Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Tim's Side

I was pretty surprised when Newsweek published the article in the September 25 edition, "Fighting Over the Kids," by Sarah Childress. After all, I'd thought the Genia Shockome story had gone cold; that she'd been abandoned by the activist machine that adopted her once her usefulness ran out with the exposure of the facts of the case. That was May 2005, but there she was again, in a story in Newsweek.

When her story first broke, it was the kind of copy an editor dreams of: a mother of two, seven months pregnant with a third child, sentenced to 30 days in prison for contempt of court. Her crime? She had the audacity to interrupt a judge about to award custody to a batterer. This was clear evidence that our culture's callous disregard for women and institutional support of domestic violence are indeed an epidemic and a crisis in need of immediate redress.

But I knew differently because I'd seen the 55 page court decision that summarized the entire case, spanning years and characterized by Tim Shockome's lawyer, Philip Kenny and most other officers of the court, as the worst divorce case they'd ever seen. There is much more to this case than has been reported by Trish Wilson or Mo Therese Hannah or any of the other host of amateur writers and political entrepreneurs who attached themselves to the drama. But most surprising is Sarah Childress. After speaking with Philip Kenny and confirming that he had in fact spoken to Sarah and provided to her a copy of the court decision, it's difficult for me to accept that Ms. Childress did anything other than willfully misrepresent this story -- an odd thing to do for a professional journalist with a solid reputation, writing for a publication like Newsweek. She's hung her reputation on Genia Shockome, and I wonder if the hundreds of letters that Newsweek has received have her wondering if that was a mistake. Needless to say, I'll be thinking of this story whenever I read anything Ms. Childress writes again, or for that matter, if I pick up Newsweek in the dentist's office.

The story isn't sexy or shocking or ground breaking investigative journalism. It's just plain sad, and there's a little boy and little girl living in Texas right now who are painfully aware of how their mother is slandering the name of their father and how a national publication like Newsweek is helping add to the unjust grief they've already experienced.

I urge anyone reading this, to please take a few minutes to read the entire 55 page decision (linked above), which portrays a much more complex situation than has been reported elsewhere.

In the past year and a half, there've been some serious allegations about Tim Shockome leveled ultimately by Genia, and disseminated by the media and blogosphere. It's time to take a look at these allegations and shed some light on Tim's side of the story.

Let's start with the Newsweek article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14870310/site/newsweek/

In her article, it's apparent that Sarah Childress implies an awful lot, but is careful not to say anything really about Tim. She mostly demonizes him through association with the subject, assuming from the start that Genia is truthful and qualifying most of the unsupportable claims with phrases like, "she says." So first to examine are the premises of the article, which are that Tim Shockome is a batterer, and that the judge awarded him custody based on parental alienation syndrome (PAS).

First, there is nowhere in the court decision that supports the idea that Tim Shockome ever committed any act of physical violence against his wife or abuse against his children. During the custody trial, Judge Amodeo employed the expertise of seasoned domestic violence advocate and researcher, Meg Sussman, a licensed psychologist experienced in custody evaluations involving domestic violence and child abuse. Upon completion of her evaluations of the children and the parents, Dr. Sussman concluded that the allegations were unsupported and that custody should remain with Tim. She further concluded that Genia should continue to have her visitation supervised.

The restraining order entered against Tim was for allegedly calling Genia 25 times in one day and banging on her door and cursing. This order was simply allowed to expire on its own. The only witness to the alleged incident failed to show up to testify. Nowhere in the course of this trial was there ever a single supported incident of physical violence against Genia or the children.

Second, there is nowhere in the court decision that references PAS or Richard Gardner, or anything similar. Genia lost custody of her children mainly for her refusal to adhere to any of the orders of the court. It's important to remember that Genia actually started out this case with primary physical custody of the children with the terms of the joint custody arrangement contained in a detailed agreement. Genia honored the agreement for only eight days. But this was just one incident among many, and indeed, the court decided the case based on several factors.

