How a closed network of lawyers, therapists, and a private judge extracted over $350,000 from one mother’s case — and what the documents prove.
By Michael Phillips | Riptide Investigations
The previous article in this series reconstructed what happened on February 15, 2022, when Brenna Gano logged onto a Zoom call and found herself inside a binding Mandatory Settlement Conference she had been told was a routine check-in. It documented how she signed. It documented how her own attorneys refused to help her unsign.
This article asks the question that piece left open: Why?
The answer is not a theory. It is documented in billing records, email chains, court filings, professional affiliations, and a web of relationships dense enough to make independent advocacy for Brenna structurally nearly impossible. What follows is the full map of that network — named, sourced, and measured in dollars.
The Smoking Gun: March 8, 2022
Three weeks after Brenna signed the MOA, while she was already trying to rescind it, something else was happening in her case that she did not know about at the time.
On March 8, 2022, at 10:46 AM, Brenna forwarded a draft psychiatric evaluation from her treating psychiatrist, Dr. Anna Budayr, to her attorney, Stajonne Mialocq Montalvo. Brenna had been seeing Dr. Budayr since April 2021. After nearly a year of treatment, Dr. Budayr had produced a formal evaluation. Her findings were unambiguous: Brenna had ADHD and chronic PTSD. There was no mood disorder. No personality disorder. No psychosis. No evidence of any risk to her child. Dr. Budayr noted that Brenna’s PTSD symptoms had developed during her marriage and described a patient who was cooperative, consistent, honest, and adherent to all treatment recommendations throughout their year-long relationship.
This was the report Brenna needed. It directly contradicted the instability narrative that had been built around her since 2018. She asked Stajonne whether to send it as-is.
At 12:41 PM that afternoon, Stajonne forwarded the draft to Dr. Matthew Sullivan — not to seek his clinical opinion, but to seek his agreement that it needed to be changed.
Her message: “Matt, please read the attached. I am not comfortable with how this is written and have no confidence in it being accepted by the other side. Dr. Budayr comes across as advocating for Brenna. Please let me know if you agree that it needs editing.”
Sullivan replied at 1:46 PM: “I think it needs some editing not to be seen as an advocacy piece and lose credibility.” He identified two specific passages: the language connecting Brenna’s PTSD to her relationship with her spouse, and language about her parenting and her claim of unfair portrayal. Both should be removed or softened, he said.
At 5:40 PM, Stajonne replied to Sullivan: “Yes, totally agree. My concern is the loss of credibility.”
The email chain is preserved in full. It was forwarded to Brenna by Stajonne — cc’d on the original thread — and subsequently provided to Riptide. Neither Sullivan nor Stajonne Montalvo responded to requests for comment.
“Dr. Budayr comes across as advocating for Brenna. Please let me know if you agree that it needs editing.”
— Stajonne Mialocq Montalvo, email to Dr. Matthew Sullivan, March 8, 2022
What the email chain establishes is not ambiguous. Brenna’s own attorney and the sitting president of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts — a man Brenna was paying as her therapeutic consultant — coordinated in writing to edit a psychiatric evaluation that was favorable to her before it was finalized. The passages they found objectionable were the ones that supported Brenna’s account of her marriage and her mental health. The passages they wanted removed were the ones that could have reframed the entire narrative of the case.
Those passages were removed. The report that reached the court was not the report Dr. Budayr had written.
Dr. Matthew Sullivan: The AFCC President
Dr. Matthew Sullivan, Ph.D., served as president of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts from 2019 to 2020. The AFCC is the primary professional organization for family court evaluators, therapists, mediators, and judges in the United States. Its members dominate court-appointed professional appointments in California family courts and throughout much of the country. Its annual conferences are where referral relationships are built and maintained.
Sullivan was appointed as Brenna’s “therapeutic consultant” — a role that existed, in practical terms, to supervise the therapy network around her and report to the court. By the time of the March 8 email, he had billed $36,354 in that capacity, a figure documented in Brenna’s 2024 Income and Expense Declarations filed in San Mateo Superior Court. That billing figure is separate from legal fees.
The therapeutic consultant role gave Sullivan access to every other professional in Brenna’s case. He was the hub through which the therapeutic arm of the network communicated. His correspondence with Stajonne — Brenna’s own attorney — about editing a psychiatric evaluation favorable to their shared client is the clearest documented evidence in this series of active coordination between the legal and therapeutic arms of the network.
