WHERE ARE THE ETHICS IN THE COURTS OF THE STATE OF MARYLAND?

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Free-Elsa-Newman

And what about Maryland’s prisons?
Are prisoners treated according to some code of demoralization or what?

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here. I guess I got discouraged. For that an apology is due, and I duly apologize.

The reality is that my discouragement and lack of blogging may well have contributed to the dismal situation Elsa Newman continues to endure at Maryland’s Correctional Institution for Women at Jessup.

People who have previously read here probably remember the name of Elsa Newman. Please allow me to refresh your memory as to said “dismal situation.”

First let me remind you how firmly I believe Elsa Newman’s imprisonment is unjust. As far as I can tell from extensive research into the Newman case, Newman did nothing to deserve prison. Back in the days when Doug Gansler, now Maryland’s Attorney General, was a mere state’s attorney in Montgomery County, Elsa Newman was incarcerated. I have long believed that Gansler rode to political success in Maryland partly on the back of the case he made against Newman. If you disagree? Well…that’s OK…but you might want to take a trip back through some of the things I wrote earlier before you make a final judgment.

At that time of the Newman trial, Doug Gansler’s chief assistant was a woman named Katherine Winfree. Make no mistake, Winfree is probably one of the best prosecutors in the United States. She is so good that she can make a case out of lies and partial truth, witnesses who look good on the stand but are willing to lie through their teeth, and suspicions she created by well-placed questions and her own creative ideas.

In my opinion, Stephen Friendman lied. He was Newman’s former attorney.
Maryland’s highest court said his testimony should never have been allowed at all. But he testified against Newman, saying she had sat in his presence and plotted to kill her estranged husband. Pardon the expression, but that’s bullshit. I wonder sometimes how Friedman manages to eat, using a mouth that spouted such infamy. Again: BULLSHIT! Elsa Newman is an extremely intelligent woman. Had she wanted to kill Arlen Slobodow, she would never have sat in the presence of an attorney she despised and for whom she had literally no respect, an attorney she accused of overbilling [an attorney who, for example, would “step out for a moment to get a Coke” and then bill her for the 45 minutes or so she sat in his office waiting for his return], and attorney she wanted to fire because she did not trust him…Newman would never have sat in the presence of such a man and plot ANYTHING, let alone murder.

Another witness was the aforementioned estranged husband, Arlen Slobodow, now of Tampa, Florida. If you’ve read any of what I said before, you know that I firmly believe Slobodow is a sociopath as well as a child molester who has repeatedly assaulted his own children sexually and in every other way possible. And you know what it is that a sociopath can do best? Lie! And be personable in his lying. He made, I am sure, a fantastic witness for the prosecution. Eloquent. Charming. Apparently candid. Said anything he wanted and made it believable. And he somehow made the jury believe that his estranged wife had plotted with a family friend to kill him.

More bullshit.

There would come a day when the family friend, Margery Landry, would testify also. According to her testimony, Newman knew nothing of what would happen that night in January. No plot. No conspiracy. No attempt to murder, for that matter.

Landry broke into Slobodow’s house, looking for evidence of child abuse. She found it. Oh, boy, did she find it! Slobodow was in bed--nearly naked--with the younger of his two sons, and the boy was completely naked. It sounds to me like Landry stumbled across a scene of abuse-in-progress. She was the child’s godmother. She loved the boy as she would have loved a child of her own. And she found him there in bed with his father, both nude, and apparently in the middle of a sexual assault upon the child. What would you have done? Crept quietly away? I doubt it. Nor did Landry. She lost it. This government employee, highly intelligent, and with the highest security clearance possible in the US foreign service, scheduled for an ambassadorial post at her next promotion…she completely lost it. She saw her godchild under attack. She entered the bedroom and try to pull the molesting father away from his son. The father struggled, shoved Landry to the floor, tried to turn on her the gun she carried for protection…and it went off. One bullet struck him in the thigh. The other, I understand, struck a wall. And she had no more bullets. Only two. Hardly the arsenal of a woman intending to kill.

After than, Landry fled. Slobodow called 911 and set up the prosecution case for them with his first words: “My wife sent someone to kill me.”

And it was there that the prosecution took its stand. As if the words that Arlen Slobodow spoke had been true, the prosecution set about the convict Elsa Newman of conspiracy and attempted murder, when she was guilty of neither one.

Elsa Newman is guilty of only one thing: she tried to protect her two sons from an abusive father. They had disclosed abuse to their mother, to family friends, to doctors, to psychiatrists, to law officers. All these people had seen signs of abuse. Some of them reported the abuse.

