LUTHMANN NOTE: You don’t need a roadmap to see what’s happening here. A clone site appears, telling victims not to send evidence to Dave Weigel and the 501(c)(3) watchdog group Family Court Fraud Warrior Project. That alone tells you the mission. Then you see who benefits, who’s already been attacking them, and who shows up again—Jason Samaritano, a convicted repeat offender and career criminal with a documented smear history. Add in active legal battles with Joshua Bartley Anderson and Zoali and Carlos Alvarez, and the pattern locks into place. This isn’t reform. It’s a coordinated effort to shut down the evidence pipeline and discredit the man exposing the system. And the site they built may be the proof that buries them. This piece is “Samaritano Smear Campaign Exposed?” first available at TheFamilyCourtCircus.com.
By Richard Luthmann with M. Thomas Nast
I have covered family court long enough to know when a dirty trick is just a dirty trick, and when it is something larger, colder, and more deliberate. This one did not drift in on the wind. It was built, branded, and pointed at one man and the reform organization he built. That man is Dave Weigel, the Wall Street fixed-income guru turned family court advocate.
The story is simple. Weigel’s Family Court Fraud Warrior Project has a counterfeit twin, the same enemies keep circling, and the trail now runs through Jason Samaritano, a convicted repeat offender, and the people who benefit if Weigel is discredited.
The larger question is much more difficult. Few will argue that America’s family courts are not in need of reform. Meaningful change is rare. Hard work towards change is often diffused by powerful interests playing legal and legislative games. Backbiting and smear campaigns between advocates and watchdogs make little to no sense if there is a shared goal of genuine, earnest reform.
What we are now seeing from career criminal Jason Samaritano and his “gem” of a wife, Erin, fueled by North Carolina engineer Joshua Bartley Anderson and Connecticut builders Zoali and Carlos Alvarez, is not advocacy. It is a corrupt, self-interested smear that actually denigrates honest efforts to fix a broken family court system.
This reporting is based upon the available facts.
A Clear Smear
The official Family Court Fraud Warrior Project says exactly what it is, and is forward-facing on its website and 20,000+ member Facebook page.
It is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit entity built to collect records for permanent public record, expose corruption, and organize parents who believe the family courts operate as a profit-driven system of fraud and abuse.
The mission of FCFWP is clearly contained in the organization’s foundational documents, and public records can be easily found online:
The Family Court Fraud Warrior Project, LTD is being formed as a nonprofit watchdog, educational, and public advocacy organization to expose and combat corruption, abuse, and misconduct within the family court system. The corporation’s primary purpose is to educate the public on systemic issues in family courts through research, public reporting, and community outreach, while also providing informational resources and emotional support to families harmed by judicial overreach and government misconduct. It aims to accomplish this mission by hosting public forums, publishing investigative reports, supporting whistleblowers, and monitoring court actors and agencies to ensure transparency and accountability. The intended beneficiaries of the corporation’s efforts are parents, children, and extended family members affected by unjust family court proceedings, as well as the broader public who benefit from a legal system that upholds due process, fairness, and constitutional rights. The organization will operate strictly within the legal limits governing nonprofit entities advancing civic integrity and public education to the fullest extent permitted by law.
Weigel is the driving force behind the effort and presents the project as a national transparency-and-reform movement. FCFWP has had dozens of identifiable, quantifiable successes across the country in the relatively short time the organization has operated.
Then the counterfeit appeared.
The clone site uses nearly identical branding. It calls itself “Family Court Fraud Warriors,” and wraps itself in the same vocabulary of honor, transparency, and justice. Then it says the quiet part out loud. In bold language, it warns readers that the Family Court Fraud Warrior Project is a “scam” and tells them not to believe Dave Weigel or send documentation to FCFWP.
That is not a mission based on reform or oversight. That is a roadblock placed directly in front of the evidence stream that powers an honest, bona fide, and genuine push for meaningful reform by a recognized watchdog organization.
That fact matters because the FCFWP’s mission rises or falls on a public permanent record: documents, records, and public submissions. If protective parents and harmed families stop sending material, the project cannot continue to build files, identify patterns, and keep exposing the judges, lawyers, and insiders that the movement says are protected by secrecy.
Whoever built the clone site understood that perfectly well. They did not create an alternative reform model. Instead, these toadies built a digital choke point that simultaneously serves the dark lords of family court fraud.
Unlike FCFWP, an entity that is transparent and that files public disclosures with the government, we do not yet know with certainty who built the bogus website and fly-by-night con. But we have a strong idea because they have given themselves away.
Samaritano Smear Campaign Exposed: The pressure was already on Weigel before the clone site went live
This operation did not begin in a vacuum. It arrived while Weigel was already under pressure from multiple active disputes, and those disputes gave more than one person a motive to want him neutralized.
