Family Court’s Biggest Scam: The Custody Evaluation Racket
Pseudoscience & Corruption: The Custody Evaluator Con Job
NOTE: This piece was first published on TheFamilyCourtCircus.com.
By Elena Belogolovsky
Imagine a judge gambling your child’s future on a psychic’s hunch. Sounds insane? Welcome to family court, where custody evaluations—touted as expert science—decide who gets your kids. These reports, penned by mental health pros, guide judges on parenting plans, safety, and visitation.
The pitch: Judges need psychologists to decode family chaos. The truth? It’s a cesspool of pseudoscience, bias, and corruption that’s selling out kids—and you’ll be livid when you see how deep this scam runs.
Custody evaluations promise objectivity: interviews, psych tests, record reviews—sounds legit, right? Wrong. They’re a house of cards built on shaky methods and evaluator greed, not evidence. Picture designing a skyscraper with a Magic 8-Ball instead of blueprints—absurd, yet that’s the vibe. Courts lap up these reports like gospel, but they’re closer to tea-leaf readings than science, with kids paying the price.
The Fraud Hits Home
As a scientist and divorced mom, I lived this nightmare. My ex’s lawyer, Darren Holst, demanded an evaluator. I dove into research—peer-reviewed studies, not rumors—and found it a sham. I emailed Dr. Evans, then-president of the American Psychological Association, begging for insight.
Here is the response that I received:
I pleaded with the judge: “This isn’t science!” His reply? He essentially said he skips these costly evaluations unless someone can pay—and since my ex could, we were getting one. Cash trumped reason.
Then it got worse. My ex and his lawyer picked Arnold Shienvold—red flags everywhere. Online, parents trashed him: biased, sloppy, a disaster. He’d been scrubbing those damning reviews like a pro, but I was faster—I’d screenshotted them before they vanished. And the mothers? They’re relentless, reposting their horror stories every time he wipes them out.
When I asked Shienvold about these reviews, he said happy clients don’t post reviews. I showed the reviews to the judge; he shrugged. Mothers who’d faced him shared their horror stories with me—reports so absurd I’d have laughed if they weren’t real.
Shienvold was under PA Department of State investigation, yet still greenlit. Why? He’s a Judicial Conduct Board of PA insider and ex- AFCC (Association of Family and Conciliation Courts) president—a clique of lawyers, judges, and evaluators raking in cash while kids suffer. More on that racket later.
Family Court’s Biggest Scam: Pseudoscience, Not Protection
Custody evaluations should be rock-solid—data-driven, testable, valid, and reliable. Instead, they lean on junk like Rorschach tests, debunked for custody use by experts like Scott Lilienfeld and his colleagues in 2000. Bias runs rampant: evaluators favor whoever pays more.
Contrast a lab’s precision with this: a fortune-teller’s booth in a psych degree’s clothing. Courts don’t care—Shienvold’s conflicts screamed “rigged,” yet the judge waved it through. It’s not science; it’s a grift.
A Rigged Game
Family courts aren’t constitutional sanctuaries—they’re administrative meat grinders where evidence bends to power. Shienvold’s case proves it: a connected player, dodging scrutiny while parents bleed. The AFCC ties evaluators to judges and attorneys in a profit triangle—$80,000 evaluations aren’t cheap, and someone’s cashing in. My judge admitted cost usually stops these, but cash screamed louder.
Family Court’s Biggest Scam: The Stakes Are Deadly
This is a crisis. Kids are handed to abusers or ripped from safe homes because evaluators play god with zero evidence. The system’s a fraud, and 2025’s outrage is boiling over on X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and even LinkedIn: “#CustodyFraud, #MeTooFamilyCourt, #FamilyCourtCorruption—judges ignore abuse, evaluators cash checks.”
Science? Nope. Corruption? Yes.
What’s Next?
This is Part 1—buckle up.
Part 2 rips apart the pseudoscience—think astrology with a PhD. Part 3 unmasks the profit machine. Part 4 exposes the $80,000 evidentiary trainwreck. This isn’t just my fight—it’s yours if you’ve got kids in court.
Sign this petition to prosecute Arnold Shienvold for misconduct.
Got a story? Drop it below or tweet #CustodyFraud—let’s make this explode.
Family court’s dirty secret is out—share this now!
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How awful all of this is. These scams are run, not just to make money, and bleed money, but in order for the judge to abdicate his own decision-making. They just don’t want the responsibility, or any liability, or reputation impact for making these powerful decisions about these young lives. I’m 67 now, but as a child, I remember growing up reading about corruption all over the globe and thinking how lucky we were in America.. In many ways we are, and I love this country. But we are as corrupt as a Third World country in nearly every area. It’s disgusting. My very best to you.
It’s hard to say looking back what scam was the most harmful. The humiliating vocational exam ordered by the husband who never let me earn an income except for what he gave me after leaving my career to get married, or the muppet like forensic accountant, Dennis down in Laguna Niguel who only computed what’s given to him by the one who claimed he was broke, or the sealed documents- the conviction of Domestic Violence, Financial Abuse, and substantiated child abuse, that we were unable to get to the custody evaluator that wouldn’t have been necessary had those documents not been under some seal. My child was in danger and no one listened. His father broke his eleven year old nose, and the PD said there’s a burden of proof for an eleven year old, and I needed to be careful not to look like a hysterical mother during a custody battle - as my son screamed for me to get him while his father left him alone to go to Crowbar. Or the $1M he took out in my name against my house forging my signature, and transferring my 401k to his family law attorney’s husband the day after being served, or changing the judgement to a short term marriage after thirteen years of marriage and no one catching it. This is the tip of the iceberg- fraud and deception are applauded in the OC; they admire the depraved. I’ve watched it, and that’s why most women stay- they know the outcome for all. I apologize for the drawn out comment, but it’s all a scam and the children- the perfect innocent babies witness their mother’s lose their peace and laughter- not only their homes, cars, dignity, and private schools.