(L to r) Debbie Williams, who is waging court battle to regain custody of her grandchildren, Mubarak Hakim, Atty. Allison Folmar, Maryanne Godboldo, and Helene Buchanan, also fighting CPS, after court hearing
Criminal charges for defending her child from police seizure, forced medication, reinstated
PACK 36th District Court hearing re-set for March 14 at 1:30 pm
Godboldo attorney Folmar receives CCHR award as well
By Diane Bukowski
February 23, 2013
Maryanne Godboldo speaks at rally July 7, 2011
DETROIT – Maryanne Godboldo, recognized world-wide as a hero for standing off a Detroit police SWAT team trying to seize her young daughter to administer the dangerous drug Risperdal in 2011, was in court once again Feb. 14. In a never-ending continuation of the original assault, she is to face criminal charges re-instated by an appeals court after 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles and Third Judicial Circuit Court Judge Gregory Bill adamantly dismissed them.
Godboldo’s arrest and her daughter Ariana Godboldo-Hakim’s six-week involuntary institutionalization elicited global outrage and support. It exposed such child seizures as common practice not only in the Wayne County Juvenile Court, but across the U.S. and much of the world.
- 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles
The COA remanded the case to Giles, who postponed a hearing until Friday, March 14 at 1:30 p.m. to give the prosecution a chance to review a defense brief mandated by the appeals court.
“We are not going to allow a bum rush job on this case,” Godboldo’s defense attorney Allison Folmar said. “The Appeals Court order in fact gives Judge Giles several other ways to dismiss this case, including the doctrine of self-defense and the right to resist an unlawful arrest. This case also raises issues of a parent’s right not to allow their child to be used as a guinea pig for experimentation by the pharmaceutical companies.”
Folmar received an award for fighting mental health abuse from the Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Los Angeles February 1. Godboldo received a similar award from the organization last year. (See video below).
Folmar’s co-counsel Byron Pitts said, “The Court of Appeals indicated to Judge Giles that he should review the case under a certain analysis. In our brief, Ms. Folmar and I are expressing another set of facts the court should look at, different than the ones used in his ruling. This was a break-in by police into the home of a single mother who was simply protecting her child. We are saying there are a myriad of ways to dismiss this case.”
- Atty. Byron Pitts reviews search warrant with Maryanne Godboldo, executed months after police invaded her home.
In her separate version of the Appeals Court opinion, Judge Karen Fort-Hood referenced the People v. Moreno case, in which the Michigan Supreme Court upheld “the common-law right” to resist illegal actions by the police, overturning an appeals court decision that said citizens had to comply with police orders whether they were lawful or not. She also noted “the castle doctrine,” under People v. Riddle, which broadened the right of self-defense.
Giles originally dismissed charges against Godboldo due to the lack of a court order executed after a judge’s review, and said any other evidence was the “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Godboldo had faced felony charges of “discharging a weapon in a building, felonious assault, assaulting or obstructing a police officer, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (felony-firearm).”
After the hearing, Attorney Folmar referred to a recent $2.2 billion settlement being paid by Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Risperdal.
- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announces $2.2 billion settlement with Johnson & Johnson related to Risperdal and other drugs.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported in a Nov. 4, 2013 release, “Global health care giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and its subsidiaries will pay more than $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from allegations relating to the prescription drugs Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor, including promotion for uses not approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and payment of kickbacks to physicians and to the nation’s largest long-term care pharmacy provider. The global resolution is one of the largest health care fraud settlements in U.S. history, including criminal fines and forfeiture totaling $485 million and civil settlements with the federal government and states totaling $1.72 billion.” http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/November/13-ag-1170.html
The drug was first prescribed for Ariana by doctors at the New Oakland Child, Adolescent and Family Center, which has had paid connections with pharmaceutical companies since at least 2004, to conduct “Adult and Pediatric CNS [Central Nervous System] Clinical Trials for a number of pharmaceutical companies,” according to its website.
- CPS worker Mia Wenk
Ariana’s Child Protective Services (CPS) worker Mia Wenk testified during a court hearing that the sole reason she asked police to take the child was to administer Risperdal, although Godboldo had signed a release which allowed her to take the child off the drug at any time. Under medical supervision, Godboldo was weaning Ariana off the drug due to harmful side effects.
After Ariana was seized in 2011, the Hawthorne Center not only re-administered Risperdal to her, but a cocktail of other drugs. They took her prosthetic leg, which she had worn since her ability to walk due to a birth-related injury, and her parents have alleged she was sexually abused as well.
The Justice4Maryanne Committee is asking all her supporters, and those of other families facing the same state-sponsored assaults, to pack the court at her hearing.
Website: http://justice4maryanne.com/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-for-Maryanne-Godboldo/178678602179610
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jstice4maryanne
Related VOD stories:
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/12/13/double-victories-for-maryanne-godboldo-and-family/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/08/30/9604/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/08/16/jury-rules-against-maryanne-godboldo-in-custody-trial/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/08/07/u-s-johnson-johnson-wrongly-marketed-risperdal-to-kids/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/08/03/another-shock-no-judge-authorized-ariana-godboldos-removal/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/07/27/shocking-new-details-in-godboldo-police-stand-off-case/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/05/06/judge-orders-godboldo-daughter-home-to-family-may-6/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/05/02/pack-court-hearing-may-4-to-demand-ariana-godboldos-release/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/04/14/%e2%80%9ci-want-my-daughter-back-now%e2%80%9d/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/04/08/mother-wins-indefinite-stay-of-criminal-proceedings/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/04/08/justice-4-maryanne-free-ariana/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/03/29/community-rallies-behind-mother-accused-of-stand-off/
Please help the 36 district is trying to lend more charges on me and had the same lawyer who was found lying or not help me out at all please help me I’m begin railroad like one court appoint attorney told me and now seen I told on them they dismissed my case they have the same guy lie and the judge told him next time come with a better crime than that please help me I’m begin set up this isn’t right please help in god have mercy on this system doing people wrong trying to lock them up for telling the truth please help me. I have plenty of proof please help me.
This is outrageous,CPS has been selling children on black market and using foster care agencies and law enforcement agencies to alienate children from loving parents. They took my son who is autistic after I sent him to visit his mother who is also on psychotropic medication for schizophrenia ,and now they want to give my son meds too. That’s the whole conspiracy,once you allow them to administer meds to your children the system owns them at that point. I have a court date on the 1st of April,hopefully I will have my son back by then,but deep down inside I anticipate a long drawn out legal battle with CPS and the courts for the return of my son. Pray that all victims of this kind of injustice get full compensation and justice from the High Supreme Court in the heavens,because the ones on earth have a lot to be desired.
“You must not afflict any widow or fatherless child If you afflict him at all, so that he cries out to me, I will unfailingly hear his outcry; and my anger will blaze.
Exodus 22:22-24