Margery Landry, unbeknownst to Newman, went in search of evidence in Slobodow’s own house. And the result? Elsa Newman was tried and sentenced to prison for a crime of which she was innocent. Furthermore, she had known nothing of this crime until police informed her what had happened and she was arrested…tried…convicted…sent to prison.

And this is what passes for justice in the state of Maryland?!? If so, Maryland has no justice…nothing but injustice. Shame on the state of Maryland. Shame on Montgomery County. Shame on Doug Gansler and Katherine Winfree and Stephen Friedman and Arlen Slobodow who wanted things their way and happily dissembled to get their way.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Free-Elsa-Newman

ANTI-SEMITISM? In Maryland's Correctional Institution at Jessup?

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Free-Elsa-Newman

Elsa Newman is a Jew. She is white. She is above average intelligence. She is an attorney. She was a US government employee. She was very good at what she did.

Then she was unjustly arrested…unjustly accused…unjustly tried…unjustly convicted…and unjustly imprisoned, despite her innocence.

And now? I believe her to be the victim of anti-Semitism, racial prejudice, intellectual prejudice, status prejudice, professional and perhaps any other kinds of prejudice you can think of.

Humor me while I present a few examples:

Another inmate, head down, walks by Newman muttering, “Kill all Jews!”

Her cell is searched, frequently and repeatedly and left in a mess by the officials who search. She seems to be under far greater scrutiny than other prisoners.

Medications that are to be issued to her from the prison pharmacy in a blister pack containing a full months supply--meds which are a matter of life-and-death for Newman--sometimes appear in a blister pack containing only three or four pills, rather than the month’s supply.

Newman lost her job. She could not seem to get another.

A roommate--much larger than Newman, who is small and appears somewhat frail after her years of fighting for her sons and for the justice which has, thus far, eluded her--stands in a doorway so Newman cannot leave the cell.

Another time the same roommate is on her top bunk, watching TV. As Newman attempts to walk past her, the roommate reaches out to adjust her TV, and the movement effectively “clotheslines” Newman.

Same roommate, seemingly a lesbian, makes a pass at Newman. When Newman does not respond as the roommate desires, since the roommate apparently wants her to become something she is not, the roommate begins urging her to fight. “Come on girl. Let’s fight. Let’s go down!” You should know that this roommate is a woman who sent one of her previous roommates to the infirmary.

Same roommate leaves bloody sanitary napkins on the sink. When Newman reports this to guards and requests assistance, she is ignored.

Same roomate is in her top bunk when Newman fixes herself a cup of tea and sits on her bed, preparing to drink it. The roommate throws her legs over the edge of her top bunk and begins to swing them--kicking the cup and spilling scalding hot tea all over Newman.

Newman requests another cell. There is another woman who has a cell to herself and is willing for Newman to move into that cell with her. Officers and guards tell Newman there is no cell available.

Newman repeats her request to move--or to have the offensive roommate moved. Newman is informed that any roommate problems are obviously her own fault, since she has had six roommates and they all left. Hmmmmm.

Two of those roommates were released. Two were injured and had to be moved to a cell where they could have lower bunks. One stole her blind.
And then there was the most recent roommate, of whom I have been speaking, the one who said to her, “You should have been burned when all the other Jews were!” [I wonder if the woman knows when the Holocaust occurred. Probably not, if she thinks Newman is old enough to have lived through it!]

Oh, my, yes! Clearly all the roommate problems were caused by Elsa Newman! Mmmmmm-hmmmmm! NOT!

Anyhow, as the story continued, Newman was finally moved…to an older part of the prison where the rooms are smaller and darker, and where, in her cell, the hot water did not work.

About this same time, a problem appeared when Newman went for her kosher breakfast. Now with this kosher breakfast, Newman is supposed to get two hard-boiled eggs. Her previous roommate--the one who wanted her to fight--works in the kitchen. Lo and behold, on the day after Newman moved, she received, instead, two raw eggs for her breakfast. You figure it out.

In the process of the move, some of Newman’s things were stolen. Logically enough, she complained. The Lieutenant to whom she spoke ignored her. When she complained again, the Lieutenant told her “If you complain once more that you had things stolen, I’ll put you on lock.” [Newman would be locked into her cell and not be able to leave.]


It begins to look to me like one finds the same kind of “justice” in Maryland prisons as one finds in Maryland’s courts. I’ve heard it said--I’d never say it myself, of course--but I’ve heard it said that Maryland has one of the most corrupt systems in the country. However, as I have researched the case of Elsa Newman, I begin to entertain just the teensiest bit of suspicion.

