Maryanne Godboldo (4th from left in peach suit), with family. lawyers, and supporters including (l to r) Ariana's father Mubarak Hakim, Ron Scott, sister Penny Godboldo, attorneys Byron Pitts, Allison Folmar, Wanda Evans and Roger Farinha (behind Evans), and Rukiyah Shabazz
CPS worker said child needed cage
Detroit cop admits lack of authority
By Diane Bukowski
July 26, 2011
DETROIT — New and shocking details of the encounter between a lone mother and child, Child Protective Services (CPS), and a Detroit police “Special Response Team” replete with tanks, assault guns, and helicopters in March emerged in the first part of Maryanne Godboldo’s preliminary exam July 25.
Caged back seat of police car
They include a CPS worker’s statement that she told police Godboldo’s 13-year-old daughter needed to be caged on removal from her home, and a Detroit police officer’s admission that he had no authority to execute a civil order. A second officer testified that he did not mention observing a “bullet hole” in the house in two reports March 25 and May 19.
Godboldo, 55, faces one count of discharge of a weapon in a dwelling, three counts of felonious assault, three counts of resisting and obstructing an officer, and a felony firearm count related to her refusal to allow police into her home to take her 13-year-old daughter Ariana. She could receive from two to four years in prison on each of the counts.
Judge Ronald giles
The second part of the exam is scheduled for Mon. Aug. 29 promptly at 8:30 a.m. in front of Thirty-Sixth District Court Judge Ronald Giles. Attorneys are to brief Giles on whether the prosecution can have Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Deborah Thomas testify. Thomas said during the hearing that she was at the scene to act as a mediator between police, CPS, and Godboldo.
During the hearing, CPS worker Mia Wenk testified that she summoned police by calling 911, while waiting in her car at a corner near Godboldo’s home on Blaine near Linwood. She said she did this although it was not normal CPS policy, and two other CPS workers were with her. Wenk herself never approached the home.
Mia Wenk
“I told ‘911’ I needed assistance to execute a warrant,” Wenk said. “I told them when they get the child out they will need to transport her in their back seat since they have a cage in the car. I never met her [Ariana]. I didn’t even know what she looked like. I asked them to bring her leg, and told them she has ‘psychosis NOS’ [not otherwise specified].”
Many in the courtroom, which was packed with Godboldo’s supporters, gasped at the reference to caging a Black child, and the derogatory terminology used to describe her disability. The child has been disabled since infancy, but according to family and church members has led a normal life including dancing, swimming and horseback riding lessons, using a prosthetic leg.
Thirty-Sixth District Court Judge Ronald Giles told audience members to leave if they could not restrain themselves, upon which Godboldo herself left the courtroom, returning shortly after she was able to compose herself.
Attorney Allison with her own daughter, during rally for Maryanne Godboldo July 17
Godboldo was represented at the exam by attorneys Allison Folmar and Byron Pitts.
“This witness heightened the level of law enforcement involvement based on her lack of knowledge,” Folmar said. She asked Wenk, who has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, whether she knew the difference between a “warrant,” and the civil court order which Wenk said she gave to police who arrived an hour later.
Wenk did not give a clear response.
Wenk testified that she petitioned Wayne County Family Court by filling out a “JCO5b” form (click on Order_to_Take_Children_into_Protective_Custody_321602_7[1] to see blank form) the morning of the confrontation, which began that afternoon. She said she left the form at the Family Court “intake” and later got what she called a “writ” back.
Judge Leslie Kim Smith (l) with Wayne County Chief Judge Virgil Smith and Maura Corrigan, Director of Department of Human Services, and Mia Wenk's ultimate boss
The “writ” was the JCO5b form with the rubber stamped signature of Wayne County Family Court Division Judge Leslie Kim Smith, and a provision that gave 30 days to execute it. Wenk testified it had a raised seal that she claimed made it “official.”
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Lora Weingarden entered the form into evidence.
Judge Giles had denied Folmar’s motion to quash the court order at the beginning of the hearing. Folmar contended it was invalid because that there was no “Wayne County Clerk” stamp on the order, and numerous parts of it were not completed.
Those included what action was to be taken, who was supposed to take it, a full description of the child (Wenk entered only her birthdate) and whether the information was entered into LEIN (the Law Enforcement Information Network.)
Giles ruled that testimony could be taken regarding what was on the order, but granted a prosecution motion to preclude testimony regarding what led up to the issuance of the court order.
