Lesley Devoe, LCSW18 Maple Street

Rockland, Maine 04841

11/10/11

Dean Crocker, MSWMaine Children’s AllianceAugusta, Maine

Dear Dean;

I have testified as an expert on domestic abuse for Lori Handrahan and am quite familiar with the extensive written and spoken record on her case. I have just read your report dated 9/22/11 and found it significant for what was not said. Unfortunately, the omissions are familiar. There is a certain momentum in this case that appears unstoppable and that is based on the belief that Igor Malenko is more credible as an informant than Ms. Handrahan. Yet, there is ample evidence that we know very little about Mr. Malenko’s life because of his changing stories and omissions in history. What has slipped out about Mr. Malenko’s life should alarm the system but, instead, that information is systematically dropped from view by many of the professionals and the judge in this case. Those patterns and the risk posed to Mila are lost yet again in your report.

Did you know that Mr. Malenko took little responsibility for Mila as an infant and was unable to sleep in the same room because he could not tolerate her crying? David Prichard worked with them as a couple to help Mr. Malenko become more active in parenting and he utilized behaviorally specific contracts. David Prichard apparently also suggested that Mr. Malenko sleep separately behind a closed door because he admitted he was triggered by Mila’s crying back to the time he almost killed a teenager as a teen himself. Ridley and Coha of UNE have done research that shows that how people parent before court involvement is indicative of how they will parent after court involvement is over. Mr. Malenko’s noninvolvement was a concern for the GAL Liz Stout but was lost from view as were the implications of Mila’s crying triggering him to a past episode of serious

violence. You, like many others, seem to be fine with Mr. Malenko having responsibility for Mila in spite of these serious concerns.

It is also interesting to see how critical many professionals have been of Ms. Handrahan for going to multiple mental health professionals yet no one ever asked whether Mr. Malenko’s rages and inaction as a parent and wage earner continued in spite of the “help” he was receiving. That would have been important to know and might have shown that Ms. Handrahan was desperate to help her husband be more of a partner and to save the marriage and that Mr. Malenko’s behavior did not change. Clearly, what is not asked is often more significant than what is.

Questions not asked and information dropped along the way always benefit batterers who start the process of disinformation but then rely on professionals to continue their strategy. In this case, did you know that Mr. Malenko told the GAL Liz Stout that there was some abuse at the hands of his attorney father but told the therapist Allie Knowlton that he was in such danger from his father that his grandmother told him to leave home out of fear that his father might kill him? Did you know that Mr. Malenko then totally denied any experience of abuse as a child to Dr. Carol Kabacoff? I discovered this when I compared the reports of the various professionals involved in this case. When confronted with this discrepancy, Dr. Kabacoff essentially said it would not affect her Parental Capacity Evaluation! How could that be? Yet Dr. Kabacoff is seen as the standard-setter in this case, the person to believe along with Mr. Malenko. She essentially said in a deposition for Michael Waxman that the only person who could pass a lie detector test about any behavior after engaging in that behavior would be someone who lies as a lifestyle. She didn’t realize how right she was when she made that statement. Shall we take a look?

If you look at my report entitled Igor’s Disinformation Process, you will see many significant lies by Mr. Malenko. First there is the series about his childhood abuse or lack thereof. Then he tells vastly different stories about the circumstances surrounding the injuries to the teen in Macedonia. He told Ms. Handrahan that it was an accident, that he felt terrible, and that he took the injured boy to the hospital himself, but was blamed for the assault after that. Mr. Malenko portrayed himself as a victim and Ms. Handrahan felt badly for him. The record shows no criminal responsibility as you offer but it also shows that Mr. Malenko

was required to undergo counseling and he admitted he did it to “scare” the boy. To go to that extent to “scare” someone becomes significant in a domestic abuse case, especially when sole responsibility of a young child is at issue. Have you seen the tape of the injured man and heard about his injuries? In trying to “scare” him, Mr. Malenko fractured his skull which put him into a temporary coma and caused permanent brain damage and paralysis. Yet, when Ms. Handrahan describes threats by Mr. Malenko to break her neck, nobody listens. Do you see a problem with this?

