Barry County Spent Years Blocking a Father Who Said His Kids Were Being Abused. He Was Right.

The Case Barry County Built Without Him

Mark Foley’s divorce from Danielle Foley was finalized in September 2021 in Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court, Case No. 2020-656-DM. From the beginning, Foley raised concerns about the conditions his children were living in, in filings, with the Friend of the Court, and in hearings. The court’s response, documented across years of filings and correspondence, was to process his case in ways that made it structurally impossible for him to participate.

The mechanism was mail. Legal notices, orders, and hearing dates were repeatedly sent to a wrong Belmont, Michigan address, despite Foley’s correct Battle Creek address being on file, in his own caption headings, and corrected formally with the court on October 3, 2022. That day, Barry County First Deputy Clerk Sarah VanDenburg acknowledged the error in writing, apologized, and confirmed the corrected address in the case system. Three weeks later, an order from the October 25, 2022 hearing was mailed to the wrong address again. Foley learned of it from the resident at the misdirected address.

The Hearing That Was Not Adjourned

The October 25, 2022 hearing is a study in the mechanisms available to a court that has decided a pro se litigant should not be heard. Foley had filed a Motion to Disqualify Judge Vicky Alspaugh and sought subpoenas to present his case. Chief Judge Doherty denied the subpoena requests at the start of the hearing, before Foley could present witnesses. Foley had filed a complaint with the Michigan Court of Appeals for Superintending Control and Mandamus the day before. He notified the court. Doherty denied his motion for continuance. The hearing proceeded. Foley’s disqualification motion was denied.

An additional order, signed by Judge Alspaugh on October 31, 2022, stated that the Motion to Disqualify had been “adjourned to a date after October 25, 2022.” Foley’s own Notice to Appear for that day shows the motion was calendared for October 25, 2022. No adjournment was made on the record. The order was prepared by Brad Gee.

Foley’s Motion for Reconsideration, filed November 14, 2022, documents all of this. He requested the court reverse orders rendered on or after October 25, 2022, disqualify both judges, and assign the case to a visiting judge. The motion was filed pro se, with proper proof of service. There is no indication in the record that the outcome changed.

The Named Officials and What the Record Shows

What the Friend of the Court Had and Ignored

According to Foley, the Barry County Friend of the Court was in possession of a substantial body of evidence throughout the proceedings that was never acted upon: video footage of the opposing party physically confronting one of the children in Foley’s front yard; a police report documenting the opposing party’s father punching the window of Foley’s car after Foley had loaded the children inside; a message from an adult child in the household telling Foley to go kill himself; documentation that a minor child had been a member of an adult Facebook group and had held a Facebook account since age nine, in violation of federal COPPA protections; and a GoFundMe campaign written with and promoted through a minor child’s Facebook page.

None of that evidence produced a protective action by the Friend of the Court.

Five Years of Complaints. No Relief.

Foley did not stop filing. His complaint record spans Barry County Circuit Court, Barry County Friend of the Court, SCAO (formal SCAO-71 filed July 7, 2025), the Judicial Tenure Commission (complaint filed May 30, 2025, received June 9, 2025, with additional documentation requested June 24), a separate JTC complaint against Chief Judge Doherty filed in the past year, the Attorney Grievance Commission (AGC File No. 22-1991), and the United States Postal Inspection Service. Michigan State Senator Jim Runestad’s office, which has filed its own SCAO complaint referencing the same court, is copied on Foley’s most recent SCAO submission. Clutch Justice has independently filed SCAO complaints against Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court documenting record irregularities, failure to properly serve incarcerated individuals, and court record tampering.

The SCAO has complaints from a pro se litigant, a sitting state senator, and a journalism outlet, all pointing at the same courthouse. Its continued inaction in the face of that accumulated record is itself a finding.

Foley’s June 19, 2026 SCAO letter describes court administrator Ines Straub, Friend of the Court Rebecca Hawkins, and staff members including Alspaugh and Doherty operating at the direction of the opposing party and her attorney. He alleges his driver’s license was revoked in retaliation for his May 30, 2025 JTC complaint, and that emergency proceedings were scheduled without his notice following his July 8, 2025 SCAO complaint.

