Case Details
A Deeper Look: The Full Story Behind the Case
Background and Initial Crisis: My Journey Begins
My name is Elizabeth, and I am a devoted mother and the petitioner in a divorce case that has spiraled into something truly notorious—an ordeal shaped by a perfect storm of nearly irreproducible events that led to the profound injustices that now threaten to impact my family for years to come.
On February 7, 2022, I divorced my husband, or at least I thought I had. But weeks later, a chilling revelation shattered that illusion: Wisconsin’s Winnebago County court system had lost the Marital Settlement Agreement (MSA)—a critical document that outlines the terms of a divorce—that we believed had finalized our uncontested divorce. As a result, our stipulated hearing had unknowingly proceeded under an outdated contract—one that had already been nullified by the submission of our final, but lost, MSA. This grave oversight went undetected by my “ex”-husband and me, who were unrepresented by legal counsel for the hearing, as well as by the Family Court Commissioner (FCC), due to its exceedingly vague and hurried nature.
Escalating Legal Chaos: The Unraveling Process
Upon discovering the incredible error weeks later, I reached out to my “ex,” requesting his cooperation in recreating the lost document, as neither he nor I had retained copies of our final MSA, mistakenly trusting—evidently too naively—that submitting the required copies to the court would ensure their safekeeping while we awaited their return with our final divorce judgment following our February 7 hearing. However, rather than working together in good faith to resolve the unprecedented issue, my “ex” seized this unique opportunity to further his own interests by attempting to enforce the nullified MSA—the version that financially advantaged him, and under which our divorce hearing had mistakenly been conducted. When he refused to collaborate on reconstructing our missing document, I was left with no choice but to file a letter with the court, detailing their staggering error and the urgent need for resolution.
FCC John Bermingham, who had presided over our flawed hearing in February, recognized the complex nature of our case and took swift action by scheduling a telephone conference to untangle the web of confusion. During the call on April 26, 2022, he confirmed that, while the court record contained a basic entry indicating that our final MSA had been properly submitted to the Clerk of Courts on January 28, 2022, the document had not been appropriately scanned into the system and that at some unknown point in the chain of custody, all copies of our intended MSA had been irretrievably lost. He then noted that, consequently, he had neither seen nor approved our final MSA, resulting in our divorce hearing instead proceeding under the outdated document. This admission was profoundly significant because, for our divorce to have been complete and finalized in February, the MSA that my “ex” and I intended to divorce under needed to have been approved by FCC Bermingham. As the state’s representative party in these matters, the FCC is the necessary third party to the divorce contract and is responsible for ensuring that the divorce process is fair, legally sound, and that both parties’ rights are protected. Without the approval of our final MSA, no divorce could lawfully occur. Furthermore, FCC Bermingham determined that the lost MSA was also irreproducible due to our inability to reconstruct it.
This left us at a critical crossroads: proceed with an uncontested divorce as originally planned, or face the prospect of a contested divorce trial if that path failed. Still committed to achieving an uncontested divorce, my “ex” and I were granted ten days to co-create a new MSA to replace the one lost by the court, and a default divorce hearing was scheduled for May 23, 2022 to conclude our divorce—contingent upon the completion of the new MSA—offering a glimmer of hope amid the judicial chaos. However, that hope was quickly extinguished when, immediately following the call, my “ex” openly refused to comply with the FCC’s order, as it had just been described to us, leaving my young son and me trapped in an ever-deepening legal quagmire. What followed as a result of the court’s unprecedented error was a decent into chaos, and the court, rather than offering sanctuary, became a breeding ground for abuse and incompetence.
A Descent into chaos
Judicial Failures and Corruption: Unjust Decisions and Their Impact
By the summer of 2022, the urgency to resolve our divorce had reached a breaking point. My “ex’s” persistent obstruction of our MSA co-creation order had already derailed financial matters, but now he began to manipulate custody and placement of our son to his advantage as well, intensifying an already overwhelming crisis. Through his ongoing MSA interference, we were also left without a formal custody or placement arrangement. This untenable legal limbo—initiated by the court and exacerbated by my “ex”—left me suffocating under mounting debt due to my restricted access to our marital assets, the absence of child support, and the skyrocketing attorney fees needed to combat his relentless obstruction of our April 26, 2022 order and his escalating custodial harm—harm that culminated in a devastating 79-day period that he withheld our son from me. Desperate for my son’s immediate and unqualified return, I filed multiple emergency hearing requests with the court—one of which was denied due to the legal confusion surrounding our divorce case.
