The Circular Circus of Family Court (and the Courts that Surround It)

A Family Court Judge Interfered with Civil Court to Protect Her Underling; Will She Interfere with Appellate Court, Too?

Much has happened since my first article on Evelyn Nissirios almost two years ago. However, since she had a Family Court judge issue an unconstitutional prior restraint on publication — one of the worst violations of the First Amendment — I simply copy here what is on the public record. Below is Patricia Lee’s appeal of Nissirios’ sanctions against her for filing a lawsuit at all:

Your Honors,

This lawsuit is far from frivolous, and the actions of Respondent Evelyn Nissirios demand full accountability. Respondent Nissirios’ claim of absolute judicial immunity does not shield her from the egregious, unlawful actions she committed outside the scope of her court-appointed duties. Her conduct not only violated my rights but also inflicted irreparable harm on my children and others involved.

The following are actions for which Respondent Nissirios is directly and unequivocally guilty:

1. Orchestrating a violent, unlawful police raid to abduct my children without warning or due process: On the very weekend Respondent Nissirios authorized me to have my children, she lied to law enforcement to forcibly seize them, violating my constitutional rights and traumatizing the children.

2. Perpetrating six hundred (600) documented lies and acts of perjury in official proceedings: Respondent Nissirios knowingly and willfully lied in court to strip me of custody and deprive me of any contact with my children, whom I raised successfully since birth.

3. Suppressing exculpatory evidence: Respondent Nissirios concealed ten (10) psychiatric reports unanimously confirming my mental health and parenting competence. This deliberate suppression of evidence ensured an unjust outcome.

4. Violating Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and jeopardizing the safety of others: Respondent Nissirios unlawfully disclosed the identities of victim informants who reported on the father’s dangerousness, directly placing their lives in danger. This blatant disregard for federal law and basic ethics demonstrates her malicious intent.

5. Conspiring with the father to facilitate abuse and cover up his crimes: Respondent Nissirios actively colluded with my ex-spouse to secure illegitimate custody of the children he abused, injured, and nearly killed. Her criminal involvement in this conspiracy is undeniable.

6. Retaliating against witnesses: Respondent Nissirios weaponized her authority to intimidate and punish witnesses through malicious prosecution and false arrests, suppressing critical testimony that could have exposed her misconduct.

7. Attempting to cause my medical demise: Respondent Nissirios’ actions led to six (6) near-fatal episodes, as documented by my treating physicians and medical experts. Her conduct left me with post-traumatic stress disorder and required a five (5)-day hospitalization in the intensive care unit.

These actions go far beyond her duty to represent the best interests of children under Section 5:8B of the New Jersey Court Rules. Her claim of immunity fails under Hawkins v. Harris (1995), which limits immunity to communications “made in judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings; [that] that have some connection or logical relation” to them. Her criminal actions — including acting as the abuser’s personal attorney, daily phone collusion, and violation of my constitutional rights — fall outside this protection.

Proof of Guilt

Respondent Nissirios’ guilt is further cemented by the following facts:

• Intentional perjury: six hundred (600) documented lies in court proceedings were instrumental in depriving me of custody without just cause.

• Traumatizing children: Respondent Nissirios weaponized her authority to alienate me from my children, telling them I abandoned them and would never see them again. This inflicted severe emotional harm on innocent children.

• Suppression of truth: Respondent Nissirios intentionally suppressed evidence that vindicated me, further proving her intent to manipulate the judicial process for personal and unlawful gain.

• Endangerment of lives: By violating HIPAA, Respondent Nissirios endangered informants and witnesses, an action both criminal and ethically indefensible.

• Bias and interference: Respondent Nissirios’ influence over Judge Gallina-Mecca and others corrupted the legal process, turning the courts into an instrument of her personal vendetta.

Judicial Misconduct and Abuse of Process

The trial court’s dismissal of my lawsuit, based solely on litigation privilege without reviewing evidence, underscores the institutional bias protecting Respondent Nissirios’ criminal actions. The escalation of sanctions — from 5,000 to 27,000 dollars — was based on Respondent Nissirios introducing irrelevant material into a sanctions hearing. This manipulation turned the hearing into an indictment based on presumption, not facts or evidence.

The Respondent Nissirios’ claim that I leaked information for a news article is baseless. She has provided no proof, and I had no prior knowledge of the article. Holding me accountable for external publications is absurd and lacks both legal and factual merit.

Conclusion

The Respondent Nissirios’ actions have caused irreversible harm to me, my children, and others involved. Her criminal conduct, including six hundred (600) acts of perjury, unlawful child abduction, HIPAA violations, and conspiracy, demands accountability. If the Court allows judicial actors to act with impunity, it sets a dangerous precedent where justice is subverted, and lives are destroyed.