While Barry County Was Blocking the Father, This Is What Was Happening to His Children

Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court was mailing Mark Foley’s legal notices to wrong addresses while a minor child in that home was experiencing serious medical neglect. It was finding him in contempt for requirements that never existed in any court order while CPS-documented medical neglect of that child went unaddressed. It was labeling Foley a vexatious filer and restricting his ability to file while the conditions he had been alleging for years were developing unchecked. It was awarding Brad Gee $2,000 in attorney fees while a family friend documented to CPS that the children’s welfare was in serious jeopardy.

The Calhoun County CPS record documents serious medical neglect of a minor child, including a concealed pregnancy matter in which the mother failed to seek or obtain appropriate medical care and misrepresented the situation to medical providers. The CPS record also documents a 2021 substantiated finding that the mother was aware of sexual abuse of a child in the home and failed to report it. That finding existed in the record before the Calhoun County investigation. Barry County’s court system had it and continued to obstruct the father who was trying to protect his children.

Barry County’s Friend of the Court had evidence in its possession throughout the period this was occurring. Barry County’s court system had Mark Foley’s documented allegations. It had his filings. It had his complaints. It responded to all of it by making it structurally impossible for him to be heard.

The June 18, 2026 Order to Take Children into Protective Custody, signed by Referee Snyder and issued by Calhoun County’s 37th Judicial Circuit, is a three-page document that functions as a quiet verdict on everything that happened in Barry County. The order’s findings state that the mother’s boyfriend has been physically abusive toward the children, the mother is facing eviction, and she is planning to move with the children to the boyfriend’s home. The court authorized any DHHS or CPS worker to enter the premises “wherever the minor children may be found.”

The CPS petition underlying the order documents what investigators found over four days of interviews: a pattern of medical neglect, an older child pulled out of school to care for younger siblings, a boyfriend who struck a child in a moving vehicle, and an eviction actively in progress. The documented history also includes a 2021 CPS finding that the mother was aware of sexual abuse of a child in the home and failed to report it.

The AGC Complaint That Was Closed and Should Be Reopened

On October 4, 2022, Foley filed a verified ethics complaint against Brad Gee with the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, AGC File No. 22-1991. The complaint alleged violations of MRPC 1.0, 1.6, 1.7(a)(2), 3.4(a), 3.4(b), 3.5(d), 4.4, 8.4, 8.4(d), 8.4(e), and 8.5(a), encompassing fraud upon the court and a pattern of professional misconduct. It was notarized, sworn, and included six exhibits and a certified court transcript.

Gee’s December 15, 2022 AGC response did not address the substance of the allegations. Instead it opened by presenting two Barry County court orders, Doherty’s November 23 vexatious filer designation and Alspaugh’s December 2 contempt finding, both obtained from the same court whose conduct Foley was challenging. His response described Foley’s documented due process complaints as “incoherent ramblings” attributable to “mental illness.” The AGC accepted that framing. According to Foley, the complaint was closed without public discipline. Clutch Justice has requested confirmation from the AGC directly.

What Barry County Did to This Reporter’s Family

I am not a neutral observer of Barry County’s court system. I reported on prosecutorial misconduct in Barry County and was retaliated against for it. My children and I were stalked and harassed. Barry County courts received false reports filed by my stalker and processed them as legitimate complaints rather than protecting us. A Macomb County PPO, Case No. 2026-000735-PH, is part of the documented record of what I and my children were subjected to.

I am telling you this because Barry County’s pattern of siding with abusers and punishing people who speak up is not something I learned about from a distance. I lived it. My children lived it. That is why this coverage exists, and that is why it will not stop.

A Pattern Too Long to Call Coincidence

Mark Foley is not an isolated case. Judge Michael Schipper was the subject of a Judicial Tenure Commission investigation that resulted in a Michigan Supreme Court remand. His conduct on the bench included documented sentencing misconduct. A source for this investigation, who has asked to remain anonymous, was beaten by her husband. Judge Schipper, who had a personal relationship with the family, allowed the abuser to retain parenting rights. No public discipline has been issued.

Jeffrey Snowden, a combat veteran, has been documented in Barry County court proceedings with ADA-related concerns. Additional documented conduct in the Barry County record, not attributed here to a named case at the subject’s request, includes altered court records, sham plea bargains, and insurance fraud.

