Corrupt Judges Make The Other Ten Percent Look Bad

In its continuing efforts to expose what’s going on in NY State’s Family Court, the Families Civil Liberty Union continues with its summary of horrific tales of Family Court Judges.

LORI CURRIER WOODS (Supreme Court, Orange County): Woe betide any parent who questions or appeals this wellspring of rage. Woods’ weapon of choice is to threaten parents that she will send their children into foster care if they so much as whisper an objection to her. She makes snap decisions on who is the ‘targeted” parent, and who is ‘protected’, and then sticks to that decision, no matter what the concrete evidence.

Woods’ anger issues may stem from a tragedy in her family. Her son Zachary, a student at Penn State, died on May 6, 2014, when his car fell a hundred feet from an overpass. Since then she has told parents in her courtroom, “you should consider yourself lucky you even have your children.”

In the milestone case of Joe Picone v Frank Golio, which the FCLU has closely monitored, she made legal history by removing two children from the custody of the biological father (Golio) and giving it to his ex-boyfriend (Picone). She even ordered the five-year-old twins to be uprooted from their home and school in Florida to move to New York, and start their lives again under her nose. The biological dad, Golio, sought intervention from the Appellate Division, and successfully secured a record EIGHT STAYS on Woods’ successive temporary orders. Enraged, Woods set about to destroy Golio. She ordered the kids to come to her courthouse for a private ‘Lincoln hearing’, but when they expressed a wish to return to Florida and live with Mr Golio, Woods ignored their wishes and said that “the children do not know what they want.” Once she had secured a lifting of the stay by the Appellate Division (thanks to the Brooke decision issued by the NY Court of Appeals in August 2016), Woods retaliated brutally against Mr Golio. In the trial, she allowed Picone to cite the kids as legitimate testimony, but dismissed similar reports by Golio as hearsay. A whopping four years after the case came before her, Woods issued a 13- page Final Order of Custody, captioned RPF v FG, which, along with decimating Golio’s time with his children, reads as a vindictive, ad hominem character assassination of Golio. Emboldened by Woods’ support, Picone violated Mr Golio’s visitation and access rights. Golio complained to the court, but Woods neglected to step in, simply ignoring his violation and modification petitions, and stonewalling his entreaties to enforce her own order. Merciless, Woods then foisted a massive child support bill on Golio, way above what it should have been because she used his attorney bills as “imputed income”. These bills crippled Golio financially, and forced him to declare bankruptcy in 2018. Woods refused to downwardly modify the child support order, and then sought to have him jailed for contempt. Meantime, the kids’ lives are in turmoil.

Woods has her favored “experts”, whom she appoints at great expense to the families who come before her. Woods’ cronies include Marc Mednick, who receives tens of thousands from each family to conduct “forensic evaluations” of dubious quality.

A chorus of critics says that being in her courtroom is “traumatizing”, that “if there was ever a reason to vote it’s now get this loony off the bench. It’s insane what she gets away with.” Another parent writes: “Arrogant and rude. I appeared before this judge making a lawful citizen’s request and was made to feel like I was a criminal the entire time. I was not allowed to speak, and it was clear the judge had not reviewed the materials I submitted. My request was rejected in all of 3.5 minutes. I felt railroaded and disenfranchised, further impacting my trust in my government.”

Born in 1958, she is a lifelong Republican. Woods began her career in 1983 as an attorney in the California-based Law Offices of Mikin & Kohn. She then served as a deputy district attorney in Orange County, California, from 1984 to 1985. In 1985, she became an Orange County assistant district attorney. She then worked as an attorney for the law firm of Larking & Axelrod from 1988 to 1992. From 1997 to 2001, she was an attorney and law guardian for the Children’s Rights Society. She then became a councilperson for the Town of Monroe. Her own resume says she worked in these positions through 2005. She took the family court bench in 2006, and was re-elected in 2015 on a wholly inaccurate slogan of “Compassionate, Competent. Fair.” Unless removed, she will hold office until December 31, 2025.