Now things change slightly. Enter the picture, but from the opposite side of the country, a little, old lady by the name of Aine O’Brocken, from the state of Washington. O’Brocken [yes, that would be me] writes to Gary Maynard, head of Maryland’s Department of Corrections and Public Safety, and…OMG…at last…someone in the state of Maryland who will take me seriously--and reply! At last, someone in the state of Maryland I can respect!

His email was to the effect that he would send someone to investigate my allegations.

And you know what? The day he sent someone to investigate, Elsa Newman got hot water in her cell! It was still the crummy, frumpy cell in the old part of the prison. But it had hot water! Wow!

Shortly thereafter, she was moved again. This time she had lots of volunteer help from other prisoners and from guards. Nobody stole anything. And nobody threatened lockdown. Hmmm. A great improvement, I must admit. And, what was unusal, perhaps, she had no new roommate.

Lack of a roommate was unusual, however, and shortly thereafter, other prisoners took up a spiteful cry: “Oooooh, Elsa! You have your own condo!”

And then came further harrassment: one of the guards manipulated a situation and issued Newman a ticket. Understand now, Newman tries her best, both to be a cooperative prisoner and not to make waves or draw attention to herself. She tries to follow all the rules. She does not get tickets.

This time, however, she did. The guard claimed she had disappeared from the area where she was supposed to be, the area for which she had been issued a pass. There were, however, cameras in that area, which showed that Newman had NOT disappeared. Nevertheless, the guard issued the ticket. Oh…and I must add, that the guard waited until the following day to issue it, and it was authorized by a Lieutenant who had not even been on duty when the supposed “disappearance” occurred. Tickets, you see, are supposed to be issued on the day of a supposed infraction. And the authorizing/signing officer is supposed to be one who was on staff and working at the time of the supposed infraction.

Enter O’Brocken again. What a nuisance this obnoxious little, old lady can be!

Another letter to Gary Maynard. No word back this time, but the ticket was disappeared. And as to the “condo”? Newman shortly had a roommate.

Not a perfect outcome, perhaps…but something.

And I repeat, I am gratified that I have found one man to respect in the Maryland system--one man who would take action on behalf of an abused prisoner and try to insert some degree of fairness and justice into an unfair and unjust situation.

Thank you, Mr. Maynard.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Free-Elsa-Newman

WHAT IS A MOTHER TO DO?

...when she is in prison, by the dictates of the American "justice" system...when she is--by the dictates of that same system--deprived of any but minimal contact with her children, and that only through the custodial parent... when she has heard the children disclose terrible sexual abuse by their father, the custodial parent mentioned previously...when the children are so frightened of their father that they will no longer attempt disclosure to anyone...when no one in the legal system will acknowledge the possibility that she might be right...when all she can do for her herself is try to hold her head up and deal with the realities of her imprisoned life.. when all she knows in the deep places of her spirit that her children are in a prison that is, if anything, worse than her own...when all she can do for those children is weep.

Besides begging authorities to listen to her and take her seriously, what on earth is this mother to do???

Courageous Kids....a message for ******** and ****

COURAGEOUS KIDS NETWORK P.O. Box 1903, Davis, CA 95617 www.courageouskids.net

We, the Courageous Kids Network, are a growing group of young people whose childhood was shattered by biased and inhumane court rulings, which forced us to live with our abusive parent, while restricting or sometimes completely eliminating contact with our loving and protective parent. We know how horrible it is to be forced into the arms of an abuser. We have been there. We are now free.

We have some suggestions for you who have to live with a batterer or molester because an attorney, an evaluator, a mediator, or a judge did not believe you.

1. Contact us at www.courageouskids.net from a safe computer (your friend, school, library) and post a blog on our messageboard with your name, age, school, and what you have suffered.
   
   
2. Mail pictures of your bruises or other pictures to P. O. Box 1903, Davis, CA 95617.
   
   
3. Keep telling people about the abuse. Don�t stop, no matter what. Tell someone new at least once a month. Tell your teacher. Tell your principal. Tell your school counselor. Tell your coach. Tell your therapist. Tell your friends� parents. Tell the police. Call 911. Keep on telling. Ask for advice and protection.
   
   
4. File a complaint against your court-appointed attorney if your were not protected by the attorney. Just write what the attorney did or did not do and fill out the form at www.calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_generic.jsp?cid=10179
   
   
5. Call a good attorney and tell him or her exactly what is happening to you � when, where and how often you are abused. Ask that the attorney replace your court-appointed attorney.
   
   
6. Write a letter to the judge asking the judge to get rid of the attorney.
   
   
7. Get evidence. If you get raped, don�t wash. Go right to the emergency ward of a hospital with a rape trauma unit so they can do a DNA test on the sperm. If you can get pornographic computer pictures with you in the pictures, give them to the police right away and let us know who you gave the pictures to.
   