Sullivan is also listed as a co-author on books specifically cited in the January 2022 Stipulation and Order as required reading for Paul McNab’s parenting therapy: “Overcoming the Co-parenting Trap” and “Overcoming the Alienation Crisis: 33 Co-parent Solutions.” Those books were prescribed to Paul — whose custody was being consolidated — in a court order drafted by the same network. Sullivan was being paid by Brenna while his published work was being assigned to Paul. The asymmetry is documented in the court filing itself.
Dr. Sullivan has not responded to a request for comment submitted by Riptide.
The Montalvos: The Legal Arm
Stephen J. Montalvo is a Certified Family Law Specialist practicing at 550 Price Avenue, Suite B, Redwood City. He served as Brenna’s primary divorce attorney throughout the litigation.
Stajonne Mialocq Montalvo is a Certified Family Law Specialist practicing at Silvestri Silvestri & Mialocq, A.P.C., 550 Price Avenue, Suite A, Redwood City — the suite immediately adjacent to her husband’s. The building at 550 Price Avenue is owned by their shared law partner, Philip Silvestri. Both practices are formally separate. Both attorneys represented Brenna simultaneously — Stephen as divorce counsel, Stajonne as limited-scope child custody counsel — in the same case, in adjacent offices, in a building owned by their mutual partner.
Brenna’s Amended Request for Order, filed October 2025, notes that Stajonne’s listed State Bar address is in Burlingame — not Redwood City — while her active practice is at 550 Price Avenue, Suite A. In April 2026, Brenna submitted formal complaints to the California State Bar against Silvestri, Silvestri & Mialocq (Complaint Nos. 25-0-27679, 25-0-27680, and 25-0-27681) and against Amy Sherman (Complaint No. 267124), with supplemental evidence submitted to Bar investigator Naji Khatib. Those complaints are pending.
The structural conflict embedded in this arrangement is not subtle. Two attorneys representing the same client, married to each other, operating from the same building, sharing a law partner, in a jurisdiction small enough that their professional relationships extend across every major firm in the county. When Brenna attempted to obtain independent representation after the MSC, attorneys repeatedly cited the involvement of the Montalvos and JAMS as reasons they could not take the case. The insular nature of the bar is not an abstraction — it is what made the case untouchable.
On March 31, 2022, when Brenna formally asked Stephen to rescind the MOA on grounds of duress, his written reply was: “I respectfully decline to file this motion. You will not prevail. You will likely be ordered to pay Paul’s attorney fees. If you find another attorney to file your motion, I will withdraw.” The same day, Stajonne wrote: “Nothing good will come of you moving to set aside this agreement.”
Court records in a 2014 San Mateo case — cited in Brenna’s Amended RFO — show Stephen Montalvo was previously accused of coercing a client into a settlement under Code of Civil Procedure § 664.6 without informed consent. The conduct alleged in that case parallels what Brenna has documented in hers.
“I respectfully decline to file this motion. You will not prevail. You will likely be ordered to pay Paul’s attorney fees. If you find another attorney to file your motion, I will withdraw.”
— Stephen Montalvo, written reply to Brenna, March 31, 2022
Stephen Montalvo and Stajonne Mialocq Montalvo did not respond to requests for comment submitted by Riptide.
Michèle Bissada: The Closer
Michèle M. Bissada served as Paul McNab’s attorney at Flicker Kerin Kruger & Bissada LLP in Menlo Park from at least January 2022 through the execution of the MOA. Her CFLS designation, her firm’s reputation, and her specific expertise in complex financial and high-conflict custody matters made her a natural choice for a case involving a senior tech executive with substantial equity compensation.
According to Brenna’s account — and consistent with the court filings — Bissada was not Paul McNab’s attorney from the beginning of the case. That relationship belonged to Yvonne Seeley and Amy Sherman of Seeley’s firm. Bissada was brought in specifically for the private judging phase. Her professional profile, confirmed by her own firm biography and subsequent career materials, lists private settlement judging as a core competency.
Between November 18 and December 20, 2021 — the six weeks immediately preceding the February 15 MSC — Paul McNab paid Bissada’s firm approximately $110,000. Bank statements documenting those payments are on file with Riptide. During the same period, Brenna was being served with 89 special interrogatories during law school study week and paying $495 for a consultation with a Madigan & Lewis attorney who disclosed that Bissada was her close personal friend.
