STATE OF NEW YORK

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF ONEIDA

************************************************
Leon R. Koziol, individually and as natural parent of
Child “A” and Child “B”,

Plaintiffs, COMPLAINT
-against-
Index no.
State of New York; New York Child Support Processing
Center; Gerald Popeo, Acting Oneida County Family Court
Judge; Natalie Carraway, Acting Oneida County Support
Magistrate; Barbara Porta, Oneida County Family Court
Chief Clerk; Katie Lawrence, Senior Child Support
Investigator; Custodial Parent Kelly Hawse-Koziol; Oneida
County Sheriff Robert Maciol and unknown agents,

Defendants.

************************************************

Leon R. Koziol, as and for a complaint against the above-named defendants sets forth

the following:

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

1) In her 1999 State of the Judiciary Address, former New York Chief Judge Judith Kaye

declared the system of trial courts in New York State to be “absurdly complex… difficult to

understand, hard to navigate and a burden to administer.”

2) Twenty years later, in a similar address, New York’s current Chief Judge Janet

DiFiore made a more compelling condemnation of that trial structure in a call for constitutional

reform even though one had been voted down in 2017. In her short tenure thus far, the state’s top

jurist has initiated reforms which have brought no relief to those victimized by this structure.

3) On June 19, 2017, the New York State Bar Association issued a report supporting a

constitutional convention based on an 11 trial court structure which it compared with our

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nation’s largest state of California having twice the population and a single trial court. The report

chairman decried this Constitution as “a 52,500 word behemoth, filled with minutia and obsolete

provisions, and even sections that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional.”

4) In 2009, this “absurdly complex” trial court system grew even more complex by

legislative creation of “support magistrates.” In effect, this created a twelfth trial court

functioning concurrently with supreme and family courts. Unlike judges of the latter, support

magistrates are not elected or publicly vetted for their qualifications; they are screened and

appointed administratively with only a three-year minimum of lawyer experience.

5) While states have been accorded wide latitude in establishing their judicial branches

of government, they cannot do so in a manner which violates basic human rights protected by the

federal constitution. As relevant to this action, the court structure in New York has infringed too

deeply upon these rights to, inter alia, due process of law, equal protection under the law, free

speech, privacy and a fundamental liberty interest in a parent-child relationship.

6) New York boasts a proud history of according greater constitutional protections for its

people than the federal government has under its counterpart Bill of Rights. However, under both

constitutions, court reform efforts are not reserved to judges, the bar or their committees. They

have been retained by all people. Now comes a shocking watershed case which brings substance

to the very condemnations that our state’s top legal authorities have repeatedly made public.

7) Plaintiff, a highly qualified and successful civil rights attorney with 23 unblemished

years of practice, set out in 2008 to reform this trial court structure through community forums,

news conferences, lobbying initiatives, public protests, editorials, website postings and formal

complaints, indeed the very essence of self-governance. As a consequence, he was targeted by

the state and its agents resulting in the loss of his lifelong reputation, employability, livelihood,

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law licenses, law practice, driving license, alternate employment, motor vehicles, bank accounts,

established credit, personal health and precious daughters, among many other liberties, without

any criminal charge, moving violation, child protection report or evenly applied ethics violation.

8) This action seeks a declaration, above and beyond the retaliation applied to plaintiff,

which invalidates the Child Support Standards Act based on federal performance grants which

create institutional bias in New York’s domestic relations court. Such grants reward the state and

its support magistrates based on the number and size of support orders they issue. As part of this

declaration, plaintiff seeks to end the unconstitutional practice of support incarceration generated

through “imputed income” after the state has removed all meaningful capacities for employment.

9) Among other things, the defendants and persons acting in concert with them have

imposed abusive conditions on parent-child contact which remain unsupported, conflicting and

orchestrated in retaliation for each critical statement or report of corruption made by the plaintiff

over the years. Within three months of his 2013 presentation before the Moreland Commission

on Public Corruption at Pace University, plaintiff’s contact with his precious daughters was

suspended based on such concoctions as a “prohibited alcohol related gesture” (wedding toast).

10) Plaintiff seeks recognition of a human rights epidemic created by antiquated child

custody and support laws which is commonly referred to as “parental alienation.” To maintain

the federal revenue stream, parents accessing family courts are required to name a “custodial

parent” which then incites lucrative controversy to the detriment of children. A precedent case is

made here insofar as this model parent has been severely alienated to a point today where his

daughters, raised without incident since birth, have been brainwashed to hate and avoid their

father. Recourse was denied as a mode of retaliation for the exercise of constitutionally protected

rights which will forever remove these 15 and 17 year old daughters from their paternal family.

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 11) Meanwhile, plaintiff’s law licenses have remained in a perpetual state of suspension

for nearly ten years, three beyond the punishment period of disbarment for convicted felons.

After long completing a six-month suspension term, at least five reinstatement petitions have

been denied under a condition that plaintiff cease his activity. That condition was announced in

May, 2013 during a closed hearing before an Appellate Division (disciplinary) court in Albany.

