Case Details
A Deeper Look: The Full Story Behind the Case
The Genesis of a Legal Nightmare
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.
What began as a routine stipulated divorce hearing on February 7, 2022, before Family Court Commissioner (FCC) John Bermingham devolved into a catastrophic legal failure when, in March 2022, my “ex-” husband, Adam, and I discovered that the Winnebago County Clerk of Court had attached a different couple’s Marital Settlement Agreement (MSA) to our mailed divorce judgment.
Upon reporting the error, I learned from Winnebago County Clerk of Court, Tara Berry, that our final, intended MSA—the proposed contract that establishes the court’s jurisdiction to divide property and parental rights—submitted to the court on January 28, 2022, had been lost somewhere within its chain of custody prior to the February 7, 2022, hearing. Consequently, our February divorce hearing had mistakenly proceeded under our nullified original MSA proposal that had been submitted to the court on January 7, 2022, and replaced by the final, intended MSA submitted to the court on January 28, 2022.
Because Adam and I had reasonably relied on the court to return our final, intended MSA with the divorce judgment following our hearing, neither of us had retained a duplicate copy, leaving only our nullified original MSA on the record. As such, Adam immediately moved to exploit this State-created chaos for his advantage.
A Descent into chaos
The Weaponization of Chaos
Recognizing that the nullified original MSA from January 7, 2022, contained windfall terms far more favorable to Adam than the equitable (and subsequently lost) final, intended MSA of January 28, 2022, he attempted to lock in this inequity. He sought to weaponize this non-operative proposal, presenting it to financial institutions as a final legal instrument to refinance our marital residence.
Adam’s initial efforts were stalled, however, when a third-party lender discovered yet another failure by the Winnebago County Clerk of Court: The nullified original MSA had been scanned into the record with two pages missing. This rendered the State’s only copy facially defective and unusable for Adam’s purposes. Yet rather than seeking a lawful correction to our unresolved divorce, he doubled down on his exploitation of the legal ambiguity, maintaining near-exclusive control over our marital securities, investments, and the family residence—effectively stripping me of my property interests—while simultaneously expanding his reach to interfere with my custodial placement and parental rights without a valid legal basis.
The Memorialization of Failure
In response to his destructive exploitation, on April 5, 2022, I submitted a formal request for judicial intervention to FCC Bermingham, detailing the ballooning financial and custodial crisis resulting from our improper February 7, 2022, divorce hearing. FCC Bermingham promptly scheduled a telephone conference for April 26, 2022, to begin untangling the procedural chaos.
During this call—attended by Adam, his newly retained counsel, Attorney Peter Culp, and me, acting without legal representation—the full extent of the court’s administrative breakdown was memorialized. FCC Bermingham confirmed that:
- Our final, intended MSA from January 28, 2022, was never scanned into the court’s electronic record.
- The document had been irretrievably lost while in the court’s exclusive chain of custody.
- He had never reviewed or approved the final, intended MSA from January 28, 2022.
- The February 7, 2022, divorce judgment was mistakenly entered based on the nullified original MSA from January 7, 2022.
- Our final, intended MSA could not be reconstructed by us after discovering its loss.
To address this jurisdictional void, FCC Bermingham ordered us to co-create a new MSA within ten days to replace the one lost by the court. In doing so, he recognized that the statutorily required three-party meeting of the minds—between Adam, me, and the FCC acting as the representative of the State—had not occurred on February 7, 2022. Because this essential legal foundation was missing, our “divorce” was a nullity. He mandated that the new MSA reflected the terms captured on the court’s digital audio recording (DAR) from the February 7, 2022, hearing—specifically, 60/40 placement allocation in my favor and child support of $765 per month to me. A new default divorce hearing was set for May 23, 2022, contingent upon the completion of this new proposal.
The “Wild West” of State-Sanctioned Lawlessness
Minutes after the conference concluded, however, Adam’s extortion began. He sent a message signaling his intent to hold the creation of the new MSA—and our divorce itself—hostage. He conditioned his compliance with FCC Bermingham’s 10-day order on one demand: that I agree to an unauthorized 50/50 placement split, directly defying FCC Bermingham’s 60/40 instructions. When I refused to yield to this coercion in light of the worsening custodial harms, the case descended into a period of State-sanctioned lawlessness that Adam himself termed the “wild west.” As a result, I hired Attorney Joseph Putzstuck.
Despite the total absence of MSA co-creation progress—caused exclusively by Adam’s refusal to participate—I appeared at the Winnebago County Courthouse on May 23, 2022, for the scheduled default divorce hearing, expecting that FCC Bermingham would address Adam’s obstruction so that we could finally divorce.
Upon arrival, however, I was turned away; a bailiff informed me that the hearing had been rescheduled to July 25, 2022—a decision made between the attorneys Culp and Putzstuck without my knowledge, input, or consent.