It is common for abusers to admit to a little abuse to appear cooperative and to divert attention from more serious forms of abuse. Mr. Malenko admits to an episode with a peanut butter jar that was thrown by him in the direction of Ms. Handrahan who had just put Mila in her seat next to her. He pled guilty to this DV assault in 5/8/07 but it was not mentioned in your report. Mr. Malenko told the police that he threw a plastic bottle of peanut butter at Ms. Handrahan because he was upset that she would not let him watch their daughter. Mr. Malenko then told the GAL that he swept the jar off the table, the jar hit the wall and refrigerator, and Ms. Handrahan was “out of her mind”. In the last part of that statement, Mr. Malenko introduced his strategy of portraying Ms. Handrahan as “crazy” and he successfully began the process of diverting our attention from his use of violence when he is angry. Mr. Malenko then told Dr. Kabacoff that “it was an empty peanut butter jar…I pushed it away and it went off the table…I truthfully didn’t think the jar came close to her”. Dr Kabacoff mentioned the discrepancy between what Mr. Malenko told the police and what he told her but she provided cover for Mr. Malenko by dropping it. Anyone with any knowledge about domestic abuse would have recognized Mr. Malenko’s shift as classic abuser minimization and manipulation. Nobody seemed concerned about a peanut butter jar bouncing off the head of a mother right next to her child and nobody wondered whether Mr. Malenko could be trusted as an informant in this case. Nobody wondered that if he did this when there were two parents present, what might he do with his anger when he was the sole parent of a crying toddler? Nobody but me wondered why Ms. Stout put the episode of Mr. Malenko throwing a sweater at Ms. Handrahan when she was nursing Mila in a footnote in her report! Mila was inconsolable after that episode but that also was lost from view.

We also see dishonesty by Mr. Malenko regarding his mental health history. He told the professionals in this case that he told the Macedonian army that he was depressed in order to get out of the army. That statement alone should alert us to Mr. Malenko’s willingness to lie to the authorities to get what he wants. He told Ms. Handrahan and the True North staff that he was too depressed and anxious to work. Then he criticized his wife for attempting to get a diagnosis and medication that might help. Mr. Malenko made Ms. Handrahan the problem and took the focus off his behavior and nobody picked up on that. And nobody requested a release of information from Mr. Malenko to determine the real story of his military experience. Did you? Will you?

Regarding his use of violence, Mr. Malenko has different stories on that as well. He told Dr.Kabacoff and Ms. Stout that his violence was situational and a reaction to Ms. Handrahan’s pressure on him to get a job (victim blame) and to the stress of parenting Mila. He told the True North staff that he slapped Ms. Handrahan’s hand hard because he was triggered back to memories of the assault as a teen. The interesting point is that Mr. Malenko was violent as a teen, then with his dog (for which he felt terrible) during their courtship, and again when he threw hot food at Ms. Handrahan during her pregnancy. Ms. Handrahan was not insisting that he work at any of these times nor was she seeking a diagnosis for him but that too was lost in the momentum of this case and in your report.

Mr. Malenko also changes stories about his contribution to household duties and about who spent excessive money and who did not. You can read the details of that in Igor’s Disinformation Process which I have attached. I would now like to call your attention to his relationship to the truth in the recent shoplifting episode. I was alarmed to see that that episode was barely mentioned in your report. I was not surprised, though, because Michael Waxman has effectively prevented it from creating even a speed bump in the momentum against Ms. Handrahan in this case. Did you see the police report? Your report suggests you and DHHS totally dropped that ball. We could talk about the risk Mr. Malenko posed to Mila by breaking the law with her present or we could wonder why he stole two bottles of cough syrup for a child who had no cough. Did you wonder about that? Did you wonder if there might be a connection to the high level of methamphetamine later found in her system?

The focus of this discussion, however, is Mr. Malenko’s ease with lying. The report shows that he lied to the security officer in the store in front of Mila and later lied to the cop at his home, hopefully not in front of Mila. Mr. Malenko acted with arrogance, outrage, threats, and denial as he was confronted by the authorities who caught his shoplifting on tape. Did you know that Mr. Malenko took the two bottles into the men’s bathroom and carefully removed them from their packaging before leaving the store? Do you wonder how he explained that behavior to Mila? Yet Mr. Malenko is the preferred parent and his rendition of the truth carries the day. Why is that?

