CHILD TRAFFICKING AT THE INTERSECTION OF BRIBED CALIFORNIA JUDGES, CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, AND THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
David Samuels
An Exclusive SOTN Investigative Report
We are all too familiar with how Child Protective Services has been implicated as a major source of Child Trafficking, but what we are not aware of is how the bribed State Judges and the Department of Health and Human Services make it all possible. Let’s take the California Superior Court System as an example. What you are about to hear should chill you to the bone. It is a story of Judicial Treachery on a scale unprecedented in US history and is 100% true.
To understand how this all works, we must understand the landscape and how it almost came to an end in California.
Associate Justice Patricia Benke wrote in her 37-page opinion of Sturgeon v. County of Los Angeles (2008) 167 Cal.App.4th 630 (Sturgeon I), “The duty to prescribe judicial compensation is not delegable. Thus the practice of the County of Los Angeles (the county) providing Los Angeles County superior court judges with employment benefits, in addition to the compensation prescribed by the Legislature, is not permissible.” This affirmed the principle that judicial compensation is a state, not a county, responsibility. The Appeals court found that by providing substantial employment benefits to its superior court judges, defendant County of Los Angeles (the county) violated article VI, section 19 of our Constitution, which requires that compensation for judges be prescribed by the Legislature. http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/california-court-appeals-rules-extra-compensation-los-angeles-county-judges-violates-c/
Wikipedia states, “The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution each contain a due process clause. Due process deals with the administration of justice and thus the due process clause acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the government outside the sanction of law.[1] The Supreme Court of the United States interprets the clauses more broadly because these clauses provide four protections: procedural due process (in civil and criminal proceedings), substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws, and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Due process ensures the rights and equality of all citizens.”
To maintain due process, all Judges are required to disclose pecuniary ($) interest in any case in which they preside. If Superior Court Judges receive payments from the County under a “secret” contract, they must recuse themselves from any case where the County is a party. Clearly this does not happen; however, any defendant or plaintiff which raises this issue will see all the rats, I mean Judges, rapidly recuse themselves. The contracts between the Judges and the County are NOT public documents and attempts to get access to them have been protected by the very Judges the contract seeks to implicate. What are they hiding?
Your initial response might be, “So what, Judges are venerable and these payments do not corrupt them. How dare you imply a corrupt motive?”
First, it was the Appeals Court which determined these bribes were illegal payments in violation of the California Constitution. But let’s consider the broader ramifications. If you are prosecuted by the County, how can a Superior Court Judge of the same county preside over the case if they are receiving an illegal bribe via a “Secret” contract?
Even after the payments were deemed illegal, did they end? No, the Counties continue to make them. Why? All you need to do is ask, who benefits.
Why are these payments important?
There are several reasons why the counties continue to make these payments.
- County Supervisor pay is linked to Superior Court Judges compensation.
- Bribed Judges give favorable rulings to County Prosecutors.
- Title IV Incentive payments.
Numbers 1 and 2 are self-evident greed. Number 3, “Title IV Incentive Payments,” leads to due process violations, bias, and child trafficking. These Title IV payments to the State create an incentive. Specifically, Title IV includes:
Part-A (Grants to States for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families),
Part-B (Child and Family Services),
Part-D (Child Support and Establishment of Paternity), and
Part-E (Fed Payments for Foster Care & Adoption Assistance).
The designation “IV” actually refers to Title IV of the Social Security Act of 1975, which covers grants to states for the purpose of providing aid and services to needy families with children. The Administration of Children and Families (ACF) administers benefit payments under Title IV through HHS. The FY 2017 Budget request for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is $63.0 billion. The Mandatory Budget is $43.1 Billion with the majority based on Title IV:
Child Care Entitlement to States $2.917 billion,
Child Care and Development Fund $5.678 billion,
Child Support Enforcement and Family Support $4,311 billion, and
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) $16.739 billion. http://www.hhs.gov/about/budget/fy2017/budget-in-brief/acf/mandatory/index.html
If $63 Billion is available and California has 14% of the US Population, the State stands to receive almost $9 billion in Federal Reimbursements.
The California Superior Court system into a profit center!
Sturgeon I threatened to shut off this source of federal reimbursement funds because the Judges, for their part in the conspiracy were not going to do it for free. The California Legislature understood the threat, “If you don’t do something to ensure the payments to the California Judges continue, we will shut off Title IV Federal Reimbursement payments.”
In immediate response to “Sturgeon I,” the California Legislature passed section 68220 to the Government Code which gave (1) retroactive immunity to the judges that received the bribes, (2) allowed counties the choice of whether to pay supplemental benefits at all; and (3) it left existing disparities in judicial benefits between the various counties intact.
45 CFR Part § 304.12 (b) Incentive payments to States related to Title IV. Essentially, reimbursement is based ratios of the State’s Title IV-A, Title IV-D, and non-title IV-A collections. Putting people into Title IV programs, voluntarily or involuntarily, means money for California, money for Judges, and money for Supervisors. Whose money? YOUR MONEY.
