Family Court Demands Surrender of First Amendment Rights in Exchange for Fair Trial

Bandy X. Lee
6 min readJan 6, 2025

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Nothing Terrifies Family Courts More than Exposure (Herein Lies the ‘Logic’ of Their Behavior)

Exposure is what Family Courts fear the most — for they would never be able to get away with their heinous crimes against innocent children and loving parents, if the public got wind of it! This is why they would do anything to force me to take down my public articles. First, Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca tried illegally to threaten major magazines that their articles of my interviews “shall be immediately removed, deleted, and unpublished immediately,” but rather received a stern rebuke for violating the U.S. Constitution — as she did in the Washington Post almost a decade earlier. Now, she has recruited Judge Michael Antoniewicz to be at her beck and call, as Gallina-Mecca, chief judge of Family Court, is his direct superior. Trying to step in where Gallina-Mecca herself failed, he must fit a square peg into a round hole by calling an unconstitutional prior restraint on publication — one of the worst violations of First Amendment Freedom of Expression — a “protective order.”

Evelyn Nissirios, minion of Gallina-Mecca, is the applicant, of course — and she requires no protective order! No one has harassed or stalked her, and her life is not in danger. My sister and I, on the other hand, have been stalked, harassed, and falsely arrested by Nissirios, who attempted to cause my sister’s “medical” demise, in proven co-conspiracy with her violent ex-husband — and almost succeeded at least twice — as well as independently threatened her life four times that required hospitalization since Nissirios’ abuse of these “protective orders” began. Judge Antoniewicz, who has turned a blind eye to all these assaults under his watch, may be complicit.

My articles have literally kept us alive, and they are fulfilling the function they are supposed to: to criticize government officials who abuse their authority to harm the public — in this case to the point of near death. I will be spelling out what is happening, step by step, so that the public is aware of what occurs in the secretive Family Courts — “where scumbags and sociopaths gather,” in the surprising but percipient words of an eminent constitutional scholar — as they pummel through rulings that “do not have a ghost of a chance of surviving in Federal Court.”

December 5, 2024

Judge Antoniewicz:

First and foremost, I would like to advise the Court that I have decided to resume pro se and to proceed immediately with the trial, as early as today.

It is very unfortunate that I was not permitted to communicate or interject during the court session yesterday. I could not explain that my attorney miscommunicated what I expressed to her during our brief conference. Furthermore, my attorney needed no more than a week or two to prepare, but the Court pushed the next trial date into January, which is unacceptable to me.

My stance from the very beginning is that this temporary protective order (TPO) is simply an extreme violation of my Constitutional First Amendment rights — nothing more, nothing less. My opponent had an appropriate vehicle for addressing her grievances: a defamation lawsuit. Yet, she proceeded with this unprecedented abuse of a phony TPO, in order to circumvent the U.S. Constitution.

At this point, no one wishes to proceed with this trial more than I, since the TPO itself is already an egregious violation of my First Amendment rights, ironically while denying me due process.

Atty. Conte’s stipulation that I take down all my previous articles in exchange for giving my attorney a couple weeks of preparation is quite outrageous and unprecedented in my 25 years of experience serving as an expert witness for courts of law all around the United States. It shows just how desperate my opponent is to suppress my Freedom of Speech, in order to stifle valid criticisms of her. Therefore, I have decided to forego counsel so that the trial can immediately proceed.

Atty. Conte’s suggestion that I purposely delayed the trial is offensive and more indicative of how my opponent thinks. She uses “absolute judicial immunity” and tricks of procedure — including her close affiliations with this Court — to get away with violent, felony crimes with impunity, which is the very subject of my articles: criticisms of an individual who abuses public immunity to cause public harm. She seeks illegitimate immunity for her 600 slanderous and libelous lies in my sister’s case, and 44 acts of perjury in this one, by means of a sham protective order — and this is just one example of her psychopathic ways.*

*I have previously advised this Court of my being retained to assess her level of psychopathy by a client who is planning to sue her for financial fraud. Additionally, dozens of litigants have reported to me her consistent pattern of pathological lying, which even attorneys have confirmed is beyond the pale.