Four days before the MSC, on February 18, 2022, Bissada sent an email marked “Importance: High” to Steve Montalvo, Stajonne Mialocq Montalvo, and Linda Anderson, attaching what she called a “revised final draft” of a proposed settlement agreement. The email arrived two days before Brenna says she logged onto a Zoom call expecting a routine check-in. The revised proposal was sent from opposing counsel directly to Brenna’s attorneys — before the proceeding, before Brenna was present, before she had agreed to mediate anything. That email is on file with Riptide.
JAMS conflict disclosures — cited in Brenna’s Amended RFO — show multiple concurrent cases between Bissada and Catherine Gallagher, the retired judge who presided over the February 15 MSC. That conflict was not disclosed to Brenna prior to the proceeding, in potential violation of California Rules of Court 2.831 and CCP § 170.1(a)(6)(A)(iii). Gallagher and Bissada were working opposite each other in multiple active matters at the same time, Gallagher was acting as the neutral adjudicator in Brenna’s case. The neutrality the private judging system was supposed to provide did not exist.
In December 2025, Bissada left Flicker Kerin Kruger & Bissada and joined Signature Resolution Group as a family law mediator and private judge in their Silicon Valley office. She is now a member of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. She now holds the same professional role that Catherine Gallagher held at JAMS on February 15, 2022.
Michèle Bissada did not respond to a request for comment submitted by Riptide.
Catherine Gallagher: The Judge Who Waited
Judge Catherine Gallagher (Ret.) presided over the February 15, 2022, MSC in her capacity as a JAMS judge pro tempore — a privately compensated retired judge authorized to act with the full authority of the court. JAMS billed $7,500 for the proceeding, plus $875 in case management fees, for a total of $8,375. Those figures are documented in Brenna’s 2024 I&E Declarations.
As documented in the previous article, Gallagher did not sign the Memorandum of Agreement until March 2, 2022 — fifteen days after the proceeding over which she presided, crossing out “February” on the signature line and writing the date in by hand. The urgency she communicated to Brenna on February 15 — sign now or lose your son — was not reflected in any urgency on her own part to execute the document.
Brenna’s Board of Supervisors letter, submitted March 24, 2026, identifies a further conflict involving the judge now assigned to her set-aside motion — not Gallagher, but the judge presiding over the current proceedings. According to that letter, this judge’s former employer facilitated a $1.2 billion deal for Viavi Solutions — Paul McNab’s employer — just one week before Governor Newsom appointed her to the bench. Brenna requested recusal. The judge refused.
The private judging system allowed a retired judge with undisclosed concurrent cases involving opposing counsel to preside over a proceeding without a court reporter, without a transcript, without ADA accommodations for the lower-resourced party, and with a coercive urgency that the document record shows was manufactured. The public judge assigned to review that proceeding has her own undisclosed connection to the same corporate entity whose financial interests run throughout the case.
Victoria Lewis: The Intake
On November 22, 2021 — three months before the MSC — Brenna paid $495 for a legal consultation with Victoria “Tori” Lewis of Madigan & Lewis LLP in San Mateo, on referral from a Palo Alto friend.
During that consultation, Lewis disclosed that Michele Bissada was one of her close personal friends. She praised Stephen Montalvo. She made comments that Brenna found dismissive about her financial expectations, telling her that women in the area want to get divorced and continue living luxuriously. When Brenna mentioned that Dr. Sullivan had trained her custody evaluator, Dr. Frank Davis, Lewis pressed her in what Brenna later described as a concerning and accusatory way.
When Brenna sought representation from Madigan & Lewis after the February 15 MSC, the firm declined to take her case.
Brenna has characterized this consultation, in retrospect, as a meeting designed to profile her vulnerabilities rather than provide independent legal advice. That characterization is hers. What is documented: she disclosed her child and her law school enrollment as her two primary concerns. Both became the primary points of pressure used against her at the MSC three months later. Lewis disclosed a close friendship with opposing counsel. The firm that employed Lewis subsequently declined to represent her.
Victoria Lewis did not respond to a request for comment submitted by Riptide.
The Therapeutic Arm: Billing the Boxes
The network was not limited to legal actors. Surrounding the legal proceedings was a court-ordered therapeutic infrastructure — each professional cross-referred from within the same AFCC-affiliated ecosystem, each billing separately, none of whom restored Brenna’s custody.
