Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Is Up for Reelection: "Remember Elenita!"

If I were ask what I consider the finest moment in this blog's history, I would answer its months-long campaign to expose the judicial malfeasance of Judge Jeri Beth Cohen. Of course, I didn't draw her name out of a hat, which is how she must have been picked in the first place to be a judge. Her interest to RCAB lay in the fact that the case of Elián González was being heard, at long last and by proxy, in her courtroom. Another abused Cuban child, this time a girl, was being threatened with deportation to Communist Cuba because the father who had abandoned her at birth had decided that the road to fame and fortune for him was to sacrifice his daughter's future as Juan Miguel González had his son's. Judge Cohen, who saw the itinerant pig farmer Rafael Izquierdo as some noble savage out of Rousseau and not as a pawn in international politics, found him fit to be a "marginal father" and awarded him custody of Elenita, pending an appeal to a higher court. Before it could render its decision, however, a compromise was reached between the foster parents and the putative father which assured that Elenita would remain in the U.S. for at least 2 more years, when, hopefully, her return to Cuba will be either a moot question or one out of Cohen's hands.

The best way to assure that Judge Jeri Beth Cohen has no further say in Elenita's life is to remove her from the bench. Let me say that this is long overdue and that I am and will always be puzzled how someone who holds opinions about Cubans as racist and xenophobic as Cohen's could have been elected to office in Miami-Dade County in the first place. I suppose she kept her mouth shut then, as did Janet Reno in her day. But the bile will out and it did one day in her courtroom in July 2002, when she proclaimed "I do not think that they deport people back to Cuba. That is our big problem. If we deport people back to Cuba, we could empty our jails. We would have it made and be happy, but we cannot." Ironically, this was said in the context of a denatured parent's request that his 17-year old son be deported to Cuba. The Cuban-American Bar Association demanded an apology and threatened to file a complaint against her with the state's judicial ethics review panel, as would certainly have been done immediately if the subject of her comments had belonged to any other racial or ethnic minority? Can you imagine the uproar if Cohen had advocated repatriating all blacks to Africa, as Thomas Jefferson and other worthies once did? The Cuban-American lawyers, who still had to plead before her in court, accepted her apology on behalf of all Cubans and her faux pas was quickly forgiven and forgotten (contrary to The Miami Herald's assertions today). I am still amazed that I was the first to cite her quote in relation to this case. The Miami Herald certainly had "forgotten" and so had everybody else.

Well, The Herald has made amends by resurrecting that quote in an article about Abbie Corral, who represented Elenita's foster parents Joe and María Cubas during the custody trial and is now running against Judge Cohen in the November election. Ms. Corral could have picked one of several open seats and run uncontested for judge. Instead, she chose to challenge Judge Cohen for her seat. This will be the first challenge that Cohen will face since she was first elected in 1992. Of 32 sitting judges, only she and three others are running in contested races,which is yet another judicial scandal. If 32 state legislators were running for re-election unopposed, I think most would agree that the democratic process had broken down.

Not because she is a Cuban, not because she was Elenita's defender, but because she is not Judge Jeri Beth Cohen, I am endorsing Abbie Corral for circuit judge in Miami-Dade County. Besides McCain that will be RCAB's only endorsement this year.

One last thing: every day there are at least 3-4 visitors to this blog who come here by googling "Jeri Beth Cohen." This is because RCAB's coverage of the Elenita case pretty much defines Judge Cohen on the internet. I could not be more pleased or proud.

"What Can You Do for Me, Baby?"
In Elenita's Case, Freedom Wins
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Stopped Dead in Her Tracks By Appellate Court
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Seeks the Spotlight Again
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Awaits Her Report Card
Judge Cohen: The Little Girl Is Lying
Now Judge Cohen Officially Banishes the Truth from Her Courtroom
A Letter to Florida Governor Crist Appealing for Elenita's Life
More Fabricated Evidence Exposed and the "C Word" Banned from Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elenita's Fairy Tale: Grimm Was Never This Grimm
What Judge Jeri B. Cohen Should Take to Bed Every Night
Judge Jeri B. Cohen's Decision: We Should All Want "Marginal" Fathers
Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles
The Real Parents — Joe and María Cubas
Joe Cubas: Castro's Worst Nightmare (and Henry's)
Ana Menéndez & Robert Molleda: The Hag and the Gelding; Or, Love in the Stable
Notable and Hateful: No Mercy for Children Who Straggle From Castro's Knee
What Creature Do I Despise the Most in the World?
The "Elenitas" Keep Multiplying
Is Oscar Corral In Cabaiguán, Cuba?
The Saga of Babalú's Henry Gómez & Alex of SotP
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"
Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)
The Guajiro Hamlet: Rafael Izquiedo
Elián's Father was "Adopted" Too
El Bitongo
The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom
By Their Scars You Will Know Them: The Ordeal of Elenita and Her Brother
Castro's Lawyers Kurzban & Davis Face Disbarment in Cubas-Izquierdo Custody Battle
Cui Bono: The Unasked Question in Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elena Pérez: Her Life As a Mother and a Mistress (Or Chasing Cod in Cabaiguan)
Letter to Elena Pérez: Birth Mother of the Cuban Refugee Girl
Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner
The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"
Notable & Variable: Well, Well, Henry
What "American-Cuban" Bloggers Really Think About "Eliana"
¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog

Highlights of RCAB: The Rescue of "Elenita"

The proudest chapter in the history of the Review of Cuban-American Blogs was its struggle to save the life of "Elenita," the much-abused 4-year old refugee girl whose absent-for-life father wanted to return her to Cuba so that Castro might have a matched set of juvenile captives stolen from freedom and returned to Cuba to be raised in slavery.

Babalú and its satellites refused to say even one word on her behalf because they feared a repeat of the Elián affaire, as if the triumph of injustice by foul means eight years earlier should constrain us from seeking justice now and forever.

Elenita was not returned to Cuba, no thanks to Judge Jeri Beth Cohen who had opined in her courtroom that all Cubans refugees should be. I don't believe that RCAB has ever received more google hits than those generated by searches for information on "Jeri Beth Cohen." The rest of the Cuban blogosphere may not have given a damn about "Elenita's" fate but, apparently, a great many people did.

The return of Eric Holder and Greg Craig, the point-men in Elián's kidnapping, as Attorney General and White House Counsel, respectively, in the Obama administration, will not bode well for "Elenita" or the other Cuban children currently in her predicament or who shall find themselves there in the next 4 years.

We warned that Craig and Holder were both slated for preferment in an Obama administration while Val & Company continued gathering evidence that McCain was a "RINO" and urging their readers to vote for Obama so that there could be a resurgence of "real conservatism" in 2012 as a reaction to McCain's failed candidacy and Obama's failed presidency. Yes, over "Elenita's" shattered life and the lives of all Cuban children who will be sacrificed in the next four years as propitiatory offerings to Castro.

But, of course, the lives of Cuba's children or adults couldn't matter less to the Babalunians. The people of Cuba are an encumbrance to their plans and "freedom," as they see it, must find a way around them now that the "Human Pressure Cooker" has reverted to Castro's sole use. And while they anxiously count down the days to 2012, Obama and his cohorts will have come to the rescue of the Cuban Revolution and turned Cuba into an American protectorate economically as it has been politically since 1962, when Kennedy agreed to make the U.S. the guarantor of Communism in Cuba. Obama will provide the regime with internal protection as JFK bestowed on it external protection, insuring thereby that no living Cuban will ever know freedom or democracy in his own country.

Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Is Up for Reelection: "Remember Elenita!"
"What Can You Do for Me, Baby?"
In Elenita's Case, Freedom Wins
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Stopped Dead in Her Tracks By Appellate Court
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Seeks the Spotlight Again
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Awaits Her Report Card
Judge Cohen: The Little Girl Is Lying
Now Judge Cohen Officially Banishes the Truth from Her Courtroom
A Letter to Florida Governor Crist Appealing for Elenita's Life
More Fabricated Evidence Exposed and the "C Word" Banned from Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elenita's Fairy Tale: Grimm Was Never This Grimm
What Judge Jeri B. Cohen Should Take to Bed Every Night
Judge Jeri B. Cohen's Decision: We Should All Want "Marginal" Fathers
Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles
The Real Parents — Joe and María Cubas
Joe Cubas: Castro's Worst Nightmare (and Henry's)
Ana Menéndez & Robert Molleda: The Hag and the Gelding; Or, Love in the Stable
Notable and Hateful: No Mercy for Children Who Straggle From Castro's Knee
What Creature Do I Despise the Most in the World?
The "Elenitas" Keep Multiplying
Is Oscar Corral In Cabaiguán, Cuba?
The Saga of Babalú's Henry Gómez & Alex of SotP
Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"
Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)
The Guajiro Hamlet: Rafael Izquiedo
Elián's Father was "Adopted" Too
El Bitongo
The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom
By Their Scars You Will Know Them: The Ordeal of Elenita and Her Brother
Castro's Lawyers Kurzban & Davis Face Disbarment in Cubas-Izquierdo Custody Battle
Cui Bono: The Unasked Question in Judge Cohen's Courtroom
Elena Pérez: Her Life As a Mother and a Mistress (Or Chasing Cod in Cabaiguan)
Letter to Elena Pérez: Birth Mother of the Cuban Refugee Girl
Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner
The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"
Notable & Variable: Well, Well, Henry
What "American-Cuban" Bloggers Really Think About "Eliana"
¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog

In Elenita's Case, Freedom Wins

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Rafael Izquierdo has desisted in his plans to return Elenita to Cuba. He has been persuaded by Joe Cubas that it is in Elenita's best interests to remain in the U.S. Of course, it is also in his other daughter's best interests; and in his common-law wife's best interests; and, most importantly, in Rafael's Izquierdo's best interests since the most exalted lacquey in Cuba will not make as much as a busboy here. The out of court settlement is also in the best interests of Judge Jeri B. Cohen, whose earlier award of custody to Izquierdo will not now be set aside by the Appellate Court because of judicial misconduct on her part; and, also, it is in the best interests of Kurzban and Montiel-Davis, who are less likely now to be subject to disciplinary proceedings or disbarment springing from their outrageous conduct at the custody trial, which included suborning perjury and fabricating evidence. The Cubas, Elenita's foster parents and the only well-intentioned parties in this case, will continue to have visitation rights on alternate week-ends. Elena Pérez, Elenita's abusive mother, will not (unless Izquierdo wishes to risk losing custody). And Elenita's 13-year old brother, who has been her real father and protector since she was born, will not be separated from her nor she from him.

As the result of this Solomonic compromise, four people are free instead of one. Although we despise Rafael Izquierdo for abandoning his daughter and then reclaiming her for Castro, we are even glad that he has opted for freedom over slavery. Perhaps he'll learn to be a man and a father here. In any case, Elenita will remain in the U.S. and under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Children and Families until May 2010. Then her father will have to decide whether he wants to return to Cuba with his biological daughter or remain here. Nothing that this cretinous man might decide to do would surprise us. But I'm personally betting that the guajiro is not that great a fool since this compromise more than just assuring his daughter's safety for now is a golden parachute for her father.

The entired saga as covered by the RCAB:

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Stopped Dead in Her Tracks By Appellate Court

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Seeks the Spotlight Again

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Awaits Her Report Card

Judge Cohen: The Little Girl Is Lying

Now Judge Cohen Officially Banishes the Truth from Her Courtroom

A Letter to Florida Governor Crist Appealing for Elenita's Life

More Fabricated Evidence Exposed and the "C Word" Banned from Judge Cohen's Courtroom

Elenita's Fairy Tale: Grimm Was Never This Grimm

What Judge Jeri B. Cohen Should Take to Bed Every Night

Judge Jeri B. Cohen's Decision: We Should All Want "Marginal" Fathers

Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles

The Real Parents — Joe and María Cubas

Joe Cubas: Castro's Worst Nightmare (and Henry's)

Ana Menéndez & Robert Molleda: The Hag and the Gelding; Or, Love in the Stable

Notable and Hateful: No Mercy for Children Who Straggle From Castro's Knee

What Creature Do I Despise the Most in the World?

The "Elenitas" Keep Multiplying

Is Oscar Corral In Cabaiguán, Cuba?

The Saga of Babalú's Henry Gómez & Alex of SotP

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"

Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)

The Guajiro Hamlet: Rafael Izquiedo

Elián's Father was "Adopted" Too

El Bitongo

The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom

By Their Scars You Will Know Them: The Ordeal of Elenita and Her Brother

Castro's Lawyers Kurzban & Davis Face Disbarment in Cubas-Izquierdo Custody Battle

Cui Bono: The Unasked Question in Judge Cohen's Courtroom

Elena Pérez: Her Life As a Mother and a Mistress (Or Chasing Cod in Cabaiguan)

Letter to Elena Pérez: Birth Mother of the Cuban Refugee Girl

Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner

The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"

What "American-Cuban" Bloggers Really Think About "Eliana"

¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog

Now Judge Cohen Officially Banishes the Truth from Her Courtroom

The end is near to the mockery of justice that has been playing in Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen's courtroom for the last 6 months. She has, in effect, granted Izquierdo 5/7ths custody of Elenita already, reserving the other 2/5ths for the Cubases. This is an exact reversal of her previous living arrangements whereby she spent weekdays with the Cubases and week-ends with the Izquierdos and brings the helpless child that much closer to the lost of her freedom, which her birth father was sent to the U.S. to facilitate.

Judge Cohen also requested that Rafael Izquierdo not just "snatch up the girl and get on a plane to Cuba" but collaborate in making a "smooth transition" in custody. Since this request strengthened Izquierdo's hand and would not have been made unless Cohen intended to afford him the opportunity to do precisely that at his discretion, Izquierdo was more than pleased to give his word, as if his word meant anything in this case.

The judge does not want Elenita to be told that this new arrangement will lead to her definitive separation from her brother and her foster parents and her removal to Cuba. Although Joe and María Cubas begged the judge to stop telling lies to the child about her future, Cohen refused because the lies are a narcotic that will keep her more or less quiet until the day when the truth is flung at her like a bucket of cold water.

The lie that she is being forced fed for the duration of her stay here and until the moment she is drugged and bundled off to Cuba is that she will not be separated permanently from her brother or foster parents if returned to Cabaiguán. She can tolerate the presence of her birth father in her life only if she is assured that he will not be able wrench her from the family with whom she has bonded, the only real family she has ever known, and the brother who was her protector in both Cuba and the U.S. and the only constant in her life.

But the truth is inconvenient for Judge Cohen's purposes and she is not in the least wary about admitting it.

What the judge does not ask herself is: Why is this lie central to Elenita's emotional well-being? Why is the evolution of her "relationship" with her birth father, such as it is, dependent upon maintaining this lie at all costs?

Elenita will only come near her father if he is separated from him by a protective barrier such as shields us from the animals at the zoo. This protective barrier is her belief that she will not be taken from her brother and foster family. Remove this barrier -- as, in fact, Judge Cohen intends to remove it and soon -- and all you have is a frightened child face to face with a feral animal and reacting to it as anyone would react to a feral animal at close proximity.

Clearly, she is not ready emotionally or in any other way to accept her father if that means severing forever her ties with her brother or the Cubases. The need for a protective barrier from Izquierdo should indicate to Cohen that it is the child's relationship with her brother and foster family which is the most important thing in her life, the island of normality in an all-encompassing sea of disfunctionality on which she was left stranded by her crazy mother and feckless father.

Addressing the Cubases' lawyer Alan Mishael, the judge inveighed that "[i]f we lay a bombshell on [Elenita] and say, 'You know, you're not going back [to the Cubases],' she falls apart" and then "you come back and say, `Look, the child fell apart.' I'm not going to get sucked into that trap. I'm one step ahead of you guys."

For Judge Cohen the truth is a "bombshell" and delicate ears should never have to hear it while palliative lies can assure that the bomb which Cohen intends to plant under her will catch her unawares; for that is Cohen's ultimate goal: to sacrifice her as quietly and with as few embarrassing complications as possible. The lie has only one discernable purpose: to lead rather than drag the lamb to slaughter. If lying to the child achieves this end, Judge Cohen will sanction the lie in order to facilitate the triumph of even bigger lies.

