Tenth Circuit reverses dismissals, exposing a brazen scheme to steal a rabbi’s children under the color of law.
By Richard Luthmann
Appeals Court Slams Family Court Corruption
A Colorado rabbi has scored a groundbreaking victory in federal court. Rabbi Jacob Bellinsky won a landmark ruling at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision breathes new life into his fight against family court corruption.
The appellate panel reversed two lower court dismissals of Bellinsky’s civil rights lawsuits, calling one dismissal “erroneous.” Judges had initially thrown out his cases by citing legal doctrines that usually shield state family court decisions. But in a rare move, the Tenth Circuit declared that Bellinsky’s claims must be heard.
“We reverse and remand for further proceedings,” the court announced, clearing the path for Bellinsky to pursue justice.
Bellinsky’s lawsuits accuse a wide-ranging conspiracy of officials who, he says, abused the law to tear apart his family.
He filed suits against his ex-wife, her fiancé, and her attorney. Bellinsky also named several judges as co-conspirators, including Colorado Supreme Court Justice Brian Boatright, as well as the State of Colorado. He alleges these players ran an “enormous ‘color of law’ crime spree.”
Their goal, he says, was to steal his children and “destroy [his] family for profit.”
For years, such allegations rarely got traction in federal courts. Bellinsky’s win is being hailed as a major step in exposing how bad actors hide behind family court immunity.
It signals that even family court conduct is not above the law. That message is sending shockwaves through Colorado’s judiciary.
Custody Fight Exposes Shocking Scheme
Bellinsky’s family life appeared stable after his 2015 divorce. He was the primary caregiver for his children, and for years they thrived under his care.
“We had an amicable agreement,” Bellinsky said of the custody arrangement.
But that peace was shattered in 2019 when his ex-wife, Rachel Zinna Galán, suddenly moved to modify custody. What began as a single motion exploded into a legal nightmare. Bellinsky calls it “abusive legal manipulation.”
At first, a judge rejected Galán’s bid to take the children, finding “no danger” to them.
“The first filing was denied,” Bellinsky recounted. “The court said there was no danger to my children.”
But weeks later, Galán returned with new claims.
“A new restriction was filed three weeks later, and the floodgates opened,” Bellinsky said. “False allegations, more restrictions—it just never stopped.”
Bellinsky alleges that his ex and her attorney, Andrew Hart, weaponized the courts to cut him out. According to his federal complaint, they “conspired to kidnap” his children under the guise of family law. He says a local judge and a clerk helped Hart, while other judges “did nothing to stop the scheme.”
Within months, Bellinsky was stripped of all contact with his kids. He has now been kept away from all eight of his children for four years. Bellinsky calls it a “state-sponsored destruction of family” – a nightmare he never imagined possible in America.
False Charges and Judicial Misconduct
The campaign against Bellinsky soon moved from the family court to the criminal court. In 2022, local prosecutors charged him in two cases for allegedly violating a restraining order. One case was dropped, but the other led to a conviction for violating a protection order.
The supposed crime? Sending a text message to his daughter during a Jewish holiday: “Have [daughter] call me.”
“They threw me in jail for reaching out to my child,” Bellinsky said, still in disbelief.
Bellinsky contends these charges were manufactured. His second federal lawsuit claims Hart “instructed [Galán] to fraudulently pursue and obtain a void protection order.”
Compliant judges then issued “fraudulent orders” to lend legitimacy to the setup. Galán, he says, was coached to lodge false reports that he violated those orders. Those reports “resulted in false charges against Rabbi Bellinsky and his imprisonment.”
Officials ultimately “weaponized” judges and prosecutors to press “known-false charges in known-void cases under ‘color’ of law.”
The fallout devastated Bellinsky’s life.
“They seized $60,000 in assets,” he said. “Then, they took money from my home sale, garnished my wages, and froze my bank accounts. They made me homeless.”
All this happened while Bellinsky insists he never harmed his children. It was Galán who “physically attacked me twice” and was arrested – but “those charges were swept under the rug.”
To Bellinsky, the message was clear: the system would punish him at any cost while protecting the wrongdoers.
Watershed Moment in Family Court Fight
Advocates are calling Bellinsky’s court victory a watershed moment in the battle against family court corruption. For the first time, a federal appellate court has intervened to let a parent’s claims of judicial abuse move forward – an outcome virtually unheard-of in custody disputes.
The Tenth Circuit’s decision underscored that Bellinsky had no final state judgment against him and wasn’t seeking to overturn any custody order – only to hold officials accountable. As a result, the panel held that “the Rooker-Feldman doctrine thus does not apply” to his case.
The judges also faulted the lower court for reflexively abstaining from the case. The appellate judges found the blanket abstention improper – the trial court “failed to consider” if Bellinsky’s case fit any Sprint-defined category for abstention.
Bellinsky believes this validation from a higher court exposes a much wider scandal. He has described Colorado’s family courts as a “shadow system” run by lawless insiders.
“This isn’t just administrative failure,” Bellinsky warned. “This is coordinated institutional criminality spanning all branches of Colorado government.”
“Every day this system runs, families are torn apart by unlawful judicial actions,” he said. “It’s government-sponsored abuse.”
Now, armed with an appellate green light, Bellinsky’s quest to expose these truths will proceed to discovery and trial. His fight, he says, is not just for his own children, but to set a precedent that could protect countless families.
I never would beleive what I saw my daughtr go through. It was evil.. total evil. total bias agaisnt her Dad.
She is in prison for life conveted of killing her mom and stepdad.