12) Systemically, the state’s speech prohibition was corroborated by a 2014 ethics report

containing seven exhibits from plaintiff’s website postings never claimed to be false, a 2016

family judge gag order upon the same website which was removed after a mandamus show cause

order was signed in state supreme court, and 39 trial level jurists who voluntarily disqualified

themselves or were otherwise removed from an originally uncontested divorce filed in 2006.

13) The sweeping speech prohibition was first imposed by a chief ethics lawyer and two

deputy attorneys in Albany, New York. They were allowed to resign weeks later when a state

inspector general uncovered their falsified time sheets, tantamount to a felony. These standard-

bearers of lawyer ethics are charged with a duty to prevent over-billing practices. There were no

public charges lodged, criminally or ethically. They returned to private practice. This is only one

example of unconstitutional disparate treatment or, in lay terms, a witch hunt against plaintiff.

14) Unlike other types of whistle blowers, attorneys who expose corruption in their

profession have no legal protection. They are isolated in a way that impedes genuine reform and

accountability. This action seeks precedent and compensation for a level of persecution over a

twelve year period that “shocks the conscience,” relying upon case law first announced by the

Supreme Court in Rochin v California, 342 US 165 (1952). Because plaintiff has been denied a

“full and fair opportunity” to litigate his claims in addition to the non-final nature of domestic

proceedings, preclusion rules will not foreclose relief based on a “totality of circumstances.”

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 JURISDICTION AND VENUE

15) This court has jurisdiction over the claims and parties in this action pursuant to

Article VI, section 7 of the New York Constitution. Under the Family Court Act, this court has

concurrent jurisdiction with family court over certain domestic proceedings, but section 114 of

that Act makes it clear that family court’s jurisdiction “shall in no way limit or impair the

(general) jurisdiction of supreme court” under the state constitution.

16) This court also has jurisdiction as a court of equity to address issues raised in this

hybrid action which family court has no authority to adjudicate. It has statutory authority to issue

mandates needed for complete relief under CPLR 7802(a), 7803(3) and 7806. Venue is proper

pursuant to CPLR 7804(b) and 506 (a) and (b). Declaratory and injunctive relief are authorized

by CPLR articles 30 and 63, and this case falls squarely within the scope of CPLR 6301.

17) Among other things, plaintiff seeks a mandate to a family judge or clerk to produce a

support proceeding record denied to him as a mode of retaliation. This resulted in a near fatal

arrest warrant. Relief is urgently needed to perfect an appeal, file for reinstatement, defend

presently against a recurring support violation petition, and to lodge a complaint with the state

Commission on Judicial Conduct. Removal jurisdiction from family court is conferred by CPLR

325(b). An immediate stay of magistrate support proceedings is permitted under CPLR 326(a).

18) State courts are obligated to hear the federal claims made here under 42 USC section

1983, Stone v Powell, 428 US 465, 494 (1976); Younger v Harris, 401 US 37 (1971). Due to the

extraordinary nature of this case, jurisdiction is further provided by a Rule of Necessity as

applied in the judicial pay raise trilogy, Maron v Silver, 12 NY3d 909 (2010). Monetary relief is

available under the relevant self-executing provisions of the state constitution, Larabee v

Governor of New York, NY 2016 Slip Op 03646 (2016); Brown v State, 89 NY2d 172 (1996).

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 PARTIES

19) Plaintiff Leon Koziol has been a member of the New York Bar for a period exceeding

30 years, a model parent who raised two daughters since birth, and a citizen of the United States

with a lifelong residency in New York State and a current residence in Oneida County.

20) The defendant, State of New York, is a quasi-sovereign state of the United States

operating under a tri-part governing structure common to free or western societies. It has its

principal place of business located in the state capital of Albany, New York.

21) The New York Child Support Processing Center is a collection agency for the State

of New York with a secret location and a post office mailing address of 15368; Albany, New

York 12212-5368. It receives child support payments of an unknown annual amount, thereby

gaining interest revenue and federal Title IV-D grants believed to be in the billions of dollars.

22) The defendant, Gerald Popeo, is a judge of the City Court of Utica, New York. As

relevant to this action, he was assigned to plaintiff’s custody and support cases in 2017 as an

“Acting Family Court Judge.” He is the 41st trial jurist assigned to plaintiff’s 13 year divorce.

23) On information and belief, the defendant, Natalie Carraway, is an attorney in

Herkimer County, New York who was assigned as a Support Magistrate to plaintiff’s child

support cases in 2017 and 2019. Her manner of appointment and qualifications are unknown.

24) The defendant, Barbara Porta, is the chief clerk of the Oneida County Family Court

with a principal place of business located at the Oneida County Courthouse in Utica, New York.

25) On information and belief, the defendant, Katie Lawrence, is a Senior Child Support

Investigator for the Oneida County Department of Social Services with a principal place of

business at 800 Park Avenue; Utica, New York 13501. On information and belief, she filed a

support violation petition against plaintiff in excess of amounts due for malicious purposes.

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 26) The defendant, Kelly Hawse-Koziol, is the “Custodial Parent” appointed by the State

of New York to make decisions on behalf of plaintiff’s two minor daughters, Child “A” and “B.”

