Kevin Tower has been in the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) prison system for almost thirty years for a crime he didn’t commit.

On July 5, 1995, his two uncles- Ron and Paul Tower- went missing.

Kevin was arrested on July 19, 1995. Ron and Paul Tower’s dead bodies were found on July 26, 1995.

Three pieces of evidence were key to his conviction. He had taken and forged checks from his uncles shortly before they disappeared; he previously acknowledged this to me.

A friend testified that she found a bloody knife in his car. That friend, Becky Cochrane, has since recanted in an affidavit.

He also sent a letter from prison calling the murders “a mistake.”

Years after his conviction, he developed an airtight alibi. He was approximately a hundred miles away from his uncles’ property on the day they went missing. His defense team dug up a receipt from a video store.

Had this receipt been entered into evidence during his trial, he would have been found not guilty, however, the bar to reverse a conviction is much higher.

Prosecutors argued that since his uncles weren’t found for nearly three weeks, they could have been killed any time between July 5 and July 26. Since Kevin did not have an alibi for the entire three weeks, it wasn’t enough to overturn the conviction.

Despite serving natural life for a crime he didn’t commit, Kevin adjusted to prison life fairly well until October 2025.

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Note: the video podcast is a 2013 broadcast on the Rucki case, while my interview with Richard Luthmann is a YouTube video above.

The Rucki case from Minnesota remains the most notorious child custody case in American history.

Most of the media picked up the story about two years after the two oldest girls- Samantha and Gianna- ran on April 19, 2013.

However, the turmoil which forced this family into the spotlight started on September 5, 2012, and culminated on April 19, 2013.

On April 19, the two oldest girls- Samantha and Gianna- ran, rather than be forced to live with their father.

In the process, a therapist, Dr. Jim Gilbertson, was appointed, and his therapist’s notes detailed how the system forced actions onto the family which caused the results.

The Rucki family had gone through about a year of divorce when on September 5, 2012, the judge presiding, David Knutson, held a telephonic conference.

Judge Knutson was unhappy because the five Rucki kids refused to see their father. This happened because Knutson willfully ignored the abuse that the father, David Rucki, inflicted on the family.

From that conference, Knutson produced a draconian order, in which neither parent was allowed contact with their children.

Instead, Knutson ordered David’s sister, Tami Love, to move into the home and temporarily care for the kids. He ordered this despite Tami having child protective services (CPS) issues with her kids and having little contact with her nieces and nephews prior to the arrangement.

This draconian order was based on the recommendation of another court appointed psychologist, Paul Reitman, who made his recommendation after one appointment.

The kids, upon coming home and finding their mother gone, ran to the police station and were allowed, despite the court order, to temporarily live with their maternal aunt, Nancy Olson.

Along with the no contact order, Judge Knutson ordered Dr. Gilbertson to conduct therapy, with the hope of reuniting the kids with their father.

Dr. Gilbertson began his notes on September 5, 2012, when he was contacted by Julie Friedrich, the guardian ad litem (GAL).

Dr. Gilbertson routinely misspelled Friedrich’s name on the notes. He made an important notation which set the tone for his therapy.

“She (Friedrich) reports it to be a rather complex case with some allegations of parental alienation,’ his notes from September 5, 2012, stated.

The system determined that there was no abuse, but rather the mother alienating the father from the kids.

Dr. Gilbertson proceeded with that thought in mind, dismissing any allegations of abuse.

Below is Samantha describing her father’s abuse from an audio made shortly after she ran.

“Before the whole divorce, he’d come home drunk or beat my mom to no end. He went after her with an organ leg. He legit ripped an organ leg and tried to beat her with it.” Samantha said in the audio.

Dr. Gilbertson’s next notation occurred on October 29, 2012, when he described a meeting with Sam. He was surprised that Sam was not chatty with him.

It wasn’t until November 25, 2012, before Dr. Gilbertson finally met with three of the five children for the first time.

He then met with Nico and David on December 5, 2012. Nico was coopted by his father, so Dr. Gilbertson thought he was swell.

On January 17, 2013, he finally met with Samantha, as part of another meeting with three of the Rucki kids. More than four months later, he finally met with each of the kids.

During this session, Gilbertson displayed the delusional bullheadedness which defined the court’s approach to the family. The kids would have a relationship with their father, by hook or by crook.

During the session, the youngest girl had to excuse herself. It wasn’t the last time a child was traumatized by Dr. Gilbertson’s therapy.

At a session on January 29, 2013, Samantha revealed that Nico suddenly was being bribed by his father.

Dr. Gilbertson was unmoved by the revelation.

In February 26, 2013, Dr. Gilbertson forced the kids to watch court for a full day. His notes included the gem below.

On March 28, 2013, Dr. Gilbertson supervised one of two visits allowed for Sam, a visit to the Mall of America. During the visit, Sam complained that Nico was being alienated from her, but unlike with the other children, he downplayed this alienationallegation.

At the next visit on April 2, 2013, one of the kids threw up.

Each time a child threw up, Dr. Gilbertson described the event in a matter-of-fact manner, and he didn’t seem to be bothered by the stress his sessions were causing.

On April 4, 2013, Samantha and Gianna told him that they believed his goal was to force them to live with their father and be kept away from their mother. He denied this.

That’s what would happen though.

Starting on April 9, 2013, everyone except Sam schemed about what to do when the court order on April 19, 2013, came down.

This includes Sam’s sister Nancy, who sold her out. Furthermore, this means that there was ex-parte communication about the yet unreleased court order. One notation included an interesting revelation from Nancy.

“I immediately received a call from Ms. Olson stating that she wanted the transfer to occur as soon as possible because of the fear the children will learn of this through some unknown means and will run. (emphasis mine)”

Ten days later, the girls ran.

Here are some more notes.

On April 19, 2013, the two oldest girls were tricked by Nancy into coming to the Lakeville, Minnesota police station; Lakeville is where their home was located.

Dr. Gilbertson was listening on a phone while the girls were in an interrogation room. Then, he blurted out that they would go live with their aunt Tami until their father got custody.

“This was the plan all along,” he said.

Below are his notes.

The girls were driven by police to their home. Approximately thirty minutes after police left, Gianna and Samantha ran.

They eventually called Dale Nathan, a friend of their mothers. He was with Sam.

“We’re running with or without you,” she previously told me they told her.

She picked them up and drove them to her friend, Dede Evavold’s, house.

Dede recommended they stay with her friend, Gina Dahlen and Gina’s husband, Doug.

The Dahlen’s ran a horse farm for abused kids.

They stayed at this home willingly until they were found in November 2015.

In the meantime, no one was concerned they were missing until media attention overwhelmed the case starting in April 2015. Dr. Gilbertson’s expressed no concern in his notes on April 19, 2013, after they went missing.

Dr. Gilbertson continued with the plan, moving the younger kids on April 24, 2013,

He didn’t tell the younger siblings that Samantha and Gianna were missing for five days.

Dr. Gilbertson testified at the custody trial which occurred in September 2013, while the girls remained missing. At this trial, he agreed with the assessment that Sam should only have supervised visits. His claims of wanting the kids to have a relationship with both parents were BS.

