Category: Ventura County

Ventura County Family Court does not need to falsify evidence to destroy a parent’s relationship with their children. It does not need to make explicit findings of unfitness, danger, or neglect. It has something far more effective at its disposal: procedure. In case after case, including that of professional MMA fighter Amir Rahnavardi, custody outcomes are not decided through evidence tested on the merits, but through timing, execution, and delay. The system does not decide. It allows reality to calcify before anyone is forced to justify it.

Rahnavardi’s case began in September 2019 with custody orders issued by Judge Henry Walsh following allegations tied to a domestic incident. Those allegations were contested. They were never fully adjudicated in a comprehensive evidentiary hearing. Yet those early orders became untouchable. Everything that followed treated them not as provisional findings, but as settled truth. The court never returned to the starting line. It simply kept moving forward as if the foundation had already been proven sound.

From there, access narrowed gradually, then predictably. What the written orders permitted and what actually occurred began to diverge. Missed visits went uncorrected. Reduced access became normalized. Enforcement was inconsistent and often dependent on the unilateral actions of one party. The court did not intervene to restore balance. Instead, it absorbed the imbalance into the case itself. Over time, deprivation became the “status quo.”

Between late 2019 and September 2020, a substantial body of contemporaneous evidence accumulated. Video recordings, journals, communications—material documenting the family dynamic as it was unfolding in real time. Some recordings contained statements referencing violence and coercion. This was not marginal material. It was central. And yet it was never subjected to the one thing that gives evidence meaning: adversarial testing. There was no full evidentiary hearing. No credibility determinations. No findings resolving what was true and what was not. The evidence was neither admitted nor excluded. It simply existed in a procedural fog, influencing outcomes without ever being decided.

By 2021, the court’s procedural bias hardened into something unmistakable. When the children were relocated out of state, Rahnavardi sought emergency relief through an ex parte filing. The matter was heard on a day when the assigned judge, Judge Michael Lief, was not available. A substitute judge denied emergency relief. The denial did not resolve whether relocation was appropriate. It did not conduct a best-interest analysis. It did not weigh evidence. It merely allowed the move to proceed.

Once the children were gone, the court treated relocation as a fait accompli. Time did what the court refused to do. What should have required justification instead became the baseline. Subsequent proceedings no longer asked whether the move should have happened, only how to manage the consequences of a reality already imposed. This is how family court manufactures permanence without findings. Delay becomes doctrine.

This was not a one-off. It became a recurring sequence. Emergency filings were denied on narrow procedural grounds. Review was deferred. Hearings were delayed. Meanwhile, the consequences of those denials deepened. Each day without access strengthened the argument that access should remain limited. Each delay fortified the very conditions that justified further restriction. The system rewarded obstruction and punished persistence.

At one point, the court openly acknowledged the public scrutiny surrounding the case. An ex parte request was filed seeking to restrict investigative reporting related to the proceedings. That request was denied. The court knew eyes were on it. Reporting continued. Transparency, at least in theory, was permitted. Yet nothing about the underlying process changed. Visibility did not trigger accountability. It merely coexisted with dysfunction.

The pattern reached a new level of absurdity and cruelty in late December, when an ex parte drug-test order was executed on Christmas Eve. The test was compelled at a facility near LAX, bypassing closer options. The test was observed. Compliance was immediate. The result was negative. None of it mattered. Visitation was still disrupted. Access was not restored. The order did not articulate imminent risk findings sufficient to justify the disruption that followed. The concern the order purported to address was resolved, yet the punishment remained. This was not about safety. It was about leverage.

Then, in January 2025, the same maneuver repeated. As a January 12 hearing approached, visitation was altered again. Access was withheld pending judicial review. By the time the court was prepared to look at the issue, the ground had already shifted. The court was no longer evaluating whether access should be reduced. It was responding to a reduction already imposed. Once again, execution came first. Justification never arrived.

Viewed individually, each step can be defended as procedural. Emergency denials happen. Hearings get delayed. Judges are unavailable. Orders are temporary. But when the same sequence repeats across years and across unrelated cases, the explanation collapses. As documented in multiple investigations into Ventura County Family Court, this is not a series of accidents. It is a system operating exactly as designed.