Meanwhile, after enduring multiple delays, our long-awaited default divorce hearing—along with my mid-summer request for our improper February divorce to be officially declared void and unenforceable—was finally scheduled for September 9, 2022 and was set to take place before the newly appointed FCC, Michael Rust, who had replaced FCC Bermingham following his retirement. During the hearing, I secured a crucial custodial victory (albeit short-lived) by securing my son’s immediate return from my “ex’s” prolonged withholding, a Guardian ad Litem (GaL) was appointed to investigate our case, and a temporary placement schedule was ordered to circumvent my “ex’s” resistance to co-creating a placement schedule, which stemmed from the ongoing absence of an MSA. Yet, once again, the court delayed resolution of our MSA and divorce matters by failing to address the default divorce hearing and by rescheduling the hearing to determine whether our divorce should be declared void and unenforceable to November 16, 2022, with the newly appointed Judge Bryan Keberlein now presiding.
During the highly anticipated November 16, 2022 conference, the judge began by acknowledging the gravity of our case, declaring it both “complex” and “significant.” He explained his approach to resolving the unprecedented issues by stating, “Typically my thought process, as the Court, is to not get involved in the structure. And what I mean is forcing conversations or ideas because I don’t know what the [MSA] issues are. I don’t know… I can’t get involved in negotiations… I think there’s a lot of power in the parties coming up with their own agreement and something they want that they can carve out with a scalpel as opposed to the Court cutting things in half with a chainsaw.” This logical position echoed that of FCC Bermingham’s in April. As such, Judge Keberlein concluded the hearing by ordering my “ex” and me to exchange MSA-related issues by November 30, 2022, and depositions were scheduled for early December to address any outstanding concerns. He also set a follow-up status hearing for December 20, 2022 to assess our progress. However, the judge’s reasonable approach soon unraveled when my “ex” continued to obstruct MSA headway, leaving us with nothing material to report during the December 20, 2022 follow-up conference. It was at this point that Judge Keberlein began making decisions that not only disregarded legal principles, but also exacerbated the court’s initial mistakes—sacrificing justice and violating my constitutional rights in the process.
During the December 20, 2022 hearing, the judge, visibly agitated by the unresolved chaos, abruptly abandoned both FCC Bermingham’s and his own previously established methods for resolving our divorce. In a shocking and reckless departure from reason, he declared his intent to pursue a path toward closure—one that appeared more concerned with ending the case than ensuring a fair and just outcome. In an extraordinary display of judicial overreach, Judge Keberlein scheduled yet another hearing for January 6, 2023, this time ordering my “ex” and me to “recreate” the lost MSA. This came despite our repeated statements asserting that our efforts to do so had proven impossible, despite FCC Bermingham’s determination that the document was irrecoverable and irreproducible, despite our subsequent clear directives to instead co-create a new MSA, and despite the judge’s full awareness that his new demand would require us to contradict our prior testimonies in a futile attempt to “reconstruct” what was irretrievably lost. Judge Keberlein concluded the hearing by stating that he would assess my “ex’s” and my respective credibility based on our under-oath statements, making it abundantly clear that if our versions of the “recreated” MSA didn’t align during the January 6, 2023 hearing, he would draft his own version and finalize the case based on whose testimony he considered more credible. This was despite fully understanding that any deviation from our prior statements would be nothing short of a lie, as we had no legitimate way of reconstructing what had been lost.
On January 6, 2023, just hours before the much-feared hearing, a wave of unexpected relief washed over me. My “ex”—the same person who had relentlessly obstructed every attempt to resolve our divorce issues since the discovery of initial court error in March 2022—finally agreed to engage with my attorney on resolving the matter. He committed to negotiating a new MSA with me with the help of a mediator. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I allowed myself to hope. Maybe we could finally move forward—without being coerced into lying under oath, as the judge had ordered, just to resolve the very mess the court created and my “ex” compounded.