More Fabricated Evidence Exposed and the "C Word" Banned from Judge Cohen's Courtroom

"I run this courtroom. It's going to be run respectfully, it's going to be run ethically and there's not going to be any professional misconduct in here. And if there is, I will take swift action and I will turn it over to the Florida Bar. And I mean it." — Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen

I

Court is back in session before the scheduled beginning of the second phase of the Izquierdo-Cubas custody trial. Magda is at it again, manufacturing evidence with the collaboration of Rafael Izquierdo. Last time around she produced phony letters for Izquierdo to copy out and Elena Pérez to claim she had received from him in the U.S. Then she tried to do the same thing with photographs, instructing Pérez to say that she had mailed photos of Elenita to Izquierdo which she had not. Now in the latest chapter of suborned perjury and obstruction of justice Montiel-Davis is accused by the little girl herself of making videos in which Izquierdo and his common-law wife prompted the child to say that she wanted to return with them to Cuba.

There really are no limits to this woman's perfidy and flaunting of the law. No limits because Judge Jeri B. Cohen has chosen to set none. The Miami Herald says that Montiel-Davis has "fended off" previous accusations of fabricating evidence. Really? I missed that part of the trial. Montiel-Davis has "fended off" nothing; she and her husband have simply not been penalized by the judge for their blatant contempt of court. Exactly how many pieces of evidence are lawyers allowed to fabricate, how many individuals (including children) can they induce into perjury, before Judge Cohen takes cognizance of their conduct and addresses it? We know already that justice is denied in her courtroom, but are crimes also sanctioned there? Does her "discretion" broadly defined permit her to aid in the commission crimes by holding the criminals immune to prosecution? Ironically, the very enormity of the crimes committed in open court by Kurzban and Montiel-Davis, who are as dirty as one would expect Castro's lawyers to be, seem to have convinced the judge that they could not possibly have committed them; for why would they endanger their lucrative careers by "fixing" the outcome of a supposedly pro bono case? Judge Cohen does not understand that ideologues will do from conviction what they wouldn't do for money, though we have no doubt that money will be an important factor in any case in which the two are involved (if a reporter at The Herald would only follow that trail!).

Judge Cohen's reaction to this latest instance of professional misconduct, at least, and criminal tampering and obstruction of justice, at worst, was to ignore it just as she had looked askance at previous attempts: "I'm not accusing anyone of anything." Of course she's not. By "not accusing anyone" [i.e. not holding anyone responsible] she is ignoring the girl's own accusations, as conveyed in a session with her therapist on Monday, and giving carte blanche again to Izquierdo's legal team to continue unhampered on the same course without so much as an admonishment. Cohen's own judicial misconduct now approaches their own and they are literally in the same boat together.

"I can't get to the truth of what happened here," concluded the judge, "I could sit here all day."

It's not as if it's her job to sit there all day trying to sort out the truth.


II

The word "Cuba" and Judge Cohen don't have a cordial history. The last time she invoked "Cuba" at a trial it nearly cost Cohen her job. That's when she voiced her belief in 2004 that the solution to crime in Florida would be to deport all Cubans to Cuba. Since returning Elenita to Cuba — which is what this case is all about — is perfectly in keeping with her expressed "judicial philosophy," and would, in effect, represent the most egregious case of "judicial advocacy" in history, Judge Cohen is now obliged to deny the very nature of this case by banishing the "C-word" from her courtroom. Yes, she actually called it the "C-word" in her courtroom yesterday.

Although she personally will not tolerate the word to be spoken in her presence and has asked all parties to refrain from using it in her courtroom, the judge is now insisting that the word be thoroughly rubbed in the little girl's face so that she can become acclimated to her impending fate. She has instructed the other therapist on the case — the one who didn't reveal Elenita's loathing of returning to Cuba — to "discuss in concrete terms" with the 5-year-old that ominous prospect, which she is reportedly "in denial about," preferring to take refuge in the "protective fantasy" that she will be allowed to stay here with her brother and foster parents (now called the "caretakers" by The Herald).

It seems to us that Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen is the one "in denial" and living in a "protective fantasy" of her own:

"This issue is not if she's going to Cuba, the issue is whether she's going with her father," said Cohen. "I'm not asking a 5-year-old to make an ideological value judgment on Cuba."

Why ask a 5-year old to do it when she refuses to do it herself?

Without being asked, the 5-year old has made a value judgment about life in Cuba, the kind of "value judgment" that slaves made about the South or Jews about Nazi Germany. It isn't any good for her.

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Stopped Dead in Her Tracks By Appellate Court

The party is over for Judge Jeri B. Cohen; she'll have to find another Cuban child to victimize: her attempt to resurrect Dred Scott and apply it to the youngest Cuban refugee has backfired in the worst possible way for her future prospects as a judge or dogcatcher. Miami's Third District Court of Appeals, in a ruling which The Miami Herald described as "terse" and which we will translate as devastating, held that Judge Cohen could not resume deliberations in the Elenita case, as she intended to do on Monday while the Appellate Court was still considering whether to vacate her decision in the first phase of the custody trial, where she found Rafael Izquierdo a marginally-fit father and set the stage for Elenita's return to him and eventual repatriation to Cuba.

The last time the lawless judge delivered herself of an opinion on this case it was to excoriate the Florida Department of Children and Families for having "misled" her in requesting that the trial be put on hold while the Appellate Court reviewed Judge Cohen's holding. But a week or so away from the spotlight was more than she could bear, and even though you can't restart the clock while the referees are in the field debating a play, she nonetheless challenged the authority of her superiors in order to reinstate her own in this case. She's probably berating herself as we speak because she did not make a summary judgment granting Izquierdo custody while she could.

Having set herself up a long time ago as an antagonist of the Cuban community, she obviously believes that it is as such that she will carry Janet Reno's banner in Florida. But it was not be. Her credentials as a Cuban-hater, however, are still formidable and it is not unlikely that she will she seek and obtain preferment now, if not from the voters at least from President Hillary Clinton. Judge Cohen is the kind of woman Hillary admires: she has no scrupples and a vulture's eye for the main chance (didn't I use that phrase to describe Val Prieto recently? No matter, it fits Cohen better).

The second phase of the case, called an endangerment hearing, will not proceed if the Appellate Court reverses Cohen's bootless decision that Rafael Izquierdo did not abandon or contribute to the abuse of his daughter. The evidence is so overwhelming that he did that it is inconceivable that the judges on the appellate court will be unanimous in their indifference to that fact. A rebuke from the appellate court is what Judge Cohen feared most. Time time and time again she justified her deficient magistracy by asserting that she was determined to do nothing that would cause an appeals court to overturn her findings. Clearly, it was never about doing what was in Elenita's bests interest, but, rather, what most served Judge Cohen's. The appellate court will, hopefully, redress that balance. It has started to do so already by rebuking Judge Cohen for her latest assault on the Constitution.

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Awaits Her Report Card

The Cubas-Izquierdo custody case is now just a torn page in the history of judicial malfeasance. The decision by the Florida Department of Children & Families to challenge Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen's holding that Rafael Izquierdo was at the least a marginally fit parent, has removed the case for the present from her jurisdiction to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which shall decide for itself whether Izquierdo abandoned his daughter or condoned her abuse. The second phase of the trial, which would have determined what was in Elenita's best interest, whether to stay with the foster parents with whom she had bonded or be returned to her marginally-fit father and marginally-inhabitable country, has been automatically stayed pending the appellate court's decision. If it upholds Judge Cohen, the case will be returned to her courtroom for further adjudication. If, however, the higher court rules that Izquierdo does not meet the definition of a marginal father, then the second phase of the trial is unnecessary. This is Elenita's best hope. However, even if the Appellate court upholds Judge Cohen's flawed decision, this does not necessarily mean that Izquierdo (or, rather, Castro) has prevailed. There still remains the hearing to decide what is in the best interest of the child. Kurzban and Montiel-Davis are arguing that reunification with a birth parent is always in the child's best interest if the parent is at least marginally fit, as Judge Cohen proclaimed Izquierdo to be. What needs to be decided this time is whether wishing to consign his own daughter to slavery is sufficient grounds to consider Izquierdo an unfit parent. That, of course, can't be done unless one considers the nature of the place to which he wants to take her. Judge Cohen's proscription against the use of the "C-word" (as she called it) in her courtroom, made such an assessment impossible.

