Judge Threatens Kidnapping Charges to Force Lawyer to Testify Against His Client Mrs. Ghawji
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 8 LAWFUEL — Rosine Ghawji, a woman who
married a prominent Memphis doctor with ties to terrorism, has filed a
complaint before The Tennessee Court of the Judiciary (TCJ) swearing, under oath, that Judge Donna Fields of Circuit Court of Shelby County for the Thirteenth Judicial District at Memphis has grossly violated the Canons of Judicial Ethics.
Judge Fields has been presiding over a divorce case where Mrs. Ghawji
has alleged that her husband, prominent Memphis endocrinologist Maher
Ghawji, has ties to terrorism, has threatened to kill her and her two boys if they did not abide by radical Islamic doctrine, and other related
issues. All of this bears on issues of child custody, as Mrs. Ghawji fears for the safety of her children.
In the last few months, Mrs. Ghawji swears in her complaint that Judge Fields acted improperly by effectively excluding the terrorism issues from
the trial, which began on January 2, 2007, as a result of several
inappropriate factors, including pressure from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, which has likely turned her husband into an informant. In
addition, Judge Fields is alleged to have allowed Mrs. Ghawji’s local
Tennessee counsel to withdraw, without good cause, during the Christmas
holiday period, and just days before the trial, to prevent Mrs. Ghawji from effectively presenting her case. Despite the late withdrawal, Judge Fields told Mrs. Ghawji she would be forced to go to trial on January 2, 2007. At this late date, she could not find Tennessee counsel to represent her.
To make matters even worse, after the trial began, Judge Fields put one of
Mrs. Ghawji’s out of state lawyers on the witness stand, who was simply
there taking notes, but who could not participate as counsel in the day’s
proceedings because he is not a Tennessee lawyer, and ordered him to
testify about attorney client communications with Mrs. Ghawji. To coerce
the lawyer to testify Judge Fields threatened him with fabricated criminal charges of kidnapping based on the simple fact that the Ghawji children had not gone to school that day. The attorney client privilege is the most sacrosanct of all client rights. This conduct by Judge Fields warrants the most severe punishment, Mrs. Ghawji argues in her complaint.
Mrs. Ghawji’s private general counsel, out of state lawyer and Judicial
Watch founder and past chairman Larry Klayman, who previously was excluded
by Judge Fields from participating as trial counsel in the case, is also
today filing a complaint against Judge Fields before the TCJ for her
violating the attorney client privilege Mrs. Ghawji has with him and other lawyers of his office.
This case is important to redress the culture of extrajudicial bias and
prejudice that has pervaded this case and to set an example that the court
system cannot be allowed to abuse client rights with impunity.