   
8. Always tell the truth about the abuse, even if you are threatened or hurt, or if there are threats against people you love. This is really important, especially when you talk to court people.
   
   
9. Don�t hurt yourself! You will one day be free. We care about you and need you to join us.
   
   
10. This needs to come from you. The court always blames things on our mothers, so be careful not to tell the perpetrators about the Courageous Kids. We are counting on you.
    
    

With honor and respect for all your courage,

The Courageous Kids

HOW MANY CHILDREN MUST DIE?

How many dead children will it take? Courts need to start listening when children say they don't want to go with their father. Courts need to start listening when mothers say their children are not safe with their father.

Remember the Castillo case in Maryland? Three children drowned in a bathtub--because the court refused to listen when a mother said the children were not safe in unsupervised visits with their father.

And what about the two Slobodow boys--who accused their father of virtually unspeakable sexual molestation...of all kinds of other abuses...and of child pornography? Well...what about them? They now live in Tampa, Florida, with their father--who gained custody of the boys by default when he and his attorney, in cahoots with the Montgomery County prosecutor, managed to convince two juries that their mother had tried to have their father killed. This, despite the fact that Maryland's highest court opined that there was absolutely nothing to connect their mother, Elsa Newman, with the breaking-and-entering crime of family friend, Margery Landry.

There was no murder attempt. There was no conspiracy. Landry acted on her own, and in fact, acted behind Newman's back while Newman was out of the state, attending a wedding.

And now we have another case in Illinois. Once again, a mother said to law enforcement, "I don't want to send my children to him. They are not safe with him!" And the courts and law enforcement laughed her to scorn.

Now her sons Duncan and Jack are dead. Their father has apparently committed suicide.

The mother has blamed the courts and the legal system.

McLean County State's Attorney Bill Yoder said at Monday's news conference that he was not exactly sure what Leichtenberg referred to.

Perhaps Mr. Yoder had to take some kind of IQ test before he became State's Attorney in order to prove that he is sufficiently inept and lacking in intelligence to provide such an answer when an agonized mother says the judicial system failed her. She means, Mr. Yoder, that the American system of "justice"...the Illinois legal system...the prosecutor's office...ALL OF YOU failed to listen to her when she did not want her sons to spend time with their father, her former husband.

Read on for more of the story.


Sheriff: Ill. boys, father died in murder-suicide
By DAVID MERCER Associated Press Writers
7:12 PM CDT, March 30, 2009

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Two young central Illinois boys missing for three weeks were found dead in the back seat of their father's car, apparently killed by their dad before he took his own life, authorities said Monday.

A 911 call led authorities in rural Putnam County to a remote spot Sunday night where they found 9-year-old Duncan Connolly and his 7-year-old brother, Jack. They discovered the body of 40-year-old Michael Connolly about 60 yards away. The boys, from the small town of Leroy, were the subject of a national search after their father failed to return them to their mother on March 8 after a weekend custody visit. The couple divorced in 2006 and Connolly had only recently been allowed to keep his sons overnight. Autopsies were being conducted Monday afternoon, but McLean County Sheriff Mike Emery, whose agency investigated the boys' disappearance, and Putnam County Sheriff Kevin Doyle said the case was being investigated as a double homicide-suicide.

Neither would discuss many details of the case at a news conference Monday, including how the boys and their father died, how long they had been dead or why they ended up in a rural location about 60 miles north of the area where the lived. The sheriffs said they would respect the family's wishes in withholding details. "Our hearts and prayers now are with Jack, Duncan and (their mother) Amy Leichtenberg," an emotional Emery said, his voice wavering.

Leichtenberg issued a statement expressing her own heartbreak. "No parent should have to bury their babies," she said. "Duncan and Jack, Mommy loves you to the heavens and back." Leichtenberg also blamed the courts. I feel that the judicial system failed me," Leichtenberg said, without elaboration. "I pray that the courts listen to the warnings from other parents like me."

McLean County State's Attorney Bill Yoder said at Monday's news conference that he was not exactly sure what Leichtenberg referred to, but his office had recently filed four "criminal actions" against Connolly and that his continued visitation rights had been under discussion.

Connolly was to have dropped the boys off at the police department in Leroy after picking them up there March 6, Emery said. A court order had barred Connolly from contact with Leichtenberg, according to Bloomington attorney Helen Ogar, who represented her.