While the divorce delay was presented as an accommodation to allow Adam additional time to comply with the April 26, 2022, MSA co-creation order, the practical effect was a two-month State-sanctioned extension of the “wild west” deprivation of my property and parental rights. As such, I retained new counsel, Attorney Stephen Fozard, in an effort to swiftly force the case back into the light of lawful resolution. Unfortunately, however, the default divorce hearing—already delayed from May to July—was postponed again, this time by the court, to September 9, 2022, citing staffing issues because FCC Bermingham had retired.
The Fight to Restore Reality
To resolve this existential legal limbo, my newly retained attorney and I moved under Wis. Stat. § 806.07 to formally declare the February 7th “divorce” void. This was a necessary defensive action to restore the status quo ante—the legal state before the chaos began. Since the required three-party meeting of the minds had not occurred, the divorce was a legal fiction, a fact FCC Bermingham had already conceded in the record. However, his subsequent retirement created a dangerous evidentiary vacuum. With the primary witness to the court’s failure now functus officio—legally powerless to act further—I faced an extreme risk that the State’s administrative silence would further embolden Adam. Without a formal declaration of voidness, he was free to continue harming my relationship with our young child and manipulating financial institutions by presenting a facially void judgment as a valid legal reality.
While the § 806.07 motion was set to be heard on September 9, 2022, my path to justice was again sabotaged, and again from within, so I severed my professional relationship with Attorney Fozard and retained Attorney Larry Vesely.
On September 9, 2022, Adam and I, both represented by counsel, appeared before FCC Michael Rust, who served as the newly appointed successor to FCC Bermingham, for our twice-rescheduled default divorce hearing. However, the proceeding was consumed by my second emergency request—a filing that sought to address the custodial instability caused by Adam’s exploitation of the ongoing legal vacuum. Specifically, I moved to restore my placement rights after Adam withheld our child from me for 79 consecutive days—an action that resulted in severe parental alienation and damage to the mother-child bond. As such, our default divorce hearing again did not occur, and FCC Rust routed my § 806.07 motion to newly elected Judge Bryan Keberlein, who scheduled to address it on November 16, 2022. Unfortunately, however, the November 16 hearing was soon downgraded from addressing my § 806.07 motion to declare the February 7, 2022, “divorce” void and unenforceable to a mere status conference at the request of Adam’s counsel.
The Chainsaw and the Gaslight
During the November 16, 2022, proceeding, Judge Keberlein acknowledged the extraordinary and unusually protracted nature of our case and ordered a new timeline: Adam and I were to exchange a list of MSA issues by November 30, 2022, complete depositions to further resolve discrepancies on December 7, 2022, and return for a follow-up conference before Judge Keberlein on December 20, 2022. He emphasized a preference for collaborative negotiation, famously stating: “I think there’s a lot of power in the parties coming up with their own agreement… as opposed to the Court cutting things in half with a chainsaw.”
Despite this mandate, Adam and Attorney Culp abandoned their court-ordered obligations following the hearing, and, rather than exchanging a list of MSA issues, they engaged in a campaign of procedural gaslighting. In a formal letter to Attorney Vesely, Attorney Culp:
- Fabricated a Procedural Reality: He falsely asserted that I was attempting to “reopen” a valid divorce through my § 806.07 motion, willfully ignoring the fact that no valid judgment existed.
- Weaponized a Nullity: He insisted that the “missing pages” of the nullified original MSA from January 7, 2022, were the primary issues of the case, despite it being a document that no judicial officer had ever recognized as operative because it had been superseded by our final, intended January 28, 2022, proposal that was lost by the court.
- Threatened the Court Process: He warned that granting my § 806.07 motion would create an “incredible mess,” effectively using the impact of the State’s administrative errors as a shield against lawful resolution and accountability.
By insisting that a valid divorce existed despite FCC Bermingham’s April 26, 2022, admission to the contrary, Adam and Attorney Culp actively obstructed the court’s duty to ensure a lawful resolution.
This obstruction reached a predatory climax in December 2022, when, after parting ways with Attorney Culp, Adam launched a campaign of psychological coercion, sending me nearly four dozen messages in a matter of days demanding the “missing pages” of the nullified original MSA. Most disturbingly, he included references to Wis. Stat. § 767.44—the statute governing child placement in cases where one parent kills the other parent. This atmosphere of threats and obstruction achieved its intended purpose that no MSA or divorce progress could be made.
The Manufactured Reality
At the December 20, 2022, status conference, the court’s patience gave way to procedural malpractice. Faced with the very stalemate Adam had engineered, Judge Keberlein performed a stunning 180-degree reversal from his November mandate of collaborative MSA negotiation. Rather than holding Adam accountable for his covert threats and his refusal to co-create a new agreement, Judge Keberlein allowed his frustration with the “mess” to override the facts of the case.
In an abrupt pivot, Judge Keberlein manufactured a false procedural history, asserting that FCC Bermingham had previously ordered us to “reconstruct” the lost MSA—a material fabrication of the record. In reality, FCC Bermingham had explicitly declared the document irretrievable and irreproducible, ordering the creation of an entirely new instrument.