The following figures are drawn directly from Brenna’s 2024 Income and Expense Declarations, filed in San Mateo Superior Court, Case No. 18FAM01991. They represent amounts paid by Brenna from her household:
| THERAPEUTIC AND EVALUATION BILLING (Source: 2024 I&E Declarations) |
|---|
| Dr. Matthew Sullivan, therapeutic consultant: $36,354 Dr. Frank Davis, child custody evaluator (50%): $20,000 Andrea Palash, parenting coordinator: $20,000 Mindy Dirks, parenting coach/therapist: $33,640 Dr. Anna Budayr, treating psychiatrist/evaluator: $11,700 Dr. John Greene, forensically trained psychiatrist: $10,000 Eva Wexler, reunification therapist: $12,000 DBT therapy, Erika Swanson/Clearwater Clinic: $4,100 DBT online course: $1,500 JAMS — Judge Gallagher and case management: $8,375 Susan Stahl, family therapy: $2,000 |
| THERAPEUTIC TEAM TOTAL: $151,294 ALL NON-ATTORNEY DIVORCE COSTS: $194,011 |
This is not the total cost of the litigation. Brenna paid approximately $353,000 in attorney fees through 2024, funded through support payments, family loans, friends, and credit cards — a figure documented in the same I&E filing. The therapeutic billing above represents only the court-ordered professional fees paid on top of legal costs.
Paul McNab had paid approximately $900,000 in legal fees by February 2022 alone — before the MSC, before the MOA, before judgment was entered. As a senior executive at Viavi Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAV), his compensation included substantial Performance Stock Unit releases. Three PSU release confirmations from a single month in September 2025 — on file with Riptide — document gross equity releases totaling over $511,000 after share withholding for taxes. His public filings confirm earnings exceeding $20 million since separation. His financial disclosures at the time of the February 15, 2022, MSC were based on 2019 statements — nearly three years out of date.
The financial disparity — documented, filed with the court, cited in Brenna’s set-aside motion — was more than three to one in legal fees alone, before the therapeutic billing is added. California Family Code §§ 2030 through 2032 require courts to ensure fee parity in cases with significant income disparities. Those statutes were not enforced.
The Greene Substitution: Stajonne Closes the Door
The Budayr report suppression was not the only documented instance of Stajonne Mialocq Montalvo manipulating the psychiatric evaluation process.
After coordinating with Sullivan to edit the Budayr report, Stajonne moved to replace Budayr entirely. She altered the custody agreement language to require Brenna to undergo evaluation by a “forensically trained psychiatrist” — a higher professional threshold than Budayr met, specifically chosen to require a new evaluator. That evaluator was Dr. John Greene.
Greene’s evaluation did not follow proper forensic procedures. According to Brenna’s account, he did not contact any collateral sources — not Dr. Budayr, not Brenna’s parenting coach, not any other member of the therapeutic team. He conducted a brief interview, collected his fee, and produced findings. His initial findings showed no mood disorder and no PTSD. Before releasing the report, he charged an additional $900. By the time the report was released, the findings had changed: Brenna was now said to have a mood disorder, based on her self-reported treatment for depression when her son was four years old — more than a decade prior.
In June 2023, Greene emailed Brenna to say he could provide information showing she had been in remission from symptoms since his examination — a statement that directly undermined his own revised findings.
The effect of the Greene substitution was to nullify the Budayr findings entirely. The one psychiatric evaluation that supported Brenna’s account was edited into ineffectiveness, then replaced with an evaluation that could be used against her. The parenting coordinator who later reported to the court — Andrea Palash — referenced the mood disorder finding in her assessments. The network’s paper trail became self-reinforcing.
What the Network Looks Like
Taken together, the professional relationships documented in this case form a closed loop. The Montalvos share a building with their law partner, Silvestri. Stajonne coordinates with Sullivan, the AFCC president, to edit Brenna’s psychiatric evaluation. Sullivan’s published work is prescribed by court order to Paul McNab. Bissada maintains concurrent cases with Gallagher while Gallagher presides over Brenna’s MSC as a neutral judge. Lewis discloses a friendship with Bissada during what Brenna later characterized as a profiling consultation. Every professional in the therapeutic arm cross-refers to the others. Every referral generates another billable engagement. None of the engagements restore Brenna’s custody.