Her last known address is 16 Terrace Hill Drive; New Hartford, New York 13413.

27) The defendant, Robert Maciol, is the Sheriff of Oneida County, New York with a

principal place of business located at 6065 Judd Road; Oriskany, New York 13424. Various

unknown agents acted with his authority under an unwritten policy to violate plaintiff’s rights.

BACKGROUND

28) The presentment of a procedural and factual background here is challenged by a

dysfunctional court structure as summarized in the Preliminary Statement. The plaintiff who

suffered such horrific harm did not seek out the state for relief, it sought him out for revenue and

fee purposes that had nothing to do with the “best interests” of any child. Hence plaintiff is

precluded from bringing sensibility or conciseness to a fact pattern he did not cause, one that

would require volumes to fully understand and provide due notice for latent disqualifications.

The Early Years (2004-2009)

29) The plaintiff and defendant, Kelly Hawse-Koziol, hereinafter “Hawse,” filed an

uncontested divorce in New York Supreme Court, Oneida County on January 5, 2006. For nearly

two prior years, and during a three year marriage, these parents raised two daughters from birth

without incident. During separation, they searched for a maternal home and participated in a co-

parenting arrangement mandated by state law to require a custodial and non-custodial parent.

30) Under that law, known as the Child Support Standards Act, an arbitrary formula and

various add-ons are used to establish a child support order. Based on parental birth status, an

unborn child during separation discussions and a gender biased custody preference for maternal

or primary care givers, plaintiff was arbitrarily made the non-custodial parent under this law.

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 31) In March, 2006, defendant Hawse upended the parties’ co-parenting agreements by

hiring a divorce lawyer who made a career of inciting needless controversy for profit. He made

the unsubstantiated claim that plaintiff was hiding income. This induced his client Hawse to

adhere to a strategic plan for coercing excess payments by harming plaintiff’s career. She did so

through enforcement actions, protection orders, false accusations and needless evaluations.

32) On October 8, 2008, the original supreme court divorce judge ruled after a hearing

that the parties’ 2004 and 2005 agreements with child support amounts were fair and proper

under the Support Standards Act. That monthly amount has remained unchanged to the present

day. However, by that time, all cooperation was destroyed. Over the years, custody tactics

included at least five protection orders that were all thrown out for lack of evidence or cause.

33) Such tactics were also employed to facilitate a preferred father to replace the plaintiff

in exchange for an end to child support orders. This extortion scheme was vehemently rejected

on October 25, 2006. Despite being raised in numerous proceedings to this day, it has never been

addressed and only mentioned recently. Throughout those proceedings, plaintiff was constantly

placed on the defensive to prove himself as a natural father with no logical basis for doing so.

34) In 2005, plaintiff announced a run for Congress after serving two terms as a Utica

city councilman and briefly as the city’s corporation counsel. Based on party endorsements, he

switched to a campaign for state senate and in 2007, he was solicited by a retired supreme court

justice to run for Oneida County Executive. All these career moves were upended by the tactics

employed by a custodial parent bent on exploiting the parties’ children for ulterior motives.

35) Consequently, plaintiff set out to reform this “Custodial Institution of Childrearing,”

as he termed it in reports, into a progressive shared parenting model. Among his reform efforts

was a show cause motion filed on January 3, 2008 during a joint appeal of four supreme and

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family court orders. It was assigned to Fourth Department appeals judge, John Centra, in

Syracuse, New York who presided over both domestic appeals and attorney discipline cases.

36) The filing contained extensive examples of divorce lawyer misconduct including a

protection order issued against an entire law firm here due to improper disclosures of plaintiff’s

private information to outside parties during the political campaigns. It was not known at the

time that the mother’s lawyer, Keith Eisenhut, had been appointed by Judge Centra’s appellate

court to the Fifth District Attorney Grievance Committee a few blocks away. On the same day as

oral argument on the show cause motion, a first time ethics prosecution was commenced against

plaintiff instead of the divorce/ethics lawyer after two decades of unblemished practice.

37) Such circumstances provided a strong inference that Judge Centra had privately and

improperly directed the first witch hunt against plaintiff. Frivolous complaints neglected for

years featured such oddities as one that was withdrawn due to admitted fabrications, another by a

disbarred attorney that was never pursued, one made only weeks earlier that had never been

provided for a reply consistent with routine practice, and five that were later thrown out on their

face but not before a first time prosecution could be obtained with committee approval.

38) That approval came despite a false statement by Committee attorney, Mary

Gasparini, that plaintiff had never sought an adjournment to better prepare his defense against so

many combined complaints. Her misrepresentation was serious, unethical, and proven on the

face of letters but never countenanced by anyone during the proceedings which followed. Worse

yet, plaintiff’s secretary had been influenced to remove file material needed for that defense

while tampering with mail to create additional ethics issues. All of this was ignored over time.

39) Accordingly, plaintiff was compelled to seek relief in federal court. A complaint was

filed on February 26, 2009 against the disciplinary/appellate court and its prosecutorial agents.