Taking this case as a whole, it should be clear to any reasonable person that Judge Amodeo, far from being the monster portrayed by bloggers, journalists and activists, took great care and consideration in this custody determination and should be commended for refusing to fold to misinformed popular pressure. A quick Google search of the term "Shockome" reveals a trail of slander of Amodeo second only to Tim Shockome.

Childress did, however, allow one blatant lie slip through her careful editing. She states that Genia has been barred from seeing the children. This is completely untrue. Genia is, in fact, allowed to see the children whenever she wants and was implored to do so at her appeal by Justice Sandra Miller. The terms of visitation are simple: Genia must arrange to see them at a supervised visitation center (names and addresses of two were provided to her. She has chosen not to contact them). Tim Shockome pays for the plane ticket. In fact, Genia has only seen the children twice in the last two years -- in March, 2004 and August, 2005 -- by her own choice. This choice is described by Genia and her attorney, Barry Goldstein, as a “strategy” similar, apparently, to the strategy of refusing to pay child support.

Here are a few of the more heavily trafficked links in support of Genia and defamation of Tim and Judge Amodeo:
http://trishwilson.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/more_on_the_gen.html

http://www.thelizlibrary.org/outrage/shockome.html

http://redstatefeminist.blogspot.com/2006/09/newsweek-genia-shockome-and-glenn.html

http://www.judicialaccountability.org/articles/motherfightforkidsjailed.htm

http://www.scamsandscandals.com/genia.html

http://www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org/genia

If you read the 55 page decision and then read some of this stuff, it's hard to imagine that anyone who wrote these articles read the decision. But I believe most or all of them did.

In reading through this court decision, one thing becomes obvious: many opposed to the reform of parents’ rights in America have no problem with willfully misrepresenting facts in an effort to gain the support of reasonable people for a cause which is hardly reasonable. If there is anything to come from this bit of investigation I’ve done and the few paragraphs I’ve written, I hope that it is that Tim and the kids – and even Genia – will be able to get on with their lives without interference. The children are reaching an age now when their friends and schoolmates are surfing the internet and will likely come across some of the vitriol being spewed by Genia and those who provide her with a soapbox to do it. Maybe having the facts of the case out there will impede the use of this family as a point of rhetoric. By all accounts, the children are doing well in Texas and would very much like to see their mother. Perhaps if she is no longer enabled by the cast of loonies who trot her out, she’ll choose to do the right thing, abandon her “strategy” and get on a plane to Texas.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow.

When you read through the document and then read stuff like the Newsweek article and what others were saying, you begin to realize just how bad the media can be.

I feel sorry for this guy. It seems like if anyone was a victim of emotional abuse, it was him and his kids.

8:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yet public sympathy now lies with Genia, and it always seems to be this way regarding women.

Avoid marriage like the ugly plague it is, brothers. You can't win.

2:06 AM  
Blogger Kirigakure said...

Excellent find sir!

Keep up the good work.

If the public at large knew the whole story about this case, many of these so called Domestic Violence Advocates would be rightfully worried about keeping their jobs.

10:37 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This "sir" is Timothy Shockome himself. Of course he "found it", he has this document from crooked judge as a bible by his bed, along with a gun and porno magazines. In reality this "sir" is an abusive, worthless, low life, sexual deviant half-gay/ half sadistic hetero "something".
Read about the decision.

http://www.thelizlibrary.org/outrage/shockome.html#liznoteone

12:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pregnant Ma Lands in Jail for Fighting to Get Kids
By Brad HamiltonNew York PostMay 15, 2005


