The divorce and custody case that got me interested in CT Family Court is Ambrose v. Riordan.
What interested me is that the court gave the father “temporary custody” of three adopted children and the stay-at-home mother of 13 years was denied the right to see, speak, write to, skype, or make contact with her children.
The matter has been in CT Family Court since July 2019. There has been 36 days of trial, spread over 11 months. The father is still presenting his case. Murder trials do not take this long.
Shock for Children
CT Family Court Judge Jane Grossman ordered the children out of the home they shared with their mother all their lives and placed them into their father’s home.
In one swift, sudden ruling, Judge Grossman, without permitting the mother to testify, terminated the mother’s parental rights and severed the children’s relationship with their primary attachment figure, to be with a parent with whom they repeatedly stated they were uncomfortable, their father.
On April 24, 2020, Judge Grossman ordered that, “The existing parenting plan calls for the children to be with the father tonight, Friday night, through Sunday night at 5:00. The children will be transitioned from their mother’s home to the father’s home immediately with the assistance of the GAL [Guardian ad Litem, an attorney who is retained to represent the children’s best interest]. They will remain with the father until the hearing is complete or until further order of the court. They will not return to the mother on Sunday at 5:00.
“Until the hearing is complete, or until further order of the court, the mother may not have any contact with the children, directly or via third parties. She is not to respond to any contact the children might initiate. The father may reinforce this no contact order via the children’s phones and electronic devices as he deems appropriate…. These orders are temporary and will be reconsidered and/or amended upon completion of evidence.”
The no contact order was never reconsidered by Judge Grossman, and has been continued by the trial judge, Gerard Adelman. The children have not been with their mother for 676 days.
There has been no legal finding, or even the slightest allegation that the mother was unfit or abusive to her children. Just the opposite. The record is filled with witnesses to acts of her loving caring and sacrifice made for them. The record is filled with the children’s cries not to be separated from their mother.
There has been no medical diagnosis of her being unfit or mentally ill. She has no criminal record.
When I read this ruling, I was dumbfounded. How could a court steal the mother from these children without any cause and without even a hearing where she could speak?
According to a report on this injustice of taking these children away from their mother, by Dr. Robin Lynch, “Preventing children from being with their primary attachment figure for a significant part of the week is likely to do significant harm.”
These children, M, 15, M, 15, and S, 11, are prevented from being with their primary attachment figure the entire week, week after week, for what is now 96 weeks.
Dr. Lynch continued, “Following divorce, children’s anxiety, and attachment issues are inversely proportional to the amount of warm parenting time the children receive.”
The record shows that these children were estranged from their father, a man who was out of state during most of their childhood. When they were removed from their mother’s home, and up until the present, they continue to be estranged from their father. They call him names behind his back, including “P” for Pinocchio and “Creepy Cree” based on their claims that he lies and is addicted to porn, including what appears to be porn featuring very young male models. The father admitted on the record to the custody evaluator in this case that “as an adult, [he is] allowed to look at porn.”
He also sated that a website he visits called “Latino Boiz,” does not include children, though it does feature nude males who appear to be underage, who involve themselves in scenarios with an uncle or adoptive father who performs on them anal sex.
This may not be cause for concern, and they were not for the courts of Judge Jane Grossman and Judge Gerard Adelman. Both of these judges, at the behest of the GAL, went to extraordinary lengths to suppress evidence of the father, Christopher Ambrose’s porn predilections, as trial transcripts, and court orders show.
It made me curious that the court had no interest in ascertaining more about the porn habits of the father, especially when the children were the ones who discovered it, perhaps by design of the father.
Despite the fact that the children are adopted, and are Latino, and the father’s porn proclivities tend toward young Latinos, and despite the fact that the children have disclosed to medical experts at two hospitals that their father has inappropriately touched them, the court has either ignored this, including not requiring the father to take his children for forensic testing as recommended by health professionals who were mandated to report the alleged abuse, or they have worked feverishly [as trial transcripts show] in tandem with the GAL to prevent this from being fully explored at trial.
For now, this issue of porn will have to wait for its proper place in the series. I mention it here for it shows the level of distrust and resentment the children have for their father and suggests that they have anything but a warm, happy home.
The children have gone so far as to actually publish porn they found open on their father’s phone and computer on social media – before he took their accounts away. They have also published secret recordings they made of him, after they found he secretly recorded them.
This may not mean much except to show what a miserable home they live in with both sides secretly recording each other. The children have complained to medical experts and to police that they do not feel safe with their father, that he inappropriately touches them and tries to get in bed with them.