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Only weeks later, that (state) court dismissed plaintiff’s joint domestic appeals including a fateful

motion to change venue to another judicial district, Koziol v Hawse-Koziol, 60 AD3d 1435 (4th

Dept. March 20, 2009). A motion for dismissal of the ethics case for prosecutorial misconduct,

select enforcement, and alternate discovery was denied without explanation in May, 2009.

40) By this time, a single divorce filing in a single trial court had become splintered and

tortured beyond sanity. The exploitation of an ever-complicated court structure in retaliation for

the exercise of constitutionally protected activity had resulted in such anomalies as a state

supreme court judge assigned out of order to plaintiff’s child support case as an “Acting Family

Court Judge” and a family court judge assigned to plaintiff’s custody case as an “Acting

Supreme Court Judge” presiding simultaneously in courthouses that were sixty miles apart.

41) Federal court pleadings contained only a portion of state jurists and agents who had

displaced plaintiff’s childrearing authority as a natural father during this chaotic process. This

raised violations of a parenting right declared by the Supreme Court to be “the oldest liberty

interest protected by the Constitution.” Due to a panoply of obstacles to federal court access,

including the Eleventh Amendment which required the naming of all state actors as opposed to

the state alone, the federal cases were dismissed with deference repeatedly made to state courts.

42) Because a change of venue in state court was denied, as many as twenty trial jurists

disqualified themselves due to personal affiliations and some fifteen others were removed by

motion between 2006 and 2019. One of the latter accepted a 2009 support violation assignment

to even the score for a highly publicized felony case successfully defended by the plaintiff as an

attorney at a jury trial after recusal. A recusal hearing was promised by the same judge on the

record in the latter support case but was neither scheduled nor mentioned in the ensuing decision,

a violation order that resulted in the first suspension of plaintiff’s law license in February, 2010.

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 43) Between 2008 and the present day, plaintiff was subjected to at least ten court

appearances in which incarceration was instantly looming for (debt) support violations. The first

one in 2009 involved a jail term of 90 days recommended by a support magistrate who had been

suspended as an attorney due to misappropriation of over $7,000 in client money, tantamount to

a felony. Plaintiff was denied recusal on this basis and a hostile demeanor. This magistrate was

thereafter turned down by voters in his race for family judge based largely on that misconduct.

44) In a separate custody proceeding the same year, plaintiff was subjected to severe bias

due to gender traits which had nothing to do with childrearing. Judge Martha Walsh-Hood was

described privately as an anti-father judge by a court reporter. This was borne out by her

marginalization of numerous plaintiff witnesses, admonition regarding a pen flipped around by

plaintiff during objections which she alone deemed a weapon of intimidation and seizure of notes

and exhibits during plaintiff’s testimony as a pro se litigant. A four volume trial record bears out

numerous examples of one-sided treatment causing a nine month suspension of child contact.

The Middle Years (2010 - 2016)

45) The first law license suspension was reported by the media before plaintiff learned of

it, earning headline news that irreparably harmed plaintiff’s reputation and public message. It

was the same Fourth Department court occupied by Judge Centra which issued that order despite

a disqualification and transfer motion “denied without prejudice” in November, 2009.

46) On April 28, 2010, that same court granted plaintiff’s request on its own motion but

without vacating the interim license suspension. On September 23, 2010, plaintiff was subjected

to a one year disciplinary suspension in a decision which approved all surviving grievances

derived from the 2008 witch hunt. Disciplinary matters have remained with the transferee Third

Department court while domestic ones returned inexplicably to the Fourth Department in 2013.

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 47) Such an absurd series of court processes undermined earnings productivity and

supervisory capacities at plaintiff’s law office. Plaintiff’s secretary took advantage of this by

embezzling more than $100,000 over a period of years. After discovery and termination, she

gave testimony for defendant Hawse at a 2011 custody hearing, but most of it was stricken as

irrelevant or incredible. Based on information received from knowledgeable contacts, she was

accorded some form of immunity to set up plaintiff for a criminal prosecution.

48) Such “piling-on” was traceable to numerous high profile cases during plaintiff’s 23

year career as a civil rights attorney. Therefore two years of internal investigation was required

to amass evidence ultimately compiled into a January 2012 “Internal Report” submitted to the

District Attorney and Utica City Police Department. Over the next two years, plaintiff’s personal

and client complaints were subjected to such things as lost or misplaced in the Department.

49) Hence, a second federal action was filed but it was misrepresented in a dismissal

decision as a case seeking to interfere with police and prosecutorial discretion. In reality, it was

directed at the tampering of complaints in retaliation for plaintiff’s successful civil rights actions

against the same city. This secretary was ultimately arrested, convicted and incarcerated in 2016

on felonies committed upon later law office employers as predicted in plaintiff’s 2012 report.

50) The first 90 day jail term was avoided by parental agreement on August 23, 2010 and

approved by a state supreme court judge acting in a family court capacity in violation of Article

VI, section 26(k) of the state constitution. A payment plan was set up and observed, but only two

months later, a child support sting operation occurred at plaintiff’s home replete with multiple

police cars, flatbed trucks and state agents. Two vehicles were seized contrary to court order but

excused as a tax lien acquired over support debts. In 2012, a later assigned supreme court judge

treated the seizure and sale as a prepayment, thereby sparing a second pending jail term.