The Barry County Board of Commissioners claimed at its February 24, 2026 meeting that it had no knowledge of issues involving the Prosecutor’s Office or the judicial system. That claim is directly contradicted by the board’s own records. A May 5, 2023 retained counsel letter from attorney Allan C. Vander Laan of Cummings, McClorey, Davis and Acho confirms that Barry County retained CMDA to respond to formal grievances involving the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The May 2023 board packet reflects $3,943.80 in legal fees paid to CMDA in connection with those complaints. Internet Archive captures confirm board membership continuity, eliminating any “before my time” defense for sitting 2026 commissioners.

Allan C. Vander Laan of CMDA is the same attorney Barry County retained to respond to this reporter’s own grievances against the system. While the county was paying Vander Laan to fight complaints about its court system, Mark Foley’s children were living in the conditions he had been documenting and alleging for years. The county paid toward attorneys. Not toward investigating what he was saying. Not toward protecting the children. Calhoun County CPS confirmed those conditions in four days.

And here is what cannot be undone: Barry County paid that money with public funds. The board voted on it. The check cleared. It is in the public record. The county did not accidentally fail these families. It made a financial commitment, authorized by elected officials, to defend the system that was failing them. Every taxpayer in Barry County funded the legal effort to keep Mark Foley from being heard. Every taxpayer funded the response to complaints that were documenting what was happening to his children. The board can claim it did not know. The board cannot claim it did not pay.

That accumulated record raises a question that extends beyond any single case: if Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court has documented mail fraud, altered court records, false adjournment statements, fabricated contempt grounds, and systematic failures to properly serve parties, what does that mean for the integrity of every record that court has produced? Not just Mark Foley’s case. Every custody determination. Every contempt finding. Every order. Every case where a party did not show up because their notice went to the wrong address. When the records cannot be trusted, neither can the outcomes they produced.

It is also worth stating plainly: every single judge in Barry County’s 5th Circuit courthouse has now been under investigation. Not one judge with a complaint. Not an isolated incident. Every judge. The system kept functioning as if that were normal. Michigan’s oversight bodies treated it as if it were normal. It is not normal. It is a courthouse in institutional crisis, and the families inside it have been paying the price.

Senator Runestad, CPS Reform, and Why This Case Is His Evidence

Michigan State Senator Jim Runestad has been a vocal champion of CPS reform, driven in part by cases where children were left in dangerous homes and killed while the system failed to act. His office has filed its own SCAO complaint referencing Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court, meaning a sitting Michigan state senator and a pro se litigant reached the same conclusion about the same courthouse, independently. That is not a coincidence. That is corroboration at the legislative level.

The Foley case is a direct example of the failure pattern Runestad’s reform work is aimed at, with one critical addition. It was not just CPS that failed. It was the court system and CPS failing simultaneously and reinforcing each other. Barry County’s court blocked Mark Foley from protecting his children at every procedural turn. The Friend of the Court had documented evidence of danger and sat on it. When both systems fail at the same time there is no safety net. The child falls through both. Michigan has seen children die in cases where CPS left them in dangerous homes. The Foley children did not die. But they are missing under a court order, their father was systematically excluded from their lives, and the system that was supposed to protect them is still looking for them. CPS reform alone will not fix this. Court accountability and CPS accountability have to be addressed together. This case is Senator Runestad’s evidence for why.

Clutch Justice contacted Senator Runestad’s office for comment. His office had not responded by the time of publication. This article will be updated when a response is received.

A Call for Legislative and Congressional Inquiry

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office has received evidence of misconduct in Barry County’s court system on multiple occasions, from this reporter directly and from other complainants including Mark Foley. To the knowledge of every source for this investigation, the AG’s office has taken no action. No investigation has been announced. No referral has been made public. Dana Nessel has positioned herself as an advocate for government accountability and the protection of vulnerable Michiganders. The documented record out of Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court raises a direct question her office has not answered: why not? Clutch Justice will be seeking that comment directly and will update this article when a response is received.

Clutch Justice is calling on the Michigan Legislature to open a formal inquiry into the administrative and judicial conduct of Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court, with specific attention to the pattern of mail misdirection, unnoticed hearings, retaliatory court actions, and the failure of every oversight mechanism to produce corrective action. Senator Runestad’s existing SCAO complaint makes him a natural starting point for that inquiry.

Beyond inquiry, the documented record warrants something more immediate: an emergency court integrity unit with independent authority to review active cases, audit administrative procedures, and protect litigants currently inside a system that has demonstrated it cannot police itself. Too many cases have been mangled. Too many lives have been ruined. A formal inquiry that takes years to produce findings does nothing for the families currently inside that courthouse. Michigan has the authority to establish such a unit. The question is whether it has the will.

