A Reader Responds to Bill Sardi's Article

                           (California Judge Tamara Hall, who presided over part of Bill Sardi's case)
 

Late in October, I wrote an article about Bill Sardi, a California small business owner who is going on his eighth year in family court. 

He described a frustrating, time consuming process, which caused him to be separated from his son for months at a time. He faced several judges and had to hire ten lawyers, none of them were satisfactory. 

The initial interview with Sardi is below. 

 

 I then did a follow up interview with Sardi specifically about his experience with his lawyers.  

 Following the second interview, I received a comment by email from Kathy Stevens, who felt my interviews were one sided. Her comment is below. 

You recently published two YouTube audio only interviews with Bill Sardi.  It is unfortunate that you do not choose to investigate the credibility of your subjects prior to these airings.  Had you bothered to do even a cursory check of the claims made by this man, you would have quickly distanced yourself.  

As a journalist, you should know that all you have is your reputation.  You are apparently comfortable hiding behind a “he’s entitled to his opinion” posture.  However, what Sardi failed to mention is that the delays and monies spent during this  contentious divorce we’re primarily because of his conduct and refusal to follow court orders - not any wrong doing by any other party.  Get the transcripts.  Your need for ratings should not outweigh the need to make sure your interviews are honest and fair.  If not, you’re not a journalist.   There are many things that could be improved with the Los Angeles Court system in general. I agree with you on that 100%. And shining a light on this need could be an honorable pursuit.   However, allowing people who have an ax to grind to continue to repeat their lies over and over is a poor representation of journalism.  

I would imagine you deal with a lot of sociopaths in your line of work. Perhaps if you think back over the years and the people you have allowed to, really, do no more than bitch about a bad deal they think they got, you will develop an eye for spotting sociopaths and people like Bill Sardi who think if they tell a story often enough it becomes the truth.  

I admit I have not looked at very much of your material. I fundamentally disagree with a lot of what you have to say. 

Or at least with the way you’ve chosen to say it.    Providing a forum for people who just like to hear themselves talk, and think everything has to be about them takes away the good you can do by shining a light where it’s needed. 

I am not the important one in the story, I have a lot of first-hand information, but it’s not about me or how I feel. It’s about a boy who has spent the last eight years lied to and confused.

I have no intention of taking this any further or carrying on this conversation in any manner. Just check your facts and be very sure that you are not just providing airtime to someone whose only relationships are with sycophants.  And watch out for the sociopaths if you ever find one. They will cut your heart out if you cross them.  And eventually, you will.

I noted to Stevens that I reached out to Sardi's ex-wife's lawyers with no response, to which she replied, "You recently published two YouTube audio only interviews with Bill Sardi.  It is unfortunate that you do not choose to investigate the credibility of your subjects prior to these airings.  Had you bothered to do even a cursory check of the claims made by this man, you would have quickly distanced yourself. 

What Stevens did not say is that she is Sardi's ex-wife's "divorce director". His response is below. 

Kathy Stevens is a former assistant district attorney (now physically disabled) and friend of the family who took it upon herself to coach my ex-wife how to navigate divorce and play tricks on the Petitioner (father), Stevens having been coached herself by a former divorce attorney to Hollywood stars she knew closely. 

Kathy Stevens is my ex-wife’s “divorce director” and is no impartial party to the matters of public interest at hand.  Stevens falsely alleged in a prior declaration that I as father of our son "went into tirade about me not being welcome in his home.”  That was not a tirade and because she was openly calling me a liar in front of my then 10-year old son.  I asked her to leave our property if she was going to continue slandering me in front of our son.  She refused to leave.  There was no “spitting food on her” as she alleges.  

Ms. Stevens did interfere with our son’s math tutoring when she had no call or authority to do so, arguing over the methods our son’s math tutor was using to teach arithmetic, which was none of her business.  The math tutor was the only tutor who had been able to get our dyslexic son to learn arithmetic.  The Respondent (mother) argued over the selection of the math tutor because he was selected by the father.  The Respondent (mother) sought to make all the tutors people she had selected. During that confrontation between Ms. Stevens and the math tutor, she misrepresented herself as our son’s “auntie.”  

The struggle over a laptop computer was simply that I had mistaken the laptop she was using as mine.  Stevens called the police over that event, claiming she was assaulted. Officers dismissed her claims.

Ms. Stevens, a spinster, says she had a “special bond” with our son and was caught kissing our son on the lips and cuddling up with him with total body contact on the couch while watching a movie in a dark living room as if she and my son were lovers.  I had to lay the law down and tell her she needed to find her own boyfriend.  She was doing this to intentionally provoke me to anger.  

Ms. Stevens makes no mention that our son’s mother had physically abused our son, twice running her fingernails down our son’s face, once beating him up when I was out of town on business, and finally twisting the nipple on his chest when he failed to follow her orders.  That is what provoked the divorce, and she was unrepentant.  Later in the divorce, Ms. Sardi put a black and blue mark on our son’s arm in a fit of anger, which a child counselor described as a “bad parenting moment.”  Had I done any of these abusive things, I’m sure I would have been arrested and behind bars.  

There is a difference between having an “ax to grind” and airing an issue that many parties face in family court that parties entering divorce should be made aware of.  

Alluding to me as a “psychopath” when the definition of psychopath is “a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior”, “mentally unstable, being egocentric and antisocial, with a lack of remorse for one’s actions” is not something anyone other than Ms. Stevens has ever alleged.  I am a responsible, caring and judicious father of our son.  I am a semi-public figure, consumer advocate and was generous enough to come to the aid of Ms. Stevens when she was in a crisis of her own.  That is not something psychopaths do.

Ms. Stevens has been a troublemaker during the divorce, using cuss words and uttering unsavory terms to describe me to our son.   I consider Kathy Stevens comments slanderous. 

Stevens made allegations against me as father of our child in a declaration submitted to the court.

Find that declaration here.  

Post Script: Find the fundraiser for this series here.