THE COURTROOM CON: MONICA CIARDI’S SENTENCING EXPOSES NJ’S CORRUPT MACHINE
No Indictment, No Due Process, No Justice as Protective Mother Faces Sentencing in Essex County
By Richard Luthmann
A SENTENCE BUILT ON SAND
Protective mother Monica Ciardi will be sentenced today in Essex County Superior Court in Newark under a plea agreement that legal observers say was never lawfully anchored in an indictment.
No one—not journalists, attorneys, or public records custodians- has been able to locate a grand jury indictment from Essex County.
That should be the end of the story.
But in New Jersey’s two-tiered justice system, the law applies only when it’s convenient.
Despite this constitutional failure, Judge Michael L. Ravin is expected to sentence Ciardi under a third-degree plea deal that raises more red flags than a Communist parade.
Ciardi’s agreement was brokered by former Essex County prosecutor turned defense attorney Casey Breslow for a meager fee of $15,000. Not a bad day’s work for the Verona attorney, when it appears she ignored every warning light on the legal dashboard.
The plea deal strips Ciardi of her constitutional rights, including her First Amendment right to speak and her fundamental right to parent her children.
Nowhere in the record is there a clear allocution establishing that she knowingly waived those rights. Without informed consent, the agreement is void on its face.
THE COURTROOM CON: HOW TO LOSE YOUR CHILDREN IN NEW JERSEY
Ciardi was arrested in late 2023 and held without bail. Her alleged “crimes” stem from her fight to protect her daughters in a brutal Morris County family court war waged by her ex-husband, police firearms instructor John Uanis.
At six feet six and reportedly armed, Uanis leveraged his status to portray himself as a victim.
In contrast, Ciardi — 105 pounds and unarmed — was shackled, gagged, and locked away.
The family court battle quickly metastasized into a criminal proceeding, one riddled with procedural irregularities and deeply unethical conduct.
A Facebook post quoting judicial threats led to charges of terroristic threats. Ciardi’s voice was criminalized to gain an advantage in a custody fight.
The plea deal includes a felony conviction and a “non-disparagement” clause that bars Ciardi from speaking publicly about her case, her children, and even the judges involved.
The arrangement doesn’t just silence a mother — it obliterates the most basic principles of due process, transparency, and justice.
THE COURTROOM CON: A STATE-SPONSORED SHAKEDOWN
Morris County officials used the justice system for personal gain. Monica Ciardi’s case is not just a local disgrace—it’s a blueprint for systemic abuse.
John Uanis exploited law enforcement connections to turn a custody dispute into a criminal prosecution. Local officials, including members of the judiciary, executed the plan.
Judge Peter Bogaard, among others, helped weaponize the bench. Instead of acting as a neutral arbiter, he became a willing participant in Uanis’s vendetta.
Prosecutors bent the rules. The police looked the other way. The courts ran cover.
New Jersey’s judicial system has long operated like a protection racket, especially in Morris and Essex Counties.
Ciardi’s ordeal has revealed that the entire structure functions more like an organized criminal enterprise than a public institution.
The abuse of process, misuse of prosecutorial discretion, and willful abandonment of judicial neutrality point to a clear pattern: government actors using the courts for their private benefit.
THE COURTROOM CON: TIME FOR FEDERAL HANDCUFFS
This case should be a line in the sand. It is time for federal intervention.
Interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, newly appointed and under pressure to clean house, should use the Ciardi case as her opening salvo.
Every actor involved — from Morris County prosecutors to Essex County judges — should face investigation. Some should face indictments of their own.
This is not merely a miscarriage of justice; it is institutional torture of a protective mother. The people who carried it out should not retire comfortably. They should leave in handcuffs.
The violations in Ciardi’s case are numerous and undeniable: lack of indictment, ineffective assistance of counsel, coercive plea terms, and retaliatory detention.
The goal was to silence a whistleblower and strip a woman of her children. The methods were mafia-grade. The perpetrators wore robes and badges.
FROM TRENTON TO THE WHITE HOUSE
This case is already drawing eyes beyond the state. Sources close to the matter confirm that the Monica Ciardi saga has reached 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The link? Former Governor Chris Christie — widely regarded as the political godfather and “Black Hand” of the New Jersey judicial machine.
Christie’s influence looms large over the state’s prosecutorial culture, and insiders describe him as the kingpin of the legal-political cartel that has long enabled the kind of abuse Ciardi faced.
As Christie attempts a national resurgence, the timing could not be worse.
Federal investigators now have a blueprint. The Ciardi case shows how corrupt New Jersey actors weaponize public power for personal vendettas.
And it shows how deep the rot goes.
WHAT JUDGE RAVIN MUST DO
Judge Michael L. Ravin holds the gavel. Will he wield it blindly or bravely?
He must review the record. He must determine whether Ciardi knowingly and voluntarily waived her rights.
Judge Ravin must question the legitimacy of the indictment — or acknowledge that it doesn’t exist.
He must resist becoming another cog in the system.
Because if this sentence goes forward without those steps, it won’t just be a conviction. It will be a confession — that more justice is dispensed at Satriale’s Pork Store than in Veterans’ Courthouse.
It will be a confession — that justice in New Jersey is dead.
In this day and age, it appears we are back to the Victorian era where vengeful ex-husband’s locked wives away either in mental institutions or in prisons. The bench is weaponized however, the system is working exactly the way they want it to, it’s not broken. This is pathetic to do to a protective mother, and if you take it a step further, this is also affecting her children as well.
I’ve followed Monica Ciardi’s case for over two years. What’s happening today in Essex County is not justice it’s persecution. Monica warned last October that powerful men in New Jersey were coming for her. Then she disappeared. We later learned she’d been jailed for five months, with no public explanation and no documented grand jury indictment.
Her case started in Morris County, where she was first arrested, then quietly shifted to Essex County. Why the change in venue? Why the secrecy? The same judges prosecuting Monica are also involved in retaliatory actions against my daughter in Morris County Family Court. This is not coincidence it’s a pattern of targeting protective mothers.
Judge Ravin is moving ahead with a plea deal that appears to have no constitutional foundation. Her attorney, a former prosecutor, reportedly took the deal for $15,000 while ignoring glaring legal red flags.
This system is broken—and it's being weaponized. We need a federal investigation into both Morris and Essex Counties. This isn’t just injustice. It’s systemic abuse.