As a result of this distortion, Judge Keberlein abandoned all statutory marriage dissolution procedures and imposed a novel, extra-judicial requirement: Adam and I were ordered to submit a summary detailing what we “believed” the lost MSA was comprised of by December 31, 2022. In a move that signaled his intent to adjudicate by intuition rather than evidence, Judge Keberlein announced:
“…make any changes that you think you agreed to [in the lost MSA]. And I want the parties to understand this: I — given your sworn testimony before Court Commissioner Bermingham [on April 26, 2022, where we swore that the MSA could not be recreated], I believe you had an agreement, okay? Now, there may be some confusion or misunderstanding about it, but I think you agreed to something. The question for me to determine is what did you agree to… so what I’m going to do, when we come back, if [our MSA ‘I believe’ statements are] not consistent [when we reconvene for January 6, 2023], I’m going to swear you in, I’m going to take testimony, and I’m going to determine who I think is being credible or not credible. Understand? … But we will take care of the marital settlement agreement on the 6th so that we have a clear jumping off point…”
This directive was a legal impossibility. Under Wisconsin law, a court could not “determine” the contents of a lost MSA proposal by choosing between two conflicting “beliefs” of what was in it, especially when we had already sworn under oath that the document was irreproducible.
The Miraculous Recovery
Seizing the opportunity to exploit Judge Keberlein’s new MSA “reconstruction” order, Adam underwent a miraculous recovery of memory. After months of maintaining—both in and out of court—that he could not recall the terms of our final, intended MSA and that its recreation was impossible, he filed submissions on December 27 and 29, 2022, claiming a detailed recollection of the lost document’s contents. This sudden clarity was purely situational, appearing only when Judge Keberlein signaled a willingness to bypass strict statutory divorce requirements in favor of a “credibility contest.”
On December 31, 2022, Attorney Vesely filed a 21-page submission in compliance with Judge Keberlein’s December 20, 2022, order. This filing reaffirmed the established reality: Neither Adam nor I could recall the specific terms of the lost MSA. The submission meticulously detailed Adam’s documented pattern of obstruction, highlighting his self-serving, contradictory proposals for asset allocations—proposals that were inconsistent in substance but consistently skewed in his favor.
Crucially, the filing also addressed Adam’s tactical obsession with the “missing pages” of our nullified original MSA, and it underscored the severe power imbalance inherent in the case: With near-exclusive control over our marital assets and child, Adam actively leveraged the State’s administrative failures to cement predatory advantages. He didn’t want a resolution; he wanted to codify the “wild west” status quo the court had allowed to persist.
The Set Trap
The morning of January 6, 2023, began with what amounted to a strategic admission of bad faith by Adam. Faced with the immediate prospect of testifying under oath regarding the “reconstruction” of a document he had long admitted was irreproducible, Adam attempted to abort the hearing before it commenced. He contacted Attorney Vesely with a sudden, contradictory proposal: to abandon the “reconstruction” process and pursue mediation to co-create a new MSA.
Upon receiving this outreach, Attorney Vesely contacted Judge Keberlein’s chambers and spoke with Missy Woldt, the judge’s judicial assistant. Attorney Vesely informed her of our mutual agreement to pursue mediation and requested an immediate adjournment of the hearing.
After conferring with Judge Keberlein, however, Missy relayed the court’s refusal of our joint request for mediation. Acting as the operational conduit for the judge’s directive, she commanded us to appear for the hearing. This refusal was a critical turning point; by blocking a return to a lawful meeting of the minds, the court ensured that its sanctioned fiction would proceed. This administrative enforcement of an extra-judicial command deprived me of the opportunity to settle my affairs through a truthful, statutory process—forcing us instead into a fabricated “reconstruction” hearing that had no basis in Wisconsin law.
The Author of a State-Sanctioned Fiction
At the outset of the January 6, 2023, hearing, Judge Keberlein admitted the absence of a legal foundation for his proceeding. He explicitly acknowledged that the case had moved outside the bounds of the Family Code, stating: “I don’t have a memorialization of what was agreed to… So to me, this is not a family issue right now; this is a contract issue.” By reclassifying the matter as a “contract issue” while simultaneously acknowledging the absence of a written proposal, Judge Keberlein signaled his intent to bypass the high statutory guardrails of Wis. Stat. Chapter 767. Despite admitting that no valid MSA existed, he declared his intent to manufacture one by judicial fiat: “I’m going to determine what our [lost] MSA [proposal] is going forward.” This statement confirmed his transition from a neutral adjudicator to an active author of a state-sanctioned fiction.
