Mother Magdalene
NH Court Orders Child Support from Mother Who is a Prostitute (Part 1)
In her home state of Massachusetts, she had been a sex worker. Speaking these words as a pro se litigant in the New Hampshire family court where she had filed for joint custody of her youngest child, Andrea Brooks made no pretenses. She was not holy. The father, William D’Errico, Jr., who had full custody of the child, lived in New Hampshire with his wife, Lisa D’Errico. Andrea admitted that he had been married when their son was conceived. She also informed the court that at the time of her youngest son’s conception, she already had four children. She was an experienced mother.
Andrea is Black and Hispanic, and the child’s father and stepmother are White. Perhaps it would be simple to surmise it had merely been a tryst, consistent with an escort’s professional pitfalls. However, the narrative Andrea told the court was far darker than the surface assumptions usually backed by knowing glances, sly smirks, or offended grimaces. She described the couple who now held her child’s life in their hands as her pimps.
The presiding judge in the Nashua, NH Family Court was Julie Introcaso (9th Circuit, Hillsborough County — Family Division). Introcaso is a registered Democrat, and was nominated to the bench in 2012 by then-Governor John Lynch (D). Another judge, Michael Ryan, had administered the case when Brooks first filed it, but then recused himself. Andrea was so troubled by his handling of her case, including refusing to schedule conferences, that she felt compelled to draft a separate, detailed complaint in federal court against the family court judge, seeking to compel him to give her the opportunity to be heard. Asking for a change of venue to federal court, Andrea further argued that she was experiencing discrimination in the local court’s administration of her case on the basis of not being a New Hampshire resident and being a person of color. Although she did not argue that the court was singling her out because of her involvement in illicit activity, it cannot be ruled out that the court viewed her interests as less cognizable than other mothers precisely because she traded sex.
Note: The most recent court hearing in “Brooks v. D’Errico” in the New Hampshire Family Court was scheduled for May 12, 2021.
Pro se parties do not often accomplish such a feat as evicting a judge from a court action, especially right in the beginning of its administration. By now, Andrea had already shown the family court that she had the skills and tenacity to win ground in the American judicial system.
In addition to Julie Introcaso as the second assigned judge, the New Hampshire court would then surround Brooks with female court officers, including Hearing Officer, Lauren Thorn, and Court Referees, Alice Love and Susan Carbon. No male hegemony operated the machinery of justice here. Brooks stood before the judge — woman to woman.
At first Brooks lied, telling the court that she was no longer “working,” and had escaped the life. She wanted to make sure they had no cause to deny her petition for access to care for her young son. The manipulation was a feeble ruse. It disintegrated quickly.
Thus, it is certainly not unexpected, nor surprising, that the court thereafter ruled that Brooks could not share custody in light of the risks attendant to her lifestyle. That part of the verdict is clean for all to accept. In fact, Brooks had advised the court that the only reason that the Massachusetts family court, which had first considered the trio’s parenting rights, originally granted William D’Errico, Jr. full custody was because Andrea had been hospitalized in 2012 after the father of her older children violently attacked her. When D’Errico then requested full custody of their son in Massachusetts, Andrea explains she “did not object because [she] needed his help.” The Massachusetts court did not terminate Andrea’s parental rights, and allocated her parenting time whereby, “Visitation shall be as agreed upon by the parties.” On Aug. 25, 2016, D’Errico registered the order with the New Hampshire court, transferred jurisdiction, and applied for financial contribution from the mother.
What should inspire condemnation about the integrity of the New Hampshire Family Court system altogether, particularly the machinations of judge Introcaso, is the Aug. 14, 2017 ruling that Andrea, who still resided in Massachusetts, would have to pay the New Hampshire couple child support in the amount of $125 per week. Judge Introcaso’s edict, based on a “reasonable estimate” of Andrea’s income, would also assess child support arrears of $1,000. If one is to insist that custody must remain with the married couple because they are stable, why would a judge demand that a prostitute, who was in circumstances where she could be violently “attacked,” produce any money at all to the couple? The court squeezed Brooks — ordering her to use her “talents” to make coin, or face court-ordered sanctions.
We find this narrative of the New Hampshire Family Court important to highlight because it embodies the level of exploitation, willful blindness, and callous disregard that have gradually come to define the American judicial landscape. While the judicial networks that process our identities, fortunes, reputations, fates, children — and elections are woven throughout the cities, towns, hamlets, and country sides of the nation, power has devolved. In the morass, individual jurists and nonjudicial court staff are unaccountable. Cases like Brooks are legion, and generally do not merit attention from local media, the politically connected, or financial donors. Then, why New Hampshire? Why this court (9th Circuit-Family Division)? Why this judge?
We had already been tracking the New Hampshire Family Court in connection with a separate case. On Feb. 11, 2021, the Dept. of Justice announced that circuit judge Julie A. Introcaso, 56, was arrested on two felony charges of falsifying physical evidence, two misdemeanor charges of tampering with public records, and a misdemeanor charge of unsworn falsification. She was caught using white out to tamper with court records that revealed she had been fixing a family court case. As a judge, she had been earning $165,000 per year.
SEE: Petition to Audit the New Hampshire Judicial Conduct Committee and Courts (2021) on Change.org, which you can SIGN & CIRCULATE. Over 300 signatures and counting…
SEE ALSO: 3PMOnline.com New Records Released, to download copies of relevant court records in the family court case, “Partello v. Campbell,” connected to Introcaso’s arrest. See the Arrest Warrant, Law Enforcement Affidavit, Introcaso’s handwritten Confession, etc.
