The story in more detail:

• In this complicated divorce and custody case, Judge Angela Jewell ordered the appointment of custody evaluator Richard Reed, stating in her order that "Dr. Reed will provide a written report to each attorney in this case." However, Richard Reed did not write up any report at the conclusion of his custody evaluation.
• Father Carsten Thoma filed a Motion asking Judge Jewell to adopt the "recommendations" of Richard Reed even though nothing was written down regarding his recommendations. Mother Tzveta Apostalova filed an objection to Richard Reed's failure to provide a written report and asked for a second opinion.
• Judge Angela Jewell allowed Richard Reed to get away with defiance of her order to provide a written report. Both parents paid thousands of dollars for the evaluation, only to end up with no work product from Richard Reed's "work". When the hotly-contested issue of custody went to trial, there was no report and thus no basis for being able to argue either about the conclusions or about the manner in which this court-appointed 11-706 expert reached his recommendations.
• Eventually a Bifurcated Settlement Agreement was reached in splitting the parties' assets in which mother Tzveta Apostalova bought out father Carsten Thoma's interest in their home for $134,000 and the home became fully hers. Judge Angela Jewell ratified this agreement in her Stipulated Partial Judgment and Final Decree of Dissolution of Marriage.
• In December 2005, Judge Jewell issued an Order to Appoint Guardian ad Litem, appointing Jeffrey Kauffman. This order is of high concern because it hands over full authority in medical decision-making regarding the seven year-old minor child to the Guardian who is a lawyer, not a medical expert. The order states: "Upon entry of this Order, each party shall execute a power of attorney" to empower the Guardian ad Litem to make medical and mental health decisions. There was no determination that either party is incompetent in any way. This is how parents in our country are systematically losing their rights, and children are becoming wards of greedy court-appointed attorneys.
• The order also renders the GAL's decisions binding on the parties "until and unless the recommendations are changed by the Court", essentially giving the GAL a judge's power without all the accompanying checks and balances to which judges are subjected. It also makes an order for payment of all fees tot he GAL "by the last day of each and every month", with no restrictions as to the hourly rate or number of hours the GAL can charge. Judge Jewell in this order has given Jeffrey Kauffman a blank checkbook and preemptively made an order regarding payment without any notice of how much or how fair the charge will be.
• Finally, the order ties allocation of payment among the parents to "allegations of non-compliance with the GAL's recommendations, or any abuse of the GAL process". In other words, if the GAL is not deciding in keeping with a particular parent's preferences or concern for the child and he/she objects, the judge threatens to consider a parent's complaints about the GAL when deciding how much of the GAL's bill the particular parent has to pay.