The bottom line is that the professionals in this case are comfortable letting Mr. Malenko care for Mila without knowing much about his life. Do you know about his other relationships or his current one? Do you believe that his childhood experience is relevant to his performance as a parent? Do you believe that someone who is able to lie so easily is a reliable informant? Mr. Malenko’s process of disinformation has fit well with Mr. Waxman’s aggressive defense and personal involvement in this case. Mr. Waxman’s discourse of threat from the very beginning has been impressive and matches the use of threat to gain compliance that is evident with Mr. Malenko. This was particularly effective with the email from Mr. Waxman to all levels of DHHS that threatened Ms. Polly Campbell with loss of her job. That email signaled to all who read it and were investigating this case that they had better not cross Mr. Waxman. Meanwhile, Mr. Malenko was able to quietly act like the victim of his “crazy” ex-wife Ms. Handrahan while his lawyer threatened anyone who tried to look below that characterization. The strategies of Mr. Malenko’s defense are clear: disinformation, threat, and victim blame. Unfortunately, they are effective.

Ms. Handrahan has seemed crazy at times as Mr. Malenko alleges but she is not crazy. When Mr. Malenko was almost killing the student in Macedonia at age 16, Ms. Handrahan was trying to get her mother to leave her abusive father and was finally successful in that regard. There is no question that Ms. Handrahan is intense and her Central Nervous System is likely hard-wired to fight against injustice but she is not crazy. In fact, if Dr. Kabacoff had looked at this case from an abuse/trauma perspective, she might have drawn different conclusions about Ms. Handrahan in terms of possible PTSD. There was no mention of domestic abuse in her report just like there was none in yours. When pushed to diagnose Ms. Handrahan by Mr. Waxman, she offered Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As

you may know, this diagnosis is full of controversy and may be dropped altogether from the DSM-V. One could also wonder what any woman would look like who was attempting to defend herself against the aggressive defense by Mr. Waxman who described her as a despicable human being, likened her to Charles Manson, bragged he would use his personal fortune to defend Mr. Milenko, admitted this was personal for him and was having Mr. Malenko and Mila for overnights! Because many of Ms. Handrahan’s lawyers quit in the midst of Mr. Waxman’s threats, much of the time Ms. Handrahan was representing herself. Who wouldn’t look crazy after months of this? Desperation and exhaustion are not pretty.

I have been privy to many emails between Ms. Handrahan and Mr. Malenko during this period and have found Ms. Handrahan impressive in her restraint in spite of the enormous stress of her defense and attempt to protect Mila. In one particular email she suggested to Mr. Malenko that counseling might be a good idea for Mila given his exposure of Mila to shoplifting. Mr. Malenko went on an attack of Ms. Handrahan that was self-serving, demeaning, lengthy, inaccurate, and familiar. Mr. Malenko’s use of moral outrage was typical of manipulation used by abusers to divert attention from their behavior and was just like his reaction to the security officer in the store. He took no responsibility for his criminal activity with Mila and said Ms. Handrahan was the one who needed counseling. He accused her of using him as a sperm donor and being incapable of co-parenting. It struck me as interesting that if she was the inadequate parent, abusive of her daughter as he (and you) are implying, why would she want therapy for her daughter? She wasn’t even choosing the therapist. Why would Mr. Malenko be so resistant? Doesn’t anyone else see these non sequiturs and their implications for Mila?

I noticed in your report the familiar reference to “friends” which is an easy way to delete years of professional experience, top-notch reputations, and reasoned decision-making from professionals who help Ms. Handrahan. Mr. Malenko has referred to me as Ms. Handrahan’s friend minutes after he heard me testify that, except for the intake session, I have only seen Ms. Handrahan in court and always for purposes of testimony, not support. Ms. Polly Campbell R.N. has been maligned with that reference after her mandated report to DHHS which suggested that Mr. Malenko’s computer be checked for child porn. Mr. Malenko and Mr. Waxman unsuccessfully went after her nursing license and, when that

failed, they filed a lawsuit against her. The implication echoed in your report is that such a concern on her part was inappropriate. I think it would have been unprofessional for Ms. Campbell not to mention the possible presence of child pornography given the following information of which you may or may not be aware:

Mr. Malenko is advanced in his knowledge of computers. He was always glued to his computer at home and at every court hearing.

Mr. Malenko videotaped a lot at home to the point of some irritation for Ms. Handrahan who was working fulltime and doing the child care.

Mr. Malenko videotaped mother and daughter right after Mila’s birth and sent the video to Ms. Handrahan’s friends. Her friends were disgusted, as was I, by the crotch shot of Ms. Handrahan in bed nursing Mila.