Under Judge Keberlein’s direction, Adam was sworn in to “reconstruct” the lost MSA from a memory that had only recently—and conveniently—returned. Adam complied, submitting an edited, self-serving draft. However, when ordered to perform the same “reconstruction” fiction, I refused to participate in the fabrication. I reasserted that I could not, consistent with my oath and the penalty of perjury, attest to terms I did not agree to and could not recall. Attorney Vesely immediately intervened, highlighting the inherent absurdity of forcing a party to testify to a known impossibility:
“Both parties in the record of this case have stated they don’t recall [the terms of the lost MSA], including Mr. Fitzgibbon… They both said that they didn’t recall, [FCC Bermingham] ordered them to reconfigure [a new MSA]… It’s an impossible task to try to reconstruct what happened… I think, on the credibility of both parties, they said they don’t recall. And that’s part of the record in this case from both parties. And, you know, I don’t know how we can, at this juncture, force terms on them when they both have said earlier they don’t recall… How do you reconstruct it and say with any degree of certainty these are the terms, but yet I didn’t recall them earlier without perjuring yourself?”
Judge Keberlein dismissed these foundational objections with a startling admission of his intent to rule by whim rather than record: “If they can’t remember, I’m going to take the pieces that I have as a jumping-off point… Is it a fair, accurate representation of your agreement? Yes. How can they say it’s not?” He then proceeded to declare he was “not forcing terms on them”—while simultaneously doing exactly that.
Judge Keberlein announced his intent to retreat to chambers to perform a “credibility determination” on the draft MSAs in private: “I’m going to create what is the MSA that I think they agreed to.”
The Suppression of “Exhibit G”
Upon returning from chambers, Judge Keberlein utilized Adam’s perjured submission as his MSA template. He deliberately avoided any inquiry that would expose the fabrication, specifically failing to:
- Address the “Miraculous Recovery”: Judge Keberlein ignored Adam’s eight-month history of claiming the lost document was irreproducible.
- Reconcile Financial Inconsistencies: Judge Keberlein ignored the irreconcilable differences between Adam’s new “memory” and his sworn Financial Disclosure Statements, as well as his December 27 and 29, 2022, filings.
- Confront the Strategic Pivot: Judge Keberlein allowed Adam to abandon his year-long obsession with the “missing pages” of the nullified original MSA proposal from January 7, 2022, the moment a new lie became more profitable.
Most critically, Judge Keberlein ensured that the one piece of evidence capable of proving the fraud—”Exhibit G”—was buried. This contemporaneous, line-item asset schedule disproved Adam’s “reconstructed” figures and was repeatedly referenced by Attorney Vesely and me throughout the hearing. The transcript reveals a calculated administrative suppression:
Missy: “Do you want me to pull and mark Exhibit G, Judge?” Judge Keberlein: [No answer] … Missy: “We have filed exhibits, but until they’re marked and offered, they’re just sitting in a queue that you cannot see.” Judge Keberlein: “That’s okay. I don’t need to right now.” … Missy: “And then I’m going to just reject all of these exhibits since none of them were offered or received, correct?” Judge Keberlein: “Okay.”
With a single word—“Okay”—Judge Keberlein summarily excluded the one document capable of exposing the financial inaccuracies within the fabricated MSA. By refusing to even look at the “queue,” the judge ensured the counterfeit “reconstruction” remained unverified, suppressing the documentation necessary to restore procedural fairness and substantiate my credibility.
Judge Keberlein’s “reconstruction” relied exclusively on Adam’s untested and inconsistent assertions. The judge stated: “Adam noted that there was a change [between E-Trade and Voya]… weighing the credibility of the witnesses… I’m going to eliminate E-Trade and add half of the Voya account.”
In elevating Adam’s contradictory claims over both documentary evidence and my own consistent testimony, Judge Keberlein inverted the very concept of credibility. The only witness whose account had shifted repeatedly and strategically was deemed “reliable,” while the witness whose testimony remained unchanged since February 2022 was sidelined. The judge grounded the MSA not in law, but in the manufactured narrative of the least credible participant in the room.
The Temporal Paradox and “Martial [sic] Settlement Agreement”
Using Adam’s testimony as a foundation, Judge Keberlein declared the lost MSA “reconstructed,” despite admitting on the record that he had never seen the document he claimed to have reproduced. To finalize this fabrication, he executed the following legal and temporal impossibilities:
- Retroactive Incorporation: Judge Keberlein incorporated the document created on January 6, 2023, into a final judgment of divorce, then backdated that judgment to the fatally flawed February 7, 2022, hearing before FCC Bermingham. This created a temporal paradox where a 2023 counterfeit document served as the basis for a 2022 fatally flawed proceeding.
- Fraudulent Certification: Judge Keberlein then certified that FCC Bermingham had reviewed and approved this counterfeit document—which served as the basis for the divorce—for equity. This certification was facially impossible, however, as FCC Bermingham had retired and surrendered his law license on June 10, 2022, months before the counterfeit document ever existed. Furthermore, FCC Bermingham had explicitly stated on April 26, 2022, that he had never reviewed the final, intended MSA Judge Keberlein purported to “reconstruct.”