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 51) Headline news and a popular website induced a lawyer appointed by the state as

“Attorney for the Child” to concoct grounds for obtaining forensic evaluations in 2011 as a

means for preventing plaintiff’s reinstatement to practice while assuring punitive support

incarceration. It also harmed his involuntary clients who were nine and ten years old.

52) Among this lawyer’s many spiteful tactics was a motion to dismiss an appeal before

the Third and Fourth Departments which contained sworn fact statements that plaintiff had filed

a cross-motion for reinstatement in family court. Because license jurisdiction is the exclusive

province of appeals courts, such a cross-motion would be seriously unethical and incompetent.

53) In reply, plaintiff filed a copy of his cross-motion with the same courts showing no

such reinstatement request. To this day, no court or ethics agent has acknowledged this lawyer’s

perjury and fraud. As for the forensic order, it was granted by the next judge who disqualified

herself one month later, continuing a pattern of harm and disappearance without transparency.

54) The next assigned family judge, Bryan Hedges, continued the prior imposed forensic

evaluation order but was made subject to a removal motion based on plaintiff’s political history

and the “political espionage” found actionable in a then pending federal civil rights case, Morin v

Tormey, 626 F.3d 40 (2nd Cir. 2010). Opposing lawyers chastised plaintiff for this motion, citing

Judge Hedges as a jurist beyond reproach. It was nevertheless granted on an “appearance of

impropriety.” Shortly afterward, Judge Hedges was permanently removed after admitting to

sexual abuse of his handicapped, five-year old niece, In re Hedges, 20 NY3d 677 (2013).

55) The forensic order was finally removed by the third assigned family judge that year

on the same record, demonstrating how flippant, unsupported and abusive such orders can

become in New York’s domestic courts. Plaintiff’s reform effort across the country has

uncovered parent victims forced into forensic evaluations costing in excess of $250,000.

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 56) In 2012, plaintiff obtained alternate employment as an attorney placement

consultant for a firm in Syracuse. It necessitated cash flow, but defendant Hawse refused any

temporary suspension of support. Plaintiff was then forced to seek a downward modification

before yet another assigned support magistrate unfamiliar with the extensive case history. The

firm identity was coerced during a first appearance resulting in unlawful support intercepts. The

issuing agency refused to correct the error on request, leading to a termination of employment.

57) In 2013, both support and custody cases were assigned to newly seated Judge Daniel

King in Lewis County. The targeting of plaintiff was simply continued throughout the next three

years by this judge. Examples are too numerous to relate here, i.e. par. 9, 10 and 12. Among

other things, Judge King re-appointed Child Attorney, William Koslosky, despite full knowledge

of his removal in 2012 by a support magistrate on grounds that he was preventing settlement. He

also wrongly blamed plaintiff for all judge removals in a December 23, 2013 decision.

58) When a temporary stay order was granted on appeal, Judge King retaliated by

resurrecting forensic evaluations of plaintiff alone as a condition of parenting based on a false

and twisted rendition of the 2011 decision that removed the prior order, he directed plaintiff to

cease objections during a January 15, 2014 hearing so he could concoct a record to justify his

retributions, and he placed the plaintiff under conflicting conditions for child access. Given his

venom during proceedings, any child contact would create a condition of “contempt by ambush.”

59) In November, 2015, Judge King imposed a protection order without any contact or

threats made to anyone. In truth, it was a gag order on plaintiff’s “whistle blower” website. The

terms for compliance were vague and overbroad, but all relief was denied over the next six

months until plaintiff obtained a show cause order from supreme court Judge James McClusky in

Watertown. A hearing date was set for June 22, 2016 when a protest was to occur against King.

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 60) In response, Judge King cancelled his adjourned family offense hearing, dismissed

the petition of defendant Hawse on its face, and removed the protection (gag) order on his own

motion. He excused a fraud attempted by the petitioner and child attorney despite indisputable

showing of a purported notice of residential relocation by e-mail containing the address

“gmai.com” (without an “l” character). Days later he recused himself despite prior denials,

giving Judge McClusky all the reason needed to dismiss plaintiff’s mandamus action as moot.

The Latter Years (2017 to present)

61) Judge McClusky dismissed a 2017 mandamus action brought to challenge abusive

judge assignments. For example, Family Judge James Eby in Oswego, New York, required the

parties to make a 140 mile round trip to receive an already completed decision. It patterned the

retaliation in Morin, supra. Meanwhile Judge McClusky gave no jail time to a school employee

convicted of a sex offense on a 15 year old while parents were being jailed for support debts.

62) A decision on the merits of plaintiff’s 2017 action was avoided on grounds of venue

and jurisdiction pursuant to CPLR 506(b). Under the chaotic state of New York law, such action

against a supreme or county court judge must be filed in the Appellate Division whereas an

action against a family or city judge must be filed in state supreme court. Aggrieved litigants in

plaintiff’s class are thereby denied recourse, leaving them to take the law into their own hands.