We have carefully outlined in more than 20 posts the reasons that we believe Judge Cohen's courtroom was the setting, and the judge herself the instrument, for the greatest custody fraud ever perpetrated in an American courtroom. All the defense witnesses perjured themselves at the urging and with the connivance of their own attorneys, and confessed to it in open court without being held in contempt. Kurzban and Montiel-Davis were shown to make soborned perjury at the very least, and orquestrated a campaign of deception and legerdemain that would have amounted to obstruction of justice in any other courtroom but Judge Cohen's.

One of the judge's favorite mantras — there were several — was that she was not going to do anything that might lead to the reversal of her decision. In other words, she admitted not once but a hundred times that she was playing to the royal boxes. She saw this case as one that would advance her career. She is right insofar as a great number of her constituents can now put a face to her hood and even jurisdictions outside of Florida are now acquainted with Miami-Dade's version of Judge Judy (or is that an oxymoron?). But publicity is not enough for advancement. She must also exhibit judicial probity and the appellate court would be the sole judge of that. Rather than do her best and be judged accordingty, Judge Cohen has strained for the last 6 months to divine the appellate court's wisdom in this matter, hoping that by second-guessing them she won't herself be second-guessed.

Well, she's going to get her long-awaited report card. In fact, she even begged her judges to act quickly and deliberately in rendering what she hopes will be the highest grades. It would not surprise us if she were disappointed in her expectations. Then we would have to add ignorance of the law to all her other judicial shortcomings. It is doubtful whether her career can survive a reversal. It is one thing to act like an ass and quite another to be certified as an ass. She forgets that there is another audience that will be judging her — her constituents. The comings and goings of other politicians are mostly inscrutable. A politician-judge's actions are all a matter of record and open for public view.

Anything that takes Judge Cohen out of the picture, potentially forever and certainly for a very long time, will benefit Elenita's chances of remaining in this country without the threat posed to her life and liberty by her birth parents.

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Seeks the Spotlight Again

Never in her soon-to-end judicial career has Judge Jeri B. Cohen enjoyed herself more than in the Elenita custody case. Anyone who has ever witnessed her courtroom antics, which go far beyond the usual histrionics indulged in by most judges, cannot but be struck by her relentless, even compulsive, seeking of the spotlight. If Elenita had ever been permitted to be present at the star-chamber proceedings that will decide her future (or, rather, whether she will have any future at all), no doubt she would have been placed at the judge's orders far outside camera view, ostensibly to protect her privacy but really to prevent her from upstaging the judge. It is, rather odd, by the way, that children in this country have privacy rights but not the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That right must be contested in a courtroom on an individual basis and at great public expense. But no matter; if we start to chronicle again the irregularities of this case, or, more disturbing still, the irregularities of this judge, we would literally have to start from the beginning, and we have been here from the beginning anyway.

Judge Cohen is dissatisfied that the Third Court of Appeals has taken a week so far to consider her previous holding that Rafael Izquierdo is a marginally-fit father, especially after her dramatic plea last week: "I'm begging the Third District Court of Appeals on my hands and knees. I'm begging them to hear this on an expedited basis. There has got to be an end in sight." We are surprised, too, that the appellate court hasn't ruled yet because there is nothing in the evidence that would lead an impartial judge to conclude that Izquierdo is a fit-father on the basis of the evidence presented in Cohen's courtroom much less the evidence which she capriciously barred in arriving at her decision. Still, protocal demands that a circuit judge not presume to dictate to an appellate court how it should handle the cases referred to it on appeal. The vice-president, after all, doesn't tell the president what to do (bad example). In any case, her maudlin plea to the appellate court last week to act with all deliberate speed has not been heeded. So a petulent Judge Cohen has, in effect, uttered the judicial equivalent of "Fuck You!" and decided to resume the case, on her own authority, while she waits for the appellate court to decide whether her finding in "Phase 1" of these proceedings shall be upheld or reversed. Here's a better comparison: she has decided to resume, unilaterally, the game during time out while the referee decides a disputed call.

As is pro forma, Judge Cohen stayed the custody case last week while the appellate court decided the appeal. This was not only in conformity with established law, but also was the logical thing to do. How can she advanced from "Phase 1" to "Phase 2" if "Phase 2" depends on the outcome of "Phase 1"? If the appellate court reverses her decision that Rafael Izquierdo is a a fit father, then "Phase 2" becomes a moot point. If the appellate court rules Izquierdo an unfit father, what would be the point of adjudicating whether it would be in Elenita's best interests to have custody given to him?

But logic and precedent have never prevented Judge Cohen from having her own way in her courtroom. Against the advisement of the Department of Children and Family Services, which appealed her initial decision, and in order, once again, to hog the spotlight, Judge Cohen has decided that she is not going to stay the case while she awaits the Third Appellate Court's decision but proceed with this judicial farce anyway. She made her decision, in her own words, "based on my years of experience [and] I did a little research on my own." Well, I guess that settles the matter. Her "years of experience" and "a little research of [her] own" trumps logic and judicial precedent. We have said it before: Judge Cohen is a law unto herself and the magistracy practiced in her courtroom has more in common with Judge Judy's than what is mandated by established law.

Her decision to resume the case will no doubt be subject to yet another appeal. Meanwhile, the judge set testimony in "Phase 2" of the trial to begin on Monday. This phase of the trial is known as the endangerment hearing where the DFC will argue that the child will be emotionally-damaged if returned to the custody of the father who abandoned her and consented to her abuse at the mother's hands. Of course, Judge Cohen has already held the father to be a marginally-fit parent, which, as I've previously observed, is certainly as good as a marginally-fit spouse, a marginally-fit doctor or a marginally-fit judge. On that basis Izquierdo's attorteys, Kurzban and Montiel-Davis, are also appealing the constitutionality of the endangerment hearing arguing that a marginally-fit parent does not pose any danger to his child.

And so, the farce continue.


POSTSCRIPT:

It may be wrong to suggest that Judge Cohen's judicial career may soon be over. Yes, it is unlikely that she will be re-elected as circuit judge if she's foolish enough to decide that notoriety equals popularity and runs again in 2008. Not only her conduct in the Elenita case but her previous remark in another case, which we were the first to report and relate to the present case, that crime in Florida would cease if all Cubans were deported, will effectively end her judicial career in Miami-Dade. Of course, President Hillary Clinton could appoint her a district or appellate judge. Or even Attorney General.

Judge Jeri B. Cohen's Decision: We Should All Want "Marginal" Fathers

We have very little to say about Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen's decision on Rafael Izquierdo's fitness as a father. She has been telegraphing her verdict since the first day of the trial and throughout the preliminary hearings. Not once but hundreds of times she admonished the Florida Department of Children and Families for not proving to her entire satisfaction that the birth father abandoned his daughter and was an unfit parent. Yet all the testimony given in her courtroom admitted of no other conclusion. In the end, she could only find that Izquierdo was "marginally" fit but that was good enough to rule in his favor. We should all want marginal fathers, marginal spouses and marginal judges.

The judicial battle to save Elenita's life is not over. In fact, it has hardly begun. At some point it will be taken out of Judge Cohen's courtroom and there might even be a chance that right might prevail.

Here are, I believe, all the posts I have dedicated to Elenita's struggle for freedom (from the newest to the oldest):

Ana Menéndez Psychoanalyzes Cuban Exiles

The Real Parents — Joe and María Cubas

Joe Cubas: Castro's Worst Nightmare (and Henry's)

Ana Menéndez & Robert Molleda: The Hag and the Gelding; Or, Love in the Stable

Notable and Hateful: No Mercy for Children Who Straggle From Castro's Knee

What Creature Do I Despise the Most in the World?

