By Richard Luthmann and Michael Volpe
Judge Bows Out After Bribery Allegations Rock Cook County Court
Corrupt court claims force Judge Renee Goldfarb to recuse herself from high-stakes custody case.
'Bribery Runs in the Family'—Meet the Beermann LLP Law Firm Accused of Corrupting Cook County Courts
John D'Arco III named in lawsuit; firm implicated in bribery scheme.
Teen Twins Speak Out Against Custody War: 'This Case is About Money'
Gwen and Grace Gerard blame courts and lawyers for prolonging their misery.
A high-profile lawsuit in Cook County, Illinois, has uncovered a network of alleged corruption involving judges, lawyers, and law enforcement officials in a contentious child custody case. The federal civil lawsuit, filed by Ken Gerard and his current wife Marissa, accuses multiple judges, including Judge Renee Goldfarb, of accepting bribes from Beermann LLP, a prominent Chicago law firm. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Judge Goldfarb recused herself from the custody case, fueling speculation that the allegations have merit.
The lawsuit centers on claims that Beermann LLP, led by managing partner John D'Arco III, has used illicit payments to manipulate court outcomes. D'Arco's family has a history of involvement in Illinois politics, with his father and grandfather both implicated in bribery scandals. The case also accuses Glencoe Detective Ryan McInerney of taking bribes to dismiss felony child sex assault charges against Ken Gerard's ex-wife, Jane Gerard.
Meanwhile, Gwen and Grace Gerard, the twin daughters at the heart of the custody dispute, have publicly pleaded with their mother to end the court battle, stating that the prolonged case has only served to enrich lawyers and court-appointed professionals. As the legal battle continues, questions remain about whether the court system will act quickly enough to resolve the case before the girls turn 18 and the custody order becomes irrelevant.
Michael Volpe
So last week, we talked about a revolutionary lawsuit near Chicago, in Cook County, and we had our first scalp. Let me get this up. And don't know, Oh yeah, okay, so let me get this up. So, last week, we talked about a lawsuit involving Ken Gerard. He's involved in a custody case, but this is a federal civil recall lawsuit, so he's alleging that certain entities operate like a criminal enterprise. Still, he's suing civilly, so there are two different court actions. So soon after he filed the lawsuit, he had a child custody pre-trial hearing, and I called. How did I say it? It is full of nerdy legal talk. Normally, they're boring. Now we had, we did this last Wednesday. This was Thursday, I think at noon, it was scheduled, and the judge who was presiding is Renee Goldfarb, and she was one of the defendants. And Kent he sued with his current wife, Marissa, and their two daughters, Gwen and Grace. They alleged that Judge Goldfarb was one of several judges who was receiving bribes in a basically well-run bribery scheme to corrupt the courts in general and in his case specifically, and where, earlier in the day, on Thursday, Judge Goldfarb went ahead and recused herself from the case. So we talked about it. You wrote about it. I want to mention Robert Hansen and Julie Holburn have written about this case. So it created a lot of commotion, and I think that at least contributed to it. And I think the other thing that contributed to it, you and I talked about this last week, I don't like the term upon information and belief in a lawsuit, and that is literally about it, but I think the allegations have a lot of merit. Or she wouldn't have recused herself.
Richard Luthmann
That's very true that at the end of the day, for a judge, the situation is they have to decide for themselves whether they they can remain on the case. If they have an interest in the litigation, they have to go. But the big idea is the appearance of impropriety, and I think that she just did not want to deal with the firestorm here, the potential press firestorm. So, she took the exit ramp because it was presented by naming her as a defendant. She has the ability to take the exit ramp, and that's what she did. And this is the second judge. Boyd was there before. And there's going to be going to be going to be another judge that's going to get this case, and we'll see what happens there. The question becomes, is the next judge going to be somebody else that's in John D'Arco's pocket?
Michael Volpe
Here's John D'Arco. That's this guy right here. So, for those who didn't see it, see the first show and aren't familiar with the lawsuit. Ken's wife is Jane Gerard. She's hired the Beermann LLP law firm. Several people from the Beermann LLP law firm represent her. Actually, D'Arco is not one of them, but he is mentioned in the lawsuit because, according to the lawsuit, he is heard bragging on the golf course that he has a lot of judges in his pocket.