So how does this work?
The bribes mean that Judges AND attorneys both have an incentive to create “high conflict” cases which extend Family Court proceedings while they order psychiatric evaluations of mothers and fathers by unlicensed con-artists, force minors into foster care, remove children from homes, award high child support, alimony payments to abusive and raping spouse, and bleed both parties to ensure there is a higher chance one or both parties will continue to need state assistance. The more money sent means larger incentive payment. Higher ratios of Title IV means high percentage reimbursement.
A bridge too far? Maybe you can explain why would Judge Gregory Pollack of San Diego Superior Court awarded the sexual assault victim to pay alimony to her rapist husband in November 2012? Simple, it was the end of the year and California needed to ensure maximum reimbursement § 304.12 (b) Incentive payments to States. We suspect California needed to boost its ratio to increase its percentage returns. Only because the victim went on a political campaign that led the California Legislature to introduced a bill that would keep any victim of violent sexual crime perpetrated by a spouse from having to pay alimony to the abusive former spouse. Who can disagree with that? Well, I can because it was the “Incentive Payments” which lead to this decision. The decision by Judge Gregory Pollack was egregious, but the source of the problem was Title IV incentive payments.
On May 29, 2015 S. 178, the “Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015” was signed into law after much political fighting. However, this is more in the wrong direction. Solutions like these will make the problem worse, not better! Government funding is the problem and in comes in the form 45 CFR Part § 304.12 (b) Incentive payments to States. Bribes to California Superior Court Judges in the form of these “secret” contracts ensure the Judiciary provides a steady stream Title IV rulings in a ratio to maximize federal reimbursements.
Ironically, the “S. 178 – Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015” that just passed under the auspices of dealing with child sex trafficking, will actually perpetuate the problem and make it worse, by funneling even more federal funds into social services for children and troubled youth. Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer was one of the few who did speak out about the bill and try to do something to stop this horrendous problem, but predictably she now is dead. Her published report, The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services, is reproduced is here.
How much money are we talking about?
Enough money to bribe judges! One child taken into foster care can bring in up to $1 million of revenue to the State. Children who need “extra care” are given many medical treatments, such as psychotropic drugs. So guess what, California Foster Care prescribes psychiatric drugs at a rate well beyond malpractice, but it ensures more money. (See: California’s Crisis: 1 Out of Every 4 Children in California’s Foster Care Prescribed Powerful Psychiatric Drugs)
And once the State has the child in foster care, they have no obligation to track whether they have gone missing. Missing children mean loss of payments, so no one reports it, especially CPS. Only when the parent goes looking for the child is it determined that they are missing. Children are sold, sexually assaulted, abused, raped, and killed all while in the care of CPS. But the California needs the money and Judge need the bribes.
Where is the Child Trafficking?
The child trafficking industry, or human trafficking industry right now, makes more money than the illegal drug trade, and illegal arms trade, combined. In California, all of this is possible due to the bribed Judges, California Superior Court system, and the legislature’s insatiable appetite for Incentive Payments to fill the budgetary gap.
There is so much corruption between Family Court and Child Protective Services
http://youtu.be/7KjLMJgNtRA
Anything else?
In 2012, the $2 billion California Court Case Management System was set to be rolled out to all of California. It was intended to automate California court operations with a common system across the state and replace 70 different legacy systems. However, the State had other plans after wasting all our money. The system would have made information regarding Judicial corruption at everyone fingertips. Statistically speaking, it would be very easy to determine which County places Judicial Bribes above the good of the people, what time of year to file a divorce, or any amount of statistical information that could be used to describe the current state of affairs.
While we are unable to find information related directly to the amount of incentive payments made according to each County, we suspect that if we looked at the amount contributed by each county and compared it to the amount of supplemental pay to Superior Court Judges by the County, we would see a strong correlation. The contract between the County and the Superior Court would likely spell this out, which is the reason these contracts are protected.
We suspect that we could make a huge dent in Child Trafficking by eliminating these Incentive Payments, but the corruption must continue no matter the cost. And in case you think these bribes are needed to ensure competent Judges, consider that the Judges are elected positions in California. Having practiced in front of many California Judges, I can tell you that we can’t do any worse. Maybe, just maybe lower pay will call more principled individuals to the job, but they are lawyers to begin with. You can take the Judge out of the lawyer, but you cannot take the lawyer out of the Judge.
KEY POINT: The Adoption and the Safe Families Act, set in motion by President Bill Clinton, offered cash “bonuses” to the states for every child they adopted out of foster care. In order to receive the “adoption incentive bonuses” local child protective services need more children. They must have merchandise (children) that sell and you must have plenty of them so the buyer can choose. Some counties are known to give a $4,000 bonus for each child adopted and an additional $2,000 for a “special needs” child. Employees work to keep the federal dollars flowing.
State of the Nation
November 14, 2017
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