When Ms. Handrahan was exhausted and preoccupied after Mila’s birth, Mr. Malenko had her videotape him lying with Mila who was sleeping. He then moved each of Mila’s fingers in and out of his mouth with his tongue moving slowly around each finger. Even Ms. Stout thought it was “gross” but did not think it created a concern for potential sex abuse. Nobody asked what her credentials were as a lawyer to comment on that. I have had years of experience with victims of child sex abuse and worked with child molesters at the Maine State Prison and I saw it as sexualized affection that was a risk factor. Ms. Handrahan’s friends who were sent the DVD by Mr. Malenko were understandably horrified and wanted nothing more to do with him. Have you seen this DVD? If you haven’t, you need to!

Mr. Malenko took much longer baths with Mila than Ms. Handrahan and one day Mila did not want to take a bath with her father. Mr. Malenko tried to strip his wife in front of a screaming Mila and make her take a bath with Mila while he watched. Mr. Malenko accused Ms. Handrahan of having done something in the tub with Mila. Where have we seen this pattern of moral outrage and blame before? Mr. Malenko was rough in trying to strip Ms. Handrahan but she was able to resist.

Mila made an age-appropriate, spontaneous disclosure to Ms. Campbell of genital touch by her father. It was not one of “multiple interviews” as there were no follow-up questions by Ms. Campbell and the opening question was about her cat.

Checking computers for porn is accepted protocol in the investigation of child sex abuse. I have been involved in cases where discovery of child porn

on the computers of the accused has moved cases to a much higher level of culpability, at my suggestion. Yet I’ve never been sued.

Ms. Campbell was well aware of all of these events, standards, and reactions when she made her report to DHHS. Given her expertise in domestic abuse and sexual assault, it would have been inconceivable for her not to mention her concern. These behaviors by Mr. Malenko are serious and build on one another in terms of risk to Mila. Given these behaviors and Mr. Malenko’s refusal to discuss the actual facts of his childhood, the professionals in this case should have done a higher level of due diligence on Mila’s behalf. Unfortunately, they did not and one of the people who did is now defending herself against a lawsuit. Meanwhile, Mr. Malenko disappears under the radar. The discourse of threat in this case is very effective and tells us where to look, where not to look, what to say, what not to say and who will be punished for trying to hold Mr. Malenko accountable.

You have been critical of Ms. Handrahan throughout your report, particularly when you suggested that taking Mila to the doctor for tests might be traumatic for Mila. How many times has Ms. Handrahan taken Mila to the doctor in the past two plus years? Do you know? You talk about how “few parents would subject their children to such relentless recording”. Do you know if Mila even noticed she was being recorded? You say nothing, though, about how many parents would submit their children to shoplifting for cough medicine when there is no cough and then lying about it in front of the child. You say nothing about the sexualized DVD that, when put next to Mila’s disclosure, would be worrisome to most professionals who know about young children’s disclosures and the grooming process in child sex abuse. Do you understand how significant your omissions are?

Ms. Handrahan is “damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t” in your paradigm. You reject her photograph of Mila’s head injury and launch into a long description of a hematoma but fail to notice that the injury was in the same place as the injury of the teen in Macedonia. Ms. Handrahan has been told to tape whenever possible and to take a urine sample for evidence yet that evidence is also dismissed as not tight enough for DHHS. Even taping in the presence of a former state trooper (now private investigator) is unacceptable. Yet, Mr. Malenko offers no evidence and his claims are accepted without question.

You also did not mention that Ms. Handrahan was out of work for months until this fall and has been denied a hearing by Judge Moskowitz to reassess her child support obligation. There were no consequences when Mr. Malenko was out of work so long yet there are major consequences for Ms. Handrahan. Do you see the double standard here? Just as what is not asked or challenged in a report like yours is significant, what is not decided with a hearing has serious impacts. A non- decision by a judge is a decision and is especially powerful because it cannot be appealed.

Judge Moskowitz has relinquished his responsibility by also refusing to hear Ms. Handrahan’s motion for contempt against Mr. Malenko. As a result, Mr. Waxman is acting as the judge and remains unchallenged in his requirement of supervised visits for Ms. Handrahan with Mila. I know of no court order in this case at this time that allows that kind of discretion by Mr. Malenko who has joint custody with Ms. Handrahan. Do you? Ms. Handrahan is unable to go to any other judge in Maine because, when she does, her motions are routed to Judge Moskowitz who does not respond or simply tells the parties to work it out. Judge Moskowitz must be aware that Mr. Malenko took Mila shoplifting and lied about it yet that seems to mean nothing to him as he increased Mr. Malenko’s responsibility for Mila. Even after viewing the sexualized DVD during his lunch hour and while being taken step-by-step through Igor’s Disinformation Process, Judge Moskowitz took no notes in court and was silent in his decision about any of this evidence and testimony. In addition to choosing to ignore the Spurwink finding that it was likely Mr. Malenko was abusing Mila and that she should be protected, he also chose to ignore the bath incident that apparently concerned Judge Mary Gay Kennedy.

