Imagine 1942, Nazi Germany. You're one in a vast sea of human suffering and misery-beaten down and resigned-shuffling into the abyss of a concentration camp or a gas chamber, the journey's end. Your crime? Being born Jewish. Perhaps you still remember the worst nightmare you've dreamt. Bring it here, intensify it with the life you know, framed by the rising and setting sun.

The line staggers forward, the Nazi officer barks with non-human contempt, "choose a child!" Sophie is told she must sentence one of her two children to indescribable terror, separation and execution. Sophie's Choice is a movie I've not been able to view again; it hurt too much.

April 1991. Four Marin County detectives entered my home with a search warrant. An 18-year-old at a photo lab felt "uncomfortable" about some photos I took of my two-year-old daughter, setting into motion a nightmare that has forever changed our lives. Savannah cries and pleads while I hold her in arms that have nurtured, protected and played with her; Daddy, don't let them take me away."

A woman in a car at the bottom of the driveway awaits, to place Savannah in a foster home. I beg over and over, "Let me call my former wife to come and get Savannah, you're terrifying her, can't you see that?" Finally, they capitulate. As I am accompanied down the driveway to the mother, embittered by our divorce, I tell the detective, "This is going to be used to destroy my relationship with my daughter." Truer, more prophetic words, I've never spoken.

To the chagrin of the investigators, five months of analyzing me, my daughter, and every inch of my home, spear-headed by a zealot hell-bent on finding proof that I'm a child pornographer/pedophile, described by one of her own colleagues as "a rookie" out to make a name for herself," yields ZERO. No evidence, no charges, no trial, no conviction. I am innocent.

Three-hundred-thousand dollars in court fees later, six years later, I have yet to recover my parental rights.

How does this happen?

Lives are decimated and ruined in the process, Savannah is severely hurt, I'm bled dry financially, attempting to preserve my presence in Savannah's life as a caring devoted and involved Dad-my innate right to parent my child, legally denied, still to this day.

Child protection policy is a shadow government, a multi-billion dollar industry, a due-process vacuum, and a Catch-22. The Catch-22 is that, if the accused has no money, his/her best option is to plea bargain and cut his/her losses. If the accused does have money, tentacles wrap around him/her until he/she is sucked dry. Either way, the nuclear bomb of divorce has exploded in his/her face.

As this chapter came to a close, the renormalization seemed close at hand, the mother filed for sole custody, alleging I was guilty of what the Marin County Sheriff's Department could find no evidence of. Allegations of sexual child abuse were fabricated, spun out of thin air, where none existed before.

You've just entered the twilight zone of the family court system-a universe unto itself, where family court laws are created, violated, ignored; where capricious and arbitrary rulings and behavior are the norm. It's a world gone insane, and the inmates are denied respect, dignity and justice.

Only in family court can one be treated as a criminal, even though there are no charges or conviction. A mere allegation whips an entire satellite system into a frenzy. Sharks smell the scent of blood-money in the water, three strikes against those who dare rebel for the sake of their children, more bucks for the gluttonous.

A multi-billion dollar industry is ruining the lives of countless innocent people. In the twilight zone of the family court system, where one is guilty until proven innocent (and even then, "You must be guilty of something, dammit!"), my ex-wife won sole custody and, therefore the right to move across country. Once every six weeks, I can purchase a round-trip transcontinental ticket, stay in a hotel, pay $450 to a new visitation supervisor, and see my daughter. Every move shadowed, every conversation monitored, my daughter grilled on the way back to her mother's house, every nuance analyzed, every moment dedicated to searching for evidence of wrong-doing, all needed to justify this outrageous and "legal," court-ordered invasion into our lives.

Parenting is changed to visiting when a supervisor is appointed. Receiving $30 an hour for watching a dad play with his child, the supervisor has no incentive to confirm that the only thing making the child uncomfortable is a nosy supervisor who keeps staring at her. (Supervisor Jeana Reynolds admitted that the $250 I paid her to spend six hours per week with my daughter was her sole source of income).

Six years later... all avenues for renormalization exhausted, and no end in sight.

Judge Michael Dufficy responded to my last ditch effort to end this court-sanctioned emotional child abuse with his all too typical, "I'll take it under submission." Later, he mimics the opposing counsel's objections to renormalization of my relationship with my daughter as, "groundless, frivolous and without merit."

Two weeks later, the California Appellate Court (First District) cites the exact same case law I cited in my pleading papers, in an almost identical case, as grounds for reversal. When controverted issues are placed before Dufficy, i.e., "What is the legal/factual basis for supervised visitation?" along with 17 other questions, he simply chooses to not respond. Why? Because there is no basis, factual or legal. Does this matter? No. To invoke Kafka, a surreal exaggeration? No.

Marin County is not alone. The Contra Costa Times reported: 'Bureaucratic child abuse' in Contra Costa-Grand Jury again rips Social Services. "It is abundantly clear that the Social Services Department's objective is to hold hostage a high custody count of children in order to secure state subsidies which enables the department to maintain its current staffing," the report says.

The ground-swell of parental outrage in Marin is reaching crescendo level. Judge Dufficy stated in court, "I don't care about bias and those who are complaining (lawyers who are getting fed up) are barking up the wrong tree." The same names are heard time and time again-officers of the court who have unconscionably abused powers granted them-who continue to profiteer through court-ordered salaries and intra-created alliances. There is no avenue for redress.

