Steve came before the fourth judge holding an order he had already won. In 2018, after a hearing in San Francisco, a court had issued a restraining order protecting him from Tara. When that order expired he asked Westchester to carry its terms forward: a petition, O-03599-20, filed in June 2020, that the protection California had found warranted be recognized here. By Steve’s account to the court, Judge Humphrey took it up at two appearances at which neither Walsh nor her attorney appeared, and decided nothing; on April 6, 2021 he recused. The request was still open when the file reached Yonkers. What the new judge did with it is this chapter.

Three judges had recused. Those three Family Court judges sat in White Plains. The case was transferred to Yonkers.

The Yonkers Family Court occupied the third floor of a municipal building on Warburton Avenue, a branch courthouse, twelve miles south of White Plains, with three courtrooms and a children’s center and the particular atmosphere of a facility that processes custody disputes at volume.

Judge Michelle I. Schauer assumed control of File No. 154703 in May 2021.

Her first appearance was May 19, 2021, by video. The matter had been calendared for 9:30 in the morning. The attorneys conferenced with the court for hours while the parties waited, and the record opened at 2:53 in the afternoon. DiFabio for Steve. Weddle for Tara. Jackman for the child. Both parties were sworn. Steve gave a San Francisco address. Tara said hers was confidential; the court looked through the file and could not find the confidentiality order.

“This is my first appearance with this matter,” Schauer said, and had Weddle put on the record what the lawyers had worked out.

The two Horowitz orders entered on default — February 6 and February 18, 2020 — were vacated. Walsh was “consenting to the relief requested in Mr. Russell’s motion.” Tara would have temporary legal and physical custody pending further order. Steve would be reintroduced to Evie by Zoom, a minimum of three times a week, supervised. Linda Russell could visit as arranged with Tara, consent “not to be unreasonably withheld.” All of it without prejudice. And: “It’s also my understanding that the Court will issue mirroring Orders of Protection on behalf of each party which will include a Stay Away Provision and a Refrain From Provision and a prohibition against communication until further order of this Court.”

DiFabio put his client’s position on the record. “Our goal, our objective, was to resend [rescind] all Orders of Protections for all parties so that these people can begin to communicate and to coparent without the fear of police involvement.” The likelihood of Steve coming to New York or having anything to do with Ms. Walsh was “slim to none.” He would be back in two weeks “with the hopes of vacating all Orders of Protections.”

Schauer: “I do echo Mr. DiFabio in that I hope there’ll be some peace in this interim period of time before we come back and that at some point the two of you will agree that it’s not necessary to have these Orders of Protection. But for today’s purposes, I’m going to issue an Order of Protection that each of you shall not harass, assault, threaten, intimidate or commit any criminal offense against the other, that you’re to stay away from each other, the home, place of business of each other and that you’re to have no communication by any means.”

“Do you understand, Mr. Russell, if you violate this Order of Protection you could be arrested and incarcerated?”

“I do, Your Honor.”

“And do you, Ms. Walsh, understand if you violate the Order of Protection you could be arrested and incarcerated? You’re muted.”

“I do, Your Honor.”

Then Tara asked to say something fast.

DiFabio: “If she’s concerned that he’s going to use an order against her in civil court, back to my original argument, why don’t we vacate all the orders here so that we don’t — she doesn’t have that worry?”

That was for Ms. Walsh to discuss with her attorney, the court said. Mr. DiFabio and his client “have agreed to withdraw their Family Offense Petition against you if you agree to withdraw against them.” Any withdrawal would be without prejudice. “Otherwise, these Temporary Orders will be in effect until we come back in two or three weeks.”

Twenty-three minutes on the record. “We’ll email the Orders of Protection.” Next date June 1 at two o’clock.

