“As you all know, we’re here for a pretrial hearing,” I said, starting easy. I looked at Tanya Neal’s attorney, Sophia Delgado. “What is the status, Ms. Delgado?”
She stood. I couldn’t help noticing that Delgado’s nails were now painted a bright aqua color. “Your Honor,” she said. “I still have not heard from my client, Tanya Neal. This is concerning.” Delgado looked at the county attorney, Sylvia Norgaard, then back at me. “Once again, I know that ordinarily you’d find my client in default and terminate her parental rights today. And once again, I’m begging for the court’s indulgence. My understanding is that this case is otherwise unresolved and that Mr. Thill will be seeking a trial date. I ask that you simply set the trial date, and if my client does not show up, then certainly it would be appropriate to terminate her rights at that time. The state is not prejudiced at all by this delay.”
“Thank you, Ms. Delgado,” I said. “That is my intention if the case does not resolve.” As Ms. Delgado sat down, Bob Finley stood. “Mr. Finley,” I continued. “It sounds like we’re going to trial.”
Finley nodded. “That’s correct.” Annoyed, he looked at Peter Thill. “My client is not ready to agree at this point.”
“Very well.” I looked at Karen. “Court date?”
Karen announced the court date she had negotiated with the parties before the hearing. The trial would start next week.
“Any outstanding discovery issues?” I asked.
Both Delgado and Finley agreed that they had all the documents, exhibit lists, and witness lists they needed for trial.
“Anything else?”
“There is, Your Honor.” It was now Sylvia Norgaard’s turn. I knew this was when the hearing was likely to blow up, and so did Metina. I saw her sitting in the gallery, scribbling into her little reporter’s notebook. As Norgaard began to speak, Metina leaned forward in order to hear better.
“As you know, Neisha and Kayla ran during our last hearing. The county believes that they are in contact with their father.” Norgaard paused and looked at Peter Thill like a mother shaming a child. “There was a recent picture of all three of them posted on Facebook. I’d like this court to place Mr. Thill under oath and question him regarding the location of his daughters. If he’s uncooperative, I’d like him to be found in contempt and placed in jail.”
Finley was on his feet before Norgaard had finished. “I object to this. No crime has been committed. I haven’t seen this purported Facebook post, and even if he did post a picture of him and his daughters, maybe it’s an old picture. What’s to say it wasn’t taken a year ago?”
“Because your client was in prison a year ago.” Norgaard shook as she spoke. I’d never seen her this angry. “As for a crime, how about kidnapping? The county currently has both physical and legal custody of these girls. He has no right to any contact with Neisha and Kayla without the agency’s permission.”
Finley put his hand on Thill’s shoulder. His grip tightened, keeping his client down. “Your Honor, this is highly unusual.”
I raised my hands, cutting off the bickering. In the movies, a judge needed to pound a gavel to restore order, but in real life a simple hand gesture was quicker and easier. “Mr. Thill.” I spoke in almost a whisper. “I don’t want to put you in jail for contempt of court. I don’t want to do that. But what I am saying is that you can no longer have any visitation with any of your children, supervised or unsupervised, until Neisha and Kayla are found.”
I looked at Damien and little Bobby. Their eyes were wide, confused. “It’s OK, boys,” I said. “I’m not mad. I’m just going to move on to my other cases that I have scheduled for this morning.” I turned to the others. “You all can go into one of the conference rooms and meet, and then I’ll recall this matter when you’re ready. Hopefully, Mr. Finley can talk with his client and his client can assist the county in locating his daughters.”
I looked at Thill. “If sufficient progress is made, I’m not going to put you under oath, and everybody can go home. If you refuse to help, we’ll see where that goes. Your attorney can advise you as to the risks.”
Thill slammed his hand down on the table. “This is bull—”
“That’s enough.” I was direct but didn’t raise my voice. “Mr. Thill, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
I worked through the remainder of the calendar. Two hours later, I recalled Thill and the rest of the parties into court. When they’d settled into their seats, I turned to Ms. Norgaard. “How are things going?”