I respectfully urge the Court to overturn the sanctions against me and hold Respondent Nissirios accountable for her deliberate, malicious, and unlawful actions. Justice requires not only the acknowledgment of her guilt but also the imposition of appropriate legal consequences. Thank you.

Respectfully submitted,

Patricia J. Lee

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Before filing her appeal, she wrote the following motion for reconsideration to Civil Court Judge Rachelle Harz:

PATRICIA J. LEE, of full age, certifies as follows:

1. I am the plaintiff in this matter. I am fully familiar with the facts set forth here. I make this Certification in my motion for reconsideration of the amount of sanctions ordered against me.

2. The question, Your Honor, is why did you do an about face by totally contradicting yourself on January 27, 2023, from what you explicitly expressed on October 28, 2022? It is like I experienced the rulings of two different judges. On October 28, 2022, you said 5000 dollars, and then on January 27, 2023, you went up more than five times, to almost 27,000 dollars, because of an article, which you attributed to me without any evidence or proof, based solely on your anger.

3. Your anger was apparent when you read the article and then diverted your total attention to exclusively addressing only Defendant Nissirios’ very biased point of view, which obscured any objectivity or fairness on your part.

4. Your Honor also concluded the hearing in a manner that denied my attorney the opportunity to give any response, when you brought the hearing to an abrupt end. Both my attorney and I were speechless at the overall derailment of the proceedings.

5. It seemed as if you had already made up your mind and did not wish to hear another word, so that my side was not able to address Defendant’s false accusations and the abominable lies she made to this Court.

6. Instead, a session that was supposed to be a simple determination of the amount of sanctions turned into a new indictment and prosecution, in which Your Honor was saying: “I don’t like this article. I am so angry, I am going to increase your penalty five times.” In doing so, Your Honor almost exclusively cited the credentials of Defendant Evelyn Nissirios’ hirees, hardly mentioning me, despite the fact that I have lost the custody of my children, my constitutional rights, my reputation, and the intrinsic, priceless joy of being a loving mother to my children because of Defendant’s relentless campaign of slander, egregious lies, and character assassination against me.

7. It is inexplicable that, without any reason or justification, you suddenly changed your demeanor and seemed to echo the words of the Family Court Judge. Forgive me, but it was quite obvious that you were going far beyond ordinary professional courtesy. Why else would you change your mind about the $5000 penalty, after the case was already dismissed and decided upon, to raise it to more than five times the amount?

8. That I broke the court seal and somehow influenced all these third-party professionals to write their articles is a false narrative of a litigant in a court that is obsessed with making a case against me, where the court actors do not even pretend to be independent of one another.

9. Presumption of guilt without justification or proof has been the approach of Judge Jane Gallina-Mecca’s Family Court — and now it appears that the Law Division Court is following suit. It is as if Your Honor were making a case for Defendant, with the implication that I was guilty of all her baseless accusations.

10. I am reluctant to say this, but in prior court hearings, I was beyond despair when you read my pro se brief, commented on how brilliantly written it was, and then read your pre-written ruling. What does that say about this Court? I went from despair to dread when my attorney argued for forty-five minutes, made a brilliant argument himself, and you again read a pre-written ruling.

11. Your Honor emphasized that Defendant is a “practicing attorney with a reputation.” What about my reputation, having once been hailed as a hero of September 11, 2001, as the youngest appointee to the Executive Chamber of Governor George Pataki and chief coordinator for the First Responders, the Mayor’s Office, and the FBI on Ground Zero, after the greatest attack on U.S. soil in the nation’s history? Before Ms. Nissirios’ machinations to steal my children, I was a loving mother, reputed in the neighborhood to be “the best mom.”

12. Yet, Your Honor indulged Defendant Nissirios as you spent approximately thirty of the forty-minute hearing speaking about articles that Defendant exhibited. Defendant may be upset about these articles, but they have nothing to do with the matter at hand. Defendant can sue the author for defamation if anything were untrue.

13. Your Honor additionally stated that the billing rates are “extremely low for litigation billing in Bergen County” and that Defense counsel was “blatantly honest when he said that these are significant discount rates.” Your Honor additionally added: “I am certainly not going to touch the hourly rates, as they are well below reasonable hourly rates.”

14. This statement is unfathomable, as Your Honor seems to have gone out of your way to recite research in support of Your Honor’s reasoning for the exponential increases in sanctions amount.

15. Your Honor proceeded to say: “Gordon and Rees is a national law firm with over a thousand attorneys and thirty attorneys based in the New Jersey law office,” as if you were an advertisement for the Defense’s law firm.