This is not a conspiracy in the dramatic sense. There are no secret communications on record between Gallagher and Bissada. There is no evidence of an explicit agreement to harm Brenna. What there is, documented across years of billing records, email chains, and court filings, is a network of professionals whose financial interests were served by the prolongation and particular resolution of this case — and whose professional relationships were dense enough to make independent advocacy for the lower-resourced party structurally nearly impossible.
When Brenna tried to escape the network — consulting more than twenty attorneys over three years — none would take her case. One told her explicitly that Stajonne Montalvo really didn’t like her. Several cited the involvement of JAMS and well-known local counsel. The network’s insularity was not incidental. It was protective.
“Litigants in Silicon Valley are denied equal protection in a contentious divorce. This is a small legal community where all the professionals are friends and rely on one another for referrals.”
— Brenna Gano
A Pattern With a Name
What Brenna’s case documents is not unique in the legal landscape it now inhabits.
In 2023, Drew Deaton and Taylor Peake filed a federal civil RICO lawsuit — Deaton et al. v. Stephens et al., Case No. 2:23-cv-00713-RDP, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama — against 47 defendants, including Jefferson County Domestic Relations Court judges, prominent law firms, and court-appointed professionals. The complaint alleged that a coordinated enterprise of judges, attorneys, Guardians Ad Litem, and mental health professionals conspired to intentionally prolong custody cases, fabricate legal fees, and intensify family conflicts to maximize billable hours. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal with prejudice in late 2024, citing the plaintiffs’ failure to cure shotgun pleading deficiencies — a ruling on the form of the complaint, not a merits determination on the underlying theory.
In 2025, former litigation partner Matthew R. Grant filed Grant et al. v. Hilton et al., Case No. 4:25-cv-01203, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, alleging that St. Louis County Family Court officials operated what the complaint calls the ‘Clayton Kids for Cash’ scheme — judges, commissioners, and Guardians Ad Litem engaged in extortion and wire fraud, deliberately manipulating custody outcomes to maximize fees through a documented ‘Buying Future Litigation’ strategy.
Civil RICO claims in family court face significant legal obstacles. Judges carry absolute immunity for official acts. Federal courts are reluctant to intervene in matters traditionally governed by state law. Plaintiffs must prove a distinct enterprise separate from its individual members — a high bar. Cases are frequently dismissed on procedural grounds before the underlying allegations are tested on their merits. None of that changes what the statute says: a pattern of racketeering activity, an enterprise, and documented injury.
The facts documented in this series — the coordinated suppression of a psychiatric evaluation, the misrepresented proceeding, the coerced agreement, the refused rescission, the $151,294 in therapeutic billing extracted under court order — are a matter of record. What legal theory they support is a question for attorneys and courts.
The elements of a RICO enterprise — an association of individuals, a pattern of racketeering activity, conduct of the enterprise through that pattern, and documented injury — are a matter for attorneys and courts to assess, not reporters. What this series has documented, across five articles and hundreds of pages of court filings, billing records, and email correspondence, is a set of facts that others will recognize. A network of professionals in San Mateo County whose relationships were dense enough to make independent advocacy for the lower-resourced party structurally nearly impossible. A pattern of conduct — the suppressed psychiatric evaluation, the misrepresented MSC, the coerced agreement, the refused rescission, the disappeared motion — that did not begin and end with Brenna Gano. Stephen Montalvo was accused of the same § 664.6 coercion tactic in 2014. The network existed before her case and will exist after it.
The network existed before her case and will exist after it.
Brenna Gano’s case file — her court filings, her email records, her billing documentation, and the materials she has provided to Riptide — has been reviewed by attorneys examining similar patterns in California. Riptide will report any developments from those reviews as they occur.
What the Documents Prove
This article has made specific factual claims about named individuals. Each is sourced. Here is the documentary basis for each:
The Sullivan/Stajonne email chain of March 8, 2022 — showing coordination to edit Dr. Budayr’s psychiatric evaluation — is preserved in full and was provided to Riptide by Brenna Gano, who was cc’d on the original thread. It is quoted verbatim above.
The billing figures for all therapeutic professionals are drawn from Brenna’s 2024 Income and Expense Declarations, filed and conformed in San Mateo Superior Court, Case No. 18FAM01991, and provided to Riptide.
