Family Court

Judge Mary Ann Grilli's Cases Get Media Attention in California Family Court

1/10/2016

For decades Mary Ann Grilli, a Judge in Santa Clara County, has used her tenure and authority to abuse the county's most vulnerable citizens, those engaged in family law matters before her. Since her biggest mess; In Re Marriage of Cheriton, Judge Grilli has been showing Santa Clara County residents she cares more about wealthy dads and their lawyers, than children involved in cases before her.

In a recent exparte Judge Grilli awarded a lawyer who stripped a mom of custody , $30,000 in fees, and ordered the mom to pay $3,000 of those fees, despite the mom being unemployed and on Medicare. That is not only unjust, it is a misuse of federal funds.

On December 10, 2015 when Grilli was questioned by one lawyer why she had violated local rules and double set motions before her , only to complain there were too many things before her to have time to hear, Judge Grilli replied ; " I didn't set it , the clerk did ".

So either Judge Grilli lied , in her own open court, or she is mismanaging court clerk staff, who are paid with public funds, and allowing them to violate local rules of law.

On October 15, 2015 , again before a crowed court, Mary Ann Grilli denied fees for a self- represented party to retain counsel, in a complex matter she herself had not been able to control for three years. Grilli sent the poor mom to act as her own lawyer for a week long trial in San Jose's civil court, but awarded fees of $40,000 in another matter, that was also heading downtown and that was already formally dissolved. In that case Grilli said it appears the litigants " are just continuing to fight'" . Apparently she wanted to make sure the lawyers were paid so they could keep up that fight , but didn't want to provide relief to a self-represented mom in a complex case, who had not been able to afford a lawyer for over a year. While Grilli knew the husband in that case had hired and paid over $1,000,000 in fees for his lawyers ( 6) , perhaps Grilli didn't know , of like the, mother's lawyer. Perhaps Grilli doesn't know how to provide evenhanded justice in family law matters where she is to consider the parties equal and equitably divide their property.

Is Judge Grilli engaging in defrauding the federal government to pay her favored lawyers?

The media is finally brining some attention to this judge; who dishes out bias and prejudice to self- represented, immigrant, poor or undereducated litigants, as a matter of routine.

A freelance reporter has been pulling files and mailing media requests in Grilli cases. If the county , the state auditor and the US Attorney General won't protect the rights of citizens engaged in family law matters in Santa Clara County, perhaps the media will.

8 Comments

Anita

4/12/2016 02:12:56 pm

I am at the receiving end of Judge Grilli's ways of ignoring self represented moms and am seeking help. For no rhyme or reason; ignoring the frauds committed by my ex husband, she has made a court order that I pay $20k to my ex husband when I do not have a job because I did not provide a credit card statement copy more than 2 days before court date to the opposing counsel. I am in need of serious help. I can show evidence of letters I have filed showing the fraud, that is easily proven, demanding that a CPA review the documents and requested a new trial on those grounds but not only did she deny but now she is after me to eliminate support questioning whether I am really making an effort to find a job. My ex-husband has being in sole control of our assets and has always had a lawyer.

Jane link

7/10/2016 11:30:24 pm

We are seeing a very alarming pattern with Judge Mary Ann Grilli acting with gender bias to destroy the woman in Santa Clara Family Court. The fact that Mary Ann Grilli is a woman and imposes gender bias is dispicable. RECALL MARY ANN GRILLI AND CUT HER PENSION !

leticia torres [alcala]

12/10/2016 02:32:50 pm

i hired maryann grilli for my divorce many years ago. now i need to find the paper work but was not able, the santa clara court has no record?

Alex

12/20/2016 10:28:25 pm

Judge Grilli's impatience and severe health issues (back pain) does not allow her to focus on family matters. She heavily relies on Attorneys to make her life easier. God help someone who is self represented in her court. There is a clear trend in her cases where she does not hear self represented parties even when they are exactly following the law and are being relevant and concise.

She over reacts, makes hasty decisions and in most cases against self represented parties. Having worked in this industry for years i can not deny the fact that judges do have Attorneys who they favor and Grilli is NO different. What really disappoints me is her lack of ability to work with parties who can not hire an attorney. I hope this trend stops or she retires.

Ron

12/23/2016 01:39:26 pm

Judge Grilli was the judge for my divorce. Sometimes she showed good insight and made wise decisions but generally speaking, she seemed overworked. As far as pro-male bias is concerned, I saw none. There are worse performers in Santa Clara's divorce "business". I'll give you two: lying lawyers and child welfare workers with an anti-men agenda. You could write a movie about what I experienced. The whole place is a cesspool of incompetents swimming around for money and an opportunity to push their agendas. The more money you have, the worse you will experience. Watch the movie "Divorce Corp". 100% true. Only an idiot would get married and expose himself to this. Yes, I said "him" because the guy gets it the worse. We're all evil wife beaters who molest children, right?