The form that arrived did not say consent. It did not say mirroring. It said Petitioner: Tara Katelyn Walsh. Respondent: Stephen Grant Russell. It recited a petition filed March 27, 2019 — twenty-six months earlier, never tried, carried from one judge to the next — and “good cause having been shown.” Handed to a police officer, it read like a finding. The order restraining Tara on the same terms — the copy in the file is Schauer’s of August 27, 2021 — is printed on the same form and carries the same warning, word for word.

Nothing in either sheet referred to the restraining order a San Francisco court had issued against Tara after a hearing in 2018. The only mention of the California cases that afternoon had been Tara’s: the trial on June 7. The court had issued a mutual stay-away on consent, vacated the defaults, and set a date two weeks out.

Thirteen days later, on June 1, 2021, the parties were back before Schauer by video. The transcript calls it a conference. The attorneys had been conferring with the court off the record since two o’clock; the recording opened at 3:23 in the afternoon. After the oaths, the court said what it understood had happened since May 19: “the Court issued a temporary Order of Custody and Visitation for Mr. Russell. My understanding is that the visits, which were supposed to be supervised by Jennifer Cully, did not occur.” Those were Steve’s visits — his supervised contact with Evie. Linda Russell’s visits were a separate arrangement under the May 19 order, to be worked out with Tara; what had become of them came out later in the afternoon, in Steve’s words. “We have had a lengthy attorneys’ conference,” Schauer said, “and I believe we have a framework for a new order moving forward.”

DiFabio put Steve’s proposal on the record. Linda would visit with the child every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday — two hours at first, then four, then eight. During those visits Steve would have FaceTime with Evie, supervised or facilitated by Cully, “with an eye towards, perhaps in the third week,” Steve flying in to spend those hours with the child, his mother, and Cully on the call.

Weddle, for Tara, countered with alternating weekends: three hours Saturday, three hours Sunday, in the town of New Castle, with twenty-four hours’ confirmation that Linda was in fact coming, Tara present at the start “just to make sure that Evie is comfortable with her grandmother,” and an order that Steve not be physically present.

DiFabio answered that Judge Horowitz had already refused to let Tara sit in on the visits — “it’s fine if you want to observe from afar, but you can’t stay there during the visit” — and that Tara’s own mother was babysitting the child on weekdays anyway. Weddle came back: Horowitz’s comments were over a year old, there had been “minimal contact” during the pandemic, and the Walsh grandparents would not help with transfers — “they are sort of getting tired of being sued by Mr. Russell.” Jackman, for the child, thought weekends were “a start.” The court was ready to order every other weekend when Steve said his mother was not available on weekends. DiFabio asked Steve whether he and Linda could do five to seven in the evening instead. The answer, at page 8, is recorded under Weddle’s name:

Court orders in the trash. The court’s answer was that it “can easily be dealt with, if that’s what happens,” and then: “let’s — let’s not go down that (inaudible).” There was no inquiry into what the Walshes had said or when. No order ran against them; later in the afternoon she said she was “not quite sure what the Walshes — why they should have anything to do with this.” What she did instead was build the schedule so that a breach could be proved. A specific day and specific hours, she explained, make it “easier down the road if there’s further litigation for there to be a court order saying certain time and certain day and then to prove who — where the gap was if it wasn’t complied with.”

Steve’s “one more comment on scheduling,” very quickly: the battery trial in San Francisco was starting in one week, June 7th or 8th. Two court systems, three thousand miles apart, processing the same set of facts simultaneously. In California, a jury was scheduled to hear the battery, domestic violence, and intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claims, including Steve’s evidence of poisoning. In New York, the court was negotiating how many hours a week a grandmother could spend with the child whose father had been poisoned.

Tara described her work: into the city three days a week, “accountable” even from home, “jeopardizing my business and income” if she rearranged three weekdays. Linda, she said, “doesn’t work. She’s retired,” and it was “a little unreasonable to say she can’t come any weekends.” The court floated one weekday a week. Then: “if you don’t agree, I’m going to just make up a schedule that sounds fair to me and it will probably inconvenience one or maybe all of you. It will be a court order.” She had started the conference at two o’clock, she said — an hour and a half — “and I don’t feel like we’ve made much progress.” DiFabio told Steve on the record that the judge “is not going to entertain your argument or Tara’s.”