The charges against Introcaso are tied to one parental case: “Robin Partello v. David Campbell.” The mother in the case claimed that Introcaso had appointed a personal friend, attorney Kathleen Sternenberg, as guardian ad litem in the case and issued biased rulings that favored Sternenberg. The NH Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) elevated the complaint to a formal inquiry in Nov. 2019. According to the criminal charges, Introcaso knew she was under investigation, and in Jan. 2020 applied white out to two orders she had issued in the family’s case. The white out obscured her decision to allow fees to the guardian in excess of the statutory cap and for the parent to use Apple Pay to expedite payment.
The unsworn falsification charge dealt with a letter Introcaso submitted to the JCC in April 2020, wherein she denied applying the white out. For an additional six months thereafter, however, the judge remained fully compensated by the state court. On the eve of the JCC’s scheduled hearing, Introcaso entered into a negotiated settlement, relinquishing her official position and avoiding a public airing of the details in the case.
However, what the press has yet to report is that the JCC discovered during its investigation that Introcaso and Sternenberg had partnered in the administration of an additional 8 other families’ cases over the course of five years, although the attorney was expressly listed on the judge’s mandatory recusal list. As these families now know, all along Sternenberg was actually the godmother to one of the judge’s children. Nevertheless, the prosecutors have not (as of yet) levied any charges against the former-judge for deceiving the families, concealing the information on the recusal list, or fraudulently procuring government appointments for a personal friend. The only charges relate to the judge’s “process crimes.” In fact, Sternenberg remains an active guardian in the same NH courthouse.
Certainly, we had no inclining that when we decided to review some of Introcaso’s prior cases, we would spot a scenario where a U.S. court would facilitate human trafficking by ordering a sex worker with four older children to also financially support her youngest child, who did not reside with her or in her state, by dipping into the pocket of her “gainful employment.” According to court records authorized by Introcaso, Lauren Thorn performed an income estimate using the mother’s sex work as basis for the resulting $500 debt created by judicial mandate. Judge Introcaso leveraged her power to underwrite the continuing exploitation of a mother, and to deepen its hold on Brooks.
Brooks states, “Instead of following the law, Julie Introcaso signed unlawful orders that deprived me of my parental rights and compelled me to commit commercial sex acts for William D’Errico’s benefit. I never met Judge Introcaso, but she unfortunately signed the unlawful orders that Alice Love and Lauren Thorn recommended.” Without laying eyes on Brooks, Introcaso compelled her to continue prostitution to satisfy judicial profiteering. If one is thinking that the judge may have well been unwitting, do not be fooled. By the time Introcaso had replaced judge Ryan, the court record was replete with details about Brooks’ history, especially after she had filed her separate federal court action against judge Ryan, leading to his recusal. There can be no doubt: the New Hampshire Family Court knew the costs exacted.
Regardless, under law there is a “presumption” that a judge who signs an order has fully apprised herself of all relevant facts to be gleaned from the record — whether she performed due diligence or not. Indeed, according to Brooks, Introcaso’s order expressly advised that Andrea “was not to ‘work’ during any of her parenting time,” placing the verb in quotes. Andrea deduced that the judge’s instructions “implied that I was supposed to ‘work’ when my son was not with me.” It would be hard to believe that any judge administering such an action would not, at minimum, have exposure to offline conversations with court staff about the prostitute who sought full custody. She knew what she did.
Prey
Andrea began her witness statement for federal court by recounting that she started working in the sex trade in 2013 via invitations from online ads. That same year, she had lost her housing subsidy. (She did not say why.) She became homeless. Andrea described: “Out of desperation, I chose to perform commercial sex acts to support myself. I started working as an escort (prostitute) in 2013 because I had no savings, I had no job, and then I had nowhere to live. I used backpage.com to post escort ads. Backpage.com was a well-known website that was shut down in 2018 because of human trafficking.”
We know from her filings that the child’s father was introduced into her life before she landed on Backpage.com. She informed the New Hampshire family court, “William D’Errico, Jr. has a history of being abusive toward me. I had an Order of Protection in 2011 out of Massachusetts. There was an Order of Protection . . . issued in Massachusetts in 2019 and extended again in 2020.”
Andrea then clearly articulates: He knew. “William D’Errico knew about my escort ads. He stalked me online to find out when I was ‘working’ because he wanted me to give him the money [that] I made from sex work. I gave him some of the money. He wanted more.”
A long-term sexual relationship with a man who is married often leaves people surmising that the wife was cuckolded by unrequited adulterers. Not in this case. According to Andrea:
Lisa D’Errico introduced me to her husband in 2009 because she wanted to exploit me sexually. . . . In 2009, Lisa D’Errico picked me up in Massachusetts and took me to the home she shares with her husband, William D’Errico, in New Hampshire. When this was happening, I did not realize that Lisa D’Errico and William D’Errico intended to exploit me. . . . [Lisa D’Errico] wanted to reward her husband, William D’Errico, for being kind to her while she was recovering after a motorcycle crash. Lisa . . .broke her leg in [the] motorcycle crash and William . . . was nice to her, so Lisa wanted to reward him with deviant group sex.
…In Part I, we have introduced the characters and what we learned from case records about the manner by which the New Hampshire Family Court prioritized the flow of money over the value of individual lives. More to come shortly!