After the girls were found in 2015, everyone involved in hiding them- Sam, Dede, and the Dahlen’s- were charged and convicted, or pled guilty.

That happened only because the trial judge, Karen Asphaug, refused to allow any evidence of abuse into each trial.

None of the people who orchestrated this chaos- David Rucki, Tami Love, Nancy Olsen, Dr. Jim Gilbertson, Dr. Paul Reitman, and Judge David Knutson- faced any legal or professional consequences.

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Note: the interview above is a rebroadcast of an interview Richard Luthmann and I did originally in February 2026 with Arizona Republican State Senator Wendy Rogers about family court reform. This new interview was conducted by email.

Arizona Republican State Senator Wendy Rogers recently introduced Senate Bill 1049 to reform alimony laws.

The bill limits alimony payments to no more than four years.

“The court may not award spousal maintenance for a period of more than four years,” the bill states.

State Senator Rogers received some blowback, after she was accused of doing a political favor for the Republican President of the State Senate, Warren Peterson.

Peterson is going through a divorce and critics argued that Rogers’ bill was designed to limit his alimony.

State Senator Peterson did not respond to an email for comment.

State Senator Rogers addressed details of the bill, the controversy, and more.

1) Explain what is happening with alimony in Arizona and why you felt it needed reform?

This was a constituent-requested technical cleanup bill involving Arizona’s spousal maintenance statutes. As Judiciary Chair, it’s my responsibility to review court-related issues and sponsor legislation when clarifications or improvements to the law are warranted.

2) What does limiting alimony to four years do and does the bill do anything else?

The goal was to provide greater clarity and predictability within Arizona’s spousal maintenance laws. More broadly, the bill was intended to address concerns raised about how the statute is applied and interpreted

3) There was some controversy with some suggesting that you were doing a favor for State Senator Warren Petersen. What was the controversy and how do you answer the allegation that this was a political favor?

That allegation is false. This was a constituent-requested technical cleanup bill dealing with family court statutes. As Judiciary Chair, it was entirely appropriate for me to sponsor legislation within my committee’s jurisdiction. The bill was considered on its merits, nothing more.

4) Limiting alimony reduces—if not eliminates—stay-at-home parents. Is that something you thought of and what would you say to the charge that limiting alimony to four years all but eliminates the stay-at-home parent?

I disagree with that premise. Stay-at-home parents make valuable contributions to their families, and nothing in this bill was intended to diminish that. The discussion was about statutory clarity and predictability, not the value of parenting choices.

5) Most of the family court bills were killed in the legislature. Is there still hope for transformative reform of family court?

Absolutely. Family court remains an area of significant public interest, and important reforms often take multiple years. The conversation is continuing, and I expect it will remain a focus moving forward.

Conclusion

If I ruled the world, alimony would be eliminated. I don’t think anyone should be responsible for another person’s lifestyle after they’re married.

That said, this would eliminate the stay-at-home parent. Hopefully, we’ll get more clarity on this bill’s effect on stay-at-home parents as it progresses through the legislature.

Update

After I published, State Senator Rogers provided me with additional comment on my question about stay at home parents, “This bill upholds stay-at-home parents. It recognizes that reentering the workforce takes time and specifically allows courts to consider factors like education, training, earning capacity, the length of the marriage, and the needs of children. Spousal maintenance should be a bridge to self-sufficiency, not a permanent arrangement. This bill promotes long-term self-sufficiency while providing a reasonable transition period, taking into account the individual circumstances of each family, and ensuring that no one is left without support.”

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Smear merchants come in all shapes and sizes, but they all carry many of the same traits.

Introduction Rucki case

The Rucki case stands apart for notoriety in American child custody cases.

Not only did the courts and police turn a blind eye to David Rucki’s decades of abuse, but the media- both local and national- then carried his water culminating in the hatchet job by 20/20 called Footprints in the Snow.

David Rucki’s history of family violence included putting a gun to his seven year old son’s head, choking his daughter, ripping an organ leg and choking his wife, and leaving six gun shots as a voicemail on his daughter’s phone.

None of that mattered in court which determined Sandra “Sam” Grazzini-Rucki was alienating the children.

The children- on April 19, 2013- were ordered using local Lakeville, Minnesota Police to live with their paternal aunt, a temporary arrangement until their father got custody.

The two oldest girls- Samantha and Gianna- ran less than an hour after police left upon dropping them off on April 19, 2013.

For about two years, the media largely ignored the story until Brandon Stahl, then at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, did a flashy cover story on the two-year anniversary of the girl’s disappearance.

From there, it was a feeding frenzy, only none of the media covered the numerous incidents of abuse. The girls were found in November 2015, and the media firestorm focused on their whereabouts not on why they ran.

Chief among the media propagandists was Michael Brodkorb, a former political operative turned blogger, who covered the Rucki case obsessively for nearly a decade before transitioning back into politics.

Hales/Rucki similarities

In the YouTube drama involving YouTuber Jeremy Hales, Hales files frivolous lawsuits and then turns each machination of those lawsuits into YouTube content.

Hales first sued his neighbors in Florida, John Cook and Michelle Preston.

Over time, he sued anyone who looked at him funny.

Already, a lawsuit against a prosecutor was dismissed, most of Hales second federal lawsuit was also dismissed.

Hales also orchestrated a bogus petition claiming that his neighbor, Michelle Preston, had committed fraud in adopting her daughter. That petition was dismissed days after it was filed.

Those supporting Jeremy Hales also look the other way on years of domestic violence.

Any objective observer can see that Hales uses the legal system to torture and bully people, but he has a popular YouTube channel, and he’s been able to coopt other popular YouTubers to do his bidding.

Chief among them is Matthew Lewis, AKA That Umbrella Guy (TUG) on YouTube.

TUG made his name by clout chasing on popular YouTube stories like the Depp/Herd trial, but for the last two years he’s only covered the Hales case.

Brodkorb’s Unhealthy obsession

Michael Brodkorb had a circuitous route to covering the Rucki case.

For years he was a political operative in Minnesota until he had an affair with Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch.

Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch is breaking her silence about her resignation.

Koch told WCCO’s Chad Hartman she’s taking responsibility for her actions, but feels senate leaders handled her resignation poorly.

“I finally felt strong enough and I felt it was important to clear the air,” she said. “It’s not about excusing my behavior. And I hope that people know the apology that I made a year ago was sincere.”

In December of 2011, Koch stepped down as senate leader after an affair with senate staffer Michael Brodkorb, 39, came to light.

Brodkorb went down fighting, threatening to expose everyone who had an affair under the argument that he was being singled out.

Attorneys for former Senate Republican caucus spokesman Michael Brodkorb said Thursday that they would pursue legal action against the Senate for firing Brodkorb because he had an affair with his boss, former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch.

Brodkorb’s attorneys said they are willing to expose sexual affairs between other Senate staffers and lawmakers to show that their client was wrongly fired in December, when Koch resigned her post.

Despite rumors that the two were having an affair, Senate officials have said Brodkorb was dismissed because there was no longer the will to keep the “at-will employee” employed. His potential lawsuit, which has put Senate leaders on the defensive, could cost state taxpayers money.

