A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit brought against a Cook County divorce court judge and the Cook County circuit clerk's office by a young man who claims the judge violated his constitutional rights by refusing to allow him to attend a court hearing via Zoom discussing his parents' long-running contentious divorce case - proceedings which several times resulted in the judge ordering his father, a River Forest real estate developer, to jail over money sought by his mother and her lawyers.
On Dec. 19, U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins dismissed the lawsuit brought against Cook County Circuit Judge Abbey Fishman Romanek by plaintiff Conor Paris, in partnership with judicial reform organization, Children of the Court.
The dismissal was issued through a brief order posted to the online docket for the case.
U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins
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Paris and Children of the Court filed the lawsuit in September 2024.
The lawsuit took aim at Romanek's alleged refusal to allow Conor Paris to listen in on a court proceeding conducted online using teleconference platform Zoom.
Paris is now over the age of 18, according to court documents. However, beginning in 2016, when he was still a minor, his parents, father Frank "Marty" Paris and mother Kerry Paris, became embroiled in emotionally-charged and longrunning legal proceedings in Cook County divorce court.
Romanek has most recently presided over that case.
Many of the divorce court proceedings since 2020 have been conducted via Zoom. During that time, such proceedings are considered to be open proceedings, no different than in courtroom.
During such remote court proceedings, participants enter a Zoom meeting ID and passcode, information publicly available on the court's website. The judge then admits participants into the meeting, with the understanding that disruptive observers can be removed.
However, according to the new lawsuit, Conor Paris attempted to join the Zoom proceedings on August 5 for a routine procedural hearing not listed as closed to the public. According to the complaint, he wished to observe the proceedings at which "his family and his family’s personal matters were discussed."
However, according to the complaint, Romanek refused to admit Conor to the hearing, allegedly "instead remarking 'Conor Paris is here. He has no business being here and he shouldn’t be here and I am not letting him in. He shouldn’t know about court dates.'”
Other observers, including The Cook County Record, were also denied access to the hearing, without explanation.
The lawsuit asserts the refusal to allow Conor Paris to observe the hearing violated his constitutional right to access the public proceedings of the court.
According to the complaint, the Children of the Court organization joined the action as a co-plaintiff to support Conor Paris.
According to the complaint, Children of the Court is a non-profit organization which seeks to promote the rights of adults whose parents divorced while they were yet minor children, called "adult beneficiaries" of family court.
According to the complaint, Children of the Court and its executive director, Edward "Coach" Weinhaus had earlier this year sent correspondence to Judge Romanek and other Cook County divorce court judges, giving notice that adult beneficiaries working with the organization would be visiting their courtrooms, and requesting the judges' assistance in the visits.
Children of the Court claimed Romanek "ignored" those communications, as did her superior judges.
According to court records, Marty and Kerry Paris have reportedly reached a deal to settle the matter, about two years after their marriage was officially dissolved by order issued by former Cook County Judge Tim Murphy in 2022.
Proceedings continued after that, centered on demands that Marty Paris pay his ex-wife $13,000 per month in combined direct maintenance and child support, and also pay his ex-wife's six figure legal fees.
The legal fights over those payment demands have landed Marty Paris in jail three times, as Romanek and other judges have declared him to be in contempt of court.
Marty Paris was never charged with nor convicted of a crime.
Rather, the jailings came at the request of Kerry Paris and her attorneys.
In court filings, Marty Paris has characterized the jailings as illegal "debtors' prison," intended to use jail as a way of forcing him, his family members or others to pay lump sums immediately, rather then pursuing other means to coerce payment.
In July 2024, for instane, Romanek ordered Marty Paris to jail over a non-payment of $350,000. However, that sum was apparently paid, allowing Marty to avoid more time in the Cook County Jail.
On other occasions, Marty Paris actually spent time in the county jail, including in late 2023, when he remained in jail for weeks before Romanek allowed him out on home electronic confinement after he paid $150,000.
He was also ordered to jail for five days in 2017 at the order of Judge Karen Bowes, allegedly for failure to comply with orders from that judge to set aside $750,000 to pay his ex-wife's lawyers.