FERRARI

1/8/2017 09:00:41 am

Perhaps readers have already heard about Grilli's role in having my 2 and 3 year old children taken out of the country.
I met Grilli in 1990. Judge Jeremy Fogel had just reduced Father's visits because he had grabbed my under the arms and thrown me away from his car. The house broke my fall. My nursing infant and toddler son came back from the visit with their dad very frightened.
Grilli was appointed to be my children's attorney. She ordered me to come to her office on a day when my kids had the flu. I left my kids with my Mom and Aunts at her home in Woodside. Grilli shouted at me at our interview, "You answer my questions ! " Her shouting had startled me and I retorted, "You bitch."
French Grandparents were coming to visit from France. I organized a visit for them at my Mom's home so that my kids could get to know them. They accepted, came over, had a brunch and we all went for a walk together. The next visit for them I organized on January 24th, 1991, for a birthday lunch at Allied Arts Restaurant in
Menlo Park. Father and his parents accepted. I arrived in the dining room first with Laura, age 1, asleep in her carriage. Jules, 2 was sitting at the table looking at a candle. A man with a 3 inch stack of papers came into the room and handed the papers to me; He was a process server. Next came the children's father and his mother. Each snatched up a child and went out to the parking lot. The children were screaming. My sister began taking photos. My elderly Aunts were in dismay. The father and grandmother put the children into his white Volvoa and drove off. A Menlo Park Police officer was there to witness.
At year's end, I was pro per at trial and children's father testified that
Mary Ann Grilli had given him the name of the Process Server: ie she was in on the planning of the birthday party child snatching !!!!
What child would have ever wanted such an attorney.
Other damaging testimony at trial for Grilli: our son began stuttering AFTER this change in custody. He had gone from being toilet trained back into diapers: regression.
Grilli then proceeded to hand over the children's passports to the children's father--BEFORE the Judgment had been signed: ie she must have been sure of Judge Stewart's signing the judgment she had submitted, despite my objection to his statement of decision.
So, my kids left the country, before Christmas that year, before the judgment was signed.
When I pointed out these facts to Grilli and called for her impeachment, she did resign and got herself appointed commissioner. The people of the County of Santa Clara voted her in as judge--well, they didn't know all about Grilli. I had contacted the San Jose Mercury at the time and reported Jo ann Jacobs came out to our home to interview. She wanted to do the story, but her editor wouldn't let her. Why? Becasue there was a restraining order on me. (These seem to be granted routinely to whoever aks for one first, as a matter of strategy.)
I also learned that State SEnator Becky Morgan had opposed having childrens attorneys appointed for children. Non other than Judge Stewart and Mary Ann Grilli had lobbied in favor of children's attorneys--and it was shown in their argument that this would create more jobs for attorneys.
In my case, Father paid Grilli 22,OOO.00. He also paid the court appointed psychologist 17,000.00 in just one year. Terry Johnston was the psychologist. She met with children's father the day BEFORE the birthday party. She had never met me or the childen--so Grilli allowed this upset in our lives even before psychological assessment had begun.
When I wrote to Grilli in Jan 1992 to find out where my children were residing abroad, she wrote back: " I cannot give you the address of my clients."
Doctor Phillip Berger stated to me that Grilli was evil and that Terry Johnston was "sick."
I had the following witnesses testify that it would not benefit the children to be cut off from Mother: Judith Murphy, their pediatrician and Associate Professor of Pediatris at Stanford University, Donald Lunde, MD, Philip Berger and two others. Not ONE MD would have allowed the children to leave the country. Grilli went along with the opinion of Terry Johnston who was paid by children's father--sent her billing ONLY to his attorney. Johnston's PhD was from a school that I believe was at the time not yet accedited.
We are all still here in France--where Grilli hoped the case would be buried. Our son Jules was hospitalised for one month at age 17 for codeine addiction--a hard life for him.....his father ended up living with his French lawyer for 8 years--she smoked, drank and did all that she could to keep the children from having their visits with me here. She used to type letters and have the children sign them. The letters would say, "We won't come to have lunch with you until you have sold your apartment here and have moved back to the US. I think that was the threat, inv

sheela

1/28/2017 12:28:38 am

My ex-husband has attorney and I am self representative. Judge Grilli is the judge for my divorce case for the past 5 yrs. I have court date coming up in this week. But I heard this judge is retired, Is that untrue?

Lloyd

3/24/2017 11:19:06 pm

We can slow down the comments about how she's "gender biased." I got royally screwed in her court room and I'm not female. She's biased against whomever doesn't have the RIGHT lawyer. She has her favorites and then she makes her decisions accordingly. But spare me the idea that she's biased towards men. That's complete horseshit.

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Judge Mary Ann Grilli's Cases Get Media Attention in California Family Court

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