That threat ended his political operative career, but he got an infusion when the Minneapolis Star Tribune hired him to write a political blog on state and local politics.

He was writing on those topics when his colleague, Brandon Stahl, wrote his article on the Rucki case in April 2015. Suddenly, that political blog turned into a blog on the Rucki custody case.

His contract with the Minneapolis Star Tribune ended in December 2015 and he started Missing in Minnesota to continue writing about the Rucki case.

He updated on the case, including a book, until 2021.

He showed no visible income besides the book the entirety of his breathless coverage.

Brodkorb and I only did one interview together- no longer on line- but during the interview he said that he was tired of having to read all my stuff, watch all my interviews, and follow all my coverage of the Rucki case.

I remember thinking that he didn’t need to do that, unless he did. Only one person benefited from his propaganda.

TUG’s unhealthy obsession

TUG made a name for himself clout chasing stories popular on YouTube like the Depp/Herd trial.

That made the Hales story a natural choice, however, it’s not natural that he’s covered nothing but Hales for two years.

Recently, he found a spelling mistake and posted the following.

It took chutzpah for TUG to comment on my spelling since he can’t string a sentence together, as shown below.

More than that, the error is from a Substack Note, Substack’s social media platform.

If he follows me on Substack Notes, he’s following everything I do.

He’s already commented on several articles and a fundraiser.

This started recently; someone assigned him to become my fan.

Only one person benefits from TUG being a poor man’s version of Jeremy Hales.

Brodkorb Manipulates Evidence

Brodkorb used his background as a slimy political operative to smear Sam. He did this by ignoring the evidence of abuse.

Below is part of audio Samantha made shortly after running describing how abusive her dad was. Brodkorb was aware of this audio because I emailed it to him, but he ignored it when covering the case.

By pretending like David Rucki never abused his kids, he portrayed him as a heroic dad trying desperately to find his daughters. Sam was portrayed as the vindictive mother who hid them.

One of his most insidious tricks was slowly changing the narrative of what happened on April 19, 2013. Shortly after it happened, the local Fox affiliate did a story including an interview with the girls, where they made it clear they ran.

When 20/20 broadcast their hatchet job, they reported accurately the girls ran.

(20/20 did not report on any of the abuse, despite being given forty plus pages of evidence by Sam’s attorney Michelle MacDonald.)

Over time, Brodkorb and others started referring to the events of April 19, 2013, as an abduction or kidnapping.

It wasn’t an abduction. The girls were taken to a police station on April 19, 2013. They were told they’d live with their paternal aunt until their father got custody. They were driven by police. After being dropped off, they ran minutes after the police left.

They called people who knew their mother until they called Dale Nathan, who was with her. She then picked them up, took them to a friend’s house, who called Doug and Gina Dahlen, who lived in Herman, Minnesota, and ran a horse farm for abused children.

Everyone in Herman knew who the girls were and no one called police. That’s because everyone knew they were hiding from an abusive father.

By changing the narrative, Brodkorb could hide all those details. If he said they ran, he’d need to explain why. He had no explanation- besides the truth- why two teenagers would rather live with strangers than with their abusive father.

In his campaign, Brodkorb smeared Sam’s attorney, Michelle MacDonald, relentlessly. He smeared me, and anyone else who helped Sam.

TUG manipulates evidence

Like Brodkorb, TUG relentlessly attacked attorneys who represented the other position.

In 2024, attorney Bruce Matzkin represented Michelle Preston and John Cook in the first federal lawsuit Hales filed against them.

Since, TUG has attacked him relentlessly. A few samples are below.

At the same time, Hales’ attorney, Randall Shochet, is treated with kid gloves. Shochet committed fraud and lost his dental license before becoming an attorney. TUG does approximately three shows a week on the Hales and has never fully addressed Shochet’s fraud.

He tried to make light of it a couple weeks ago, and in twisting himself into knots stated that fraud was no big deal.

When covering my stories, he only showed the audience parts of my articles, thereby manipulating what they saw.

Early on, he made it clear he was not allowed to say anything negative about Jeremy Hales.

In February 2025, I sent him a video and police report showing that Jeremy Hales was deliberately approaching Preston and Cook, even though he took out a protective order claiming he feared for his life.

TUG’s response was to attack me, Preston and Cook.

it’s no different than Brodkorb failing to report on any of the abuse allegations against David Rucki. Both are required to lionize one side and demonize the other. Smear merchants both of them.

Conclusion

TUG sent the following statement when asked for comment on this article.

Wittle Michael got his fefes in a twist again today?

That vulnerable women market not paying well this month? No ladies you can get thrown in jail or manipulate into touching your pee pee?

That why you crying to Daddy Tug?

You need a pep talk, baby?

Post-script

Check out the fundraiser to help me create more articles on the Hales case. Find articles one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, and twenty-eight.

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Colorado Democrat Governor Jared Polis recently signed into law a bill which will transform child custody in that state.

HB 26-1309 emphasizes combatting domestic violence in child custody.

HB26-1309 states in part, “If a court determines by a preponderance of the evidence that a party has committed domestic violence, child abuse or neglect or sexual assault that resulted in the conception of a child, the court shall consider as the primary concern the safety and well-being of the child and the abused party.”

That sounds so obvious that a law need not state it, but far too often domestic violence is downplayed in court decisions.

Narkis Golan went to the US Supreme Court to overrule an order by Judge Ann Donnelly, an Obama appointee.

Judge Donnelly ruled that even though her ex-husband had physically and sexually abused her this did not mean he’d abuse their son.

Judge Donnelly ordered Narkis back to Italy under the Hague Convention before the US Supreme Court overturned that decision. Narkis tragically died still fighting to keep her son in the US.

In Idaho, state law requires at least two documented incidents of domestic violence before a party is found to have a pattern of domestic violence to consider for custody matters.

In Minnesota, multiple judges ignored overwhelming evidence that David Rucki abused his family and anyone who got close to him and awarded him sole custody.

It’s necessary to emphasize domestic violence in child custody in law, however, this law’s definition of domestic violence is so broad I believe that it will increase allegations of domestic violence in Colorado exponentially.

This law includes coercive control into its definition of domestic violence. Coercive control is akin to parental alienation, a broad term with no good definition. As such, it means whatever each person wants it to mean.

In Colorado, it has defined characteristics of coercive control in the law.

Isolation is a key trait in abuse, however, proving it in court is a fool’s errand, in my opinion.

If one person moves out of state to live with another person, they are naturally isolated. Does that mean the other person is exerting coercive control?

Yelling and screaming happen in most relationships, unfortunately. When does name calling rise to coercive control? I explained further in the broadcast.

Given the emphasis on domestic violence along with its broad definition in Colorado, I predict that allegations of domestic violence in child custody will dwarf those in other states.

Richard noted that the big winners will be the divorce lawyers.

An email to State Representative Froelich asking for an interview was left unreturned.

I’ve known Kevin Tower nearly a decade, and I documented how he was wrongfully convicted of murdering his two uncles in 1995.

After he was convicted, he developed an airtight alibi, and a key witness against him recanted her story. That evidence was not enough to overturn his conviction, so he has been imprisoned for thirty years for a crime he did not commit.