63) In November, 2017, plaintiff filed a custody petition for a holiday period with his

daughters. Defendant Hawse responded days later with another support petition seeking nearly

$90,000 in arrears. It failed to recognize a $35,500 payment coerced in 2016 to avoid a six month

jail term and arrest warrant issued by Judge King. In that same year, a Utica city marshal filed

sworn papers alleging service on plaintiff. That marshal later admitted on cross-examination that

he had lied in those papers and before the court. No referral was made for perjury prosecution.

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 64) Consequently, plaintiff was singled out for indisputable service on the day he was

required to appear for his custody hearing on December 11, 2017. On his arrival at the Oneida

County Courthouse, defendant Hawse rose from her seat, entered the family court clerk’s office

and then exited for the hearing room where Judge Eby from Oswego was now presiding.

65) Before that custody hearing ended, a security deputy employed by the Oneida

County Sheriff, hereinafter “defendant Maciol,” entered the courtroom interrupting with an

announcement that he was serving plaintiff with the support violation petition, even reading its

boldface warning for criminal emphasis. Judge Eby replied that this was not policy in Oswego.

66) Plaintiff rejected such service insofar as this deputy abused his security duties to gain

access to a courtroom for a responsibility assigned to the Sheriff civil process division. Based on

conversations had with this deputy four days later, he did not charge the service fee prescribed

by law which plaintiff and others had been required to pay. Based on criminal cases plaintiff

litigated in the day, such favoritism at the expense of taxpayers would constitute a crime.

67) Plaintiff filed a complaint with defendant Maciol and court administrators, but

nothing was received in reply even after follow-up confirmation. This constituted consent to an

unwritten policy of targeting plaintiff and litigants generally who challenge court operations.

68) On December 15, 2017, plaintiff arrived for support violation “arraignment” to

contest service on principle alone. It was based on a complete breakdown in the impartiality of

New York’s courts with respect to this targeted father, attorney and citizen. Defendant Support

Magistrate Natalie Carraway was presiding for the first time as the 40th trial level jurist.

69) Defendant Carraway noted her familiarity with events before Judge Eby, but unlike

him, she refused to disqualify herself even after plaintiff sought service of the mandamus action

upon her during proceedings using the same precedent she found acceptable in custody court.

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 70) Between September, 2017 and February 12, 2018, plaintiff had been promoting his

book, Satan’s Docket, in full page advertisements and book signings. That book exposed

extensive court corruption along the lines of the foregoing summary. He also published editorials

in Syracuse, Watertown and Utica newspapers, taking issue with the Syracuse administrative

judge’s glowing renditions of Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s “Excellence Initiative.”

71) Days later, Utica City Court Judge Gerald Popeo issued a decision dismissing all of

plaintiff’s petitions for child access with no transfer notice regarding Judge Eby. Contrary to

standard practice and case history, i.e. par. 61, Judge Popeo set no first appearance because he

knew he would be challenged for bias. Plaintiff then filed for his removal as an “Acting Family

Judge” based on condemnations he made at a local bar six months earlier regarding plaintiff’s

supposed involvement in a public censure issued by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

72) That censure against Gerald Popeo was reported publicly in a February 12, 2015

decision, and it featured injudicious conduct that included racist jokes to an African-American

attorney, wrongful incarcerations for contempt, and a threat from the bench to do physical

violence to a litigant. It was anything but the temperament required to preside over family

matters, and it contradicted the many administrative transfers to remote judges since 2009.

73) Defendant Popeo denied plaintiff’s rendition of the bar room event as he did the

misconduct for which he was found guilty in the censure case. Devoid of reality and plaintiff’s

ordeal discussed at that bar, Judge Popeo continued to preside so that he could exact revenge

over that public censure. He had discussed other cases during plaintiff’s litigation history in

violation of judicial ethics, but any report would only add to the retributions depicted here.

74) In late February, 2018, plaintiff discovered by happenstance on defendant Maciol’s

public warrants list that he was subject to arrest arising out of family court. He promptly called

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the court clerk the next morning to discern its cause. He was advised of a nonappearance on the

support case which triggered an arrest warrant by Popeo. Unlike other matters, there was no

phone call to discover the reason for plaintiff’s nonappearance so that arrest could be averted.

75) Plaintiff appeared the same day to have that warrant lifted. The social services

attorney giving free representation to a litigant earning in excess of $100,000 annually demanded

an undertaking for the full amount of approximately $72,000 then being sought. As it would later

be discovered, such amount failed to credit plaintiff with a $35,500 payment. Plaintiff was

instead “released on his own recognizance” as accused felons are in Utica’s criminal court.

76) Shortly beforehand, plaintiff was segregated from the litigant population in the

sheriff’s office of the courthouse while awaiting Popeo’s arrival. During this period, plaintiff

exchanged information with a sheriff deputy who would later target him for a violent arrest. It

included plaintiff’s nonviolent protests to the persecution being observed by him as court room

security and the 2016 criminal conviction of plaintiff’s secretary with which he was familiar.

77) At a May 17, 2018 support hearing, defendant Carraway again denied recusal and

found plaintiff guilty of a willful support violation despite some 30 exhibits showing plaintiff’s

extensive employment searches to satisfy obligations set at pre-license suspension income levels.