Barry County is not the only courthouse where this pattern is playing out. Clutch Justice has identified similar patterns in Allegan County. One connection that links both warrants immediate attention: Barry County Prosecutor Julie Nakfoor-Pratt sits on the board of directors of Safe Harbor Children’s Advocacy Center, the organization serving Allegan, Barry, and Van Buren Counties. Jessica Winsemius, Allegan County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, serves as Vice President of that same board. Former Allegan County Prosecutor Myrene Koch, whose documented prosecutorial record includes quietly terminating a drunk assistant prosecutor who classified beating a 9-year-old as “mutual combat” while filing no AGC complaint and notifying no one, has also served on Safe Harbor’s board. The prosecutors who sit on the board of the organization designed to protect children from abuse are the same prosecutors operating in court systems that Clutch Justice has documented routinely punishing parents who speak up. That is a structural conflict of interest that Michigan’s oversight bodies have declined to examine.

At the federal level, the active USPIS investigation into mail fraud involving court documents creates a predicate for congressional attention. Mail fraud involving court proceedings is a federal matter. The pattern documented here, misdirected legal mail used to deny a pro se litigant due process across years of family court proceedings, is not a clerical error. It is a mechanism. Congress should know about it.

What Happens Next

As of June 20, 2026, the five children are in MDHHS foster care in a kinship placement with a family friend following the June 19 preliminary hearing. They were not placed with their father. Mark Foley has been invited to a Team Decision Making Meeting early next week. The emergency order removed the children from both parents. Foley’s SCAO complaint, his USPIS complaint, and his AGC complaint remain pending. As of publication, there is no public indication that the mother faces criminal charges for the documented medical neglect and endangerment of the children in her care. Clutch Justice has forwarded documentation of this matter to Senator Runestad’s office and the Office of the Child Advocate.

Six Years. Medical Neglect. That Is What It Took.

I am going to say this plainly because the record demands it.

Michigan’s child protective system failed these children for six years. The 2021 substantiated finding that the mother was aware of sexual abuse in the home and failed to report it was documented in MDHHS’s own records. It did not produce removal. It did not produce sustained intervention. It produced a finding that sat in a file while a father spent years being blocked by a court system from checking on his own kids. CPS had that file. They knew. They did not act with the urgency the situation required.

What finally moved the system was not a father’s years of documented complaints. It was not the evidence he turned over to the Friend of the Court. It was not the SCAO complaints, the JTC filings, the USPIS investigation, or any of the formal channels he exhausted while Barry County worked against him. What moved the system was documented medical neglect of a minor child severe enough that a CPS worker completed a forensic investigation in four days and a judge signed an emergency order. That is the threshold Michigan’s system required. Six years of a father fighting and failing to be heard, and it took medical neglect to get the state to act.

And then this happened. The emergency order was signed June 18. The preliminary hearing was June 19. The children were placed. And the only contact Mark Foley received from MDHHS in the immediate aftermath was not an update on his children. It was a complaint about this article. He was told he would hear more when the worker was back in the office Tuesday. He spent the intervening time not knowing where his children were, not knowing who had them, not knowing what had been decided about his own parental rights in a proceeding he had spent six years trying to participate in. That is not a bureaucratic oversight. That is a father left in a slow, torturous hell while the agency that was supposed to protect his children was focused on press coverage.

When corrections were offered, they were characterized as corrections to false reporting. What they actually reflected was information MDHHS had not provided to Mark Foley in the first place. The article did not create inaccuracies. It created pressure. And that pressure is the only reason he heard anything at all before Tuesday.

I do not think the priority in the days after an emergency removal of five children was the children’s welfare. I think it was damage control. Those are not the same thing. In this case, the difference between them is six years.

Foley is pro se, without transportation, and by his own account completely on the margins of society as a direct result of this proceeding. His June 19, 2026 letter to SCAO ends with the observation that he expects retaliation for filing it, and that there is nothing he can do about that.

We have contacted the SCAO for confirmation of the status of the July 2025 and June 2026 complaints. We have contacted Judge Alspaugh’s chambers for comment. Brad A. Gee (P69239) of Gee Law Firm PLLC, Barry County Court Administrator Ines Straub, and Senator Jim Runestad’s office were contacted for comment prior to publication. None responded by deadline. This article will be updated as responses are received.