The "Elenitas" Keep Multiplying

Is Oscar Corral In Cabaiguán, Cuba?

The Saga of Babalú's Henry Gómez & Alex of SotP

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"

Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)

The Guajiro Hamlet: Rafael Izquiedo

Elián's Father was "Adopted" Too

El Bitongo

The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom

By Their Scars You Will Know Them: The Ordeal of Elenita and Her Brother

Castro's Lawyers Kurzban & Davis Face Disbarment in Cubas-Izquierdo Custody Battle

Cui Bono: The Unasked Question in Judge Cohen's Courtroom

Elena Pérez: Her Life As a Mother and a Mistress (Or Chasing Cod in Cabaiguan)

Letter to Elena Pérez: Birth Mother of the Cuban Refugee Girl

Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner

The Poor Little Cuban Girl that They Call "Eliana"

What "American-Cuban" Bloggers Really Think About "Eliana"

¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog


If you wish to read all the post in sequence, go to:

http://reviewofcuban-americanblogs.blogspot.com/search?q=cohen

All the Lies that Fit in Print (Part 3)

"Here's what she wanted me to grasp. Cuba, at the time of the revolution, was 'one of the most unjust, unequal and exploited societies on earth.' Illiteracy was running up to 40%, a quarter of the best land was in U.S. hands, and a corrupt bourgeoisie lorded it over everybody else." -- Roger Cohen, "The End of the End of the Revolution," New York Times Magazine, December 5, 2008

Roger Cohen tells us what a "top official at [Castro's] Ministry of Economics" wanted him to "grasp" and he grasps it with both hands, embraces and attempts to flesh out this enormity, which bears no relation to the facts except to contradict them. Mr. Cohen is a South African and we suppose that he would not so readily have believed a "a top official from [Botha's] Ministry of Economics" who assured him that apartheid was actually good for blacks from a socio-economic viewpoint. Cohen would have dismissed that as propaganda, though, as things turned out, blacks did in fact enjoy a higher standard of living in Botha's South Africa than in Mbeki's (and let's not even compare Mugabe's Zimbabwe to Ian Smith's Rhodesia). But whereas Cohen would have dismissed the claims of Botha's propagandist, he has no qualms about accepting those of Castro's. That kind of double-standard is not at all unusual for Cohen or for any scribe of the mainstream media.

He tells us elsewhere, without making the obvious connection to apartheid (which should be more obvious to him than to most), that Cubans were barred for 50 years from staying at "international hotels" before Raúl Castro saw fit to let them earlier this year (supposing they have a year's wages to spare for a night's stay). Where are these "international hotels" located? Madrid, Buenos Aires, New York? No, these "international hotels" are all in Cuba. So, in fact, they are not "international hotels" but national ones. It is in their own country that Cubans were prohibited from staying at, or even setting foot in, facilities and accommodations which were reserved for foreigners. Cuba's majority mixed population was excluded from venues reserved for the predominantly white tourists; but Cohen failed to grasp the class and racial implications of such a policy, which made Cubans second-class citizens in their own country as blacks were once in South Africa.

Now let us consider Cohen's "proof" for the claims of Elena Alvarez, his rapporteur at Castro's Ministry of Economics:

"Illiteracy was running up to 40%..."

According to the 1953 Census, Cuba had a illiteracy rate of 22 percent. This meant that 78% of Cuba's population could read and write. In 1953, this was the exact inverse of literacy rates in the Third World, where only 20 percent of the population was literate. Castro "Literacy Campaign" claims to have "alphabetized" 700,000 Cubans, or slightly more than 10 percent of the population at the time (6.6 million). If Cuba's illiteracy rate before the Revolution was indeed the 40% that Alvarez claims, then the Cuban Revolution left 30% of the population illiterate.

"A quarter of the best land was in U.S. hands..."

Which means that 75% of the "best lands" were in Cubans' hands before the Revolution. How much of the best land or any land is in their hands now? The regime's so-called Agrarian Reform confiscated landholdings without ever distributing one acre. For 50 years, Cuba's best lands were turned into communes or left uncultivated until Raúl Castro decided this year to allow Cubans to sharecrop fallow lands. Now would-be farmers can rent land which they are legally forbidden ever to own.

"A corrupt bourgeoisie lorded it over everybody else."

In Marxist Newspeak the bourgeoisie is always "corrupt" and always "lording it." We know, of course, that they are the engine of the economy and the key to a country's prosperity. Cuba once had the largest middle-class in Latin America. Castro preserved and expanded poverty in Cuba and created his own enclaves of the very rich and corrupt. But he completely decimated Cuba's middle class. This is why Cuba now vies with Haiti for the lowest GNP in the Western Hemisphere whereas before the Revolution it could boast the third-highest.

Judge Jeri B. Cohen Just "Hates It; Hates It; Hates It"

With every passing day, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen becomes more impatient with her duties and more partisan in her conduct. We need hardly say to which side she is partial. She has made no secret of it since even before the formal trial got underway. Her constant refrain has been that the state will never be able to prove that Rafael Izquierdo is an unfit parent because, in effect, the state of Florida has set that threshhold so high that there really is no such thing as an "unfit parent" anymore nor can anything that a parent do short of dropping his/her child down a garbage chute constitute "abandonment." She has berated the Department of Children and Families for even presuming to believe that they could prove their case for neglect or abandonment.

What could be more conclusive proof of abandonment than signing away your parental rights so that your mentally-ill ex-girlfriend can take your daughter to a foreign country, where she has no family and knows no one, and then severing all communications with your child, even after her mother had attempted suicide, refusing even to ask for a humanitarian visa to go see her, until compelled to re-assert your parental rights by a tyrannical regime for its own purposes?

Even in the face of what is unquestionably abandonment, continuous and unapologetic, Judge Cohen refused to accept it as abandonment, not even relying on her own judgment, as she confessed, but on her apprehension that an appellate court would overrule her if she found that there was a case for abandonment because "appellate judges have construed the law so leniently that the most uninvolved and uncaring parent can get his or her children back." In short, she refuses to rule on principle and concedes everything to precedent.

Yes, a Florida circuit court gave O.J. Simpson custody of his kids after he murdered their mother (as proved civilly). Is that really the threshhold? Not even murdering your children's mother makes you an unfit parent? Isn't this the ultimate form of abandonment — murdering the one fit parent and sueing to have custody granted to a murderer (yourself)? If this is so, should it be so? If this is the "precedent," isn't it in desperate need of revision?

In a case as complicated as this one has proved to be Judge Cohen even took the DCF to task for not allowing Izquierdo to testify by phone from Cuba at the hearing, as she allows most litigants in custody cases to do. What makes Rafael Izquierdo any different from a father in Alabama? she asked. And if that wasn't bad enough, she added: "You would have handled it differently if the parent lived in Switzerland." The simple answer is that the Rule of Law is observed in Alabama (and Switzerland) and not in Cuba. No one in the government of Alabama (or Switzerland) would be telling the litigant what his answers should be to the questions asked of him. In Cuba, of course, Izquierdo's entire testimony would be scripted. In fact, there would be no guarantee that Izquierdo himself would be the one answering the questions from Cuba. In person, he made a very bad advocate for his own cause; no doubt they would have found a better one in Cuba.

But Judge Cohen is not receptive to that line of argument either. She brands any attempt to highlight the differences between a democratic and totalitarian system as "politics" and she wants none of that in her courtroom. The politics of the Castro regime — or, rather, the absence of civil society and hence politics in Cuba — does not concern her. As a good liberal she refuses to make "value judgments" and embraces the moral equivalence of those who believe that morality is universal and uniform, which is the same as to say there is no morality, because universal and uniform it has never been.

"The U.S. is reluctant to repatriate children to a communist country. Let's not mince words," Cohen recently asserted. No, she's not "mincing" her words at all. What the U.S. is supposedly reluctant to do, she shows absolutely no scrupples about doing herself. It is odd that those who want freedom for this girl (which necessarily means no repatriation to Cuba) must "mince" their words in Judge Cohen's courtroom, while those who advocate dumping the child down Castro's well need make no excuses for favoring this course.

