So last week, I received a cease and desist letter from Judge Larsen of the Circuit Court.  I called right away to find out what it was about and asked for her email.

No response.

So then I drafted a letter in response.

She claims I published her “personal information” and that of her husband, which I don’t get, it’s all public information and SHE, not me, caused it all to be published with her own signatures and that of her husband.

It all runs smack dab up against the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the Illinois Free Speech clause.

She is making these douments public herself, by her own personal signature and her own personal actions.  She doesn’t want them on a blog.  I think it looks questionable.  Many of my readers think it all looks questionable.

She asks for a response in 72 hours and doesn’t give enough information, including the specific URL what is offending her and her husband.

Hmmm, more fish to look at.

She perfectly knows well the rule is now according to SCOI, you have to put your email on pleadings.  She has not sent me her email or any email at all.

But I have angels on my side and after a period of time and prayer, they got the entire situation to me, as they always do.

So, below is her letter, which I don’t get.  Why would she accuse me of divulging personal information when she well knows that the Cook County Recorder of Deeds puts property information on their website?  Seems strange.

It’s also relevant to her job and the right of the public to know who is taking salaries that are really taxpayer funds.

It’s nothing that should not be published every time the Sun Times recommends a judge or politician for that matter.  They recommend, they should publish property records in a discernible manner.

Here is her very strange letter, which I can’t figure out and which she has not responded to any inquiry.

State of Illinois
Circuit Court of Cook County
Chicago. illinoiS 60602
July 21, 2017

Joanne Denison

5330 W Devon Ave, #6

Chicago, IL 60646
It has come to my attention that you have published on the internet personal
information regarding myself, Including but not limited to information concerning my
residence. In accordance with the provisions of “The Judicial Privacy Act!’ (70S ILCS 90/2-5 et
seq.) (the “Act”), I hereby request that you cease and desist in publishing any personal
information regarding myself. I further request that you remove from any internet site under your direction or control any personal information regarding myself that has already been posted. This request specifically includes, without limitation, the personal information posted on the following web address http://www.Marygsykes.com.This judicial request also includes a request to cease and desist in the publication of any personal information of my spouse Edward Maliszewski and a request for removal of all such personal information posted to date.
To assist. you in compliance with the Act, I am enclosing a copy along with this
request of the Rule. Your prompt attention to this matter within 72 hours, in accordance with the provisions of the Act, is expected.
Respectfully,
Diane Joan Larsen
Judge of the Circuit Court
of Cook County
705 TLCS 90/2-5
Statutes current through the P.A. 100-19 of the 2017 Regular Legislative Session
illinois C01lf]JUed Statutes Annotated> Chapter 705 COURTS> JUDICIARY> Judicial Privacy Act>
Article 2. Civil Provisions
705 ILCS 90/2-5 Publicly posting It judicial officer’s personal information on tbe
Internet by persons, businesses, and associations
(a) Prohibited Conduct.
(1) All persons, businesses, and associations shall refrain from publicly posting or
displaying on the Internet publicly available content that includes a judicial
officer’s personal information, provided that the judicial officer has made a
written request to the person, business, or association that it refrain from
disclosing the personal information.
(2) No person, business, or association shall solicit, sell, or trade on the Internet a
judicial officer’s personal information with the intent to pose an imminent and
serious threat to the health and safety of the judicial officer or the judicial
officer’s immediate family.
(3) This subsection includes, but is not limited to, Internet phone directories, Internet
search engines, Internet data aggregators, and Internet service providers.
(b) Required Conduct.
(1) After a person, business, or association has received a written request from a
judicial officer to protect the privacy of the officer’s personal information, that
person, business, or association shall have 72 hours to remove the personal
information from the Internet.
(2) After a person, business, or association has received a written request from a
judicial officer, that person, business, or association shall ensure that the judicial
officer’s personal information is not made available on any website or subsidiary
website controlled by that person, business, or association.
(3) After receiving a judicial officer’s written request, no person, business, or
association shall transfer the judicial officer’s personal information to any other
person, business, or association through any medium.
(c) Redress.

History
Page 2 of 2
705 ILCS 9012-5
A judicial officer whose personal information is made public as a result of a
violation of this Act may bring an action seeking injunctive or declaratory relief
in any court of competent jurisdiction. If the court grants injunctive or
declaratory relief, the person, business, or association responsible for the
violation shall be required to pay the judicial officer’s costs and reasonable
attorney’s fees.
P.A. 97-847, § 2-5.
Illinois Compiled Statutes Annotated
Copyright © 2017 Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.
member of the LexisNexis Group. All rights reserved.
End of Document

Comment: my OCR/scan isn’t the best equipment because, as you know, I work on a budget being a not for profit and a 501-c-3.

the link to the original letter can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6FbJzwtHocwVWZaVjFZeDlrTjQ

Here is my response.  I assume because she reads my blog, she will read my response here because she didn’t enclose a SASE or an email address and I called for one.  I would have asked her for a prepublication comment, but somehow I suspect she isn’t interested:

JUSTICE 4 EVERY1, NFPJUSTICE 4 EVERY1, NFP5330 W. Devon Ave. #6         JoAnne Denison, Executive Director*Chicago, IL 60646 Cell Phone 773-255-7608ph 312-553-1300 http://www.justice4every1.comfax 312-553-1307 JoAnne@Justice4Every1.comVolunteer: Lisa Scully, court corruption victim.