When emergency mechanisms repeatedly create irreversible custody outcomes before evidence is tested, the process ceases to be neutral. Procedure becomes outcome. Timing replaces truth. Absence replaces adjudication. And by the time the court is prepared to “consider” the merits, the system insists it is too late to undo what was done.

Families live with the consequences of that choice. Children grow up. Bonds erode. And the court points to the passage of time as proof that nothing can be changed—never acknowledging that it was time, not truth, that decided the case.

That is the scandal now unfolding in plain sight. Not just what Ventura County Family Court decides, but how it avoids deciding at all.

The Ventura County court is now under fire for widespread civil rights abuses and a brazen failure of due process that cuts across every corner of its legal system.

In one of the most egregious failures, a father lost his children not because of truth, but because the court embraced corrupted evidence and helped conceal the proof that would have cleared him.

That is not a metaphor. It is the factual spine of this case.

What follows is not interpretation, inference, or theory. It is sworn testimony, independent forensic confirmation, a documented criminal investigation, and a judicial record defined less by what it weighed than by what it refused to touch.

The Admission That Should Have Changed Everything

In a 2019 deposition, pages 202 through 206, Rahnavardi’s wife ex-wife Rebekah testified under oath. Not ambiguously. Not hypothetically. Directly.

She admitted she had access to Rahnavardi’s email on more than one phone.
She admitted she reviewed his emails after separation.
She admitted seeing emails between Amir and his family.
She described accessing accounts through an iPad she could not clearly identify.

This was not hearsay. This was not an allegation made by Rahnavardi. This was sworn testimony.

And it mattered, because the family court’s later rulings relied heavily on digital communications attributed to Rahnavardi – messages, screenshots, and reconstructed threads that would become the backbone of restrictions imposed on his parental access.

The Forensics That Confirmed the Admission

Independent digital forensic expert Joseph Cipollini examined the underlying data. His findings were not speculative and they were not subtle.

Unauthorized access activity dating back to 2019.
iCloud access from devices Rahnavardi did not own.
Messaging irregularities consistent with altered or reconstructed threads.
Activity patterns consistent with access from locations associated with his ex-wife Rebekah.

The connective tissue here is critical. The sworn admission and the forensic findings align. One explains the other.

This is how manipulation becomes possible. This is how altered timestamps appear. This is how screenshots replace native files. This is how messages emerge that were never sent.

The Recusal That Never Happened

According to Rahnavardi’s account – clearly labeled as such – Cipollini told him in 2021, “If Lief is your judge, he’ll have to recuse himself.”

What is not disputed is what followed.

Judge Michael Lief did not recuse.
No disclosure appears on the record.
Cipollini’s forensic evidence was suppressed.

The investigative question writes itself. If a recusal concern was raised, why did the judge remain on the case – and why was the forensic evidence erased from view?

When Law Enforcement Found a Crime

This was not confined to family court.

Detective Michael Spears opened Case #922-00259-2261-115 and documented unauthorized computer access under Penal Code 502(c)(1). The report included theft of Rahnavard’s iPad and unauthorized access to his accounts. Spears prepared the case for submission to the District Attorney.

The DA declined prosecution due to lack of prior criminal record. Not because no crime occurred.

That distinction matters. A declination is not an exoneration. It is a prosecutorial decision – and the underlying offense remains documented.

Yet the family court ignored the police report entirely.

How the Evidence Was Weaponized

Across the evidence used against Amir, the pattern is unmistakable.

Screenshots instead of native files.
Altered timestamps.
Threads Amir never sent.
Metadata inconsistent with his devices.

These manipulations were only possible because of the unauthorized access admitted under oath and confirmed by forensics. Without that access, the evidence collapses.

With it, the court built years of restriction.

A Pattern of Judicial Suppression

Based on the record, Rahnavardi alleges that Judge Lief blocked forensic evidence, ignored the Penal Code 502(c)(1) police report, prevented exculpatory material from entering the record, maintained supervised visitation without evidentiary basis, failed to rule on a 2021 phone-contact request for nearly four years, and issued rulings without hearings in 2022.

Added to that record is a stark procedural fact: the “Dusty” ruling was issued without holding any evidentiary hearing at all.

The issue is not what evidence existed. It is what the court refused to look at.

Science Rejected, Allegation Accepted

One allegation became foundational: that a family dog, Dusty, had bitten a child.

Two experts dismantled it.