A "mother of the year" is in jail because she peppered a divorce judge with harsh questions and objections in court.
Seven-months pregnant Genia Shockome's out-of-work and allegedly abusive husband Timothy then moved to Texas, taking the couple's son Alexander, 10, and daughter Victoria, 8.
The ruling on May 5 by Poughkeepsie Family Court judge Damian Amodeo sent Russian-born Shockome, a 33-year-old IBM software engineer, to prison over Mother's Day.
"I was objecting," Shockome said in a teary jailhouse interview with The Post after she and Amodeo went toe-to-toe in a wild clash straight from Al Pacino's "And Justice For All."
"He was saying, this is what the mother did, this is what was said. It wasn't true. So I said, 'That's a lie.' "
Shockome at first asked to know what the proceeding was about and for time to get a court-
appointed lawyer, which the judge denied, saying she had not filled out the right form.
But she set off fireworks when she accused him of misrepresenting the record.
"If you open your mouth once more, you are going to jail," the judge warned.
"Already heard that before," she snapped back.
He warned her several more times, she continued to object, and he sent her to prison for 30 days without bail.
His decision outraged women's-rights groups.
"The judge always sided with the father's lawyer," said Jennifer Shagan, who heads the Dutchess County chapter of NOW, the National Organization for Women, and has followed the case for three years.
"Why would he take this woman's children away and give them to a man who is abusive and has no money? It makes no sense."
Shockome is well liked in Poughkeepsie, where she was named mother of the year by two victim-advocacy groups in 2003 after battling in court with her husband, a native Texan she met in Moscow and married there in 1996.
Genia Shockome, an IBM employee earning $65,000 a year, also won three gold medals in the pentathlon at last year's Empire State Games and is expecting a child with her current boyfriend, a track coach.
During the interview, Shockome said the judge had threatened to jail her dozens of times in the past and said the case turned against her after she fired Michael Kranis, a politically connected lawyer and friend of the judge.
She said she grew fed up with Kranis after paying him $17,000 and watching her divorce case drag on for years without resolution. She's now suing Kranis and the judge in federal court.
Neither Kranis nor Amodeo returned calls seeking comment.
Amodeo at first gave her the kids, but awarded full custody to the father in 2003, limiting her to strictly supervised visits.
His ruling was based on his belief that she lied about her husband's abuse although another judge issued an order of protection against Timothy Shockome for harassing her and the husband spent two days in jail for violating the order in 2001.
Amodeo also said she repeatedly bad-mouthed the father to the kids, an act that allows judges to take away custody under the state's "parental alienation" provision.
But he also said she "provided them with good, wholesome and beneficial care," and noted contradictions in the father's statements and an outburst of anger in which he pounded on her door and shouted expletives.
Court spokesman David Bookstaver said Amodeo acted properly, was "extremely patient," and used jail "only as a last resort."
"She threw herself into jail," he said. "If you make a mockery of the system, the system falls apart."

12:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is the Suprevisor Viola Stroud who did not report the abuse of the children by their father to the court. Judge Amodeo loved her so much until Genia Shockome had exposed her. His reaction - send Genia to jail. He wanted to destroy the tape, but he could not - Genia had never given him the original.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Children's supervisor shown sleeping on job
Gannett News Service

A videotape played in Dutchess County court Friday showed a court-appointed supervisor apparently sleeping while she was supposed to be overseeing a visit in Poughkeepsie between two children and their estranged mother.
The tape, made by the children's mother, showed Viola Stroud of Mahopac sitting motionless on a couch, her eyes closed and her face tilted forward, as the children played a noisy game of air hockey several feet away.

Later, Stroud is seen telling the mother to ''shut that off'' and hiding her face behind a handful of papers. She also demanded that the woman, Yevgenia Shockome, turn over the camera and the tape, and threatened to ''call the authorities.''

''You're breaking the rules. Please don't take my picture,'' Stroud said.

Stroud runs an organization called Little Angels Supervised Visitation, which provides court-ordered oversight of children and non-custodial parents accused of domestic violence, drug abuse or other problems. The private agency has received appointments in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties.

Checks written to self

Stroud has also served as a court-appointed guardian for mentally incapacitated adults and, in September, published reports said she wrote tens of thousands of dollars in checks to herself, to ''cash'' and to Little Angels after she was given control over the finances of three Putnam women.

Last month, the Putnam district attorney confirmed a criminal investigation of Stroud after a state judge ordered her to repay more than $30,000 to a Mahopac woman who suffered blindness and brain damage after a car crash.