The order also initially prevented Connolly from seeing his sons. Connolly was only allowed to start keeping his children overnight without supervision last December, Ogar said. Connolly had never hurt Leichtenberg or their sons, but scared her because he called often, sometimes threatening suicide and at other times trying to intimidate her or convince her to come back to him, Ogar said. Police investigating the boys' disappearance said Connolly had threatened to kill himself, and had a history of gambling problems and been treated for depression. He worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative, making a "good living," Ogar said.

Before the weekend the boys disappeared, Leichtenberg did not want to turn the boys over to their father, Ogar said. "She was contacted by the Leroy police and told that she had to send them, that it was an arrestable offense (if she did not)," she said. Ogar said she told Leichtenberg that failure to give the boys to their father was a civil matter, not criminal, and told her not to turn them over if she didn't want to.

Authorities did not issue an Amber Alert in the case until the evening of March 8, roughly a day after they were due back to their mother. Leroy police did not issue the alert -- eventually issued by the McLean County Sheriff's Department -- because the agency did not believe the boys were in danger, Ogar said. An officer who answered the telephone at the Leroy Police Department Monday directed questions to police Chief Gordon Beck, whom he said was out of town.

Todd Roseberry, who represented Connolly over violations of the court order barring contact with Leichtenberg, said he was stunned by three deaths. "The Michael Connolly I knew was very affectionate and loved his kids," Roseberry said, adding that he hadn't spoken with Connolly since late last summer.

On Monday in Leroy, counselors came to schools to talk with friends of Duncan and Jack and other kids upset by the news. A lighted sign outside a hardware store in town read "Forever in our Prayers." A spokesman for Leichtenberg said Monday that if she ever doubted her sons would come home, she didn't show it. "I spoke to her last evening. She was in downtown Davenport, Iowa, handing out fliers and putting up posters," said family friend Brad MacAfee. "Every interaction I had with her, she had all the hope in the world she was going to see those boys."

Oh, my dear young man!

"Checkmate
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/marylandstatecases/coa/2004/31a04.pdfThis is an official document directly from the trial of the trials websiteThis document proves not only is she mentally unstable as i said before............but that she has thought of killing her own children.....my brother. Her lawyer accidently told it to the prosecution in the trial.......Im not proud of this at all, i may have proven that i am not lying about my mother........but some thing i really wish i never found.I can now say im apathetic about whatever happens to my mom, i really dont care any more, after what she said about my brother, my mom can die of heart failure in prison and it wouldnt bother me.she is no longer my mom and i wont ever want to talk to her again"

For some reason young Mr. ******* Slobodow seems to believe that the material I have cited from his blog--please see above--is proof positive and final that his mother is insane and he has never been molested by his father.

On the other hand, the legal paper which HE cites, states quite clearly, in the majority opinion of Maryland's highest court, the court which heard the Newman case on appeal, that they could find absolutely nothing to connect Newman to the crimes committed by Margery Landry.

I fail to understand why this young man uses the term "checkmate." I was not aware that we were playing a game here. This is deadly serious: his mother is unjustly imprisoned. And ****** has turned against her. Now ****** is writing about his younger brother as though the boy were joining him in his anti-mother-proclaim-the-innocence-of-the-father campaign.

Give it up, *******. Your mother is innocent. Your father is a child molester. And I believe you either know it or you have dissociated.

Congratulations on opening the world up to your father, Arlen Slobodow, so that he can now venture out into the world and prey on other children--because you so vehemently defend him as a good and decent human being, when he is in fact quite the opposite.

Sheesh!

With the help of the evil one?

Greetings, everyone: especially greetings to *******, ****, and Arlen Slobodow, who have long been the subject of my blogging on this site.

I’d say greetings also to Elsa Newman, but of course she is the mother who is unjustly imprisoned in the state of Maryland, so she will not get a chance to see this.

I suppose the people I am greeting are a bit disappointed to realize that I am back. But I have been gone for a couple of weeks due to taking time off from the stress of day-to-day life here in the land of Brocken.

While I was gone I had some random thoughts that struck me, and I believe I’ll share them with you.

You may have noticed in reading here that ******* has become quite vocal about the abuse and molestation he and his younger brother have suffered at the hands of his father. But his becoming vocal has taken the form of denial. He has called me a liar…a bitch…a fat slob...and has used an assortment of other terminology not nearly so polite.

The thought that struck me is this. Young Mr. ******* Slobodow is setting himself up to take a fall. How is that? Well, many men and boys who have been raped, molested or abused are not able to admit that fact until they reach their forties or fifties; it is, for many men, only at that time that the complete horror of what has been done to them somehow hits them full force. They become angry. They want justice.