Over the last couple months, he’s been sending me through JPay numerous emails with cryptic statements. In one, he suggested he was on the verge of being released.

I am currently working on twelve things, starting from the least significant to the greatest. If someone could get out of prison that was serving natural life, you would think it would be me after you learn what the twelve things are. I would hope I would not run into any problems along the way. There has been some staff corruption involved along the way. I would rather not go into that, as I would assume they would prefer I not get into that. It involves felonies. Several people would loose (sic) their jobs if I reported it. It does not involve the facility that I am currently at. I am expecting them to cooperate wholeheartedly and help push for my expedient release. My release does not depend on that information, nor does it require it. I would rather not report it, as the public would be shocked by the behavior and corruption. There is a paper trail and third-party witnesses. I want to keep this positive and not get into the mud when it is not necessary.

Prisoners always believe they are on the verge of being released so this wasn’t that unusual for communications with a prisoner.

Yesterday, I received a startling email.

The Director of the MDOC is retaliating against me for reporting her. She told them to pack me up tonight and send me to level four and expose me and spread false rumors about me that I am gay (which is a lie) so I am attack or killed because of my history with the FBI and MSP. Please keep an eye on me. I need all of your help. Call the Governor’s office and internal affairs.

Kevin’s life was in danger.

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Lang called his fellow rioters, “patriots” and said the police “brutalized them.”

“Everything I did on January 6, I did because I love my country,” he said.

When we interviewed fellow J6er turned journalist, Steve Baker, Baker blamed the mysterious Ray Epps for starting the riot on January 6, 2021.

Epps, according to Baker, was some sort of a government agent, though he didn’t disclose which branch. Epps has denied this, while launching defamation suits against those who claim it.

When J6ers explain why thousands of people stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, they have many explanations, and none of them involve any personal responsibility.

For five plus years, conservatives led by President Trump have engaged in revisionist history about what happened that day.

There’s even a hashtag- #fedsurrection

The revisionist history purports that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump Conservatives say this despite an electoral college loss of 303-232.

Donald Trump would have needed to win an additional five states; he lost some of those states by a few thousand votes and others by ten thousand and more.

Next, they claim that J6 happened because law enforcement egged on the rioters.

They have made a great deal over the revelation that 274 undercover/informants were in the crowd that day.

It’s this mythology which I believe drove Baker to accuse former Capital police officer Shauni Kerkhoff of being the J6 pipe bomber. If that was an inside job, the whole thing was, that history ideology surmises.

They’ve done this despite hundreds of hours of video and photo footage showing rioters forcing their way into the Capitol, looting, trespassing, and more.

Even Lang, who claimed innocence to us, was photographed assaulting cops.

This revisionist history is reminiscent, in my opinion, to another revisionist historical ideology: The Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

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Approximately three years ago, a child custody case from Utah gained international exposure.

Ty and Brynn Larson barricaded themselves in their home and refused to come out.

The two children were going to be forced into a reunification camp and then to live with their father- who both accused of sexual abuse- for at least ninety days while cutting off all contact with their mother, Jessica.

Their father- funded by his parents- had accused their mother of brainwashing the children and alienating them.

They documented their plight on social media, soon gaining tens of thousands of followers over the world. It also caught the eye of Hannah Dreyfus, who worked for Pro Publica. Hannah now works for the Arizona Republic.

Two siblings in Utah have barricaded themselves in a bedroom at their mother’s home in defiance of a judge’s order to return to the custody of their father, despite state child welfare investigators determining that he had sexually abused the children.

The judge has authorized police to use “reasonable force” — including entry into locked rooms — against Brynlee Larson, 12, and Ty Larson, 15. Ty has spent the last month livestreaming on TikTok to call attention to their case.

The showdown is the fallout from the latest family court battle over parental alienation — a disputed psychological theory in which one parent is accused of brainwashing a child to turn them against the other parent.

The headlines lasted for months, but the custody case continued.

What happened to Ty and Brynn? A new documentary from Hulu answered that question. Hannah was a consulting producer and one of a handful of people interviewed.

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Larry Forman, the DUI Guy on YouTube, has built his online brand by making provocative videos, while giving off an air of legal authority.

Over the last couple years, he’s forgotten that he’s a lawyer first and bound by legal ethics when going on tirades against judges and contributing to dubious and frivolous lawsuits.

Forman became an ally of Jeremy Hales approximately two years ago. In so doing, he did a lot of videos on Levy County Judge Craig DeThomasis. Judge DeThomasis was referred to as Judge Grudge for his purported bias against Hales in his disputes with Hales’ neighbor, Michelle Preston.

Judge DeThomasis denied several motions to recuse himself, but in one, Judge DeThomasis gave reasons defending himself.

That violated rules and he had to recuse himself. Since then, Hales and his sycophants have claimed Judge DeThomasis was biased, even though the bias was a legal technicality.

Forman referred to Judge DeThomasis as Judge Grudge and worse.

In one video, he called Judge DeThomasis the “worst judge in Florida.”

Another one entitled Rogue Judge goes after whatthehales had Judge DeThomasis in a clown nose.

He also referred to DeThomasis as “unhinged” and that he “defended perverts.”

This is par for the course for YouTubers looking to get noticed, except Forman is not just a YouTuber. He may have forgotten that he is an attorney first, and attorneys have rules, even on YouTube.

One rule is that attorneys cannot impugn the integrity of a judge.

I previously covered Minnesota attorney, Michelle MacDonald, whose law license is indefinitely suspended after she referred to a hearing where she was handcuffed to a wheelchair as having “no (due) process.”

Even though she didn’t mention the judge- Dakota County Judge David Knutson- this was enough for that bar to deem her as impugning his integrity.

Forman, who did not respond to an email for comment, went way beyond anything Michelle said.

While Forman played shock jock on his YouTube channel, he forgot that it’s called “Attorney Larry Forman” and as an attorney, even things said on YouTube are still subject to bar discipline.

Michelle made her statement in a radio interview when running for judge.

Forman may also have trouble with his local bar- he practices in Kentucky- regarding another ethical transgression.

In April 2024, he appeared with Hales for a fundraiser.

Hales did the fundraiser for Olga Nelson, the biological aunt of the child Michelle Preston adopted.

Nelson then filed a frivolous lawsuit challenging Preston’s adoption.

It was part of a campaign by Hales to torture Preston.

The lawsuit was quickly dismissed, but Forman either knew or should have known that he was contributing to a farce.

Forman is no stranger to ethical lapses.

He previously sued his former employees- Tyler and Samina Hitch.

It came out during the lawsuit that Forman may have forged the Hitch’s signature on a court document.

Another former employee, Ben Potash, is representing attorney Bruce Matzkin, in a defamation lawsuit Matzkin filed.

Matzkin previously represented Michelle Preston in a separate federal lawsuit against Hales.

In that case, Forman falsely claimed that Matzkin would be disbarred, would flee to Armenia, and that he routinely scams people.

Remarkably, Forman made these scurrilous accusations while also acknowledging he had no facts to back them up.

“Then he tried to scam a bunch of people there, probably.” Forman said in a video “I don’t know. I have no evidence of that.”