Jill Miller, a canine bite-pattern expert, reviewed the injuries and concluded they were not dog bites. The findings were inconsistent with any canine bite pattern. She refused payment and expressed alarm. Her evidence was suppressed.

Dr. Eric Kane, DVM, found no aggression history, no bite history, and injuries inconsistent with canine bites. His evidence was also suppressed.

False allegation. Two experts contradict it. Experts excluded. Allegation elevated into years of restriction.

This is how outcomes are engineered.

The Cost That Never Makes the Docket

Amir has been deprived of normal parental access for years. His children endured prolonged alienation. His father spent his final years watching injustice inflicted on his son and grandchildren, powerless to stop it.

Dusty was not incidental. He was a stabilizing emotional presence through home care, hospice, and family life – a constant when everything else was stripped away.

This harm was not abstract. It was lived daily.

The Man Who Lost Faith

This is where faith in institutions breaks – not with a single ruling, but with the realization that every safeguard failed at once. That sworn testimony could be ignored. That forensic science could be buried. That police findings could be treated as irrelevant. That experts could be silenced while accusations stood alone.

A Moral Witness Beyond Borders

In a letter written in English and Farsi, Her Imperial Majesty Queen Farah Pahlavi recognized Amir’s father’s stature and expressed grief and concern over the injustice and hardship inflicted during his final years.

It was not political. It was moral.

And it underscored what the record already shows: this was not merely a legal dispute. It was a human one.

The Question That Ends the Story

For three years, inside a quiet California courthouse where the promise of justice was supposed to hold steady, one man with no immunity, no oversight, and no constitutional authority shaped the fate of an entire case. His name was Leon Bennett, a private discovery referee who, on paper, was merely assigned to referee disputes. In practice, he became the single most powerful figure in the courtroom, the gatekeeper who controlled every document, every delay, every piece of evidence, and every outcome. His decisions didn’t just affect the litigation. They protected the judge who appointed him and derailed the lives of two families.

A thorough review of the case file reveals a disturbing reality: Bennett was not a neutral arbiter. He became the bottleneck, the filter, and ultimately the wall between truth and the judge who needed to see it. What transpired was not an accident. It was a structure — a system designed to ensure that the most critical evidence would never reach the bench.

The case was built on a mountain of corroboration. From the start, Amir Rahnavardi documented everything: a full year of video evidence, daily journals, timestamped photos, audio recordings, transcripts, even digital forensics proving someone had accessed his accounts without authorization. His evidentiary record formed one of the most comprehensive paper trails any judge could hope for. It should have been impossible to ignore.

But Bennett made sure the court never had to reckon with it. The videos stayed sealed off. The journals never reached judicial review. The audio recordings were sidelined. The photos and digital logs never made it into the hands of the judge who ultimately ruled against him. Every accusation of non-compliance leveled at Rahnavardi by the opposition, and there were many, was built on a foundation of fiction. The delays were manufactured. The disputes were staged. And every funnel led to the same destination: through Bennett, and then nowhere.

This structure existed for one reason. Judge Michael Lief had already issued sweeping rulings against Amir early in the case. Once the video evidence and corroborating material were seen, those rulings would have collapsed under their own weight. So the evidence had to be kept out. The referee’s role became the perfect shield, a private lawyer acting as an unaccountable barrier between the truth and the judge whose decisions would have been disproven by it. It was not neutrality. It was self-preservation disguised as procedure.

The consequences were staggering. A temporary restraining order that should have been reviewed within days remained unresolved for two and a half years. Instead of receiving timely judicial oversight, the TRO was buried beneath an avalanche of procedural accusations and evidence bottlenecks. When the case finally moved from Judge Lief to Judge Joann Johnson, the most critical evidence, especially the videos, still had never been placed in the record. Not because Amir failed to provide it. Because Bennett made sure the judge never saw it.

One piece of evidence, however, broke through the blockade: the Becky Odum letter. The document, typed but covered in Rebekah’s handwritten notes and initials, revealed real-time manipulation, with Rebekah shifting between speaking as herself and attempting to write as if she were Amir. Attorney Richard Masson spotted a rare procedural opening and forced the letter into the record. Overnight, opposing counsel’s panic made it obvious that this single document threatened to unravel their entire narrative.