He killed their pets, he took the doorknobs off their doors so that they could prevent him from entry any time day or night, he added bells to the doors so they would jingle when they went in and out of their room, he put secret recording devices in their bedroom. He got drunk, excessive drinking, and yelling, screaming, issuing threats and intimidation. He strips them of all their belongings, no internet, no phones, no gifts from relatives –to control and punish.
The children took to taping Ambrose, they said so people would believe them. He puts on such a good show, they said. They said they wanted the tapes to prove they were telling the truth and “P”, his nickname, was lying again.
Maybe none of this is illegal or even immoral – and within the rights of parenthood. But the point is the children do not have a warm relationship with their father and seem to be, as they get older, increasingly resentful of the fact that he is to blame for their losing their mother.
They said they saw through his lie that it was the court alone that denied them their mother, when the record shows he could end this isolation at any time for there has been no finding of wrongdoing by their mother
In short, these are three unhappy children. They continue to send emails about his conduct. They contact reporters, including this writer. I say this knowing that he may punish them, but what greater punishment can he give them then feverishly working to deny them their mother? They are growing desperate and losing hope that they will ever see her again. These are three depressed children.
They refer to their father with deep resentment and describe their isolation from their mother and all the family, her family, they knew growing up, as like being in a prison and have made pleas for help.
I want to help them.
These three children have lost all warm parenting time in their lives for almost two years.
As Dr. Lynch said, “The adult world, court system, child guardians, and custody evaluators are supposed to protect children from mistreatment. Removing children from their primary attachment figure to be with a parent, with whom they are uncomfortable, causes betrayal trauma and serious long-term psychological damage.”
These children are at risk of serious long-term psychological damage.
That’s why I got interested in CT Family Court– this case and these children.
I will go to my hypothesis first then in subsequent posts I will attempt to prove it: Money, not children’s best interests, drives results in CT Family Court.
It appears I have only glimpsed a tiny, frigid, painful tip of the iceberg of CT Family Court. And iceberg it is. Imagine the coldness of heart it must take to recklessly throw children out a happy home, with a warm, loving mother and into the home of a man, as I shall show you in subsequent posts, Chris Ambrose is.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
I don’t want to be one of those commenters slinging mud at either of the parents, but I am absolutely disgusted with the Connecticut family court system for letting this fiasco go on for so long. Everyone claims that they are doing what is best for the children…and yet it appears that the children have never had the opportunity to formally express THEIR opinion. Why????
This makes no sense at all. Why doesn’t the court choose to let the children’s voices be heard???? To make sure the children are placed in the best possible care, the parents need to be interviewed (by multiple independent interviewers, as one data point does not a straight line make), AND the children must be interviewed. Toss in a polygraph for the adults, if it helps.
Just let the children’s voices be heard!
The Connecticut Family Court operates under the singular control of the legislature. Why are you disgusted with the system created and protected by the people’s elected representatives, do they not invoke the will of a sovereign people? The people of Connecticut created this cesspool, they should be proud of their democratic construction of the childhood rape machine.
“Burning in hell for all eternity is a long time. Haven’t you heard of purgatory?”
The Catholic Church is full of shit! Have YOU heard of the Protestant Reformation?!
You shouldn’t be taking this lightly, Frank!
You also shouldn’t be a dick to me about the email and ask such a rude question only meant to be derogatory such as,
“What if I’m not that interested?”
Then you’re a dick that abuses your readers who constantly read your shit on a daily basis including this fucking CT Family Court shit that numerous people have asked you to stop!
You want to know what fuels racism in the world like “Patriot God”?! People like you who are a disgrace to your race! You constantly make your race look bad! But thankfully, unlike so called “Patriot God”, I have enough common sense to know that there are true Sicilians out there who would *ABHOR* you for your wickedness and your bad behavior!
How about you just stop being an asshole, Frank! Is it really this hard for you to be a decent human being?!
This is a comment to all the shills on this post… go F yourselves in the rear. I know both parents in this case, I’ve known the mom her entire life and I have an intimate knowledge of the CT family court system and the judges/court actors in question.
This is a 100% railroading and massive violation of the mom’s and children’s rights.
DISGUSTINGLY MASSIVE!!
This court in packed with seasoned criminals that have made their wealth by draining families of theirs while using the kids as collateral. Chris Ambrose, giant a-hole that you are, you are the only one who can stop this and if you chose not to, this will haunt you your entire life. The wrath coming your way will be monumental. I actually hear the hard times have already started for you. Good news.
As for Frank Parlato, he is literally the only person on the planet who is keeping a light shining on this crime. He deserves nothing but gratitude. He has mine.