She stood. “I think they are going pretty well, Your Honor. Mr. Thill contacted his daughters via Facebook, direct message. He then received a cell phone call from Neisha. He explained the situation, including his predicament. He then allowed the social worker to talk with them. Neisha would not provide her address, but she promised to meet the social worker at a McDonald’s tomorrow morning. Neisha also promised that Kayla would come with her.”
I nodded, then looked at Thill. “That’s progress. I appreciate that, Mr. Thill. I know that must’ve been hard, but it’s the right thing to do.” I looked at Damien and Bobby, then back at Peter Thill. “So I am not going to take any action. I want to see how things go tomorrow. In the meantime, however, I prohibit any direct or supervised visitation. That will continue until I issue a formal written order stating that it is allowed, even if Neisha and Kayla are back.”
Peter Thill nodded, seemingly accepting the court’s position. “Can I at least hug my boys goodbye?”
I’d never received a request like that, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. I looked at Sylvia Norgaard for guidance, and she looked as surprised as I was. Then I looked at the guardian ad litem, Cherelle Williams. Williams also didn’t have an opinion.
“That’s fine,” I said.
Thill got up and walked over to Damien and gave him a hug, patting him on the back. Then he did the same for little Bobby, except, when Thill was done with the hug, he shook Bobby’s hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Benji Metina was waiting for me in the hallway. I didn’t want to spend my lunch break talking with her. I wanted to spend my time reading Harry’s journals and figuring out how I had suddenly become a millionaire with the help of some obscure corporation that I’d never heard of.
She asked, “Did you see my article this morning?”
“No.” I unlocked the door, and we both went inside. “Anything interesting?”
“I think it’s pretty interesting,” she said. “Front page, above the fold. Our website has gotten a lot of hits on it, too.”
“Well, congratulations.” I tried to keep it friendly. “Let me know when you win the Pulitzer, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
I was happy to see that my sandwich and chips from Ike’s Place had already been delivered. I picked the bag up off Karen’s desk, and we went back to my chambers, where I shut the door behind us.
“Please have a seat.” I pointed at the chair and sat down behind my desk. “What did you want to talk to me about?” I opened the bag and took a few quick bites of my sandwich.
“This weekend I’m running a story about the relationship between Judge Meyer, Helen Vox, and Marshall Terry.”
“Whether directly or indirectly, you pretty much told me that during our last conversation.” I opened my bag of chips and offered them to Metina. “Help yourself.”
She shook her head. “No thank you.” She stayed focused. “I was wondering if you’d looked into it any further.” Metina paused, allowing me to take another few bites of my sandwich. “Maybe now you’d like to give me your reaction on the record?”
“Please don’t take offense,” I said, “but I don’t have anything to say.” I clarified that we were off the record. “I talked to Helen Vox about it, and she said the county’s given you everything they have about AFC Services and that they complied with all of the county rules and disclosure requirements. I asked Jarkowski about Marsh Terry and whether he could be involved in Harry’s mu
rder, and Jarkowski was, to put it mildly, very skeptical.”
Since it was clear that I wasn’t going to cooperate right away, Metina decided she’d try to educate me. “I have people who are willing to be quoted as saying that they complied with the letter of the law, but not the spirit,” she said. “That the three of them colluded to manipulate the process. The first payments were part of multiple pilot programs. Marshall Terry created four different subsidiaries of AFC Services Inc. The amounts paid to each were just under the trigger that would’ve required a formal request for proposals. So they got going. Once they were established and Marshall Terry had relationships with the county, formal requests for proposal were issued and he was awarded even more lucrative contracts.”
“But other people had an opportunity.”
“Sort of,” Metina said. “The criteria seemed pretty rigged to me, because the evaluators gave significant weight to applicants who have demonstrated experience and knowledge in the area of child protection proceedings.”
“I don’t think that sounds too out of line,” I said.
