Finchem & Keshel Lead Charge as Horror Stories Rock Arizona Hearing

By Richard Luthmann

Murdered Children, Abusive Exes, and a Billion-Dollar Custody Cartel

Shocking, gut-wrenching testimony rattled the Arizona Capitol this week. At a Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee hearing on August 27, 2025, state Senator Mark Finchem and Representative Rachel Keshel presided over an explosive inquiry into family court corruption.

The scene was part exposé, part rallying cry – a final public hearing where desperate parents and whistleblowers laid bare a system that they say routinely puts children in danger. The tone was urgent and unapologetic.

Finchem and Keshel, both blunt-talking reformers, made it clear they stand with the families.

One national advocate even applauded Arizona for “leading the way” on this issue – with 17 other states reportedly watching the proceedings closely. This hearing underscored why many now frame family court reform as the civil rights fight of our time.

Finchem gaveled in the session with a promise to uncover why courts charged with protecting kids have instead become “a toxic nightmare” for so many. For nearly three hours, witness after witness delivered harrowing accounts of institutional betrayal: judges ignoring evidence of abuse, child protective services (DCS) snatching kids from loving relatives, and court-appointed experts milking parents for cash.

Emotions ran high. Gasps and sobs came from the audience as each story unfolded. By the end, even battle-hardened lawmakers looked stunned.

“This should never happen. Not once, not ever,” testified one expert, emphasizing that hundreds of children nationwide have been murdered by abusive parents after courts dismissed safety concerns.

Finchem and Keshel vowed Arizona would spearhead a national crusade to end these horrors. Their message was clear: the days of “kids for cash” justice are numbered in Arizona.

A formal report with reform recommendations is due within weeks.

Killer Family Courts: Kathy Sherlock and Kayden’s Law

The hearing’s first witness set the tone with a story so tragic it silenced the room. Kathy Sherlock, a mother from Pennsylvania, recounted in gripping detail how her 7-year-old daughter Kayden was brutally murdered by her ex-husband after a family court denied her pleas for supervised visitation. Sherlock fought back tears as she described years of sounding the alarm about her ex’s instability – to no avail.

“No matter what I told them about how dangerous he was, the courts wouldn’t believe me,” she said. Instead, a judge insisted Kayden’s father be given unsupervised parenting time because “it was his parental right.”

Sherlock’s worst nightmare came true just months later: during one of those unsupervised visits, the father smashed Kayden’s skull with a 35-pound dumbbell and tied a plastic bag around her head, killing the little girl in cold blood. He then committed suicide. The courtroom decision that enabled this horror – effectively prioritizing a violent father’s “rights” over a child’s safety – left Sherlock outraged and devastated.

In halting but forceful words, Sherlock told lawmakers how the system failed her family at every turn. She spent 18 months and tens of thousands of dollars battling for her daughter’s protection, only to be accused of “parental alienation” by her ex’s attorney and ignored by the judge.

“I buried a beautiful 7-year-old after spending thousands of dollars in a system I had faith in. I thought it would protect her,” Sherlock testified, voice shaking. “No parent should have to bury their child – especially when it could have been so easily prevented,” she said.

In a blistering indictment of family court culture, Sherlock noted that even convicted abusers can have more rights than their victims in custody cases.

“Parental rights supersede children’s rights in our family courts,” she lamented. “Kayden’s father’s parental rights superseded her right to live.”

These words hung in the air as lawmakers absorbed the unimaginable cost of the court’s neglect.

But Sherlock refused to let her daughter’s death be in vain. She channeled her grief into activism, becoming the driving force behind Kayden’s Law—a package of reforms designed to prevent such tragedies.

“I honored my daughter by working tirelessly to campaign for family court reform,” she said, describing how she and fellow advocates pushed Kayden’s Law all the way to the White House.

In 2022, President Biden signed the reform into federal law as part of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Sherlock has since traveled state to state, urging local legislatures to adopt Kayden’s Law provisions. Arizona’s hearing was one more stop on that mission.

“We’re in 10 states so far,” she noted, stressing that every state needs to implement the law’s life-saving measures.