This judicial non-response by Judge Moskowitz, coupled with Dan Despard’s narrow legal interpretation of what will be accepted by DHHS in disclosures of young children, makes intervention from any direction impossible. Even when the case was briefly open, DHHS did not require a full release of information from Mr. Malenko, did not send for his military records, and seemed unconcerned about his shifting stories. In fact one supervisor, Dean Staffieri, told me that all people lie! Do you believe that? Also, when Mila was coming out of a supervised visit with her father, she told her mother and caseworker that her father didn’t touch her inappropriately (she used her own words) and the caseworker failed to ask any follow-up questions. Again, we see the importance of what isn’t asked, in this case, when a child is signaling her readiness to talk. Do you see a pattern yet of

systemic cover for Mr. Malenko? What do you think the impact of this is on Mila? How is her mother supposed to protect her from this?

If you had listened to the tape of the “out of control” visit (your words) by Ms. Handrahan to her daughter, you would hear Mila crying for her mother and might have drawn a different conclusion about her attempts to be with Mila. A different impression would also have been possible of the Budapest incident had you considered the possibility that Mr. Malenko often changed his mood on a dime and, in fact, was able to look suddenly sane when help arrived. Instead, you fell in line and concluded that Ms. Handrahan lied about the whole episode. “Turning on a dime” is a classic abuser strategy which effectively leaves everyone looking with rolled eyes at the person who was legitimately trying to get help, in this case Ms. Handrahan.

After so many examples of Mr. Malenko playing with the truth about substantial parts of his life and behavior, your criticism of Ms. Handrahan is concerning. You judge her motives yet say nothing about why Mr. Malenko shoplifted so much cough medicine, and refused therapy for his daughter, who, even by his account has been devastated by events in this case. What is his motivation for telling so many different stories? What is his motivation for encouraging his lawyer to destroy Mila’s relationship with her mother? What is his motive for moving his tongue so slowly around his sleeping daughter’s fingers, for photographing Ms. Handrahan’s crotch, and for sending these images to her friends? You give Mr. Malenko a free pass in your report and hold Ms. Handrahan to a much higher standard of accountability.

There is a way that you also subtly demean the professionals who support Ms. Handrahan. The common thread for all of us is extensive experience with domestic abuse and trauma. The same cannot be said for the professionals who offer cover for Mr. Malenko. Fifteen years ago I was told by a domestic abuse advocate that mental health professionals knew nothing about domestic abuse and were doing a lot of damage. I was stunned silent for a moment, and then said “You know. You’re right.” I have spent the years since then righting that wrong at least in my practice and hopefully in my feedback to others. I hope you too have the courage to look at your involvement in this case and to fill in the blanks about Mr. Malenko that too many people in Maine are willing to ignore. My belief is

that people don’t like Ms. Handrahan but they don’t know Mr. Malenko and that is more dangerous for Mila.

Many professionals are comforted by simply referring to this case as a “bitter custody battle”. It is much more than that. This is a domestic abuse case with some red flags that raise concerns for child sex abuse. In order for you to more accurately understand the dynamics here I offer the following suggestions: Will you get a full release of information from Mr. Malenko and send for his military records? Will you look at the tape of the man he injured in Macedonia, the recording of Mila’s disclosure, the DVD of the sexualized touch, and the tape of Ms. Handrahan’s visit to Mr. Malenko’s home to see Mila? Will you recommend therapy for Mila? Will you look at the psychological evaluation of Ms. Handrahan that was recently done out of state? Will you recommend a psychological evaluation of Mr. Malenko that rules out a diagnosis of anti-social personality disorder (previously described as sociopath/psychopath)? Will you look at Igor’s Disinformation Process and study the important shifts in his story? Will you find a way to return Mila to pre-school so finances can no longer be used as the excuse for isolating her? Will you ask DHHS to reopen this case and to hold Mila’s passport? If you won’t, you will continue to be part of the disinformation process that was started by Mr. Malenko and continued by his lawyer, the guardian, the psychologist, one therapist, the judge, and DHHS.

Sincerely,

Lesley Devoe, ACSWLicensed Clinical Social Worker

cc. Judy Potter, Esq.