Throughout the process, Marty Paris has argued the nature of his business means that seemingly tens of millions of dollars in revenue that appear on balance sheets and income statements don't actually equate to money in his bank accounts. Rather, Marty has argued those revenue figures represent "phantom income" that merely passes through his business to lenders who help to finance his company's residential building projects in Chicago and nearby suburbs.
However, judges have consistently sided with his ex-wife in finding that they believe Marty has a net worth of more than $20 million, and should be able to afford to pay off court-ordered judgments, including thousands of dollars each month in alimony and child support plus all living expenses for the homes held by his ex-wife, tens of thousands of dollars annually for his children's "activities," and millions in legal bills for attorneys who represented him and his ex-wife.
Lawyers who have backed Paris' incarceration over the unpaid bills include attorneys from the firms of Lake Toback DiDomenico and Hurst Robin Kay & Allen, who have represented Paris; and attorneys from the firms of Cronin & Co. and Angelini Ori & Abate, who have represented Kerry Paris in the proceedings.
Among others who would receive a cut of proceeds is believed to be attorney Sean Crotty, of the firm of Crotty & Schiltz.
According to court documents, Crotty has lived with Kerry Paris during the Paris divorce proceedings, and the two have been romantically involved. Crotty has been among the lawyers co-signing legal briefs urging courts to allow Marty to be jailed.
The settlement to end the proceedings related to the divorce case was introduced in court in early December.
It came about three weeks before a state appeals court in a separate case expressed concern with another judge's use of jail time as a means of making a man a "hostage" to force his family to pay money to satisfy demands from an ex-wife and her lawyers, when the man contended he lacked the ability to pay the money.
That decision was rendered against Cook County Judge Regina Scannicchio, who serves as presiding judge over Romanek and all other Cook County divorce court judges.
Meanwhile, as Marty Paris and Kerry Paris appeared to settle their dispute, Judge Jenkins ended the lawsuit brought by their son against Romanek in federal court.
Judge Jenkins did not explain her decision in the order, simply saying it was issued based on "reasons stated on the record."
However, it appeared she sided with Romanek, whose attorney argued Romanek is authorized to exclude anyone from the Zoom call at her sole discretion simply because she is a judge carrying out an action that is "judicial in nature," even if the person seeking to observe her courtroom is non-disruptive and abides by all court rules.
In the filing, Assistant Illinois Attorney General Michael J. Bradtke did not defend Romanek's decision to exclude Conor Paris. But Bradtke said the judge is entitled to immunity from Conor Paris' lawsuit under longstanding court precedent, even if she acted "in excess" of her actual authority.
Rather, Bradtke argued, she can only be sued if she "has acted in the clear absence of all jurisdiction." And so long as she is on the bench, Romanek cannot be sued for any action she takes as it relates to proceedings in her courtroom, Bradtke argued.
In her decision, Jenkins ordered Romanek dismissed from the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs will not be allowed to amend their lawsuit and try again in district court. They may be able to appeal the ruling in the future.
Paris and Children of the Court also named the office of the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court as a defendant in the action, as well as Cook County, as the superior governmental authority.
The complaint identified that defendant nominally as former Cook County Circuit Clerk Iris Martinez. She has since been replaced by new Cook County Circuit Clerk Mariyana Spyropoulos, who defeated Martinez in the 2024 Democratic primary election.
In her order, Jenkins also dismissed the circuit clerk's office, but without prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs would be allowed to attempt to amend their lawsuit to continue suing the court clerk's office, if they can remedy shortcomings in their complaint identified by the judge, presumably during a court hearing last fall.
Conor Paris and Children of the Court are represented in the proceedings by attorneys Adam Florek, of Florek Law, of North Caldwell, New Jersey; and Weinhaus.
Weinhaus responded to the ruling with a statement: “The case isn’t over - nor can the fight for public access to court proceedings be over or we are all in trouble.
“It’s little surprise that judges, at first blush, seek to expand the power of judges. As a society, we can’t allow them to hide their courtroom goings-on from members of the public to avoid scrutiny.
“Judge Romanek responded to the lawsuit by keeping even interested lawyers from watching the ‘public’ proceedings of the Paris before taking the case off the call. The domestic relations division has since been trying to remove Zoom access to proceedings to the chagrin of its practitioners, which we oppose.
“Mr. Paris already won. The intractable Paris parents’ case settled because the lawyers couldn’t keep milking the judicial system for cash without public scrutiny."