Stroud, 61, was not present in the courtroom Friday and did not return a telephone message left at her home. Her lawyer, Ronald Levine of Poughkeepsie, was not in his office late yesterday afternoon and did not return a message left with a receptionist.

Shockome, who is involved in a bitter, four-year divorce case, said she made the tape at her Poughkeepsie condominium on Aug. 28. Shockome, 32, said her visitation rights were canceled afterward.

Shockome said Stroud routinely slept during more than 20 previous supervised visits between Shockome and her children, whose father has sole custody.

''I liked it, because when she was sleeping I had more private time with my kids,'' Shockome said.

At an Aug. 31 court hearing, Stroud denied sleeping during any of the visits, Shockome said.

Dutchess County Family Court Judge Damian J. Amodeo, who appointed Stroud to Shockome's case and presided over Friday's hearing, did not comment on the content of the hourlong tape.

12:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is Tim's and Amodeo's favorite again.

By BRUCE GOLDING
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: December 16, 2004)


WHITE PLAINS — A court-appointed monitor is no longer being assigned cases after she was caught apparently sleeping during a visit between two children and their estranged mother, a high-ranking judge said yesterday.

Judges initially were told to stop referrals to Viola Stroud and her Little Angels Supervised Visitation Inc. in late September after The Journal News reported Stroud had written tens of thousands of dollars of checks to herself, "cash" and her agency after being named legal guardian of three aging and incapacitated women in Putnam County during the 1990s.

"Obviously, at that particular time, she was not doing her job," said Nicolai, who oversees the courts in the five counties north of New York City. "I'm confident that she has not gotten an assignment since this came out."

Neither Stroud nor her attorney returned telephone messages yesterday. Last week, Stroud, 61, of Mahopac said she hadn't seen the videotape but denied that she was asleep when it was made.

Stroud worked as a court-appointed mediator in Putnam before running Little Angels, which provided monitoring services for visits between children and noncustodial parents accused of problems including domestic violence and substance abuse. She also was the court-appointed guardian for at least three women

In October, a state judge ordered Stroud to repay more than $30,000 she improperly spent while controlling the finances of a woman who suffered blindness and brain damage after a car crash. The Putnam district attorney later confirmed an ongoing criminal investigation of Stroud.

The video of Stroud was played last week in Dutchess County Family Court in connection with a 4-year-old divorce case involving the woman who shot the tape, Yevgenia Shockome, 32.

Shockome said Family Court Judge Damian J. Amodeo, who presided over the court session, assigned Stroud to her case after Shockome lost custody of her children. Shockome said her visitation rights were canceled after she made the tape.

A call to Amodeo's chambers yesterday was referred to a spokesman for the state court system, who said Amodeo could not comment because judges were prohibited from discussing cases pending before them.

12:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Judge Amodeo is such a sensitive person! He just can't take Genia's multiple objections anymore. Such a rude woman! So what she is pregnant - does not matter, even if the baby is born right in the cell. Hell with her baby, just like hell with all other kids that come through his dirty hands, including the ones he let the abusive and sexually sick Timothy to take to Texas. Truly, an Honorable Butcher Amodeo.

Pregnant woman gets 30 days in jail for spat with judge

By Larry Fisher-Hertz
Poughkeepsie Journal

For five years, Yevgenia Shockome has been locked in a bitter divorce and child custody dispute.

An IBM software engineer who emigrated from Russia nine years ago, Shockome said Tuesday she'd learned some hard lessons about the American legal system during her court battle.

Her case took an almost unprecedented turn last week when she landed in jail — the result of an argument with a judge in Dutchess County Family Court.

Judge Damian Amodeo cited Shockome for contempt of court Thursday and sentenced her to 30 days behind bars. In his citation, Amodeo said Shockome had accused him of "lying" and "conspiring to fix the case, and thereby was guilty of disorderly, contemptuous and insolent behavior. ..."

Seven months pregnant and clad in an orange jumpsuit, Shockome talked about her case as she sat on a wooden bench in the visiting room of the county jail Tuesday.

Plight no surprise

She said she was distressed, but not surprised, by what had happened to her.