Defendant Hawse did not testify and a single agent from support collection provided information

from a multi-paged summary which was never offered into evidence. After both sides rested,

defendant Carraway noted the summary and accepted it contrary to elementary procedure and

over plaintiff’s objections based on a long lost opportunity for voir dire or cross-examination.

78) During plaintiff’s first untimely review of that summary, he discovered the fraudulent

exclusion of the 2015 payment. Defendant Carraway then endeavored to cover up the fraud and

malpractice of opposing counsel by offering judicial notice of payment which later turned out to

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be $10,000 higher than actual inasmuch as plaintiff had no access to a complete and accurate

summary. The proceeding ended with chaos and a decision which nevertheless found guilt and a

six month jail term based on half the amount sought in the petition (approx. $43,000).

79) Outraged, plaintiff raised objections to both the final judgment of the support

magistrate and non-final commitment to jail based on a fraudulent money debt. This created a

highly peculiar dilemma between support court and family court which effectively foreclosed

appellate review. Defendant Popeo granted plaintiff’s letter request for adjournment of his

hearing set only one week after Carraway’s decision to obtain a transcript of her hearing.

80) As explained by defendant Popeo, his confirmation process was self-crafted to

exclude a hearing to determine asset availability to satisfy payment in lieu of incarceration.

Depending on which judge was assigned, a litigant had no notice of a reliable procedure to plan

for. The jail issue was inextricably reliant upon an accurate final money judgment in order to set

a proper purge amount. However two successive stenographers mysteriously reneged on their

retainer, and defendant Popeo denied further adjournments. Instead, he reviewed the hearing CD

exclusively and rendered a decision confirming the jail term recommendation of six months.

81) Plaintiff did not appear in person for the confirmation hearings after catching

defendant Judge Popeo in a blatant lie during a teleconference on July 12, 2018. On the record,

Popeo stated that he had not denied a second adjournment request. That was contradicted by e-

mail notice from his court clerk one day earlier and disclosed in court to his embarrassment.

82) Such an exchange added to the mound of evidence showing serious corruption.

Defendant Judge Popeo was setting plaintiff up for a court room ambush with deputies present to

execute on the fraudulent judgment and jail term. It was an abuse of the highest order as Judge

Popeo was also defying the state’s public censure through a falsely accused civil rights attorney.

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 83) When plaintiff failed to appear for the ambush, defendant Popeo issued an arrest

warrant on August 23, 2018. Plaintiff was thereby remanded to fugitive status. One week later,

the security deputy who initiated all this by unlawful service contacted plaintiff by phone to

“turn himself in.” This was not a practice offered to the countless others who appeared on the

sheriff warrant lists, and it enraged the plaintiff as he was again being treated wrongly as a

criminal. Plaintiff’s name was featured in capital letters, also unlike others, on those lists.

84) Plaintiff responded that he would resist this unlawful arrest. The deputy understood

that to mean a nonviolent protest from earlier conversations. It was akin to legislators in Oregon,

Texas and elsewhere who left their states to deny a vote quorum in the face of arrest warrants

issued by their governors. Instead, unknown agents fashioned a secret all-points-bulletin that

featured outdated shirtless photos from plaintiff’s website to make him appear dangerous.

85) Because plaintiff had no guns, no idea how to use one, and no violent or criminal

record of any kind, this was a malicious act which placed remote law enforcement and a judicial

whistle blower in harm’s way. When the high alert warrant was leaked to the media like so many

other matters were over a twelve year history, defendant Maciol conceded in news reports that

the public disclosure was unlawful. On information and belief, there was no prior case like this.

86) On August 30, 2018, a driver of plaintiff’s vehicle was pulled over evidently without

cause while exiting toll booths in Albany, New York. Seven patrol cars arrived on the scene with

volatile threats if the driver refused to take them to plaintiff’s location. The situation escalated to

a level resembling the 2015 police murder of Walter Scott in South Carolina who was shot dead

five times in the back unarmed while fleeing a child support warrant at a traffic stop.

87) The driver refused to comply despite a warrant outstanding for his own arrest which

the patrol officers did not enforce. Instead the driver was released after a search of the vehicle

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yielded nothing unlawful. Under such life threatening pressure, plaintiff obtained money from a

fundraising drive and emergency loan to pay the purge amount. It took extra days to process due

to the secret location of defendant Child Support Processing Center. Defendant Popeo then lifted

his warrant. On information and belief, that warrant was also being pursued by U.S. Marshals.

88) On Thanksgiving and Christmas, 2018, plaintiff requested and received rare calls

from his daughters monitored by defendant Hawse. They were still referring to plaintiff as “Dad”

and conveying their love for him. Inexplicably all such calls thereafter ceased, and those same

daughters refused to interact with or acknowledge plaintiff as their father at school events in

March, May and June, 2019. They have looked to the side even as plaintiff was addressing them.

89) On Fathers Day, plaintiff sent a text to defendant Hawse for phone contact which

never came. He emphasized that all incentive to grow child support had been destroyed by the

corruption in these courts and her alienation tactics. She replied with another support violation

petition which contained $37,503 denied by judgment one year earlier. As defendant Carraway

dodged material events and a calculation bearing on that judgment, plaintiff remains a victim.