The document produced by Judge Keberlein announced its own illegitimacy on its face. Appropriately titled “Martial [sic] Settlement Agreement,” the counterfeit creation bore no signatures and memorialized no meeting of the minds. Despite boilerplate language claiming that “both parties agree,” the document remained a one-sided draft, failing to meet the mandatory requirements of Wis. Stat. § 767.34. Recognizing the absence of consent, Judge Keberlein bypassed the signature lines entirely, inserting a self-authored disclaimer: “As ordered by the Court to reconstruct the Marital Settlement Agreement that was lost after filing with the Clerk of Courts. Hearing held on January 6, 2023.”
In a complete inversion of judicial function, Judge Keberlein then repurposed my Motion for Declaratory Relief (pursuant to § 806.07)—which sought to declare the February 2022 “divorce” void—as a pretext to exercise jurisdiction. Rather than adjudicating the motion to protect my due process rights, he utilized the filing to justify the fabrication of the counterfeit MSA, effectively using my plea for protection as the instrument of my injury.
The judge’s own statements confirmed he had abandoned standard procedure in favor of a self-styled “extraordinary” process:
“I’m attempting, through contract law, to reconstruct what the parties agreed to. I think that given the very unique, exceptional, in that I’ve never heard of it happening before, MSA being lost by the family court commissioner/clerk of courts, that there had to be some type of extraordinary step taken.”
Judge Keberlein further acknowledged the instability of this approach, stating: “I anticipate there’s more litigation coming out of this case… today, we have a starting point.” By his own admission, he was not applying settled law, but was inventing a “starting point” for future litigation through a process he conceded was unprecedented. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy; by manufacturing a counterfeit record, Judge Keberlein didn’t just predict future litigation—he engineered it, ensuring that the legal process itself would soon be weaponized as a tool of State-sponsored retaliation.
Laundering the Record
The fabrication of the record culminated on January 12, 2023, through the coordinated actions of the Clerk of Courts. Tara Berry, in her official capacity, formally entered the counterfeit MSA and backdated fraudulent divorce judgment into the record as Record #127. This act served to launder the legally deficient documents, giving them the appearance of authentic judicial entries within the state’s record-keeping system.
Given her role and direct coordination with the court’s officers, she knew—or had reason to know—that the documents she was processing were legal impossibilities. Specifically:
- Knowledge of Retirement: She was aware that FCC Bermingham had retired and surrendered his law license on June 10, 2022, more than six months prior to the entry of the judgment he purportedly granted.
- Functus Officio: Despite knowing the official in question was functus officio (his authority having expired), she processed a record falsely claiming that a retired official had approved a document that did not exist during his tenure.
By entering these fabrications into the CCAP system, Tara provided the final veneer of legality to the deprivation of my rights. This entry was the essential final step in a scheme to retroactively paper over a 333-day jurisdictional vacuum. Through this administrative act, a legal fiction was transformed into an enforceable state record. This did not merely create a “messy” file; it inflicted concrete constitutional harm by stripping me of the procedural protections afforded by a legitimate judicial process.
Administrative Muscle: The Child Support Agency
The veneer of legality was extended through the coordinated participation of the Winnebago County Child Support Agency (CSA). While the January 6, 2023, fabrication of the MSA resulted in me receiving payments for the first time since my separation, this was not a good-faith financial remedy. Rather, it was a tactical maneuver designed to provide administrative legitimacy to Judge Keberlein’s fraudulent order. The CSA’s sudden activation of the case revealed a knowing acquiescence to the scheme, directly contradicting the agency’s own year-long refusal to act during the 2022 “wild west” period.
In 2022, I contacted the CSA to inquire about the support obligation established at the February 7, 2022, hearing and during the April 26, 2022, conference. At that time, the only document the State possessed was the nullified original MSA—a proposal that had been signed by a CSA representative. Yet, despite holding a signed—albeit nullified—document that ostensibly authorized support, the CSA informed me that no record of the case existed. This year-long refusal to act served as tacit validation that no lawful divorce judgment had been entered into the state’s system.
The CSA’s involvement in the fraud became undeniable when it began processing Record #127. The January 6, 2023, instrument manufactured by Judge Keberlein lacked any signature or approval from a CSA official. Despite this facial defect, the CSA—under the direction of Julie Mabry—immediately processed payments and backdated arrears to February 7, 2022.
This created a damning evidentiary contradiction: The CSA refused to transfer funds in 2022 when it held a signed, albeit incorrect, document, yet it rushed to act in 2023 based on an unsigned, counterfeit record. By effectively porting a 2022 signature onto a 2023 fabrication—mimicking Judge Keberlein’s own tactic of backdating judicial authority—the CSA provided the administrative muscle necessary to sustain a legal impossibility.
Had the CSA approved the document ex nunc (from that point forward) as of January 6, 2023, it would have confirmed the 2022 jurisdictional void. Instead, the agency chose to support Judge Keberlein’s fraudulent narrative that a valid divorce had occurred in 2022—a claim directly refuted by the agency’s own year of inaction. This multi-agency coordination ensured I was trapped in a Catch-22: The State’s sudden approval of “support” was weaponized to administratively “cure” a void judgment and validate the very fraud that stripped me of a lawful divorce.