"I grew up in Russia, in a system where the state oppressed its people," the 32-year-old mother of two said. "Now, I come to America and this happens."

"People ask me, 'Do I love America?' I say yes, in my dreams of what America is, yes I do," Shockome said. "But the reality? No, the reality is something different."

Shockome has maintained almost from the outset of her case that Amodeo and others involved in the proceedings have unfairly sided with her husband, Timothy Shockome. Amodeo awarded Timothy Shockome sole custody of the two children, ages 8 and 10, last year. Timothy Shockome reportedly moved the children to Texas last week.

Amodeo is barred by law from commenting publicly on the case, said Joan Posner, his law clerk. But Yevgenia Shockome said her ongoing dispute with the judge reached a new level of animosity during her appearance in court Thursday. She said the stage was set for the argument before she even got to court because Amodeo would not tell her what issues would be discussed. She said she needed to know because she is no longer represented by a lawyer in her custody battle.

"Judge Amodeo scheduled this proceeding, but he would not tell me what it was about," she said. "I wanted to know so I could prepare."

Over the past month, Yevgenia Shockome said, she had repeatedly asked Amodeo to recuse himself from the case because she had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against him April 6. He refused.
During Thursday’s proceeding, Amodeo was outlining what he said were some of the facts of the case — some of which she believed were untrue, she said.

"I kept saying, 'I object, I object,'" Yevgenia Shockome said.

"(Amodeo) asked me to stop talking and I did," she said. "But then when he said more lies, I said, 'I object' and he said, 'That’s it. One more time and you’re in contempt.'"

‘"He said something else I don't remember. I objected again, and he said to the (court) officers, 'Take her into custody.'"

In court documents outlining his decision awarding Timothy Shockome custody of the children, Amodeo said: "For the most part, the mother has provided (her children) with good, wholesome and beneficial care over the years." But he said he had come to believe she had falsely accused her husband of abusing her and the children.

"Her false, misleading and exaggerated statements, claims and allegations are not with respect to minor issues but rather relate to the matters which are at the very heart of the controversy in this case," the judge wrote in a decision dated May 10, 2004.

Amodeo also noted an attorney appointed as law guardian to the children, Frank Marocco, also recommended Timothy Shockome be granted custody.

Friends and supporters of the children’s mother disagreed.

Jennifer Shagan, founder of the Dutchess County Chapter of the National Organization for Women, said she had an open mind about the case when a friend asked her to attend some of the Shockomes’ court proceedings.

"She had every group imaginable — battered women’s advocates — behind her in the courtroom," Shagan said. "She knew I was skeptical about putting my group's name behind her cause until I had all the facts. But the more I learned, the more suspicious I became about the Family Court system. I get calls about it from a lot of people in Dutchess County."

Shagan said she was shocked to learn Yevgenia Shockome had been jailed.

"It's unprecedented, 30 days in jail for what she did," Shagan said. "She didn’t pose a threat to anyone"

Praise from neighbor

Town of Poughkeepsie resident Caroline Barden, who said she had been Yevgenia Shockome’s neighbor for the past 3 years, agreed.

"Our kids became best friends, and Genia is an extraordinary mother," Barden said.

"I will say Judge Amodeo was extremely fair to me when I testified at the trial and (Timothy Shockome’s lawyer) objected," she said. "But it was very disturbing to learn she was in jail."

"I didn’t sleep (Monday) night worrying about her. To think of her in jail, seven months pregnant, that makes me nuts," she said.

Yevgenia Shockome, meanwhile, said she hoped she would soon be released. An amateur track performer, she said she had won some medals for the Hudson Valley team in the Empire State Games in 2004.

"Last year, I represented Dutchess County," she said. "This year, Dutchess County puts me in jail."

12:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This kind of acrimony is not uncommon in divorce.

Sounds like this woman rolled the dice hoping to screw her husband over and ended up screwing herself out of her children's lives. Children who, no doubt, wanted to be with her also.

And all her supporters have is character assassination?

Too little too late.

8:39 AM  
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