90) Plaintiff appeared on the petition and announced that it had caused a loss of

employment and withdrawal of a reinstatement application inasmuch as the petition had been

mailed to an attorney ethics committee. Unlike the prior year, plaintiff was given only eight days

to file motions and three weeks to prepare for a hearing. Motions for an extension, suspension of

support based on permanent alienation, and dismissal based on fraud and a denial of transcripts

were all denied. Plaintiff will not be prepared for an August 9, 2019 hearing and a repeat ordeal.

91) Fair treatment and discovery were denied in all courts between 2006 and the present.

Accordingly, plaintiff was prevented from knowing the identities and extent of involvement of

defendants and others in the following claims which necessarily apply to all.

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 FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION
(Due Process of Law)

92) Plaintiff realleges the foregoing paragraphs in all causes of action which follow.

They sufficiently demonstrate an ongoing pattern of abuse which violates both procedural and

substantive due process under the federal and state constitutions. Plaintiff is entitled to equitable

and monetary relief in an amount to be determined by a court or jury in the same causes of

action. A systemic bias has escalated to dangerous and intolerable levels without recognition.

SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION

(Equal Protection Under the Law)

93) Plaintiff asserts violations of equal protection rights under both selective

enforcement and “Class of One” theories of liability demonstrated by the targeting shown

throughout this pleading. He is also raising discrimination on account of gender.

THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION

(Violations of Free Speech)

94) Plaintiff seeks relief under 42 USC Section 1983 for a violation of free speech under

the federal constitution and self-executing provisions of the state constitution against those state

actors conspiring to retaliate against him due to protected activity of a self-governing society.

FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION

(Declaratory and Injunctive Relief)

95) Plaintiff seeks distinct relief under CPLR Articles 30 and 63 declaring the state Child

Support Standards Act unconstitutional on its face or as applied to this alleged child support

debtor. Under that Act and Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, the federal government rewards

defendants by the number and size of child support orders they impose and enforce.

96) Read together, these provisions create an added layer of trial courts, impermissible

systemic or inherent bias, abuses such as imputed income, gender bias, chaotic processes, debtor

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prisons and conduct which “shocks the conscience,” all with the primary goal of raising revenues

and fees to the detriment of parent-child relationships. Plaintiff seeks a declaration invalidating

state practices which remove the means of generating income to satisfy child support payments

under threat of incarceration while child custody violations receive no comparable punishments.

FIFTH CAUSE OF ACTION

(Prima Facie Tort)

97) Defendants have acted with a principal malicious purpose of harming plaintiff. He

has been harmed in every aspect of his life for illegitimate reasons.

SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION

(Defamation of Character)

98) Defendants and/or their agents, known and unknown, have made statements or

caused statements to be made which were and continue to be false and defamatory. They were

made with reckless disregard for truth and intended to punish free speech and parental rights.

SEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION

(Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress)

99) Conduct which “shocks the conscience” as depicted in these pleadings in support of

a substantive due process violation also satisfies the state tort claim of intentional infliction of

emotional distress. Plaintiff has been subject to severe anxiety and distress connected to a

recurring design of alienating his daughters, paying for their removal and incarcerating him.

EIGHTH CAUSE OF ACTION

(Malicious Destruction of Parent Child Relationships)

100) Plaintiff seeks precedent which establishes a new state tort tentatively termed

Malicious Destruction of Parent-Child Relationships. Distinct from other torts, this one is

focused not upon affections or abuses of process but on a liberty interest which the Supreme

Court has long recognized in parenting. The permanent harm is too extensive to relate here.

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 RELIEF DEMANDED

1) Plaintiff seeks a stay, restraint or injunction on proceedings of Magistrate Carraway

currently underway and any later confirmation hearing pending an outcome of this case.

2) Plaintiff seeks an order or request submitted to the Chief Administrative Judge of the

state Unified Court System which transfers this case to a downstate judicial district or a judge far

removed from the events and persons identified in this pleading.

3) An order directing one or more defendants to produce transcripts of a violation

hearing held on May 17, 2018, confirmation hearings held on July 12 and August 22, 2018 and a

violation arraignment held on July 9, 2019 for the reasons already provided in this pleading.

4) An order referring this case to a Special Master to review the complete record,

supervise discovery and report on the same at a time to be set by this court.

5) Judgment declaring the Child Support Standards Act unconstitutional, facially or as

applied to this plaintiff, together with injunctive relief, as appropriate to carry out its terms.

6) An order removing defendant Hawse from Child “A” and “B” for a sufficient period

of time together with orders fashioned to reconcile and restore father-daughter relationships.

7) Monetary relief in the way of restitution, compensation and punitive damages against

those defendants capable of liability on the relevant causes of action set forth in this complaint.

8) Such other relief as this court deems just and proper.

WHEREFORE, plaintiff demands judgment in accordance with the relief demanded.

Date: August 7, 2019 _________________________________

Leon R. Koziol, Plaintiff pro se

1336 Graffenburg Road
New Hartford, NY 13413
(315) 796-4000

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