Finchem and Keshel thanked Sherlock for her courage. Her message was unambiguous: Kayden’s death was preventable, and the “backwards” family court practices that put a child with a known abuser must be overhauled – in Arizona and across the nation.

Killer Family Courts: National Movement and Pollock’s Call to Action

Next came Danielle Pollock, a leading voice in the national family court reform movement. Pollock, policy manager at the National Family Violence Law Center, helped originate Kayden’s Law at the federal level. She flew in from Washington, D.C. to put Arizona’s fight in a broader context – and to issue a rallying cry for America’s other 49 states.

Her testimony was both blistering and inspiring. Pollock applauded Senator Finchem and Rep. Keshel for “leading the way” by holding these public hearings.

“I’ve encouraged other states to follow suit,” she said, praising Arizona for exposing what has long been hidden in family courts.

Pollock framed the stakes in stark terms: “Kayden is one of many children – one of hundreds, if not thousands – who have been murdered by an abusive parent after a court was involved, and safety concerns were raised by the protective parent, but custody was nevertheless granted to the dangerous person,” she said. “This should never happen. Not once, not ever.”

With controlled fury, Pollock detailed case after case showing a pattern of courts dismissing abuse and deferring to abusers.

“When these mothers raised safety concerns, they were often accused of lying, exaggerating, alienating – being hysterical and vindictive – rather than seen as genuinely concerned about their children’s safety,” she explained.

The result, Pollock said, is a pervasive “pro-contact culture” in family courts that puts parental access above all else – “even when there are clear signs of risk” to the child.

She cited chilling examples: A Florida little boy named Grayson, a Utah child named Aum, a California girl named Piqui, a New York boy named Tommy – all killed by a parent after courts ignored warnings and forced unsafe visitation. In one case, a mother in a witness protection address program was still ordered to hand her kids to the abusive ex she was hiding from – with deadly results.

“Days later, she’s dead – stabbed and beaten in her home,” Pollock recounted, describing how the father then gained full custody of the children after the mother’s murder.

In another case, a Texas mother was murdered by her ex. Yet, a family court gave custody of their child to the killer’s father – allowing the imprisoned murderer ongoing access to the boy.

Pollock’s litany of horrors made it painfully clear: what happened to Kayden is happening nationwide, in case after case, due to a broken system.

Despite the grim content, Pollock struck a note of hope – outlining solutions already in motion. She noted that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women studied this crisis and “named Kayden’s Law as a best-practice model for nations to emulate” to stop the injustice against protective parents and children.

“Federal Kayden’s Law was developed relying on empirical research about abuse in families and how family courts are responding to it,” Pollock said, pushing back against junk science in the courtroom.

The law incentivizes states to adopt four key safeguards: specialized training for judges and court staff on domestic violence and child abuse; full consideration of past abuse evidence (so abusers can’t brush off old violence as irrelevant); stricter expert witness standards (so custody evaluators must have real domestic violence expertise, not phony credentials); and limits on controversial “reunification camps” that force children to recant abuse claims.

Kayden’s Law is not without its critics, who warn that rigid mandates could reduce judicial flexibility in complex, fact-specific custody cases. Others argue the safeguards may create new litigation costs and delays, straining already overburdened family courts.

Pollock counters that Kayden’s Law reforms are common-sense steps to stop courts from “getting it wrong” across the board.

“Congress recognized this as a very real concern across states,” she noted, urging Arizona to implement the changes without delay.

By the end of Pollock’s testimony, it was evident that a national movement is afoot – and Arizona finds itself at the forefront. Finchem thanked Pollock for her expertise and vowed the state would not let her down.

Killer Family Courts: Attorney Moore Exposes the Legal Cartel

If Kathy Sherlock and Danielle Pollock provided the heart and vision of the reform movement, Attorney Michael Moore brought the receipts. A veteran trial lawyer of 45 years, Moore has made a career out of suing Arizona’s child welfare agencies on behalf of wronged families.

He stepped up to the microphone with a wry challenge: “I appear here today to attempt to convince you all to put me out of work,” Moore declared.

In other words, he wants legislators to fix the system so that parents no longer need to hire lawyers like him to get justice. Senator Finchem quipped in response, “Gladly!”