The loss of even a day is unfortunate for all of us, but the truth is, I first contacted [my choice of lawyer] two months ago, but she was running for elected office and then had to go out of the country, as this Court was informed. Then, only last month did we learn that [the attorney for Patricia Lee] would not admit her pro hac vice because of conflict of interest, given her stance that our cases have no connection whatsoever — with which I happen to agree. Therefore, [my choice of lawyer] had to look for another sponsor.

This Court is already aware of my vehement objections to every adjournment. This trial, which was supposed to resume on August 13, 2024, has been continuously adjourned because of this Court’s adamant insistence on joining together the two unrelated cases of Patricia Lee and myself. Each time my co-defendant needed an adjournment or my opponent needed a vacation, I, also, ran into conflicts that required me to request unwanted postponements.

Then, the Court suddenly and inexplicably adjourned midway into the hearing hour, as we were waiting in the courtroom, on October 18, 2024 — despite the irrefutable fact that the plaintiff pulled out her unauthorized submission and both co-defendants agreed the day before that we should proceed as originally scheduled.

Indeed, I have contacted the clerk numerous times in vigorous objection of the court order that erroneously stated the hearing was adjourned by “Request of Defendant” — when in fact I experienced the Court’s arbitrary adjournment, halfway into the court session time, as extreme prejudice and further violation of my First Amendment rights.

My co-defendant, Patricia Lee, was furthermore so upset by the sudden adjournment, that she landed in the emergency room the next day with the highest, life-threatening blood pressures ever recorded for her (which, in the context of the plaintiff’s consistent pattern of behavior for the last four years, was the nefarious goal and hidden agenda of plaintiff’s constant maneuvering of “surprise attacks” — even while violating all court rules — to instigate Patricia Lee’s stress-induced high blood pressure crises*).

*I had also reported, as a physician and a family member, how the plaintiff’s TPO itself caused Patricia Lee stress-induced, life-threatening blood pressures since July 2024, which has necessitated five months of almost total bedrest and, in the past month, two hospitalizations with the second requiring five days in the intensive care unit.

I would hasten to interject and remind the Court of how it bulldozed ahead with a trial — with its unexpected and unprecedented denial of our Constitutional right to look for counsel on the very first day — which ironically became the cause of our motions to dismiss being denied. It is indeed ironic that, in this Court’s desperate attempt to conjure up a protective order for Evelyn Nissirios, it is assisting her plans to “DARVO”, or the perpetrators’ typical scheme to “deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender,” in order to hide their guilt.

To summarize, it is incorrect that I have abused process in any way, but on the contrary have been extremely prejudiced from the numerous adjournments of this case, as a TPO has turned into a presumptive First Amendment violation without due process. I have therefore decided to continue pro se, and for Your Honor to resume this trial as soon as possible.

Respectfully submitted,

Bandy Lee, M.D., M.Div.

[Of course, the trial was never resumed, and I had to let go of an attorney who was pressured into agreeing to take down my articles in exchange for the minimal preparation time for my defense. John Conte, Nissirios’ lawyer, who demanded this compromise of my attorney in the big ruckus he made about the trial being delayed, was quiet as a mouse when the trial was not resumed.]

*Please join a public effort to impeach Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca who, as head of Bergen County Family Court, has corrupted the entire system — from the entire Family Court to civil court, appellate court, an assignment judge, a municipal judge, and Child Protective Services, not to mention the press — by extending her meddling hands into everything!

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Bandy X. Lee
Bandy X. Lee

Written by Bandy X. Lee

Forensic psychiatrist, violence expert, president of the World Mental Health Coalition (worldmhc.org), and New York Times bestselling author.

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