Kentucky resident Sally Broessel, pictured here in 2004 with her granddaughter Miranda, who was 9 at the time, has accused Raleigh Circuit Judge John A. Hutchison of fraud in ruling on her yet-to-be filed petition to re-open the adoption of Miranda, now 15, by her stepfather. In a lawsuit she filed in U.S. District Court, Broessel alleges Hutchison mistook her appliction for a fee waiver as the petition, and had a member of his staff threaten her with criminal prosecution for pointing out the error. (Photo courtesy of Sally Broessel)

BECKLEY - A Kentucky woman is accusing a Raleigh Circuit Court judge of committing fraud in ruling on a non-existent petition relating to the adoption of her grand-daughter.

Raleigh Circuit Judge John A. Hutchison is named as a defendant in lawsuit filed by Sally Broessel in U.S. District Court. In her complaint filed on Jan. 6, Broessel, 63, of Blue Hole, Ken., accuses Hutchison of not only intentionally misrepresenting his action on her petition to re-open the adoption of her grand-daughter, but also threatening her with arrest for making repeated inquiries about it.

According to her suit, Broessel on July 24 went to the Raleigh County Circuit Clerk's Office to file a petition to re-open the adoption of her grand-daughter, Miranda Williams, 15, by her step-father, Billy Phillips. Broessel says she took the action after discovering pursuant to state law Phillips was required to serve her notice of adoption since her son, and Miranda's father, Mark Williams, relinquished his parental rights only by death.

Williams died in car wreck on Aug. 6, 2006. At the time, he was divorced from Miranda's mother, Adina.

In order to file the petition, a clerk told Broessel she would have to pay a $145 filing fee. She left the office without filing the petition, but later requested she be sent a pauper's affidavit to enable her to waive the fee.

About a month later, Broessel sent only the completed affidavit back to the Clerk's Office. In her suit, she says she left the case number blank since she had yet to formally file the petition..

Also, Broessel said she did not put the case number of the adoption on the affidavit "since she had been given no affirmative information this adoption had indeed taken place."

At a date not specified, the Clerk's Office returned the affidavit to Broessel noting the absence of a case number, or name. On Sept. 2, Broessel, via certified mail, resubmitted the affidavit only to the Clerk without a number, but calling it "Petition to Re-open Adoption Proceedings and Establish Grandparental Visitation."

After two months, Broessel contacted the Clerk to see if the affidavit was approved. After receiving conflicting information, she was eventually told it was pending approval by Hutchison.

Before she would receive an answer, Broessel was told she would have to await almost another month as Hutchison was on vacation for the next two weeks, and he would need a week to get caught-up following his return.

According to her suit, Broessel alleges on Nov. 9 she received a letter containing an order signed by Hutchison dated Oct. 26 that her petition to re-open Miranda's adoption dated Sept. 2 would be deemed a "Motion for Reconsideration." Since it was only a pauper's affidavit she submitted in hopes of filing the petition without the fee, Broessel says she was "bewildered therefore as to how the Judge could have reviewed a petition he does not have."

Nevertheless, Hutchison's order stated that all parties were to receive a certified copy of the Motion for Reconsideration. The next day, Broessel alleges she wrote the Clerk's Office to request a copy of her yet-to-be-filed motion.

After a month went by, and she received no reply, Broessel states she contacted Charleston attorney Charles Riffie about the matter. Agreeing the "situation appeared to be strange", Riffie suggested she again inquire with the Clerk about them confusing the petition with the affidavit.

According to her suit, Broessel called the Clerk's Office on Dec. 4 in which both a deputy clerk, and Paul Flanagan, a member of Hutchison's staff, confirmed her petition deemed to be a Motion for Consideration "is not filed and not located at the Raleigh County Circuit Clerk's Office or in Judge Hutchinson's [sic] office." Apparently perturbed at Broessel's detective work, Flanagan, she alleges, instructed her to "not call or contact the Circuit Clerk's office regarding the filings in her case again, or the judge would have her arrested and brought to West Virginia for prosecution."

In her suit, Broessel states Hutchison committed fraud by failing to make a "full, complete, serious inspection of the record," and rule on a matter not before him. The only matter before him was "the indigence of the Complainant and waiver of fees."

Broessel, who filed the suit pro se, seeks unspecified damages. The case is assigned to Judge Irene C. Berger.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, case number 10-cv-0008