A judge has ruled the lawsuit has merit and will continue, however, Forman has appealed that order. That appeal is pending.

In my dealings with Forman, he previously made a video sympathetic to Derrick Lee Cardillo Smith.

Smith falsely claimed that Sean Combs raped him in 1997, and he then falsely claimed that he was set up for two rapes to cover up Combs rape.

After Jack Laurence- who was working on a podcast on Smith and Combs- reached out to Forman asking to present evidence counter to his narrative, Forman quietly removed the video without telling his audience.

Jack later created the podcast Suing Diddy.

Post-script

Check out the fundraiser to help me create more articles on the Hales case. Find articles one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, and twenty-seven.

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TUG stepped outside the Halesverse and into family court to smear me, when he appeared with YouTuber Mr. Coop last week.

TUG discussed my recent set of articles about the Suarez case from central Illinois, where a suspected child molester got sole custody of his children. My interview with David Suarez, the suspected molester is below.

TUG was unconcerned with a suspected pedophile- who admitted to watching porn while caring for his kids- getting sole custody. Instead, he used his appearance to smear me.

He fixated on Bridget Suarez, the child’s mother, spending three days in jail after I released one paragraph from a guardian ad litem report, which is supposed to be confidential.

He falsely claimed that Bridget gave me the report; he didn’t explain what was in the paragraph which was released, nor did he explain the evidence that I presented that David Suarez is a pedophile.

That evidence includes testimony from a pediatrician, disclosures to multiple mandated reporters, and physical evidence.

In his presentation, he exhibited patterns I’ve seen before from him.

TUG selectively releases

During his appearance, TUG only flashed on the screen part of the fundraiser, along with a snippet of one of the three articles I wrote about the case.

TUG did this previously when he only showed half of an article of mine, he attacked.

He then spun a narrative which would have been debunked by showing the rest of the article.

For instance, he claimed that I was creating a sensational headline for clicks by claiming that I might be indicted. He said he didn’t see any evidence anyone was investigating me.

The evidence was further down in the article, when I explained that an Officer Joseph Pienta of the Peru, Illinois, Police Department, called me four times, and I later received a Freedom of Information Act request showing that Officer Pienta had filed a report for eavesdropping.

That document also showed that the case had been handed to the State’s Attorney’s Office, “referred to SAO,” it stated.

TUG claimed I was a liar and downplayed any suggestion that David Suarez was molesting his kids.

“I won’t take his word on anything, but he’s accusing someone of being a pedophile,” TUG said. He mispronounced pedophile, probably because the YouTube algorithm doesn’t like the word.

He could say that because he conveniently didn’t show the portion of my article where I gave the evidence. In another article, I interviewed, Tim Burgess, the child’s grandfather who described a disclosure.

Ignorance is bliss

If TUG did any research on this case, he retained none of the information.

He claimed to Mr. Coop that I cost Bridget, “her case.”

Not true. There was a custody trial in January 2026, and she was put on supervised visits.

I wrote my first article on May 1, 2026.

In fact, her case is currently being appealed, according to the docket.

An appeal’s court detached from this case may see how wrong the trial judge, Carla Wheeler, acted.

At one point, TUG even proclaimed that he hadn’t looked at the docket or court files. This was a stunning revelation because his broadcast partner, Megan Fox, claimed in 2025 that a good journalist would not comment on a case before reading every document.

“An investigative journalist should familiarize themselves with every motion on the public record before commenting on a case, especially one this complex. It's clear you haven't done that. One reporter contacting another reporter to do his work for him is bizarre,” Megan wrote to Richard Luthmann in an email on January 24, 2025.

Those rules don’t apply to TUG.

TUG doesn’t give the other side a chance to speak

TUG didn’t reach out to me before smearing me on Mr. Coop, and that’s another pattern.

He smears people he doesn’t like without asking them any questions beforehand.

I don’t do that. After TUG’s smear broadcast, I reached out to him. Here are some of his responses.

Ooo but did YOU get her arrested, RIGHT Michael?

3 DAYS in fucking JAIL, including MOTHER’S DAY, screwing up YET ANOTHER case?

Did you tell her how this isnt your first rodeo getting others in trouble, either, or did you just omit that in your promises for 400 an article?

I hope to GOD this isnt the case of ANOTHER vulnerable woman trusting you while you ruined her life.

…

Bwahahaha!

You ran to Paint Chips as quick as you could, didnt ya bud?

SOOO predictable.

Its funny because thats your MO.

You ruin shit and when you get blasted, its back to trying to harass a mofo into silence.

Im not a vulnerable woman, though, and don’t give a fuck what you try.

Whats even funnier, Michael, is if this were my fuck up, what would be your process be?

Calling the woman to try and get the goods? Or the guy you wrote about? Or the court? Or law enforcement that wants you jail?

Thats the problem with you idiots. You arent just gross and incompetent, to the point you dont get protective orders and how VAWA works.

You sometimes DESTROY people’s cases and get them jailed.

You dont seem to care about the wreckage either - hell, vulnerable women seem to be your all-you-can-eat buffet.

Just latch on and suckle on the bank account.

Right, Michael?

I asked TUG about his smears, and his defense was to attack me. Megan Fox also got into the act. Based on her input, she knew nothing about the case before chiming in.

Michale (sic) Volpe couldn’t investigate his way out of a paper bag. Clearly, the court didn’t think the man was credibly accused. Knowing Volmit’s taste in women, he probably scammed another mentally ill person who has delusions. That’s his type, right?

And we all know yours, Paint Chips. Large, tattooed, and in for life?

READ MY SUBSTACK! 6 readers not including my mom (but also 5 of Dick’s sock accounts!) Don’t forget to donate to my unethical fund for writing articles that get women jailed!

Great job, Volpe! You’re becoming a legend! You’re the only “journalist” I know who regularly gets his subjects thrown in jail! What a talent!

Don’t forget your helmets when you go out, boys. I worry for your safety.

Megan covered family court with me for a year, arguing that abuse is covered up.

During that period, she covered the Van Den Bergh case, where the court also didn’t believe that a child was being molested. She criticized the court’s decisions, in light of the evidence.

Now, she defends child molesters.

I reached out to Mr. Coop, but he didn’t respond.

Conclusion

TUG attacked me because Bridget Suarez went to jail for three day, including Mother’s Day, after I released a paragraph from the guardian ad litem (GAL) report.

TUG never reported what was in the portion I released- it was the part when David Suarez admitted to watching porn with the kids in the house.

TUG framed the issue as me releasing confidential information, rather than the court hiding key evidence.

He also didn’t have a problem with a judge sending a woman to jail for three days because a paragraph of a confidential report was released.

Post-script

Check out the fundraiser to help me create more articles on the Hales case. Find articles one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five and twenty-six.

Earlier this week, I appeared on Are You a CPS Victim? and part of the discussion involved the differences between law enforcement and child protective services (CPS.

Read more

A dastardly scheme has put more kids in danger in St. Louis County, Missouri.

Lakesha Carter joined me on the podcast to discuss how the St. Louis County family court mafia has ignored abuse in her case.

Her custody case started in 2021 in Illinois before both parties moved to St. Louis County.