The $110,000 payment to Bissada between November 18 and December 20, 2021, is documented in bank statements on file with Riptide. The February 18, 2022, “Importance: High” email from Bissada to the Montalvos transmitting a “revised final draft” settlement agreement four days before the MSC is on file with Riptide.
Bissada’s move to Signature Resolution Group as a mediator and private judge is confirmed by Signature Resolution Group’s December 2025 press release and her profile on their website.
Gallagher’s March 2 signature date — crossing out “February” on the MOA signature page — is visible in the document itself, a copy of which is on file with Riptide.
The Gallagher/Bissada concurrent case conflict is cited in Brenna’s Amended Request for Order to Set Aside the MOA, filed in October 2025, which references JAMS conflict disclosure records.
The presiding judge’s former employer’s $1.2 billion deal with Viavi Solutions, settling one week before her appointment, is cited in Brenna’s March 24, 2026, letter to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.
The Sullivan co-authorship on books prescribed to Paul McNab in the January 2022 Stipulation and Order is visible in that court-filed document, copies of which are on file with Riptide.
The 2014 prior pattern allegation against Stephen Montalvo is cited in Brenna’s Amended RFO.
The Greene email of June 2023 stating that Brenna had been in remission since his examination was provided to Riptide by Brenna Gano.
Where Things Stand
Brenna Gano’s Amended Request for Order to Set Aside the MOA is currently pending before the San Mateo County Superior Court. She is requesting a full forensic audit of Viavi Solutions, Lumentum Holdings, North American Trading Associates, and Opus Moon Enterprises — a UK-registered company. She is requesting repatriation of offshore assets, restoration of temporary support orders, ADA accommodation orders, and sanctions for discovery abuse. She is requesting that Viavi Solutions be joined as an indispensable third party for purposes of full financial disclosure.
The boxes were checked. The hoops were cleared. The $151,294 in therapeutic billing was paid. The custody was never restored.
A hearing originally scheduled for January 2026 was continued to May 20, 2026, after her attempt to disqualify the presiding judge — the one whose former employer facilitated the $1.2 billion Viavi deal — was denied. She is representing herself because, after consulting more than twenty attorneys over three years, no attorney in San Mateo County has agreed to take her case.
The Viavi subpoena thread remains unresolved. Court records show Viavi was subpoenaed for Paul McNab’s employment and compensation records in late 2024, with production due December 10, 2024. Documents were not delivered until January 13, 2025 — more than a month late — and were sent to Brenna’s attorney, April Walsh, without notifying co-counsel Jennifer Hagan, who had spent two hours and additional retainer money drafting a demand letter that had already been rendered unnecessary. Brenna’s correspondence with Hagan flagged a further issue: an HR declaration in the production was signed by Kevin Siebert as General Counsel, but bears a date that predates his appointment to that role. That document is on file with Riptide.
On April 23, 2026, Brenna filed a formal complaint with San Mateo County Family Court Services, the court’s ADA coordinator, the County Executive’s office, the Board of Supervisors, and legislative representative Kevin Fong, invoking Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and requesting an independent investigation and preservation of all case records. The same day, the County Executive’s assistant confirmed in writing that Supervisor Mueller and County Executive Michael Callagy had been made aware of her complaints and that they were being processed. The courthouse had also recently appointed a new Acting CEO, Jeniffer Alcantara, following the departure of the previous CEO — a transition that Brenna noted had delayed her ability to reach the appropriate contacts for weeks.
Dr. Matthew Sullivan, Stajonne Mialocq Montalvo, Stephen Montalvo, Michèle Bissada, Victoria Lewis, and Judge Catherine Gallagher (Ret.) did not respond to requests for comment submitted by Riptide.
“I was informed by the therapeutic team that I simply needed to check the boxes and jump through the hoops in order to restore 50/50 custody time with my son. He is now 18 and estranged from me and my entire family.”
— Brenna Gano
The boxes were checked. The hoops were cleared. The $151,294 in therapeutic billing was paid. The $353,000 in legal fees was paid — borrowed from family, charged to credit cards, taken from support payments that were supposed to cover her rent.
The custody was never restored.
If you have faced private judging, AFCC-linked professionals, or similar conduct in the California family court, contact Riptide confidentially.
Documents referenced in this article — including the Sullivan/Stajonne email chain, 2024 I&E Declarations, bank statements, MOA signature pages, and court filings — are on file with Riptide.
This is the fifth article in the Riptide investigative series on San Mateo County family court.
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