CPS child abduction a national plague
Wenk said two contradictory sentences on the form, “Reasonable efforts to prevent removal of the child(ren) from the home were not made,” and “Reasonable efforts were made to prevent the removal of the child(ren) from the home,” were both checked because the first was not fully erased.
She testified that the one “reasonable effort” she made to prevent Ariana’s removal was a “Permanency Planning Conference” (PPC) she held March 23. She said she notified Godboldo of the conference March 21 “by phone” and sent her a letter “as a courtesy.” When Godboldo did not attend, Wenk said she and another CPS worker held the meeting by themselves.
“Did you indicate in the letter that you were planning to take Ms. Godboldo’s child?” Folmar asked. “No,” Wenk replied. She said that when Godboldo did not keep the appointment, she immediately initiated removal procedures.
Click on CPS Removal and Placement of Children to read all required procedures. They define a Permanency Planning Conference as follows:
Over Folmar’s objection, Giles himself read Section 3a of the form into the record, “That Maryanne Godboldo has numerous CPS referrals in the last year regarding medical neglect . . .[the child] was prescribed Risperdal . . . .mother refused to give it to her. The mother is in denial . . .she believes [the child] is severely psychotic and out of touch with reality due to immunizations.”
There is also a medical form in Ariana’s file signed by Godboldo giving her the right to take Ariana off the medication for any reason.
Godboldo, who said Ariana had severe adverse reactions to Risperdal, has received worldwide support for her decision to take her off what many medical professionals have determined to be a dangerous drug, and for her stand against the CPS action. Many others who question the side effects of vaccinations have also come to her defense.
Detroit police officer Kevin Simpson testified that he and his partner “received a police run,” and met Wenk down the street from the Godboldo home. He said neither exited their cars, but that Wenk passed him the court order through her window.
Lt. Michael Nied also services in Michigan National Guard
He said he knocked on Godboldo’s door, and she opened the door inside the security gate. He said he asked to come inside to discuss Ariana’s removal, but that Godboldo said she needed to call her attorney. He said he went back to the door with the court order, which he had left in the car, but Godboldo told him he was frightening her child and closed the door.
He said his supervisor Lt. Michael Nied then arrived and knocked loudly on the door before the three obtained a crowbar from Simpson’s trunk. He said Nied yelled “Police,” and pried open a side door, then attempted to kick in a locked door at the top of a set of inside stairs.
“I heard a loud noise from the other side that sounded like a gunshot,” Simpson said. He said the three left the house, Nied with white powder on his left shoulder. He said Nied then declared a “barricaded gunman” situation and summoned the SRT.
Attorney Byron Pitts
On cross-exam, attorney Byron Pitts got Simpson to admit that they had no warrant, only a court order.
Pitts had him read a Detroit Police Department policy which says it is the responsibility of the Wayne County Sheriff’s office, court officers, or a bailiff to serve civil court orders.
“It’s not the official responsibility of the Detroit Police Department?” Pitts asked.
“No,” Simpson said.
“The order is not directed to the Detroit Police Department, it’s not directed to anybody?” Pitts asked.
“Correct,” Simpson replied.
Pitts asked further, “So you were not working in your official capacity, doing your official responsibility?”
Simpson admitted that was the case. Defense attorneys have focused on this issue, because MCL 750.81d, one of the statutes governing charges against Godboldo, reads in part, “(1) Except as provided in subsections (2), (3), and (4), an individual who assaults, batters, wounds, resists, obstructs, opposes, or endangers a person who the individual knows or has reason to know is performing his or her duties is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both.”
Tanks roll down Linwood to Godboldo's home March 24, 2011
After pointing out that the order gave 30 days to execute it, Pitts asked, “Nobody said, hey, let’s come back another day?”
“No” was the reply.
Simpson also admitted that there were no “exigent circumstances” allowing them to force entry into the home without a warrant, such as “hot pursuit” of a person who has committed a felony.
Pitts similarly shot holes in the testimony of Detroit Police Officer William Blake, a member of the department’s Tactical Mobile Unit.
Blake testified that they were backing up the SRT, and that he sat outside the home for about eight hours before Godboldo surrendered. He said he then entered the home to execute a search warrant for a gun. He said he is not an evidence technician and did not know if any had been called to the scene.
Tanks roll down Linwood, during 1967 Detroit rebellion
He said that he found a “bullet hole” in the ceiling leading to the locked door inside the side entrance that Need pried open, and plaster and debris in the stairwell. He said he found a “blue steel revolver sitting on top of a piano” in the front living room, with one spent casing still inside, and that he found a purse with 43 bullets that would fit the gun under couch cushions in the room.