Richard Luthmann
He's the Managing Partner of the firm. The buck stops with him.
Michael Volpe
Right. And actually, he's technically John D'Arco, the third. His father, John D'Arco Jr, went to jail for what? For bribery. His grandfather was also an Illinois State politician. His father was an Illinois State politician. So was his grandfather, and his grandfather was investigated for bribery. So, it seems like bribery runs in the family. I want to mention one other person and, and the reason I want to mention her is that we haven't mentioned her before. This woman's name is Kathryn Ciesla. She doesn't work for Bierman, but what the lawsuit alleges is they often use outside counsel like Miss Cielsa. And so she is another divorce lawyer. I believe she is a partner at the firm Ciesla Beeler LLC. But here's part of the lawsuit, and in other instances, Beerman LLP does not hesitate to direct personnel outside the proceedings to undertake extra-judicial maneuvering, for example, upon information and belief. Beerman LLP directed outside counsel Kathryn Ciesla of Northfield to deliver some form of illicit contribution, possibly a cash payment, to the village of Glencoe Detective Ryan McInerney on his way home from work in nearby Glencoe on or around early August 2023 in exchange for his written findings that felony child sex assault charges against Jane Girard were unfounded. And we should say that the centerpiece of the child custody case is that the two twin daughters are fraternal twins. I love saying that. That means they are twins, but they don't look exactly alike. That they allege that their mother was molesting them. This was turned over to Department of Child and Family Services to local police, Glencoe Police, it led to unsubstantiated findings and no charges.
Michael Volpe
Earlier this year, Kent and Marissa found an air tag device that is used to track surreptitiously brought onto their car, which also led to no charges. Detective Ryan McInerney, who, according to the lawsuit, is on the take and is a dirty cop. He was the cop on both cases, I'm sure, quite coincidentally and so that summarizes the lawsuit. Let me break it down. I didn't talk about this in the story. So where are we at in the child custody case. So the girls, they were born February of 2008 I believe. So they will be 17 in February, February of 2025, and once they turn 18, there's nothing the system can do that they're going to 'age out,' as as it's called. So right now, we're a little less than a year and a half out, and the second judge has now accused herself. Now, what's happened is they have a custody order, I think, that was signed in 2015, but for the last two years, it's been ignored because the girls refuse to go see their mom. No one will enforce the order. What they've what they've done is they've appointed a whole bunch of people. They had a Guardian ad litem. Now they have a child rep. They've had reunification therapists, other therapists, and all kinds of people come on in the case, not to mention the amount of charges that Beermann LLP has charged. So they found a way, a racket, if you will, to charge the two parents.
Michael Volpe
As I pointed out, Glencoe is one of the wealthiest suburbs and one of the wealthiest cities in America. So, obviously, both Ken and Jane are doing well financially. Wouldn't be able to live there if you didn't. And so they're charging two people who can afford to pay, and that seems to be where it is. Now, later this month, I think it still was going to be. Later this month, they were supposed to hold a new custody hearing, even though they had a custody order. That's gone. So now you have a year and a half approximately to get a whole new custody hearing done. They can do it. If we are comparing this to a football game, I would say that Ken's team is up 10. They got six or seven minutes left. So you want to try to run out the clock. I don't believe they have, now that they need to do is appoint a new judge, and then that judge needs to schedule a hearing, not a custody hearing, and restart the process. It's certainly possible to get all of these things done. And what, what would have I don't you, you know, the girls are going to be 17 soon. There are two of them. You're not going to be able to force them to spend time with their mom if they don't want to. Alright, they got cars. They have friends. That's just not going to happen. What can happen is you're going to write an order in such a way that Ken either can't or won't follow it, and then Beermann LLP can come in, sanction him, and, you know, wealthier suburb, one of the wealthiest suburbs in America, and make him pay a whole bunch of money. And that's probably where they're angling. It's possible for them to do it, but the court is going to have to get on its horse, appoint your judge, and get these hearings started. Because, if you're not doing this in the next month or two, and it's not restarting, then by the time it restarts, the argument's going to be, what are you trying to do? We only have a few months left before they're 18, and then the court order runs out anyway. So that's basically where they're at in the custody case. The federal lawsuit has just gotten started. I think they appointed a judge, and we'll see what happens with both of them.
