Wendi Miller Story

Hi XXX,

This is your sister XXX’s friend, Wendi Miller, from Holland, Michigan. From my understanding XXX has shared some of our cases with you and what my children and I have suffered through the family court system in Ottawa County, Michigan.

I am writing to you because I now live in Dallas, Texas and have spoken with the Attorney General here on three occasions. The Attorney General called me back twice after our conversation about my custody case. The Attorney General told me that it was time that I involved the FBI in my case in Michigan. They said there was clear public corruption and that they believed fraud could be very well involved in my case with the family court judge and a possible conspiracy with the other county officials, custody investigator, caseworkers, child protective services, the child advocacy center, and the police department. All of these county officials have been involved in our custody case from 2008 through the present. (2013)

I have a family court judge, Jon Hulsing of Ottawa County, that is no longer a family court judge, but will not let go of my case even though he is in criminal court now. The judge has broken the law on multiple levels, violated my due process rights, concealed forensic evidence of sexual abuse of my daughter to protect my ex-husband who he is connected to through the church. We tried to recuse the judge and he will not remove himself from our case.

He unlawfully took custody of my children away from me without any legal grounds in February 2010. After my children testified twice in a preference meetings with the judge that they wanted to live with me because I take care of them and their daddy hurts them; their psychologist testified and stated that the children should have supervised visits with their father because they are afraid of him; and multiple witnesses testified to the good mom that I am, and that my children loved being with me - teachers, coaches, family friends who had known my children for years. My ex-husband verbally and emotionally abused my children, and he later molested my daughter in 2010 and 2011. The judge had no grounds for taking the children away, and had a custody investigator, Steve Cotton, also from the county and the church get involved. The judge and custody investigator had my ex-husband and I take a psychological exam based on an email that I wrote about my faith. The psychologist was not even employed by the court anymore and did not have a valid PhD license. I was a practicing LLP in Michigan at the time and my ex-husband was and is a pastor in the Reformed Church of America. Since the custody investigator, Steve Cotton, whose father was a pastor along with my ex-husband, and the psychologist, David Winstrom, were friends, the judge let him do our psych exams. The only difference in our psych reports was one paragraph at the end about an email that I wrote about my faith that they used against me to take custody of my children away. Again there was no legal precedent to do so. The psychologist and custody investigator stated that because I said, “God was with me” in my email and in the psych exam, I said that I don’t see God like a real person or touch God like a real person, but that I just have faith and believe in him. The psychologist and custody investigator said that since my email said one thing and in the psych exam I said something else that I must be a liar, and honesty is an important quality in raising children, so they recommended full custody to my ex-husband who was abusive and living in Colorado. The judge granted my ex-husband full custody and had my children ripped out of school and moved across the country in 48 hours. My children were devastated as was I, since the only home they had known their whole lives had been with me raising them. Within that year, once in his custody, my ex-husband started sexually molesting my daughter. There are CPS reports from Colorado of him admitting what he was making my daughter do, forensic interviews done by Ottawa County of her testimony and a forensic medical exam that documents the sexual abuse, and the judge outright refused on multiple occasions to not allow any of the evidence in the courtroom.

Once my daughter disclosed the sexual abuse to me and to the Child Advocacy Center, forensic interviewer, a caseworker, and a detective in Ottawa County, I refused to give my daughter back under the law. In Michigan, if you believe your child is in imminent physical danger or harm from the other parent, you do not have to return them to that parent. I stood under the law and did not return my children because of my daughter’s disclosures and the documented forensic evidence.

The judge, Jon Hulsing, ordered a bench warrant for my arrest, had me surrounded by the SWAT Team with my children present in my arms, and pressed charges against me to prosecute me for custodial interference. Then the prosecutor dropped the charges against me once he found out we had evidence of sexual abuse and wanted to take it to trial to get the evidence out. They dropped the charges against me and sent me back to family court to face the same judge, Jon Hulsing, to deal with our case.

The judge didn’t allow me to speak to my children for 90 days after he had me arrested and the warrants were dropped against me. Then, he didn’t allow me to see them for five months, and I was only allowed to see them with a supervisor present in Colorado, completely violating my due process and my constitutional rights to see my children or speak to them.

Then after a long awaited seven months, he granted us a hearing but wouldn’t allow any of the forensic evidence or testimony in the courtroom. Six weeks after the hearing, he had me arrested at my house and sentenced me to jail for 90 days for violating his parenting time order, even though I testified under oath that I was protecting my daughter under the law because her father was sexually molesting her. I had no notice or hearing to exercise my due process rights and my lawyer didn’t even receive a court order for days.