What followed was a blistering whistleblower account of how the family court/DCS apparatus operates, essentially as a cash machine for professionals. Echoing earlier witnesses, Moore asserted that money is the root of the problem: by his estimate, “it’s a billion-dollar business in this country” – a “cottage industry” of judges, lawyers, custody evaluators, therapists, and others all profiting from high-conflict custody fights.

“People are making billions off of this industry,” he said bluntly, “and if they change it, it hits ’em in the pocket.”

Moore’s insider perspective painted a picture of systemic perverse incentives. He described how family courts frequently appoint so-called “forensic experts” – psychologists or social workers – who rake in fees performing custody evaluations and therapy, often with dubious results. In Moore’s experience, these court-linked experts are hardly neutral: many “get a substantial portion of their income” from court referrals and DCS contracts, creating a bias to keep the gravy train rolling.

“I’ve seen so many of their reports – inevitably, there is some finding, no matter what, that there’s a concern about the parent’s fitness,” Moore revealed.

In other words, they always find something to justify further intervention (and more billable hours), even if a parent is perfectly safe.

Representative Keshel later dubbed this insidious practice a “legal cartel” that preys on families’ desperation. Moore agreed, describing how even court-ordered “reunification therapy” programs can be a scam – expensive camps that “force children to bond with” an abuser under threat of punishment.

It’s all “psychobabble” and quackery, witnesses said, yet courts across the country funnel families into these programs at great cost. The result: families go bankrupt trying to protect their kids, while a network of attorneys and contractors laughs all the way to the bank.

Beyond the financial gouging, Moore exposed a stunning lack of accountability. He testified that Arizona’s DCS (Department of Child Safety) has an Ombudsman’s Office that receives “between 10,000 and 12,000 complaints” each year – and essentially none get remedied. According to sworn testimony Moore obtained in a lawsuit, the DCS ombudsman doesn’t truly advocate for parents at all: “Her advocacy essentially is to go ask the field staff what they did, get their explanation, pass it back to the parent… And that is a satisfactory resolution according to DCS,” Moore said with evident disgust.

In other words, the agency pats itself on the back and closes the case, no matter how valid the complaint. Meanwhile, when families sue DCS for violating their rights, taxpayers end up footing the bill.

Moore rattled off examples from his own caseload: in one recent case, the state had to pay $2.8 million after a wrongful removal of children, and that included $1.3 million paid to outside defense lawyers who charged a fortune only to lose the case.

Another family got a $900,000 settlement for a similar ordeal.

Yet another case settled for $400,000 after a DCS investigator was found to have acted unconstitutionally.

Moore’s point: this keeps happening, and nobody in the system is ever punished.

“DCS does not hold those people responsible who are found to have violated constitutional rights,” he emphasized.

In two of his victories, the caseworkers who traumatized families kept their jobs with zero consequences.

“They go on to violate others’ rights,” Moore warned, unless laws change to hold bad actors accountable. Finchem, a former police officer, was visibly irate at this, noting that even cops face Internal Affairs when they mess up – yet DCS has “no…internal affairs” and doesn’t want social workers treated as law enforcement (despite wielding similar power).

By the end of Moore’s testimony, the lawmakers were in full agreement with his stark assessment.

Representative Keshel turned to her colleagues and, referring to Moore, exclaimed, “I told you he was awesome.” She then drove home the bottom line: “The taxpayers are on the hook when there’s a lawsuit against DCS. What are we paying out of our pockets to defend this?”

The answer – millions upon millions – clearly landed with the committee. Moore had come armed with targeted legislative fixes to stop these abuses, and he offered to work closely with the lawmakers to implement them.

Finchem half-jokingly asked if Moore had considered running for office. The attorney demurred – but vowed to assist the cause in any way possible. The committee seemed eager to take him up on it.

The takeaway was unmistakable: Arizona’s family courts and child welfare system have been running as a “billion-dollar racket”, but the jig is up. With candor and concrete data, Moore helped pull back the curtain, giving reformers a roadmap to start cleaning house.

Killer Family Courts: Raw Testimonies

Perhaps the most searing moments came from Arizona parents and grandparents themselves – ordinary families who say they were crushed by the very system meant to protect them. One by one, they stepped forward to recount personal nightmares of abuse, retaliation, and official indifference.