Richard Luthmann
They're going to run the meter to the very last day that they can. That's what Beermann LLP does. I got Beermann LLP up behind that their roster, and they're up in Bannockburn, two towns over from Glencoe up in the northern suburbs of Chicago like you said, wealthy suburbs, and they're a really white law firm, and they're unapologetic about it. They're the ones that talk about tolerance and inclusion. They have the Boyd scholarship, where they're trying to promote black lawyers, but they hired one on their own.
Michael Volpe
I want to play this video. This is from the two daughters when they were 16 and when they were 15, I believe, because they're going to break down how the courts work in their case, in all cases, really well in about two minutes. Yeah, they're going to run out there. They'll, they'll, they'll be able to charge it's just, are they charging their client, or are they going to be able to to to maneuver it so they can get a court order in time that Ken is going to violate, that they can come back to court for and make him pay an exorbitant amount of fees to them. And that remains to be seen.
Richard Luthmann
John D'Arco owns all the judges. It shouldn't be a problem. And like I said, Now that Lori lightfoots gone, we'll try to find out who has the biggest dick in the City of Chicago, right?
Michael Volpe
We will see, look it. It's not that simple support. According to the lawsuit, both Boyd and Goldfarb are receiving illicit payments from Beermann LLP, and they both recuse themselves from the case. So yeah, he owns all the judges, but it doesn't seem so in this case. So now let's listen to the two girls. Do you? Do you hear it?
Richard Luthmann
No, I don't. You gotta turn that volume up.
Michael Volpe
Wait no. Hold on one second. I think I did one thing wrong. Let me. Let me get it back up. Um Yeah, hold on. I know what I did wrong. We'll, we'll get it right back up. Alright. Now you should be able to hear it. Alright. So this is Gwen and Grace, the two girls that the the girls that everyone says they're working in the best interests.
Gwen and Grace Girard
Today, we want to publicly ask our mom to stop putting us through this. We have reached out to our mom several times in the past year, asking her to please stop being in court. We told her how it's affecting us, how it interfaces our school lives, how it interferes with our activities, how we talk to all these red people, how it stresses us out. We don't want this to be our childhood. It's already been a year of this, Mom. Do you understand why this continues to drag on? It's because you and dad have money. If you didn't, this case would have been over quickly. Instead, it drags on while everyone involved makes money off of you. Our case is nearly identical to all of our friends’ cases that have also been through this. We have talked with them for hours, and they have helped us put the pieces together. If you want to know who's benefiting, just look at the money. More and more professionals are being brought into our case, but no one has attempted to listen to us or even settle the case so that we can have a normal childhood. Instead, all the court-appointed people who are brought in put us through hell and just when we think. It can't get any worse. They will violently rip us from our safe home and send us to a reunification camp, which will put us through even more trauma. Mom, you have the power to stop all of this, please.
Michael Volpe
They explain it well, there you are.
Richard Luthmann
They're smart. They're smart, young ladies. They really are. They get it.
Michael Volpe
Well, what the goal is, it's not to fix anything, it's to get as many people appointed as possible in order to charge people. And they're right, if you didn't have money, this wouldn't be happening, because they can't charge people that don't have money. I That's the racket. That's the scam, as I said at the end. It's a racket. This whole thing is done just to get as many people appointed as possible. And at the time, it looked like they were going to switch custody. And then these girls made a bunch of videos on Instagram, some of them. I redid, and there were articles that came out, and they stopped that boy got off the case. But the custody case continues there. There's a child rep who was charging these parents a whole bunch of money. There are other people. We're still charging these parents a whole bunch of money. And that's basically the ultimate goal, is just to get as many people on this case as possible. And everyone maximizes billable hours, including the law firm, Beermann Law Group.
Beermann LLP and the Girard Case: Chicago Judge Goldfarb Recuses Amid Bribery Claims