Hmm. Why can’t I picture Karen ever taking selfies in bed and writing to young Latin men about cutting their lettuce?
Alonzo cuts cabbage….
It’s all about the money. Custody follows the money. Just think about the amount of therapy these children will need, and what if the generated need for therapy produces federal funding, and the question is whether the federal dollars provides for father to be reimbursed and further question if the arranged providers are double dipping?? The only known factor, the court will stop at nothing to further father’s goals. Destroyed mother, psychological harmed children, disbarred attorney! No #me too support here!
#me too support isn’t blind support.
If this is Attorney Cunha (and that’s a huge “if”), I’m shocked the attorney representing you in your appeal of your disbarment is OK with your posting derogatory comments about the judges in the Ambrose case. Interesting tactic on your part to doubledown on your misconduct- good luck with that.
I think it is mind blowing that ANY of these parents who have temporarily lost custody of their children are OK sharing their story here, on FCC, etc. These blogs are not viewed with much respect within the CT Family Court system.
Are you fucking kidding me??? Completely clueless. Could you please explain to us why it is important for the CT Family Court system to view this blog with respect? They are probably viewing this blog the same way keith raniere used to view this blog.
Father with money + CT Family Court = Father gets custody
abfnt1 — dedicated troll someone should give it a medal
The chosen absolute authority of Judge Jane Grossman to destroy childhood … the will of the sheeple of Connecticut, with the support of the legislature. The essence of self-rule of a free people to inflict harm upon christian children to the delight of the chosen.
There are cases identical to this. It’s a playbook. RICO- trafficking for custody.
Moms: Margaret Sullivan (Adelman involved), Paige Styvan (Aldrich and Adelman), Catherine Rookasin (Dr Biren-Caverly-same custody evaluator and Judge Jane Grossman), Joriz Tiberi (Judge Grossman and Caverly like Ambrose case), Petricia Weaver (Adelman), Robin Herzot, Kelly Grohs and so many others!
It happens to men as well but typically they have control of the finances so they drive the outcome.
Our children need both parents in their lives. Court hired guns make any conflict far worse- they endorse abuse and control.
“The children have complained to medical experts and to police that they do not feel safe with their father, that he inappropriately touches them and tries to get in bed with them.” This IS illegal! Why don’t you suggest that the children report this to their school counselor? As mandated reporters, the school must call CPS when a child makes this statement — even if it is an allegation. CPS must act on all reports.
The children made reports to Yale New Haven and CT Children’s Hospital in Hartford and DCF and the investigation was co-opted by the GAL and astonishingly by the judge who ordered the 96 hour hold on the children returning to their father halted. The transcripts of all this is mind boggling.
No one believes this until the read the record carefully. But the children got punished severely. They tried three times and each time the GAL and the judge stopped the investigation.
I know all about this case. I am not the mother or the children but someone close and it is a travesty. God Bless Mr. Parlato – if anyone can bring attention to this crime against these three beautiful children it’s him
Bullshit. Karen must have done some pretty outrageous and harmful acts for the temporary no contact order. Do you only have one source, Frank? Karen’s attorney was a pitbull advocate for her before she got herself disbarred. Why didn’t the attorney file a single motion for reconsideration of the custody/visitation order? Or seek a modification? Or perhaps Karen made it clear to her attorney she wouldn’t obey any of the Court’s orders.
I don’t think either parent is putting the children’s interest first. You’ve lost your objectivity as an investigative reporter.
The children were taken on 4/24/20. No outrageous acts. Nothing. That’s what makes this case, and others like it, criminal.
Look up Margaret Sullivan, Robin Herzot, Kelly Grohs, Marlena Anderson Harris, Catherine Rookasin, Joriz Tiberi- all these stay-at-home mothers have been ripped out of the lives of the children they raised on a “temporary” no-contact, ex-parte motion. It’s a scandal. A money-making scheme.
Did all the stay-at-home moms suddenly turn crazy and unstable that supervised visitation and no contact was warranted?
Here’s the tell- they never get referred to DCF for alleged abuse. Not one of these mothers was ever accused of wrongdoing. There needs to be a finding of unfitness.
GALs and attorneys evade the process and use judicial discretion and best interest to steal children – it’s child abuse. Trauma inflicted by our courts.
I heard her attorney was having a mental breakdown over time and drug addicted. She has cuts all over her face and body, can’t string a sentence together, and was marginally competent to begin with.
She works pro bono while Ambrose has the all-powerful and highly connected Aldrich. Give me a break.
There’s a level playing field! And she gets disbarred mid-trial? The case should be tossed.
Put the children first. Give them their mother. Stop being a prick on a power trip.