In 2022, she told me, her children came home from the other parent’s, Jeannette Duncan, home with bruises, and her oldest son described abuse.

She said her youngest son is autistic and non-verbal.

“I advocated in every way I could,” she told me.

She called police, went to social services, and filed for a temporary restraining order (TRO).

That’s when Duncan flipped the script on the silver bullet technique.

Duncan filed a TRO in response, arguing that the allegations were concocted. Below is Lakesha describing the chain of events in detail.

The judge at the time was Judge Virginia Lay.

In 2021, I covered the Hagemeier case, where the court covered up for child molestation. Judge Virginia Lay presided over that case.

Judge Lay was at it again in this case. Lakesha’s TRO was denied while Duncan’s was granted.

Lakesha said one reason cited was that her older son had great grades and was well adjusted- which the court thought was impossible if he was being abused.

As a result of the TRO, she was reduced to supervised visits.

In September 2025, her son reported abuse again.

This time, Lakesha told me, she developed a lot of evidence, including the positive involvement of social services. She described that below.

Lakesha told me that her son’s molar tooth came out, and he told her that it was loosened after Jeannette hit him.

She went to the hospital and called social services; she told me.

Referring to the social services caseworker, Lakesha told me, “Talked to my son alone. She saw there was a mark also on his head…After she talked to my son separately, she determined that children’s division were going to determine that she needed to put a safety plan in place- that she needed to keep the kids with me until a forensic interview was done.”

By the following Monday, Duncan repeated the same pattern. She filed a TRO, arguing that Lakesha was making up stories again.

Duncan also accused Lakesha of harassing the parenting coordinator, Hank Miller, in the TRO.

Miller was one of the participants in the notorious 2021 zoom conference; another participant was Cynthia Albin, who was appointed as the guardian ad litem (GAL) on October 9, 2025.

Albin and Miller did not respond to emails for comment.

Lakesha told me that she was not harassing Miller, but rather she wanted him off the case because he was exceeding the authority she thought he had when she agreed to have him join. That part of the interview is below.

The judge by this point had switched to Judge Jeff Medler, formerly a notorious GAL in the area.

Judge Medler initially scheduled a hearing for December 2025, where Lakesha could have presented evidence.

That hearing was postponed, along with subsequent hearings, until the TRO hearing was turned into a custody hearing.

That custody hearing was initially scheduled for April but has since been pushed back to late July and early August 2026.

That means the evidence- teeth falling out, son’s testimony, and social services conclusions- still hasn’t reached court.

Meanwhile, the TRO Duncan got remains in place.

The court docket makes Lakesha look difficult. That’s because since September she’s had five lawyers.

Rather than being difficult, Lakesha told me her lawyers each exhibit the same pattern- promising aggressive action before entering the case while wanting to get out of the case after getting their money.

I reached out to the lawyers she has had. Adriana Cross was her first attorney and issued this statement, “I am licensed to practice law in both Missouri and Illinois. Although I previously lived in Chicago, I currently live and practice in Missouri and regularly represent clients in jurisdictions within reasonable driving distance, including the St. Louis metropolitan area and surrounding Illinois counties.

“I do not comment on current or former client matters, litigation strategy, attorney withdrawal decisions, or pending proceedings.”

Another attorney, Tarihya McClain, told me to “really listen” to what Lakesha was saying- all the more reason to check out the interview.

An email to Ms. Duncan’s attorney, Jill Puertes, was left unreturned.

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My morning freed up yesterday after I was kicked out of a child custody hearing.

Here are some photos I took.

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While intending to witness the latest stop in a thirteen-year child custody odyssey, I was instead treated to a star chamber in Chicago.

Eddie Engels was facing more legal abuse from his ex-girlfriend, Feliza Castro, and her latest overpriced custody attorney, Brendan Hammer.

I’m sure the hearing was scintillating however; I don’t know what happened because I was kicked out before it began.

The fireworks started in the hallway prior to the hearing when Feliza started screaming about me being a “fake journalist” and “harassing” her with articles.

She and Eddie have been embroiled in a child custody case which is in its thirteenth year. She has physical custody despite testing positive for drugs several times and having a history of violence.

Her overpriced defamation attorney, Max Goodman, threatened to sue me in November of last year.

That went nowhere, and she took her frustrations out in the hallway.

She got her overpriced custody attorney’s attention because before the parties could argue the merits of the hearing, Hammer put an oral motion on the record.

He asked the courtroom to be closed due to the “sensitivity” of the matter.

Hammer violated Eddie’s due process rights, because a key plank of due process is notice.

Instead of sandbagging Eddie, Hammer should have filed a motion well in advance of court so that Eddie could have time to respond.

Illinois law allows Judge Regina Scannicchio, who presided, the close the courtroom if that’s “in the best interest of the child.”

Hammer cited the law, leaving Eddie stunned.

Judge Scannicchio had to print out the portion of the law Hammer cited for Eddie.

Dumbfounded, Eddie said there was nothing sensitive to be discussed today.

After hearing arguments, Judge Scannicchio rambled for a couple minutes repeating “in the best interest of the child” five or six times before deciding that keeping the courtroom closed was “in the child’s best interest.”

The oral motion and Judge Scannicchio’s order were both a farce. If there was anything sensitive in the hearing, Hammer should have filed a timely motion and given Eddie a chance to respond properly.

If Judge Scannicchio thought anything in the hearing was too sensitive for the general public to hear, she would have closed it before the hearing, not after allowing an ambush oral motion.

Furthermore, Engels Vs Castro was not the only hearing during her 9AM calendar.

Another custody case was heard prior. No one from that case asked to close the courtroom due to the sensitivity of the proceedings.

Approximately two years ago, I was in the same courtroom for another hearing in this custody case also in front of Judge Scannicchio; no one asked to close the courtroom that day.

Lack of transparency is a huge problem in family court, and the Illinois legislature must pass legislation which limits judge’s ability to close courtrooms.

Brendan Hammer did not reply to an email for comment.

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On November 8, 2025, Steve Baker was on top of the media world after he published an article in The Blaze entitled Capitol Police officer a forensic match for Jan. 6 pipe bomber, sources say,

The article claimed that GAIT analysis identified Shauni Kerkhoff, a former Capitol Police Officer, as a 94-98% match to the J6 pipe bomber.

This GAIT analysis looked at Shauni’s walk patterns from film he found, Steve told us, and compared it to walk patterns of video of the J6 pipe bomber.

As Steve explained the pipe bombs were placed in locations around DC on January 5, 2021, but they weren’t found until approximately 1PM the next day.

The identity of the pipe bomber remained a mystery until 2025.

Shortly after Baker’s story was released, it fell apart.

Another suspect, Brian Cole Jr., was arrested on December 5, 2025. The Blaze quickly retracted their story- The Blaze did not respond to an email for comment.

Steve told us that on April 1, 2026, he was terminated from The Blaze.

He remains convinced that his story was solid.

His story falls apart upon examination, in my opinion. First, besides this GAIT analysis, he had little evidence. Below he provided some of the circumstantial evidence, and all he had was that Shauni was about the same height as the pipe bomber.

The GAIT analysis has numerous problems. First, while GAIT analysis has its place, it’s dubious to be used for this purpose.