Cohen even berated herself in open court for her "error" in consenting to the DCF request to require Izquierdo to testify in her courtroom rather than by phone from Havana. Apparently, she wanted to make her verdict based on the fewest possible facts. Izquierdo's perjurous testimony has complicated her life by actually complicating the case. The simple farmer from Cabaiguán turned out to be a highly questionable character. She would have preferred that he had remained the simple farmer. It's easier to handle stock characters than actual facts especially when these don't correspond to your preconceived notions of "justice" in this case.

It is doubtful whether even Solomon bitched as much as this woman. Even the snippets of her comments reported in The Herald would seem to leave no doubt of her extreme distaste for this case. Her real feelings may be otherwise. She seems to take great pleasure in her courtroom histrionics and comports herself like Judge Judy on a bad day every day. In a characteristic outburst Wednesday she complained: "I hate this stuff. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it." I would be more inclined to believe that she "Loves it. Loves it. Loves it." The publicity anyway and its renumerative possibilities.

The verdict, in this phase of the trial, which considers Izquierdo's competency as a parent, will come tomorrow (Friday).

The Last Redoubt of Magical Realism: Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's Courtroom

A favorite phrase of Judge Jeri Beth Cohen's when confronted, as she has been, time and time again during the Cubas-Izquierdo custody trial, with the fabrications of evidence and suborning of perjury committed by Kurzban, Montiel-Davis and their associates, is that she finds it all "very concerning." Concerning what? Concerning whom? She does not say.

Obviously, however, it does not mean that she is herself concerned about it because she has done nothing to stop it. She should have removed the lawyers responsible for the malfeasance pending judicial review, and if their associates could not continue without them, dismissed the case with prejudice. She could also have held the self-admitted perjurer in contempt of court and remanded her ex-boyfriend to the law on the same charge as well as for complicity in the fabrication of evidence. Judge Cohen, after all, held the evidence in her hands — the fake letters which Izquierdo contended he had sent Pérez. Perhaps these letters will soon disappear from the official court record, as all documents pertaining to Pérez's deposition surrendering custody of her daughter to the state have already disappeared. Truly, Judge Cohen's courtroom seems to be a last redoubt of magical realism. There reality is constantly challenged by illusion, real documents dematerialize and are replaced by bogus ones; the court record is fluid and always in transition; fantasies are more weighted than facts; and all of this swathed in Judge Cohen's asyndetic "concerning."

In the latest incidences of perjury to be foisted on her everlasting "concerning," the abused little girl's abuser, that is, her mother, has testified that she lied originally when she contended that her erstwhile adulterous partner did not know about her mental illness. In fact, Elena Pérez now admits, that he knew everything about her mental health "issues." Of course he knew. Everybody knew about it in their hometown of Cabaiguán, where everybody knew her as the town crazie and predicted disaster when they learned she was to immigrate. Izquierdo would have to be crazier than her not to have known it, too. And yet, as she now acknowledges, his lawyers had pressured her to testify that he didn't know. Why? Because if he did know that his lover was a schizophrenic, dangerous to herself and others, why did he surrender sole custody to her and even allow her to take their daughter to the United States, where, as he now claims, he was helpless to do anything on her behalf? So much for his "see no evil, hear no evil" defense for parental abandonment. It is the same defense which mothers offer for allowing their daughters to be raped for years by their fathers. Of course they knew, and of course he knows. Even Elena Pérez seems to realize at long last that this was wrong: "He was aware of the problems and even so, he authorized the exit," she testified. Hopefully, Judge Cohen will also be struck at some point by the same revelation.

Another development which the judge should be concerned about was Pérez's admission that she was living at the home of Montiel-Davis' secretary. This is tantamount to, say, John Dean living at Archibold Cox's secretary's house during the Watergate proceedings. The Castro-by-proxy attorneys have in fact kidnapped the lead witness in this case and are keeping her at close quarters. She's not reading the script they've prepared for her to their entire satisfaction, but when she has lied it has always been at their instructions; and if she did get caught up in her (their) lies, it was not because she wasn't willing to cooperate. It was only when she was advised of the consequences of perjury and became aware that her "benefactors" were in fact setting her up that Elena Pérez finally decided to tell the court the truth and the truth completely undermines Izquierdo's case and will affect him and his whole legal team for the worse.

Judge Cohen used to threaten to throw out this case every 30 minutes unless the Department of Children and Family Services could prove that the father was an unfit parent. Guess what? The Florida DCF now doesn't have to prove anything. Kurzban and Montiel-Davis have done an excellent job of proving it for them.

Judge Jeri B. Cohen: Love Child of Janet Reno and Doris Meissner

We know she doesn't play by the rules. We know that she doesn't measure her words. We know she can be vitriolic. We know she has a penchant for making outrageous statements that shock people not by their candor but their lack of candor. We know that she is auditioning every day for Judge Judy's job. We know that she is an inveterate racist who doesn't even attempt to hide her bias but showcases it in her courtroom every day, taking the gamble that those who disagree with her will not notice and those who agree will. We know that her racism is not casual and reflexive but calculated and calculating. We know that she has higher aspirations and would mow down anyone who might stand in her way, including a helpless child whose life is at her mercy. We know her because we know her type and we have seen what her type can do in Janet Reno and Doris Meissner. We know her, finally, by her words and her actions. We know all there is to know about Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen and never had any doubt of her intentions in respect to the 4-year-old refugee girls whose wretched father, acting as proxy for the Castro regime, wishes her returned to the tender mercies of that system to be raised as an automaton and plaything of its capos.

What does surprise us, however, is that she would reveal her verdict before the conclusion of the trial. That is a special flavor of jurisprudence, a flavor not often encountered but more common than is supposed. Many, if not most, judges make up their minds about a case before it is ever heard: the defense or prosecution has a chance to sway the judge to their side, granted, but not much of a chance. Judges, the least accountable of public officials and the ones held in highest public esteem, usually labor under the apprehension that their judgment is infallible and preen themselves on being able to arrive at it with all deliberate speed, almost instinctively. The trial is just an afterthought which most would agree could be dispensed with except for the appearance of injustice that doing so would create. The thing itself, justice itself, has already been dispensed with it. Only the play remains. Most judges are content to read their lines and hit all the marks on the stage. Not Judge Cohen. In a previous case of judicial malfeasance she told a Cuban defendant, in the middle of his trial, that if all Cubans (not Cuban criminals, but Cubans) were deported back to the island there would be no crime in this country. Imagine if she had directed her comments at blacks or any other minority in this country (except possibly Arabs) what the reaction would have been. But since it was Cubans that she was impugning, it was OK. Having learned nothing from her past misconduct -- and why should she have learned, since she was not removed, sanctioned or even reproved for it? -- she has seen fit to repeat it again.

The Miami Herald has revealed that Judge Cohen has already announced her verdict to the Department of Children and Families and the child's guardian ad litem. Short of a miracle (that is, of the possibility of changing her mind), she is determined to give custody to the father. No matter that the biological father abandoned the child in Cuba. No matter that by doing so he was complicit in the insane mother's abuse of her. No matter that the father signed a document relinquishing his parental rights before allowing the mother to take the child to the U.S., knowing that the pattern of abuse established in Cuba would likely be continued here, and, frankly, not caring one bit. No matter that this father never attempted to help his daughter in any way. No matter that he never sent her a birthday card or even wrote a letter inquiring about her. No matter that his interest in the child was only awakened when the Castro regime ordered him to claim his parental rights in the United States, rights which, incidentally, don't exist in Castro's Cuba, where the State is the sole legal guardian of every child and its authority cannot be challenged by the parents.

What Judge Cohen intends to do to this nameless child is separate her from the only real family she has ever known and assign her custody to a stranger and his even stranger handlers in Cuba. The Coral Gables family that has already adopted her 12-year half-brother and has been taking care of her since she was removed from the abusive custody of her mother is her only family. To deprive her of their love and protection would be a crime against Nature which no biological fact could justify.