Steve answered with his mother’s logistics. Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to Westchester is a six-and-a-half-hour drive. She was a nurse; she had sent two kids to Stanford; she would “provide free childcare for Evie during an eight-hour day.” The court asked whether she stayed the night in Westchester.

“Well, the last time she drove out and then she got here and was told to drive home and then she drove home, and then she got home and said she could have 20 minutes that day if she drove back out. So she left a little bit just exasperated at that.”

That was what had become of the grandmother’s visits “as arranged.” The court moved to the calendar.

Tara chose Thursday. Drop-off at 8:30 in the morning, before work; pick up “around 5:30, 6?” The Kittle House “would be fine” for the transfer; she wanted a contact number and for Evie to stay within New Castle. DiFabio thought Westchester would be sufficient. Steve: “Mom loves the Kittle House,” but sometimes they have no rooms.

Schauer issued the order on the record. Every Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. — nine hours. Pickup and drop-off by Tara at Linda’s hotel; Linda to confirm twenty-four hours in advance so Tara would know where to go. Linda to stay within New Castle for now — “because we’re only dealing with a few weeks … I don’t think that’s really going to be reasonable moving forward” — and, on DiFabio’s caveat, Westchester if the Kittle House was unavailable: “Yes, good point.” No tape recording. No public dissemination of photographs or video, past or future. Linda could facilitate FaceTime with Steve, supervised or observed by Cully. Steve not to be physically present. The schedule to stand “unless everyone agrees in writing.” Start June 3. Back on June 25 at 11:00. Someone would submit a written interim order; Jackman agreed to it; Steve asked to see it in writing.

“My visits will be denied again, unfortunately,” Steve said.

“I understand there’s hostilities here but if the visits —”

“Not on my part.”

“— I know, but there will be consequences.”

“There never have been in the past, Your Honor. The police report is that I threatened to kill my daughter. And she said it was a lie. There were no consequences.”

Tara interjected that it was “very unfair that he’s going on and on about this stuff because it’s just not reality.”

“I’ve never seen consequences.”

Schauer: “But you’ve not had me as a judge before so —” Steve: “Fair enough.” Schauer: “— I expect that my court orders will be followed. I expect that there will be consequences to those who don’t follow my court order, so if this court order is not followed, there will be consequences. It’s a little difficult because you’re in California but we’ll deal with it.”

The recording ended at 3:50. Twenty-seven minutes on the record; the conference, by the court’s own account, had begun at two.

One day a week, nine hours, for a grandmother who — by Steve’s account to the court that afternoon — had driven thirteen hours round trip to be offered twenty minutes.

Schauer came from Albert Rosenblatt’s mentorship — Harvard Law, former Chief Administrative Judge, ethics authority — and had spent eleven years building Baby Court before assuming this case.

Schauer had done two things at that first appearance.

She vacated the Horowitz default — the default entered after the court refused Steve’s telephone appearance late on the afternoon before, when the first flight could not land him in White Plains in time. On consent, with Walsh’s attorney agreeing, the defaults were vacated, and with them the permanent Order of Protection and the custody order that had rested on them.

But in vacating the default, Schauer reinstated the interim custody order giving Tara sole legal and physical custody. The defaults were gone. The custody arrangement remained identical. Schauer acknowledged the arrangement in her own words: “When in the very beginning of this case I vacated the Order of Custody which was issued on default against Mr. Russell, I probably should have said that the interim Order of Custody giving Ms. Walsh sole legal and physical custody was reinstated.”

The default was removed from the record. The custody order survived the surgery.

The second thing Schauer did was not rule on either party’s petition.