Several states—including Florida, I believe—are now working on extending the statute of limitations for childhood abuse, molestation and rape. [From this page to G-d’s eyes, please…please…please.] What this means is that when children grow to adulthood…and when they reach that stage of recognizing and admitting the unspeakable horrors that have been imposed upon them, they will be able to take the issue to court and sue their molesters/abusers/rapists.

When young Mr. ******* Slobodow was even younger than he is now, he was quite vocal about the molestation. It was, in fact, ******* who had to have his hands pried from a table by legal authorities who came to force him to visit his father.

Obviously Arlen Slobodow would be quite pleased with *******'s insistence that the father never molested his sons. ******* is playing right into his father’s hands. It is greatly to the elder Slobodow’s advantage to have *******’s revocation on the internet.

So what will happen when ******* reaches the age of forty or fifty or so and is finally able to confront what happened to him? Well…his father will have a written record of a teenage *******’s denial that there ever was any molestation or abuse.

Kind of a sad plan, *******. A very sad plan, indeed, and one you may well live to regret.

Your father, Arlen Slobodow of Tampa, Florida, is a child molester. Does he limit his molestation and abuse to you and your brother? Or are your denials giving your father the freedom to exercise his pedophilia on other children, in addition to his two sons?

Are you helping create a monster, *******? No. The monster created himself--most likely with the assistance of the Evil One. But you may well be clearing the path for him—to other children who, like you, will be molested and abused and made the subject of child pornography.

Is that the path of a good Jew, *******? To help make life a living hell for other children and teenagers?

Why is this a worldwide epidemic?

Defiant: mother tells why she took her son and ran
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Caroline Overington February 02, 2009
Article from: The Australian
MELINDA Stratton is a woman on the run. In April last year, she fled Australia with her four-year-old son, Andrew, to avoid a custody hearing in the Family Court.
In December, her husband, NSW deputy fire chief Ken Thompson, asked the court to lift a ban on identifying Andrew so he could launch an international campaign to find the boy.
Photographs of Andrew are now plastered on buses in Europe, and on billboards in England. Mr Thompson has launched a website, and a group email has gone around the world, urging people to contact Interpol if they see Ms Stratton.
Ms Stratton - a professional woman from Sydney's northern suburbs, who has an MBA, speaks French and German, and has lived and worked abroad - has so far managed to dodge the authorities, but yesterday emerged from seclusion to tell her side of the story.
A 10-page letter - the first contact between Ms Stratton and anyone outside her immediate family since last April - was provided to The Australian with no identifying marks. It was dated January 15.
Ms Stratton says she had no choice other than to flee Australia, because she had lost faith in the Family Court.
She says the balance of the court - once firmly in favour of granting custody to mothers - had tipped dramatically towards fathers. The Howard government's regime of "shared parenting" had given power to fathers at the expense of mothers.
"I have lost all faith in any form of justice coming out of Australia," Ms Stratton says.
"By remaining silent, however, I ensure that they (the Family Court) can continue to treat other mothers and children this way."
Ms Stratton does not say where she is hiding, but adds: "Currently, my son is well and happy.
"I spent $30,000 on court proceedings. I have been told I will receive harsh penalties as 'punishment' for leaving from the Family Court.
"I am in my 40s. My son is only four. His welfare and future are my priority.
"The decision to break all contact with my family and friends, leave my job and our home was not taken lightly.
"I also understand that the Family Court could take my son away from me and give Ken full custody of him, again as punishment."
The battle between Ms Stratton and Mr Thompson for access to Andrew is complex and bitter.
She says he suffers from depression and anxiety. He says he suffered from "mild anxiety" when his first marriage ended 20 years ago.
"It was nothing more than mild anxiety," he says.
"It was a very difficult time, but it was also a very long time ago."
When he launched his campaign to find Andrew, Mr Thompson said that his former wife had a "mental condition". On his blogs, he says she is "paranoid" and that she may harm Andrew rather than return him to Sydney.
Ms Stratton says she has "no mental problems whatsoever".
Ms Stratton has made more serious allegations against Mr Thompson but The Australian is constrained by law from publishing them. She made the allegations in December 2007, left the family home in January last year, and the country in April.
Mr Thompson strenuously denies his wife's claims, saying she "made all kinds of allegations ... the psychologists have said there is no reason to even investigate them".
Ms Stratton says the court psychologist is biased against mothers. She points to papers presented by Family Court practitioners in which they say that mothers can make up allegations of abuse and that children can be manipulated by their mothers to say they have been abused.
The identity of the psychologist is protected by the Family Law Act (1975).
The Family Court ignored Ms Stratton's complaints and ordered her to make their son available for supervised contact with his father three or four times a week.
She complied only a few times before fleeing.
Her move was not unprecedented: although there have been some high-profile cases of men leaving Australia with their children - such as in the case of Canadian mother Melissa Hawach, whose two children were taken to Lebanon by their Sydney-based father and freed by mercenaries - it is overwhelmingly the mother who flees.
According to the Attorney-General's Department, more than 120 children were abducted and taken out of Australia last year. In 75 per cent of cases, the mother was suspected of taking the children.
Mr Thompson said his former wife should return to Australia. "I'm not the one who has run away from the court," he said. "I'm the one who took court action.
"She's decided that the police were wrong, the courts were wrong, the psychologists are wrong, and she's right.
"If she's right, I don't understand why she doesn't come back and see the matter through in the Family Court.
"What kind of country do we live in if people can disagree with what the court says, and just take off?"
The AFP is conducting a criminal investigation into Andrew's abduction and subsequent disappearance.
Interpol has also issued alerts for Ms Stratton and Andrew in 187 countries.
The Family Court publication order warns anyone recognising Ms Stratton or her son not to approach them and to instead pass the information on to police.