The most egregious aspect of this deception was the exploitation of the marital estate. Because our “divorce” was a legal fiction, Adam and I remained legally married, and the estate remained undivided community property. Consequently, the “child support” I received was not a transfer of Adam’s independent income—it was a distribution from a collective marital well to which I already held a 50% legal claim. Under the guise of “support,” the State facilitated Adam’s continued financial dominance, allowing him to maintain the appearance of compliance while holding exclusive, unchecked control over our undivided marital assets.
The Appellate Ratification
On April 10, 2023, I appealed the January 6, 2023, divorce judgment. This process culminated on May 29, 2024, when the Wisconsin Court of Appeals—Justices Lisa Neubauer, Maria Lazar, and Shelley Grogan—issued a decision affirming Judge Keberlein’s order. In their ruling, the Justices ignored a dispositive and temporal impossibility: that FCC Bermingham—the official who purportedly authorized the 2022 divorce via the counterfeit MSA created in 2023—had retired and surrendered his law license six months before the document he “approved” even existed.
Furthermore, the Justices disregarded FCC Bermingham’s own on-the-record testimony that he had never seen or approved any instrument other than the nullified original proposal. By invoking a Court Commissioner’s general authority to grant divorces, the Justices deliberately bypassed the specific, admitted fact that this judicial official had not authorized this divorce via that document. In doing so, the Appellate Court did not merely review a case; it effectively ratified a fraudulent record, granting the State’s final imprint of authority to a legal fiction.
On June 19, 2024, I filed a Motion for Reconsideration with the Court of Appeals, detailing its material misrepresentation of the facts of the case and the physical impossibility of a “reconstructed” document disavowed by its supposed signatory. The motion was denied in less than twenty-four hours. This summary rejection, issued without a substantive review of the internal contradictions presented, finalized the state-level collusion and solidified the entry of the counterfeit judgment into the permanent record.
Following the failure of the appellate court to intervene, I filed a petition with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which subsequently declined to review the case. With all state-level avenues for justice exhausted, I moved to file a Petition for Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to secure a lawful divorce and force the correction of the judicial record. In the interim, however, the uncorrected state-level record provided the necessary pretext for the administrative lockdown and custodial sabotage that followed.
The Engineered Trap Snaps Shut
The “starting point” Judge Keberlein engineered on January 6, 2023, reached its ironic milestone on January 17, 2025. Having previously acknowledged that future litigation was an inevitability of the case, Judge Keberlein now sought to penalize the very manifestation of that prophecy. In a complete pivot from his earlier admission of legal instability, he turned his hostility toward the volume of the case record—a record necessitated solely by the court’s initial failures and his own departure from the law.
In a calculated opening statement, he attacked the complexity of the file, citing the 552 case documents as evidence of “staggering” and “needless” litigation that had supposedly “taken away resources from Winnebago County taxpayers.” The audacity of this grandstanding was profound; by dismissing the case as a “straightforward family situation,” Judge Keberlein attempted to retroactively erase the legal wreckage he and Winnebago County had created. He effectively demeaned my efforts to fix a record that was only broken because he had refused to follow the law at the outset.
Characterizing my legitimate legal defense as an “abuse” of the system by comparing it to “911 or emergency room abuse,” he initiated an administrative lockdown. He began by stripping me of my right to de novo review, mandating that all future matters be heard first and exclusively by him. This wasn’t just a procedural change; it was a strategic strike to dismantle the most cost-effective mechanism for challenging court errors, effectively pricing justice out of reach. To complete this procedural fortress, he further imposed a restrictive one-page “gag order” and placed me on notice that any filing (current or future) deemed “frivolous” by his own subjective standard could be met with sanctions, including fines or incarceration.
To further ensure my silence, Judge Keberlein concluded the hearing by stating he would investigate whether he could mandate that I be represented by an attorney. Having navigated the complexities of this case pro se for some time, I had become a direct challenge to the court’s fabricated record. By attempting to force me into representation, Judge Keberlein sought to strip me of my independent voice and replace my unwavering resistance with a court-appointed intermediary—someone easier to manage, bound by different procedural constraints, and less likely to expose the court’s procedural rot.
The Marathon Ambush: March 14, 2025
The campaign of intimidation reached a fever pitch on March 14, 2025. Having spent months decrying the “staggering” volume of the case, Judge Keberlein manufactured a “marathon hearing” that weaponized that very volume against me, dumping more than two dozen outstanding matters—some of which had been sitting unheard for nearly six months—into a single day’s docket.
During this blitz, the judge moved to forcibly implement the property division terms of the illegal MSA by finding me in contempt for refusing to sign quitclaim deeds that would inequitably transfer encumbered marital property to Adam:
Judge Keberlein: “Is there a court order that says he gets the house?” Me: “There is a court order based on a document [the January 6, 2023, counterfeit MSA and ‘divorce’]… that doesn’t contain my consent.” Judge Keberlein: “It doesn’t matter if you agree… I’m going to find you in contempt.”