The California restraining order against Tara existed. Tara’s two non-appearances before Judge Humphrey were on the record. The poisoning evidence existed. The laboratory reports existed. Humphrey, by Steve’s account to Schauer on August 27, had taken up Steve’s petition at two hearings at which Walsh and her attorney did not appear, and had rendered no decision; on April 6, 2021, on DiFabio’s motion dated March 24, he recused himself from the matter and from every future matter involving DiFabio. Schauer’s answer was the mutual stay-away: identical restraint on both parties, no hearing on either petition. On July 23 she continued both orders — the 2019 order against Steve, and an order on Steve’s reinstated June 2020 petition, O-03599-20, requiring Walsh to stay away from him, his home, his place of employment. On August 27 she extended the order against Walsh to October 1; the order against Steve remained in force. The poisoner and the poisoned were placed under identical restraint, on identical forms, as though the court could not distinguish between them.

At the August 27, 2021 hearing, when the procedural confusion had consumed more than an hour of argument and counterargument, Tara’s attorney described the arrangement and the court confirmed it:

“As far as I know, each party has a Temporary Order of Protection against the other.”

“That’s correct.”

Steve told the court: “A permanent Temporary Order of Protection does not give me a chance to face my accuser.”

The court told him he was going down irrelevant paths.

The mutual arrangement treated the two sides as equivalent threats. The person who had been poisoned with lithium, quetiapine, and mycophenolic acid and the person who had administered those substances were restrained from contacting each other on identical terms. The symmetry was the court’s answer to asymmetry. Walsh Sr. had told Tara what settling would cost, Evie, transferred to the grandparents. Only one party in the mutual arrangement could not afford to end the case.

August 27, 2021. A video proceeding, like the May 19 and June 1 appearances before it. Steve’s Teams link had not reached him; DiFabio resent it, the clerk sent it again, and the court let him in a few minutes late. The first business was DiFabio’s own application to be relieved — from representing Steve and from representing Linda Russell. “I’m ready to represent myself, Your Honor. I understand the risks.” Linda: “He’s no longer my attorney.” “You’re free to go, Mr. DiFabio.” “Good luck, everyone.” Steve appeared pro se, from San Francisco, for the rest of the morning.

The hearing was a procedural marathon. Over an hour of appearances, motions, clarifications about which petitions were pending, which orders had been vacated, which dockets were active. Weddle, Tara’s attorney, said at one point: “When we started this conference, I thought I knew what was going on and now procedurally I’m lost.” Christopher Weddle had been practicing family law in Westchester for twenty-nine years. He was a member of the 18B panel — the same panel Cambareri screened — and would later be listed in the court system’s directory as a Support Magistrate in Westchester Family Court. He lived in Chappaqua. The file had defeated even the people who were winning.

The court was not lost. It knew what it wanted to address.

Steve attempted to explain the complex procedural history, the two final orders Horowitz had issued, one secretly given to Walsh ex parte, the Motion to Vacate that was “deliberately written” to address one order while preserving the other. Schauer cut him off.

“I know what I need to know.”

“You’re muddying the record.”

“Scattered gunshot.”

“It’s not organized and it’s not helpful to me as a judge to understand exactly what you’re trying to do.”

“I strongly encourage you to get an attorney.”

Steve had come into the year with an attorney. DiFabio had appeared for him on June 1 and had filed the recusal motion that produced Humphrey’s retaliatory order — a recusal from every DiFabio matter in Westchester, present and future. Steve’s understanding was that the order had taken roughly a third of DiFabio’s Westchester practice with it and that by August he could no longer carry the case. On August 27 DiFabio asked to be relieved from representing Steve and Linda both, and neither opposed him. Later in the same appearance the court told the man it had just excused counsel for: “I strongly encourage you to get an attorney.”

Schauer’s rhetoric carried a particular quality. On the record, the question was never whether what Steve was saying was true. The question was whether he was saying it correctly, in the right form, at the right time, in the right sequence, with the right deference. When he said something accurate but procedurally inconvenient, it was “muddying the record.” When he tried to address the substance beneath the procedure, he was “going down paths that are irrelevant.”