The Children of Elsa Newman ARE NOT ALONE!

The Slobodow children are not alone, although some of my writing in the past may have made it seem so, since I have so focused on the plight of their mother, unjustly imprisoned in the state of Maryland—and the plight of the two sons, in the custody of a father about whom they have revealed sexual molestation, as well as other abuses.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my scope has been too narrow to draw the attention I need.
Yes…my primary focus is still the Elsa Newman case. Newman is in the state of Maryland, charged and convicted of a crime committed and confessed to by another person who acted on her own, without any prior knowledge on the part of Newman…without any assistance from Newman…without any conspiring with anybody.

This other person is Margery Landry, a woman who entered the home of Arlen Slobodow—through, I believe, a basement window. She was in search of evidence that would convict Slobodow of the molestation of Newman’s children. What she found during her search was an Arlen Slobodow, father of Newman’s children, nude from the waist down, in bed with a child who was completely nude. She lost her cool and tried to “pull them apart,” a phrase which would indicate to me that there was something more than sleeping going on. Slobodow reacted by attempting to turn on Landry the gun she had carried “for protection,” since Slobodow had previously assaulted her—although I’m not sure exactly what protection two whole bullets would have been, and that was all Landry had loaded in the clip. At any rate, Slobodow was eventually shot in the leg, the angle of the bullet indicating that Landry had been on the floor when the gun went off.

The passage of time between Landry’s flight and Slobodow’s 911 call would indicate that he may well have taken time to erase from his computer the very evidence that Landry had sought.
By the time of the 911 call, Slobodow was ready to set up the case for the prosecution: “My wife,” he said, “sent someone to kill me.” Of course, even if that had been true, there is no way he could have known it. Beyond getting help for himself, his primary concern seemed to be, “Don’t let my wife take my kids.” As I’ve said before in this and other blogs—I’m sure he didn’t want Newman to take the kids at that point; had she had physical custody, even temporarily, she would have taken them to doctors and/or psychiatrists or other professionals who would have been able to verify the abuse that had been taking place.

So why do I think my focus has been too narrow? Because my sites are not getting enough hits from enough people who might be able to take a hand in further investigating this crime—and establishing what is so clearly a case of unjust conviction and unjust imprisonment.

Thus it seems to me that it is time for me to begin saying again that Elsa Newman is only one of thousands of women in the United States who have lost children to court-ordered abuse. In many, if not most of these cases, children are “kidnapped,” “stolen,” “betrayed” by courts they and their mother trusted; and then the children and placed in the custody of a parent who molests or abuses.

Glenn Sacks is radio talk-show host and a “man” who concerns himself with the rights of "fathers" [would "sperm donors" perhaps be a better term? Being a "sperm donor" does not make a man a father, any more than having a child in utero makes a woman a mother]—who are, in the cases I research, the primary molesters and abusers. He has said that he is interested in truth and is not riding a hobby horse for fathers’ rights. And yet when I wrote to him, in as unbiased an email as I could manage, he ignored me, and did not respond. Was I not sufficiently unbiased to suit his purposes? In other words, did I dare to presume in my email that it is sometimes the father who is at fault?

Children are being kidnapped by courts, with the help of psychologists who frame phony analyses of mothers and fathers and recommend unsupervised visitation for the fathers—or complete physical custody for the father, apparently disregarding a father’s habit of abuse.

Children are being snatched from protective mothers who have loved and cared for them, who have, in fact, been the primary caregiver for all of the children’s lives. The reason cited is often a nasty little invention called “Parental Alienation Syndrome,” or “PAS.” It was created by a man named Gardner, who insisted that sex with children is perfectly permissible and that the children, no matter how young, can learn to enjoy it.

