking on it as I then turned and walked to get inside my car. I got in my car, started it up, and saw Jeremiah was proceeding to stand behind it. I yelled out my window for him to move that I was about to back up. I put my car in reverse and slowly started to back out of my parking space. I am unaware if the car tapped him at any point or if he just moved out of the way, either way, he moved and I took the car over to a pump to get gas before heading home. I called the sheriff dept and told them what was occurring and asked if I had to stay until police arrived or if I could go home. They stated as long as I am not being detained by an officer, I can go home. I got gas in the car then went home.
A few hours later, officer Hallmark of the Sheriff Dept came to my house to get a statement from me. I told him exactly what I stated above and he told me he would get back to me after reviewing Country Fair’s video surveillance. 6 days later, some woman came to my house serving me with paperwork and I got a call from officer Hallmark stating I am being arrested for 4 things and I am go to to the jail to be fingerprinted. I asked the officer on the phone why I was being charged with all of that stuff if survailance shows I didnt do anything. He refused to speak to me about the issue. My charges were as follows: 1.) Harassment in the second degree: “That Danielle Martell did intend to harass, annoy and alarm Jeremiah by striking him on the right side of the face and nose with a closed fist”. 2.) Endangering the welfare of a child: “That Danielle Martell did knowingly act in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical welfare of a child less than seventeen years old when she did strike Jeremiah Mulson in the face while she was holding child”. 3.) Criminal mischief in the fourth degree: “Danielle Martell did attempt to take a cell phone from Jeremiah Mulson and did cause him to drop the phone while he was engaged in the process of seeking emergency assistance from police”. 4.) Reckless endangerment in the second degree: “Danielle Martell did recklessly engage in conduct that created a substantial risk of serious physical injury to Jeremiah Mulson by backing a car into Mulson as he was standing behind it. Officer Hallmark came up with all these charges right along side with Jeremiah’s father who was the Lieutenant of the Sheriff Dept in the jail division.
I had heard of a good local criminal lawyer whom I decided to retain for the criminal part of this. He stated to me it might be a good idea to hire him for the family court part of it as well. This ended up being a huge mistake. He is very good at what he does in criminal court, but ended up knowing little to nothing about how family court works. I will begin to list the dates, times and what occurred in court…….
My Story Of The Unjustness In Chautauqua County Family Court 