“Scattered gunshot.” The court’s preferred metaphor. The image belongs to hunting — a shotgun that disperses pellets because it cannot aim. What the metaphor described was a pro se litigant filing motions across multiple docket numbers because the procedural history demanded it: the default had generated separate orders, the vacatur had spawned new proceedings, the mutual TOPs sat on a docket of their own. The scatter was the record’s architecture, not the litigant’s — though the court, which had inherited a file assembled by four judges in three courthouses across three years, read the record’s incoherence as the litigant’s disorganization and prescribed the cure of an attorney on the morning Steve’s attorney had just been relieved — a departure Steve traced to Humphrey’s April 6 order recusing him from every DiFabio matter.

Appearing by video, without counsel, before the fourth judge to inherit a file assembled by three predecessors, Steve could see for the first time not the individual appointments but the architecture that produced them. Each person was individually unremarkable. Together they were not four judges, two supervisors, an evaluator, and an attorney for the child. They were the building. The building produced appointments from its own inventory and called them independent determinations.

He was not arguing against a judge. He was arguing against the building.

At the same hearing, the Attorney for the Child was relieved.

Jennifer Jackman had been the AFC since the case began in Westchester. She had been present at the June 1 hearing twelve weeks earlier, recommending weekend visits as a starting point, speaking in the measured cadences of a professional managing a difficult case. She had been the AFC when the bruises were documented, and she was copied on Guttridge’s letter calling Steve’s report of the bruises “utterly untrue.” She had dismissed the pinch marks on Evie with scare quotes and declined to investigate Steve’s poisoning reports. She had received his correspondence about the laboratory evidence. She had watched four judges cycle through the case and done nothing to alter the trajectory.

Her application to be relieved had been filed the night before. Steve had not read it in detail; he had spoken to her by phone. “I do not object. I appreciate her services very much and I think she’s making the right decision.” Weddle had no objection.

“You are relieved, Ms. Jackman.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. May I be excused?”

The application was not read into the record. What the record holds of her departure, after three years and four judges, a poisoning case, a custody dispute, an ambush, and the discovery of bruises, is that exchange.

That left the case without an attorney for the child. “There will be limited progress we can make with today’s proceeding until I assign a new attorney to represent the child.”

The case had been reset. The defaults had been vacated — on consent, not on any finding about how they had been entered. But the reset did not return the visits that had been lost. The drugging was spoken of in these appearances. On August 27 the court read the word aloud from a September 2018 order; Weddle called it “this alleged drugging,” said the petition it had produced was still pending, and announced his intention to move to dismiss it; Steve told the court what that petition had asked for — filed when the San Francisco protective order expired, it sought “that those specific terms be extended in Westchester,” and it described “the effect” the absence of that order “was having on my ability to see my daughter.” Spoken of, and not tried: in these three appearances no evidentiary determination of the drugging was made. There was no hearing on the temporary order that restrained Steve, and none on his petition against Walsh — the one on which, by his account, she had twice defaulted before Humphrey. The proceedings themselves moved: a grandmother’s Thursdays were scheduled, Steve’s and Linda’s counsel was relieved, the attorney for the child withdrew, and on August 27 the court said it was issuing an order for a forensic evaluation that day; Steve answered that the case should go to trial. What did not move was what Steve had come to Westchester for: a ruling on the poisoning, recognition of the protection he had already won in California, and his contact with his daughter. The reset corrected procedure. The substance waited.

The case had been reset. The clock returned to zero. Evie was three now — old enough to ask questions, old enough to notice who came to the door and who did not. Every procedural reset consumed months. Every month was time that could not be recovered. The file got thicker. The child got older. And each new judge started from scratch.

Aunt K’s letters continued that season — addressed to yet another judge, CC’d to yet another supervising justice, with the same evidence attached that every previous letter had attached and every previous recipient had declined to examine. Four judges. Four courtrooms. The same outcome: nothing changed for Evie.