July 29, 2017
Hon. Diane Joan LarsenJudge, Circuit Court Cook County50 W. Washington St, Courtroom 2405Chicago, IL 60602
RE: Your Cease and Desist letter of July 21, 2017
Dear Judge Larson;
I called your offices to try to respond to your request in 72 hours, and asked for your email, but never received it.  Accordingly, I am responding by snail mail or my volunteer, who ever gets there first.
In the future, please put your correct address, including an email on all correspondence if you would like a prompt response.
To begin with, I had a great deal of difficulty in researching your request regarding your “personal information.”  You did not include a specific URL or printout of your allegedly offending material.  Accordingly, saying something appears on a blog with thousands of posts over 5 years with hundred of comments is like referring to finding a person with a common name in Chicago without a street address or phone.  We don’t generally publish any “personal information” and are not really interested in anyone’s personal information.  Our research and interests lie in that which occurs in public and which is part of the public records.
Unfortunately, with the internet, there is probably not much left on earth or in the universe that is likely no longer public, and I guess we all have to deal with that.
You additionally did not specify the particular URL to which you were referring to, nor did you enclose copies of the offending material.  However, since I have a lot of guides and angels to help me, even with your limited information, this did not take me too long, just a couple of days.
I initially did a search in the box on top of the website, http://www.marygsykes.com, but found nothing under your name or “Larsen”–just dozens of references to Michael Larsen’s book on court corruption, which I assume you are not concerned about.
Then it dawned on me to look at my Gdrive which contains a synopsis of judge’s records at the Recorder of Deeds which lists only public information summarized from there–warranty deeds, recorded mortgages and releases.  Although I did not specifically recall the reason why your property records were analyzed, there must have been a request from the general public.  Often people will complain about a judge engaging in activities they find to be suspicious, and ask for a analysis of Cook County Recorder’s Offices information, which I will often do.  If the results are or may be of interest, they are published on my blog as an example of suspicious financial dealing which requires further investigation, and also they are sent to the US DOJ and the FBI.
I do not recall the specific request for the analysis; however, the information published is not private or personal, but taken from readily available internet sources.  You will have to discuss the matter further with Karen Yarborough, Recorder of Deeds and her Website, but it my understanding that the Recorder of Deeds is required by law, and pursuant to Constitutional guidelines to keep the property records of a democracy free, open and transparent.  As a result, all the documents mentioned in the synopsis were put on public record with your consent or the consent of your attorneys and agents.  You, yourself, and your husband signed these deeds and legal instruments, knew they would be recorded publicly, and they were in fact made public. I had nothing whatsoever to do with that process.
Accordingly, I have to assert that this information, published anywhere on the internet and obtained legally and by law (other than what you cite) is protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the Illinois Constitution.
While doing my research to find out how my blog, http://www.marygsykes.com is connected to your name, Diane Joan Larsen, circuit court Cook County Judge, while I found absolutely no connection on a Google search, I did find several nice articles on how you had supported some very progressive and helpful caselaw. One such article is where you struck down damage caps.  Good job.
But on the other hand, we do know that obtaining a judgeship in Cook County is not a badge of honor.  It is nefariously political in nature and too many articles show it to be highly suspect. It is said by some attorneys, the “bid” is now up to $150k or more. It is up to $250k for a federal judgeship. What is the quid quo pro for that?  Recently, a female attorney running for prosecutor in a small farming county was caught with $500k in her campaign fund.  What was that for?  In addition, all judgeships in Cook County go through Ald. Ed Burke, which is a real problem if any judge wants to assert the innocence of Ceasar’s Wife and claim that their position is not suspect in and of itself.
I hope you will continue to work as you did on the case which struck down damage caps in malpractice.
I hope you understand that asking me to take down information on a blog is a very serious matter in light of the US and Illinois Constitutions. My blog states clearly I subscribe to the Code of Ethics for Journalists, though I do not have a degree Journalism, for integrity purposes, nothing is removed from my blog.  I am not inclined to do anything about your Cease and Desist letter, but I do wish you would have emailed me first and sent me a complete URL so I could figure out what you were asking, but then again, it is fun to ask the angels, right?  They always seem to come through.
If you would like to have me publish or republish articles on your good works to protect Illinois citizens from over reaching by clouted corporations on my blog, I would be glad to do so. You are also invited to publish comments on posts.  That is your right and I grant you that right.  No reasonable requests are denied.
I am always interested in articles on how pro se litigants can be protected.  In particular, I really need articles on how it is a Constitutional right to proceed pro se in court and courts have to stop telling people they cannot appear or proceed without an attorney.  At $200-$400 per hour, a person who is disabled, elderly, sick or making minimum wage simply cannot afford an attorney and there are no private low cost or free attorneys (or no where near enough of them) to represent the disabled, elderly, sick and indigent or working poor. Legal clinics are a joke at best and completely ineffective.  It is the worst tragedy these pro se litigants rarely see any justice at all and they are routinely maligned, stabbed in the back and made fun of in court.  It’s sad.  Too sad.  Where is justice for “the people”?
I trust this dispenses with the issue of “personal information.”  You might want to review the case of In re Weddington (published elsewhere on my blog) where the 4th Dist. Court of Appeals Illinois in its concurring opinion gave an excellent history of the First Amendment, and stated that the courts have absolutely no jurisdiction over social media, which would include my Word Press blog.  Your information was public.  You even signed these documents and gave them to your attorneys to record on a public forum knowing they would be made public–for the rest of all eternity.  This information lost its “personal” nature years ago–but only at your personal, signed request.
You are welcome to write an article, which I will publish, on why your property records are innocent of any wrong doing or how they are personal information to be protected when you caused them to be published on a public forum.  You may also write an article on how the passing of $150k to the DNC is an entirely innocent action to obtain a judgeship in the Circuit Court of Cook County with no quid pro quo involved even though we already know that judges make only $150k to $180k annually, so what is the ROI on that one?   Sorry to be so skeptical.  I do not mean to be overly critical of the judiciary in Illinois.
I would like to know.  My blog fans would like to know.  We would like to know why judgeships are still being channeled through one entity–Ed Burke and that’s a troublesome name at best.
I personally would like to know, since you are a chancery judge, why chancery judges are routinely and wrongfully dismissing counterclaims by pro se litigants (Kang Hong Lee and Greg Groeper). I have a lot of questions for my readers but no answers so far.  Elena Federova wants to know why her counterclaims were routinely dismissed and why her small HOA fee turned into a loss of an entire condo with massive fees.  I want to know that too.  Doesn’t look too good, now does it?
In peace and light and many blessings,
Joanne Denison
cc: http://www.marygsykes.comTimothy Evans, Presiding Judge, via email