“Even though the chair of the evaluation committee has been Helen Vox?”
I knew she was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it. And, after learning about a money market account with a $6 million balance, I wondered if Metina knew that it might be more than just friends helping friends. “So your theory is that Judge Meyer’s girlfriend steered tax money to Judge Meyer’s friend.”
Metina nodded. “Pretty much. In addition to the fact that Judge Meyer presided over hearings and cases in which Helen Vox represented the county, which is such an obvious conflict of interest that I don’t even need an expert opinion, and she’s supervising the attorneys who appeared in front of Judge Meyer as well.”
“You told me earlier that the contracts were worth millions, but I assume you have something more specific?”
“Well, that’s hard to figure out.” Metina was proud of her work, and she didn’t mind showing off her knowledge. “There are about five hundred million dollars in community contracts. I know that Marshall Terry initially received three two-million-dollar contracts out of that fund and that in the last five years the contract amount has more than doubled to five million.” Metina leaned forward. “I also know that Marshall Terry’s company became a direct service provider. That’s where you provide direct services to people receiving their health care through the county or on public assistance. That isn’t a formal grant. There’s no request for proposals. Once he became an in-network county provider, people could just come to him, but often it was a requirement of the court-approved case plan. If parents wanted to get their kids back and get the kids out of foster care, then Judge Meyer was ordering them to go to a Marshall Terry company to get the parenting evaluation or coaching that the plan required.”
“Judges don’t write the case plans,” I said. “The social workers write the case plans.”
“True.” Metina shrugged. “But Helen Vox trains the social workers. She is the one who tells them what is legally required to be included in the case plan, and then Judge Meyer adopts the plan and makes it a requirement.”
“And so what do you want me to say?”
“I want you to comment on it,” Metina said. “I want to give you a chance to condemn it. As far as I can tell, this was all before your time. You can get on the right side of this story, maybe repair your reputation.”
“I don’t know. How long do I have until the story runs?”
Metina stood. “Probably going to do it this weekend. The editors published the story with all the statistics and outcome data today, so they’ll probably want to publish the sexy stuff on Sunday when the circulation is higher. The affair between a judge and a prosecutor is going to be big news. The fact that Judge Meyer was murdered and there still haven’t been any arrests makes it even bigger news.”
“I’ll think about going on the record and giving you a quote,” I said. “I promise.”
After Benji Metina left, Karen stuck her head into my office. “You have about five minutes, Judge.” She looked at my half-eaten sandwich. “I’m sorry you don’t have longer, but we’ve got a full afternoon calendar.”
“I understand.”
Karen turned and left, and I looked at the journals that I’d brought from home. They were still untouched. Even though I was tempted to feign illness and cancel the afternoon, I knew I couldn’t do that. The journals would have to wait for tonight, but I did have a few minutes to do some research.
I took two large bites of my sandwich, then pushed it aside. I pulled the PFC bank manager’s sheet of paper from my pocket and typed the company name, Red Rock ABC-5555, into Google. Thousands of websites came up, ranging from radio stations to day care centers, but none of them were applicable.
“Red Rock” was too general, and if I was going to find it, I needed to be more precise. Since it was a corporation, I decided that I’d try the California secretary of state’s website. I typed the name into its search engine, but there were no listings for Red Rock ABC-5555.
Then I decided to do a national search. There were hundreds of websites available, each offering to query every government database for a small fee and return instant results. I picked one, logged on, and entered my credit card information.
After activating the account, I typed in the corporation’s name and clicked the search button. The screen flashed, and information about Red Rock ABC-5555 filled the space.
It was incorporated in Florida a little over ten years ago, around the time that Mary Pat was placed in assisted living at the Walker and Marshall Terry got into the child protection business. Its president was Hector Benetiz, Esq., and the corporate secretary was Christine Benetiz, Esq. The corporation’s address was a post office box in Miami.