His logic rested on a chillingly despotic premise: that a court order exists as a law unto itself. In this view, the “order” does not serve the law—it replaces it—claiming a self-anointed legality that persists even when its origin is documented fraud and constitutional misalignment.
He then baselessly claimed these transfers could be “undone” if the U.S. Supreme Court intervened—a claim already refuted by a subpoenaed banking expert who had testified on my behalf during a similar contempt attempt in 2023. By forcing an irreversible transfer of property while a Writ of Certiorari was pending (due May 9, 2025), Judge Keberlein moved beyond legal error and into active obstruction of federal jurisdiction.
To further frame my defense as legal gamesmanship, Judge Keberlein accused me of filing “backdoor custody motions” through contempt proceedings, stating: “You’re using the contempt process not meant for that because that’s what custody is for…”
The irony was astounding. As I testified, this strategy was a necessity, not a choice. I had filed these motions in a specific, logical sequence designed to build a record of Adam’s offenses—a strategy necessitated by Judge Keberlein’s own calculated obstruction on June 25, 2024. On that date, the court was scheduled for a comprehensive custody hearing where our court-ordered reunification therapist had been subpoenaed to provide critical testimony. Instead, Judge Keberlein aborted the entire proceeding after just 17 minutes.
By suppressing the therapist’s testimony, the judge ensured the core custodial issues remained unresolved. Had he permitted that evidence, the very matters I was later forced to adjudicate individually would have been settled in a single afternoon. Instead, the court sat on my subsequent filings for months, ignored my formal requests to consolidate them for efficiency, and then utilized the resulting “marathon” hearing to chastise me for a “disorganization” he had manufactured. He utilized the hearing to grandstand about the burden on State resources, while ignoring that the entire procedural pileup was a direct result of his own 17-minute dereliction of duty.
Judge Keberlein concluded the hearing by reactivating the guardian ad litem (GAL), Attorney Trista Moffat, to “investigate” the very crises he had enabled: alienation and the obstruction of reunification therapy. My quitclaim “contempt” and Attorney Moffat’s subsequent findings were then set for a final, pre-determined showdown on May 9, 2025.
The Weaponization of “Reunification” Therapy
The May 9th hearing was the ultimate exercise in judicial cowardice. Knowing I was in Washington D.C. filing my Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court—and having denied my requests to adjourn the hearing or appear virtually—Judge Keberlein proceeded in my absence, so while I was petitioning the highest court in the land for constitutional relief, Judge Keberlein was appointing a receiver, Attorney Kathleen Healy, to unconstitutionally execute property transfers to Adam on my behalf.
But the corruption of May 9, 2025, extended beyond property; it targeted the systematic destruction of my parental personhood. At the time of the hearing, an active court order for reunification therapy remained in place—a mandate supposedly intended to heal the mother-child bond that had been damaged by Adam. However, access to that treatment had been severed. This was not due to a lack of will or need, but because the court-ordered provider had reached a devastating clinical conclusion. In her parting notes dated January 21, 2025, the therapist stated:
“The fact the courts will not allow this therapist to contribute knowledge to the family case as well as dad’s continued sabotage of therapy have made it impossible to continue to work effectively with this family.”
Despite these professional warnings—which were already a matter of record and formed the very core of Attorney Moffat’s investigative mandate—her testimony proved to be a calculated betrayal. Tasked with examining the therapeutic collapse, she chose to bypass the therapist’s explicit findings regarding “dad’s continued sabotage” and the court’s own obstruction. Instead, her testimony provided the strategic misrepresentation and silence Judge Keberlein needed to perform his final reversal, declaring: “I’m concerned that, again, the counseling, like the legal system, may have become weaponized.”
With Attorney Moffat’s tacit endorsement of this revisionist narrative, Judge Keberlein finalized a clinical impossibility. He maintained the “order” for reunification while refusing to fix the environment the therapist had already deemed “impossible” for the continuation of treatement. When this engineered stalemate was exposed, he used the failure as a pretext to claim there was “no relationship with the providers… to protect.” This was a State-orchestrated trap. To acknowledge the therapist’s actual notes would have upended the bias he entrenched on January 6, 2023. Ultimately, the court used a contraindicated environment as a surgical tool to strip my child and me of our right to heal.
Judge Keberlein concluded the May 9th hearing by ensuring this outcome remained unresolvable. Having refused to recuse himself, he used the final moments of the hearing to summarily deny my two heavily sourced motions for a change of venue—motions that struck at the very heart of the court’s corruption:
- The Conflict of Interest: The first motion challenged the inherent conflict of a court being tasked with adjudicating the very harms and procedural “accidents” it had created.
- The Custodial Failure: The second motion targeted Judge Keberlein’s repeated failure to adjudicate custody matters with any semblance of statutory integrity.