I spent 60 days in the county jail, two days in a holding cell, was completely malnourished, didn’t receive adequate nourishment, was denied adequate clothing for warmth, and wasn’t allowed to go or see outside for the entire sixty days. In jail, the guards had never seen anyone sent to jail on a parenting time violation before. They didn’t even know how to book me and couldn’t because I hadn’t broken the law. The judge was punishing me for bringing the truth out about my ex-husband that he was protecting in the system, while I was standing on the truth under the law to protect my daughter. If the evidence was allowed in the courtroom, my ex-husband would be accused of sexual assault on a child in a position of trust, who is the same man the judge had given custody to two years prior.

I tell you our story, because we are a representation of what is going on in Ottawa County that the Attorney General believes warrants an investigation by the FBI. I know of four other cases by the same two judges, Jon Hulsing and Jon VanAllsburg, both from the family court in Ottawa County and both from the same church, the Reformed Church of America denomination. Along with these two judges, there are similarities in our four cases that involve the same county officials and workers, Friend of the Court (FOC) custody investigators also from the church, FOC caseworkers, forensic interviewers, Child Protective Services (CPS) investigators who have all been involved in four other cases in the same county where the children have been subjected to live in custody and have regular unsupervised parenting time with fathers who are abusing them; three of the cases involve sexual abuse and one physical abuse. Some of the abusers are high profile men in the county, like my ex-husband who was a pastor, and another a doctor, all from the same church.

The county officials and workers are listed below who have been involved in one, two, or three of the cases, some at the same time.

Judge Jon Hulsing

Judge Jon VanAllsburg

Judge Kent Engle

Steve Cotton - FOC custody investigator

Ben Burgess - FOC custody investigator

Joshua Wise - FOC caseworker

Jeanne Yetman - FOC caseworker

Beth Kunish - FOC caseworker

Nick Dood - FOC caseworker

Jennifer Hnillica - CPS investigator

Breah Groen - Child Advocacy Center

Mary Mims - Attorney

Ken Breese - Attorney, Cunningham Dalman

Susan Vroegop - Attorney, Cunningham Dalman

Jennifer DeYoung - Attorney, Cunningham Dalman

Thomas Kates - Attorney

These cases have documented evidence of the public corruption of these county officials involved in manipulating custody cases and court orders, meeting privately with the judges to discuss the cases, meeting privately and having ongoing communication with the abusive fathers discussing strategies and outcomes of parenting time and custody with their lawyers, meeting privately and having ongoing communication with witnesses in the custody cases, covering up child support evidence so that payments and arrears were never paid, imputing child support income without due process or court orders, keeping forensic evidence of child sexual abuse of multiple children out of court evidence, sending two women to jail and violating their due process and constitutional rights, protecting fathers who have committed crimes against children and granting them unsupervised parenting time and custody of children. These are some of the laws that have been broken by these county officials and multiple violations of the judicial codes of conduct as well that warrant a federal investigation.

(The four Ottawa County Family Court Cases were listed here along with their case numbers. The listings have been removed for this article for the protection of mothers and children.)

We know there are more children and women who have been affected by the corruption in Ottawa County Family Court. Some of them we have met and have heard their stories as well. Some sat in my counseling office when I was practicing in Michigan. I was involved as a psychologist on some of the cases, and evaluated some of these children and the judges threw my evaluations out of court, because I had documented evidence of child abuse by fathers they had given custody to or unsupervised parenting time.

I know this was a great deal of information to give you, but I wanted you to know that it is not just in our case that this has happened to. There have been multiple cases in one county with the same officials corrupting multiple cases the same way.

I really appreciate your taking the time to read this, and I am willing to send to you as much documented evidence, transcripts, custody evaluations, investigative reports, forensic reports, psychological evaluations from any and/or all of our cases. Please let me know whatever I can do that would help.

I would also like to let you know that there is a nationally recognized author and educator in the country in family court who has been blogging our cases since August 2011 and the corruption that has taken place in Ottawa County. His name is Lundy Bancroft. His website is www.lundybancroft.blogspot.com. He has given me permission to share with you that he is willing to be a reference and source of information and evidence to you in any form of investigation that you may do on our cases.

I hope you can help me, my children, and the other women and children whose lives have been devastated by the corruption of Ottawa Family Court in Ottawa County, Michigan, so that the truth can come out. We want our children protected and safe as well as all others who have been affected in similar ways, so this doesn’t happen to any other children in this county again.

Thank you for your time and consideration of our cases. Please feel free to contact me by phone or email.

Sincerely,

Wendi Miller