Judge Johnson allowed the letter late on a Wednesday afternoon. When court reconvened Thursday, she recessed for lunch before issuing her ruling, and announced, on the record, that she had just spoken with Judge Lief. Minutes later, she delivered a ruling that neutralized the very letter she had allowed into evidence the day before. Whatever confusion she may have had earlier in the process, that communication with Lief sealed her position. As the supervising judge stepping in after Walsh and Lief, she had a clear opportunity to clean up the mess. Instead, she aligned herself with the suppression structure and validated an incomplete record.

The targeting didn’t stop with Rahnavardi. It expanded to encompass Becky Odum, a Board Certified Behavioral Analyst and collateral damage in the court’s effort to isolate and pressure him. Judge Lief, operating within the same machinery Bennett helped maintain, ordered Becky to turn over confidential HIPAA-protected patient records for anyone named Ashley, Thomas, or Kenny. Becky refused on ethical grounds and was sanctioned more than $20,000 for protecting her patients’ privacy. When she moved to Arizona for safety and family support, the harassment followed. They even deposed her niece, who had just given birth. To protect her family, Becky moved again, this time to North Carolina, and still the attorneys pursuing her flew across the country with Rebekah in tow for yet another deposition. None of it ever produced meaningful evidence against Amir. The purpose was pressure, not truth. And the message was unmistakable: anyone who stood near him would be targeted.

After examining every part of the record, one conclusion becomes unavoidable. This case was never decided on evidence. It was decided on evidence that the structure ensured no judge would ever see. A private discovery referee without judicial immunity became the choke point for the entire case file. His decisions shielded Judge Lief from the consequences of his own rulings, and when Judge Johnson inherited the case, she embraced the same structure instead of dismantling it. The outcome rendered by three judges and one private referee does not match the actual evidentiary record Amir had compiled, because the record they relied on was deliberately engineered to be incomplete.

This case is not over. It is finally coming into focus. This is larger than a discovery referee, a single judge, or a set of rulings. It is a story of what happens when courts outsource their most fundamental responsibilities and allow private actors to hold unchecked power inside the judicial system. When evidence is filtered, obstructed, or buried, and when those in authority choose protection over transparency, justice becomes a narrative controlled by those who benefit from the darkness.

The contradictions, the extraordinary 2½-year TRO delay, the targeting of a behavioral analyst for protected patient records, the buried videos, the inter-judge communications, and a final ruling that cannot be reconciled with the full evidence all point in the same direction.

This was not justice. It was a controlled outcome crafted from an incomplete record. And now, for the first time, the truth is emerging into the light.

Table of Contents: Attachments

Master Conspiracy & Cover-Up Map – Full two-page visual showing the web of actors (Lief, Bennett, Herring, Walsh, Barrella) and cover-ups. (From Conspiracy_CoverUp_Map.pdf)

Police Reports & Early Incidents (2013-2014) – 9-page bundle of early reports showing no injuries or arrests. (From Police Reports & Early Incidents (2013-2014).pdf)

The Robing Room Lief screenshot – Full scroll with 2.3 rating and comments on Lief’s bias against victims. (From The Robing Room.pdf)

Appellate Brief cover page (B340171, June 6, 2025) – The ongoing challenge to the suppression. (From 250606_CL_Opening Brief 2.pdf)

Becky Odum Letter – Handwritten Edits, the 7-page document with Rebekah’s notes. (From letter written to Becky Odum.pdf and Exhibit B – Becky Odum Letter.pdf)

Appellate Brief – Odum Sanctions Page from B340171, detailing $60k fees, 4 depositions, $10k+ sanctions. (From 250606_CL_Opening Brief 2.pdf)

CJP Admonishment for Walsh – Full 3-page 2016 public admonishment for undisclosed contributions. (From Walsh_02-10-16 admonishment.pdf)

Robing Room Walsh Screenshot – Full scroll with 2.2 rating and 34 comments criticizing Walsh’s bias. (From The Robing Room 2.pdf)

Bamieh Letter Analysis – Yellow-highlighted callouts on Ron Bamieh’s 2021 email admitting extreme DV finding and no-win setup. (From bamieh_letter_exhibit.pdf)

Evidence Bundle Part2 – 20-page texts on ex parte ruling without hearing, denying due process. (From Evidence_Bundle_Part2.pdf)

Scott Barrella Evidence Packet – Summary and text screenshots proving post-class contact he denied under oath. (From SCOTT_BARELLA_EVIDENCE.pdf)