Pitts referred him to his original report, known now as a CRISNET form, previously called a PCR, or “preliminary complaint form.”
“There is nothing in there about a bullet hole, is there?” Pitts asked.
Blake said, “No, just my discovery of the weapon.” Blake also told Pitts that he omitted any mention of the bullet hole from a May 19 report to the Prosecutor’s Office. “I chose not to write it down,” he said.
Daily media reports of the March 24 encounter prominently featured the alleged bullet hole.
“It’s a fair statement to say that you don’t know who fired a shot, isn’t it?” Pitts asked.
Blake responded in the affirmative. He said he did not know if pictures had been taken of the scene or if an evidence technician was ever called to the scene.
The prosecution then summoned Judge Thomas to the stand. Pitts exercised his right to “voir dire” (question) her prior to agreeing to let her testify without defense objection.
Thomas said she did not know the Godboldo family, but was called to the scene by a “mutual friend.” She said the Detroit Police Department also requested her presence.She said she sought to mediate between the CPS and the police on one side and Godboldo on the other.
Thomas said she spoke with Godboldo on a phone hooked up by the police department. “No one was listening in on 99 percent of our conversation,” Thomas said.
Giles asked her, “During this process did you at any time inform Maryanne Godboldo that your conversations were privileged and confidential?”
Thomas replied, “I did not. I don’t know if I even thought of confidentiality. My focus was on peace.”
Pitts said that statements made during compromise negotiations are not admissible in court, according to Michigan Rule of Evidence 408.
“Information given to her was to facilitate mediation to peacefully work out a compromise,” Pitts said. “A mediator can’t be forced to come to court to talk about what each side said.”
When Weingarden said she was not familiar with case law in the matter, Giles adjourned the proceedings and ordered both sides to brief him on the matter by Aug. 15. Weingarden said Thomas’ testimony, if allowed, will be the final testimony in the case.
Thomas has said in published statements that the court order to take Ariana was deficient. Judge Thomas became widely celebrated across Detroit for her stand against the domination of Wayne County juries by suburban whites, among other issues, beginning in 2004. However, to date, little has changed. If Judge Giles binds Maryanne Godboldo over on the charges she faces, she is also likely to face a jury dominated by suburbanites, with the prosecution deciding if she can have a bench trial (as Judge Thomas states in the video below).
CPS is corrupt and cannot be fixed. They take children for money — Title IVd and e social security money to be exact. Trafficking children bring Federal dollars into the state of Michigan. A child who is “special needs” brings even more money into the state. It’s about the money at the top levels of DHS/CPS. At the worker level, it’s about power and control. And, it’s about ATTENTION. They attention the worker gets from the judge, the parents, the GAL, the prosecutor, her/his bosses at CPS, etc. In Michigan, they (CPS) take more than 20,000 children a year. Every year. And, there is pressure to increase those numbers. What to know the truth? Follow the money.
Maryanne Godboldo is an excellent Mother who love her daughter she have never medically neglected her daughter!!!
Please Forward this message to your friends, family, community
Dear Friends and communities , PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION TO YOUR CO-WORKERS AND COMMUNITIES,
There is an emergency in the United Stated of America: it appears that crimes are committed everyday by the Department of Human Service of Children’s Protective Services case workers, most of the social workers, supervisors, and directors, practicing under the Color of Law. In most incidents the case workers, social workers and foster care workers are not looking out for the best interest of the children. By tearing these children away from their parents, it can cause severe and irreparable damage to them. As these children get older they are often faced with difficulty bonding with others as well as severe abandonment issues .
Law abiding people have rights that protect them from others who would enslave them or otherwise use them for their own purposes. We the people, bring Children’s Protective Services to the attention of the U. S. Department of Justice and Federal Court for misuse of their power to unlawfully remove or steal our children with distorted information, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice, false allegations, and refusal to conduct proper investigations. Last but not least, the false psychological diagnoses for children that are wrongly placed in the system leads to continued proliferation of improper ethical practices. I am aware of the neglect and abuse that goes on in the United States with our children in their homes, but I am not referring to these children, yet most of those children too are abused by the system who suppose to protect them. I refer only to children improperly placed in a system that is not designed for them through corrupt investigations.
Most of the workers of Children’s Protective Services distorted information,obstruction of justice, and false allegation, which lead to the unlawful removal of our children in Michigan. (State sanction kidnapping)
Please educate yourself and read on this matter as well as listen to some Youtube.com videos I have provided.
Youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaXINizSj7E CPS Juvenile family court criminal racket lawyers, judges activist speak
Youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5eSKyZ98g Nancy Schaefer The Unlimited power of cps part 1 of 2
Youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOp3pZ-IM0&playnext=1&list=PL42D1765E49D4F6D0 Ralph Winterrowd on the Alex Jones show: Gov. Corruption 2
Maryanne Godboldo a hero against the medical police state
Youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDnhaYz7I_0 CPS drugging children the health ranger on April 26 Natural news .TV
Youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsklIiAI5SE&playnext=1&list=PLBDE01E8975045B75 DEAD WRONG – How Psychiatric Drugs Can Kill Your Child
My heart goes out to Mary & her family. Knowing what I now know about Cps she wasnt wrong there is No CHILD PROTECTVE SERVICES & the DPD are puppets in CPS little game. In 2007 my children were removed from me on false allegations,I understood the investigation but when the star witness was caught in lies & nothing my then 3 yr.old was saying was true Cps still tryed to take my parental rights. The person that filed a knowingly false report to Cps & Dpd coaching my daughter was the molester in my case. I file reports with both parties & take my daughter to a therapist to see if she had been messed with & she was. Cps Dpd Tpd denied any investigation saying I was coaching my daughter. Care & in the best intrest of the children huh, I KNOW NOT!!!!!!!
This is every parent of an Autistic child’s worst nightmare, and it is happening every day. It just takes one arrogantly IGNORANT decision or comment about a family to set this action in motion. As parents of special kids, we do know what is best for them because we live it every day while mainstream turns a blind eye. We fight for education, medical needs, acceptance and awareness for everyone’s children. Then, because of one person mishandling the information about a meeting, a child’s life gets put at risk. Mentally and physically.
It HAS to stop.
This is horrific. “Can it happen here?” Clearly, it can. Kudos to Pitts and Folmar for their excellent representation, and for their tenacious approach, bringing a bit of clarity to the R&O statute, its application, and its abuse. Kudos to Diane for relentlessly reporting on the corruption inherent within “The System.”
COURAGE AND VIGILANCE!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/us/20psych.html
This article details Dr. Joseph Biederman’s role in pushing Risperadol for children. He is implicated in multiple lawsuits across the US. “Dr. Biederman has become a key witness in a series of lawsuits filed by state attorneys general claiming that makers of antipsychotic drugs defrauded state Medicaid programs by improperly marketing their medicines. His work helped fuel a rapid rise in the use of these medicines in children.” He received 1.6 million dollars for his work advocating for the use of Risperadol in children.
It is impossible for me to look at the story of Maryanne Godboldo and her daughter and not see the role of pharmaceutical companies and the profits they make from these powerfully destructive drugs.
Robert Whitaker’s book “Anatomy of an Epidemic” details many other stories of ineffective drugs being promoted, despite their negative records.
I commend Maryanne Godboldo for not wanting to give her daughter the drug, “Risperdal”. I encourage others who are concerned about psychotrophic drugging to get a free DVD from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights at http://www.cchr.org. Here is what they say about the free DVD/kit:
Containing steps to safeguard oneself and others from the dangers of psychotropic
drugs, this kit provides hard-hitting facts and recommendations to help you save
lives.
The kit includes The Marketing of Madness: Are We All Insane?, a multi-award-
winning documentary film presenting the story of the high-income partnership
between psychiatry and drug companies that has created an $80 billion profit
center. Digging deep beneath the corporate veneer, this three-part documentary
exposes the truth behind the slick marketing schemes and scientific deceit that
conceal a dangerous and often deadly sales campaign.
There is proof that CPS, courts actors, etc. lie about the parents.
Now, at what point can we (and high court) infer that this must be their
policy?
I neither condone violence nor use of a gun but with there being no accountability for child trafficking in the name of Child Protection I see no other choice for parents when some wrongfully removed children return in body bags.
Please check out http://www.govabuse.org Join in a protest in your location we need to make them aware we want change and accountability for caseworkers judges and lawyers that lie to get federal money for our children. If the average Joe lied in court or court papers we would be held accountable. They do not deserve a free pass
Thanks for this website, Susan. I just signed up for the National Protest, Wayne County location, on August 12. I hope many more do the same.
TELL IT GIRL!! AND RAKE IN YOUR MONEY VIA THE, “CASH FOR KIDZ” INCENTIVES MONIES OFFERED BY OUR OWN GOVT, USING OUR SOC. SEC. MONEY TO RIP YOUR FAMILY APART~AS WELL AS HAVE PARENTS PAY CHILD SUPPORT TO THEM, FOR TAKING YOUR KIDS!