The Department of Children and Families announced last week that it was considering calling her 13-year-old brother to testify at her custody trial. Why do they even have to consider it? This boy has been his sister's protector from the day she was born, who shielded her from the mother's abuse and took the place of her absent father. His testimony is the only relevant first-hand testimony in this case besides the girl's, whose opinion is discounted because of her age, as if a child could be old enough to be lashed but not old enough to have an opinion about it.

This case, in Judge Cohen's opinion, has reached a "crisis situation." Why? In her own words: "This child is extremely bonded [with her foster family]. She is digging in. She says, 'I am not going.' She says [to her father], 'You are my friend, but you are not my father.'" In other words, at age 4, this child already has the cognitive abilities which the judge deciding her case doesn't.

With a well-meaning but highly incompetent state agency championing her cause and a none-too-well-meaning judge to decide it, the child's only hope is in a future reversal by an Appellate Court of Judge Jeri B. Cohen's forthcoming prepackaged decision.

Judge Jeri Beth Cohen Gets Her Man (Off)

We didn't exactly have a bet on it, but, as it happened, Alex of Stuck on the Palmetto and I both wrote posts on Rafael Izquierdo's comportment on the witness stand, in which Alex claimed that the absentee-for-life father was a guajiro macho (he-man country bumpkin) and I claimed he was no guajiro (noble representative of our country's finest virtues). No doubt we were talking past each other, as usual. I suppose that someone who understands us both might be able to reconcile our positions; for I don't deny that the guajiro may be in some ways uncouthe, and Alex, I am sure, is not oblivious to the guajiro's homely virtues. Still, it seems that, strictly from the facts, I have the advantage on Alex; for no "guajiro macho," as he calls Izquierdo, would break down on the stand when being questioned by Judge Jeri Beth Cohen, whose attitude towards him has always been "there's-nothing-you-can-do-or-say-that- will-ever-stop-me-from-ruling-in-your-favor."

But break down he did after a week of defiantly answering questions or defiantly refusing to answer questions on both examination and cross-examination. He had acted throughout his testimony as a bully, the kind of man who projects an image of domination and no self-control; completely unsympathetic from beginning to end, loud, bellicose and strangely detached from his circumstances, perjuring himself and obstructing justice every step of his tortuous way. Really, who would want such a man for a father? Even having him sit next to you on a bus would be an unpleasant experience.

What could Rafael Izquierdo do to reverse the loathsome image he had painted of himself on the witness stand? Only one thing: break down in tears under the sympathetic gaze of Judge Cohen; show the world that it was all a front, that he really is a tormented soul seeking to vindicate his (long-renounced and -neglected) parental rights; no mere stooge of the Castro regime, which pays for "his" lawyers, his lodgings and his victuals, besides providing him with a generous allowance and all the "protection" they can foist on him in a free country, while he pursues their vendetta against Joe Cubas.

The tears worked. They affected the only person that they really had to affect — the judge. Of course, even Izquierdo's sneezing affects her. Indeed, it is very affecting to see the woman who said in that very courtroom in 2005 that the way to eliminate crime in Miami would be to deport all Cubans to Cuba, coddling and almost caressing with verbal-petals this suborned perjurer whom she should have remanded to prison along with his ex-girlfriend and his whole legal staff for contempt of court and obstruction of justice.

"I am honest and sincere," he said.

Well, that was good enough for her.

Judge Cohen assured Izquierdo that his lies are not enough per se to strip him of his daughter's custody: "It [the perjury] doesn't mean you are a bad guy. It doesn't mean I don't believe other parts of your testimony. It doesn't mean you don't love your daughter."

Whereupon Izquierdo became "unmanned," as they used to say. That is, he lost it. This testimonial of the judge's high opinion of him was too much to bear in silence. So he wept; wept for joy, really, because he realized that he had this bitch in his pocket like half the women of Camaiguán.

Then he apologized to the court for losing control of his emotions.

And the judge, seeking to console him, approved and validated those rare tears (a lot of dabbing of his eyes with a blue handkerchief but no visible tears):

"You have nothing to apologize for, and you don't have to be embarrassed about crying," the judge said, leaning closer to the witness box. "But I needed these answers from you." "I hope you don't feel I've ganged up on you," she said.

So, in effect, Judge Cohen ended up apologizing to him for doubting Izquierdo's veracity, the perjury, falsification of evidence and obstruction of justice notwithstanding.

The worst was yet to come, however.


2

One of the lies that Rafael Izquierdo was compelled to retract on the witness stand, so overwhelming was the evidence contradicting it, was his prior assertion that he did not know of his ex-girlfriend's mental illness, and, therefore, had acted in good faith when he surrendered sole custody of his daughter to her in order to facilitate her immigration to the U.S. If he indeed had been in the dark about Elena Pérez's mental illness then he would have been a bigger lunatic than her. Everybody in Cabaiguán was aware of her mental illness. Elerna Pérez had been the town crazie before, during and after her relationship with Izquierdo. Her reputation in fact extended to all refugees from her native Camaiguán in the last 15 years, who could have been called as witnesses corroborate that she was widely known to be crazy and that it would have been impossible for Rafael Izquierdo not to have known that his daughter's mother was crazy.

Unable to plausibly deny it, Izquierdo admitted that he did know. It was a pivotal moment in the trial: irrefutable proof that he had abandoned his daughter into the hands of a lunatic whose illness put her at risk of doing violence to herself or others, especially, of course, to those who directly depended on her and over whom she had absolute control. The abuse had already occurred in Cuba. Why would it not re-occur here?

After Izquierdo's belated and opportunistic tears, Judge Cohen, without so much as an explanation for her action, excused his perjury on that score by ruling Izquierdo's knowledge of Elena Pérez's mental illness irrelevant, and ordered the Department of Children and Families to drop all charges of abandonment flowing from Izquierdo's indifference to it as it concerned his daughter.

This will be a very hard case to win, she admonished the state for 603rd time, having just made it that more difficult by her arbitrary decision.

The question naturally arises if mental illness with suicidal ideation and abusive behavior poses a clear and present danger to children in the custody of such a parent so afflicted, a danger which other adults, and particularly the other parent, are obliged to protect them from. Judge Cohen has ruled that no such obligation exists on the part of the sane parent. It follows, naturally — or unnaturrally — that the sane parent must not avail himself of the insane parent's insanity to deny custody to the insane parent, and should not be held accountable if by ceding such custody to the insane, the child is abused or even killed by the insane parent.

Makes sense to you? Of course not. Elena Pérez is not the only lunatic in that courtroom.

¡Viva Ziva! The Moral Conscience of Babalu Blog

Cuban Girl's Fate in Wrong Judge's Hands (Ziva, Babalú Blog, April 1, 2007)

"Being a person of a volatile nature, there are times when I lose my temper and yell at people. In fact, I'm embarrassed to say it happens more often than I care to admit while stuck in traffic. I'm capable of pounding on the horn, bi-lingual swearing and expressive hand gestures. But not ever have I morphed into a bigot and resorted to racial slurs, because that's just not who I am.

I don't understand how someone can slur a community and then say that's not who they are. It is my opinion that unless they were temporairly inhabited by aliens or suffer from multiple personality disorder that's exaclty who they are.

From Jeri Beth Cohen, the residing judge in the Cuban custody case:

''I do not think that they deport people back to Cuba,'' Cohen replied. ``That is our big problem. If we deport people back to Cuba, we could empty our jails. We would have it made and be happy, but we cannot.''
Judge Cohen apologized for her remarks, but imagine if a white judge made a statement suggesting that imprisoning all blacks would reduce crime. Do you think an apology would suffice for the African-American community to trust said judge to be fair and impartial in cases involving their community?

No doubt Judge Cohen will base her decision based on what she perceives to be in the best interests of the child, but I have to question whether or not her liberal background and personal prejudices will cloud her thinking. I have to question whether or not she will give proper weight to the political reality of oppression in Cuba and how that would affect this child’s life. Is she fully aware of the rationing, the lack of all human rights, and the arbitrary acts of violence the regime inflicts on Cuban citizens?

Granting this little girl’s father custody would really mean giving her to a dictator whose treatment of his citizens has placed him on the list at Genocide watch and international Human Rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

How can that be in her best interests?


