Grandparents Victimized by Judge Sletvold's Wrath Speak Out

The Bowies

Blogger's Note: On Tuesday, I told you that NorCo Judge Jennifer Sletvold has been reported to the Judicial Conduct Board by Attorney Alyssa Lopiano-Reilly over Sletvold's handling of a custody case involving the grandparents of a special needs boy. Judge Sletvold issued a 53-page response to a recusal motion even though the matter was settled and the motion itself was withdrawn.  In it, she attacked both the grandparents and their lawyer in a blatant attempt to poison any judge who might see this case down the road. Fortunately, the Superior Court concluded that Sletvold's verbose invective would contaminate further proceedings and ordered the matter sealed. 

Since that time, I've heard from the grandparents themselves, They've given me permission to share their story. 

Mr. O’Hare,

I live in North Carolina but was a resident of Northampton County, PA for years and a friend sent me a copy of your blog post entitled “Judge Jennifer Sletvold Reported to Judicial Conduct Board for Unfair Treatment of Custody Litigants and Their Lawyer.”  I am one of those custody litigants. My name is Kelly Bowie and I am one of the grandparents that are listed in the case that you blogged about. I write to thank you for shining light on all of this.  

 

The way we were treated by Judge Jennifer Sletvold was appalling, disgusting and unjust. What happened to us as a result of Judge Slevold’s arrogance, above the law attitude and blatant disregard for her duty as a sitting judge is hard to imagine or explain.  We spent 3 years fighting over something that should have been simple had Judge Sletvold merely done her job.

 

When we entered Judge Sletvold’s courtroom in October 2020 to ask for permission to relocate with the grandchild in our care to North Carolina, because I had lost my job during Covid, what we anticipated to be a simple hearing (where we would explain the need for the move and how it would benefit our grandson) became an absolute and ongoing nightmare. Judge Sletvold never held any hearing or heard any evidence.  She had no details about us or our grandchild or our case.  She had no details about the reason our grandchild had been with us, about the amount of time he had been with us (at that point, for 4 years and he was only 6 years old) or about what we had done to try to make sure he was safe and deal with his special needs. She had no details about why the child’s Mother had been out of his life for so very long.  She had an expert report from a therapist that explained his concerns about Mother and our grandchild but she immediately discounted that without hearing testimony.  Up until that point, the child only had supervised visits with his Mother.

 

In October, 2020, Judge Sletvold, all off the record, immediately started advocating for Mother sayingthings like “Mother needs overnights and holidays” and “this child needs reunification with the mother - there needs to be reunification immediately.” Then, after bullying the lawyers off the record about what she expected and wanted to see, Judge Sletvold went on the record and made it sound like she just met us and that she was so pleased that the lawyers had worked together to come up with an agreed-upon Order without her assistance.  In fact, the opposite was true.  She was very involved in the “negotiations” but it was all off the record.  The clear underlying threat and theme from her to us, was this: do what I say (without evidence or a hearing) or you won’t like my decision after I hold a hearing (i.e. we wouldn’t be able to move with our grandchild to North Carolina for my new job during Covid).  Of course, we had no choice.  We were so scared.  

 

The trajectory of our case, at that point, was very clear to us.  Judge Slevold made her decision about us without any context, information or data, and was, very simply, totally biased.  Worse, it appeared to us that she intended, long term, that our grandchild would be transferred to Mother’s custody, eventually, no matter what was in his best interests. Judge Sletvold was keeping the case even after we moved to North Carolina with the grandchild and despite the fact that no one lived in Northampton County, PA (Mother moved from Alabama to Schuylkill County, PA and never lived in Northampton County).  Despite this, Judge Sletvold kept having status conferences about the case and she had a clear mission in favor of Mother and against us.  Our lawyer at the time actually told us to fire her and hire another lawyer who might have a better chance of helping us and our grandchild.  That was when we found Alyssa Lopiano-Reilly.  

 

We lovingly call Attorney Lopiano-Reilly the “Italian bulldog” for her fearless pursuit of justice, and her unwillingness to allow us to be railroaded buy an unfair Judge with blatant disregard for doing the job she was elected to do. Alyssa filed a Motion for Judge Sletvold to Recuse herself only after Judge Sletvold said, on the record, in August, 2021, that she agreed with Mother’s custody position against us.  Remember, she said this after NEVER having taken one shred of evidence in the case (we were present, via Zoom, and saw how angry she was, we heard her say it, and we have a transcript to prove it).  Attorney Lopiano-Reilly was respectful and amazingly calm in the face of the unfairness of it all but she was not going to back down.

 

I saw that your readers asked why this is all coming out now.  It is coming out now because it was only this past summer, 2023 that we were finally safe.  We had to wait that long for a fair judge to finally say that the case did not belong in PA but belonged in North Carolina where our grandchild had lived and gone to school since November, 2020!

 

I want to explain that Judge Sletvold never recused herself as she should have immediately done. Rather, in November, 2021, we worked hard and in good faith to settle our underlying custody case before Judge Murray with an Order laying out a clear schedule for Mother to see the child in a way that was safe for him.  As part of that settlement, we agreed to withdrawal the Motion to Recuse that we filed in the case against Jennifer Sletvold.  That settlement was the opportunity that Judge Sletvold had clearly been waiting for to harm us.  She didn’t write 53 pages of false claims in such a short time.  She was calculating.  She didn’t want to be reviewed on appeal so she waited to protect herself and entered that ridiculous and false 53 pages into the record to harm us and to teach our lawyer a lesson that she shouldn’t dare to challenge her by claiming that she is biased.  We couldn’t believe that Judge Sletvold was raising cases that didn’t involve us or our grandchild in a way to harm Attorney Lopiano-Reilly and us by proxy. But her actions did one thing: satisfied us that we were right all along. She was clearly biased and angry and out to harm us without any concern for our grandson. Judge Sletvold had held a grudge that we had nothing to do with.  Her grudge was personal and was against our lawyer for standing up to her in the past.  It was crazy.  But that wasn’t enough for Judge Sletvold.  The turning point was when Judge Sletvold was given a SECOND chance to do that right thing when she was asked by Attorney Lopiano-Reilly to remove her 53 page defamatory statement from the record so we could at least have a fair and unbiased position in the underlying custody case before a Schuylkill County judge.  Judge Sletvold refused to do that.  It was astonishing that she refused to reconsider her illegal actions and that she then went on and on to try to claim they were not illegal in her statement filed with the higher court.  She forced us to take the appeal to the Superior Court and she lost, thankfully.  As you said, in your blog, we eventually found a reasonable and unbiased judge in Schuylkill County, who released jurisdiction to North Carolina (after we were out of the Commonwealth 33 months).

 

In the end, we were the ones harmed.  I lost count of the amount of conferences/preliminary objections/objections/hearings/documentation over the 28 months that we worked with Attorney Lopiano-Reilly: first in Northampton County, then before the Superior Court and then in Schuylkill County. The expense and time (particularly of the appeal) was unbelievable. We spent over $167, 000 in fees and court costs to fight this case for 3 years, mostly due to Judge Sletvold.  We could have put our grandson through medical school at that rate and frankly, it will mean that I will have to work many additional years, instead of retiring, to cover the tremendous expense. 

 

We are just incredibly grateful for Attorney Lopiano-Reilly and that we had the resources to fight and what saddens us is to think how many other people have lost their children because they did not have the resources to fight Judge Jennifer Slevold. The emotional toll is heavy. 

 

Thank you for doing this. Thank you for shining a light on this travesty of injustice. Jennifer Slevold should never wear a black robe again.

 

Thanks

Kelly Bowie