Despicable!

What it means is that one parent—usually it is the father and his cohorts who accept this “syndrome that is not a syndrome—uses an accusation of PAS, no matter if that accusation is founded in fact or not. The courts seem to care little, if at all. And then these children are stolen by the court and placed in the custody of an abusive father.

Now we learn that there are actually “deprogramming centers,” where a child thus stolen can be sent for “treatment”. A recent case in Canada—a country I understand to be rife with the problem of stolen children and fathers’ rights initiatives aimed at protecting pedophiles —removed three girls from the custody of a mother they loved and sent them to such a “deprogramming center” in an unknown location, I believe in the US.

And who pays for this? Three guesses: and here is the answer, from an online group which allows me to join them, even though I am not among the ranks of mothers whose children have been stolen by the courts: “… you just asked if the mother is supposed to pay...the answer is yes, she is responsible for ALL cost, attorney's fees, therapy and travel, I think.”

Further: "Then if they can't pay they charge them with contempt, sanctions and sometimes put them in jail until they do pay. It's court ordered extortion."

In a similar fashion, a mother must pay for supervised visitation, if the court decides to “allow” her to see her child when said child has been handed over to a molester.

So desperate has this situation become that there is now a website for children who have thus been kidnapped, stolen from their mothers. The website is http://www.messagetoourchildren.com/ On this site, a mother can post a message for her kidnapped or stolen children. Many of these stolen children are computer savvy. They can get on the net, search for information about their mothers, and leave a message on the site to reconnect with Mom—who has left a message there for them.

We were all appalled when we learned that Roman Catholic priests were perpetrating abuse on children in their congregations. Now we find that this same sort of contamination has visited itself upon the Hassidic Jewish community: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99913807&sc=emaf

Or take a look at YouTube, where Rabbi Nochum Rosenberg speaks out against molestation by the men of the Hassidic community. On Rabbi Rosenberg’s forehead is the mark of a bullet wound. He came that close to dying in a drive-by shooting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZAn4cNEVmE

This is no problem of small proportions. It is huge. It is growing. It is visiting itself upon every community in this country—and in multiple other countries around the world. There was a day in the history of the US when a father literally “owned” his wife and children. He could legally beat his wife, although many states provided that he must use a stick no larger in circumference than the judge’s thumb. He could treat his wife in any way he wanted. He could treat his children any way he wanted. And it was nobody else’s business. They belonged to him.

Have we come full circle? Are wives and mothers and children again merely possessions, to be treated according to the whim of the husband and father? It seems so.

S0--as in the case of ******************[name had to be removed because of ongoing court procedures which endangered this mother's right and need to have custody of her daughter; I can no longer use the name, although I previously had permission, permission to use the mother's name in writing]--the father who demanded that she abort her daughter, declared, upon J*******’s refusal, that she should then prepare to beggar herself, because he would take possession of the child. He has more money. He has a new wife. He has the child, compliments of a corrupt court system. ******** is limited to the supervised visitation prescribed by the court at the time of theft of the little girl.

And********, of course, with no-to-low income, must spend much of what she has if she wants to see her daughter. Fortunately this case is not yet final. There are hearings coming up which allow the possibility that the kidnapped child will be returned to the mother. And I must note here that not only does this mother desperately want her child, but the child yearns to be back with her mother.

Fathers’ Rights. Fathers’ Rights Activists. Fathers’ Rights Courts. Fathers’ Rights Psychologists and Psychiatrists.

When will we arrive at the real issue: what are the rights of the child? What is in the best interests of the child?

The children of this country, the future of this country, are at risk here.

Or what about THIS terminology?

"Extended suicide"--they call it extended suicide. Since the father sees the wife and children as his property/extensions of himself - to him it is just part of killing himself.

A term that clearly reflects the return to the Dark Ages of women's rights--when a woman had absolutely NO rights. Everything belonged to the man--her father or her son; everyone catered to the man; he made all the decisions, even life and death; a woman owned only the clothes on her back, and in some states not even those. And in some countries, young wives were thrown onto funeral pyres with a husband's body. History tells stories of women walking away, stark naked, from abusive relationships they could no longer bear.

Progress? Financial, but limited. Legally the right to abuse has been taken from husbands and fathers--but this also is limited by failure of the law to respond. "There's nothing we can do," say police officers to a woman with a restraining order. "He hasn't DONE anything to you yet." So she sits...and she waits...until he kills her. And THEN the police step in and an attempt is made at establishing some kind of justice--when it's really to late for any kind of justice.