This is not the first post that Ziva has written on this subject at Babalú blog. On March 24, Ziva wrote the first post dedicated to the 4-year old abused Cuban girl whose custody is being contested in Florida Family Court by the Castro regime through the proxy of the girl's father. To her credit, from the very first moment, Ziva expressed her conviction that this child should not be returned to Cuba. With her as with me it was a reflexitive reaction, requiring no long meditation or "inspiration" to arrive at that most obvious of conclusions. But, sadly, it was not obvious to all at Babalú, certainly to none of the other staffers. Val and Henry both refused to commit on this issue. Val ignored or evaded all my attempts to get him to define himself on the case. On The 26th Parallel Val expressed his wariness of becoming involved in this case which he denounced as a trap set by The Miami Herald to revive the Elián circus and make money ["I dont want to weigh on this recent case in one way or the other"]. I asked him why he was willing to waste so much emotional and political capital on the Estefans but couldn't afford to "waste" even one line on this girl. He offered to let me write a post about the girl instead of actually writing one himself because he was too "busy" sanding and painting his patio furniture. I replied that my own position on this case was already clear to all and that it was Val who needed to explain his. It was then that he finally did write one line in which he expressed his hope that the girl would not be returned to Cuba.

Henry Gomez would not budge, however. Although I never asked him his position, he nonetheless lashed out at me for asking Val, accusing me of acting just like Rick at Stuck on the Palmetto, who is always asking Cuban exiles to blog on particular matters that Rick thinks should be of interest to the Cuban community. I replied that I had never asked Val to write a post about the girl, just end his puzzling silence on the matter. Henry said that he had not yet made up his own mind on the case and was not "inspired" at present to write anything about it. Really, I don't see what inspiration has to do with saving a little's girl life. Did he also need to be "inspired" to support Biscet and Fariñas? Yet this little girl, Elián's spiritual sister, has suffered more in her four years on earth than have those heroic men. Her insane mother beat her in Cuba all her young life while her father did nothing except sign the document allowing the mother to leave the country with the child. Once in the U.S. her mother continued the beatings and even tried to give her baby away to a stranger. The State removed the child from the mother's home but returned her for a "trial period" which resulted in more beatings. Finally, the mother was stripped of custody and her fate is now being decided in Family Court in a custody battle that pits her Coral Gables foster parents against the Castro government. Ironically, the girl has an uncle in this country but he refused to apply for custody, fearful that what happened to Elián's uncle would happen to him.

It's really a no-brainer, even for Henry. But he would not budge. In fact, on Stuck on the Palmetto, Henry even left a post "accusing" me of being the only one who cared about this case ["And the only one stirring about this is Manuel A. Tellechea"]. It is the greatest compliment that I have ever received in my life. Of course, it isn't true: Ziva and Val, the latter after much evasion and much prodding from me, also declared their opposition to the little girl's repatriation; and a dozen other Babalú regulars were no less adamant in asserting that this girl must not be returned to Castro's tender mercies. It was only Henry who refused her his support.

The Elián case is the Vietnam of Henry's generation of Cuban-Americans; the betrayal that revealed to them what this country really thinks about us and shook their most-cherished illusions about American democracy. For earlier generations of Cuban exiles, the Bay of Pigs and Mariel were their great awakening. Still, if you ask the surviving veterans of the Bay of Pigs if they would do it over again, they would all to a man answer yes. If you ask a man who rented a boat to rescue his mother or child in Cuba if he would do it again, he will also answer yes. However, if you ask those who opposed Elián's return to Cuba if they would do it again, many like Henry will answer no. What matters to them is the good opinion of the MSM (which we will never have) and of their Anglo neighbors and judges. They are ashamed of those "hysterical" (but peaceful) Cubans, with their flags and homemade posters, who tried to form a cordon sanitaire around Lázaro's home to protect Elián and were assaulted by police on the morning of the federal kidnapping at gunpoint. The are ashamed of the old ladies dressed in black under the scorching sun saying their rosaries in front of Elián's house. They are ashamed of who we are. ¡Malvados! This is the reason that Henry and the rest crinch at the thought of this little girl. She is their worst nightmare. A poor, innocent abused child. May God forgive them! I never will. Because I will never understand how something that brings tears to my eyes (even as I write this) should elicit indifference, smugness and even hostility from them.

In Ziva's latest post about the girl quoted above, she reports that The Miami Herald and Daily Business Review have finally reported something which I originally disclosed on Babalú a week ago. I gave them the scoop but they did nothing with it. This is what I posted there on March 25 and again on March 28:

The judge hearing this case Jeri B. Cohen has never attempted to conceal her disdain for Cuban-Americans. Back in 2002, she stated in her courtroom that "If we deport people back to Cuba, we could empty our jails." The Cuban American Bar Association (CABA) took her to task for her remarks and threatened to file a complaint with the State Judicial Qualifications Commission. Judge Cohen requested a meeting with CABA and subsequently sent them a letter apologizing for her remarks. She met again with the Board of Directors of CABA who accepted her apology.

I was surprised that CABA even complained given any bar association's aversion to challenging judges that its members might some day appear before. I was not surprised, however, by how quickly CABA accepted her apologies and swept the whole thing under the carpet.

Now it is time to analyze more carefully Judge Cohen's remarks and apology. It seems to me that she should have recused herself in this case or any case involving Cuban-Americans. But then again, since Judge Cohen believes that Cuban-Americans are responsible for all crime in this country and deporting them would empty our jails, she must also believe that she would be out of a job if she were barred from hearing their cases. She should be out of a job and certainly would be if she had directed her remarks at African-Americans.

Posted by: Manuel A. Tellechea at March 25, 2007 10:01 AM

On the tread where I originally posted this information, the others were quick to realize its importance to this case. But not Val or Henry. Val was more interested in covering Emilio's ass and Henry in frying Santana's. Thank God for Ziva, the moral conscience of Babalu blog.

http://www.babalublog.com/archives/004928.html

Judge Cohen: The Little Girl Is Lying

Children lie, but Magda Montiel-Davis never lies. Nor does she fabricate evidence. Nor suborn perjury. Nor obstruct justice. Her own client and friendly witnesses may attest otherwise, an innocent child also, but Judge Jeri B. Cohen will believe none of it. Not even the forged letters from Izquierdo to his daughter, nor the photographs which he falsely claimed that he requested and received from the mother while in Cuba, both of which it has been established originated with Montiel-Davis, are sufficient to shake Cohen's boundless faith in her friend's integrity. Not even the words of a child are sufficient for her. She prefers to believe a child is lying than credit her words or the only incontrovertible evidence presented in her courtroom — not a shread of evidence that Rafael Izquierdo is a fit father or any kind of father at all, not even a "marginal one," but reams of evidence that Magda Montiel-Davis and her husband Ira Kurzban have broken every law that can be broken in a courtroom from suborning perjury to fabricating evidence, from contempt of court to obstruction of justice.

The latest allegation of wrongdoing against Montiel-Davis was made by Elenita herself. She confided to one of her therapists that her birth father and his common-law wife had told her to say that she wanted to return to Cuba while Montiel-Davis videotaped this odd little family circle. The girl told her therapist that she had made a "mistake" when she complied. Only a helpless child and one who was telling the truth would blame herself for submitting to coercion which she was powerless to resist. The Miami Herald incorrectly reported that it was the Cubases who first brought this matter to the judge's attention. In fact, it was her therapist who testified in court as to what the child had told him.

Judge Cohen, again ignoring the evidence in order to exculpate Montiel-Davis, said she "believes the girl may well have told a story about being forced to speak in front of a camera," but, she added, "I don't believe it happened."

In other words, she believes the child lied. And not only the child but her court-appointed therapist as well. She admits only the possibility that the child "may well have told the story." Of course, by the same token, she might well not have told it either.

Of course, in order to grant custody to the father and return her to Cuba, Judge Cohen must disregard every single word which the girl has uttered and believe every lie that Rafael Izquierdo, who has even less autonomy than Elenita and is kept on a shorter leash by his handlers, tells her. Her courtroom is a vast "Punch and Judy Show" except that it is the adults who are the marionettes and Fidel Castro the puppet master.