16. This is the total antithesis of the attitude you demonstrated at the previous session, when you stated that 5000 dollars was reasonable and more than fair. What caused this inexplicable contradiction on your part? [Now, there is evidence that Judge Gallina-Mecca has intervened with at least six (6) judges outside of her court; few have exhibited such blatant influence from her as Judge Harz, who dramatically increased sanctions from 5000 to 27,000 dollars upon Judge Gallina-Mecca’s interference.]

17. Your Honor continued to spend considerable time dwelling on Attys. Mark Trokan’s and Izik Gutkin’s curricula vitae, as if you were desperately trying to make a case to justify increasing the sanctions amount more than five times of what you thought was fair less than three months before.

18. I would ask why this Court did not even spend a fraction of that time to go through the sampling of the truly stellar curricula vitae of many professionals that Ms. Nissirios willfully and intentionally suppressed in support of my husband, Alan T. Chan. These renowned, highly-reputed professionals had a medical consensus that Mr. Chan is a danger to his children and meets criteria for a dangerous psychiatric diagnosis that precludes parenting.

19. That a presiding judge could describe a defendant this way is very disturbing. By inexplicably changing your mind — you have indicated that you are unduly influenced from the Family Court, justifying your actions with contrived and tangential comments.

20. How do I address two courts, the Family Court and the Law Division Court, when both courts have exceeded their legal authority, with extreme bias against me, and in so doing violated not only my constitutional rights — but the rights of two innocent, helpless children?

21. If Your Honor has granted Ms. Nissirios an opportunity to build an entirely new indictment of me at a sanctions amount determination hearing, then allow me, in turn, to make my important case here that judicial immunity applies neither to Defendant nor to Judge Gallina-Mecca.

22. Defendant has, along with the Judge, stepped outside her legally-authorized role to perjure, criminally conspire, maliciously prosecute, and kidnap my children without due process, evidence, or justification. That Ms. Nissirios does not deserve judicial immunity, but rather deserves disbarment, prosecution, and punishment, should be plain to anyone who is willing to look at the irrefutable evidence, which I ask this Court to do in order to determine that sanctions are not even appropriate, much less the eventual exorbitant amount.

23. My husband’s crimes are recounted in Exhibit 1, whereby he lied to the police and the Family Court in his scheme to illegally abduct his children fifteen (15) months ago, causing their acute, unprecedented school absences, academic and physical deterioration, and unexplained injuries. His illegal abduction and false imprisonment of the children he is accused of abusing, and against whom he was on temporary restraining order for injuring, would not have been possible without Ms. Nissirios’ help.

24. [My sister, Dr. Bandy Lee] was barred from seeing her niece and nephew because Mr. Chan, fearing that he would be unmasked as a criminal child abuser, had intentionally made such a request to the Family Court. Dr. Lee is a psychiatrist with impeccable credentials as a world-renowned expert on violence who had assisted a United Nations (UN) Secretary-General in drafting the UN chapter, “Violence against Children.”

25. Ms. Nissirios and Judge Gallina-Mecca have nothing to say on the substance, but they all wish to silence Dr. Lee, who has been operating as an independent agent doing her own research. Now, she is writing a book, and the word is out — people are watching my case, and it does not take my breaking a seal to know that the Family Court has turned a blind eye to my children being kidnapped by their abuser, their rapid deterioration, and their not being allowed even one second to be with their mother, their beloved aunt, or a qualified medical professional. This is because Mr. Chan lives in abject terror that his abuse will be exposed.

26. It is inconceivable that judicial immunity could be applied to situations of exploitation of judicial authority and criminality under the color of law, to assist a violent offender to abduct and torture his innocent children. Such tyrannical, arbitrary actions do not warrant the enjoyment of judicial immunity but deserve removal from the bench, if not from the Bar.

27. The way this Court has acted, I am not allowed to talk to my closest support, my lawyer is not allowed to present to me key motions, and there is a seal against my knowing about critical aspects of my own case. How could a Court deny me my constitutional right to talk to my one support in the world, my own sister, about my case? In the history of jurisprudence, no judge has ever so denied the constitutional rights of a litigant.

28. The idea that this Court is using its seal to prevent me from defending myself is unconstitutional and illegal. Further, you have now changed your mind to punish me incomprehensibly because someone else wrote something that I had nothing to do with. I came to this Court seeking justice, but it is clear that this Court is not independent, that Judge Gallina-Mecca has extended her authority, and the Family Court is directing the Law Division Court.

29. The real tragedy is that this Court has illegally used its power to deny the rights of two innocent children, to irreparably damage and destroy their lives, and to unconstitutionally deprive a loving mother of the custody of my children without due process….

I certify that the foregoing statements made by me are true. I am aware that if any of the foregoing statements made by me are willfully false, I am subject to punishment.

PATRICIA J. LEE

Dated: January 30, 2023

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