A Michigan judge is awaiting the ruling of a misconduct hearing for the way she treated three children who refused to have lunch with their father after their parents’ divorce.
Judge Lisa Gorcyca made headlines last year for sending three siblings, aged nine, 10 and 13, to a detention centre for the summer after refusing to see their father even after multiple court orders following the divorce between Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni and Omer Tsimhoni.
Gorcyca found the children in contempt of court. She ordered that the children be held separately and that they not be visited by their mother or other family members.
Testimony ended on Wednesday in Gorcyca’s hearing before the Judicial Tenure Commission, which had filed a two-page ethics complaint against the judge. The complaint said Gorcyca was sarcastic and impatient towards the children and even laughed at them.
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Gorcyca was cited as calling the 13-year-old boy “mentally messed up.”
During the June 2015 hearing, the judge told the siblings their “dad is a good man” who loves them. She also suggests the children “have been brainwashed.”
Video from that hearing does not show the identities of the two brothers and one sister, but sobbing could be heard after Gorcyca threatened to send them to Children’s Village, a youth detention centre in Michigan.
“Want to have your birthdays in Children Village? … Do you like going to the bathroom in front of people? … Is your bed soft and comfortable at home?” Gorcyca was heard asking the children.
“She said no thank you,” replied a voice off camera.
According to WDIC News, Gorcyca concluded the children’s mother had poisoned the relationship between the children and their father.
Thomas Cramner, the attorney for the judge said if Gorcyca is “guilty of anything, she is guilty of caring too much. She’s guilty of wanting to make sure the system worked for everyone, not just the mother.”
Cramner noted that the judge was presiding over a case that “was the worst nightmare for any judge.” It had been going on for more than five years.
The defense attorney countered that Gorcyca “used her judicial power and the power of contempt, to intimidate, to frighten, and to incarcerate a nine, 10 and 13-year-old.”
It could take a month before a ruling is made in the case.
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