Mary Betzel

Mary Betzel, a mother from Maricopa County, described losing her 10-year-old daughter to a vindictive custody battle that dragged on for eight years. Betzel told the committee she presented clear evidence of her ex-husband’s unfitness – including a video of him “snorting cocaine” – yet the family court refused to act. She filed emergency motions when the father failed a drug test for cocaine and benzodiazepines, but the judge denied every request.

Even Arizona DCS (CPS) was called – “they did not open a case,” Betzel said – leaving her child in harm’s way.

In the end, a biased custody evaluator (a court-appointed advisor) allegedly falsified a report to paint Betzel as unstable, and the court stripped Mary of time with her own daughter.

“I missed everything,” she said of the precious years lost. Worse, Betzel testified that the attorney she hired with her limited funds was “in cahoots with the other lawyer.”

She discovered – too late – that her lawyer had secretly collaborated with her ex’s attorney and then withdrew on the eve of trial, sabotaging her case. This bombshell drew audible gasps in the hearing room. Mary’s two younger children effectively lost their big sister due to these machinations.

Her voice cracking, Betzel said the experience taught her that family court is “not about truth or children’s best interests – it’s about power and money.” Lawmakers shook their heads in dismay at her account of systemic betrayal.

Dean Gensco

Another testimony came from Dean Gensco, an elderly grandfather who delivered a scathing condemnation of DCS.

“They took my 4-year-old grandson and annihilated me,” Gensco said, describing how Arizona’s child welfare bureaucracy tore his family apart. He was present the day DCS seized his infant grandson – “I rushed to the scene with his car seat… ready to take my grandson home,” Gensco recounted – but “DCS passed me over as if I didn’t even exist.”

Instead of placing the baby with his willing and able grandfather (per Arizona law’s kinship preference), the agency chose foster care. That was just the beginning. Gensco’s daughter, the baby’s mother, had suffered a severe reaction to a prescribed opioid after childbirth. Rather than recognizing it as a medical issue, authorities labeled her crazy.

“She was misdiagnosed with postpartum psychosis and drugged with heavy antipsychotics against her will,” Gensco said, detailing how hospital staff tied his daughter down, shoved pills down her throat, and injected her with a cocktail so strong it knocked her out for three days.

When the young mother prayed aloud for help, clinicians cynically tagged her with “hyper-religiosity… with demonic features,” then used these wild claims to justify court-ordered treatment and separation from her baby.

Gensco’s testimony revealed a jaw-dropping cover-up: he alleged that hospital and DCS officials conspired to fabricate lies about his daughter to remove her child permanently. Over the course of 16 months, Gensco fought desperately to reunite his family, but he encountered stone walls at every turn. DCS failed to inform him of key meetings, even barring him from a Foster Care Review Board hearing by simply not telling him when it was.

“They said I couldn’t appeal my case,” he testified – amazingly, the agency told him the matter was already in the appeals court before he even got a day in court himself. When he asked for case records, “We can’t tell you,” was the reply.

The picture Gensco painted was of a rogue agency that rides roughshod over families, with judges rubber-stamping whatever DCS wants. Finchem was visibly alarmed. “There’s a recurring theme here with DCS,” he noted – a theme of no transparency and no accountability.

The senator told Gensco his case “demands further attention” and vowed to personally “go toe to toe with DCS” to get answers. As Gensco left the podium, the audience erupted in applause – a sign that many others shared his outrage.

Nicole Skinner

Nicole Skinner’s testimony was one of the most damning indictments of how power and connections warp the family court system. She told lawmakers that for nearly a decade, she has been trapped in litigation in the Lorain County Domestic Relations Court in Ohio. She is fighting to protect her son from an ex-husband who is a police officer with close personal ties to Judge Sherry Glass.

Skinner presented subpoenaed phone records showing improper ex parte communications between the judge and her ex, a revelation that pointed directly to conflicts of interest.

She said that despite spending more than $1.8 million over the years, she has been denied justice, even when her son suffered a second-degree burn at the hands of his stepmother—an injury the court refused to recognize as abuse.

