In re. Riley involves a highly-disabled Child (with Down’s Syndrome and entirely nonverbal) who for 5 years has been prevented from seeing his Father, whom Court-appointed Counsel and all evidence describe and show as a loving, nurturing, and otherwise wonderful parent.  The separation is due to brazen judicial bias (at best) by Vermont Probate Judge Jeffrey Kilgore (“JK”), who prolonged the separation by ignoring controlling legal factors (sidetracking instead to an irrelevant factual question of whether Mother had exerted undue influence in coaxing the single response of Child that he did not want to see Father … v. 7 prior responses saying the opposite).  JK’s obvious errors were inexcusably left in place by his literal office-mate, Vermont Superior Court Judge Timothy Tomasi (“JT”).  It is inconceivable that the separation would have been allowed for even a week were Child not disabled, or Father & Mother’s gender roles reversed.

Rather than correcting the errors or acknowledging Father’s right to appeal the controlling questions of law to Vermont’s Supreme Court, JT remanded the matter to JK on the no-good-faith-basis (and thus Ethics Rule 3.1-violating) ground that JK’s decision was not ripe for appeal until after JK determined the legally-irrelevant side-issue of Mother’s influence.  Despite that even JK later acknowledged that Child lacks capacity (and thus that the side-issue of undue influence is irrelevant), neither JK nor JT has allowed Child to see Father or allowed Father to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Various pleadings demonstrating the misconduct are linked below, and all pleadings are available here.  Still further evidence of the accuracy of this summary is the simple fact that, were any part of it untrue, JK and JT would most certainly seek to sanction the attorney/writer for making false or misleading statements.  They have not, and the writer hereby challenges them to try.

Misc. Pleadings Showing the Judges’ Misconduct:

The base of this House of Cards is JK’s 2023 Order prolonging the already-2-year-separation.  JK failed even to discuss the fully-briefed and dispositive issues (in Father’s Opening Brief and Reply) that it was in Child’s best interest to see Father; that Child lacked any capacity to decide otherwise; and that an earlier Judge had, in light of Mother’s prior separation of Child from Father, promised Father that he could meet with Child prior to any changes in the then-Court-Ordered 3x/week schedule of visits.  JK’s rejection of the 3 controlling arguments with no basis in law or fact violated Ethics Rule 3.1.  

Father’s Questions on appeal squarely included whether JK erred in entirely ignoring the dispositive issues of best interest, lack of capacity, promise, and more, yet JT never even acknowledged them.

Instead JK waited 4 months and then questioned whether he even had jurisdiction, alleging that the appeal may not be “ripe.”   JK then delayed ruling on the issue despite Father’s Sept. Response, then again in Jan. 2024 postponed so he could appoint and hear from Counsel for Child.  Astonishingly, JK then virtually ignored not only the ripeness issue but also Court-Appointed Counsel’s March 29 Motion for Contempt and Sanctions against Mother … despite that Counsel reporting to him ongoing harm by Mother and that the continued separation was causing “irreparable harm” to Child.  Court-Appointed Counsel further stated that JK should not have even allowed Child to be called as a witness since he lacks capacity, and she said “[t]he evidence in the record and my contact with [Father] suggest he has been a consistent and nurturing parent of [Child]” and urging that visitation begin immediately.  Counsel concluded that “irreparable harm is happening and this court should act on an exigent basis,” but still JT did nothing … failing even to rule on whether he had jurisdiction.

A week after informing JT of the above and over a year after the appeal was filed, Court-Appointed Counsel repeated virtually all of the above in a separate Motion to JK for Contempt against Mother and Immediate Enforcement of the Schedule.  Counsel repeated that there is “no evidence [Child] has the intellectual capacity to give informed consent or denial for any legal matter in his life” and again said that Father has been “a consistent and nurturing parent of [Child].”  Still, neither judge stopped the separation.

Still another month later (May 8, 2024), Court-Appointed Counsel wrote that Mother is harming Child; that Mother’s goal seems to be to harm Father; that Child has a legal right to see Father; and that Mother’s Counsel had breached ethics by agreeing Child could resume visitation only if motions for sanctions and contempt were withdrawn.

Ignoring all of the above, on July 31, 2024, JT further prolonged the separation by remanding to JK and refusing to allow Father to appeal the controlling legal issues to the Supreme Court (which, on September 10, formally dismissed Father’s (pro se) attempt to appeal).

Over 6 months later, JK finally acknowledged that Child lacks the capacity to make the decision Mother alleged (Feb. 5, 2025 Tr. at 111), thus mooting the issue of Mother’s undue influence, yetneither judge ended the separation or allowed Father to appeal their errors to the Supreme Court.