I googled their names and got the website for Benetiz Law, which stated that the law firm was an affiliate of Morneau and Kapper LLC and openly touted its status as part of the offshore magic circle. The magic circle referred to its specialty in corporate finance and international banking. Morneau and Kapper had offices in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, as well as alternate offices in the British Virgin Islands and Mauritius.
I thought about Benji Metina’s story. She was going to write about cronyism, but, the way I saw it, the story was much bigger. If the money from Red Rock ABC-5555 was, in fact, from Marshall Terry to Judge Meyer in exchange for help securing government contracts, it wasn’t cronyism. It was straight corruption.
When she had originally asked me if her stories had something to do with Harry’s death, it seemed far-fetched, but now it didn’t seem like such a big leap to go from corruption to murder. Especially if a person didn’t want to go to prison.
The problem was that I was standing right in the middle of the storm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
That night I sat on the couch reading Harry’s journals. Nikki could tell I wasn’t in the mood to talk, so she kept her distance after dinner. I think she thought I was upset about the new Benji Metina article that had appeared in the newspaper that morning. I still hadn’t read it, but I’d rather Nikki think that I was depressed about that rather than know that my mentor was likely a criminal and I now had full control over a bank account filled with dirty money.
I didn’t know what to do or say, so I lost myself in Harry’s journals. Even though I hoped that they would contain the answer—at least something that I could take to Jarkowski to put everything behind me—there were no obvious revelations. No mention of secret bank accounts, Florida corporations, or other women. The person in the journals was the person I loved. The entries were clear and logical, and never afraid of being intellectual.
It was as if I had my old friend back.
In the beginning, everything was new to him. Harry was a voyeur. Those who circulated through the child protection system were outliers, unfamiliar. They fascinated him, but there wasn’t much sympathy. They were animals in a zoo.
Harry’s analysis of
cases was simple at first. He made his observations, drew his conclusions, and then he was done. Quick to terminate a parent’s rights, Harry washed his hands of the decision and moved on to the next case. But as time went on, he began to see the nuance. The cases became more complicated, because he became more aware of the competing interests and contradictions.
He watched as the children left behind lingered in foster care with an attachment to nothing. Most bounced among ten to fifteen foster homes, some more as their behavior deteriorated. As the years passed, children became teenagers. There was no adoption, no happy ending, no Daddy Warbucks hugging Little Orphan Annie with fireworks in the background.
Harry wrote:
In my first ten years, my law clerk has calculated that I have terminated the parental rights related to a thousand children. Most of the children’s lives are arguably better off, not under the constant threat of violence or the grind of neglect. But I have not seen a rich family come into my courtroom, nor have I seen but a few middle-class families. The ones that sit down at the tables in front of me are poor, low functioning, and mostly some shade of brown. While addiction and mental illness are the threads that run through them all, certainly there are many wealthy people who suffer the same addictions and ailments. Yet I don’t see them here in court. There is no movement to remove the children from the home of an attorney addicted to cocaine, a doctor who is an alcoholic, or a stay-at-home mother in the suburbs who is bipolar. Why is that? And if one concludes that those in my court are not all psychopaths, which I don’t believe they all are (some, for certain, but not all), then what is going on?
When reflecting upon my experience and looking at that experience through the lens of history, it is clear that the modern child protection system is merely a kinder and gentler modification of early government efforts to sterilize and eradicate the poor and undesirable. The modern child protection system arises out of the ashes of the 1920s eugenics movement. California was a leader in sterilizing the poor, retarded, and habitual criminals. I don’t think it is a coincidence that as court-ordered sterilization waned, the child protection systems waxed. When government-sponsored sterilization programs were finally eliminated by federal regulations in 1978, Congress passed comprehensive laws related to the termination of parental rights and adoption procedures the same year. So now we don’t sterilize these individuals, nor do we provide family planning services or access to birth control. Instead, we allow them to have children and then take them away, sometimes at the hospital immediately upon birth, but most often after years of abuse and neglect. Certainly, there has to be a better way.
Good Intentions Page 12