In Kentucky, Weigel became a visible and vocal figure in the custody fight involving protective mother Cindy Lynn Adams, alcoholic Joshua Bartley Anderson, and psycho Judge Tiffany Yahr. Weigel is a public critic of the custody transfer of special needs children to an admitted alcoholic without an actual court finding, and of the broader system that allows it.
Having thrown an eighty-year-old grandmother in chains for speaking out, Judge Yahr, who is facing calls for impeachment, infamously told a protective mother: “I will proudly and undeniably cut off Ms. Adams’ First Amendment Rights.”
Anderson and the Kentucky case are a part of the larger narrative of family-court abuse and judicial betrayal, with Weigel and FCFWP as voices amplifying the story of injustice.
“This is what Dave does,” said Amy Jeter Duncan, lead researcher for the FCFWP. “He sees institutional injustice and shines a light on it until it stops. The system doesn’t like it because once they’re caught, they normally scurry away as cockroaches hit with Raid.”
In Connecticut, Weigel was also at loggerheads with Carlos and Zoali Alvarez, their slimy lawyer Frank Lieto, and his law firm, and bought-and-paid-for law enforcement and courts in a separate legal fight. Apparent from the clear record are disputes involving protective orders, contradictions in testimony, and allegations tied to the Alvarez family and their conflict with Weigel, who is at the center of a bruising Connecticut lawfare battle.
Now look at the larger picture. Kentucky and Connecticut are different battlegrounds with different litigants and different courtrooms. But the same target keeps reappearing. Weigel’s watchdog advocacy is the common denominator – FCFWP is effectively frustrating family court fraud.
Then, as pressure intensifies, a copycat site appears and tells the public not to trust him and the FCFWP, and not to send them evidence. That is where coincidence begins to look like camouflage.
Samaritano Smear Campaign Exposed: Jason Samaritano is not a reformer; he is a convicted repeat offender, and the smear orbit around Weigel runs through him
Let’s stop pretending Jason Samaritano is some misunderstood activist who wandered into this story by accident. Public reporting and court materials show that Samaritano pleaded guilty in New Jersey to fraud-related charges and stalking, and a 2025 Third Circuit opinion states that, by March 2023, he had pleaded guilty pursuant to a global plea agreement covering three fraud-related proceedings and a stalking-related proceeding.
Samaritano has at least 25 prior arrests and eight convictions. A New Jersey judge described him as a “repetitive offender” who was “highly likely to reoffend,” and he had pleaded guilty to theft by deception, fraudulent handling of funds, and stalking, and was also arrested while on probation. Which mugshot do you prefer?
That is not the profile of a reformer— it’s the profile of a career criminal. Now his name sits in the middle of the anti-Weigel smear ecosystem. And it’s not the first time. Samaritano had an earlier iteration of the smear, a Facebook page called “Exposing Fraudulent People.”
The difference now is that it’s supported by an alcoholic engineer from North Carolina and corrupt, homophobic builders from New Canaan, Connecticut.
“I always like to believe that everyone on this planet has value, and however traumitized or injured, they can heal and find a meaningful purpose,” Weigel said. “Jason Samaritano has proved me wrong. There is nothing redeemable about him. He is a case study in jealousy and criminality gone awry. Not only the courts, but the public at large should seriously consider why individuals associated with Dunham Associates Engineers and Green Day Homes would associate with that career fraudster and his wretched wife.”
Samaritano is someone who continues to publicly smear Weigel, predicted arrests that never happened, published Weigel’s home address, and made himself a menace to the very family-court advocates he claimed to represent. Erin Samaritano, the Bonnie to Jason’s Clyde, also has a checkered past. She pushed followers to spam authorities with complaints against Weigel. We asked her about her involvement. She has not answered as of press time. Here is what we asked:
From: Modern Thomas Nast <mthomasnast@protonmail.com>
Date: On Friday, April 3rd, 2026 at 7:06 AM
Subject: Questions on Your Role in Anti-Weigel Smear Operation
To: mobile.notary.erin@gmail.com <mobile.notary.erin@gmail.com>
CC: RALafontaine <ralafontaine@protonmail.com>, Rick LaRivière <RickLaRiviere@proton.me>, frankiepressman@protonmail.com <frankiepressman@protonmail.com>, Richard Luthmann <richard.luthmann@protonmail.com>, Michael Volpe <mvolpe998@gmail.com>, amy.d@fraudwarrior.org <amy.d@fraudwarrior.org>
Erin Samaritano,
We are a group of investigative journalists covering the national family court reform movement, and we are writing to you because your name keeps surfacing in connection with what appears to be a coordinated smear campaign targeting Dave Weigel and the Family Court Fraud Warrior Project (FCFWP).