here is the full letter with footnotes:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6FbJzwtHocwYzJiUWJVWEcxc2M

So, my dear blog fans, does anyone have any insight on her letter.  Why is Presiding Judge Timothy Evans even allowing judges to send out these letters which run right up against the First Amendment to the US Constitution and directly undermine it?

I have a lot of questions for her.  I assume she reads the blog.

Judge Larsen, you can email me at joanne@jutice4every1.com if you have a response and I would be glad to publish, or you can just post a comment below and I will be glad to approve it.

My readers want to know what this is all about. Why are you claiming that information already divulged to the public is private in nature.  Why are you sending out a cease and desist letter to me and not Karen Yarborough who has the original information.

And why isn’t the Chicago Suntimes and Tribune and Crain’s already digging into this stuff as a matter of routine, especially before they rate judges as “recommended” or “highly recommended”?  What about Judge Anne Loftus who wrongfully is part of denying Ken Ditkowsky’s First Amendment rights to publish corruption on this blog before she is “somehow” “recommended” by the Suntimes?  Do they not look at these issues?  People want to know.

When the Suntimes, Tribune or Crian’s recommends a judge, they better have investigated this stuff and made it public.  The public has a right to know.

And finally, I have absolutely  no idea why a powerful, wealthy, clouted circuit court judge would send me a letter, any letter at all.  I don’t get it.  I have no money, power, no wealthy clouted friends, I am a mother of 4 and a nerd with a degree in Thermo Mechanical Engineering.  You can’t get more benign than that one.  Why would she ever stoop so low to read my blog?  I don’t get it.  She should be sending her letters to those in control–the president, the whitehouse, the state governors, etc.  Really important clouted people with money who can help her ambitions. for power and wealth and influence  I have no ambition other than to help the poor, the elderly, the disabled and those in need.  I don’t care if they have money or not.  Pretty much no one has money or worse yet, any hope.  For sure, the people I serve have no money, power, wealth or clout.

I can’t figure for the life of me how such a lowly person got on the radar of someone very important, clouted and powerful.  Same with the ARDC, what’s all that about.  You would think the DOJ and FBI would investigate because it all looks so utterly strange.

Thanks

JoAnne