Suspended attorney-crusader detonates SBS ‘junk science’ and exposes CPS trafficking pipeline.
NOTE: The full podcast is available on YouTube and Rumble.
By Richard Luthmann with Michael Volpe
Shaken Baby Shakedown: The War Over ‘Junk Science’
Connie Reguli has had enough of what she calls fraudulent science tearing families apart. On The Unknown Podcast, the fiery Tennessee advocate and unjustly suspended attorney denounced Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) in courtrooms, which many term as “junk science.”
Reguli, a veteran family court advocate, warned that “expert testimony is the demon of a case” in child abuse trials – especially when “child abuse pediatricians” swoop in, “diagnosing everything with child abuse”. These so-called specialists, she noted, are often treated as infallible even though “a child abuse pediatrician is not a specialist in anything… All they do is look for symptoms and then diagnose child abuse.”
Podcast co-host Michael Volpe pointed out that a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision shocked prosecutors by effectively branding SBS evidence as unreliable. The landmark ruling “found there is enough controversy here that it’s not widely accepted… plenty of people saying this is completely bogus,” Volpe summarized.
Co-host Richard Luthmann agreed, blasting the prosecution playbook as “a leap of logic too far” – where doctors claim that subdural hematomas, retinal hemorrhages, and brain swelling automatically mean someone shook the baby.
Reguli bolstered that point: “Even though they say those three symptoms are pathognomonic for Shaken Baby Syndrome, none of the studies show all three… some cases have two, some only one.”
In other words, the science isn’t as settled as juries have been led to believe.
Reguli cautioned that the New Jersey victory doesn’t end the war.
“I don’t think the word ‘junk science’ is a legal term… What the conclusion says is that the state has not met its burden of proof,” she explained, urging vigilance.
Indeed, the battle rages nationwide. Nine U.S. defendants have been exonerated after wrongful SBS convictions, yet other courts still cling to the old dogma.
In Texas, judges upheld the conviction of a man on death row, Robert Roberson, despite questions over SBS evidence.
Reguli’s message is unapologetic: the judicial system must stop rubber-stamping this questionable diagnosis, or more innocent parents will pay the price.
Child Trafficking and the CPS-Foster Care Machine
Having scorched one pillar of the child welfare system, Reguli and her co-hosts turned to an even darker scandal: the pipeline from foster care to child sex trafficking.
Luthmann didn’t mince words. He cited “scandals in Maryland and Georgia” where large numbers of foster kids vanished. He further noted Bailey Templeton’s work in Illinois, reporting that the number of missing foster children “jumped from 12 to 164” while Pritzger administration officials remained “tight-lipped.”
“I think it’s very clear,” Luthmann declared, “the foster care system… there’s somebody on the inside… aiding and abetting child sex trafficking. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out that these children are being used as inventory… as sex devices by perverts.”
Reguli concurred without hesitation.
“Yeah, you’re so right,” she said of Luthmann’s allegation, sighing in disbelief at how deep the rot goes.
“Everything’s done in secret,” she explained – child protection proceedings are sealed off from public scrutiny, making it easy for evil to fester. Reguli recounted her own disturbing discoveries: “I have reported foster homes for abuse. I have a video of a 10-year-old… locked up in a room crying to get out… and the foster parent never got prosecuted. It is so bad.”
She referenced a news exposé in Bibb County, Alabama, where “children were pulled out of basically a basement” — some of whom were foster kids — after child services failed to act on a prior abuse report.
And in Tennessee, Reguli added, a recent military raid to bust human traffickers in Memphis turned up “123 children… It’s like, what? But they won’t tell you who these children are, where did they come from?” The implication: a hidden network of vulnerable kids, lost in the system and ripe for exploitation.
Luthmann called it “a definite trafficking connection.” He painted a gut-wrenching picture of orphans turned 18 who have “nobody” to protect them – and a “direct line” from foster care into sex slavery.
“They end up in the ports in Maryland and California, then they end up overseas,” he said, describing how these youth “disappear off the grid” and become victims of a predatory underworld. “This is a disgraceful thing,” Luthmann fumed.
