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Right now, with Prime Day and DeLonghi summer sale, save up the first cup of coffee. 1:54 40% of select machines. 1:56 After all, if it's not Italian, is it even espresso? 2:00 During the nearly seven years 2:02 Cindy's been separated from her children, 2:05 she hoped that another set of eyes and ears 2:07 would help her case. 2:09 That's why back in the summer of 2020, 2:11 right after the district attorney dropped 2:13 the child's abuse charges against Kenny, 2:16 Cindy hired a psychologist named Dr. Mark Kilmer. 2:20 But Dr. Kilmer didn't help Cindy's case 2:23 and his own words help sink his career. 2:27 I'm Nancy Glass and this is a bonus episode 2:30 of Burden of Guilt. 2:44 When parents in Colorado are fighting over custody 2:47 or as the state calls it, parental responsibilities, 2:51 some parents hire a parental responsibilities evaluator 2:54 or a PRE. 2:57 Attorney Henry Baskerville explains. 2:59 The idea was to have an expert tell a judge 3:02 what the judge should do in relation to control of the children and so forth. 3:08 Because judges, they don't have the time to figure that out. 3:11 The PRE looks at the family dynamics and makes recommendations to the judge. 3:17 The process usually takes a few months to complete. 3:20 As PRE goes and interviews the children, interviews the parents who are in the midst of a divorce 3:26 and makes a recommendation to the court about this person seems like a good 3:32 parent, I'm getting vibes that this person might be an abuser, that sort of stuff. 3:38 In 2020, Cindy hired Dr. Mark Kilmer to review her case. And if the last name 3:45 Kilmer sounds familiar, it's because Mark is the brother of the late actor Val Kilmer. 3:51 Just two years after Dr. Kilmer's work on Cindy's case, he was the subject of 3:56 an investigation by ProPublica. 4:13 According to ProPublica, Dr. Kilmer was arrested in 2006 and charged with assaulting his then 4:21 wife. After the incident, she obtained a restraining order against him. In a divorce 4:27 proceeding the following year, Dr. Kilmer lost decision-making power over his children because 4:34 of concerns about his parenting. 4:36 I mean, it's terrible. And now he's the guy who's the referee for domestic abuse. 4:43 I don't know how he got appointed to be part of this program with that kind of background. 4:50 He should have never been acting on behalf of the state of Colorado. 4:54 I mean, it's like taking Lance Armstrong and making him the guy who tests people for steroids. 5:00 In 2007, Dr. Kilmer pleaded guilty to harassment. 5:05 The court ultimately dismissed the assault charge after he successfully completed domestic 5:10 violence counseling and 24 months of probation. 5:14 He had apparently had a very messy divorce and he had claimed in his divorce that his 5:18 His wife had falsely accused him of being abusive. 5:23 Dr. Kilmer told ProPublica his guilty plea was the result of poor legal representation 5:30 and he regrets not going to trial, but his story didn't end there. 5:35 Yeah, so he had a number of other absolutely bonkers quotes in that article. 5:42 A voice actor will read what Dr. Kilmer said. 5:45 The Me Too movement informs us that, you know, about 90 percent of all allegations are true 5:52 or something around there. In my forensic work, that's completely flipped on its head. 5:58 About 90 percent of the allegations I hear are false. 6:04 Kilmer was quoted in the ProPublica interview, saying that he ignores abuse 90 percent of the 6:09 time, almost bragging about it as if he thought it was funny. 6:13 Dr. Kilmer told ProPublica, he believes more often than not, the accusers are exaggerating 6:20 quote, to see what kind of legal advantage they can get end quote. 6:25 To me, this has got to be one of the most important decisions that a judge makes in 6:29 terms of custody over children. 6:32 And the fact that this guy was just putting his thumb on the scale for the men and 6:36 ignoring the women, these things just shock the conscience. 6:41 Dr. Kilmer told ProPublica he got into PRE work because it's lucrative. 6:47 I mean, he was billing sometimes as high as $30,000 per case that he had, and he had hundreds of cases. 6:55 And so it just seemed to me like this is something that somebody should do something about. 7:00 In 2023, Henry, the lawyer you just heard from, filed a class action lawsuit against 7:06 Dr. Kilmer, alleging fraud and breach of contract. 7:10 Originally, the suit named six plaintiffs, all of them were women. 7:16 I was getting inundated with calls from people who wanted to either participate 7:20 in our lawsuit against Kilmer or wanted to hire me to bring other lawsuits against 7:25 other PREs. 7:26 The suit claimed that Dr. Kilmer repeatedly and deliberately omitted credible allegations 7:32 of spousal abuse, child abuse, and child neglect in his reports and recommendations to Colorado 7:38 courts. 7:40 According to the complaint, the plaintiffs would not have hired Dr. Kilmer had they 7:46 known his personal history and views about abuse allegations. 7:49 It seemed like a slam dunk to me, but they filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that Mark 7:59 Kilmer had something called quasi-judicial immunity. 8:02 And basically what that is is judges have immunity. 8:05 You can't sue a judge if you don't like his decision in case. 8:08 That's just not how it works. 8:10 And they are granted broad immunity from civil lawsuits because otherwise they would be 8:16 fearful about making tough decisions. 8:19 And once this case got in front of a judge. 8:23 Because Kilmer was appointed by the court, the court's judicial immunity extended to him. 8:31 And our case was dismissed. 8:33 I just can't believe that the court would find that somebody could do what Mark Kilmer was doing 8:38 and not have any real responsibility for it. 8:41 And it still sort of irks me to this day, you know, you try to fight the system 8:46 and sometimes it doesn't work. 8:49 For a while, the state of Colorado suspended Dr. Kilmer 8:53 from taking on new court appointments for PRE work. 8:57 Meanwhile, the work he did on Cindy's case lived on. 9:01 He says, I don't believe most accusations 9:04 about domestic violence and child abuse, 9:06 especially in a high-custody court case. 9:08 I don't believe him. 9:10 Well, guess who was accused of domestic violence? 9:12 Mark Kilmer. 9:12 And the judge consistently went with Kilmer. 9:17 That should have never happened. 9:19 Judge Hoke found Dr. Kilmer's work on Cindy's case to be solid. 9:23 And according to a 2024 Denver Gazette article, Judge Hoke said in 2023, just because someone 9:31 is suspended for work they did on one case doesn't mean they always did bad work. 9:37 And once again, Cindy found herself in an impossible position. 9:42 If she challenged the evaluator, she risked appearing unwilling to accept the conclusions 9:47 of a court-appointed professional. 9:50 If she accepted the report, she was accepting the judgment of a man whose objectivity had 9:55 been publicly questioned. 9:58 Either way, the report became one more wrong Cindy couldn't make right. 10:06 I had a lot of hope. I really did. I had a lot of hope for the first couple years. It's just, it's just not there anymore.
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