Equally hopeful, my attorney immediately contacted Judge Keberlein to request an adjournment of our hearing, also believing that this new development could lead to an imminent logical resolution and spare us further conflict. But to my shock and horror, the judge denied my attorney’s request, insisting instead that the hearing proceed as scheduled later that same day. A cold wave of dread settled over me, heavier than before, as the reality of facing Judge Keberlein—and the ethical dilemma he threatened to impose—grew undeniable.
During the now-infamous January 6, 2023 hearing, the judge remained unwavering in his pursuit to “recreate” the lost document. With a grim sense of finality, he swore my “ex” in, making his instruction clear: “recreate” the irretrievably lost, irreproducible document. Without a hint of hesitation or a flicker of concern for the consequences of perjury, my “ex” eagerly set to work “reconstructing” our lost MSA, quickly returning it to Judge Keberlein. As I watched him hand it over, it was my turn to be sworn in, and I was ordered to do the same.
But despite the judge’s brazen demand for false statements, I stood firm, resolute in my refusal to participate in his unethical game of deceit. My attorney interjected in defense of truth, reminding the judge that our prior logical obligations were to co-create a new MSA, not recreate the lost one. He then added with frustration evident in his voice, “It’s an impossible task to reconstruct what was in the lost MSA… That’s part of the record now. I don’t see how we can force terms on them.” Irritated, Judge Keberlein responded, “If the parties don’t agree and can’t remember, I’m going to take what I have. I have the pieces of the MSA they were working from, and I’m using that as a starting point. It’s a contract issue. They agreed to something… Whether [or not] it’s [the court-created MSA] a fair, accurate representation of their agreement? Yes. How can they say it’s not?”
With that, the judge took my “ex’s” and my MSA “drafts” and deliberated for what felt like an eternity. His ruling struck with the force of a hammer: Judge Keberlein granted my “ex” the deceitful terms he had just edited. In that moment, the truth hit with brutal clarity—my “ex”, complicit in the judge’s twisted game of liar’s poker, not only faced no consequences for his ten months of MSA obstruction—obstruction that financially devastated me, tore apart our family, and harmed my son—but he was, in fact, rewarded for his role in concealing the court’s monumental clerical error. The judge then deemed my consistent and truthful testimony to be less credible than my “ex’s” perjured account, claimed to have “reconstructed” the lost MSA—despite admitting that he had never seen the document he purported to have replicated—and dismissed my evidence to the contrary, siding with his fabricated narrative. Judge Keberlein then remarked, “I think that given the very unique, exceptional, in that I’ve never heard of it happening before, [an] MSA being lost by the family court commissioner/clerk of courts, that there had to be some type of extraordinary step taken. I anticipate there’s more litigation coming out of this case…”
That so-called “extraordinary” step, more egregious than the demand for false statements itself, came when the judge then retroactively finalized our divorce to February 7, 2022—deliberately omitting our signatures and falsifying critical records. In a stunning overreach of judicial power, he unlawfully misrepresented the long-retired FCC Bermingham as having approved Judge Keberlein’s fabricated version of the lost MSA—despite the FCC explicitly admitting on April 26, 2022 that he had never seen the document in question. At that moment, the true nature of the judge’s actions came into question—his rush to “close” the case did not appear to be motivated by any concern for fairness or the law, but by a clear concern for shielding Winnebago County, his employer, from the legal fallout of its own grave failures—failures that included the loss of our final MSA, our improper February 7, 2022 divorce hearing, and the court’s year-long inaction. Had Judge Keberlein simply approved an MSA on January 6, 2023 instead of backdating the divorce by falsely attributing FCC Bermingham’s approval to a document that didn’t exist, Winnebago County could have been exposed to immense legal liability for the gross mishandling of our case.