Both hosts and their guest demanded an urgent reckoning. In Reguli’s view, the CPS-foster care machine isn’t just broken – it’s facilitating atrocities. And they insist the cover-ups and bureaucratic silence prove that the system’s insiders have blood on their hands.
Shaken Baby Shakedown and Connie Reguli’s Legal Crusade
Connie Reguli is no armchair critic; she’s lived the fire she’s lighting. On the podcast, she briefly recapped how standing up to the system made her a target.
“They’ve made up a whole fake crime,” Reguli said of Tennessee authorities who came after her in 2018. At the time, she was an aggressive family attorney “trying to help a mom preserve her disabled child from going into the state’s custody.”
For that, Reguli says, a cabal of a DA, judge, police, and child protection officials “all worked together to make up [a] totally fake crime” to take her down.
She was convicted of two felonies of “accessory after the fact,” which “immediately suspended my license.”
Luthmann commented that the system is full of “hacks” all over the place, referring to his ongoing tussle with crooked Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. Luthmann says McMahon and his political allies weaponized justice and engaged in what he believes is criminal misconduct.
For Reguli, it was a blatant witch-hunt – and ultimately a failed one.
“The whole thing has been reversed,” Reguli told listeners, referring to the state appellate court throwing out her convictions.
Indeed, in March 2024, Tennessee’s Court of Appeals fully overturned the verdicts. Yet despite her exoneration, the establishment refuses to relent.
“The Supreme Court will not set aside the [law] license suspension, likely because they don’t really want me in the courtroom again,” Reguli said wryly.
For now, she remains officially benched.
Unofficially, she’s more dangerous to them than ever.
“Connie Reguli has the full panoply of rights under the First Amendment – to speak, to question authority, to associate with like-minded advocates for real reform,” Luthmann said. “Together, that is much more powerful than a law license, and the Bar knows it because that’s the first thing they take away in exchange for the ‘privilege’ of practicing law.”
Reguli’s battle scars only fuel her crusade. Luthmann reminded readers that she notched a major win in Andrews v. Hickman County, a landmark case where the 6th Circuit affirmed that social workers are bound by the Fourth Amendment – meaning CPS can’t just storm into homes without a warrant.
That was back in 2012, and “that kind of ticked a lot of people off,” Reguli laughed.
In 2018, she won another precedent-setting case (banning juvenile solitary confinement) that “really pissed them off… that’s when their aggression went over the top,” she said.
Co-host Volpe has seen the pattern before: “They use and misuse both criminal law and especially bar rules… to go after attorneys… that shake things up. And that’s what they did to you. There’s no question about that.”
Reguli agrees her prosecution was pure retaliation – the price for being a rare lawyer willing to fight the family court cartel.
“Absolutely,” she said of the vendetta against her, “it was retaliatory.”
Silenced in the courtroom, Reguli is fighting fire with fire outside it. She founded the Family Forward Project and is championing federal reforms to empower parents.
One proposal, the Advocates for Families Act, would allow trained non-attorney advocates to stand alongside parents in child welfare cases – basically legal support persons. Right now, desperate mothers often stand alone against the state; Reguli noted that under current secrecy rules, “a young mom… could not even have her own mother standing in the courtroom with her” for moral support.
“This is real legislative reform that people can get behind,” Luthmann said, contrasting the Act with the marketing gimmicks of charlatans.
To change the system, she’s built “a whole underground army of people” – veteran parents and activists who’ve survived the system and now “come in as peer advocates” for those still in the fight. This army is pushing lawmakers to crack open the closed courts and allow family advocates to participate.
It’s a bold, outsider solution that has ruffled establishment feathers (bar associations bristle at the idea), but Reguli is undeterred.
Connie Reguli’s warpath is anything but neutral – and she makes no apology for it. From deriding SBS quackery to exposing foster-care horrors and rallying families to rise up, she embodies a new breed of advocacy journalism with teeth.
Her message on The Unknown Podcast was clear: the systems supposedly protecting children are riddled with “junk” science, cover-ups, and corruption, and it will take fearless rebels to burn that edifice down.
Reguli has lost her law license (for now), but she hasn’t lost her voice or her verve. In today’s child welfare battles, this rebel with a cause is fighting back – and she’s not afraid to hit the system where it hurts.