Beyond the courtroom, Skinner described living under siege. She testified that her family has endured harassment, stalking, menacing, and retaliation—at one point even having her brake lines cut before a court hearing.

The most terrifying incident came in November 2022, when her home was set on fire while she and her son were inside sleeping.

Despite evidence of falsified court documents and orders that deviated from actual transcripts, she said every avenue—police, CPS, appeals courts, even federal agencies—shut the door on her.

Skinner’s story highlighted what many other parents at the hearing echoed: family courts don’t just fail to protect children, they actively shield insiders and powerful players while leaving protective parents bankrupt, endangered, and silenced.

Michael Bertrand

Perhaps the most bizarre story came from Michael Bertrand, a father who said he has been battling the Arizona family courts for 16 years. Bertrand’s testimony was so extreme that it could have sounded implausible – if not for the thick binder of documents he held and the palpable trauma in his eyes.

He began by stating calmly, “I have had four assassination attempts on my life.” The room went quiet.

Bertrand lifted his shirt slightly to show scars: “I have two feet of scar. I’m missing one of my internal organs, and three others are permanently damaged,” he said matter-of-factly.

All of this, he claimed, stems from a convoluted child-custody dispute that drew in dangerous outside actors. He spoke of uncovering a “third-party gang” – essentially a domestic terrorist group – that intervened in his case years ago to terrorize witnesses and tip the scales.

“I’m at a tit-for-tat with a terrorist organization that was introduced into this,” Bertrand asserted, adding that this group was “operating under the protection of a written legal instrument of the Arizona Superior Court.”

In other words, he believes corrupt insiders shielded a criminal outfit to help destroy him. Bertrand’s children, he says, suffered “egregious abuse” during this saga – the reason he refused to walk away despite the danger. Over the past 16 years, he has spent over $1 million fighting for his children’s safety. He’s compiled an astonishing 7,000 pages of evidence documenting what he calls “the most egregious facts you’ve ever seen.”

“The court called my evidence ‘voluminous,’” he noted.

Time ran short before Bertrand could fully detail his James Bond-like tale, but the committee took him seriously. Finchem intervened to stop any discussion of “national security” secrets in public and instead asked Bertrand to submit his documentation privately so it could be properly investigated.

As wild as parts of his story sounded, no one in the room doubted one thing: this man had been put through hell by a system that lost all semblance of justice.

Killer Family Courts: Final Words

By the hearing’s end, dozens of other citizens had signed up to speak – a testament to the widespread outrage – but there was not enough time. Rep. Keshel managed to squeeze in one last bombshell on the record: She relayed the case of an Arizona family whose five children were taken by Nevada’s child services.

According to evidence Keshel cited, the two youngest (just 3 and 4 years old) were being “raped repeatedly” by foster parents, and the oldest, a 14-year-old girl, had gone missing under state care.

“They have no idea where she is right now,” Keshel retorted, highlighting the interstate indifference the family faced. This stunning revelation underscored that the crisis extends beyond any one state – it is a national disgrace.

“It’s horrendous,” Keshel fumed, as Finchem requested all details so Arizona authorities could intervene.

Moments later, Finchem adjourned the hearing, not with a meek gavel tap but with a promise. A formal report from the committee will be issued within 15–21 days, he announced, and its findings will drive swift legislative action.

“We will not tolerate this any longer,” he declared, referring to the litany of abuses uncovered. In a closing remark to one witness, Finchem said what might as well be the motto of this movement: “We’ve got a responsibility to take action.”

The families in that hearing room left with something that has been in short supply throughout their ordeals: hope. Thanks to the bold leadership of lawmakers like Mark Finchem and Rachel Keshel, their stories are finally being heard—and believed—at the highest levels of state government.

What happened in Arizona this week was more than a hearing; it felt like the first tremors of an earthquake that could shake family courts nationwide. For the first time in a long time, these parents and advocates see cracks forming in the once-untouchable system’s fortress.

And through those cracks, the light of justice is starting to shine.

This fight is just beginning, but one thing is certain after the August 27 hearing: in Arizona, the era of complacency toward family court corruption is over. The people have spoken, the truth is on record, and reform is on the horizon – for Kayden, for all our children.