Judge Keberlein’s pursuit of unlawful “closure” rendered my attempts to challenge this judicial disaster during the January 6, 2023 hearing tragically futile. In its wake, however, I filed a Motion for Reconsideration with the judge, presenting my “ex’s” own post-hearing admission that Judge Keberlein had, in fact, failed to create a facsimile of our final MSA, just as I’d said. Despite this overwhelming evidence, my motion was flatly denied. Unyielding in my pursuit of justice, I then appealed the judge’s unconstitutional ruling to the Wisconsin Appellate Court, only to face the shocking and unjust decision to uphold his flawed ruling—despite alarming contradictions in the court’s own response regarding fundamental divorce requirements. Refusing to back down, I then filed a Motion for Reconsideration with the appellate court, addressing the extraordinary inconsistencies that undermined their decision. Incredibly, however, my motion was denied within hours. Then, on December 10, 2024, my petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court was also rejected, marking yet another devastating blow in this relentless fight for a fair resolution and proper divorce.
Ongoing Struggle and Appeal for Help: Pursuing Justice and the Need for Public Exposure
Unfortunately, in my diligent but unsuccessful attempts to challenge Judge Keberlein’s unconstitutional January 6, 2023 decision, which wreaked havoc on my finances and left my marital assets encumbered and under my “ex’s” control for more than three years while I await a proper divorce, I have also endured devastating custodial consequences. These abhorrent custodial outcomes appear to stem directly from what can only be described as judicial bias, triggered by my refusal to participate in the MSA “reconstruction” charade. As a result, my custodial rights have been repeatedly violated, with the court consistently supporting harmful decisions made by my “ex.” The fallout from these decisions has been nothing short of catastrophic, deeply affecting my son’s well-being and jeopardizing the health of our relationship across every aspect of our lives. The ongoing repercussions of this unlawful, unjust process continue to devastate both of us, leaving us trapped in a cycle of harm and suffering that shows no sign of abating.
Driven by the clear—and possibly unprecedented—conflicts of interest at play, along with the ongoing lack of custodial resolution, I recently filed two change of venue motions, requesting that a different county be allowed to adjudicate our case. However, on May 9, 2025, the judge reaffirmed his intent to control my family’s future. Dismissing my motions, he instead ordered that I comply with the falsified MSA at my “ex’s” request. This ruling requires me to sign quit claim deeds that would inequitably transfer our marital property to my “ex” and, worse, it condemns my son to continue enduring the destructive and ill-gotten status quo that has already caused immeasurable, lasting damage to him and to our relationship. This MSA—which I have never approved, was created without my consent, and is the foundation for my unlawful divorce—is not only invalid, but also deeply flawed:
- It omits both my “ex’s” and my signatures for approval.
- It falsely claims FCC Bermingham’s approval, despite him never having seen or reviewed it.
- It is presented as a legitimate reconstruction of the lost document by a judge who, like the FCC, admits to never having seen it.
- It contradicts both my “ex’s” and my declarations that the document is not a recreation.
- It has never been reviewed for equity.
As such, and in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Throckmorton v. United States, 98 U.S. 61 (1878), which unequivocally established that “fraud vitiates everything,” including judgments that might otherwise seem final, I have refused to comply with this blatantly unjust order. Despite my constitutionally supported objections, Judge Keberlein instead escalated the matter by threatening me with jail, fines, and the loss of custody of my son, ultimately choosing to institute receivership—appointing an attorney to take control of my assets—to bypass my refusal to comply with the judge’s demand. This act, which is nothing short of an audacious power grab and blatant manipulation of the legal process, has turned it into a weapon for coercion and theft.
Having now exhausted every legal avenue within Wisconsin, I now turn to the U.S. Supreme Court and the public arena to support me in my quest for the proper resolution my case so urgently demands, as I no longer believe that continuing to quietly expand our case record by another 2000 pages will compel the relevant parties to take meaningful action. For far too long, I have hesitated to bring these matters into the public eye, but it has become undeniable that engaging the public and other branches of government is critical to resolving the disputes that have remained stagnant—driven by the apparent collusion between the court and my “ex,” at the immense cost to my son and me.
I remain steadfast in my belief that truth, morality, and the rule of law will ultimately prevail, and I will continue to fight for justice—not only for my family, but for the integrity of our legal system and the fundamental rights of every individual.
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