Look up Ambrose- Instinct/Bones/plagiarism. He’s a snake in Vineyard Vines. No substance. Great liar though. He told me he was working for NBC.
He is a storyteller by trade and spent a decade researching family court crimes, so who would know better how to screw their ex using the corrupt family court system than this guy?? Literally no one. Wake up people. If you still think the mom is at fault here, you are a bonehead.
Money, not journalism’s best interests, drives NXIVM coverage in 2022 in Frank Report.
Why don’t you think this topic is worthy of articles?
Hey Frank, why don’t you answer my email?!
Are you scared of me confronting you with the truth?!
What email?
I sent you an email. Go check your emails.
I get thousands of emails and often times crank emails like yours may have been get filtered right into spam.
My email is *NOT* a “crank email”! Do you have respect for any of your readers?! You constantly come off as a rude and callous dick, dude!
Work on your social skills!
Go find it and read it! The subject is titled “Freedom Of Speech”. This isn’t rocket science, bro!
What if I am not that interested?
“What if I am not that interested?”
Then you’re a patriotic fraud!
I wonder how you would cope if all your readers said that about your website, despite all the hard work you put into it?!
🤔
Meanwhile, how about you stop being a dick and practice what you preach, Frank!
You are a world-class bore.
Frank, I believe your facts are off. She has supervised visitation. Why does she choose not to see them?
I reviewed the document. The mother would have to pay big money that she does not have for a supervisor to see her children. She never needed a supervisor for 13 years when she raised her kids while the husband was away.
The supervised visitation contract would require, in effect, that she admit she is an abusive mother, which I do not believe she is and there is nothing on the record to establish she is. And lastly, the supervisor would be recommended by the GAL, would report to the GAL and the mother would not be able to video record her meetings so she would be subject to the same conspiracy that robbed her of her children.
I can’t imagine not being able to see my kids. I’d do just about anything, so something doesn’t smell right…
Bullshit. The mother is choosing to “take a stand” over seeing her children. If Karen is destitute as she claims, the supervision doesn’t have to be done by a private party for pay.
A motion to modify that part of the order is easy-peasy if Karen is broke. The real crux of the matter is that she’s not happy with the supervised part – how else can she manipulate and poison her children’s minds?
She has one mission: to destroy her ex-husband with a scorched Earth approach that harms her children. Crazy, delusional and paranoid woman. Any other person in his or her right mind would do whatever is needed to see his or her child. She’s insisting on videotaping the visits and passes on any visits when she doesn’t get her way. I would swim across the ocean to see my kids. Karen is her own worst enemy.
Chris, I disagree. You [and your ability to influence CT Family Court] is her worst enemy and the enemy of the children. Don’t you realize you’ll reap the children’s disdain when they get older – just as you have their disdain now.
You know damn well there does not need to be a supervisor with these children and their mother. Anyone who knows the children know that they are better off with their mother than you, Chris.
Be a man and give these children back the warm loving life they had with their mother. After you’ve isolated them for so long, they might even be appreciative, and they might one day like you instead of despising you.
Your foolish idea that you can make children like you by taking away their mother will never work. Chris, it is time to grow up. This will not end here or now.
I’m not Chris. I’m a retired attorney who practiced family law in CT & NY for years. This story – as it’s been presented by you on your blog (I’m taking you at your word that you’re not part of that disgustingly foul familycourt circus blog) – doesn’t make sense. The father may suck at parenting just as much as the mother, but judges (how many so far) have consistently held that he’s preferable for custody over Karen and/or a third-party family member or state custody. How can the mother be faultless in this??
(As an aside, I appreciate your publishing my comments especially considering you and I have very different takes on this case. I wandered into this rabbit hole of a case when I read about a CT attorney being disbarred. For 5 years. From the bench. First, I’ve heard of this ever happening in my 40+ years of practice.)
It’s a shame Chris Ambrose isn’t a man who can come out of the recesses of anonymity on the internet and is only willing to go on the record when protected by the Judge, GAL and his attorneys propping up his disgusting, false narrative.
Frank, I don’t think Mr. Ambrose cares about gaining the kids’ affection. Based on his extracurricular activities/additional income streams, it is most likely that he intends to make the money back he lost to this lengthy court case by trafficking them. Why do you think he fought so hard to make them all move to Madison CT, the hotbed for this type of activity?? Think I’m exaggerating?? This case has all the telltale signs. Literally all of them.
This, exactly. I am sure the reason you are only reporting on one side of this story is because the other side wants no part of this insanity. This is not journalism. Frank, as you dive deeper, I think you will see that there is a reason things are the way they are – and it does not include corruption by CT Family Court. Instead of blasting her poor children’s private lives on the internet, Karen should be doing WHATEVER IT TAKES to get better so she is mentally in a place to be able to be a fit parent.
