Please note: This article is reprinted directly from MedicalKidnap.com. It is being presented here in two installments due to length. This is the 1st installment. The article in its entirety can be found here: see entire story here all at once including video
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
Attorney Connie Reguli turned herself into authorities in Brentwood, Tennessee today (July 17, 2019) after learning that there was a warrant out for her arrest. She was released the same day without bail, on her own recognizance.
Attorney Connie Reguli is well-known to the readers of Health Impact News and our MedicalKidnap.com website. She is the head of the LawCare Family Law Center in Tennessee, and also the founder of the Family Forward Project, which advocates for the rights of parents and children nationwide on matters related to abuses in Child Protective Services and Foster Care.
She is a frequent speaker nationally, and educates legislators on matters related to family law and child welfare. She has been practicing law defending the Constitutional rights of parents for over 25 years.
Yesterday she received a phone call informing her that there was a warrant out for her arrest, encouraging her to turn herself in rather than having police come in to storm her office or home to arrest her.
After informing her Facebook followers of this fact, Raymond Schwab, a military veteran and father who had his own children medically kidnapped in Kansas (more info), called Reguli and interviewed her the night before she turned herself in where she explained the case related to the warrant.
Attorney Reguli begins by stating that she has:
never broken the law and never been arrested for nothing. I am 67 years old, I’ve never had a DUI… never had a single criminal charge. And here we are because I tried to get a parent due process, which means notice and opportunity to be heard. I am now going to be criminally charged for that.
At a recent legislative session in Tennessee before a committee that provides oversight for Tennessee’s Department of Children Services (DCS) Attorney Reguli says:
I told them that this system is so broken, and that parents’ rights are being violated, that nobody will stand up for them. There’s no oversight, there’s nobody looking over their shoulder. I’ve been an attorney for 25 years. I know the law. I know what Constitutional rights are for parents, and I have been a thorn in their side.
Reguli explains that the heart of the case involved with her criminal charge revolves around ex parte orders being used by DCS to take children out of homes, where no emergency exists, and sometimes, they don’t even have a valid court order signed by a judge to do so. With ex parte orders, there is no hearing before a child or children are removed from the home.
She goes on to explain that she represents a mom in Dekalb County, which is a small rural area about an hour away from where she lives. She has known and represented the mom, Wendy Hancock, for several years.
She’s been harassed by the Department of Children Services many many times. They’ve gone to school and pulled her kids out of class and harassed her.
In 2015 when they came after her, I represented her in court, and they dismissed the case with an email. I mean once I got in the case and I said they were violating the Constitution, and I was drilling him down to get me records and set the case for hearing, they sent me an email and said the case was dismissed.
In 2017, however, they allegedly started harassing the mom again.
This time, I called the DCS worker up on the phone and I recorded it, and this is what pissed them off in this case. I recorded it, and I said “Deedee,” Deedee Miller, that’s her name, Deandra Miller, I said “I want you to know that I represent this mom and you are not to call her again. You are to call me.”
And she goes, “I don’t think I can talk to you,” and she hung up on me.
I posted that recording on our Facebook Group, The Family Forward Project. I put it up there, that this is what it is like to talk to a DCS worker when you have counsel.
In 2018 there was allegedly another referral against the mom, Wendy Hancock, and again Reguli tried to work with the case worker, but this time she would not even take her call. She left a message stating she wanted to work with the department on behalf of her client and come up with a “safety plan,” a fact she says is not in dispute.
Because an investigation had been started, Reguli called the detective.
I say “don’t talk to my client again without me present.” He said “Okay.”
She asked the police detective if there was any emergency she needed to know about, and he allegedly said “no.” This was on a Friday, August 10, 2018.
On Monday morning, according to Reguli, she called the court and asked the clerk if anything had been filed against her client yet, and they said “no.”
They finally did file a case at 3:43 p.m. that Monday, just minutes before the court closed at 4 p.m.
She asked the clerk to fax her the file, and the clerk reportedly said “sure.”
But after waiting some time, Reguli called back and was informed they could not fax it to her, and that she needed to drive out to Dekalb County courthouse to retrieve it.
Being over an hour and a half away, Reguli had to take a half day off just to drive out there.
They had not served my client. I did not know at that time, but they had already had another hearing behind her back. They didn’t call her and tell her they had a hearing. They didn’t call her and tell her they had filed anything.
They did everything ex parte.
(To be continued)
