Last week Dr. Liane Leedom wrote about the tragic case Dr. Amy Castillo, whose children were murdered by their psychopathic father after several judges issued rulings that failed to protect them. I hope this terrible and extreme case will be a wake-up call for family courts.

Lovefraud frequently receives e-mail from men and women involved in child custody disputes with sociopaths, who hopefully, are not murderers. Here is one of them:

I am involved in a custody case with a sociopath, however, my case is being fought in Europe where I recently relocated to (I am American, he is European). After being the sole caregiver of my children for five years, I had no choice but to leave them with their father and return to the States. When we separated he took their passports and left the country for a year. It was NOT possible to obtain new passports for children without BOTH parents’ signatures.

“A victim of crime shall be treated with fairness, compassion and respect by the criminal justice system.” So states the Crime Victims Constitutional Amendment, added to the state of New Jersey constitution in 1991.

New Jersey also has a 14-point Crime Victims Bill of Rights (NJS 52:4B-36), which expands upon the constitutional amendment. Among its provisions, crime victims and witnesses are entitled to:

• Be treated with dignity and compassion by the criminal justice system.
• Be informed about the criminal justice process.
• Have inconveniences associated with participation in the criminal justice process minimized to the fullest extent possible.

The Bill of Rights sounds good, but it hasn’t done much for Trish Rynn, formerly of Ocean City, New Jersey. She was scammed by a seasoned con artist, Dennis SanSeverino, and now feels she is being further victimized by the New Jersey courts. It is a classic case of Legal Abuse Syndrome.

A Lovefraud reader, whom we’ll call Joe, recently sent the following e-mail. Joe’s ex-wife has custody of their daughter, whom we’ll call Suzie. The ex-wife is clearly using the child to sponge off of Joe.

My daughter’s mother always wants to control me and our daughter. I’m sure you’ve heard of these types of cases before. My daughter’s mother is constantly trying to use my daughter against me to control me like a puppet. I was with my ex for a period of years before our daughter was born, so I blame myself for seeing some of the signs, but not leaving.

I see some change in my daughter’s behavior as of late, so I’m a bit concerned. When I have her, she doesn’t want to go home and every time I drop her off after my custody days, she clings on to me for dear life. My daughter and I do so much together, but when she’s with mom, she sits around the house and does nothing. Would this affect her behavior?

Last week, Mechele Linehan, 35, of Olympia, Washington, was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder of her fiancé, Kent Leppink, back in 1996.

She was accused of convincing another fiancé, John Carlin III, of New Jersey, of killing Leppink. The crime and trial took place in Alaska, and Carlin was found guilty of murder. Under Alaska law, Linehan was ruled equally guilty, so she got the same sentence as Carlin.

“I can find no principal distinction between the puppet who pulls the trigger and the puppeteer who pulls the strings,” said Judge Philip Voland. “In my judgment, Ms. Linehan was the puppeteer who pulled the strings.”

Crime based on murder movie

The case sounds just like a movie. In fact, prosecutors contend that Linehan was inspired by the movie The Last Seduction, in which a woman coaxes her lover into killing her husband for money.

“Victims are created in two ways: by violence or by deceit. Either type of assault immediately renders the victim hostage to the perpetrator.”

So begins the book Legal Abuse Syndrome, by Karin Huffer, MS, MFT. Lovefraud strongly recommends that anyone who has been victimized by a sociopath read this book, whether you have faced your perpetrator in court or not.

The book explains how people who have suffered injury at the hands of some type of predator often face further injury inflicted by lawyers and the courts, who can be, at best, disinterested, and at worst, corrupt. Legal Abuse Syndrome, Huffer says, is a form of post traumatic stress disorder caused by prolonged contact with the so-called “justice” system.

Along the way, however, the author answers many of the questions that those of us victimized by sociopaths have asked:

If I am the victim, why do I feel guilty?

An article in last week’s New York Times magazine contained the following amazing statement: “Repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness.”

Although the article had nothing to do with sociopaths, the statement made me think of my ex-husband, James Montgomery. Among his many lies, Montgomery claimed to be a member of the Australian military, a decorated Vietnam War hero, and a member of the Special Forces. None of this was true, but from what I can tell, he’d been making the claims since at least 1980 (we met in 1996). They’d been repeated many times, for many years—which apparently enhanced their believability.

Like most of us here on Lovefraud, I felt like a complete fool for being so totally deceived. Why couldn’t I see the lies? But it turns out that I have plenty of company. Psychological research indicates that in general, people can distinguish truths from lies only about 53 percent of the time. That’s not much better than flipping a coin.

“Discrimination” has come to be a dirty word. It brings to mind unfair treatment of individuals because of race, religion, gender, national origin, physical disability, sexual orientation or some other broad categorization. People have been killed, beaten, denied jobs, denied housing, prosecuted, persecuted and denigrated because of some demographic category to which they belonged.

All of this applies to one meaning of the word “discrimination.” But there is another meaning that is vitally important when it comes to sociopaths. Here are the two meanings according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

Discrimination
1. Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit.
2. The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment.

Created equal

So far, we’ve been talking about the first meaning. In the United States, there’s always been a moral tradition against this type of discrimination. In church, we’re taught that “we’re all God’s children.” In school, we learned that “all men are created equal.”

In 2002, Time Magazine named Eliot Spitzer, when he was New York State Attorney General, “Crusader of the Year,” due to his relentless pursuit of corporate crime. He went after the giants of Wall Street, extracting large fines for illegal and unethical behavior.

That’s why his very public downfall has drawn so much interest. And that’s why, now he’s resigned as governor of New York in disgrace, the stories of his aggressiveness, his bullying, and his apparent belief that the rules did not apply to him, are so widespread.

When I first heard that Spitzer was implicated in a prostitution ring, I figured that if anyone had the dirt, it would be the New York Post. How right I was. Frederic U. Dicker, the state editor for the Post, wrote about Spitzer in an article entitled, Bully gets his comeuppance. Here’s how it started:

The Internet Dating Safety Act became law in the state of New Jersey, the home of Lovefraud, on January 13, 2008. It is supposed to take effect next month.

The law applies only to New Jersey, USA, residents. It mandates that any Internet dating site must disclose to New Jersey members, clearly and conspicuously, whether it conducts criminal background checks. “The disclosure shall be provided when an electronic mail message is sent or received by a New Jersey member, on the profile describing a member to a New Jersey member, and on the website pages of the Internet dating service used when a New Jersey member signs up,” the law states. “A disclosure shall be in bold, capital letters in at least 12-point type.”

Lovefraud recently received an e-mail from a reader. Her company had hired a new guy and she was tasked with helping him learn his job. The guy immediately made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Here’s what she wrote:

I can’t look him in the eye or even stand to talk with him. He is very “nice” and has never shown any angry tendencies. I can’t explain my feelings but my intuition tells me to be wary and afraid of him. He exhibits self-important behavior and is glib and overly polite. Just the thought of him makes me shudder.