In a move that defined the fox guarding the henhouse, Judge Keberlein sat in judgment of his own conduct and personally dismissed the challenge to his own authority. The irony was absolute: Even as he denied my motions for a change of venue, the May 9th hearing became a live demonstration of the very failures he was denying. By conducting the proceeding in my absence and once again failing to address the custodial crises with any semblance of statutory integrity, he provided the definitive evidence for the second motion he was in the process of dismissing. The hearing was not merely a legal error; it was a self-indicting display—a real-time validation of the necessity for a change of venue, enacted by the very official who summarily blocked it.
By dismissing both motions, he transformed the court into a procedural fortress, ensuring that my child and I remain trapped in a jurisdictional vacuum where the official whose misconduct was being challenged was the same official guarding the door to redress.
The Administrative Blackout: Silencing the Record
Following the May 9th hearing, I launched an exhaustive effort to correct a record that had been methodically manufactured in my absence. Barred from virtual attendance while in Washington D.C., I obtained the transcript and was confronted by a narrative that bore minimal resemblance to clinical reality. I immediately notified all relevant parties of the errors—including Attorney Moffat and the leadership of the reunification organization—demanding that the record be corrected to reflect the truth and to restore the therapy that remained court-ordered, necessary, and yet systematically obstructed.
The response, however, was not a correction, but a calculated escalation of the fraud. On July 21, 2025, rather than addressing the documented falsehoods of the May 9th hearing, Attorney Moffat doubled down, filing a half-page “correction” regarding my child’s individual therapist that was an objective fabrication—an even more egregious departure from the truth than her previous testimony.
In response to this blatant expansion of the deception, I provided Attorney Moffat, the therapeutic team, and the reunification leadership with a 21-page, line-by-line rebuttal of the May 9th testimony followed by a 9-page forensic overview of the July 21st filing. These documents were not mere grievances; they were substantiated with clinical notes, private correspondence, and court filings that rendered the official record factually and legally impossible.
The result was an institutional blackout. While the reunification therapist remains an ally—standing ready and willing to treat my child and me—she has been effectively gagged by her own organization’s leadership. By refusing to allow her to contribute the clinical knowledge necessary to rectify the record, the institution has ensured that the professional evidence of Adam’s interference remains suppressed.
Parallel to this blockade, Attorney Moffat—my child’s own legal advocate—has retreated into a calculated radio silence. Despite her direct knowledge of the profound harms we have endured, she has chosen to abandon her duty to the truth. By refusing to correct her testimony in the face of absolute proof, she and the therapeutic leadership have transitioned from neutral participants to the final sentinels of this fraud. The State has not merely failed to protect my parental rights; it has actively guarded the environment designed to destroy them. My evidence has been filed and the truth has been documented—yet the “cure” remains unreachable because the system refuses to acknowledge the evidence that would necessitate it. Our relationship is not being “repaired”; it is being held hostage by a system that prefers a comfortable lie over a devastating truth.
The Financial Hostage: A Unique Constitutional Injury
The property theft initiated at the May 9th hearing reached its conclusion on October 6, 2025—the exact day the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. With my final federal appellate remedy exhausted, the court-appointed receiver, Attorney Healy, moved immediately to execute the deed transfers to Adam. By timing this final seizure to coincide with the conclusion of my federal appeal, the court utilized a state proxy to finalize a theft rooted in a void and fraudulent decree.
This forced transfer resulted in a unique and ongoing constitutional injury. Although the transfer was purportedly conditioned on Adam refinancing the mortgage, that condition remains unfulfilled. Consequently, I have been stripped of my ownership interest and equity in both the residence and separate land without receiving any compensation for either asset.
Because Adam has failed to refinance, I remain the primary borrower on the marital residence. The court has effectively forced me to act as a non-consensual guarantor of Adam’s debt. This arrangement allows Adam to exploit my financial identity and credit standing to maintain a windfall interest rate while I am barred from accessing my equity, being relieved of my liabilities, or securing financing for a new home. This is not a standard property division; it is a State-mandated financial entanglement—a condition where my credit and identity are being held as collateral to subsidize a fraud.
The Jurisdictional Hijacking of Personhood
The result of this multi-year legal assault is as absurd as it is illegal: I have yet to achieve a lawful divorce. My legal personhood remains hijacked by a closed-loop system that prioritizes the concealment of its own crimes over the entry of a constitutional judgment. By stripping away my voice and my procedural rights, the court has attempted to reduce a human being to a mere administrative obstacle.
While every matter within the State court remains unresolved, the judiciary has deliberately engineered an ecosystem in which they are unresolvable. Through the fortification of a fraudulent record and the suppression of clinical truth, the court has traded the rule of law for a manufactured stalemate. This is not “finality”; it is a State-sponsored limbo.
The State’s attempt to “close” this case is a fiction. This tactical obstruction has merely moved the battlefield to a federal reckoning. Through a federal civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, I am challenging the conspiratorial deprivation of my constitutional rights and the systematic fraud used to bridge the gap between state-level inaction and federal accountability.
This website serves as the definitive indictment of a system that would rather perpetuate a fraud than admit to catastrophic failure. The state record may currently be impenetrable, but the federal pursuit of accountability has only just begun.
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