THE WHOLE WHILE THOSE IN NEED OF THEIR SERVICES STILL GO IGNORED:(
You’re a wild woman, Lynn…..I like it!!! 🙂
My prayers are with you! The corruption in the cps system in the state of michigan is absolutely out of control they will stop at nothing to destroy our children and our families. Ms. Godbolo you are an inspiration to all of us other mothers who have been put through hell by this system…Thank you! I have been living in the hell cps created in my life for three years and everyday I fight I fight for my kids I fight for me and I will fight for other mothers that are in this horrible place. Kalkaska county has put my children through hell and they continue to live in their hell because cps recomended that my ex who beat me in front of the kids have custody of our children, in the last two months their have been four different reports made to cps by an organization in traverse city (safe haven) who supervise my visits with my kids that the childrens grandfather is hitting them cps told me that they could not substantiate the statements the kids had made about the grandfather so they are unable to help them. Funny how they can use hearsay to take my kids but when the children make it very clear they are terrified to go home because they live with dad at grandma and grandpas home they do nothing. We need to demand change and continue the fight. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family…Keep up the Fight!
First Ms. Parks took a stand and now it is Ms. Godboldo.
It is true that CPS is operating in a corrupt fashion. It has been doing so for years. My children were also removed from me and subsequently adopted to only be abandoned by the adoptive parent later when she became tired of taking care of children. These workers do not clearly understand what they are doing to children and families just for the sake of paying bills, sending their children to college, purchasing cars and homes, etc. They do not realize or even care that what happens to the children have a long-lasting negative effect. An effect that cannot be undone for many children who age into adulthood. These kids are taken from their natural habitat and put into a foreign milieu and many diminish in various capacities. The the State expect these children to be shining stars after they have been beaten raped degraded left to fell unloved and unwanted. What is the purpose of CPS? Because if it is the outcome of what many of the children who were removed from their natural homes exhibit then CPS
We need to have a rally to support Ms. Godbolda and protest the wrongs that were done to her with the law not being followed.
Michigan for Parental Rights – Protecting your rights against CPS call 616-848-0664. Our show Silent Voices tell your CPS story to the world. CPS is full of corruption, states take children to receive Title VI Federal Funds to line their pockets. Caseworkers are often told to increase the bottom line by increasing the number of children taken out of homes. It doesn’t pay to keep the child with the parents, it only pays to pull the child from the home and place them into foster care then up for adoption.
Got darn it~WHERE’S LIKE BUTTON:(
Ohh, it’s not facebook! And if the 12 jurist were to find her guilty~ I would like to think I can say I speak for 98.9% of us when I say~they’ll be banished from the state~`all 50 of them!!
I’d like to think C Anthony’s 12-gave her to us on a platter~if I think anything else, well, will stay with the positive thought on that note.
That’s why this needs to hAVE the overwhelming response from all us~THAT wE NOT GONNA lET HER, OR ANY OTHER AMERICAN CITIZEN BE FORCED INTO SUCH A POSITION BY THIS DPT.S DIVISION ANY LONGER. AND IF THEY THINK THIS IS JUST A SECLUDED INCIDENT~THEY’RE SADLY MISTAKEN CAUSE-GUESS WHOSE BUYING HER SELF A GUN? GUESS WHO ELSE IS? DAM RIGHT, WE ALL ARE! CAUSE “WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE”! THIS RIPPING APART OF INNOCENT FAMILIES WHILE THOSE WHO NEED THEIR HELP GO IGNORED, WHILE THEY SIT BACK COLLECTING FROM CITIZENS TAX ES AND SOCIAL SECURITY MONIES. THATS WHYY SOC. SEC. MONEY IS RUNNING OUT~INVESTIGATE THE CPS DIV.~ INCENTIVE PROGRAM OFFERED BY OUR OWN GOVT./CASH FOR KIDZ!
How many lies must D.H.S. workers tell before they loose creditability and the corruption is exposed? Who is going to step up to the plate and stop this corruption?
We are having a nationwide/state unified protest Aug 12th-this is gonna be a biggee~pleaz see site for details in ur area; and on facebook!
And YOU GO MARY`WE’RE THERE TO SUPPORT FOR YOU AND YOURS TOO! SO, IF YOU MASS LETTERS SENT, CALLS MADE TO PARTICULAR AGENCIES/PERSONS LET US KNOW!
GO AFTER MURDERS AND JAIL CASEY ANTHONY!! Along with several others I can go on about!!