I’d like to here your reasoning on how this is not corruption.
Exactly what I’ve been thinking. If she really wants some custody of her kids, she is going about it in a monumentally stupid way. It sounds like she’s more interested in hurting the father than in attending to the well-being of the kids. If I were a family court judge, I would never give this woman custody of the children based on the content published here. She sounds like a psychopath. I can’t believe you are playing along with her story, Frank. One day she will probably turn on you, the same way that poor mentally ill Harding woman turned on you.
Why do these mothers have to subject themselves to supervised visitation when there is no finding of unfitness. Did the attorney GAL decide this was necessary? Did a medical professional make such determination?
Sounds like a Catch 22. Good, loving mother signs on for supervised visitation of the children she raised, then she’s admitting to needing and deserving supervision.
When was the hearing on this? Where are the documents that support the basis for such supervision? Guarantee there was no hearing and there is no documentation or transcript which demonstrates the basis for it.
PLAYBOOK of family courts.
Frank Niggerlato!
Stop posting this stupid shit! We get it! The family court has been fucked up by Jews!
Stop wasting our time with YOUR repetition that you project onto me, Ginzo!
Why do you always call him “Ginzo”?
Why don’t you go look up what a “Ginzo” is and figure it out for yourself!
“Ginzo” is basically racial slur for a Sicilian that lives in New York or other Northern areas and it basically means a “worthless incompetent, stupid, rude, and brazen Sicilian who is basically a yankee”!
It’s a classic “Patriot God” comeback! This is why I want to debate you on race but Frank is just going to censor you if not both of us! Even though I strongly dislike you and think you’re a racist monster, I’ve still defended your rights to free speech no matter how offensive and stupid it is!
I challenge you to call out Frank not on his race, but his selfish decisions as a human being to not respect the rights of ALL HUMAN BEINGS! Let’s not make this a race issue!
There are many good and kind Sicilians out there who would completely patriotic and support your free speech despite your folly to loop them and Frank together! There are many Sicilians out there who would loathe Frank and renounce him as an accurate representation of them and their culture!
This has nothing to do with race! It has to do with Frank being a bad apple who has no morals!
I implore you to not sound so ignorant when you talk about what Frank is doing! Frank isn’t the pure embodiment of how all Sicilians act and think! Frank is just the bottom of the barrel of scum!
I challenge you to go out and meet real good hearted Sicilians who would kindly welcome you into their home, share their delicious food culture with you, and whole heartedly oppose Frank Parlato’s shenanigans!
Frank is just a con artist and a fake patriot! Please don’t rope in all Sicilians with him and blame them collectively for his bullshit!
Frank will answer to God one day for his bad behavior and will wind up burning in hell for all eternity if he doesn’t repent! But don’t scoot down to his level, “Patriot God”!
Be better than him!
Think about this, dude!
Burning in hell for all eternity is a long time. Haven’t you heard of purgatory?
Please get to the part that Ambrose isn’t paying a dime for this – the attorneys, the GALs, the therapists, and the judges all know the scheme. It comes from TANF (welfare) money. Free and clear – why else do you think the pile-on happens when abused mothers and children are involved? Mothers fight with all they have, every bit of resource to the point of homelessness, to rescue kids. So, each case is a whale.
Can you explain what TANF is and how it’s involved in payment? Thank you
Father has more money so he can give them better life. What’s wrong with that?
Technically, the father didn’t have more money, he stole the mother’s portion of their marital assets. But not for the ‘father’ playing barber with the judge, the mother would have just as much money you shallow simpleton.
May I add to that…
Money is not the only necessity in giving children a good life – or even the most important necessity. Blocking one parent out of the picture because they have less money just harms the children. It doesn’t take money to love a child, to guide them and support them, to help them stretch their minds and skills and experience the world. Money doesn’t create the bonds between parent and child. And money sure as hell shouldn’t be the reason to cut those bonds.
This is abnft — a simpleton for sure and a nxivm shill doing what they do best in society at large.
If this divorce was ethically managed the mom would have plenty of money, plus she is a highly respected and employable teacher, unlike the dad who disgraced himself in Hollywood with not only plagiarism but inappropriate behavior “with young males”, so it is likely he will never be employable again.
I have often wondered if she is so respected, why is she not back teaching right now?
I am more interested in what happened to her share of the marital assets.
So, why is she not working at the moment? She cries poverty but won’t go get a job? Perhaps it is because her mental state renders her unable to hold down employment?