Let’s be direct. A clone website (
https://familycourtfraudwarriors.com/
) using near-identical branding to Weigel’s organization has emerged, and it does one thing clearly and aggressively: it tells victims and families not to send evidence to FCFWP. That is not reform. That is interference with an active watchdog operation that depends on public submissions.
Your public social media activity, along with prior reporting, places you in the orbit of that messaging.
At the same time, your husband, Jason Samaritano—a convicted repeat offender and career criminal with a documented history of fraud-related charges and stalking—has engaged in sustained public attacks against Weigel. These include false claims of imminent arrests, publication of personal information, and ongoing attempts to discredit his work.
That pattern did not stop. It evolved.
The language, tone, and objectives of the clone site mirror those of the earlier attacks with striking consistency. The timing also aligns with active disputes involving Joshua Bartley Anderson in Kentucky and Carlos and Zoali Alvarez in Connecticut—both of whom have documented conflicts with Weigel.
So we are asking you plainly:
- Did you have any role in creating, funding, or promoting the “Family Court Fraud Warriors” website?
- Are you working in coordination with Joshua Bartley Anderson, Carlos Alvarez, or Zoali Alvarez?
- Have you or your husband supplied materials, images, or case-related information used on that site?
- What is your justification for encouraging actions that appear designed to disrupt a nonprofit watchdog effort?
You are free to say whatever you want in the public square. That is your right. But when a platform actively redirects evidence away from a reform organization and is tied to individuals with a history of harassment and criminal conduct, the public has a right to ask who is behind it and why.
On that point, will you admit your criminal history:
We are preparing publication on this matter. If you would like your response included, you may reply to this email. If not, we will report based on the available record. If you respond after we have published, we will incorprate the information into a follow-up.
Regards,
Modern Thomas Nast
The pattern here matters because the clone site is not operating in some social vacuum. It is operating in a field already seeded with hostility toward Weigel. The messaging and objectives are the same. The target is the same. And public traces connecting Jason and Erin Samaritano to promotion of the clone-site brand only tighten that overlap.
Samaritano Smear Campaign Exposed: The dots connect because the clone site is not about advancing reform; it is about crippling it
The clone site does not offer a serious reform agenda, nor does not present a better model for gathering evidence as part of a public permanent record to expose family court fraud and abuse. It does not show a stronger methodology or build a rival system to expose corruption.
What it does, with total clarity, is attack Dave Weigel and try to sever his access to the families, records, and evidence of fraud and corruption that sustain the Family Court Fraud Warrior Project’s successful watchdog mission.
That is why the site matters, and that is why the dots connect.
Joshua Bartley Anderson had reason to resent Weigel’s role in the Kentucky case. Carlos and Zoali Alvarez had reason to resent Weigel’s reporting and activism in Connecticut. Jason Samaritano, a convicted repeat offender, already had an established history of publicly targeting Weigel, and Erin Samaritano appears in the same smear orbit.
And they got sloppy. Images and digital artifacts already published on the clone site can be directly sourced back to this corrupt cabal.
Meanwhile, the clone site arrives with identical branding, hostile messaging, and one unmistakable command: do not send documentation to Dave Weigel and his nonproft watchdog.
It’s almost as if the directive was written by the hand of the chief judge of the family court division that you, your family members, or your friends may be battling at this very moment. Who benefits from the Weigel smear?
The corrupt. Plain and simple.
Do those facts, standing alone, prove a signed conspiracy agreement in a neat envelope? No. Real smear campaigns rarely come with stationery. But they do come with pattern, motive, timing, and operational benefit, and those pieces are all here. The people who benefit from Weigel’s discrediting, the infrastructure, and the digital sabotage are all visible.
That is why this story is not hard to read.
Dave Weigel and the FCFWP are the primary targets. Those who would hold a corrupt family court system accountable are the real objective. Joshua Bartley Anderson and Zoali and Carlos Alvarez have already “bought and paid for” the family court machine’s top-line features: “protection” and “designer child trafficking.” The Weigel smear is merely support for their crooked investments.
Jason Samaritano is not some colorful sideshow; he is a convicted repeat offender whose record and conduct fit the smear operation like a key fits a lock. Samartiano was trying to style himself as a family court reformer. When that failed – and when Dave Weigel succeeded – he became jealous and angry.
But the larger problem is that Jason’s only marketable skill in life – clear from the factual record – is petit larceny. And it is fundamentally wrong that he should steal HOPE from families already hurting from family court. And that fact that others from Kentucky, North Carolina, Conencticut, and elsewhere would associate and engage with this career criminal also smacks of a criminal enterprise.
The more this clone-site stunt is examined, the more it looks less like criticism and more like a coordinated effort to discredit Weigel, poison his organization, and shut down a reform movement by choking off the evidence stream that holds the corrput accountable.
That sure looks a like high-level smear campaign to me.