Furthermore, Steve has not shared the details of the GAIT analysis with anyone publicly. He told us that several places denied his request, and the entity which did it would face the full wrath of the federal government if they were revealed.

This seems dubious since everyone from Foot Locker to specialized labs do GAIT analysis, but Steve insisted that he needed to protect his sources. That exchange is below.

“It’s not known to you, but it is to me,” Steve told us.

It’s a nice line, but his analysis remains non-transparent. No one can peer review it or scrutinize it.

When it’s the single piece of evidence implicating someone in a serious crime, that raises serious ethical questions.

Cole Jr. has a lot of evidence against him. According to an affidavit submitted by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, Cole Jr’s phone was pinged in the area; he had receipts for bomb making equipment consistent with that found in the bombs, and he confessed.

Steve dismissed all of it. He said that Cole Jr. is autistic and he was interrogated for hours before this confession.

He said that while he was in the area, he could prove it was not where the pipe bomber was.

The problem is that none of this evidence of Cole’s innocence has made it into court.

Steve even suggested that he may have been doing Door Dash deliveries on January 5, 2021, but that would have left an electronic footprint which has not been released.

As with most of the evidence he presented, none of it is documented. Below is part of that exchange.

In April, Shauni sued Steve, The Blaze, and others. She hired the law firm, Clare Locke LLP, which extracted a $787 million settlement for their client Dominion in its lawsuit against Fox News Channel, after that cable news network spread false stories that Donald Trump had his election stolen.

Her attorneys did not respond to emails for comment.

Steve is currently in default after failing to respond. He said he was never served and will respond soon.

The default should be overturned if he follows through, but he faces serious legal consequences, in my opinion, given the evidence he presented on The Unknown.

After being let go from The Blaze, he started his own site, Veritas Regnat.

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The lawsuit alleged that his divorce attorney, Erin Zielinski, advised him to look into his ex-wife’s email.

Instead of helping him, this was discovered and used to keep him away from his kids for about a year.

Joel, in the lawsuit, also alleged that Zielinski conspired with the opposing attorney (Maia Brodie) and the guardian ad litem, Elaine Pudlowski, to prolong the case.

Zielinski, Brodie, and Pudlowski did not respond to emails for comment.

Pudlowski was the star of the infamous Zoom conference, while Brodie participated.

Elaine was asked about the video in the trial; she claimed she never watched it.

Larry Mass, Joel Fritts attorney who was cross-examining Pudlowski, represented Evita Tolu when she sued Pudlowski. That lawsuit partially triggered the 2021 Zoom conference.

As the lawsuit unfolded, tragedy struck- Joel died- with the cause of death listed as suicide.

The lawsuit kept going, with his mom taking over.

A verdict was reached earlier this year, but details have been hard to find until now.

I received the transcripts from the trial- almost two thousand pages- and this is the first in a series of stories on the case.

Read more

Having already jailed one person, the central Illinois Pedophile Protection Program (PPP) has set its sights on me, ready to trump up new charges to protect a suspected child molester.

On May 1, 2026, I published an article entitled Another suspected child molester gets custody in Illinois.

After that publication, the court has sealed most of the records. A protective mother has gone to jail, and I may soon be indicted.

In that article, I presented evidence that David Suarez admitted to watching porn. The child disclosed sexual abuse to multiple mandated reporters, and a pediatrician testified about redness in the private parts consistent with forced penetration.

Despite that evidence, David was granted sole custody, while his ex-wife, Bridget Suarez, got a few hours of supervised visits weekly.

Days after the article’s publication, David Suarez filed a motion, arguing that I released sensitive information from the guardian ad litem (GAL) report, blaming it on Bridget.

The judge, Carla Wheeler, then held an emergency hearing and sentenced Bridget to three days in jail, including part of Mother’s Day.

On May 8, 2026, I received four calls from Officer Joseph Pienta of the Peru Police Department (PPD). I didn’t return the calls.

Officer Pienta didn’t state the reason for his call in his voicemails; however, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request shed more light.

I received information about every police report Officer Pienta filed from April 27, 2026, through May 12, 2026.

None of the reports were released however, the records listed two reports for battery and one for eavesdropping.

Illinois is a two-party consent state, and Officer Pienta referred my case to the local State’s Attorney’s Office, the equivalent of a District Attorney, for eavesdropping charges.

While the custody case is in McLean County, Peru, Illinois- a town of approximately ten thousand people- is primarily in LaSalle County with a small part in Bureau County.

The current LaSalle County State’s Attorney, the elected official, is Joseph Navarro.

Pienta is wrong on the law, and more importantly, this investigation is part of the cover-up.

The current Illinois statute states that a person commits eavesdropping when they, “knowingly and intentionally uses an eavesdropping device ‘in a surreptitious manner’ to record a ‘private conversation’”

A private conversation is, “an oral communication where one or more parties intended the communication to be private under circumstances reasonably justifying that expectation (emphasis mine).”

In this case, I identified myself as a journalist working on a story about his child custody case. I then asked questions which he dodged.

A conversation with a journalist is presumed on the record unless agreed otherwise.

A recording is the best way to capture an on the record conversation. No reasonable person could think this was private.

Pienta is trying to criminalize the act of journalism, which includes news gathering.

Had the conversation not been recorded, Suarez could have claimed he was being misquoted or taken out of context.

Except in context, he sounds guilty, which is why he’s trying to criminalize the conversation.

Call to Action

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Misspelled names, changing dates, and unexplained court appearances make up some of the peculiar and evolving docket in Dave Weigel’s Connecticut criminal case.

The case stems from an incident on January 15, 2026, when Zoali Alvarez showed up uninvited to Weigel’s New Canaan, Connecticut, home after finding out both their kids may have been involved in purchasing alcohol while underage.

The two sides gave differing accounts of what happened, each accusing the other of being the aggressor in an assault.

According to the police report, Weigel was issued a summons on the spot; he disputes that, saying there was no arrest on January 15.

The New Canaan Police Department (NCPD), which released the police report, declined to release the summons or bodycam.

The current court docket shows January 15, 2026, as the arrest date.

That wasn’t always the case. Previously, it had Weigel arrested on January 20, 2026.

An arrest on January 20, 2026, was impossible because Weigel was out of state and has the plane tickets to prove it.

Currently, there is no attorney listed as representing Weigel, but this has also been stealth edited. Back in March, I wrote about how a law firm with a “glaring conflict” was listed as representing Weigel.

The law firm- Goldman, Gruder, and Woods- includes attorney, Frank Lieto. Lieto represents Mrs. Alvarez in her protective order against Weigel.

Lieto did not respond to an email for comment or to clarify if he’d reached out to have his firm’s name removed.

Currently, the next court date is May 20, 2026, with the arraignment listed as the purpose.

According to the January 15, 2026, police report, there was an initial hearing scheduled for January 29, 2026.

Weigel did not attend the hearing, as he said no one provided him a summons.

On February 2, 2026, Weigel was in a Connecticut courtroom for another hearing related to this incident. This was for the protective order filed by Alvarez.

If Weigel missed the January 29, 2026, the court didn’t notice as he was not taken into custody for failure to appear.