The alternative-abandon my daughter?

This story, my story, is replicated every day. As one reads the Internet electronic bulletin boards and numerous publications, one hears the same mournful tale echoing throughout the land. The template is virtually identical-replace the names, the roles remain the same; the devastation, the cruelty, beyond description.

Imagine being forced-by the court-to pay to date: $30,000 for Savannah's court-appointed therapist; $35,000 to Savannah's attorney; $40,000 to the court appointed special master; $100,000 to the mother's attorney to, I believe, horrendously violate my relationship with my own daughter; and tens-of-thousands of dollars to other attorneys feeding at the trough of the family court.

The Nazi propaganda master, Joseph Goebbels said, "The most effective lie is the one that is repeated over and over again."

The opposing attorney in the custody battle, Mauna Berkov, stated in court, "In fact, Mr. Ornstein was arrested for taking photos of his daughter. The photo lab reported him to the Sheriff's office, and he was arrested for that. And that's what actually put all of this in place."

This premeditated lie, (in court-preferred legalese-misrepresentation), along with a plethora of others, have been stated ad nauseam in multifarious, sinister guises. No matter that I presented to the court a letter from the Sheriff's Department proof to the contrary. Lying is now customary and those who do so are shielded from liability by the court itself.

How bizarre and twistedly wicked. In other words, "It's okay to lie to the court, we'll protect you."

Judge Dufficy simply ignored my request for sanctions in the face of evidence that the court had been deceived, ultimately to the detriment of the child it purportedly represents, as in that worn-out clichˇ, enfranchised to protected the best interests of the child. In the sole arena where one is guilty until proven innocent, justice is reduced to a mockery, a diabolical labyrinth so vividly portrayed in The Trial by Kafka.

The extremes run from dead-beat dads to devoted parents driven out of the lives of our children by the very system that supposedly safeguards them. What are we to do to restore equilibrium and humanity to a family court system severely out of balance?

First and foremost, the profit motive must be removed from the system, or we will not see meaningful reform. The system is so easily abused and manipulated, exacerbated by too many lazy, stupid, greedy, incompetent and corrupt judges, lawyers and mental health personnel.

"The New Zealand Plan," has circumvented legalized, systemic abuse by doing away with the ambulance chasing therapists and attorneys, those scavenging at the debris of families suffering the trauma of dissolution, by deferring to those who naturally have the true best interests of the children at heart, the nuclear and extended families. The parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents, together, decide child support and time-sharing.

"The fox guarding the hen house" renders the family court incapable and unwilling to police itself. In a system bereft of checks and balances, absent of avenues of redress for abuse of powers granted and assumed, clearly over-seer monitoring must be placed in agencies/commissions independent of the family court system. If and when the family court system is sued in Federal courts for flagrant and ubiquitous violations of parents' constitutional rights, then we will see substantive reform.

Recall procedures should be exercised when elected judges are deemed in violation of our children's rights.

A spirited dialogue is urgently needed. For a nation that has the creative genius to put astronauts on the moon 30 years ago, we have the capacity to focus our intelligence on decommissioning a system that harms thousands of children and parents yearly. We must forge solutions to end this national disgrace and replace it with compassionate wisdom.

Legal and administrative remedies should be utilized. People must know what agencies do exist to redress valid complaints. The same names will begin to surface, and pressure must be brought to bear to hold those accountable who hurt innocent children and parents.

I have filed a complaint with The Commission of Judicial Performance, with evidence in the form of a court transcript, plus declarations, that Judge Michael Dufficy unequivocally violated my due process rights (again), per his own words. I engendered his ire in my attempt to have my visitation rights enforced on the heels of eight of 12 visitations unilaterally canceled, with no reason given, by the mother.

Too often, parents are frightened of vindictive judges, such as Dufficy, who run their courts as if they are above the law. The fear of retribution is a valid and grave problem. Those who file complaints must be protected. I have spoken with many parents who have expressed outrage at Dufficy and other local judges with complaints that include describing judges as "lazy, prone to moodiness, vindictive, making decisions based upon which attorney he likes, is ignorant of the law, procrastinates, falls asleep in court..."

Are these the "qualities" we look for in a judge whom we pay six-figure salaries?

Judges reside in a rarefied stratosphere, insulated from the daily pain and suffering they dole out. The litany of complaints are abundant and deeply disturbing. The fear parents feel is intensely real. The price we pay, our right to parent our children, free of never-ending, court-ordered intrusion and fees.

Get involved with organizations like Coalition of Parents Support that lobby the California legislature to enact laws that respect the rights of children to have equal access to both parents. When judges ignore laws passed down there must be an effective agency to review such complaints and empowered to take meaningful and remedial action. Other judges will take notice. We must not tolerate the violation of our most fundamental right of all, to parent our children.

Yevrah Ornstein is the author of From The Hearts of Men; Forging The New Fathers-Why Contemporary Fatherhood Must Change; and is Director of In Defense of Our Children, a not-for-profit association dedicated to the true best interests of our children. His new book in progress is entitled, The Vampires of Marin County-"Daddy, don't let them take me away." He can be reached at P.O. Box 545, Woodacre, CA 94973 and E-Mail, yevrah@well.com