Currently, Weigel’s name is spelled correctly, but even that was not always so. For a while, Weigel’s name was misspelled as Weigal.

Weigel insists these charges are concocted to benefit a politically connected family.

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Megan Fox and That Umbrella Guy (TUG) did a dishonest assessment of my recent article on the Hales case.

This post will set the record straight. Below is the segment of their show I focus on, along with the whole episode below that.

On May 6, 2026, I wrote an article entitled Shochet, Thomas, and Groeb team up to attack Bruce Matzkin’s career.

In September 2025, Bruce Matzkin sent four emails to the clerk for Levy County, Florida Judge Robert Groeb for a case between Michelle Preston and YouTuber Jeremy Hales.

While Michelle had been his client, she was not on this case. Once the clerk put the emails on the docket, Hales’ attorney, Randall Shochet, filed a motion to deem Matzkin to unlawfully practice law.

This was dubious because sending four emails does not mean you are representing anyone, and only the Florida Supreme Court, per statute, can make an unlawful practice of law determination.

Megan and TUG only analyzed half my article, so their audience didn’t see much of the evidence of malfeasance. Ironically, they still claimed I was misleading.

Their criticism boiled down to the three things.

1. 1) I misspelled a word

2. 2) I wrote, “Hales decided that Preston, along with her daughter, could be pawns for a protracted storyline in which he turned their lives upside down for YouTube content.

3. “At the center of this scheme were several frivolous lawsuits at the state and federal level.”

4. I didn’t point out that the lawsuit Matzkin was responding to was initiated by Michelle.

5. 3) I should have released all four emails, and I was hiding something by not releasing them.

6. 

While both insisted that I violated an unnamed journalistic ethic by not including all four emails, TUG struggled to explain why releasing all four was important.

“Cause it’s not, this clip here was not indicative of what he was doing. What was indicative of what he was doing was he was going after the people involved in the lawsuit. He wasn’t just talking about this or that. He was 100% talking about how Brucey Bruce. He was again practicing law without a license.” TUG said.

That statement earned him the Billy Madison reference.

TUG could have released the other emails on the broadcast, as they are available online, but chose not to while criticizing me for not releasing all of them.

Megan zeroed in on the substance of the email I released in which Bruce argued that a default was entered improperly.

I took no position in the article on the legal analysis because one doesn’t need to practice law well to practice it unlawfully, however, Megan was certain that Bruce was wrong.

Megan spent over four minutes insulting Bruce, insisting he was wrong, however, in the end, she acknowledged that she wasn’t sure which case he was citing and needed to look things up after the broadcast to prove her theory.

At another point, they criticized me referencing that Shochet had previously committed fraud. TUG struggled with coherence again.

“Remember, the whole thing wasn’t supposed to be about a dental license. The whole bringing up the dental license thing was for them to say, ‘he’s committed fraud on the court…by itself it means nothing (emphasis mine).”

The same people who cheer on frivolous lawsuits think that fraud “by itself it means nothing.”

Randall Shochet committed Medicare fraud; he lost his dental license. He then tried to become an attorney in Arkansas but was rejected due to the fraud and not being forthcoming about the fraud.

Shochet then was approved for a law license in Florida, raising eyebrows given his history, however, despite TUG’s assertion, fraud matters and shows a pattern of deceit which he also showed in the motions he filed in this case.

Shochet falsely claimed to have served Bruce; he falsely cited the law, and he falsely suggested that Bruce wrote some of the motions even though Shochet deposed the lawyer of record, Scott Stark, who said he, Stark, wrote the motions.

Megan and TUG’s audience would have known all this if the two had covered more of my article.

Instead, Megan spent ten minutes rewriting history of our friendship, falsely claiming that I betrayed her. In fact, she stopped being friends with me because I went onto Miltown’s Best to talk about a story she wasn’t covering.

That text message was sent on December 1, 2024. After that, she removed most of the YouTube videos we did together.

In January 2025, after all this happened, I started covering the Hales case.

Post-script

Check out the fundraiser to help me create more articles on the Hales case. Find articles one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five.

Despite setbacks, Idaho Republican State Senator Tammy Nichols said she would continue to press family court reforms in the next session in 2027.

State Senator Nichols headed the Idaho Child Custody and Domestic Relations Task Force, which held hearings and produced a white paper.

From those hearings, she and other members then put forward legislation.

“It’s been a long time since our child custody laws have been updated,” she told us.

That’s where the process got frustrating.

Most hopeful was HB 668, which would have transformed the way that police dealt with custodial interference complaints.

Repeatedly, the committee heard from police, citizens, and others that custodial interference was not being enforced because the current law provided no guidance.

HB 668 provided that guidance, requiring police to do a welfare check, write a report, and more.

The bill sailed through the Idaho House passing 68-1, before running into a buzzsaw in the Senate Judiciary Committee headed by Republican Todd Lakey.

It lost in committee 5-3, meaning it never reached the floor.

State Senator Nichols told us the hearing and subsequent vote blindsided her.

She said that none of her colleagues expressed any reservations about the bill prior to the hearing.

At the hearing, the complaint was that police were not equipped to investigate custodial interference, despite it being a crime. Below is part of our interview.

State Senator Nichols told us that parents stated that when they called the police they were instructed to go back to court. When they went back to court, judges said they had no evidence. That’s what the police report, required by HB 668, would provide, the necessary evidence of custodial interference.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee argued that police should stay out of the matter and let it be handled in court. The same broken system continues.

State Senator Nichols also dispelled a narrative provided by the Meridian Police Department; Meridian is a suburb of Boise.

Their Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea testified at a task force hearing and this State Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. His office provided a statement to me which stated in part.

Chief Basterrechea was testifying on behalf of the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association. Chief Basterrechea is firmly in support of enforcing child custody interference laws; however, the law presented was done without input from prosecutors and or law enforcement. (emphasis mine) When asked for help on the bill, so that it would be workable, law enforcement organizations were ignored.

Passing bad or unusable laws just to make ourselves feel good is not good policy. If we are going to strengthen the Child Custody Interference laws, they need to be sound policy and enforceable. Not a law that is easily manipulated or skirted by either parent.

State Senator Nichols said that the Idaho Sheriff’s Association, and she said that three meetings were scheduled with Chief Basterrechea’s office. All three times they were cancelled, she told us.

We also talked about SB 1394, a bill which would have made Idaho a presumed 50/50 state.

That bill also died after nearly eighty lawyers signed onto a letter opposing it.

State Senator Nichols agreed that this letter had a lot to do with killing the bill, which she found peculiar because other lawyers wrote letters in support.

I interviewed Tyrie Strong, one of the lawyers who signed onto the letter, and her main problem was that the bill required clear and convincing evidence to overcome the assumption.

Clear and convincing is higher than the preponderance of the evidence, which is generally used in civil matters. The interview with Tyrie is below.

Here is how State Senator Nichols responded to that criticism.

State Senator Nichols also said another issue with family court is that approximately 50% of litigants are self-represented. I suggested civil Gideon, providing attorneys in civil matters for those who couldn’t afford them.

She said that despite the setbacks she will introduce a new slate of reform bills in January 2027.

“We’re going back to the drawing board,” she said.

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